2/25/10 WORKSHOP-TOILETS TO ATTORNEYS
City Council Workshops are perhaps the most interesting public meetings in town. They’re also the most frustrating since nobody in the audience can add anything to the rather freewheeling discussion among the Councilpeople and city staff. I guess the Council Members feel the need to communicate freely on key topics since the Sunshine Law pretty much prohibits exchanges of ideas outside an official meeting where notes are taken.
For example, in a discussion of a pending Anti-Tethering of Dogs Ordinance, a representative of the Humane Society who I am certain had a lot of good information to aid the discussion was not allowed to enter the conversation. She was introduced and recognized, but couldn’t speak to the issue. Seems to me an exception could be made so that outside experts could take part in Workshop discussions. In fact, it might be helpful if, by consensus of the Council, outside experts might be invited to the Workshops to help frame policy. Incidentally, the Anti-dog Tethering Ordinance with a little tweaking will be coming up for a second reading soon if not at the next regular meeting of the Council.
On another matter, City Manager O’Reilly, (isn’t it great to not have “Acting” in front of his name), proposed a test or pilot Toilet Rebate Program similar to ones offered in most surrounding communities in conjunction with SWFWMD. Currently and in the past, the city has been shut out of the program because we buy our water from St. Petersburg. In order to offer the full rebate program with funding from a SWFWMD grant, St. Petersburg would have to cooperate and that cooperation has not been forthcoming. In order to respond to public demand, Manager O’Reilly has put together a pilot or test program using $20,000 out of the Public Works Fund. The money will be used to provide a $100 rebate to those who take out a high water volume toilet and replace it with a low water volume toilet. It will also pay for costs of administration by an outside consultant. The program is designed to replace about 150 toilets. It is hoped that eventually St. Petersburg will cooperate and we will be able to fully participate in the grant funded program.
While we applaud the Manager’s effort to preserve water and meet our citizens’ needs, it would be better if St. Petersburg acted like a good neighbor and allowed us into the full program. We also hope that the city vigorously pursues full cooperation from St. Petersburg lest we end up like we have in Clam Bayou with a toxic mess caused by years and years of their dumping toxic waste into Gulfport. Even though St. Petersburg sells us water and sewer usage, we pay the going rate and need not approach them with hat in hand when we have a legitimate beef.
Speaking of Clam Bayou, it looks like use of the Osgood Point Park will only be open to us in daylight hours in the near future. The Council agreed that dawn to dusk hours for park usage are warranted due to some of the shenanigans that take place behind the dunes after dark.
Mayor Yakes began the discussion on the status of our City Attorney position by confirming that the agreement with a search firm for a full time attorney was indeed over and that after some time with Atty. Salzman’s firm filling in, he was quite happy with the use of a full firm of municipal attorneys. He also said that he had consulted with staff and found that they were generally happy with the present situation. Vice Mayor Worthington agreed with the Mayor and stated that the present use of Salzman’s firm was not only satisfactory to the staff, but was less expensive than either the recent interim full-time attorney or the prior attorney who was on retainer.
Council Member Henderson expressed his approval of the performance of Atty. Salzman’s firm, but wanted to see some comparative figures on the proposed use of the firm vs. a full-time attorney. Council Member King stuck to her guns on preferring a full-time attorney and called for a full discussion and more research before acting at a future meeting.
City Clerk Leslie DeMuth said that the present arrangement is suitable to her department’s needs.
Atty. Salzman proposed that if the hiring of a firm is the route chosen by the Council, he would recommend that regular office hours be held by the attorney in the city hall so that staff and Council Members could have regular access to the attorney. He suggested every Thursday from 8 AM to 12 PM and a four hour session immediately prior to regular meetings of the council as being appropriate. He pointed out that this is similar to what his firm does in Largo. He naturally recommended the firm approach citing his own 8 member firm, all of whose members are specialists in municipal law. He stated that almost anything that might happen in Gulfport has probably been handled by firm members before. It would not be necessary to re-invent the wheel every time a legal problem arose. He also pointed out that his firm handles their own litigation eliminating the need to farm out any work.
Ciity Manager O’Reilly closed out the discussion by saying that he and staff would prepare a job description, (amazingly this hasn’t been done before), and compare the projected costs of the three approaches, i.e.’ a retainer based service, a full-time attorney and the hiring of a municipal law firm. He will present his report at a future meeting of the Council so that an informed decision can be made.
