Outrageous, absolutely outrageous!
With only days remaining until the deadline for the Chili Cook-off purchase, we now learn that despite all of the ongoing assurances from City Council members that they would have many millions of dollars in grants in hand for the purchase, they now tell us that instead there may be zero, literally zero, grant funds available.
Why? Because the City failed to follow simple directions in applying for the grants. The level of incompetence is astounding! How can it be that the responsible staff member or members have not yet been fired? And, where was the oversight by the Council?
But that is only the start. With the knowledge of this debacle, what did the City Council do? Apparently, they kept it secret, and for how long, we can only guess. Days, weeks, months?
I am told that, contrary to procedure, no staff report was made available in advance of the meeting. Thus, the public was unaware of, and unable to comment on, what was about to unfold. And, what unfolded?
The Council, only after public comment was concluded, without proper notice and with no public input, decided on its own to indebt our city to the tune of some 171/2 million dollars, to possibly risk our other city parks as loan collateral, and to tap into perhaps many millions of dollars of the City’s reserve funds, thereby leaving fewer, if any, funds available for parks and ball fields, and making us far more vulnerable in an emergency such as an earthquake or fire.
How can they do this with no public input whatsoever?
But that’s not all. A huge question remains for each Council member to answer, in what may come to be known as Chili-Gate. What did they know and when did they know it?
Rich Fox