SO what do we do now?

Since my two weeks of spending a considerable amount of time on the trash issue, I have been surprised by how many people have stopped by the station to ask about trash. Questions probably better asked of the city or Benz. One nice lady even showed me her bill. Lots of mis-information out there. We have tried to (eventually) correct a lot of it on the air. But the question that comes up most often is…where are we in this mess?

Talking to Councilman Jerry Taylor last week on-air, he said (and I promised to back him on this) “it is what it is” and we just have to try to work with it. Now that’s not to say things won’t change. There is supposed to be a review of things in January. That could mean they might cut back on recycling pickups which might in turn reduce your bill. Yes PURELY speculation, but a possibility.

I haven’t honestly had a chance to talk to this group with the referendum. The best I can tell right now, if they get the signatures it would be on a ballot in our next election which is June 2010. What would it do? The way I understand it, it totally un-does EVERYTHING. With the state mandating some sort of mandatory thing, I guess we would go back to the drawing board. But the question of the decade would be, would YOU be a part of the process this time? You know who YOU are. You heard a little something about the trash thing. In the store or at work. But honestly you didn’t care, or worse, thought the lot of us were being a bit dramatic. That is until that blue bin showed up in your driveway….or when you got that first bill.

Will you be joining us this time? Or will you watch from the sideline.

 

A moment for the fallen….

I, so far, have been afraid to say this on the air…so I thought I would float it here first to see what kind of feedback I would get. What transpired at Ft. Hood was surely tragic. Whether or not it was an act of terrorism in it’s official sense, remains to be seen and I will save for a future post.  What got my attention was how fast the President called for flags to be flown at half staff.  It was certainly appropriate. However….what about the 50 we lost in the month of October, the worst month we have had to date in Afghanistan. So what I think is we need to fly flags at half staff…maybe once a month when the report comes out…or once a week.

We have thousands of men and women in harms way every day. We are talking about sending more (again-maybe another post). Why does it take one tragic event to force us to respect those we lost? Isn’t every loss a tragedy?

This is NOT Capitalism!

It’s a trash company. They have the contract in Ridgecrest. It’s exclusive. They call it a franchise agreement (monopoly partnership). My friends are asking me why I am taking a for profit business to task for doing the all-American thing and making a profit. It is after all capitalism. Ummm…afriad not. It’s very simple why it’s not. Their service is now MANDATORY. Oh, they say, well what about the businesses in Ridgecrest who are gouging? Well, see the way capitalism works….any business that doesn’t take care of its customers, they won’t frequent that business anymore. Then the business goes away. Wonder how the whole capitalism model changes when the city REQUIRES you to go to that business.

Now that trash is mandatory (and why wasn’t it before?), it is much like a utility. A Franchise agreement was something the city had with the cable company. Cable wasn’t mandatory, but the city received some consideration while the cable company provided quality TV service to the town. This is NOT cable. This is more like PG&E or Edison. We have to use it. When either of them want to raise rates, they have to go through the PUC and have public hearings. The trash company? Not so much. They just slap a price on it, admittedly, to expedite the paying off of the new equipment and trash bins. A good business does that. Makes sense. But after we ALL pay that debt, are our rates going down?

Then there’s the matter that slipped everyone’s attention at city hall. The trash company has new revenue streams from our fair city. The money they make on our cans and bottles and plastic. Because diligence wasn’t used in this matter, I was left scouring the net, trying to find some way to get a ballpark figure of what we are talking here. On my numbers (hardly science-but still researched) on cans alone, the trash company will make roughly $900k on our cans. If you want my formula, e-mail me.

It seems our fair council was in a time crunch. The state gave us a deadline or face a $10,000 a day fine. Now time crunches are relative. This one was, by most accounts, 9 months. Now I’m not sure (as previously posted) about the daily ins and outs of running our city “machine”. But nine months seems a sufficient amount of time to request bids for service and find out what kind of money we’re talking about generating with our own trash. It took me two hours to get to my number. But we assumed too much. We assumed no one of value would bid on a contract. We assumed more people take their cans to the local recycle box that not. You are NOT elected to assume. We HAVE a process. Let’s use it.