All in all, the workshop was a success in that key issues were dealt with effectively and future action seems to have been assured. It would have been better if citizens or outside experts could have shared their experience and ideas, but, oh well, that’s another discussion for another day.
A much more comfortable feeling surrounded the discussions now that our City Clerk Department is highly competent and stable and our Police Chief is permanent and fully in control. Once we settle the City Attorney matter, we should see things going a lot more smoothly in the future.
One issue at a time:
How a Workshop is conducted is up to them, I guess, and given the restrictive nature of the SunShine Laws I do suspect they need to gather to discus issues among themselves. I do not believe that the SunShine laws restrict anyone in that meeting from asking the opinion of the Humane Society on this matter outside of the confines of the Official Workshop. If they wanted or needed the information that this organization had to offer they could have sought it out beforehand and then brought it to the discussion. A letter can be presented or the Humane Society can attend Council Meetings. There are other venues that give access to citizen involvement.
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While I’m as much an advocate of the humane treatment of animals as anyone at that meeting, and probably more, I see this tethering issue as a Straw-Man argument. Where is the Police records proclaim the need for such a broad resolution? Where is the abuse in Gulfport? Are they just going to decree that everyone that puts their dog on a tether is abusive?
If there is a case of abuse, there is a County agency with State Certified Animal Control Officers http://www.pinellascounty.org/animalservices/ that address animal abuse specifically. If anyone in the City discovers that an animal is being abused they can call Animal Services as can the police department.
A person walking their dog on a leash the wrong way can cause more harm to the dog than any tether, will they address the abusive nature of choke chains and collars on dogs? Should they now require citizen take classes and purchase a license to walk a dog? In my opinion this was just a City Council Women looking for an issue to pull on the Heart Strings of this community, maybe we need a Heart String Resolution as well.
At a time when we are reducing the size and budget of the police department Michele King wants to build a redundancy into the City budget that is already paid for in County taxes. If she is suggesting that she will, school herself to become a Certified Animal Control Officer, respond to the calls and inspect every property for tethered dogs and abusive treatment, well OK, but we don’t need a resolution for volunteerism.
….to be continued…
http://www.gulfportinflorida.com
Note to self:
Explain how the new attorney arrangement has built in a time delay and excuse for inaction.
Less demand for water and sewerage is a needed goal, and if we were growing as a community I could see the immediate need for this pilot program, but given the fact that many people have left the City, leaving empty housing in their wake, I see no accelerating demand for this program now. With populations diminishing in Florida in the coming years, demand for more water is in question. The cold spell we’re experiencing is just another expected reaction from the larger issue of global change. The seas continue to get warmer, the El Nino cycle is stronger, the possibility of devastating storms are increasing and the population will continue to migrate away from the coastal regions. Housing value will continue to decline, old housing stock will not be insurable, winter vacation destinations will be more affordable and desirable closer to the equator, and Florida’s future is looking dim. Tourism is down, agriculture is down, growth is gone and the population is shrinking, I don’t know why we need to address toilet size now, unless it’s to serve the plumbers of the region. maybe we can find out what exactly has compelled our manager to address this issue now?
Our attorney cost $150 dollars an hours and we use him as we need him. We probably compile a number of issues and he is scheduled to addresses them at a time certain, say every week or two weeks and show up at meetings.
A conservative 10 hours = $1500 per week or $6000 per month or approx. $72,000.00 per year. Our City Council cost us Approx. $4000.00 per month in salary plus expenses. Low side $50,000.00.
For council and attorney fees we pay $122,000.00 per year and they spend most of their time addressing the contradictions that Council creates. Add to that the $500,000.00 dollars salaries and benefits paid the Fred Metcalf’s department, who, by the way, can’t seem to find their hands with either cheek.
Wouldn’t it be better if we could dump the council, Fred Metcalf’s department and the attorney and hire a consulting firm at half the cost? $612,200.00 dollars seems to be a large expenses for the services they provide.
Purportedly there were 3 or 4 requests for low flow toilet rebates. Is that really worth an expenditure of $20K? Why is it that the City of Gulfport is perfectly happy to let St.Pete hold us hostage on the toilet initiative and more importantly reclaimed water? We are their customer. Why is G’port not treated the same as other of their customers?