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Joyce Clark Unfiltered

For "the rest of the story"

Jul 13

24

So you want to be a councilmember…Part 4

Posted by Joyce Clark on July 24, 2013
Posted in City Council Actions • City of Glendale • Glendale elected officials • Glendale finances  | Tagged With: , , , , , | 1 Comment

MIDDLE OF THE ROADERS…#4 WEIERS AND #5 SHERWOOD

Weiers

Jerry Weiers

Sherwood

Gary Sherwood

There is no earth shaking surprise in either of these gentlemen’s budgetary expenditures. Certainly they have not adopted the philosophy or practice of giving your taxpayer dollars away as Chavira, Alvarez and Hugh have done. Mayor Weiers 6 months of expenditures comes in at $14,041.33 and Councilmember Sherwood is not far behind with expenditures of $11,516.37.

It’s common knowledge that they don’t like each other very much as each vies for the title of ultimate power broker in Glendale. They are discussed in unison because they share commonalities when it comes to spending. Both like to travel with each racking up substantial travel expenses and each spent about the same amount for the use of phones whether land line or cell.

money 3Mayor Weiers spent $4,729.15 (33% of his 6 months of expenditures) on travel for 3 trips. In March he and Councilmembers Sherwood and Chavira, staffed by Intergovernmental Director, Brent Stoddard, went to Washington, D.C. for the National League of Cities (NLC) Congressional City Conference. In April Weiers and Stoddard went to Washington, D.C. for the Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC) Executive Mission. In May Weiers was back in D.C. with Stoddard. If Stoddard’s expenses to staff Weiers and others in D.C. are added those trips become pricier at $8,541.00.

money 5Sherwood spent $3,927.22 (34% of his 6 months of expenditures) on travel as well. If a quarter of Stoddard’s expenses (Stoddard staffed 3 elected officials on the March trip to D.C.) are added, Sherwood’s tab for travel cost the city $5,069.45 in direct and indirect costs. Stoddard typically pays for meals, especially dinners if the elected officials have not been invited by another party. He will pay cab fare and miscellaneous expenses on behalf of the elected officials.

Weiers’ phone bill comes in at $1,259.52 and Sherwood spent $449.10 for his cell and another $789.85 for his land line totaling $1,238.95. Their phone expenditures in 6 months are virtually the same. Is it appropriate to cover their phone expenses? That is a judgment call and something you must decide.The balance of their budgetary expenditures is ordinary and appropriate.

These trips were probably meaningful and were dedicated to lobbying for the city’s interests on issues such as the F-35 to be based at Luke and the casino issue. Everything in D.C. is pricey but we expect moderation. Their lodging and airfare are reasonable for a trip to D.C. but Stoddard’s expenditure of $1,284.52 for meals (dinners for 4) is on the high side.

In an era of frugality and tightened budgetary expenses in Glendale it is more important than ever before that our elected officials spend their travel dollars wisely. A reminder that these trips are funded with taxpayer dollars may encourage them to be more mindful.

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Jul 13

23

So you want to be a councilmember…Part 3

Posted by Joyce Clark on July 23, 2013
Posted in City Council Actions • City of Glendale • Glendale elected officials • Glendale finances  | Tagged With: , , , , , , | No Comments yet, please leave one

NEXT UP AS BIG SPENDERS ARE #2 ALVAREZ AND #3 HUGH

Norma Alvarez

Norma Alvarez

Hugh photo

Ian Hugh

Councilmember Alvarez is number 2 on the list having spent $26,151.34 and Councilmember Hugh comes in at third at $19,771.12. Both share Chavira’s philosophy of giving away your taxpayer dollars.

 

money 2Here is the list of Alvarez’ donations made in the past 6 months totaling  $16,791.40 (60% of her total 6 month expenditures):

 

  • Glendale Arizona Historical Society……………$3,000.00
  • Community Action Program Holiday Event….$3,000.00
  • Football uniforms for Independence HS…….…$3,391.40
  • Hope for Hunger…………………………………$    500.00
  • Scholarships………………………………………..$   900.00

 

  • Jivemind performance at a Glen. ES*.……………$3,000.00
  • Arizona Melon Festival, LLC*…………………….$3,000.00

*Last two items are for-profit corporations.