And for a trash company, which one online site says has annual sales of between $10 and $24 million (a wide berth and I always use the low number) do not on one hand tell us about your public service and on the other hand say you are just taking advantage of what was handed to you. Forget customer service when I call about a problem on my bill. Why not keep 10,000 households here on YOUR side. Do the right thing. Don’t hide behind capitalism. That’s a cop out.

A Word About Our Local Paper….

I ranted in an earlier post about an editorial that was in the paper. A couple of things. First…they did NOT bury the lead on that, they missed the point. I thought I would make that distinction. Next, I don’t want to be one of those guys that whines after something negative is in the paper. I would rather use it to inspire more conversation and I certainly don’t want to “pre-whine” wondering what that paper might say. That happens a lot here and it bugs me. Why? Well, except for the editorial page, there is nothing in the paper that is “slanted”. It’s old school baby. They send reporters out and get a story. I can’t stand it when anyone tears EITHER of our local papers down, because no matter what they want to get the truth out and almost to a person, they love this community.

I think it was a little earlier when I wondered why truth wasn’t part of journalism anymore.

Remember When Elections Were to Elect PEOPLE?

I had a couple of council members on the show this morning. Opposing views on whether or not the citizens of Ridgecrest should support a ballot initiative that will tell the council to do ANOTHER ballot initiative that let’s us decide if we want an elected mayor. Oh wait, there’s more. Another group yesterday came out with one that is supposed to address the trash issue. (wonder if the city should have done that LAST November) And finally, we hear that a certain retail chain, trying to get a bigger store in town, might do a ballot measure that might cut the appeal process down. And that is just at the city level.

Every time I am step in to vote I am surprised how long the ballot is. They aren’t cut and dried issues either. On some measure to vote against it, you have to vote FOR it! WTF?!?

For those of you not in California, I hear you don’t have as many as we do and that doesn’t surprise me. Occasionally we vote on rather or not our elected officials in Sacramento get a raise. We vote no, and then they vote themselves one 6 months later. Wanna fix the prisons? There’s a vote for that. Save the whales? Yup, there’s a vote for that. We get these BOOKS every year so we can study, so voting isn’t voting, it’s a test.

The bottom line is, when the process stops working, then, and usually ONLY then, do they take it to the people. Isn’t that backwards?

The Responsibility of City Government….

In Ridgecrest, our government is the Council-manager type of government…more specifically:

Under the council-manager form of government, the elected governing body (e.g., city council, city commission, board of selectmen, or other body of at least three individuals) is responsible for establishing policy, passing local ordinances, voting appropriations, and developing an overall vision for a city, town, or county. Under such a government, the mayor (or equivalent executive) performs primarily ceremonial duties, and is often drawn from and the presiding officer of the governing body.

The elected officials then appoint a professional city manager or administrator to oversee the daily operations of the government and implement the policies they establish. This individual serves the governing body, often with an employment agreement or contract that specifies his or her duties and responsibilities. Ideally, the manager is apolitical.

The council-manager system can be seen to place all power into the hands of the legislative branch. However, a city manager can be seen as a similar role to that of corporate chief executive officer (CEO) in providing professional management to an organization. Council-manager government is much like a publicly-traded corporation. In a corporation, the board of directors appoints a CEO, makes major decisions and wields representative power on behalf of shareholders. In council-manager government, the city council appoints a city manager, makes major decisions, and wields representative power on behalf of the citizens.

This system of government is used in 48.9% of American cities with populations of 2,500 or more, according to the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), a professional organization for city managers.

So when situations (missteps as Steven said about my previous post) happen….who gets the blame? Now blame is probably the wrong word, it reeks. Blame is a bad word, much like calling MISTAKES missteps. So, let’s look at it LIKE it’s a company. Who gets called to the carpet? How do you fix the problem.  How do assure the public that these type mistakes don’t happen again. In our city, most of the time it becomes a “personnel” issue and gets settled in closed session. Regardless of what you call it…to continue to watch it happen, time after time and see it downplayed or covered up, or worse…ignored…it becomes alarming.

