C / A in small town makes $767,000 plus per year ! Sound familiar ?(click here for the story.)
Gee whiz folks we have finally found a City Administrator with a higher salary that ours ! In this town of 38,000 our hero out there is getting darn near $800,000.00 per year, and the locals are incensed (do you blame them ?)
Amazing how no matter what the circumstances, or the financial plight the admin. folks still take home the most money ! Well what the heck is 97K (plus a take home car) among friends anyway ?
Oh, one other thing, have you noticed that our new web site is missing the "archives," convenient, no ? $7,000.00 for a new site that is hard to navigate, missing what we need to know, and is "retro 50's" at best. I guess that's the product of the admin. department, or at least the recommendation by one of the assistants ( Thanks for this waste of space and money !)
Tom Ford
NO. 779
Amazing how no matter what the circumstances, or the financial plight the admin. folks still take home the most money ! Well what the heck is 97K (plus a take home car) among friends anyway ?
Oh, one other thing, have you noticed that our new web site is missing the "archives," convenient, no ? $7,000.00 for a new site that is hard to navigate, missing what we need to know, and is "retro 50's" at best. I guess that's the product of the admin. department, or at least the recommendation by one of the assistants ( Thanks for this waste of space and money !)
Tom Ford
NO. 779
posted by Crestwood Independent at 18:37
8 Comments:
Perhaps you noticed on the news last night the small city in California which laid off 66 city workers,and yes police too, and contracted out for the jobs and stated it was going relatively smoothly.
2:44 PM Blogger: yes I did notice that story, we well may be at those gates in the very near future if some spending isn't curtailed.
Sub contracting is not a bad thing (I do it myself sometimes,) but as for Police and Fire I feel much more comfortable with people who know our streets and who the bad guys are.
There are a lot of jobs that could be sub contracted out, but I pray we never get to that position where it becomes necessary.
A Little less handing out the money like "His Honor" grew it on his farm is in order to insure we never get there in the first place.
Tom Ford
In our city it just seems like the gravity of our financial situation didn't sink in early enough. Then they dragged their feet making changes that should have been made a long time ago, and weren't much more than a dent. Then they laid off some people only to rehire others coming out with a draw. Of course we know insurance goes up every year, should plan on that, we also should know super sized salaries for rookie administrators, public works, etc. plus co. cars for police chief and CA who live in the ponderosa and the gas involved, and the old hits of legal expense involving a former CA and another chuck of change to the next CA after that, than another CA who left before accomplishing very much and new officials coming and going - and the money we pay the City attorney every month, well, one would think we have a money tree. Somewhere along this way it was no secret the plaza was fading fast. This, then, is where the rubber needed to hit the road. We had to pay off loc and various commitments, but we knew about revenues and we knew about expenses, but it just seemed like there was some denial involved. Waiting until you are up to your knees in alligators is not a good starting point. Employees who think residents are unreasonable don't realize that reality is cutting cost, all costs, will ultimately save jobs. voters want amenities a city offers, but not if it means a tax increase brought on by poor management, poor leadership and refusal to get serious at the get go. Then we annexed land which costs a lot in fire protection to the Affton Fire Dist.
A lot of residents have Crestwood fatigue. They are tired of the crap that has come out of city hall in the last several years.
Yes, that is a good term(fatigue) for the condition. But we must not blame it on the city per se. This city has been at the mercy of some bad leadership,decisions, legal bills and indescretion. Along the way we have also had some good leadership, too. But sadly it often has been ridiculed.
Crestwood has survived an amazing amount of litigation and cost in the lengthy purchase of the land which is now Whitecliff. It foolishly entered in the lawsuit of the Zorinsky's(mall owners) against Tipton Appl. which subleased to Kroger when they moved, and whose lease clearly did not prohibit this. Tipton cross sued and won a large sum. Then there was the 66-Drive Inn debacle and the long drawn out and expensive route to today.
Then we had the THF and property transfer and the private swimming pool behind city hall, moved to a totally absurb position in order to build Kohl's with a TIF and large advantage to the private pool and outlandish profit to the pool from THF who was partially reimbursed by the city.
