BIG $$$ MEETING
Hold onto your wallets folks, the dynamic duo is out to borrow millions of dollars in your name. They will be long gone before the debt comes due and you will be left holding the bag. The agenda is out for the City Council meeting on Tuesday, November 14th. It is a doozy. Expect Lupe Devine to show up for this meeting. Dave and Flo would not put so much on the agenda if they couldn't count on their pocket councilwoman to rubber stamp their plans to run Marfa deep into debt.
The agenda contains BIG ACTION items on the gas company (let's sue 'em!), the landfill (it's back!), water debt (a cool million!), the budget (get your whiteout!), and the library ("tear it down" Greenwood!).
The gas company has two agenda items. The first action item on the agenda is to approve a 15 percent reduction in gas rates from Southwest Texas Municipal Gas Corporation. The price of gas is down; the gas company has sufficient cash on hand for maintenance; they want to pass savings on to the citizens. Expect Dave and Flo to fight this. They are unable to run Marfa in a fiscally responsible way so they want to tax you through higher gas bills over the winter. They want the gas company to overcharge you and then return the profits to the city to be spent by two guys who can't be bothered to watch the books. The final agenda item is executive session of council to discuss a lawsuit against the gas company. Dave and Flo want to waste your tax dollars in a lawsuit against your gas company in order to get more money out of them (you). Citizens will end up paying the legal bills on both sides of this fight. Greedy nincompoops. Manage the city properly and you won't be tempted to sue a utility company that belongs to the city (aka the citizens). Essentially, this is a lawsuit by citizens (City of Marfa) against citizens (city-owned SWTMGC)! Do citizens want either part of this? Speak up to council.
The city suing the city's gas company reminds me of the good old days when Lanman and Sauceda were suing each other!
Next up is the Lanman Legacy Landfill. Lanman was told to put together a citizen advisory committee on this matter. Nothing official has been done. A couple of people have been asked to participate. Without their knowledge, Lanman is asking council to plow ahead with his million dollar dump idea. Agenda item V requests authorization to apply for financial assistance from the EPA for a dump. Agenda item VI is a resolution to ask BECC to assist in funding the dump. The mayor has not presented any written plans to the city. He asked to be given authority to investigate but gives not written reports, then he comes asking for money (more debt) for an unspecified dump. Let's see a plan before we borrow more money.
Then comes agenda items VII, VIII, IX, X, and XI all related to BORROWING $1.265 MILLION DOLLARS for a water project. Florencio is outdoing himself on this. Here we are in mid-November and we don't have a revised budget draft and he has written FOUR RESOLUTIONS to put his dream team of specialists in place to help get their hands on easy zero-interest money. Item VII requests council permission to apply for the debt. Item VIII is a resolution to make Larry Skiles the"Financial Advisor" for the loan. He is not an advisor, he is a vendor of financial services. His advice is going to be that Marfa go into debt. He only makes money when Marfa goes deeper into debt. Who are the other bidders to provide financial service to Marfa? Are we awarding business without competitive bids. We do not need a resolution for Larry Skiles to make a proposal. And it is deceptive to call him an "advisor" when he is a contractor.
Items IX, X, and XI are more of the same. Flo and Dave want to select and approve by resolution all of the contractors for this debt without competitive bidding. Parkhill, Smith and Cooper are being pushed as the engineers. McCall, Parkhurst and Horten are being pushed as the bond counsel. Bover, Akers (our city attorney), and Bojorquez are being pushed as the attorney for the debt. They want to retain the services of these four firms without competitive bid for a project that has not been approved by council. Slow down there cowboys. Tell us about your little vacation to Austin. Flo, David and Larry went to Austin to learn how to borrow millions of dollars in the name of Marfa taxpayers. Tell us what you learned. Let council discuss it and consider options.
You guys are real cozy with the engineering, bond, and legal firms that you are pushing. This does not look like open government. All these friends of yours will be paid by taxpayers for work that may not even need to be done. You smell money and you want it. Let's start with the first question. What needs fixing? That $1.265 million number is something that an engineering company came up with years ago and then adjusted for inflation as I understand things. What exactly do we need? What does Mr. Silva think? You guys are eager to get your hands on some easy money and spread it among your buddies for projects that you have not bothered to explain to citizens. Take it easy.