Like Chavira, Alvarez donated to the Arizona Melon Festival, LLC money 9(AMF). AMF received a total of $11,000 from 2 councilmembers, Chavira and Alvarez.  Jeff Rose, SW Director of Jivemind, is also a managing member of AMF. Alvarez also donated to Jivemind despite the fact that the Jivemind lease of city property requires the company to offer at least 4 free public events yearly. Ummmm… Also of note Jivemind is renting 6,559 square feet of city property (formerly the Bead Museum) for approximately $2.69/SF. In checking the going rate for lease of downtown Glendale commercial property the lowest cost per square foot that is currently listed is $6.00/SF. Ummmm…

money 8Here is the list of Hugh’s donations made in the past 6 months totaling $9,984.98 (50% of his total 6 month expenditures):

 

  • Glendale Arizona Historical Society……………..$4,669.98
  • Jerseys for youth project………………….……….$1,040.00
  • Hope for Hunger…………………………………..$3,000.00
  • Packages from Home…………………….….….…$1,000.00
  • The Salvation Army………………………..…….$   275.00

Other expenditures of note in Hugh’s budget are 1. Yep, you guessed it. Hugh’s cell phone, just like Chavira’s, is covered at $75 a month and 2. On May 13, 2013 Hugh hosted an event at Shane’s Ribmoney 1 Shack for $1,750.45. That’s a lot of ribs! Was it for his constituents? No further information is provided to clarify this noteworthy expense. It’s ironic that a councilmember whose focus and roots are in downtown Glendale chose a restaurant away from downtown and in Westgate.

All of the non-profits listed above are worthy and deservedly so. They offer much needed services in our community. Some of these groups also receive dollars from Glendale’s From the Heart Program or CBDG funding. From the Heart is a program in which residents have the option to pay an additional dollar on their water/sewer/sanitation bill every month. That dollar goes to From the Heart which often also receives grant match funding from other organizations. The funds are distributed to non-profits on an annual basis. In addition, as Alvarez well knows as a former director of Glendale’s Community Action Program, that the city is a pass-through federal funds (called Community Development Block Grant [CDBG] funds). CDBG funds are distributed annually to non-profits that assist the low to moderate income population in Glendale. These are successful, long-term city mechanisms to distribute funding to the economically disadvantaged and disabled within our community.

Is it appropriate for councilmembers to divert funding from their “communications” and “infrastructure” budgets to non-profits? They are taxpayer dollars and the only judge of these monetary awards is the councilmember. There are dangers in cronyism and abuse. What if there are constituents that are philosophically opposed? These councilmember actions make it perfectly clear that they are not focused on district resident outreach and providing their constituents timely information or in making awards that can physically improve the blight in some of their district neighborhoods.

Yet when these budgets were initially created that was the distinct purpose and intent for the use of these funds in councilmember budgets. The need to fund communication to constituents was an identified primary need as was the ability to “fix” minor neighborhood infrastructure issues that arose and were not budgeted for in the city budget. None of the former councilmembers ever voiced the intent to give the money away to their favorite charities. Yet Alvarez made monetary awards totaling 60% of her entire 6 month expenditures (January 1 to June 30, 2013) and Hugh made awards totaling 50%. It’s time to take a look at councilmember budgets and examine what are to be considered as appropriate expenditures.

money 5These very three councilmembers, Chavira ($27,000), Alvarez ($26,000) and Hugh ($19,000) are big spenders who have no problem in giving your taxpayer dollars to their favorite organizations. Their inability to reign in their individual council budgets demonstrates a philosophy loathe to reign in the city’s budget and to reduce spending. The city must reduce its spending by $23 million by FY 2017 when the increased sales tax sunsets. Yet these councilmembers continue to rack up new expenses that were unbudgeted such as $100,000+ for the Beacon bid process the results of which were ignored; or the $500,000 for an audit which will do no more than place blame on some city middle managers long gone from the organization. If they cannot practice frugality with their own council budgets why should we expect them to cut city expenses, something so desperately needed, that continue to outpace its revenues?

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Jul 13

19

So you want to be a councilmember…Part 1

Posted by Joyce Clark on July 19, 2013
Posted in City of Glendale • Glendale elected officials • Glendale finances  | Tagged With: , , , , | 6 Comments

THE TEASER

This, for those of you not in the media business, is called a “teaser.” Over the coming weeks each councilmember’s budgetary spending will be explored for the past 6 months, from January 15, 2013 when 4 new members took office, to June 30, 2013, the end of Fiscal Year 2013.

greed 1Here is the roster of spending from the highest to the lowest for the last 6 months of Fiscal Year 13:

  • Councilmember Chavira, Yucca district…….$27,748.18
  • Councilmember Alvarez, Ocotillo district ….$26,151.34
  • Councilmember Hugh, Cactus district………$19,711.12
  • Mayor Weiers…………………………………………….$14,041.33
  • Councilmember Sherwood, Sahuaro district..$11,516,89
  • Councilmember Martinez, Cholla district……$  7,717.47
  • Vice Mayor Knaack, Barrel district……………$  3,672.29

Why did Councilmember Chavira spend 7 ½ times the money spent by Vice Mayor Knaack? These are your taxpayer dollars. Is your district representative practicing fiscal restraint at a time when the city has fiscal problems?

Check back over the coming weeks as each councilmember’s budget is reviewed. The answers are revealing.