Then we had a Mayor resign, and in his place we got a BOA and new Mayor, who turned the city over to a City Admn. (who was our Police chief also)and who created a city of secrets, was reimbursed for a BMW and put a ladyfriend in charge of finance and preceeded to advise Crestwood needed a city hall rehab with enlarged police dept. to the tune of 14.5 M. At this time we had been realizing tax revenues slip and slide and were working on a 2.5M LOC from a bank, using our city hall and public works property as collateral. Architect, contractor, studies ate up the bottom line, which was of course unstable. When this pipe dream came to an end,(instigated by a citizen appeal) legal bills and all the building plans ate up some more of the bottom line. Soon this CA and his ladyfriend left the scene with a hefty parting gift. During this time, the former CA had filed suit due to his dismissal early on. This, too, was not a budget boost. Lots of insurance for such a small city. Lot's of upheaval and new beginnings. Lot's of going back to ground zero Crestwood style. The next CA came along, spent a short time here and never had a grip on anything.
It stands to reason there has not been a meeting of the minds for some time. The politics of reason never reared its head. Now we have a mayor who has dismayed all those who supported him, and revels in his power and the fact he now cavorts with those who did not support him. Interesting, but not surprising. And as usual, the city is not benefitting in politics as usual. Now that reality has set in and we have an all but forsaken mall, and the budget is not quite up to snuff, we still gather in our tribal politics and hope that just once we get a board who looks back and realizes the need for 'class participation" and a reasonable need for the fact we are part of a new way of financing government. Budget revision and priority. In the meaantime, the city is disturbed by the fact that everytime we have an election, we get a whole new set of people not all that familiar with one another, the conditions of the city, its employees and properties,and the need to get serious quick and dedicate themselves to the smeared makeup in the mirror of the City of
Crestwood.
2;20 pm Blogger: Well written and well said ! That about nails it as far as I am concerned.
Now if the powers that be would just understand it we would all be better off !
Tom Ford
10:24 AM Blogger: Correct you are, you can see the "fatigue" at the polls when only 14% of the registered voters show up.
And you can see it at the BOA meetings when less than that show up, but if we are to change things we must not allow the malaise to set in !
"His Honor" and several of the Board members are counting on that malaise to put them in office for another term, thus perpetuating the "tax and spend" mentality !
Get to the polls, go to the meetings and tell them what you think because to paraphrase Mr. Elliot Davis, "Your paying for it !"
Tom Ford
BELL, Calif. (AP) - "Several hundred angry residents from a modest blue-collar Los Angeles suburb marched Sunday to call for the resignation of the mayor and some City Council members in a protest sparked by the sky-high salaries of three recently departed administrators.
The residents of the city of Bell marched to Oscar's Korner Market and Carniceria, owned by Mayor Oscar Hernandez, then to his home, demanding that he reduce his own six-figure compensation or quit.
They then did the same with some members of the City Council, with many marchers wearing T-shirts that read "My city is more corrupt than your city."
"I don't think they are taking it seriously. And we're serious," event organizer and longtime Bell resident Nestor Valencia, 45, told the Los Angeles Times. "They need to resign."
The protest was organized by Bell Association to Stop the Abuse, a group founded after the Times reported that Bell's city manager, police chief and assistant city manager were all being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, with city manager Robert Rizzo collecting a check of $787,637. All three resigned on Friday.
One in six residents of the city of 40,000 southeast of Los Angeles lives in poverty.
"This is a test for our community," Valencia said. "There's been a fiasco here."
The newspaper also revealed that the mayor and three of the council's four other members make about $100,000 a year, most of it in salaries for sitting on boards and commissions. Only Councilman Lorenzo Velez makes a modest salary of about $8,000 a year.
On Sunday, Velez issued a statement calling the other council salaries "unconscionable," and joined the calls for resignations unless other council members accept the same money he makes.
The City Council has called an emergency meeting Monday to address the issue. "
Humm, take a look at that Mr. City Administrator !
Tom Ford
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