Meeting Report April 10 , 2007
I missed the meeting tonight. I made only the last fifteen minutes. I thought I would make more but it was much shorter than I expected. I was at a MoveOn.org Virtual Town Hall meeting about Iraq. They did a Q&A with seven candidates, all Democrats. Republicans declined the opportunity. I'll report that John Edwards did the best job by far of answering the question about what to do in Iraq. That was the consensus of the fifteen or so people in attendance. It was not even close. In fact, neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama won second place in my informal poll; Chris Dodd did. Clinton's response was what we all expected; measured, conservative, reasonable. Obama was a big let-down. He took forever to get around to answering the questions and then delivered lackluster answers. Keep your eye on Edwards, and tune in to future forums and debates.
OK, I will give a full report on the city meeting later. Attendance was slim. Mayor Lanman was absent as were council members Rivera and Martinez. Dan Petrosky was 15 minutes late coming in from work in Alpine so everybody waited for quorum. The four presentations on the agenda (RMA, Alltel, Library, TDS) were made. More on those presentations later.
The election was cancelled. New officials could be sworn in as soon as Saturday, May 12th or Monday May 14th. Here's the funny thing, this meeting had three members of the the governing body (out of six) in attendance. The audience had FOUR members of the incoming governing body! All three incoming council members and the incoming mayor were in the audience. What does it say when the audience can make more of a quorum than the governing body?
The Humble/Bonkemeyer sewer deal was "put off" until the next meeting. There was no vote to postpone by council. Sauceda decided it was not to be covered and took it off council's plate. That is not his job. It is on the agenda. Council can discuss or table. It is up to council not their administrator. My guess is that without the mayor there to support the deal, they wanted to wait for a more favorable audience. Better hurry. Two more meetings before the new council takes over.
Both grant amendments were postponed for the next meeting also.
The expenditures report/accounts payable agenda item was as unpleasant as ever. The tension in the air indicated that council is not pleased with the quality of the reporting on the finances. Nor are they pleased with some of the numbers. It appears that the financial report is given with the intent of hiding as much as explaining financial data. Rudy Garcia promises immediate changes to the financial reporting when he returns to council in one month.
I'll put some more information up after I have figured out what I missed. Until then, keep your eye on John Edwards.
OK, I will give a full report on the city meeting later. Attendance was slim. Mayor Lanman was absent as were council members Rivera and Martinez. Dan Petrosky was 15 minutes late coming in from work in Alpine so everybody waited for quorum. The four presentations on the agenda (RMA, Alltel, Library, TDS) were made. More on those presentations later.
The election was cancelled. New officials could be sworn in as soon as Saturday, May 12th or Monday May 14th. Here's the funny thing, this meeting had three members of the the governing body (out of six) in attendance. The audience had FOUR members of the incoming governing body! All three incoming council members and the incoming mayor were in the audience. What does it say when the audience can make more of a quorum than the governing body?
The Humble/Bonkemeyer sewer deal was "put off" until the next meeting. There was no vote to postpone by council. Sauceda decided it was not to be covered and took it off council's plate. That is not his job. It is on the agenda. Council can discuss or table. It is up to council not their administrator. My guess is that without the mayor there to support the deal, they wanted to wait for a more favorable audience. Better hurry. Two more meetings before the new council takes over.
Both grant amendments were postponed for the next meeting also.
The expenditures report/accounts payable agenda item was as unpleasant as ever. The tension in the air indicated that council is not pleased with the quality of the reporting on the finances. Nor are they pleased with some of the numbers. It appears that the financial report is given with the intent of hiding as much as explaining financial data. Rudy Garcia promises immediate changes to the financial reporting when he returns to council in one month.
I'll put some more information up after I have figured out what I missed. Until then, keep your eye on John Edwards.
posted by RobC at 9:41 PM
8 Comments:
So why did we have a presentation from Texas Disposal Systems? Flo happen to say, like does he want the council to consider dumping Duncan and going with TDS? Or was it just entertainment for the evening?
And I also heard that Greenwood got paid. Since Flo hasn't done a drawdown to Orca to my knowledge and hasn't set up a bank account like he was supposed to, what did he pay Greenwood with?
Another brick for the Flo stack:
Sylvia Zubiate, Director of the Nutrition Center, has left in the code enforcement car to go to El Paso to buy a deep fryer.
