IMPEACH THE FECKLESS EDMONDS 5!!!!
I was about to post a regular report for March, 2010, but the five members of the City Council have overstepped their positions. Pardon the strong sentiment of the following report:
IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE: THE EDMONDS CITY COUNCIL ACTS IN SECRET AND WASTES $1.1 MILLION!
The City Council that promised transparency in its operations has acted in secret to put the City into the financial red! Over the past three months, the Council held multiple behind-closed-doors executive sessions (February 16, March 9, March 16, March 23, April 6, and April 13) in regard to “real estate”.
The first Council meeting in April finally cast some light on these covert meetings, with a discussion of “hypothetical” purchases of property and development options along the railroad tracks, i.e., the Skipper’s property. The second Council meeting in April made the reason for this secrecy blindingly clear. Note: The second week of the month is designated as committee meeting night and typically the full Council does not meet, and thus citizens and media members would not expect a Council meeting. Why would the Council schedule a meeting on a second Tuesday if this property purchase was an above-board action?
The citizens of Edmonds learned on 4/9/10 that the Council had previously, in executive session, unanimously directed Council Members Buckshnis, Wilson, and Bernheim to meet privately and discuss development options for properties near the waterfront. However, Council Member Plunkett pretended not to remember this and accused these same Council Members of holding secret meetings to talk about development. Council member Plunkett then held his own private meeting with citizens regarding development on 4/9/10, and joined Council Members Bernheim, Orvis, Fraley-Monillas, and Buckshnis in a 5-2 vote to pay $1.1 million for the Skipper’s property (via phone vote) on 4/13/10.
In the 4/13/10 meeting, Council Member Buckshnis stated she was not concerned about the potential lack of funds in the City coffers to cover general operating expenditures (for things like parks, roads, safety, Police) because she does not trust the financial numbers coming from the City. However, she trusted the numbers enough to vote to spend 1.1 million of those dollars on a piece of property that has no plan.
The citizens of Edmonds should have been made aware of what the Council was contemplating such a purchase since these five Council members are putting the City into A DEFICIT. Citizens were not notified or even allowed to comment on the purchase before the vote. In fact, the Council agenda for March focused on the possibility of a levy on Edmonds citizens and budget cuts due to the coming financial shortfall. Note: THERE IS PUBLIC COMMENT ON THE COUNCIL AGENDA ON TUESDAY, APRIL 20TH! SHOW UP AND MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD! THE COUNCIL HAS VOTED TO PURCHASE THE PROPERTY BUT THE CITY CAN STILL PULL OUT!
Furthermore, the City Council appropriated $100,000 to study what might be able to be done with the property. This includes an appraisal (the Council agreed to pay $1.1 Million before it is known what the property was worth), environmental impact statements, and hiring consultants to prepare a plan for the options for the property. Again, the Council directed the Mayor to sign a $1.1 MILLION Purchase and Sale agreement for a piece of property that has no plan, no funding for development, no funding for maintenance, and that will drop in value in the next two years (commercial property values are expected to drop in 2011-12 as residential property did in 2008-09).
So what if the Council potentially pulls out of this purchase after paying $100,000 for consultants to provide a report stating that the property is vastly overvalued or the City discovers has no funding to develop or maintain the property, or the City determines that it has to pay for current operating expenses? What will the story be then? I would wager that Certain Council Members will champion their failed attempts to save our waterfront (this is railroad-front).
The last time the City Council wasted the citizen’s money on a small piece of property that they had no plan of funding for was for the postage-stamp-sized park by Old Milltown. The future park site still sits dormant due to a lack of City funding to develop or maintain it. A private charity is still trying to raise the money to develop and create a park on this property, years later.
The TRUTH IS OUT! Five members of the City Council have traded your City for their own self-aggrandizement. The five Council members who voted for this land purchase (Bernheim, Plunkett, Orvis, Buckshnis, and Fraley-Monillas) hid their intentions from the citizens of Edmonds.
Regular Report:
For the month of March, 2010, the citizens of Edmonds should be made aware of the following items.
There is some good news. The Council passed a resolution to support and pursue recommendations made by a citizen’s Economic Development Commission. Of note, however, is that Council members Buckshnis and Plunkett removed the funding for an action by the city to pursue these economic development recommendations due to the City’s financial challenges.
The following Council members made the following misstatements, misrepresentations, or contradictions in the Council meetings:
• In the 3/23/10 meeting, Council member Plunkett refused to vote to fund $2,500 for the Police Department’s Night Out event because City’s budget situation was too dire. This is a national event that teaches safety and crime prevention to citizens and kids. Note: The Edmonds Police Officer did not endorse Mr. Plunkett in his last election.
• Council member Plunkett stated that he would not, under any circumstances, put a levy on the ballot for Edmonds citizens to decide if they wanted to raise their own taxes, both at the 3/16/10 Council meeting and in a letter to the Editor he wrote to be published in The Beacon. However, at the Transportation Benefit Meeting the week before, Council member Plunkett stated that he would vote for the people to decide if they want to raise their own taxes by placing a ballot to increase car tabs.
