When COBI Finance Director Elray Konkel—one of the City’s straightest shooters– speaks, I listen up.
I even watched a re-play of some of Wednesday night’s lengthy Council meeting on BITV, to make sure I heard correctly.
Sure enough, at that meeting, Konkel introduced the City’s Capital Facilities Plan with some blunt talk, noting that 30% of the $101 million CFP total is eaten up by two projects, Winslow Way improvements at $21 million and a new police and court facility at $9 million.
“It’s a very highly leveraged plan,” Konkel said.
“Unsustainable,” Council candidate Barry Peters (running unopposed) called it in his remarks later in the evening.
City Hall watchers and some insiders have been sounding the alarm on City finances for a long time. Nezam Toloee made the City’s financial sustainability a campaign issue in his unsuccessful 2005 bid for mayor. Last year, budget issues were so thorny that Council failed to agree on a 2007 budget by the December deadline, and had to cobble together a compromise in January.
In July, the Bainbridge Resource Group, local government financial watchdogs, sent a memo to Council detailing concerns on a number of issues about City finances.
BRG suggested an embargo on Councilmanic Bonds (bonds that can be issued without voter approval), reduction of consultant fees, adoption of a budget strategy that realistically manages revenues and expenses, and capital projects approval based on realistic funding capabilities. They also urged more transparency (read “candor”) in the City’s financial processes.
Another City Hall watcher, CPA Daniel Smith, submitted a comment on the current draft of the CFP, in which he called the list of capital projects in the plan, “far in excess of the City’s operational capacity.”
You can read the CFP and the financial capacity document here.
The Council Finance Committee will discuss the CFP at its meeting on September 4 at 3:30 pm in the Council Conference room. The public is welcome (and might want to show up to bird-dog the process.)
As the illegitimate son of the late, well known economist, Joseph A. Schumpeter, I came across this MS of an article he published in “The Economics of the Recovery Program” (1934 III-21).
Titled, “DEPRESSIONS: Can We Learn from Past Experience?”
He underlined a few points for a subsequent speech, one of his students, Alan Greenspan, asked him to make, and I’d like to share those points:
1) “…the downfall of speculation requires a more fundamental explanation than the speculative excess itself.
2) “…problems presented by depressions may be grouped as… (i) removal of extraeconomic injuries to the organism: Mostly impossible on political grounds… (ii) … relief… imperative on moral and social grounds… important to keep up economic life and steady demand… no cure for fundamental causes. (iii) … remedies… chief difficulty is that depressions are not simply evils… but forms of something that has to be done… (iv) reforms… suggested by moral and economic evils of booms and depressions… crucial because political atmosphere favorable…
3) “There is no single and simple remedy”
I imagined talking to my legally unclaimed Father, looking through his thick glasses reflecting the light, magnifying his pupils into dark pools. “What do you think about this Bainbridge thing?”
He’d reply in his heavy Czech accent, “It’s the same thing when as last Friday at the fish market. You held your nose, pointing at a barrel. You said, ‘What’s that?’. I tell you, ‘Those are sardines. They’re not for eating. They’re for buying and selling.”
“You can’t over-leverage anything for economic gain, it makes circumstances, sooner or later, worse.”
Mayor-Council government earmarks our Island political heritage. It’s how we’ve done it, how the majority of surrounding cities have done it – and let’s face it – up until now, this form of government has served us all fairly well and prosperously.
The abuse of speculation, ‘over leveraging’, greed, or shaving accounts payable and receivable so thinly that the boundaries become transparent, is not the kind of transparency most of us are looking for from local government. We are looking for accountability and economies of scale, not fiscal disaster.
It is unfortunate that the perfect economic storm has combined to stress our governmental system to the breaking point. We have ourselves to blame, in large part, for expecting leadership to over leverage our collective assets.
The utube video promoting a city manager is persuasive. However, in theory, if everyone is performing responsibly, then our preset system would not become a nostalgic memory. Yet, we must also manage the fiscal and economic mess we have all created in our City, today.
What do we get with a new city manager, really? We get additional management assurances, and another fire-wall in the litigious frenzy to hold local government accountable. We preserve critical avenues of access to capital for responsible development.
In our hearts, we know what we lose. The disappearance of a traditional form of government is further reminder of the necessity for care and caution in the management of our local resources. And we lose a fundamental avenue in a fragile democratic process for the voice of the people in the election of strong mayor-leadership.
In my opinion, we will not gain citizen engagement in our affairs, simply because we hire a city manager to be engaged for our benefit. Our collective responsibility cannot buy someone to clean up our Island heritage.
Short-term, and economically, a change in government appears to serve the City well. In the long-term, mitigating the abuses of speculation and restoration of local economic resources cannot be visited entirely on our form of government.
Accountability for the way we live still belongs to us all.
Wow what a circular argument for nothing! Nice going Chuck
Lets just get the Moyor out and if the change in forms isn’t long term good then we will reverse the form with another vote. But to have her one day longer is toooooo long!
One of the most compelling reasons for a change in the form of government is that it to get more people involved in commissions who might then run for and improve the the city council.
Under the current system, the mayor makes all the appointments to citizen commissions, which are the gateways and training points for the city council. The mayor appoints her friends to these commissions. The principal qualifications of the last person appointed to the Planning Commission was his wholehearted support for Winslow Tomorrow.