Brick:
Has anybody noticed that Flo, in his zeal to impress the public with the clean city (after cleaning out the coffers, now he is cleaning out the alleys) is having the alleys mowed? Yep, my neighbors and I were puzzling over that. Never has the city taken care of the alleys. I myself have beaten my brains out over the years trying to keep my alley mowed and have resorted to scorched earth by poisoning the trash trees, weeds and grass. Well, I stacked my livestock panel trellises in the alley beside my driveway over the winter to dry the foliage and collect the seeds. I have been diligently cleaning the trellises over the last month or two and putting them in my flower beds. I had two trellises and a stack of dried vines left. Lo and behold, I came home yesterday and the trellises were gone and the vines were pushed into my driveway. And to add insult to injury, Flo drove by eyeballing my place yesterday evening and I was standing in the yard. Is he going to have a "Clean City Open House" or something?
Marge, that's just Amazing.
Interesting. The city cleaned my alley also. I cleaned up my side last fall and weeds were just beginning to pop up again. I was surprised to see the city go after the entire length of the alley on both sides with a weedeater. It sure looks better and I appreciate the effort.
After hearing Sauceda talk about sending out letters and then billing property owners, I wondered if this was a fund raising event for the city. Perhaps he can explain to council how he is using city resources. Alleys are the responsibility of the property owners. If the city complains and gets no response, the city can clean up and bill the owner. But no notices have been sent. So this cleanup was on the city. That's nice. Can I schedule a return in say two months?
Marge, sorry to hear that the city's efforts on your alley caused some problems. Anybody else get free yard work from the city?
Don't count on Flo sending out bills. He is administratively inept. He hired Phil Vickers as code enforcement. I don't think Phil is doing anything other than sitting at the coffeeshop for four hours a day, and billing overtime. Flo never does any followup. He gives conflicting instructions on the lot cleanups. He never answered Leo on why there were four roll offs at one site.
If Flo is mowing alleys and going to bill us when the alleys weren't even a mess to begin with, I can tell you there will be trouble. How much money is he spending to polish the alleys?????
Observations regarding the 62K solid waste grant through Rio COG.
Originally, Flo told the Rio COG Solid Waste Advisory Committee he was going to do a grant for scrap tires, which was the priority at that time. But then the Lanman Legacy Landfill became a cause celebre and for it to remain viable at all, due to public pressure, the city would have to address recycling.
voila, Flo comes up with Megan Gerety to write the grant AND ostensibly administer the recycling grant with volunteers.
Two hitches: Flo is informed by the county that the city is out of compliance with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality two ways. 1) Marfa does not have a permit to operate a landfill or even a compost area 2) Marfa has broken the county lease by not conforming to TCEQ requirements in regard to maintaining and/or closing the landfill.
Second hitch: Megan Gerety, who is to ADMINISTER (citizens, please remember...Flo is paid 12,500 extra a year to WRITE and ADMINISTER grants. He has done neither on this one) the recycling plant has moved away. So where is the recycling administrator and all those volunteers?
No problem: Flo is going to amend the grant to buy a truck and trailer. We have a code enforcement officer. Is he going to double at trash pickup?
To revive interest in Flo's grant purchases, here is Rob's story of the code enforcement car from August 2006.
Drive it home today!
Congratulations to our city administrator for writing a successfully funded grant for a code inspection officer. The city was awarded more than $30,000 for the salary and vehicle for a code inspection person. This was a TCEQ grant and was written to improve enforcement of city laws concerning rundown properties in town.
Three bids were received and two retracted leaving Mountain Motors in Alpine the only bidder. The city agreed to purchase the Crown Victoria with low miles for $17,500. Of course, city council must approve these expenses. Before council had a chance to meet, the car had been delivered and was in service with the police department. In fact, it had even been used for an out of town trip by a city employee.
How did this happen? According to the administrator, Mountain Motors did not have room on their lot and the car had to go immediately! So it was delivered to the city and put in service immediately.
Hello? Isn't this the oldest trick in the used car sales book? Have I gotta deal for you! But, you gotta take delivery today.
So the city starts to use a vehicle that it has not purchased and which is not covered under the city's insurance (but possibly insured by the used car dealer). What if council decided not to purchase the vehicle? Does this take away council's ability to say no? It certainly takes away any negotiating strength for a better price.
This issue was raised at the July 27 council meeting. Funniest thing you ever saw. Nobody had any idea who authorized the vehicle to be put in service. With the mayor and administrator denying knowledge, they seemed to point the finger at the chief of police who was not there to reply. Where does the buck stop? The administrator administrates. There is no excuse for this lapse of judgement. As stated at the meeting by a citizen, "This is no way to run a railroad." We'll see who gets to drive the car when the inspector is hired.
posted by RobC at 5:26 PM 1 comments
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