2009

Dave ‘No Shame’ Munson talks about laws, growth and disappearing platting fees

l3wis July 6, 2009 0Comments

This morning I saw David Kranz did an interview with Dave Munson, he was sharing some of his wisdom as advice for the next mayor. My suggestion is to do the opposite of everything he has done, and you will be just fine. I’m not sure if Kranz used this as Munson’s first quote in the article so that I could fall out of my chair laughing, but it worked;

“I think my advice to anybody is the same,” Munson said. “Make sure you do things legally. Do the things that are right. Just do what your heart tells you to do so that you can make things better.

Those of us who have followed Munson’s administration know that when King Dave talks about doing things ‘legally’ he means ‘try not to get caught’. During his two terms he has been accused of many violations of State law and city charter, yet no charges have ever been brought up on him, mostly because the people who have accused him of these violations chickenshitted out and didn’t follow through. They include

– Campaign Finance violations

– Approving 100% expenditure increase of Phillips to the Falls of $1.5 million dollars without council consent (violation of city charter)

– Private closed door meetings with developers promising them taxpayer resources (Cherapa Place)

– Stifling free speech at council meetings by threatening arrest and police intimidation

– And recently rewriting an ordinance after the council voted on it (Staggers pointed it out in a council meeting and Munson went beserk on him).

But the Monday morning funnies don’t end there. As I have said before the council has had heated debates about maintaining our current city streets, estimates are that we are close to $100 million behind on them and with close to a Half-billion dollar budget this year, you would think that we would be spending a large chunk on maintenance? Guess again.

Last year, the city stepped up street resurfacing and repairs. But Staggers said the city still is not putting enough of its second-penny sales tax revenues into maintaining streets.

 

“They know people are concerned about the streets,” he said. “We’ve had a street problem for a long time.”

 

Next year’s plan calls for spending $6.3 million on resurfacing existing streets and making other repairs. Last year, the city spent $4.9 million.

That’s right, out of a $500 million dollar budget we spend a measley $4.9 million on resurfacing. What a joke. When we are spending so little, on the streets you would think the city was broke. We will probably spend more then that refurbishing McKennan Park. Like I said, all about priorities.

But it gets better, as we gear up to build these precious arterial streets that the developers have been begging for, their 60% share in the form of platting fees has mysteriously been taken out of the equation, or at least Dave ‘No Shame’ Munson, The Argus or KELO-TV didn’t bother to mention it in their stories even though I tipped them off about it last week;

Mayor Munson says the second penny sales tax will help pay for projects in this growth period. The tax is estimated to bring in about $4 million dollars a year that would go to help developers pay for building new streets, sewers and curbing in new neighborhoods.

Make sure you do things ‘legally’ and if you don’t, mislead, mislead, mislead.