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Jul 13

1

Analysis of the Renaissance Sports and Entertainment bid…Part 3

Posted by Joyce Clark on July 1, 2013
Posted in City of Glendale • Glendale finances • Jobing.com arena  | Tagged With: , , , , , | 7 Comments

words 6bargaining 3I want to commend attorneys for both Glendale and RSE. When I received the original June 26th draft of the Agreement consisting of 93 pages it took me quite a few hours to review it line by line. I ended with 18 pages of notes and they have been quite handy and well worth my time. I had quite a few issues with the original document. In reviewing the latest version dated June 28th I am quite pleased to see that many – not all – but many of my issues have been addressed. One that made me laugh out loud was the provision that Glendale would receive 100% of the Naming Rights for a future theater/stage space to be constructed within the bowl. Further along in the original document it specified that Glendale must pay for its construction or the Arena Manager would receive the proceeds of Naming Rights and apply them as reimbursement for construction costs. That provision, thankfully, has been changed and it is no longer Glendale’s responsibility to fund its construction but it still has the right to receive 100% of the Naming Rights. It appears that cooperation and communication by both sides has gone a long way to resolve many of the issues.

contractHowever, there remain several major, outstanding issues. One of those issues is that of the Noncompetition/Non-Relocation Agreement. The original June 26th agreement refers often and specifically to the dual concepts of non-competition and non-relocation although the document was never provided publicly. So there was no companion document to review. This, in conjunction with the absence of any exhibits accompanying the release of the original version, is troubling but that is for another time. In the new version of the agreement reference is now made solely to a Non-Relocation Agreement. The concept of non-competition has been removed in its entirety. Is this positive or negative? There is no way of knowing since there is nothing with which to compare the current Non-Relocation Agreement.

threaten 1Another major shift from previous deals is the concept of mediation vs. arbitration. In previous deals arbitration was the “Dispute Remedy.” In all versions of the RSE Agreement mediation is the dispute resolution mechanism. There is a difference between the two procedures. In mediation a neutral third party acts as a facilitator but is not a decision maker. Neither party is required to complete the process nor is it legally binding. The mediation resolution can be appealed through the legal system. In arbitration the neutral party acts as judge and jury. The decision is generally binding and cannot be appealed, except under very special circumstances. Mediation can be more expensive because it allows for legal appeal as opposed to arbitration which is legally binding. So the question becomes why RSE’s insistence on mediation for it seems to be upon their insistence and not that of the city.

enter 3We now know that RSE used a figure of 23 non-hockey events with attendance of 15,000 per event. Those numbers are a component of their calculations in determining the revenues from the parking surcharge and ticket/supplemental surcharges. It appears to be over inflated but it is their number, not mine, not the city’s. That goal should be acknowledged within the Agreement by incorporating accompanying performance penalties and incentives. If RSE meets less than its self-proclaimed goal of 23 non-hockey events there should be a monetary penalty. It is a concept only used in the Agreement in conjunction with hockey games. If less than 41 games are played in the arena, there is a $150,000 penalty per game paid to the city. However, if RSE overachieves or underachieves in booking non-hockey events, it should be rewarded/penalized for doing so but there is no mention of such a concept within the Agreement. Fairness dictates that non-performance be penalized and success rewarded.

man moneyAnother interesting concept within the Agreement is language that exempts the Arena Manager from governmentally imposed lease taxes on the property. If, for some reason, the Arena Manager does have to pay them, that amount will be deducted from the City’s total annual revenue to be received. Hmmmm. Should there be lease property taxes imposed that have to be paid the city is required to pay them.

It also appears that instead of allowing the city’s contribution to the Capital Improvement Fund to accumulate year over year, the Capital Improvement Fund is set to “0” every year and the funds within it revert to the Renewal and Replacement Fund that is spent solely at the Arena Manager’s discretion.

The last major change to the document is the city addition of its own opt-out provision. The city views this action as entirely appropriate. Their assumption may be based on the notion that the city has more “skin in the game” than does RSE. $15M for each of 5 years equals $75M. It has been widely reported that RSE’s equity (or “skin”) is $45M. The proposal is that after 5 years, each side should have the option of deciding whether to continue, especially if one side or the other has accumulated over $50M in debt. That option, if it remains in the Agreement, would signal that RSE’s “enhanced revenue streams” did not perform as advertised. The city’s financial shortfall in this deal is of its own making. The current council will either be comfortable in its assumption that it can weather the effects of the shortfall or it will not. Continued insistence by the city on this provision destroys RSE’s ability to secure loans because it nullifies the very element they MUST have, which is a guaranteed $15M from the city.

agenda 1In my notes I have probably identified another two dozen minor issues that require further negotiation. Listing all would turn this blog into a book. I will not inflict that agony on you. It appears that with some further negotiation and communication this Agreement could work but it does not resolve Glendale’s fundamental issue of covering a monetary shortfall of $3M annually.

