I implore all of my readers to watch the video of the Board of Aldermen meeting of November 6, 2013, particularly the work session portion entitled "(ID # 4872) Budget Review" (click here). Pay attention to the comments and questions posted by Aldermen Cheryl Kross and Sonya Shyrock, beginning at 2:05:50 when Shryocks hand pops up and states: "Most of the Directors did a great job on their budgets." I'm scratching my head trying to figure out which directors (who are good enough to still be here) did a bad job in Shryocks's estimation. It's a wonder to me why after watching this section of the meeting, that any of our directors are still here at all.
I was disappointed to hear our Parks Director, Ms. Mary Jo Dessieux has turned in her retirement papers. I asked her if she had won the lottery, or had a rich uncle die, because she's way too young to retire. Watching this portion of the video and seeing the wolf pack of Kross and Shryock try to gut the parks department budget gave me the answer.
The parks department has always, and I want to emphasize the word ALWAYS, been subsidized by the general fund. City parks are not self-funding, never have been and never will be, therefore, the general fund is tapped for the shortfall. This year the number is in the $200,000 range, when in years past it was as much as a million dollars. Kross and Shryock can't seem to understand that parks will never show a balanced budget but that didn't stop Shryock from demanding; "I want this budget balanced now!" Obviously, Ms. Kross and Shryock want some services cut from our current parks to make up for the shortfall, even to the extent of under-funding the new unfinished parks.
Kross at one time said; "Every year we have this white elephant in the room that we can't seem to take down with the tranquilizer gun." I watched the department heads while these discussions went on and noted the frustration in each of them while they tried to baby-sit Kross and Shryock through their prospected budgets. It wasn't pretty. In the end, Kross and Shryock were the only ones to want the Parks budget balanced.
One discussion I found interesting was brought up by Kross and supported by Shryock was regarding the addition of a Park Ranger in the 2014 budget. Kross doesn't want a new park ranger so as a solution she wants to take police officers off of their regular rounds to patrol the City parks. Recently, we had Mayor Nickolas Guccione getting "double fine zones" put in various subdivisions around the city without increasing police resources and now Kross wants more area patrolled. Kross uses the term; "life, health, and safety" a whole lot, which she started using a couple of years ago after hearing another alderman use it, yet she is willing to take our police off of the streets to patrol the new and existing parks. What am I missing? Shryock has little, or no chance of seeing a second term as alderman but she is following Kross right up to the edge of a cliff where Kross will pat her on the back over the edge.
Kross dominated the budget discussions with micro-managing, line-item minutia, while supporting unsustainable tax cut analysis burdens on Finance Director, Jeff Lenk. Lenk was directed to have his calculations ready by Friday, he said he would do his best to get it done before the budget public hearing to be held November 13th. After laying more work on an already over-worked finance department for something that will come back as an exercise in futility, Kross wasn't happy with Lenk's answer. "Oh my! How will we have time to read all of this before next Wednesday." Really, this is all you have to worry about, "when will you have time to read it?" From what I heard, Mr. Lenk gave good reasons why a tax-cut at this time would be unsustainable in coming years, but his assessment fell on deaf ears. If after making Lenk do this new analysis and it shows that a tax-cut is unsustainable, Kross needs to turn in her keys to the city.
This meeting of November 6th exhibited exactly why our high-level staff members are quitting or retiring at an alarming rate. Kross acts like the city has a full compliment of employees by making unreasonable demands of the few over-worked directors that we still do have. I wonder if our newly hired Public Works Director, Susan Mueller, and Finance Director, Jeff Lenk had any idea of the madhouse they were getting into. I'm now asking myself; Was Mayor Lambi really wrong when he had a muzzle on Alderman Cheryl Kross?
One discussion I found interesting was brought up by Kross and supported by Shryock was regarding the addition of a Park Ranger in the 2014 budget. Kross doesn't want a new park ranger so as a solution she wants to take police officers off of their regular rounds to patrol the City parks. Recently, we had Mayor Nickolas Guccione getting "double fine zones" put in various subdivisions around the city without increasing police resources and now Kross wants more area patrolled. Kross uses the term; "life, health, and safety" a whole lot, which she started using a couple of years ago after hearing another alderman use it, yet she is willing to take our police off of the streets to patrol the new and existing parks. What am I missing? Shryock has little, or no chance of seeing a second term as alderman but she is following Kross right up to the edge of a cliff where Kross will pat her on the back over the edge.
Kross dominated the budget discussions with micro-managing, line-item minutia, while supporting unsustainable tax cut analysis burdens on Finance Director, Jeff Lenk. Lenk was directed to have his calculations ready by Friday, he said he would do his best to get it done before the budget public hearing to be held November 13th. After laying more work on an already over-worked finance department for something that will come back as an exercise in futility, Kross wasn't happy with Lenk's answer. "Oh my! How will we have time to read all of this before next Wednesday." Really, this is all you have to worry about, "when will you have time to read it?" From what I heard, Mr. Lenk gave good reasons why a tax-cut at this time would be unsustainable in coming years, but his assessment fell on deaf ears. If after making Lenk do this new analysis and it shows that a tax-cut is unsustainable, Kross needs to turn in her keys to the city.
This meeting of November 6th exhibited exactly why our high-level staff members are quitting or retiring at an alarming rate. Kross acts like the city has a full compliment of employees by making unreasonable demands of the few over-worked directors that we still do have. I wonder if our newly hired Public Works Director, Susan Mueller, and Finance Director, Jeff Lenk had any idea of the madhouse they were getting into. I'm now asking myself; Was Mayor Lambi really wrong when he had a muzzle on Alderman Cheryl Kross?
