Balanced Budget Baloney

The City Council is proposing a balanced budget for 2008; according to them. Let’s see if you agree using your own household budget for comparison. Perhaps you believe that your budget is balanced on a yearly basis if the money spent is less than or equal to your income. The Council Majority does not.

If you take money from one household set-a-aside and use it for another purpose, are you balanced if the total expenses are still less than your income? Probably so because you made a necessary adjustment. Is it acceptable for the City to take money from say the Storm Water fees to pay for a building to store the winter salt pile supply? They did it in the past and are again. The fees were imposed for a specific purpose; not a public works building.

If you take money from your savings account to meet expenses because your income is less than expected or you had an unanticipated expense, are you balanced. No. The City believes that using money left over from the previous year is acceptable, just because its income won’t cover expenses.

If you need some money from relatives in order to pay your bills, do you believe that you have a balanced budget? Of course not, especially if you are not expected to pay it back. The City believes that having the urban renewal authority ($120K) and a federal CDBG grant ($100K) pay some of its existing salaries expenses don’t unbalance the budget.

Last Thursday I watched some members of the Council quickly jot down the following comment about the 2008 budget, “The budget is balanced and balanced in every fund.” Evidentially, getting a relative to pay some of your bills, digging into your savings account and using money from one fund to subsidize another still means that your household is balanced and in good shape.

Lastly, did you know that the overdue Huron St. project has been cancelled due to a lack of money indefinitely? They will fix the encroachment of Croke reservoir under Huron and then do a bang up job with the area immediately around the reservoir with some grants and city funds. As far as Huron St. goes, it will get fixed only after you approve a tax extension in November of next year.

104th Avenue's Ponds' Fix Up

It looks like my previous posting on the 104th Ave. strip park got the City’s attention. Or, maybe some of you expressed your opinion to the right people.

I noticed on Monday past, the 17th, that the city had a contractor taking some remedial action on the newly constructed sidewalk ponds. The contractor was auguring some holes adjacent to the sidewalk in order to create some French drains; holes filled with rock. The water should run off into the drain and alleviate the ponding.

It will be interesting to see how much the city will be paying for a corrective action that should not have been necessary. Hopefully it will only be a few thousand bucks.

104th Avenue's Strip Park

After a year long traffic mess along 104th Ave and a million dollars are spent, the construction along the north side of the right-of-way is finally completed. There are several story lines surrounding the project including the project’s origination, design, funding, planning, and engineering. I posted an article concerning the project’s inception on July 16, 2006 if you wish to check the archives.

For years the Trail did not know what maintenance met. The weeds thrived and the asphalt walkway aged and crumbled all under the watchful eye of the residents while the city staff and our Council representatives tended to more important issues. In the spring of 2006 our Council representatives finally felt the heat you generated and asked the staff for a solution.

Staff designed a project, with slight variations, and took it before the City Council for immediate consideration even though the project was not budgeted. The alternatives went far beyond the rehabilitation of the area. In fact, just addressing the deterioration and rehabilitation of the area was not even considered, as requested by residents.

By a 6-3 vote, the majority chose the alternative with the highest capital and maintenance cost: Grass, trees, boulders, oversized concrete and high water usage. In other words, we now have a high maintenance, environmentally unfriendly, million dollar strip park. Where is the common sense?

If you do not know how to do a job; plan for it. The Council loves to fund and the staff loves to plan, but when it comes down to it, they operate by the seat of their pants. On 7-16-06 I pointed out that in order for the Council to finance this project, scheduled, budgeted projects and activities were cancelled. In addition, the previous year’s fund balance was tapped.

We need to digress to the bigger picture generated by a small part of the “green and wet” project as it pertains to the street curb work. A few years ago Westminster asphalted 104th west of the city limits. Earlier this year Thornton placed a chip and seal on 104th east of I-25. As a result, the City has been embarrassed into another non-budgeted, seat of the pants, project. The crack sealing and patching that has occurred over the last month is leading up to a chip and seal surface treatment to keep pace with our neighbors.

The City Council can not be faulted entirely for this misbegotten project. The lack of common sense and experience of their staff played a major role. It takes experience to know, how to throw out the bath water without throwing out the baby. The staff should have given the Council various alternatives including enhanced maintenance, rehabilitation and xeriscaping but they chose to go for the whole megillah. They should have demanded more alternatives. Instead, we have the strip park along an arterial street. When you do not know how to intelligently fix a problem, trash it, and build new.

Another tribute to staff's design ability is shown in the picture. In total there are four ponds permanently built into the 104th project. I would expect that most residents would know not to put the walks in the lowest area. The picture clearly shows that some fill or proper sloping would have been a design solution.

It is a shame and waste that part of the work just completed will have to be destroyed when and if the Council decides to construct turn lanes for the intersecting streets west of Huron. Turn lanes would have been a better choice then the capital expense and ongoing costs for the sprinklers. It is just another design flaw by staff and a disinterested Council.