Transfers/Revenues  Expenditures   Available Balance

General Fund      $ 12,325         $    804       $  11,520
Street Millage     285,553            9,344         276,208
Parks Millage       20,235              657          19,577
Solid Waste         31,040              331          30,708
Water              289,693            8,459         281,233
Sewer              562,302           24,939         537,362
Stormwater          44,480            2,859          41,622
Airport              6,520              103           6,416
Court/PD Facility  250,000.         109,886         140,114 

Total Available
for Capital /Art  $1,502,150.00    $157,387      $1,344,762

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How many times have we heard the refrain that millage funds can’t be used for anything but their voter-approved purposes, yet Council found a way to use these funds for “art” at City Hall? Apparently, where there’s a will there’s a way. Call me a revolutionary, but I would like to see these funds used for the original purposes they were budgeted for, or as directed by the voters in the respective millages. It would only take some quick, responsible action from Council. If Council can play these kinds of financial games to fund their pet projects, then they can play these kinds of games to fund the things they are SUPPOSED to be funding, like streets, sewers, bridges and fire departments.

And David, there are TWO councilmembers in the Fifth Ward and I do my best to keep them both informed of my opinions on issues of concern.

If other cities and states fund these kinds of optional programs from dedicated millage funds and other basic service accounts, despite budget deficits like we have here, then yes, I do believe they are also wrong.

As for the arts mob last night, maybe they got a chance to see the group of firefighters sitting in the audience and got the chance to explain how art is more important than the dozen of so of the men and women who will be fired in the days to come because of budget cuts.

You probably know but the city does not set the 5% charge, they have no power to do anything anymore regarding cable but comcast is required by the state and feds, to fund community access.

I for one am a bit of a skeptic from her past support of both the program and this project. But I think a lack of a vote on this issue had more to do with political cover than anything else.

And David, I guess I’m not as good of a public citizen as yourself, but I can’t watch council meeting live on public access. Seem that even though I’m paying a 5% tax on my cable bill and the CCTN budget is over a million dollars a year, there isn’t enough funding to provide a feed to ATT Uverse. Perhaps another luxury with little oversight that needs to be reviewed with our current economic condition. But don’t hold your breath.

But someone on council should have enough guts to ask for a vote on ANY issue involving tax dollars. We’ll see what happens.

To elaborate on (ii), in the “action minutes” style used by the city council, which is the bare minimum to satisfy the Open Meetings Act, the outcome of a voice vote is recorded as “On a voice vote, the mayor declared the motion carried.” If there’s a roll call vote, then the minutes must reflect the member-by-member vote. So a lone dissenter might exercise their right to have a roll call vote taken, in order to have recorded the fact that they voted differently from everyone else. I suppose it might also be the case that someone in the majority might ask for a roll call vote in order that a lone dissenters vote would be recorded, if they felt it would accrue to that dissenter’s detriment.

But ultimately, David Lewis has it correctly pegged when he writes: “The council members talked about how they were going to vote before they voted then everyone in the room heard them vote. Nothing was hidden.” The measure of “openness” and good governance is not whether a roll call was taken or not.

What might be worth focusing attention on, however, are the points that Stephen Kunselman drew out during deliberations with respect to the public art commission’s compliance with the Percent for Art ordinance: (a) Guidelines for selection of art have not yet been adopted — responsibility for the delay was placed on the city attorney’s office. (b) The public art commission has not made its annual report as required by the ordinance — it would be a thin report, perhaps, because no pieces of art have yet be acquired, but there are other elements in the report, such as summaries of activities by the commission to promote awareness. (c) The failure to produce an estimate for maintenance of the piece, which is required by the ordinance which reads something like “No art shall be considered for acquisition without an estimate for maintenance …”

Of those, I think it’s (c) that’s the most interesting, because Sue McCormick’s explanation of why the city was, in fact, in compliance with the ordinance had to do with a delineation of three different action steps associated with any project: design, contract for services, acquisition. McCormick clarified that the council was completing the second of those steps that evening, not the acquisition step.

Kunselman did not press the issue of whether “consideration” of acquisition applied to all of those steps, but I think he might reasonably have done so. I’d consider it to be an open legal question that merits further clarification. Ideally, at this stage in the process, a estimate for maintenance costs seems at least very useful to make a well-informed decision as a councilmember, even if one were to maintain that it’s not legally required by the ordinance.

The agenda item itself appeared “late” — on Monday at around 11 a.m. It had widely been expected to be on the agenda on Nov. 19, then on Dec. 7, and then on Dec. 21, So it’s not as if the item came “out of the blue.” One could not reasonably maintain that councilmembers did not have time to educate themselves about it. However, because it was added after the preceding Wednesday, a staff member could not add the item to the agenda. Councilmembers are allowed to add agenda items up to the meeting itself, although per the council rule that Christopher Taylor recently crafted and the council adopted, they are to “use best efforts” to make any additions by the preceding Friday. Explaining the “best efforts” language in that instance, Taylor maintained that it entailed an expectation that any agenda addition past Friday would be met with “some species of explanation” for the late addition. Margie Teall, who added the resolution to the agenda on Monday morning, did not offer an explanation for the late addition, and her council colleagues did not ask for one.

I do not think this necessarily reflects mal-intent or conniving on the part of Teall and the rest council — especially because the resolution was expected to be on the agenda (but on the previous Wednesday); however, I think it does suggest that some councilmembers’ “best efforts” can fall quite short of the standard of a “reasonable effort.”

Get off the internet, people.