Many have asked me to reveal my position on this issue. That I will not do. I have provided you with financial information on the “enhanced revenue streams” as well as information on Glendale’s precarious financial position and Agreement points that need further resolution. Many of you reading this blog have expertise in business budgets and corporate negotiating. My role is to offer municipal expertise and to provide context to balance that.  It is up to you to decide if this is a good deal for Glendale.  This is exactly polling 1what every current councilmember is wrestling with. As leaders of this city they have the prime responsibility of insuring the continued financial health of the city. My feeling is that some are now struggling with recent decisions and recent votes and beginning to realize the effects of those decisions.

confusion 3Will this Agreement help or hinder Glendale’s continued financial health? Of course there is the overwhelming element of politics. Some councilmembers’ positions will be taken as a result of ego; others simply wouldn’t say ‘yes’ even if God invited them into the Pearly Gates; still others have only a partial grasp of the entirety of the deal. But it is not my call. I am no longer a sitting councilmember. Whatever their collective decision I will accept it and abide by it, as everyone should reasonably do.

Fasten your seat belts — if past history is any indication we are in for a bumpy ride. I hope that I am wrong but there may very well be challenges to this Agreement.

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Jun 13

30

Analysis of Renaissance Sports and Entertainment bid…Part 2

Posted by Joyce Clark on June 30, 2013
Posted in City of Glendale • Glendale finances • Jobing.com arena  | Tagged With: , , , | 2 Comments

In my last blog $3,109,580 was identified as the shortage Glendale faces with acceptance of the Renaissance Sports and Entertainment (RSE) bid. This requires looking at the city’s overall financial health. A useful measurement is to look at the city’s General Fund “Ending Balance” (it may be called Contingency Fund or Rainy Day Fund). It will be helpful to refer to slides presented at the city council workshop of June 29, 2013. Here is the link:

http://www.glendaleaz.com/Clerk/agendasandminutes/documents/062813CoyotesandArenaMgt.pdf .

coins 1Some historical context is in order. In the early to mid 2000s Glendale’s economy, along with the rest of the nation’s, was robust. The arena had been built, Westgate was taking shape and growing, developers were buying land in the surrounding area and submitting development plans faster than they could be processed. When the national recession first took shape the city had General Fund revenues of $131,807,000 and maintained an Ending Balance of $49,338,000 (well over the city policy of 10%). All “expert” advice, at that time, projected a deep recession of 3-5 years and a slow recovery. Council had the choice of starting to make major budget cuts (including lay-offs) or using its Contingency Fund. It chose to use its Contingency Fund to avoid lay-offs and to weather the recession. Was it the correct decision? Obviously not, but “Hindsight is 20-20.” We now know that budgetary cuts should have been made then, just as municipalities all over the valley did, for cuts are cumulative and can help to alleviate the need for drastic cuts in the future. There were some budgetary cuts made at the time and employee furloughs were instituted but those strategies were not strong or deep enough and came too late to create the desired outcome. Those following the Coyotes saga no doubt recall former Mayor Scruggs complaining bitterly and saying that we were told that Glendale was different and no cuts were necessary. What was done was done but it set up the current fiscal crisis the city now faces. By the end of the decade with the national economy still in recession the previous council had learned a painful lesson and was committed to making budget cuts and began a plan to do so.

We come to the present. The city’s total General Fund revenues for Fiscal Year (FY) 14 are $161,500,000 and projected to increase by a mere $800,000 over the next 5 years (FY 18) to $162,300,000. In the intervening years there are General Fund revenue increases of nearly $18M but they are temporary increases based upon the raised sales tax due to sunset in 5 years. After the 5th year, FY 2018, the sales tax increase sunsets and the General Fund revenue will revert to the level of FY 14. The temporary sales tax increase was designed to do one thing only. That was to provide the city some breathing room while it continued to make budget cuts of $5M a year for 5 years totaling $25M over 5 years AND rebuild its Ending Balance to a minimum of 10% of its General Fund revenues. It WAS a sound plan and a plan that allowed for a hockey lease. It is not the plan of the newly elected council for there are only scheduled cuts of $4.8M in FY15 and $9.5M in FY18 for a total of $14.3M. That is $10M shy of the amount that is needed to replenish the General Fund and will present problems when the sales tax increase disappears—unless this council decides to continue the sales tax increase ad infinitum. I suspect that is exactly what will occur despite its sunset promise included to gain citizen voter support to ratify the increase.