Under council/ manager, the entire council makes these appointments, and the city council will also certainly draw from a far wider pool in making these. We may see the commissions become far more independent and effective. We may also see far more people run for council after they’ve served on these commissions.
Rod Stevens states “One of the most compelling reasons for a change in the form of government is that it to get more people involved in commissions who might then run for and improve the the city council.”
Many cities have honest mayors who are able to appoint to commissions and boards based on the greater public good and not on consolidation of political power. Remember voters: you elected Mayor K and her tendencies were not a state’s secret. Fine to cry buyer’s remorse now and desperately do everything to negate Mayor K’s power but remember how you got in the jam.
The problems lie within us and the type of people we elect with generally similar attitudes to how big government should be. We must get smart and elect people who really do believe in limited government and focus on core missions.
Changing a form of government but leaving the same people voting for the same project will in the end leave us exactly where we started. Magical thinking is not going to solve our problems or improve our participation of boards and commissions.
The answer is to have true leaders with talent step forward to be COBI Mayor.
Maybe it’s magical thinking to believe “true leaders with talent” will ever step forward, as there’s been no sign of that kind of leader in the mayor’s office in the past decade. And why would there be? Under the current system, we have a little town with lots of opinionated citizens, and don’t pay much to the mayor. A lot of grief and endless work, for not much benefit.
MAYOR LARY COPOLLA OPINES ON BI VOTE:
On the subject of BI’s change-in-government vote, Mayor and Publisher (Kitsap Business Journal) Lary Copolla gives his advice to Bainbridge voters: don’t change. Read what Port Orchard Mayor Copolla has to say in his Last Word column (second paragraph):
http://kpbj.com/opinioneditorial/articles/2009-04-04-EDT-01.html
JMO I thought you had a better nose for b.s. than that. In the first place, Larry Coppola has a little bias in favor of mayor-council, being the mayor of Port Orchard and all.
Second, he has no clue about Bainbridge politics if he thinks the 4-3 split is an “ideological split” between “environmentalists or property rights advocates.” There are no property rights advocates on the current council. There may have been one or two on past councils who were more in favor of so-called property rights than the usual Bainbridge electeds, but not many. That’s not what the split is about. They’re a bunch of Democrats disagreeing over whether the current mayor and her programs are financially responsible and whether her administration can be trusted to run city government competently.
Based on his comments in the article you linked to, his opinion has no relevance to Bainbridge politics.
Actually Coppola has some good horse sense — a Democrat with horse sense no less. And yes there are those who adhere to the fiction BI is totally unique, completely singular so you would have to be from Our Island to know our island.
What a minute, don’t tell me you also are invoking the “relevancy test” as to opinions on the subject. What about the Commissar K? She is not going to like this encroachment, this rice-bowl stealing.
Thank you Althea.
Oh Mr. Olsen, This may not be relevant, but I wanted you to be the first to know: If, and I say if, the council manager vote does not go through, I hereby state that I will not be running for Mayor. I hope you feel better now that someone has answered you. Good luck with your plans.
Commissar of Relevance Koi — you have stated your position. Now what we have that out of the way with Commissar Koi not running, what about the other heavyweights? . What about Councilman Knobloch’s intention? And what about Councilwoman Vancil’s intention? Thanks for reminding the viewers about the hanging question to BK and DV.
UPDATE ON CHANGE IN GOVERNMENT VIDEO VIEWERSHIP:
According to the YouTube tally meter, the Change in Government video just broke the 300 views.
Bainbridge Votes Council-Manager 09
301 views
fesenjen
A quick calculation shows 14,700 voters still waiting to see this home run. Didn’t 1,000 people sign the petition? You would think they would have the decency of giving the video at least a look see.
How is your Call To Recall video doing?
Commissar — now that is a great question about the status of the 1,500 viewed CALL TO RECALL MAYORAL BAINBRIDGE video. That matter is before the copyright Legal Beagles at YouTube and will be back in the saddle shortly. There still is time for Recall Mayor K.
Commissar Koi — because of your key position in the political orthodoxy matters, you will be the first to know when the bitv anti-free-speech putsch is defeated. COBI is still trying to figure out how bitv Merriman claims copyright on public-funded public meeting public testimony.
It happens here on Our Island because of the slap-dash attitude to political free speech by 501 (c) (3) community stations and local governments.
Again, thanks for asking Commissar Koi.
Commissar Koi — here is the link you asked about. You can check but soon it will be back.
YouTube – Deceit & Deception:Bainbridge Mayoral Recall
4 min 49 sec – Apr 29, 2008 -
Rated 4.8 out of 5.0
Howard Beal’s prophecy in “Network” as allegory for Bainbridge Island mayoral recall. Citizens are mad as hell as city teeters on brink of economi…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz-e3n68VT8 –
Now Commissar Koi, Deceit & Deception was a real home run, not just an attempted bunt.
James M. Olsen –
Enough. ENOUGH already with your “commissars” and your “comrades” and your “Mayor K’s.”
It’s spelled K-O-R-D-O-N-O-W-Y.
Look, I know it’s a free country-God Bless-but get some new material.
Thucidides certainly had high praise for Deceipt and Deception. Was his input included in the videos rating?
Message to (curious and frightened): Hmmm ! What are you trying to say, Comrade? Is your comment relevant? Cover your eyes.
Okay the hall monitor is weighing in: no more personal exchanges. I can put you in touch with each other if you want to continue your, uh, discussion.