Saturday, August 18, 2007

Don’t Bother Me with the Facts, My Mind is Made Up

Once a resolution comes out of Executive Council the City Council"s minds are all ready made up.

Don’t Bother Me with the Facts, My Mind is Made Up
The YMCA and the Pueblo City Council appears to have negotiated for a year or more to develop the resolution the Council voted and passed on August 13, 2007.  The City Attorney who works for the City Manager, wrote the terms and conditions of the contractual agreement stating the YMCA will be given $200,000 per year over ten years and turning the management of the four city pools over to them.
It was the City Manager that was responsible for negotiating the deal and formulating the resolution. He gave direction to the City Attorney. It makes sense that their minds were set even before the resolution was brought to the floor on July 23, since it was their own resolution. This entire deal was drafted behind closed doors.  Several people spoke against the resolution, then the Council President said because Councilman Larry Atencio was not present the vote on the resolution would be postponed and an open public meeting would be held the following week.  It was not until Friday, July 27th that it was announced that the public meeting would be held on Monday, July 30th.
The public meeting started with the YMCA making a presentation which primarily consisted of them stating how great they are and how much they help the under privileged, etc. .  This lasted for an extended period of time.  Then the City Manager, Dave Galli made a presentation basically stating what a great deal this is going to be for the City.
After the presentations the public(around 200 people) was allowed to write one question per card and turn them in.  Over 100 were submitted and depending on the subject of the question it was either answered by the YMCA or by the City.  Many people felt they did not have adequate time to formulate meaningful questions because of the short notice of the meeting.  Also, a large number of people felt that many of the questions were not answered satisfactorily.  Overall, the questions indicated a real concern about the City giving the YMCA $200,000 and in turn the management of the city pools.
Next people from the audience were given the opportunity in five minutes to give their opinion for or against, or concern about the City’s resolution.  The ratio of for and against the resolution was approximately one to four. Disregarding the Life Guards, more people spoke out against the YMCA proposal than spoke in favor.. 
It was absolutely clear by the size of the public attendance, by the number and subject of the questions, and the comments from the audience that the public is not in favor of the resolution.  The public meeting was a farce.  The City Council had no intentions of listening to the public, their minds were made up well ahead of the formal City Council meeting.
Between the time of the public meeting and the City Council meeting of August 13th many people emailed, wrote letters, or telephoned their objections to the resolution to the City Council members.  A local radio station ran a poll that over 4000 people responded.  The result was 66% against and 34% for the resolution. 
All of the public outcry has fallen on deaf ears.  The resolution was developed and basically voted on in the Executive Council behind closed doors.  A member of the City Council with the longest tenure has indicated that it is extremely rare for a resolution to be defeated when drafted by the City Administration.
Don’t bother me with the facts, my mind is made up.
Ted Freeman  


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City Council and Longterm Goals

How long will the YMCA project last?

Regarding the City Council decision to fund the YMCA, I would like to make a few comments.

The first is that a commitment of this nature should have been brought before the voters with a proposed mill levy increase. The city infrastructure is not in the best of shape, several non-profits which add substance to the ambience of this community may have a harder time, vital city departments such as police and fire may well suffer, programs necessary to the neighborhoods may be cut, and our older parks are not being kept up in a manner which would foster tourism and pride in our city.

The second comment is that there is a mind-boggling lack of continuity from City Council to City Council, even though there is an overlap of councilpersons every year. Several years ago, I sat in a council meeting where a project was praised and even solicited. Now, that project (actually there are more than one) hardly makes it as far up as the dimmest recess of the mind of the Council. I hesitate to mention the specific projects by name, as I have no direct authority from those projects to do so.

I am very pleased with the beautification of the city idea that is being put forward by this Council. At the same time, in addition to the YMCA, we have invested in a new park by Lake Minnequa. Please understand that I am not against this park. I just do not want the other parks to then be shoved off the back end, which is what seems to be happening as each Council wants to start in on something new.

How long with this Council’s agenda last? We need to finish what we start, as long as it is still deemed worthwhile. I am afraid that the money going to the YMCA will cause a great many things to be pushed aside, with the funding of those projects being for naught.