The City of Edmonds redirected tax payer dollars from City projects to pay for or be at risk to pay for the following:
• The March public Council meetings focused on planning budget cuts and levies to cover the City’s budget shortfall, but in private executive sessions, the Council pursued expensive land purchases.
• The Council voted to set-aside approximately $600,000 in a separate account for asset acquisition. The fund contains nearly all of the assets gained by the City from Fire District 1 in 2009 (that at the time was supported by Council Members Plunkett and Orvis in order to address the City’s fiscal shortfall).
In addition, the following City Council members engaged in behavior contrary to their mission and duty as Council members:
• Council member Orvis: Was found not guilty by a jury in his trial on criminal Child Abuse charges. Editor’s note: Council member Orvis’ trial is over and a verdict reached. Because of that, this will be the last mention of the issue by yours truly. The facts of this case were never disputed—Mr. Orvis admits to the physical details of the case and that he “flipped out” that afternoon when he physically handled his son. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011540967_orvis07m.html
I have reported the issue here because of the response to these charges in the media and local community. Mr. Orvis’ behavior was excused by one resident, for example, because his son was adopted. I ask myself how the community would respond if the charges were for the same actions but waged against a wife, for example, or a daughter. The City can move forward now, but I don’t fault the few that found the lack of commentary to be troubling.
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John:
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your effort with this site, but it would be more credible if citizens knew your identity.
Your current entry is very informative, but it has a few errors. The strip park at Old Mill Town was purchased because of urging from citizens with funds that were available from the city's collection of Real Estate Excise Tax (REET). The REET money can only be used for parks. The city is not doing the improvements because a citizen's group agreed to do them. There have been a variety of reasons for the delay.
The FD1 contract was never done to save the city financially. It was done because it is a way for the city to more efficiently provide fire service.
The city did not receive any assets from FD1; the city received cash from FD1 for the sale of depreciating assets to them.
Ron Wambolt
Ron:
ReplyDeleteIt may have been your reason to move to FD1 for better service. However, Councilman Plunkett repeatedly said during his campaign for re-election that he had voted against the Levy because the FD1 deal would fill the budget hole. If I remember correctly, the Mayor had said the same thing to me.
The reason for the sale to FD1 however, is now irrelevant to the issue at hand. We have $700,000 in hand that can help us fill a budget deficit. However, instead of using that money for bills that need to be paid, we have decided to buy a piece of property.
Although I would be more than pleased to see that piece of property belong to the city, I cannot justify its purchase when Edmonds owes approximately $8 million to an underfunded retirement fund and re-negotiating our union contracts again.
Priya:
ReplyDeleteI know that I emphazied that FD1 wouldn't fix the financial problem, so did the mayor and others. I don't know what Plunkett said when campaigning.
$200k of the proceeds already have gone to building maintenance; that's ok for me. The remainder should not be in a council slush fund - which it now is. It should be in the general fund, and that's what the option we voted for last November specified.
@Ron;
ReplyDeleteThere were many arguments for the FD1 contract, at the time. I just went through the old Council minutes to be sure. Old letters to the Beacon are similarly varied.
The formulaic arguments for why it was necessary for the Council to rush to judgment on the FD1 deal were:
1. The city budget had significant shortfalls, and the Fire Department, being so large, was going to have to take some budget hits. That's a public safety issue.
2. With the nation in recession, revenues were far lower than expected, meaning that the budget hole would only grow bigger in the near future, making #1 more severe over time.
3. The FD1 contract provided some much-needed near-term income to cover the budget gap, while actually improving emergency services through economy of scale.
4. Without the short term cash from the FD1 deal, the Council had no other option but to run a levy. (Refer to the Levy Commission that unanimously recommended a levy in 2009 to cover budget shortfalls).
Those are all facts. Here's a speculation: a levy could NOT be run in 2009, as then it may have impacted the re-election campaign of the chair of the Finance Committee, Mr. Plunkett, who was asleep at the switch. Again.
Fact: Now, the general fund is at risk in a much shorter time period than anticipated. We're looking down the barrel of a levy again.
@John:
Thanks for the in-depth article. I don't think you should have to name yourself, as long as you are open to being corrected. With your identity known, you risk "punishment", like that being dealt out by Mr. Plunkett to the Edmonds Police.
While they are busy wasting our tax dollars on useless property, the PD has had to shut down its Crime Prevention program including the vacation house check program. The council killed the program at the end of 2008 & only through the generosity of the Rotary club & people who use the service it has been able to run for an extra 16 months.
ReplyDeleteThis program costs the city ONLY about $8,000 a year to maintain. That is less than the cost of a one month extension in the real estate deal they are planning. It seems to me the money would be much wiser spent on crime PREVENTION than crime solving.