[RP TownTalk] Town management, finances and legislation

Thu Apr 28 17:16:40 UTC 2016

All -

Mr. Mayor, it is entirely appropriate for you to state opinions, even if they fervently disagree with my position.  In the future though, professionalism requires that you buttress your opinions and position with facts rather than the hearsay of others.  The other Councilmembers can all speak for themselves if they wish to opine; it serves no productive purpose other than to create angst amongst the ranks.  I am well aware you had the votes on the legislation long ago, but instead of shutting down debate why not actually encourage it.  I would have welcomed any efforts on your behalf to address my concerns personally and directly, but this never happened.

1.        I agree with you - we are a deliberative body.  However there are plenty of things that can be done to thwart that.  I don't understand your characterizations of my opinion - disagree or agree I post to provide information that is not forthcoming from your administration that the public should have that is often not had in the 'open' meetings we have.  When the legislation was presented there were members of the public that wanted to opine and it was the Chair's prerogative to not allow members of the public to speak that night since 'it was late and there would be plenty of meetings for them to have a chance.

>From the start I had requested a public hearing on the matter.  This is a serious enough issue that it deserved laser focus in a meeting, not mixed in with 2 hour presentations that force members of the public to wait until 11PM on a work night to have their voices heard.  Work Sessions and Legislative meetings in which other town business is conducted is not a public hearing.  A public hearing is a listening session where the public has a chance to come and opine in on a very specific topic, not have to wait hours before the Chair may or may not decide to discuss at length due to the time of night.

2.       I agree that we should end the year with plenty of revenue.  But that does not obviate that an Executive Order was issued without providing clear and convincing evidence of that basis from which to even have a productive and meaningful conversation.  My post last night illustrated that despite the loss of the 400k due to the sale of USDA the increase in the assessments for the rest of the town more than made up for it and FY17 actually has a Taxable Base greater than FY15.  It would be even greater of course if we had the additional revenues but we have had much less in the recent past.  The more alarming issue was that the budget was balanced on a structural deficit of almost $1,500,000.  Even more alarming is our multi-million dollar unfunded pension liability and our post-retirement health benefit liability that is 100% unfunded.

I have asked repeatedly for current YTD financial reports and have yet to be provided with them.  A member of the public asked you directly at the meeting Monday for the balance of the reserve fund which was not available.  I am glad that the balances are finally known and given that we have ample reserves and are not in the financial crisis that was claimed I assume you will rescind the Executive Order or at least provide clear and convincing evidence of the need and necessity for this type of overreach contrary to the adopted budget.

3.       Please review the record; what you are stating hasn't been misstated or mischaracterized.  The law, i.e. the Charter, clearly defines the roles and responsibilities of budgeting and appropriation authority which were quoted in a previous post.  I did so as a reminder to you, and the general public, that the Executive Order while interesting political fodder isn't legal nor enforceable; the Department Heads, I am sure, will follow the direction since they serve at the pleasure of the town.

The executive has oversight on expenditures only to ensure that the budgeted expense does not exceed what Council has already appropriated.  The Executive does not have any legal basis for making unilateral determinations that spending will be cut - that is a Council as a whole determination; I was hoping in reading the applicable sections of our law that you would be reminded that this requires a budget hearing.

4.       Again, since this is a major structural change in government, it deserved its own meeting - not mixed in with fence permits, 2-hour Purple Line presentations etc.  The 60-day clock was self-imposed by introducing the legislation.  There were many other ways to handle this.  For the Cafritz project, we did not introduce legislation immediately; we held public hearings, we held many, many, many worksessions, legislative, special legislative, and committee meetings in advance of a single piece of legislation being officially put before the body.  Pretending it isn't hurried and then using a self-created time hardship as the necessity to act is an obtuse argument.

I have had substantial conversations with constituents and people are not happy with how the Council is handling this.  Additionally, in the 5 years I have been on Council, this is the one single time that the sponsor, Councilman Thompson has not reached out directly to work out or at least discuss the concerns I have with his legislation.  I have the utmost respect for him but this disappointed me.  Ultimately though, I respect democracy and do not begrudge you for having the votes to enact your agenda just as I trust you do not begrudge me for being a voice of dissent.

I am disappointed for one basic reason - dissent often leads to a better result.  During the Cafritz process, I routinely engaged with people I knew did not want the project in any form.  I did so not to humor them, but they made many points and brought up issues that you miss when you are down in the weeds with the details.  The project is better because of the dissent.  This legislation could have been handled differently. You are the Mayor and knew I had disagreements with it.  What harm would it have been to call me, invite me over for a beer, and at least present your side and then listening to mine?

5.       You can conclude it hasn't been hurried, I disagree and believe the lack of a dedicated meeting and reserving the discussion in at least two of the meetings until 1030-11PM says otherwise.  I had constituents that came to the meeting Monday and could not stay due to all the other agenda items.  This issue is important enough that despite being out of state for a family funeral I am engaging in the conversation.

This is a mid-term change.  The current Mayor and Council ran for their seats under one form of government and are being asked to serve under another.  This is the very reason pay changes etc. go in for future not current sitting governments.

Currently the Mayor is responsible for the oversight and financial administration of the town.  It seems in exceptionally poor taste to abdicate that responsibility, a job whose time commitment and skills necessary to adequately perform the oath of office are well known by a 5-term Mayor, in the middle of a financial mess and then design legislation to push that off to 'professional staff.'

