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Reacting to public opinion
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City Commission should act more like the School Board?
It has been suggested that the Royal Oak City Commission would do well to mimic
the Royal Oak School Board, as CITCOM addresses budget matters: You know. Listen
-- or pretend to listen -- to the objecting public, then do what you have already
thoroughly studied and have decided has to be done.
It is probably unfair to suggest that CITCOM lacks courage
because several of its members are obviously uneasy about the Normandy Oaks
situation. This and previous city commissions have acknowledged but resisted public input on
occasion. Consider an example or two.
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Resident- and business-reaction to CITCOM's
drive to raise parking income and other user fees has been heavily weighted
against such increases. CITCOM continues to approve them anyway.
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Week after week, public comment was
overwhelmingly against widening Main Street north of Eleven Mile. It would
have been financially irresponsible for CITCOM to reject the project because
of the strong, essentially emotional, anti-mood of voters, and the commission
wisely approved it.
Perhaps the closest parallel to the Normandy Oaks
brouhaha was the year 2000 battle about a
Human/Gay
Rights Ordinance. For several
weeks, Public Comment was one-sided, with the pro-ordinance community attending
en masse and dominating the dialogue. CITCOM opted to place the issue on the ballot, and voters defeated
the ordinance.
About Normandy Oaks, the suspicion is that
gut-level emotion re green space would defeat any attempt to sell the golf
course. I'm not so sure, but I will withhold further comment until after
Saturday's CITCOM work session about the budget.
Returning to the comparison between CITCOM and
the School Board, I think it would be a good idea for CITCOM to adopt
the Board's 3-minute limit for each speaker in Public Comment. -- FJV:
Jan 2007
On
budget
City Commission displays
no vision, no strategic grasp
Except for Commissioner Stephen Miller's exasperated reminder that
"We need a revenue stream," the Royal Oak City Commission
displayed neither vision nor strategic grasp concerning the city's budget.
Performing the bookkeeping
equivalent of an editorial committee proofreading a manuscript, the
commission approved a "balanced" budget by once again stealing
from an enterprise fund and, this time, hoping for good news out of ongoing and future
collective bargaining. Unless the re-appointed committee studying the city
attorney's office suggests privatizing that operation, there will have been no
substantive move to restructure city government, nor any substantive
move to increase revenue.
Instead, the commission
assumed a save-paper-clips mindset and addressed departmental operations in
micromanaging mode:
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Asking in excessive detail
about such matters as how individual police assignments will be
implemented and whether Parking
Enforcement hours are affected by intoxicated individuals.
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Getting so involved in
discussing DPS operations that they wanted specifics about grass
cutting schedules and manpower.
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Being upset because of
operational/legal limitations on the commission's control of line-item
expenditures for the district court, after approving the court's total budget
for the year.
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Getting confused over how
and when DDA funds move into and out of the money-mix, when dealing
with such matters as the multi-source compensation for Planning
Department personnel and the line between downtown-only and city-wide
services. (Ultimately, isn't "DDA money" city money?)
I have previously commented on
the institutional, not individual, lack of courage of this commission,
Perhaps the best/worst manifestation of that lack of courage came when the
City Manager was apparently ordered to remove the Normandy Oaks sale from the agenda,
after it had been placed on the agenda at the request, one must assume, of the
subcommittee assigned the task of reviewing the Normandy Oaks
bids.
This commission earns a
failing grade for adding still another year of indecision to
budget-making, despite excellent documentation and guidance by city staff.
Taking up Commissioner
Miller's point:
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Put the Normandy Oaks
bid(s) back on the agenda, and let's give the concept at least as much attention
as we've given to the fence ordinance and to the "No Parking"
signs on West Harrison.
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Assign a committee,
including citizens, to take a serious look at the
pluses and minuses of selling City Hall and leasing it back.
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Downsize the DDA.
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Adopt a resolution, Issue a formal statement,
making it clear whether or not the long-range goal is to restore city staffing
and services to their former level. Stop making ad hoc
decisions and stop setting ad hoc policies.
Do something.
Start now.
Don't wait until
the next budget cycle. -- FJV: 28 June 2006
Readers say
Several readers, in and out of City
Hall, had something to say -- mostly off-the-record -- about last week's
comment which opened with the paragraph above. Even those who feel that VersagiVoice
was too hard on the commission prefer not to be identified, because of the
split among city hall denizens, employed and volunteer. The identified
comment, immediately below, captures the flavor of both the disappointment
and the hope expressed by readers.
I read your column and agree with
you; "Where is the vision for the future of Royal Oak?"
I remember and still have the article Steve Findley wrote for the Tribune back
in c)1995. Steve and I were talking at the Christmas Tree Lighting party and I
was telling him of my vision of a Civic Center (Police, Court and City Hall)
being built across the street near where the Farmers Market is. Steve wrote
"Kevin has a vision," and continued about the city closing Hamilton
Court, tearing down the old Social Security Bldg and some houses and building
the new court, police station and city hall there. It never happened but at
least the court was built and will be there for the next 100 years.
I would love to hear someone in
authority talk about another vision for our great city. -- Kevin
Sutherland
12 June 2006
The 44th District Court, Inspection
& Code Enforcement, Planning, DDA, and City Attorney Office were among
the departments reviewed by the city commission. Dollars aside, one hears
interesting and useful tidbits as the department heads interact with the
elected officials. Examples:
The Court has an excellent 91% collection
record, including capturing $652,000 from gong after cases up to 7 years
old. . . . There are 764 current probationers. . . . Random substance
abuse testing is conducted on occasional Saturdays, Sundays, and
holidays. . . . Appropriate probationers are assigned community service
tasks.
