It took until November 30, over four and a half months after he took over as Mayor of Davis, to finally have a discussion on the budget, and Mayor Don Saylor could not wait to get it over with.
As Councilmember Sue Greenwald pointed out during council discussions, the term “workshop” is probably misplaced here. What the endeavor amounted to was roughly 90 minutes of council time, of which two-thirds was taken up with a staff report that frankly could have been presented in private.
Mayor Saylor told council they would have a limited time for this item, but that there would be a number of other workshops. While clearly that is the case, it is hard to imagine a more important topic. This is one of the downsides to having only two council meetings a month, in that such a topic loads up the agenda and creates pressure to push things through.
In this case, the council simply came up with a number of questions that will apparently will be answered in succeeding workshops, hopefully once the Mayor has moved on to the Board of Supervisors.
The meeting featured a brief confrontation between the Mayor and Councilmember Sue Greenwald, who was able to ask a question. But then the Mayor cut off City Manager Paul Navazio from fully answering.
Critical questions remain about the structure of future budgets.
Councilmember Sue Greenwald told the public in a comment posted on the Vanguard earlier this morning, “The material for the workshop was not included in our packets, and was made available to us only on the dais.”
She continued, “The City Manager and the Mayor set the agenda, and I do not know why they scheduled a workshop before the material was ready.”
Of course, some of the most important information was provided in that folder, which Ms. Greenwald claims was not covered during the presentation and was not ready until council time. What is the point of distributing material that late in the process?
When Councilmember Greenwald asked about fully funding the retiree health, Mr. Navazio started to answer and was cut off.
She writes, “According to the last-minute written material (which the public does not have access to as far as I know), it is clear that we are going to be paying off the unfunded liability with much higher rates than we pay today over a period of 20 or 30 years (this is not the first time these figures have been seen by us, but it was clear from the discussion that we don’t fully have our arms around it yet).”
She continues, “The figures that Paul included in the packet were dated; they were compiled a few years ago. During the break, Paul told me he would calculate and send me the updated figures today which will specify the dollar amount of the added 20 or 30 year annual payments (over today’s costs) that will be needed to pay down the unfunded liability.”
“That figure is substantial, and will take a permanent structural downsizing to bridge,” she concluded.
This highlights the problem I am having with this entire process. There does not seem to be a willingness to be frank with the public about what these obligations will mean for the city down the line. We were happy to pump our chests about balanced budgets, being better off than the rest of the state, and with 15-percent reserve, but a lot of that is just talk.
The reality is that we basically squandered three years of time with MOUs that will not address the key issues facing the city’s fiscal situation.
We have balanced the budget only on paper, as we have failed to address unmet needs, such as roadway repairs, and have not accounted for where the money will come from to pay for the retirement of current employees.
The result is that we will have a city in the future that will have a good deal less to offer in terms of services, but no one wants to say that publicly. Nor does anyone want to admit fault for the situation.
Mayor Don Saylor has frankly tipped his hand. He has put everything else in the world in front of the most important issue facing the city. He did not schedule a meeting until late November that addressed this before the new council. He did not give this meeting adequate time for discussion.
The result is that the council basically wasted a couple of hours of their time because they were not prepared to discuss the material given to them just before the meeting.
If the Mayor really wants to make the trains run on time, he better find adequate funding for them. Otherwise, we have a lot of smoke, mirrors and a good show, but no substance.
The reality is that most of this meeting could have happened in a briefing memo from staff to council. The real importance of workshops is, as Councilmember Greenwald said, the ability for the entire council to discuss the matter at hand as group, not to listen to the City Manager tell them what he could have told them in private.
Hopefully, when Don Saylor is replaced as Mayor and councilmember, the new council will select a Mayor and a new councilmember who is committed to dealing with the tough issues rather than papering them over with phony meetings, workshops, and smoke and mirrors.
Until then, the city is likely to continue to slip towards the inevitable as the time keeps ticking towards the point where the council will not longer be acting proactively to prevent disaster, but instead will be reacting to disaster.
As Rich Rifkin put it last night in his own comment, “Either our City Council is realistic and makes the changes I have been calling for in my column for three-plus years, or a federal bankruptcy judge (who will be paid for by Davis taxpayers) will make those changes.”
Unfortunately, we know that will not happen on Don Saylor’s watch. As he attempts to run for higher office, this will be his legacy.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Do we have time to fire Saylor? How about a vote of no confidence?
dmg: “As Rich Rifkin put it last night in his own comment, “Either our City Council is realistic and makes the changes I have been calling for in my column for three-plus years, or a federal bankruptcy judge (who will be paid for by Davis taxpayers) will make those changes.”
Rich Rifkin is absolutely correct here.
dmg: “Unfortunately, we know that will not happen on Don Saylor’s watch. As he attempts to run for higher office, this will be his legacy.”
