The past two days of City Commission work sessions regarding the budget...

I don't know if you were able to listen to them. I probably heard about 70 percent of them - actually more of what went on yesterday more than today. Today's highlight was immediately followed by a low. Jessica Plotkin made her excellent presentation on the reason to use CDBG monies for capital improvement projects - like expansion of the gymnasium and sidewalk improvements around schools within the CDBG target area (previous post for map.)  This is consistent with the recommendation from the Finance Advisory Board and not fund an affordable housing program that would be run by the city.  Many reasons were laid out related to burden on staff, unpredictable flows of CDBG monies from year to year, redundancy in other affordable housing programs and the limited yield (13 houses) related to the broad benefit for the community for the gym expansion and sidewalks.

These points were rebuffed, primarily by Commissioners Jennings and Golden, but Mayor Varela and Commissioner Mulvehill supported some type of housing program run by the city as well. Commissioner Jennings expressed surprise that this was a change from work they had done to establish a department and that many of the County affordable housing programs and others had waiting lists. Commissioner Golden said that she wants to take care of the people that are here in the city first and many are in older homes that need repair. Many cannot afford the repairs. The format of the "work session" got in the way as no one could firmly decide through a vote on whether or not to agree to the housing program or not - that would have to be done at their budget hearing - but it was clear which way the vote would go. Commissioner Jennings complained that this is coming at the "last minute" and didn't understand why the establishment of a housing program by the city was an issue now. Again, here we have a situation where the recommendation from an advisory board is discounted and termed a "surprise" - their recommendation is part of the procedure. It seems that much of the Commission is challenged by procedure.

Other items I picked up on is that no one seems to be sure if the pool is going to be closed or not. If it is going to be closed, the State has to be notified since their grant money went to renovate the pool. And it seems like the pool itself and how it is going to be integrated into the ultimate refurbishing of the casino building and the renovation of the beach is still up in the air. The concept of an internal auditor was brought up by Commissioner Maxwell as someone that would be able to lend an objective opinion on the city's finances. Click here to read what the Charter says about an internal auditor - it is one of the positions appointed by the Commission, along with the City Manager and City Attorney. It was hard to tell where that discussion ended up, although the director of Finance gave a good summary of the difference between an internal and external auditor.

There is wide acknowledgement that the five year projections are an educated guess and will likely not come to pass exactly as portrayed. The answer to the question of how the city will address the significant projected funding gap in future years was addressed, but without any conclusion.

They also collectively talked about the marketing of the city. They were of the mind that it is important to do, but that they don't really have the money to hire someone - most of this discussion came during the golf course portion of the meeting, but it had larger implications than just the golf course. They talked about hiring someone who would be "at risk" - meaning the city would be marketed by someone for free and only paid if it worked out? I think this came from their discussion regarding the Construction Manager At-Risk that they are talking about for the beach project. In my mind, anyone who works for this city as a professional is "at risk", in one way or another, whether paid or not.

The last part of the meeting deteriorated to a point where Commissioner Maxwell didn't like inferences or statements regarding the nature of his relationship with the city manager - meaning that it is negative. The Mayor suggested a future meeting where they would talk about the nature of the relationship between staff and the Commission and the procedure for requests for information. Commissioner Maxwell is not being given some basic information - like monthly financial updates.

If anyone else listened to or attended these meetings, please feel free to comment here. For the amount of time allocated for these meetings a commensurate amount of progress was not made.