Duty To Provide Answers
[You are strongly encouraged to attend the City Commission Meeting on Thursday evening, 8/28/08 at 7 p.m. in the City Hall Auditorium, for the FINAL READING of the sewer/solid waste rate increases. This is your opportunity to express your views about continually rising costs in IRB.]
Thursday, August 28th at 7 p.m., is the SECOND and FINAL reading for the sewer/solid waste rate hikes in Indian Rocks Beach.
A 60% increase for both services was approved 5-0 on first reading. There is no reason to believe that Thursday night’s vote will be any different. And still, we have no answers to pointed questions.
Why are there no answers? Why has no explanation been offered as to how loans/transfers were made over a period of years without charter-mandated commission authorization—and without the commission even being aware of their existence?
Shouldn’t the men and women that we, as a community, chose as our voices be as eager for these answers as we are? Should they not care about what happened to our tax monies as we do? And, if they already know the answers, what's the big secret? The questions are not tough:
1. When did the first transfer/loan occur and what was the amount?
2. Who authorized the first transfer?
3. Why management letters accompanying the year-end financial reports (CAFR) indicate “all is well in paradise” if that was not the case?
4. Is there a legal requirement for repayment of these so-called loans?
5. Was malfeasance involved?
6. Were ad valorem tax dollars spent without a required referendum vote?
IRB’s Sewer/Solid Waste operations are owned by all of US, its citizens/customers. Whether or not we are entitled to an explanation about what is inherently ours shouldn’t be an issue. Why has this commission adopted a "let’s-just-move-on" attitude instead of procuring information on our behalf?
A review of our council-manager form of government in IRB provides a clue as to whose duty it is to respond to our inquiries. With this form of municipal representative government, an elected city commission has overall supervisory authority and is responsible for making policy, passing ordinances, voting appropriations, and exercising primary control over the budget.
The commission appoints a city manager to supervise operations and to implement policies adopted by the commission. It is the city manager’s duty to be responsive in providing day-to-day public services to citizens. Commissioners are there to make sure the city manager does the job.
So, it’s actually Interim City Manager Taylor who should be answering our questions. And when he can’t or won’t, then it is up to the commission to compel him to do so.
In a perfect world, strong commission leadership gets combined with the strong managerial experience of an appointed manager…which fosters citizen activism and encourages open communication between citizens and their government. That’s the theory anyway.
Several years ago, in a letter to the editor of the Belleair Bee regarding perceived arrogance of a previous commission, IRB resident Ralph Montgomery said of former Commissioners Palamara and Carmody: “They have forgotten that they are, in fact, servants of the citizens of Indian Rocks Beach.” Somehow I can’t see either one of these two sitting back and NOT demanding answers to these serious financial questions. Can you?
Nancy Obarski
Beach Trail/IRB
Thursday, August 28th at 7 p.m., is the SECOND and FINAL reading for the sewer/solid waste rate hikes in Indian Rocks Beach.
A 60% increase for both services was approved 5-0 on first reading. There is no reason to believe that Thursday night’s vote will be any different. And still, we have no answers to pointed questions.
Why are there no answers? Why has no explanation been offered as to how loans/transfers were made over a period of years without charter-mandated commission authorization—and without the commission even being aware of their existence?
Shouldn’t the men and women that we, as a community, chose as our voices be as eager for these answers as we are? Should they not care about what happened to our tax monies as we do? And, if they already know the answers, what's the big secret? The questions are not tough:
1. When did the first transfer/loan occur and what was the amount?
2. Who authorized the first transfer?
3. Why management letters accompanying the year-end financial reports (CAFR) indicate “all is well in paradise” if that was not the case?
4. Is there a legal requirement for repayment of these so-called loans?
5. Was malfeasance involved?
6. Were ad valorem tax dollars spent without a required referendum vote?
IRB’s Sewer/Solid Waste operations are owned by all of US, its citizens/customers. Whether or not we are entitled to an explanation about what is inherently ours shouldn’t be an issue. Why has this commission adopted a "let’s-just-move-on" attitude instead of procuring information on our behalf?
A review of our council-manager form of government in IRB provides a clue as to whose duty it is to respond to our inquiries. With this form of municipal representative government, an elected city commission has overall supervisory authority and is responsible for making policy, passing ordinances, voting appropriations, and exercising primary control over the budget.
The commission appoints a city manager to supervise operations and to implement policies adopted by the commission. It is the city manager’s duty to be responsive in providing day-to-day public services to citizens. Commissioners are there to make sure the city manager does the job.
So, it’s actually Interim City Manager Taylor who should be answering our questions. And when he can’t or won’t, then it is up to the commission to compel him to do so.
In a perfect world, strong commission leadership gets combined with the strong managerial experience of an appointed manager…which fosters citizen activism and encourages open communication between citizens and their government. That’s the theory anyway.
Several years ago, in a letter to the editor of the Belleair Bee regarding perceived arrogance of a previous commission, IRB resident Ralph Montgomery said of former Commissioners Palamara and Carmody: “They have forgotten that they are, in fact, servants of the citizens of Indian Rocks Beach.” Somehow I can’t see either one of these two sitting back and NOT demanding answers to these serious financial questions. Can you?
Nancy Obarski
Beach Trail/IRB
1 comment:
The only consultants Palamara and Carmody would be listening to would be that of a Forensic Accountant! You can bet that commission wouldve demanded to know the whereabouts of the money and how it got there. I can assure you that they would not be so quick to raise our sewer rates and taxes to make up for the lost funds. These servants of the public wouldve cut where needed and then worked on alternative revenues other than taxation. Shame on this Cowardly Five for not having the stones to demand the answers that we all deserve, shame on us for allowing this to continue! My hope is for a mob of angry over taxed citizens who ask the questions that need to be answered.
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