Search Results: Staggers

As I mentioned on April 3, the Quality of Life bonds are coming down the pipe, sooner then I thought. As I mention in the post, Staggers asked Eugene, while he was doing his constingency plan presentation a few months back, if they were going to hold off on these bonds until the economy got better, At the time Eugene said they would, not so fast;

“It was in the plan for 2009,” Finance Director Eugene Rowenhorst said. “We’re just executing the plan.”

I guess Eugene needs to get himself a tape recorder so he remembers what he says.

Mayor Dave Munson’s administration is moving forward with a plan to borrow $20 million for a new round of quality-of-life projects.

The Sioux Falls City Council learned Monday that the administration will ask for approval of a new bond issue next month. If approved, the bonds could be issued by June.

For argument’s sake let’s pretend these projects are worthwhile and all of the citizens support them. So even if that is the case why would we be borrowing more money during a recession? And why would we be borrowing money for monkey crappers? If these projects are worthwhile, why not just budget for them in 2010 instead of borrowing?

Councilor Pat Costello noted Monday that because of slower growth in sales tax revenues, the city is preparing to postpone several projects totaling $5.3 million. Most are road projects.

“My thoughts are, we’re getting confused on our priorities,” he said.

No shit Sherlock? I have known the council’s priorities have been screwy for a very long time. We are $80 million behind on road maintenance in the city yet we continue to borrow money for monkey crappers and raise taxes to build new roads that are practically bordering Tea, SD.

And while the city’s total authorized debt now exceeds $320 million, a significant amount of that debt is being repaid with user fees from water rates and other utilities, Rowenhorst said, meaning there’s plenty of extra tax revenue in the administration’s view to pay off more bonds.

What a poor use of user fees! We should be charged fairly for the water we use, not overcharged so we can pay back bonds. The city should be balancing the budget every year and we should pay our debt down as quickly as possible. It pisses me off that I have to pay an extra 20-40% in water fees so I can line the pockets of bond investors  that don’t even live in Sioux Falls.

But putting off needed infrastruture upgrades isn’t the only concern about these loans;

But the decision also comes at a time when officials have been nervous about sales tax receipts. In the first three months of this year, revenues are up 1.3 percent over the same period last year. Officials had planned on 6.5 percent growth.

Mark Weber, a local economist who studies state economic data, warned the council Monday that job losses in the Sioux Falls area were mounting. By his count, using state data, the area has lost 5,600 jobs, and virtually every sector is down.

As I said early on, the city’s ‘constingency plan’ was just smoke and mirrors. They have had no intention of following it, which is pretty obvious after this bond proposal was presented. Eugene even tried to downplay the bonds by acting like he forgot to mention them, then pulls them out in the middle of his budget address and tries to move along to other things. Nice try Eugene. Kermit caught it and asked why none of this went through fiscal committee. Of course, the sheep they are, our council defended the proposal, saying they will have time to debate the bonds at the first reading. I have no doubt they will pass. If there is any NO votes they will only come from Costello and Staggers for sure and maybe Beninga.

On a side note, as you read, Mark Weber did his presentation to the council yesterday, he isn’t the world’s best speaker, but his presentation was very poignant, especially the graphs. The late 2008 and 2009 graphs had huge peaks and valleys when it came to job growth, etc. Amazingly, or maybe not, after the presentation, not one single councilor, besides Staggers, had a question, in fact they all just looked as white as ghosts (with rose colored glasses on).

Our city leaders(?) have been living in a freaking dream world, and they need to come out of their deep sleep.

Not professional? Drive a snowplow for a living.

Last night at the Sioux Falls city council informational meeting Vernon Brown seemed to be confused about the consulting fees and professional services audit. In his eyes snowplow operators and publishers are NOT professionals and shouldn’t be called that in the audit.

Here’s the definition for you Vernon;

Professional

–adjective

1.	following an occupation as a means of livelihood or for gain:

–noun

10.	a person who belongs to one of the professions, esp. one of the learned professions.

 

Obviously Brown does know what a professional is, he was attempting to spin the audit language. He goes on to say that engineers are professionals though. I would like to remind Mr. Brown that our greatest founding father was a publisher. It is a profession, a very, very important one. And if you think you can operate a snowplow without the proper professional training to do so why don’t you take a shot at it.

He brings in Rich, the head auditor to explain why snowplowing and publishing is under professional services, and ironically, Rich doesn’t play the game, I think, without realizing it. He says that snowplow contractors and publishers are put in the professional services column because ‘That’s the best fit’ and then goes on to say that they are ‘professional services’ and that’s why they put them there. So Vernon, what were you trying to accomplish? Misleading the public as usual? He ends his sad attempt of deception by saying hiring out contractors saves us money in the end, blah, blah, blah. If that is true, why wasn’t this audit presented last Fall when it was requested? You would think the public would be excited about that kind of news?

While Rich was present, Staggers decides to ask why the big jump from 2008-2009 ($19 million to $34 million)? Rich says that is mostly increased engineering consulting ($20 million). I assume that is the result of Munson’s bloated, get ten-million pet projects done before I get out of the office, CIP budget.

AUDIT COMMITTEE DECIDES TO CENSOR HEAD AUDITOR’S APPEARANCE ON CITY LINK

After the presentation last week of the audit, Councilor Staggers asks the audit committee if it would be okay if Rich comes on the City Link program, Inside Town Hall to explain the audit further. After no answer all week, he finally gets an email from the committee saying he would not appear 4 hours before taping, with no explanation. During the informational, Staggers takes them to task over the censorship, and reminds audit committee members, Costello and Jamison that they are council representatives on the committee and have a duty to inform the public. Litz defends their actions and says that they didn’t want it to become ‘political’. But Staggers says it has become ‘political’ because of the censorship. The audit committee felt that it would be inappropriate for Rich to appear with a councilor. I partially agree. I think that it would have been okay for Rich to appear with Staggers, AS LONG AS Confessions of a Driving Instructor movies the moderator was asking Rich the questions and not Staggers. But I think by censoring him totally it sent a horrible message. The normally quiet Councilor Anderson rips into Jamison and Costello over it, and says that by having only two councilors deciding to censor Rich’s appearance that they were proceeding into some ‘gray areas’. Costello does try to defend his decision by blaming the other committee members, but Staggers quickly punts him down and reminds him that the audit committee’s job is to serve the council and the public especially with two council members sitting on the committee.

Jamison says nothing during the entire exchange (must have been listening to AC/DC on his I-Pod).

It is well worth watching – it is one of the more heated exchanges I have heard in a long time, and Staggers comes out the victor in the end.

My opinion? I hate censorship, and I think it was blantant censorship on the committee’s behalf.