Why should you watch?
- How will Mayor Mike Martin justify the taxpayers approving a $500,000 tax increase on themselves? Should voters accept a FORTY PER CENT PROPERTY TAX INCREASE to provide Martin a huge chunk of additional revenue when he has been unable to provide council with a legitimate reason to approve his FY2012 proposed city budget? A new budget should have been approved nearly THREE MONTHS AGO.
- Will Finance Chairman Mike Pope have intelligible financial reports available for council to review and approve? Pope and Martin have been heaping praise on the efforts of $47.50 per hour clerk/bookkeeper Cordelia Schaber since she was hired in February. The sad state of the the city financials tell a far different story.
- Will Martin and/or Pope provide a reasonable explanation for why the $120,000 surplus-a surplus that was "locked in" by the FACT that a 2011 budgeted police officer and city clerk have been dropped from the city payroll-has mysteriously EVAPORATED?
- Now that another police officer has given notice, will Martin lay out a credible plan to at least keep the police department at its current depleted staffing level? Or will we soon see another Martin crony cruising around town with a gun strapped to his hip? This is Martin's "commitment to safety"?
- Will any discussion of the open records and records retention problems the city is experiencing be discussed? We will have more on that growing scandal in future reports.
- Will the taxpayers hear why Martin hired yet another computer company and will he provide an explanation why the city website is still "under construction" nearly ten full months after he took office?
As a wise man once said, "Its not whether the man is corrupt, or simply inept. He is a full measure of both!"