Now add a couple of facts.  First, the Fire Department had a structural deficit of $3.5M this Fiscal Year, FY 14. It was fixed by budget amendments passed by council 6 weeks ago and on June 28th. It solved the problem—for this year only. Next year the Fire Department will face the same structural deficit of $3.5M with no direction given by this council as to where and how this money is to be found. Our contractsecond fact is at the June 25th voting meeting of Council a restructured contract with Southwest Ambulance was approved. (FYI: SW’s Martin Nowakowski, its Public Affairs Director, is a friend of Norma Alvarez and Sammy Chavira and supported both in their election bids) The old contract called for 2 ambulances that were in operation 5 days a week for 9 hours a day. The new contract calls for 3 ambulances in operation 7 days a week for 24 hours a day. It results in an increase of future expense to the city, in this contract of $1M. It is possible that SW may pick up $400,000 of the million dollars but there is still an increased contract cost of $600,000 that is a new city obligation. And it may interest you to know that city personnel assisting on these ambulances are paid overtime pay by Glendale. What a sweet deal. Council was briefed and was made fully aware of the increased cost to the city. Neither example of fact has corresponding cuts in other areas. In particular, the Southwest Ambulance vote passed without a single councilmember question regarding it. These two fiscal examples demonstrate that council still refuses to recognize the serious financial condition of the city.

The city’s Ending Balance for this Fiscal Year, FY 14, is $8M and equals only 5% of the General Fund revenues — not a good position in which the city finds itself. The good news, however, is that it does grow in the next 5 years and by FY 18 is $20.3M (or 12% of General Fund Revenues).

Why is the Ending Balance or Contingency so important? First, it is a measurement that bond raters look to in order to determine a city’s creditworthiness. It’s like an individual’s FICO score. The higher it is the lower the interest rate. It serves a second purpose in that it can be drawn upon in an emergency or when unexpected expenses occur. For instance, the $120,000 paid for a search of a new City Manager and the $500,000 for the audit as well as the Beacon consultancy contract were paid from Contingency as these were new, unbudgeted expenses. Contingency can be used to cover increases in the price of gas for city vehicles and it can be used to cover unplanned increases in medical premium costs. Right now, with only $8M in reserve, the city is living on the edge.

How does acceptance of the RSE bid affect the city’s Ending Balance (Contingency Fund)? Instead of $8M in reserve this year, it drops to $5.7M or 4% of the city’s revenues. By FY 18 instead of a healthy Contingency of $20M it is only $8.6M (in other words, in 5 years, it is exactly the same as today).

How does acceptance of the RSE bid affect the city’s budget? Its revenues do not change but its expenses have increased by $9M as the city goes from paying a $6M a year management fee to a $15M a year management fee. We must factor in the “enhanced revenue streams” and in doing so the city projects a $2.3M shortage for this budget year (FY 14). I have shown a figure of $3.1M which I believe to be more realistic. However, whichever figure is used, there is a shortage that has to be covered.

If the RSE bid is accepted there are only three ways that the shortage can be covered. Some explanation is required to better understand Option #3 offered below. The city established an escrow account by borrowing money from other funds, i.e., Sanitation, Vehicle Replacement, etc. It has $20M in it – not quite the full $25M owed to the NHL for the second year of arena management. If the RSE bid is accepted the NHL has publicly stated that they will accept payment of that $25M in installments of $5M a year for 5 years. The options are:

  1. question 3The city can make further budget cuts in FY 14 by reducing service levels to residents, cutting more employees or trying to find further efficiencies
  2. It can pay the shortage from the  Contingency Fund by drawing down the balance to $2 or $3M instead of the current $5.7
  3. It can use the $20M reserved in its escrow account, earmarked for the second NHL payment of $25M, and bring down the reserved escrow amount by paying the NHL $5M this year and covering only this year’s shortfall of $2-3M

Imagine yourselves as a current councilmember for just a moment—not a Coyotes fan or a Ken Jones aficionado—but as someone charged with sound financial decisions for the city. Would you accept or reject RSE’s bid? If you chose to accept RSE’s bid which of the 3 options would you choose? Would you reexamine this council’s current financial plan to make strategic cuts and perhaps save Westgate and its future or would you make a leap of faith and decide that an anchor tenant is not necessary? It’s in your hands. In my next installment I will review items within the RSE contract that remain problematical for the city and could be resolved with further negotiation.

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May 13

1

There is no money to find

Posted by Joyce Clark on May 1, 2013
Posted in City of Glendale • Glendale finances  | Tagged With: , , , , , | 4 Comments

convention 2On Friday, April 26, 2013 the Glendale City Council had another special budget workshop. This time their agenda was to revisit the issues of police and fire requests for additional personnel and healthcare premium increases for employees and retirees.

Ms. Sherry Schurhammer once again presented the proposed budget and the cuts recommended for 2015 and 2018. Staff’s recommendation was to deny the police and fire requests for additional personnel and to accept the increased healthcare premiums. Her major take-away is that the city has a structural deficit and acceptance of this budget as proposed was the first step toward eliminating it.

Fire Chief Burdick came back with a revised request for an additional 8 positions and two  fire truck leases. Police Chief Black upped the police ante to 31 positions plus 6 non-sworn positions. Together these two departments requested a new ongoing expense for the General Fund of $5.5 million and a new one time expense of $1.2 million for the General Fund.

