Last night's Neenah Common Council meeting started off with a nicely produced video promoting the YMCA Strong Kids program. It featured the story of a young Mexican father of two young children who lost their mother to an auto accident. It's narrated by that young man in a very affecting way and shows scenes of him enjoying the company of his kids at the Y. The second half is a series of still pictures of kids at the Y as well as members of the staff. Some of the staff had mugged for the camera. One fellow mimicked dancer Michael Flatley's pose on the cover of the "Lord of the Dance" DVD, so I burst out laughing. Maybe no one else saw that video or didn't see anything funny in his pose; because in that room with almost 30 people I was the only one who even chuckled. Tough crowd.
I would say that the theme of the meeting was budgeting. My opponent in the upcoming April 7th election, Tim Hamblin, asked a couple questions about the cost of the Glatfelter/Plexus redevelopment during the Public Hearing ... specifically whether the $8.5 million project cost figure was accurate; I made a short presentation to the Council during the Public Forum about budgets; the Council members debated for 21 minutes whether to pay an outside firm to do the engineering for a small bridge on Adams street; and other items on the agenda were discussed in a more budget-focused way, particularly the acquisition of new police vehicles.
Here's the text of my presentation to the Council:
A little over two weeks ago, I was involuntarily terminated due to downsizing of the company I worked for. For the first time in 23 years I've filed an unemployment claim. I'm not fishing for sympathy. I'm just pointing out that things change, priorities change based on economic conditions, and very few of us are unaffected.
On December 1st I attended the public budget hearing for the Village of Black Creek. They do things a little differently in the Village. They don't really have the staff to put together the proposed budget in a nice neat package that the public can review well ahead of the public hearing. That public hearing was a very charged affair even thought the budget was just under a million dollars. In particular people came to complain about cutting the one part-time police officer in town, leaving just a police chief, believe it or not; cutting money for parks more than half, including closing the swimming area at the lake even though a brand new public restroom had been built in the park pavilion just a year or two ago; and cutting new capital equipment outlays down to almost nothing. State shared revenue is down, state transportation aids are down, fire hyrdrant costs are way up, etc.
Towards the end of the long and heated discussion, one of the Village Board members made a motion to cut the salaries of the Board members to zero. They each make about $200 a month. The motion was dead serious. Realizing that something was up, there were even members of the audience that spoke against it. The motion was defeated on a close vote; but it showed the village residents that the Village Board did everything it could to trim expenses. That pretty much ended the public unrest at that meeting.
On Monday I found an article about the Florida state government's consideration of a 5% pay cut for all state employees earning more than $100,000 a year. Some of the members of the Council have heard me suggest that the Neenah City budget could be cut by 5%. Matter of fact I said something that I thought was pretty clever about that possibility at Dean Kaufert's Under the Dome tavern one night last year. I said that a Jewish rabbi proves that you can cut 5% off of anything. Council President Stevenson, in his inimitable fashion, gently pointed out to me that the only rabbis there are are Jewish rabbis.
Be that as it may, this all ties in with the Mayor's admonition to examine everything in the budget. Is a freeze in salaries enough? Is a 5% cut in the budget for salaries possible in 2010? Can we hold the line on borrowing to the Mayor's goal? I'd just like to keep the notion that we can do more to cut expenses and maybe hold the line on property taxes or even reduce them next year ever present.
My apologies to anyone who might be put off by my reference to the ritual service performed by rabbis.
All votes (15 of them) last night were unamimous in support of the various resolutions and committee recommendations except two. Item XI.A.1. on the agenda dealt with the recommendation by the Public Services & Safety Committee that "Council award the design services contract for the Adams Street Bridge replacement to Graef-USA of Green Bay for $27,580." That's where the 21 minute discussion came in. It centered around the question of whether the city can save that money by doing the engineering in-house.
(to be continued...)