Let's discuss the work that needs to be done before we borrow money. Maybe there is another way. If this is about digging a couple of overflow ponds, this can be done for a lot less money. I know a couple of dozer companies in the area that could move dirt per an engineering plan. I know it is not as sexy as borrowing a million bucks with a financial adviser, bond counsel, engineering firm and bond attorney. If this was a grant, that would be great. But this is money that comes from taxpayers in Marfa. We will pay for this work and pay for all these "advisors" that stand to profit from taxpayers. Dave and Flo just got back from Austin. Tell us what you have learned. Let council consider before borrowing money.
Next up is item XII to approve an architect for the quarter-million dollar ORCA grant for the library. The city was required to contact five architects. They got two responses, Greenwood is one and Schmidt is another. Greenwood has the inside track because of his work on the pool. He is competent for this type of work, but his judgment is suspect. He bid his pool work at $6,000 and finished the work. He and Flo found another $9,500 in the grant and gave it to him after he finished the job instead of sending the money back to the state. Legal versus ethical? Then he recommended to council that they consider tearing down the library to save money because he did not consider it historical enough. He's fine to draw up plans and oversee construction, but he should not be given too much leeway. He owes Lanman a $9,500 favor and would tear the library down without a second thought if it were up to him.
After all this, the city gets around to that boring old subject of the budget. Sauceda is still trying to amend the budget for 2005-2006 to hide his mistakes. Council should firmly reject this bad idea. That budget is over. It is time for an audit not a coverup. Let the auditor sort it out. There is only one reason to amend a budget for year that was finished six weeks ago: to hide things from independent review.
Then we have the 2006-2007 budget. Again, we are six weeks into the new year and neither Budget Officer Lanman nor Administrator Sauceda have bothered to develop a written budget that reflects the new realities. They had time to write several resolutions for their buddies to get taxpayer money, but no time to develop a budget. How do they expect council to make a sound decision on the budget if they refuse to put it in writing? The answer is that they do not want council to make a sound decision. They want a budget mess that they can just ignore.
Some seem to think that we need to amend the old budget before we adopt a new budget. This is simply wrong. The comptroller of Texas strongly recommends against this kind of budget shenanigans. We should get the budget for this year sorted out before we do anything else. Forget last year. It is over. Focus on this year before it is over.
The city has 120 days to audit the previous year. We have wasted 45 days doing nothing. Sauceda is advertising a third time for an auditor in the current Sentinel. We have not even developed a pool of candidates for the auditor job. Perhaps this is part of his plan: wait until the last minute, hopefully get Painter back in, don't give them enough time to do a proper audit of the badly botched 2005-2006 budget. What is council doing about this?
Here is my suggested list of priorities for Council to consider:
All citizens are encouraged to attend the council meeting. Dave and Flo are trying to take control of the city away from Council. Lanman and Sauceda are rapidly running the city's finances into the ground with their mismanagement. It is time for council to take charge. They need citizen support to do this.
The agenda contains BIG ACTION items on the gas company (let's sue 'em!), the landfill (it's back!), water debt (a cool million!), the budget (get your whiteout!), and the library ("tear it down" Greenwood!).
The gas company has two agenda items. The first action item on the agenda is to approve a 15 percent reduction in gas rates from Southwest Texas Municipal Gas Corporation. The price of gas is down; the gas company has sufficient cash on hand for maintenance; they want to pass savings on to the citizens. Expect Dave and Flo to fight this. They are unable to run Marfa in a fiscally responsible way so they want to tax you through higher gas bills over the winter. They want the gas company to overcharge you and then return the profits to the city to be spent by two guys who can't be bothered to watch the books. The final agenda item is executive session of council to discuss a lawsuit against the gas company. Dave and Flo want to waste your tax dollars in a lawsuit against your gas company in order to get more money out of them (you). Citizens will end up paying the legal bills on both sides of this fight. Greedy nincompoops. Manage the city properly and you won't be tempted to sue a utility company that belongs to the city (aka the citizens). Essentially, this is a lawsuit by citizens (City of Marfa) against citizens (city-owned SWTMGC)! Do citizens want either part of this? Speak up to council.