Good assessment. It will also be interesting to see how Saylor does as a County Supervisor where allegiances will be completely different than what he is used to. Provenza has proven to be a dedicated public servant, and the other Supervisors are entrenched veterans who represent their constituencies fairly well. This will be interesting…
Does anyone know yet how the new councilperson will be chosen, and by whom?
They can wait to fill the spot at the next earliest possible election date, which I think would be May 2011. Or any 3 council members can vote to appoint a replacement who would serve out the remainder of Don’s term. How they go about the process of replacing Don Saylor is entirely up to the council majority.
Barbara, I presume–but don’t actually know–that a majority of Stephen, Sue, Rochelle and Joe is going to pick the new member, who will then serve out the remaining two years of Don’s term. I don’t think there will be a vote of the public.
In Davis history, we have precedent for using a special election to seat a replacement member to the city council. And we have precedent for the council handpicking someone. Because Don refused to step down in time to elect his replacement at the last general election, it will be much more expensive to replace Don with a vote of the people in 2011, though that remains a possible choice for the council.
Hopefully the city won’t be put through the expense of a special election. Is there any reason why the seat couldn’t just go to whoever got the next highest number of votes in the CC election?
Regarding the discussion last night–or rather the lack of discussion–I was heartened that in his comments about what the council needs to do to actually solve our long-term fiscal problems, Stephen Sousa said something to the effect that we have to change the labor contracts. I was not keeping notes, but I think he implied that our salaries, pension formulas and our health care plans are not sustainable. Sue Greenwald has for many years been saying much the same thing, but since Lamar left the council she has been all alone on the council in this regard. If I am right that Stephen has finally seen the light, then that bodes well for starting to fix our budget beginning next year. So far, Joe and Ro have been a no-show. Neither of them had any substantive comments on any substantive topics. Their performances last night were abysmal, again. However, if the two more experienced members of the council who remain are on the same page when it comes to getting our fiscal house in order, then perhaps Ro and Joe will come to see what needs to be done, too.
[i]”Is there any reason why the seat couldn’t just go to whoever got the next highest number of votes in the CC election?”[/i]
There is no legal reason why that person, Sydney Vergis, could not be picked. However, the fact that she was rejected by the voters (twice, as it happens) suggests that she is probably not the right choice. Sydney did get 5,401 votes in that election, 1,027 less than Rochelle. Of the 23,069 votes cast, 23.4% favored Sydney. Given that everyone has the right to pick two, you could say she had the support of 46.8%, still a minority.
My preference at this point would be to select someone who has a lot of experience serving on one of the more important commissions, such as Budget and Finance or Planning. I asked Terry Whittier if he would take the job, but he said no. I still think Terry would be the best choice.
Maybe we could dust off Maynard Skinner or Jerry Adler!
[quote]Is there any reason why the seat couldn’t just go to whoever got the next highest number of votes in the CC election?[/quote]
Many people essentially voted no on Vergis and I think it would be a huge huge mistake to seat her. I hope the Council picks someone else–and yes someone who understands budget issues.
If I were a new council member, I would find this process incredibly frustrating. I would expect all information at least 2 – 3 days ahead of the meeting, would read it all and expect my fellow council members to have read all the material, and would be expecting the purpose of the meeting to be clarifications and action items. If the council wants to have informational workshops for the public, those could be separate public events. It seems to me that the current process minimizes council input, wastes a lot of time, and causes them to keep putting off action.
[quote]It seems to me that the current process minimizes council input, wastes a lot of time, and causes them to keep putting off action.[/quote]
Exactly right and you can bet your bippy its intentional.
Don Shor: ” It seems to me that the current process minimizes council input, wastes a lot of time, and causes them to keep putting off action.”
Dr. Wu: “Exactly right and you can bet your bippy its intentional.”
That’s how I see it! Why even bother having a workshop for the City Council, without having all materials distributed days before the workshop for Council members to read and digest? Why not table the workshop until the material is fully prepared,distributed, and an opportunity given for it to be read? MORE IMPORTANTLY, HOW DOES A CITY COUNCIL MAKE ANY INFORMED DECISIONS/MAKE INTELLIGENT COMMENTS/ASK INTELLIGENT QUESTIONS IF THEY HAVE HAD NO OPPORTUNITY TO EVEN READ THE MATERIAL AHEAD OF TIME? ARE CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS BEING EXPECTED TO “JUST TRUST CITY STAFF’S WORD FOR EVERYTHING”? THE SAME CITY STAFF WHO DID NOTHING SUBSTANTIVE ABOUT THE CITY’S STRUCTURAL DEFICITS?
This workshop was a lot of sound and furtiveness signifying not much of anything.