Kinda reminds me of Pat Lalley’s 100 EYES show that lasted a whole 17 minutes on Tuesday because none of the viewers gave him any comments to flap his gums about. I would have commented, but since us bloggers are not influential, would it have really mattered? He was able to talk about his favorite topic, him riding a bicycle to work. Thanks for reminding us Pat. Who knew?
I know Pat doesn’t sit on the Ed board of his employer, so I will cut him some slack, but they have proved once again that they know very little about what is going on in city government. I suggest the next time they want to spout off about a proposed change in the city charter, they speak with Beth, Jonathan, John and Megan. You know, the reporters that work for you that cover this sort of thing, until then, my non-influential perspective;
In the mid-1990s, the council approved the current policy. It allows the mayor and his department heads leeway to approve contracts – even big ones – without council approval. In a strong-mayor form of government, that certainly is an acceptable option.
Acceptable to who? The AL Ed Board? I believe a majority of the council approves of this, and thinks it is an acceptable change. In fact I spoke to a former city councilor about this the other night (not Staggers 🙂 and they told me this is something that his council even looked at after the Munson ‘Phillips to the Falls’ debacle.
Why it must change now is not really clear.
Are you living under a freaking rock? I think it is pretty clear why this needs to change. TRANSPARENCY!
We hope the council is indeed making a serious-minded effort to monitor spending here and not playing politics or making a power play out of this issue.
Yeah, what a HUGE power play they make out of approving malt beverage licenses on the consent agenda, which will be the same process used to approve these contracts. Do you folks also write opinions for FOX News?
The mayor’s office should offer ideas on the appropriate amounts and help forge a compromise.
This will necessitate some even-tempered discussion, but a workable policy shouldn’t be that difficult to achieve.
What!? They have been discussing this change for months! If not years. The time for compromising is over and done with, the first reading will appear on the city council meeting agenda on Monday (Item #24). That means the discussion is over with and it is time to act. Like I said above, the Ed Board needs to crawl out from under the rock they live and talk to their OWN reporters once in awhile. As Archie Bunker would say, ‘Jeeeezch’
I asked the mayor a few weeks back to change the employee salary listing on the city website. The new listing is now available (PDF). It is broken down into departments, alphabetically and they now have the YEARLY salary listed instead of bi-weekly. I thank Mike for fixing this, as he and I discussed at JazzFest, it wasn’t his doing, the past administration felt the need to be less transparent (Munson / Holsen). But now it is fixed and less misleading. SUCK ON THAT DAVE!
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My question is if the $115 million is written in stone? The special election will cost us $45,000, but well worth the pricetag.
Had to chuckle about this. Of course this wasn’t in the mayor’s proposal.