The city suing the city's gas company reminds me of the good old days when Lanman and Sauceda were suing each other!
Next up is the Lanman Legacy Landfill. Lanman was told to put together a citizen advisory committee on this matter. Nothing official has been done. A couple of people have been asked to participate. Without their knowledge, Lanman is asking council to plow ahead with his million dollar dump idea. Agenda item V requests authorization to apply for financial assistance from the EPA for a dump. Agenda item VI is a resolution to ask BECC to assist in funding the dump. The mayor has not presented any written plans to the city. He asked to be given authority to investigate but gives not written reports, then he comes asking for money (more debt) for an unspecified dump. Let's see a plan before we borrow more money.
Then comes agenda items VII, VIII, IX, X, and XI all related to BORROWING $1.265 MILLION DOLLARS for a water project. Florencio is outdoing himself on this. Here we are in mid-November and we don't have a revised budget draft and he has written FOUR RESOLUTIONS to put his dream team of specialists in place to help get their hands on easy zero-interest money. Item VII requests council permission to apply for the debt. Item VIII is a resolution to make Larry Skiles the"Financial Advisor" for the loan. He is not an advisor, he is a vendor of financial services. His advice is going to be that Marfa go into debt. He only makes money when Marfa goes deeper into debt. Who are the other bidders to provide financial service to Marfa? Are we awarding business without competitive bids. We do not need a resolution for Larry Skiles to make a proposal. And it is deceptive to call him an "advisor" when he is a contractor.
Items IX, X, and XI are more of the same. Flo and Dave want to select and approve by resolution all of the contractors for this debt without competitive bidding. Parkhill, Smith and Cooper are being pushed as the engineers. McCall, Parkhurst and Horten are being pushed as the bond counsel. Bover, Akers (our city attorney), and Bojorquez are being pushed as the attorney for the debt. They want to retain the services of these four firms without competitive bid for a project that has not been approved by council. Slow down there cowboys. Tell us about your little vacation to Austin. Flo, David and Larry went to Austin to learn how to borrow millions of dollars in the name of Marfa taxpayers. Tell us what you learned. Let council discuss it and consider options.
You guys are real cozy with the engineering, bond, and legal firms that you are pushing. This does not look like open government. All these friends of yours will be paid by taxpayers for work that may not even need to be done. You smell money and you want it. Let's start with the first question. What needs fixing? That $1.265 million number is something that an engineering company came up with years ago and then adjusted for inflation as I understand things. What exactly do we need? What does Mr. Silva think? You guys are eager to get your hands on some easy money and spread it among your buddies for projects that you have not bothered to explain to citizens. Take it easy.
Let's discuss the work that needs to be done before we borrow money. Maybe there is another way. If this is about digging a couple of overflow ponds, this can be done for a lot less money. I know a couple of dozer companies in the area that could move dirt per an engineering plan. I know it is not as sexy as borrowing a million bucks with a financial adviser, bond counsel, engineering firm and bond attorney. If this was a grant, that would be great. But this is money that comes from taxpayers in Marfa. We will pay for this work and pay for all these "advisors" that stand to profit from taxpayers. Dave and Flo just got back from Austin. Tell us what you have learned. Let council consider before borrowing money.
Next up is item XII to approve an architect for the quarter-million dollar ORCA grant for the library. The city was required to contact five architects. They got two responses, Greenwood is one and Schmidt is another. Greenwood has the inside track because of his work on the pool. He is competent for this type of work, but his judgment is suspect. He bid his pool work at $6,000 and finished the work. He and Flo found another $9,500 in the grant and gave it to him after he finished the job instead of sending the money back to the state. Legal versus ethical? Then he recommended to council that they consider tearing down the library to save money because he did not consider it historical enough. He's fine to draw up plans and oversee construction, but he should not be given too much leeway. He owes Lanman a $9,500 favor and would tear the library down without a second thought if it were up to him.
After all this, the city gets around to that boring old subject of the budget. Sauceda is still trying to amend the budget for 2005-2006 to hide his mistakes. Council should firmly reject this bad idea. That budget is over. It is time for an audit not a coverup. Let the auditor sort it out. There is only one reason to amend a budget for year that was finished six weeks ago: to hide things from independent review.
