Funding Not Adequate to Complete Needed Street Repairs

I attended the City Council meeting on August 10th.

This time we had a good handful of citizens from "Blights Not Right" attending the meeting. Council agreed to move to put their ballot initiative on the November ballot, and so those folks listened rather than doing the torch and pitchfork thing. This issue can now have a thorough airing over the next few months. Council agreed to stop spending City money on the pro-URA campaign.

Most of the meeting was ministerial in nature. Three questions about invoices and accounting were asked. The City manager will look up the answers and give replies. I don't think this is any smoldering issue, as much as request for clarification. The financials have not been posted to the website since April, and I don't think the 2009 audit is on there yet. The finance committee (2 council members) and communication committee (2 council members) deal with that, so I dunno.

One member of the audience offered to serve on any committee created by the council in lieu of a council member serving on that committee. It's a start. If you want to be a member of a committee, now's a good time to check out the committees that are available, and think about putting your name in the hat. It's true we've got the same seven people (the council members and Mayor) serving on virtually all the committees. There is interest in changing that situation, so again, if you have some time and some interest, now's a good time to check out how you might get involved.

There was a straight forward message that we do not have the money we need to do the street repairs that are currently needed. Nobody's going to enjoy that news, but it was delivered straight out, without a bunch of mumbo jumbo. I've always believed our community can handle bad news. Just tell people what's going on. They can deal with it. So, hooray for just saying it. As to what to do about it, 2011 budget discussions will begin over the next month. While we likely do not have the money from the operating budget, there is that one-time money we got from the developer for annexation. It's food for thought. We need to get the streets up to speed. There was some blaming of The County, and The Economy, and maybe Elvis did it. Rather than blaming, it is what it is. Now how can we best address getting things fixed? While street repairs are going on this week, even if we had the money, it's August, and there's not time on the construction calendar to get the work done before the snow flies. It may well be a bumpy winter and spring. I'd encourage you to attend meetings and say you want the money spent to fix the streets. Just remember, there's no free lunch.

Council did authorize the contract to have the models developed on what it costs to run the City using CH2MHill, what it might cost to run the city using employees, and what it might cost to have employees run both the City and the Metro District. The $7500 contract will fund about twelve hours of analysis of each thought. The City Manager pointed out that's not really a lot of analysis. So, don't expect the world from this effort. So far, the Metro District's June financials and last year's numbers are being used for the basis of analysis. There hasn't been much any face to face conversation. When the City experts came to visit the Metro District to talk about budgets and consolidation as part of that plan, the Metro District sent two experts to talk with the City experts. About the notion of savings through consolidation, one of the Metro District experts said about the City experts, "Those are not the type of folks to let a little thing like facts get in the way of a good time." Further discussion was that a City would have to levy a significant property tax to fund its operation. With regards to savings through condolidation of staff, the other expert said, "It doesn't make any difference financially. You can do whatever you want." Life can be like a circle, and these days the two Metro District experts are now the experts for the City in discussions with the Metro District. OK, so have things changed several years down the road? If so, let's hear it.

It occurs to me that by now most all the tenets of the $7500 analysis that produced the "plan" for incorporation have pretty well been set aside. While we do need a new plan, beware of $7500 studies dealing with the consolidation of multi-million dollar entities that perform disparate tasks. Savings are usually derived from consolidation of similar business entities. That's not what we have with the City and Metro District. One paves streets, and the other operates water wells. There could certaily be consolidation of financial reporting functions. Storm water has little revenue, but almost unlimited liability. That discussion is "Pin the tail on the donkey". Parks operation doesn't much differ one way or the other. If there's no savings, why bother? If the City has no revenue to pay for parks, and funds would just be transferred from the District, why bother? As to water, the City has no expertise and few relationships. Wastewater is already part of a cost saving regional consolidation. If it ain't broke, why fix it?

Could the city manager run both the City and the Metro District? Administratively, the break-even point is about 23 hours a week. If the Metro District manager job requires more work than that, hire an employee. If he could administer the District three days a week, and the City two days a week, OK. The District Manager's task of course is not just admistrative, but largely about water. You would still need to hire someone to do the water part of the job. The list of folks who can do that is pretty short, and so long as the City is at odds with the District, it will be hard for any of those names to say yes. We really do want to ask if there's a better use of our tax dollars than attorneys fees over this discussion. It makes more sense to me for the Metro District to explore opportunities for cost savings by combining functions with other entities that perform similar tasks. But, let's keep our eyes and ears open and see what the new study says. It should be completed in thirty days.

The meeting then ended for the Council to go into legal session to discuss the Metro District pursuit and the URA litigation and arbitration.