For most of the session there was a united front of 4 councilmembers willing to grant the police and fire departments their requests. They were Councilmembers Alvarez, Chavira, Sherwood and Vice Mayor Knaack. Later one of them will break from this pack and change the council consensus and direction to staff-but that’s for later in this blog. Let’s begin with the four’s reasoning for granting the police and fire wish list.

Norma Alvarez

Norma Alvarez

At least Councilmember Alvarez is consistent. She began with remarks like, “a business should be paying for their own” and “ they’ve (businesses) taken a lot.” Make no mistake. She was alluding to the city owned arena. She also suggested that we “forget festivals” and pointed out that Glendale Glitters will cost the city $759,000 to produce this coming year. She even suggested that the funding for Public Safety be taken out of the Enterprise Funds (water, sewer and sanitation). She made sure that everyone knew that “the past is what brought us here” and she’s “not gonna forget the past.” She became confused when talking about crime being up in Glendale. It depends on what kind of crime. Glendale’s overall crime rate is down but certain categories such as theft have gone up.  Apparently the bottom line was that she had received a complaint from a citizen (certainly not vast hoards of people) that a “suspicious activity” call was not answered for an hour. Obviously calls are prioritized. If there is imminent danger to life or a crime is in progress it receives the highest priority, a Number 1 and is answered within 4 or 5 minutes. A call such as she described would receive a priority of 3 or 4 and would be answered eventually when an officer was available. Apparently that is not good enough for her.  It was vintage Alvarez. She blamed others, protected her agenda in the guise of protecting the taxpayer and exhibited her usual amount of confusion.

Chavira photo

Sammy Chavira

We finally saw the true Councilmember Chavira as he stood in support of Alvarez’ desire for more police and fire personnel. He worried about “call degradation.” Bet he couldn’t define it for you. He literally blessed fire and police personnel. Solicitudes were oozing from every pore. He was clearly upset that the police department had asked for more personnel and funding than had the fire department.  Then he spoke the magic word, “parity.” Just to remind you, he is a Phoenix firefighter and is going to push his brother Glendale firefighters’ agenda. He and his brother firefighters positively bristled at the mere possibility that police could end up with “more” than they would. So he suggested that the police personnel request be reduced to 20 personnel thereby reducing the ongoing request to $4 million. Make no mistake. His agenda is to further the desires of the Glendale Fire Department. They own him. Not just because he’s a brother firefighter but because the fire union poured upwards of $50,000 into his campaign. That’s a lot of chump change that Sammy will be paying back for a very long time. What Chavira did was not helpful. He widened minor disagreements between fire and police into the size of the Grand Canyon. It has now surfaced like an unwanted boil on your backside.

Martinez photo

Manny Martinez

Councilmember Sherwood offered some well thought out questions and clearly supported the police and fire requests. He, at the end of the session, still felt that if the city paid less back on a loan it has with the Enterprise Funds, the city could pay the additional costs of these requests. Councilmember Martinez stuck to his guns and simply made the point that it was not appropriate to grant these requests and that they “were not in a popularity contest.” He also said it was not productive to continually go back to the past and to point fingers. Councilmember Hugh was silent until the end of the session.

Knaack

Yvonne Knaack

Vice Mayor Knaack made it clear she was in public safety’s corner when she said the defeat of Proposition 457 (would have allowed the removal of sales tax increase) was due to Public Safety’s efforts.  She said that voters defeated it because public’s perception was that its defeat would preserve Public Safety. I know that is the message that police and fire were using in their campaign to defeat Prop 457. All that I can say is that at the very least, Councilmember Martinez and I made it very clear, often and quite publicly, that its defeat would prevent the city from making draconian cuts to this year’s budget and buy the city time to make more temperate cuts over the next five years. We both repeatedly referred to the city’s structural deficit. We did not say it would save fire and police jobs. We said it would save the city from having to make major personnel cuts to any department but that cuts would still be needed.

The issue of the proportionality of public safety sales tax was initiated by Vice Mayor Knaack. The voter approved tax calls for proportionally 1/3 to fire and 2/3 to police.  This will surface again but I think council will find that changing the proportionality of the tax is far more complicated than they know. She also publicly acknowledged that the arena management fee could very well be higher than the $6M in this budget.

Perhaps the surprise of the session was comments made by the Fire Chief. He said $1.2M to $1.3M was needed to insure “constant staffing” within the department. One would think that would be his first priority within his department budget. He also indicated that he would have “no problem shutting down a truck” to cover his department’s overtime. He virtually threatened council with his observation that they will have to make policy decisions regarding fire next year. He followed that by saying he would close a fire station if fire was not adequately funded. The nut is the definition of “adequately.”