I question the timing of this change.  It is in the public record that the supposed financial crisis that triggered the Executive Order was known for some time in advance of this legislation.  The legislation effectively makes any current or future financial problems the town has, no longer the Mayor's job or responsibility.  I really dislike coincidences that conveniently excuse responsibility of duties.  I really dislike the course of events:

1)      Revenues thought to be lower than anticipated

2)      Discovery of USDA/GSA sale

3)      Introduction of Legislation that shifts the financial responsibility from the Mayor to the Town Administrator

4)      2 months go by........

5)      Executive Order issued to freeze hiring and adding mayoral authority of the approval/disapproval of expenditures

6)      Discovery that the FY17 tax base is nearly identical to FY15 - i.e. the basis of the Executive Order is flawed

7)      Announcement that we have plenty of finances to perform all expenditures on the already adopted budget and are not in a financial crisis

8)      Announcement that the current Town Administrator will not remain employed by the town past 6/30 five days before there is a meeting that would greatly expand her roles and responsibilities to the town

6.       No evidence has been offered to conclude that the question of cost has been 'dealt with and debunked.'  Some of this is pure logic - currently the Mayor has responsibilities, if the legislation passes we have to hire professional staff to perform those same duties we are currently getting for free.

Although I have asked for cost and staff projections, none have been provided.  Keep in mind the groundwork for this move has been spread out over several years with the doubling of the administrative staff over the last 5-years to a cost of over $1,000,000 a year.  More staff necessitates a larger building, a larger building necessitates the Town Hall expansion.  These are all directly attributable costs to the form of government and moving towards paid staff rather than the Mayor's performance of duties.  Again it is also a policy choice since if you want to build a Community Center you can probably do so for cheaper than 5-7mil; if you want or need more office space you can probably lease it for cheaper than knocking down our current structure and rebuilding a 2-story monument to the Town Leaders.

7.       Please characterize my opinion and comments correctly.  I haven't stated one way or the other that the form of government does not exist for small municipalities, I am well aware that it does.  If I had been asked to opine, my answer would be the same as it has been for our town - it all depends who is sitting in the seats, structure is meaningless and not a causative indicator for performance.  It is like saying an LLC is better than an S-corp or C-Corp.  Structure is not a deterministic factor of business success either.

We are a medium size of government; ergo why I have always stated that I am not opposed to the form of government but the legislation as it is written and the fact it is going in mid-term.  My criticisms have been around the other nuances about how Council should represent constituents etc.  and more importantly that this is a change that shouldn't happen during the middle of an Executive Order nor the middle of a term.  Let another Mayor and Council run for the seats that inherit the structure.

In the state of MD there are 40 recognized jurisdictions.  24 are certified as general manager (including ours with Sara listed as the Chief Administrative Officer) with 16 as Council-Manager.  Some of each type are big, some are small.  Size doesn't always tell the whole story, nor should we make structure decisions premised upon what other municipalities look like.  Our fate is our own to determine.

(numbers found here:  https://members.icma.org/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?webcode=recognizedlocalgovresult&state=Maryland )

The structure does not bother me, the implementation does.  I think a greater conversation should have been had about representation.  The non-interference clause along with an 'at-large' mayor/councilman begs the question of having all CMs at large.  A much, better version of this would entail no direct election of a mayor and all CMs at large with Mayor and Vice-Mayor being the top two vote getters.  You would wind up with much more competitive elections.  It is much more encouraging for an engaged person in town to run for a seat if there are 7 open vs. having to run directly against someone.  If we are going to a professional form of government this would be the optimal structure for Council.  This hybrid form is silly where Council has wards, mayor represents everyone thus no-one, yet we all have to abide by a non-interference clause with Public Works and the Chief of Police.

Even in the most recent re-write of the non-interference it basically states the same thing the one prior does.  It only codifies what is already inherently obvious - that CMs still have First Amendment rights and can 'talk' to town staff.  My email yesterday to our Director of PW to advocate for a constituent that wasn't having their yard waste picked up I would interpret as in violation of the non-interference.

I have no way of knowing what presumptions of staff costs have been made because cost projections, although asked for, have yet to be provided.  A simple fact remains, tasks that are currently required of the Mayor today will in the future require a paid staff member to perform.  That comes at a cost; as the saying goes - if it is too good to be true it probably is.

The part I find most odd about the discussed change in government is that our Charter already makes the Town Administrator the Chief Operating Officer of the town.  If the current Mayor has not delegated duties to her and allowed her to perform her job that is unfortunate and speaks more about the performance of the CEOs job;  no one likes to be micromanaged.  Our current form of government already allows for almost all of what this legislation is seeking.  Our COO, the Town Administrator, could run our entire town unfettered if our CEO, the Mayor, saw fit.  The one primary change is who is responsible for the financial aspects - i.e. when things happen or go south with town finances who gets the finger pointed at them and of course makes the Mayor a voting member of Council.

Given the news that the Mayor is recommending a contractual dismissal of our current Town Administrator, it seems even more prudent to withdraw this legislation.   It would be entirely more prudent to hire someone new, if that is the real intent of the legislation, get them on board and see what they want to do structurally.  Hiring a new Chief Operating Officer alone (which our Town Administrator is supposed to be) will take time and that transition does not need the additional learning curve of cleaning up the financial messes of the town.  If the Mayor and Council created the mess we are in then we have a duty and obligation to address it and fix it, not push it onto someone else.

Respectfully,

Jonathan

Councilman, Ward 1
Chair, Economic Development

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://riverdale-park.org/pipermail/towntalk/attachments/20160428/7a91df36/attachment.html>