Submitted by
Name: I like big trucks
Name: I like big trucks
Comments:
What is your definition of a popular mayor? He has his fans but he has done nothing but divided this town.
He is a bully and uses his pals to harass citizens.
What is your definition of a popular mayor? He has his fans but he has done nothing but divided this town.
He is a bully and uses his pals to harass citizens.
Added: January 4, 2025 11:38:00 AM
Name: uncle carl
The thing about the city having to shuffle money is nothing new. Combined with last years garbage gate and Courtney always borrowing tax collections ahead of normal payout dates for a couple of years, tax rate hikes and lots of issues when the state audits the city books has set off alarms with lots of people behind the scenes. The parks department’s almost 600 thousand screw-up is not because of seasonal workers. Those are the lowest and short scheduled employees with no benefits and you can’t overspend nearly 30 grand on parties and fun times and not know it. Easy to see the person who handles all those city fun days isn’t looking at numbers.
BUT, the real bulk of the red ink ending up around half a million is because of the pool, not the golf course, not summer kids mowing grass and not because of anything else besides Bob overspent on the pool, Bob didn’t watch cash flow and Bob didn’t budget enough to service the debt on all his “improvements”. I’m not saying it’s all the pool, but cramming all these new parks improvements in one year certainly caused a cash crunch and instead of openly confronting the issues Bob’s trying to hide it by borrowing from utilities so the state doesn’t see the shortfall.
Councilman Patrick Thevenow was dead right when he was the lone man to stand against the absurd decision to “borrow from the water department and pay it back it 6 months” Where do they think the moneys going to come from ? Bob says evaluate user fees which means raise golf course and pool rates. Who’s going to go swimming or golfing in January or February and even if you do get some golfers in the cool, rainy months, the pool doesn’t open until Memorial Day so we are sitting out here with no “user fees” coming in until the first of June. No way we are going to generate an EXTRA half a million in 6 months. EXTRA is the important word.
The golf course will need to raise its rates and then all the annual fees collected for yearly passes and golf cart rentals will have to go back to the water department. But that doesn’t leave much for the course to cover operating costs for grounds, maintenance or staff. This nincompoop scheme is just an effort for Bob to hide his lack of budgeting skill and oversight. Trying to blame the park board for Bobs overspending is ridiculous. I doubt this came as a surprise to anyone. Bob’s actions reminds me of Huntingtons last minute council meetings to purchase swamp land on New Years Eve one year. Our shovel ready industrial park is nothing but a muddy mess that’s leased out to farmers. Courtney’s overspending and poor cash flow management shouldn’t have been hidden in last minute meetings just before the New Years. It’s a shame everyone but Thevenow went along with this farce. I expect to see the debt “forgiven” and some sort of scam to try to hide the budgeting and cash flow error from the state again.