Weiers

Jerry Weiers

Mayor Weiers also offered some rather interesting remarks. He noted “the angst between the fire and police departments.” He also said that the previous council should have stayed with the 1.2% sales tax increase across the board rather than the 7/10s in place now.  He then called for council to express their final positions so that consensus could be achieved and direction given to staff. It broke Alvarez-Chavira-Sherwood-Knaack in favor of increased revenues to police and fire. Weiers-Hugh-Martinez were opposed and wanted to accept the staff recommendation. It appeared that fire and police had won the day but wait…

Bowers

Dick Bowers

Interim City Manager Dick Bowers responded with “there is no money to find” and the proposed budget as presented is a “sound and reasonable approach.” He indicated that if council gave direction to accede to police and fire requests, cuts to all other departments would be “surgical.” It was then requested that council identify which departments they would like to see eliminated to meet the police and fire financial requests. Council then spent 5 or 10 minutes reading the material related to departments other than fire, police or enterprise departments. It was embarrassing painful to watch but  reality set in when they realized how much would have to be cut. Vice Mayor Knaack finally broke and changed her direction in support of the staff recommendation. Chavira made one stab to try to get her back into the fold and she responded with, “I have the right to change my mind.” It was a tough decision to make but she did the right thing.

Two important lessons surfaced from this workshop. A majority of this council has not accepted that there is a structural budget deficit and expenses are outstripping revenues; and fire has bared its teeth with dire promises to delivery service if their demands are not met in the next year’s budget. Mayor Weiers, Councilmembers Martinez and Hugh are to be commended for holding the line and accepting that budgetary expenses must be pared and pared now.

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Apr 13

17

City council plays the same song…over…and over…and over

Posted by Joyce Clark on April 17, 2013
Posted in City Council Actions • City of Glendale • Glendale finances  | Tagged With: , , , | 2 Comments

cit mtg 2Congratulations are in order to city staff. At the City Council workshop of April 16, 2013 working in an atmosphere where the current city council is loathe to make any budget cuts that are associated with layoffs and in fact wants to add additional police and fire positions is difficult, to say the very least. The cuts that this council will not accept remain necessary even as they collectively stick their heads in the sand.

Staff, knowing that cuts to the budget will not be accepted, took the obverse approach and has offered this council revenue enhancement. It seems that raising property taxes and collecting additional revenue from the Enterprise Funds for services provided by the General Fund may be the answer. This is not the final solution, however. As Ms. Schurhammer stated today, budget cuts, albeit more modest ones, are still needed and the sooner the better. As she and the rest of staff have said repeatedly the city’s budget has a structural deficit. In other words, more is spent than is taken in.

Knaack

Yvonne Knaack

It was noted that Vice Mayor Knaack, a member in good standing for many years, of the “gang of four” (voting bloc of the former mayor), now repudiates the former mayor’s imperative to keep the city’s property tax rate low. She actually had the temerity to say that she never supported the former mayor’s desire to keep property taxes artificially low. Too bad she never spoke out publicly or demonstrated her beliefs in a vote.

Chavira photo

Sam Chavira

Councilmember Chavira once again, embarrassingly and obviously, carried fire’s water bucket in an attempt to get this council to support granting the 15 fire fighter positions (at a cost of $1.5M every year) coveted by the fire department. If one didn’t know his agenda all one had to do was watch his performance in feeding positive questions to the Fire Chief to immediately figure it out. Every once in a while he would throw the police department a bone by including them in the discussion but his sole objective was to advance the cause of his brother firefighters. Mr. Bowers, Interim City Manager, made it very clear that the staff recommendation is to deny any supplemental requests this year including those of fire and police. His reasoning was straight forward and quite clear, “The city simply does not have the money.” This time, at least for now, council listened and it appears that these supplementals will not be granted. This council is not quite done with this subject. I suspect they will look for other means to grant, at the very least, fire’s supplemental.

Sherwood

Gary Sherwood

Councilmember Sherwood once again raised the question as to whether a figure of $6M was adequate for the arena costs. He became a little confused in attempting to get the figure of annual revenue the arena generated (not all of Westgate…and the western world…thank you) out. Well, we, dear readers, already know what that figure is from a previous blog where I conveyed the average numbers reported by the NHL as the manager of the arena. Ta Da! That revenue figure averages $6 to $7 million annually. No one else on council seemed interested in a workshop on arena costs and revenues so it died as a future topic.

musicCouncilmember Alvarez appears to have only two songs in her repertoire. One is the siren song to support the Tohono O’odham in its quest to plant a casino in Glendale less than a quarter mile away from Westgate. Again she called for a public forum (read free favorable publicity for the Tohono O’odham) before council. Again, she was rejected by a majority of the council. Does she not understand that the city is a party to state and Tribal interest litigation against the casino?