Then we have the 2006-2007 budget. Again, we are six weeks into the new year and neither Budget Officer Lanman nor Administrator Sauceda have bothered to develop a written budget that reflects the new realities. They had time to write several resolutions for their buddies to get taxpayer money, but no time to develop a budget. How do they expect council to make a sound decision on the budget if they refuse to put it in writing? The answer is that they do not want council to make a sound decision. They want a budget mess that they can just ignore.
Some seem to think that we need to amend the old budget before we adopt a new budget. This is simply wrong. The comptroller of Texas strongly recommends against this kind of budget shenanigans. We should get the budget for this year sorted out before we do anything else. Forget last year. It is over. Focus on this year before it is over.
The city has 120 days to audit the previous year. We have wasted 45 days doing nothing. Sauceda is advertising a third time for an auditor in the current Sentinel. We have not even developed a pool of candidates for the auditor job. Perhaps this is part of his plan: wait until the last minute, hopefully get Painter back in, don't give them enough time to do a proper audit of the badly botched 2005-2006 budget. What is council doing about this?
Here is my suggested list of priorities for Council to consider:
- Finish the budget for 2006-2007
- Select an auditor for the 2005-2006 budget without an amendment
- Figure out what those balance Sheet Problems are all about
- Look closely at day-to-day finances of bank balances and accounts payable
- Take a closer look at the actual work needed for water, sewer and landfill
- Develop a prioritized plan to address these problems
All citizens are encouraged to attend the council meeting. Dave and Flo are trying to take control of the city away from Council. Lanman and Sauceda are rapidly running the city's finances into the ground with their mismanagement. It is time for council to take charge. They need citizen support to do this.
posted by RobC at 11:01 AM
9 Comments:
The city has 120 days to audit the previous year.
What happens if there isn't one done?
State Law says a new budget must be done before the end of the fiscal year? Nothing happened. It's OK, use last year's budget.
Is this a way to get out of accounting for a years worth of money?
Another thing Dave and Flo do crookedly: they put resolutions on the agenda and then don't have a resolution in the council's packet, which leads me to wonder what is actually spelled out in the Resolutions. To this date, we have never been able to get a copy of the EMS surcharges.
If this council would gather their wits about them and steel their collective resolve, they could request a Local Management Audit from the State
Comptrollers office at no cost!
I requested copies of the resolutions for Fire and EMS two weeks ago and have received nothing despite follow-up calls and emails. Once again, this is a violation of state law, in this case the Open Records Act. It clearly states that the requested material must be delivered as soon as possible and promptly.
Florencio Sauceda violates laws as a regular part of doing his job. He has contempt for Texas laws, City Council, and citizens.
I am not surprised that he did not provide copies of resolutions to pesky citizens (aka people who live in Marfa unlike him), but he does not even provide copies to council! And the sad thing is that council actually votes on these resolutions without even seeing them. This is not what we elected these council members to do! We asked them to lead the City of Marfa not follow the gentleman from Corpus Christi.
like commenter #1, i feel that what they are doing is a way to get out of accounting for a years worth of money, and a years worth of mistakes.
about the $9500.00 given as a bonus to Greenwood, do you suppose ORCA has been informed about the way this happened? wouldn't ORCA want to know that money which should have been returned to them was given in a bonus to a person who may very well be the new architect on the library's project, and therefore handling that new ORCA grant?
I agree. The finances are a big mess. Every single aspect is out of order. One wonders what they are doing down there because they are certainly not taking care of finances. They ignore everything until it becomes an emergency, then they hire consultants to do the job they were supposed to do in the first place.
re:
If this council would gather their wits about them and steel their collective resolve, they could request a Local Management Audit from the State
Comptrollers office at no cost!...
State Comptroller audit...is more like a review of proper procedures and guidlines to follow..not a financial audit.
This is from conversation with agent of above agency...Not any help out there for us, unless illegal activities are pursued.
If they at least TRIED to follow proper procedure MAYBE someone could find out where the money goes and make budget process smoother.
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