I know nobody is perfect. I know mistakes happen. But this seems to be a constant lack of diligence. How did we do a contract with a trash company that’s evergreen. A ten year out? Seriously? We don’t go out for bids on mandatory recycling? We don’t put controls in to make rates competitive? We allow something to come to the planning commission that shouldn’t have then settle the thing with NO public disclosure? We draw out negotiations with Wal Mart (yes I know the ball has been in their court for sometime now but still) and the list goes on and on. As I said earlier, I consider a lot of these people friends, but how can anybody have a job with no accountability? Where are the staff meetings to keep people on the same page. Are they happening? Elected officials, who have full-time jobs put faith in that system and then are dismayed when it doesn’t work?

Who steps up to put this house in order. That is the question.

The Role of a Planning Commissioner as Defined….

At its regular meetings, the Planning Commission makes final decisions on requests for special permits. Other issues such as rezonings, abandonments, and annexations will receive a favorable or unfavorable recommendation, which will then be taken to City Council for a final hearing.

So, as the newspaper says, I DO know my place and feel fairly certain the rest of the commission does as well.  Here again, this time with an editorial, they buried the lead.  The story isn’t the Commissioners should know their place…the story is, WHY did this matter (AIC of course) come to us for our “recommendation”? If this was in fact a matter for administration or the Council, then why did we spend a majority of one meeting hearing from residents involved and from the business? In other words…WHY DID YOU WASTE OUR TIME? That my friends is the story. So the newspaper feels it is wrong for us to be upset after we made our “recommendation”? Well I would hope anyone that voted to not give AIC their six month extension would be upset. Especially after we did our due diligence in regard to this. But that too, totally misses the mark.

I can’t speak for anyone but myself in this regard. But for me…it was about perceptions. As much as I hate the term, perception is, in most cases, reality. We have a bad rap for backroom deals. Now a lot of normal city business, even that including developers does get done within the cozy confines of city hall. But in this case, there was evidently a mistake at the beginning (with the Commission taking this matter up), a mistake in allowing AIC to appeal (and in their defense, I’m sure spending valuable time gathering info), a mistake in leading the public again that they would have a say in the appeal…and at the 11th hour pull it from the agenda and make no reference to it in the meeting, even though the matter was solved. Pardon my French…but it is pure D chicken shit.

It led people to believe that first, the Planning Commission has been marginalized, the staff worked behind the scenes and made a “deal” and that the Council, through their silence, must have been covering something up. Strike three.

The biggest thing a candidate calls for, when rallying his support is the famous “transparency in government”. This is exactly what they speak of. The problem with that of course, once most of them get in office, they don’t want us to know the whole story about what is truly going on. I consider myself friends with a few of our Council members (well until this anyway-we’ll see) and same for staff. But we have developed a culture of working as a family, or as a team and supporting each other always. I’m sorry but when it comes to government…that is exactly what the problem is. If staff screwed up by not knowing the Commission should have had this..it should have been disclosed. And screw ups by the staff have happened a lot in the last two years. Now with repeat offenders, I know this has to be an H.R. issue probably not for the rest of us to know. I respect that. But when it puts a huge hole in our PROCESS, then sorry, we need to know who and why.

In case the bosses down at City Hall didn’t know. There is a huge unemployment problem right now, so I imagine filling a job vacancy shouldn’t be a problem. Council members also won’t always speak up when they don’t agree with another. They still like 5-0 votes…showing unity in our government. I didn’t vote for you to sing Kumbaya. I voted for you to support the mission of running a successful government that serves the people.

I hate that song anyway.

Don’t Ever Underestimate the Power of a Backbone….

Wow. Didn’t see that coming. At last night’s City Council meeting, the imaging company pulled their request for an extension. So the headline said. Dig a little deeper and you find out why. Evidently a deal had been struck with “administration” which gave them exactly what they wanted.

