Two bloggers suffered from insomnia and have already posted long detailed reports , with more to follow.
Bernice in her Plaintalker II devoted her report to the 3.4 million anticipated budget shortfall for FY2012 plus the Councils reaction to the Mayor's request to restore funding that had been cut. Specifically for Purchasing and Recreation divisions as well as her office.
Tony Rucker in his excellent new QC Progressive blog wrote about the discussion related to the PMUA.
Since part of my medical school training was in how to take rapid illegible notes, I again will not devote space to verbatim specifics but rather impressions and opinions on the meeting.
Once again the Council and public was favored by the presence of Freeholder Linda Carter. As I earlier noted the public meeting started less than an hour late, 59 minutes to be exact, and ended the same day 1 minute before midnight. One hour of the 3 1/2 meeting was due to a new and welcomed innovation by Council President McWilliams. The public will now have commentary time before the Council actually starts its agenda setting business, in addition to the end of the meeting slot.
This move apparently is an attempt to mitigate public complaints about the duration of these meetings which deprived many of the citizens the right to vocalize about city matters. It does not eliminate the too often situation where the Council is faced with an urgent decision due to an impending deadline.In that respect the change from the semi-monthly meetings remains a community disservice.
The most important part of the Agenda Setting Session is the time allotted to discussion and/or presentations related to important City issues. That includes appointments to various boards, and commissions. In addition the sub committee reports are a mirror to local problems and should be presented in writing with a brief verbal high light explanation. Unfortunately, too often some are just verbal summations.
Two brief items for this initial report; There will be a resolution on next weeks agenda appointing the Purchasing Director as 'Compliance Officer". The argument for this required position by the Acting City Administrator was that this was a traditional appointment. There was some questioning about the appropriateness by some Council members. My opinion is that since the Purchasing officer writes specifications for contracts and awards them by placing the responsibility that there are no irregularities in awarding the contracts is a case of asking "the fox to guard the hen house".
During a discussion on the roads and the parked cars creating problems for the snow plows with resulting narrow cleared streets, Councillor Mapp suggested that the Council pass an Ordinance prohibiting street parking during a snow emergency. I believe, which the Acting Corporation Council Conformed after my comments that there already was such an Ordinance on the books, but like many other "laws" it was never enforced. He, Corporation Council, will research it and report back next Monday.
More later today.
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As I noted at the meeting, the current purchasing manager was part of the three person bid review committee that approved the award of a contract based on a proposal that was signed by the vendor under false title and for which the vendor was ineligible by virtue of federal and state law. So much for compliance.
ReplyDeleteThere should be the proverbial Chinese Wall between purchasing and compliance. The integrity of those who have advanced this even this far needs to be seriously questioned. I don't know what they were even thinking. It's like the criminal returning to the scene of the crime.
If this isn't UNANIMOUSLY rejected by the Council it will be a clear indication of just who the water carriers are.
Mr. Goldstein is correct. Purging the purchasing department was bad fiscal policy. So much for cooperation. The only solution would be is to make Bibi Taylor the purchasing agent. I understand she has the certification.
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