Not a pretty picture

April 24, 2017

For those interested in the particulars about our city’s debt the city has reported that as of January 31, 2017 we owe one billion, two hundred ninety three million, thirty thousand dollars ($1,293,030,000) in general obligation debt.

We also owe:

$665,715,000 in water and sewer revenue bonds

$  16,330,000 in airport revenue bonds

$  96,607,000 in municipal drainage utility system bonds

$  60,995,000 in ball park revenue bonds

That adds up to another $839,647,000 for a total of $2,132,677,000.

Payments on the $1.29 billion in general obligation debt are about $103,578,000 per year.

They reported property tax receipts at $153,490,605 for 2016.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

 

10 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Following Richard Florida

April 20, 2017

City officials used a report from Richard Florida to justify their moves toward downtown revitalization a few years ago.

The other day we heard this from NPR:

Richard Florida promotes what he calls the creative class. He has said for years that cities prosper when they attract upscale innovators and entrepreneurs. Make your city a place where the creative class wants to live, and they, in turn, will create jobs.

INSKEEP: Many cities followed that advice. And now Richard Florida faces the downside. The creative class, he says, is creating cities that are massively unequal.

Unequal indeed.

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | Ball park, City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Not in our lifetime

April 18, 2017

It is not as though city staff has not told city council how bad the street situation is.

This slide came from a recent presentation made to council:

On the left side you can see that staff is telling council that roads that are not maintained (like ours) should generally last 25 years.

They are also pointing out that with the budgets that council has been passing we are on a 140 year cycle.

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

City beginning to think about our roads

April 16, 2017

City council has another one of its special meetings scheduled for Monday, April 17, 2017.

They generally deal with subjects that do not require public participation in the special meetings.  Said another way, they handle things that they do not want public input on.

In this case they will be given a presentation titled “Budget Overview” by city staff.

This is one of the slides from the presentation:

Notice that the progress they made this year is that they got permission to have their street inventory and assessment brought up to date.

That is a good idea.  Unfortunately it tells us that they are so far behind paving our streets that they don’t even know how bad the problem is.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

City staff asks for a blank check

April 15, 2017

Item 24.2 on the Tuesday, April 4, 2017 city council agenda would allow the city manager or his designee to purchase items from buy boards with no financial limits.

Currently they are limited to $500,000 at a time.

If council approves this action we might as well not have a purchasing department.

Buy boards do not offer merchandise or services at the lowest price derived from a bid.  Instead they are more of a “beauty contest” that lists companies that are willing to pay the agency running the buy board a percentage of any sales they make through the process.

Purchases made through buy boards typically do not end up on city council agendas.  We thus have no idea who city staff is giving business to.

We deserve better

Brutus

16 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »