[RP TownTalk] posting

Mon May 21 15:45:19 UTC 2018

Ms. Henry,
Your comments are spot on regarding Riverdale Park City Counsel. I recently resigned from the ethics committee as I no longer have faith in the Town Council or the Mayor for that matter. My experience is the council decides to do something, then on the premise of "openness" will have discussions at the council meetings open to the public, and then move forward with the council's decision regardless of public sentiment. To my knowledge, the council has yet to change course once they have decided to do something.
JR

      From: Alan K. Thompson <twacks at gmail.com>
 To: Karon Henry <mhenry3240 at verizon.net> 
Cc: TownTalk <towntalk at riverdale-park.org>
 Sent: Monday, May 21, 2018 12:14 AM
 Subject: Re: [RP TownTalk] posting

Dear Mrs. Henry, Thank you for your patience in awaiting my response -recovering from my travels took longer than I had anticipated, and this letteris longer than I had anticipated as well. Let me frame my answer to your questions by stating that my motivationfor proposing the change to the Council/Manager form of government two yearsago was to have the town run by a highly qualified, highly trained,professional manager. That said, before I answer your main question, I wanted totouch on the items that you brought up at the beginning of your letter -"...said degrees..." and "...a Mayor thatcan...vote...."   The only requirement in the Town Charter for the TownManager is that they are a full member of the International City/CountyManagement Association, and that is simply an indicator that they have thetraining (and continue to receive training!) in their profession running amunicipality.  Just as doctors, lawyers,and accountants (among others) are required to maintain their professional credentials,so does our Town Manager.  Thisrequirement was focused on the "professional" and "highlytrained" aspects of my goals. During the hiring process we on the Council had a wide selection ofcandidates for the job, and were able to narrow the list to individuals havingmuch higher qualifications and experience than the minimum requirements in theCharter. The "voting Mayor" issue is something that wasimportant to some members of the Council, but not so much to me.  The Rules of Order that have been used by theCouncil for more than a decade strongly encourage (for good reasons) the personchairing the meeting to remain impartial, and unneeded votes are a good way toerode at least the appearance of impartiality. I have, in fact, voted on a few occasions where my vote was needed (toreach the 4-vote minimum on financial matters, for instance). I'd also like to comment on the "Us against Them"statement you made.  In my almost nineyears as an elected official, there have been many conflicts (both betweenelected officials, and between management & staff) in addition to the"noose" event you mentioned. Almost all of the management/staffconflicts have been resolved internally (as required by our personnel manual),so you probably don't know about them. It may just be my new perspective as Mayor, but in the most recent staffconflicts, our Town Manager has been very careful to adhere to the policieslaid out in the Personnel Policy section of the Town’s Personnel Manual (asapproved by the Town Council many years ago). Indeed, he has been meticulous informally recording (in writing) the reasons for all decisions.  I view this as a good thing. Now, to your main question: how have the residents ofRiverdale Park benefitted from a Town Manager? I'll start with "the residents know more about what theTown is doing," or more generally "openness andtransparency."  I think this is anessential piece of an effective government. A big change in this area is the bi-weekly "Status andInformation report" that our Town Manager (TM), John Lestitian, startedless than a month after being hired. This report details what is going on with the police department, thepublic works department, general government, and on the Town's leadership team.  This was purely his idea, and something thatwould not have happened without him.  Itis published in English and Spanish on the TownTalk and TownAnnounce mailinglists, distributed on the Town's web site, and links to the report are providedon the Town's FaceBook page (also something implemented, after years ofdiscussion, by TM Lestitian).  If youwant to know what criminal activities the police were dealing with in October,2017, you can do it as a result of TM Lestitian's newsletter (a burglary, adomestic violence crime, a drunk and disorderly event, and two arrestsresulting from routine traffic stops, in case it's of interest). Still in the works, but nearly complete, is a major revampof the Town's web site.  This project hasagain been in the works for many years, and this year, under TM Lestitian's managementof the Town, a contract was awarded and the project is near completion. Finally, TM Lestitian has been working with the Council,staff, and residents to create vision statements for infrastructure,sustainability, housing and neighborhoods, business and economic development,etc.  When these vision statements arepublicly available, residents will be able to see the priorities of the Counciland Town Government. A second area where the Town's residents are benefittingfrom the Town Manager is in effective and professional operations.  This is a broad statement, so I'll discuss itin detail in the next few paragraphs. The part of Town government known as "CodeEnforcement" was having problems when TM Lestitian was hired.  While some of these problems were outside thecontrol of the Town (staff turnover and illness), as a council representative Ihad been hearing from residents of Ward 2 that there were a large number of unaddressedcode violations (just as an aside, no one likes receiving code violations, somy measure of an appropriate level of code enforcement is that I receive anequal number of complaints that code enforcement is too strict and codeenforcement is too lax -- I had been hearing almost nothing except that it wastoo lax). TM Lestitian, seeing these issues, reorganized and retitled(within existing staffing levels) the Code Enforcement division to"Development Services." Development Services works proactively with residents, businesses, andpeople who want to enhance the town. Part of this is the "Neighborhood Improvement" program, whichrather than focusing on penalizing residents who have issues with codecompliance, works with them to find solutions.  