One of the knocks on this city has been the perceived ”back room deal”.  Without talking to any of the council members (shame on me but it’s still early)….it appears the council let lame duck City Manager Michael Avery do the deed that basically validates what I posted yesterday. It IS ok to come to Ridgecrest and do business against the rules and then when you are finally cornered, do the right thing, with an extra six months to do so. Even better, the folks from Heritage Village, who got to smell the diesel fumes, including the Montessori school, came to the meeting for nothing. What a process.

I think the thing that galls me most is that the council didn’t “man up” and at least have this hearing. Say what you will about the administrative move…you can’t tell me if a deal hadn’t been struck they would have pulled that appeal.

So the Planning Commission votes 5-0 to NOT give them their extension. The council doesn’t even participate in the process.

Again this city won’t get out of its own way.

A Picture is Worth 1000 Words and a Diesel Generator….

The Planning Commission had a matter in front of them that will probably be overturned by the Council tonight….needing to vent, and knowing I haven’t posted in a while, I cruised over to Word Press to kill two birds with one stone. Here’s the background…back in February, a medical imaging firm relocated to a couple of trailers located behind the “dying” Drummond facility. A couple of months later they moved to the Heritage Plaza business complesx, trailers and all. They hooked up diesel generators that pumped smoke into the Montessori school there. They were finally shut down. Then they come to the Commission wanting a 6 month extension to move inside of the buildings there. We basically said no to their extension request. Here’s why.

They repeatedly broke the rules (code) even after being warned. They thumbed their nose at the City of Ridgecrest and basically were telling everyone they didn’t have to play by the rules. Of course our city in it’s infinite wisdom, doesn’t have fines or any other punitive thing they can do. I felt our shutting them down until they got it right would suffice.

They are trying to make this about us being anti-business. We don’t support competition. We were protecting the hospital. Nothing could be further from the truth. From where I sat, it was all about telling them that we will NOT allow a business to come in here and do anything less than what is expected from them. It’s about fairness. The hospital is meeting rigorous standards in getting their new building up. Wonder if they considered putting their new imaging center in a couple of trailers out back.

My hope is that the Council will do the right thing tonight. But for them, lately, those decisions have been hard to come by.

The new Wal Mart saga continues….

Now don’t get me wrong…I am not a huge supporter of Wal Mart….there have been some issues raised over the years with how they may or may not mistreat their employees….hardly anything compelling there or any different from any other corporate environment for that matter….so let’s just look at this on it’s face…here is a cold hard fact…

In every city where Wal‐Mart has opened a Supercenter in California, the city‐wide Taxable Retail Sales (including apparel stores, general merchandise stores, grocery stores, home furnishing and appliance stores, and other retail stores) have increased in the year following the opening of the Supercenter as compared to the Taxable Retail Sales of the year prior to the opening. Moreover, city‐wide Taxable Retail Sales have continued to increase in each subsequent year in all communities that have had Wal‐Mart Supercenters for multiple years.

That’s from a survey done by an independent company….a survey that goes on to show other grocery stores do NOT close in those communities and they actually see an INCREASE in sales. Why? Aaron Rios from Wal Mart said it best at the meeting the other night. Retail Synergy. That’s fancy talk for more people staying in town to shop. The more stuff (meaning selection) they sell at Wal Mart…the more people are likely to stay in town to shop.

Which brings me to another point….if I hear one more person say “I tried to find it in town first and then I went out of town” I am going to be sick. What a freaking lie. Talk to the small business owners around town….ask them if people call or come by looking for a particular item. It just doesn’t happen. Nor do they ask a store if they can get it. Now I understand there are new fashion standards out there and people are not likely to buy clothes from Wal Mart. We lost our Mervyn’s. But for women there are a couple of shops here. AND a couple that have gone out of business.

Next time tell the truth…I like Target better….I only buy at Nordstom’s. Etc. The more retail dollars that are spent here increases our odds of getting more retail so when you go out of town…you can go for fun instead of these covert retail operations.