Increased construction in Royal Oak,
including 5,000-sq ft homes and commercial properties, is causing
operational problems for Inspection & Code Enforcement, which has
lost employees at the same time. The department is already in the
position of not being able to do what needs doing. . . . There is a need
for more inspectors. . . . Rodent control may have to be re-assigned. .
. . The retiring department head will serve as part-time director until
his replacement is on-board.
The Planning Department has two
divisions: The Planning Division accomplishes all the administrative and
regulatory functions required; The Housing Division works with
Low-income rent and with housing rehabilitation. Compensation for the
department's employees comes from three sources: Block Grants, the DDA,
and the city's General Fund.
The Downtown Development Authority is
well aware of suggestions that it be downsized, but it believes now is
not the time to consider returning some of its properties to the city. .
. . Most of the DDA's $2.1 million reserves are being held for previous
commitments, leaving only about $400,000 uncommitted.
Even when fully staffed -- before the
retirement of Chuck Semchena -- it was common practice for the City
Attorney's Office to use outside counsel for matters which require
specialty expertise. . . . The annual cost for the contracted Interim
City Attorney is only slightly more than the total cost for a single
Deputy City Attorney.
Of the scores of questions asked by the
commission, only once or twice was the answer not available from either
the department head or the finance director. However, as always when
budgets are being reviewed, the dialogue between a commissioner and the
financial director occasionally became so confused that the two
interlocutors repeatedly interrupted each other in their attempt to
overcome the confusion.
26 May 2006
The 28-slide overview is
straightforwardly presented but necessarily contains enough detail to cause eyes
to glaze over for a resident who is moderately interested and who has other
matters to which to attend. Differing points of view cause varying
interpretations of simple facts.
Place slides 19 and 20 alongside
each other, for example, and one can quickly visualize the following tabulation
after reading that city personnel now number 360, compared with 397 last
year and with 416 in 2004-05.
| Sector |
2006-07
Employed |
% of
Employed |
% of
Expenditures |
| Police |
104 |
28 |
33 |
| Fire |
65 |
18 |
24 |
| Other |
191 |
53 |
43 |
Let' see: 28% of the workers get 33% of the General Fund; 18%
get 24%. Is that as it should be or does it
reflect distorted compensation policies? That will depend, of course, on where
one stands on the overall priorities. Do whatever is necessary to replace the
lost Police and Fire personnel (including selling Normandy Oaks,) or cut until it
is obvious that Public Safety is really being harmed?
So far, early in the budget process,
the public seems disengaged. There was not a single speaker during the May 22nd
Special Meeting. But, chatting with residents makes it clear that their feelings
about specific departments or individuals at city hall determine which
parts of the budget get their attention.
Other Cities in a Budget-Bind
Introduction
The City of Pontiac's financial problems are severe, and The
Oakland Press has month-after-month reported and editorialized
about those problems. The magnitude of Pontiac's budget shortfalls and
deficits is greater than Royal Oak's, but there are similarities in the
causes. A January 21 article in the OakPress surveys how
state-appointed emergency managers have addressed the financial
difficulties in several cities. Not all of the evaluations and
suggestions coming from the state-appointed managers apply to Royal Oak,
but enough of them do to make the newspaper's article helpful. The piece
was written by Carol Hopkins.
To begin
There are no magic bullets, but there are actions which work, over several
years, when they are mandated. Among them:
- Close/privatize/outsource selected departments.
- Sell surplus property.
- Dissolve Downtown Development Authority
- Reduce the pay of elected officials
- Replace elected officials with an emergency manager
- Really renegotiate labor agreements. (Apply them to
current employees, not just to new hires.)
For Pontiac, an emergency financial manager who worked
with Ecorse and Hamtramck, recommends: Close the Department of Public Works,
sell all surplus property, close down all tax increment financing districts, and
pay off the bonds. About those TIFA districts, Louis Schimmel is quoted as
saying, "There are millions going to these authorities. They're swimming in
money. That money should go to the general fund and I'd have enough to pay for
police and fire."
About selling all surplus assets, Schimmel says, "[City
officials] shouldn't worry about the sale price. Sell to private parties you
can tax and make your money that way."
In Ecorse, Schimmel was given authority to replace the
elected mayor and council members. He privatized the Department of Public Works,
sold its building and equipment, negotiated with the department's 25 employees
to terminate their services in exchange for a negotiated finance settlement.
Public Works employees retired, were bought out or dismissed.
In Hamtramck, he renegotiated labor
agreements, sold the public works building to a private charter school, took
over the downtown development authority, and "flat out ran the town," according
to Hopkins's article.
Another emergency manager was involved in
Flint, and city officials recall massive reorganization and layoffs and
"spending cuts on everything." The city shut down rec enters and "any
nonessential services were greatly reduced or eliminated." Fees were increased
and Council members pay was reduced. The emergency manger, Ed Kurtz, converted
the golf course to an enterprise fund.
In Highland Park, emergency finance
manager Ramona Henderson Pearson instituted a hiring freeze and suspected
elected officials' salaries and benefits. She laid off all police and contracted
with the Wayne County Sheriff's Department. In July 2007, the police department
was reinstituted, according to the OakPress article.
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