As an example, Development Services recently proposedenhancing an existing program that provides matching funding to assistresidents in removing chain-link fences to include removal of dilapidated shedsand other accessory structures. Development Services also works with businesses seeking to locate hereto receive needed approvals, permits, and licenses, and will work withresidents on the same.  As anotherexample, the old code enforcement unit conducted inspections of rentalproperties - Development Services does the same, but all inspectors are nowtrained and certified, and are more likely to find the health and safety issuesthat the inspections are intended to uncover. A second area where "effective and professionaloperations" have improved is in matching policy (what staff are supposedto be doing) and practice (what they are actually doing), or "Say what youdo, do what you say”. This includes clarifying policy where it is unclear.  TM Lestitian is highly focused on harmonizingpolicy and practice by improving both. One example that I know has affected your neighborhood in Ward 4 is theparking permit program - the permitting process is being modified so that it iseasier for residents to get parking permits and for town staff to givethem.  Other policies that are eitheralmost in place or in the works include aspects of rental licensing/regulationin single-family homes, the recently adopted economic development grantsprogram, and the program I mentioned above to assist homeowners with removal ofchain-link fences. The last area that I'll mention where residents arebenefitting from our Town Manager is the area of financial management andplanning.  A simple example is that TMLestitian is now tracking restricted income - income that can only be spent oncertain programs (such as "Highway User" revenue from the state) - ina consistent and appropriate way.  Thisensures that the town will be found fully compliant if audited, and will notneed to refund the income. Another example of improved financial management is in thepurchasing process.  Until now, there wasno policy in place that specified which employees of the town could authorizepurchases.  TM Lestitian has institutedwritten policies that delineate the persons/positions who can approve differentlevels of expenditure (large expenditures require higher-level approvals),requirements for researching the cost of expenditures, etc.  This helps ensure that your tax dollars arebeing spent efficiently. A final item under financial management is the 2019 budgetprepared by TM Lestitian and his team.  Thepresentation and layout provided a much greater level of detail than we haveseen in previous budgets, and (most importantly) this budget contained detailedprojections for both income and expenditures for the next five years that showthe financial challenges that we face ahead. Because he is tracking thoseprojections, he can advise us on ways to deal with these impending financialneeds with enough notice to allow us to respond appropriately. To recap, residents are benefitting from the Council/Managerform of government, and from Town Manager Lestitian, with improved transparencyand communication, more effective and professional operations, and with improvedfinancial management. I'd like to touch on two more items from your letter beforewrapping up.   The first is your statement about the "townfeeling" that you feel has gone away. I see just the opposite - we have had more volunteers than in past years(for the ethics board, M-U-TC Committee, and Code of Appeals board just to namea few), we had an enormous turnout at the recent Arbor Day event, the town isproviding a much higher level of information to residents, and I've beenreceiving a positive response to recent changes from most residents I speakwith.  It may be that the long closure ofthe Lafayette-River Road connection (triggered by construction of the bridge tothe Riverdale Park Station development) is causing your neighborhood to feeldisconnected from the rest of town -- I personally know that it is much harderto get to your neighborhood from mine. Please rest assured that everyone isworking hard to reopen that connection as quickly as we can. The second is the "tax increase" statement.  We have discussed at Finance Committeemeetings for 2-3 years the fact that an increase in revenue would be neededthis year (at the latest), and we achieved the increase through increasedproperty values, not an increase in the tax rate.  I could discuss this at length, but thisletter is already too long, so I'll just say that even with this year'sincrease my own town tax bill will be lower than it was in 2010. I hope that I have answered your questions and respondedappropriately to your comments -- if not, please feel free to reach out to me,or to TM Lestitian! Best regards, Alan

On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 2:25 PM, Karon Henry <mhenry3240 at verizon.net> wrote:

A Question to the Mayor: Aside from having person(s) with said degrees and a Mayor who can,but (to my knowledge) has not voted to date on any legislative action.Please give specifics on how the residents of Riverdale Park havebenefited in having a Town Manager?My reasons for requesting this information is simple – I ama resident of 20yrs – have experienced five Mayors:  1)Ann M. Ferguson2)Michael D. Herman 3)Guy Tiberio 4)Vernon S. Archer  5)Alan K.Thompson.  Throughout the tenure of the four Mayors, I have witness andfelt Riverdale Park maintained that “town” feeling.  The changes made benefited residents andmoved in a progressive state.  Even afterthe hanging of the “noose” at Town Hall under Vernon Archer we were able to move forwardin a positive direction. Unfortunately, I view the decision to institute a town manager hasseparated the Town at best in creating a Us against Them approach.  This change in guard which includes astructural reorganization and tax increases is not moving in a positivedirection.  The services rendered has declinedalong with the relationships residents once had with Town staff of RiverdalePark.  Note:  An attempt to send thismessage was made in November 2017 and I received a Town bounce.  I do hope it goes through this time. Respectfully, Mrs. Henry
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