Norma Alvarez

Norma Alvarez

Her other one-note song is blaming others for her belief in the city’s continual waste of money. Please note it is a waste of money to her if it is not being spent to increase the salaries of its low wage employees. Her public definition of low wage employees is anyone making under $130,000. My goodness…reminds me of Obama’s definition of the rich ($250K annually, for tax purposes)!  Today’s rant on city waste was twofold: the absolute waste of the city’s involvement in Camelback Ranch and the car dealership coming finally to Bell Road with the city’s incentive to forgive a portion of sales tax for a specified amount of time. She refuses to understand that the dollar a year rental of Camelback Ranch for the teams is in exchange for their picking up the tab for operating and maintaining the facility year round (saving the city a cost of easily a million dollars a year). Instead of taking the time to truly understand the issue we hear her accusations of the city being too busy thinking of the glory of sports and not realizing that sports bring the city nothing. What she fails to realize that as part of this new council she bears the same baggage as the rest of them. On her watch the dealership will come in. Therefore on her watch the dealership will receive the sales tax incentive.

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Apr 13

3

Gimme more

Posted by Joyce Clark on April 3, 2013
Posted in City Council Actions • City of Glendale • Glendale elected officials • Glendale finances  | Tagged With: , , , , , | 5 Comments

convention 2Wow! It’s difficult to summarize the 2 1/2 hour, April 2, 2013, Glendale city council workshop into about 1,500 words – but here goes. First up was the city’s Intergovernmental Director, Brent Stoddard, reporting on HB 2657 before the state legislature.  In a nutshell, cities can support 7 provisions of the bill but 3 provisions are in dispute with the state.  The legislature wants the state Department of Revenue (DOR) to collect all sales taxes from all cities in the state. Currently Glendale and 17 others collect their sales taxes, report and remit the state’s portion to the state. Guess the state doesn’t trust those cities. The cities have countered with a proposal to offer a one-stop portal through a third party that would be managed by the DOR. I guess the state doesn’t trust cities to audit businesses either and want to take over that function exclusively as well. The cities have proposed the creation of uniform auditing standards; and the ability to request of and notify the DOR so that a city could still perform the audit. Lastly, the issue of dreaded construction sales tax issue was discussed. It appears that both sides, the state and the cities, are miles apart on this one. No resolution to be had as of this date. Stay tuned for the next chapter on this issue.

Chavira photo

Sam Chavira

Next up was the Police department presentation by Interim Chief Black. Our fearless leader of and advocate for all things Public Safety Councilmember Chavira asked, if the department was adequately staffed to protect residents and keep officers safe. After winnowing through all of the rhetoric, Chief Black reluctantly said, yes by saying, “we are meeting the needs of the community as best we can with the allocated funding.” How’s that for threading the needle?

Chief Black and her department are to be commended for their innovation and creativity. As a result of their reorganization efforts patrol staffing will go from 166 to 182 officers, increasing an officer’s pro-active patrol time from a low of 11 minutes to about 16 minutes per hour. That is phenomenal considering Glendale’s current financial position.  Their adoption of a new CAD system this fall will include an automated vehicle locator on all patrol cars enabling the dispatcher to send the closest available unit. This new system will create fuel cost savings and reduce response times.

Norma Alvarez

Norma Alvarez

Naturally, Councilmember Alvarez admitted that she didn’t understand all the numbers and “stuff.” Based upon her Ouija board, she KNOWS that the city’s residents are not well protected, especially in south Glendale, the area in which she lives and which she represents. The heck with the entire city. She went on to say that she didn’t want Chief Black to be a good employee and to work within the city’s fiscal constraints. Alvarez also said “we have to put more officers out there” and we can take dollars from programs that are a luxury. It will be interesting to see what she defines as a luxury.

There was a lot of discussion about the 8 police zones into which the city is currently configured. It seems no one on council could wrap their heads around this concept. What was not communicated is that all zones are not created equally, at least in size. Their dimensions are based on the number of calls for service as well as what makes sense geographically for patrol and response times. The more calls for service in an area, the smaller the zone gets.

Knaack

Yvonne Knaack

Vice Mayor Knaack then said the level of police staffing was “unacceptable.” By whose or what definition?  I guess the fact that our police department in July, 2012, was re-accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement (CALEA) once again and for the first time was awarded the Gold Standard doesn’t mean anything and can be ignored. Really? When pressed by Knaack, Chief Black indicated it would be nice to be at fully authorized strength by adding another 31 officers. Bingo. Yet the police department has $7M as contingency in their public safety sales tax fund. I, like Vice Mayor Knaack, remember distinctly that one of the purposes of this public safety sales tax was to hire more officers.

Fire Chief Burdick’s presentation was interesting for what he said but also for what he did not say. The fire department still holds to a 4 person staffing model on all of its engine and ladder trucks and one is a firefighter/paramedic on each truck. Four men on a truck to answer fire calls is necessary to meet OSHA’s 2-in-2-out law. That mandate makes sense. That means for a working fire, while 2 firefighters are in a building, there are 2 on the outside to make rescue if necessary. Perfectly logical for working fire service calls. True, the number of working fires has increased by 26% due to automatic aid. Are all of those working fires in Glendale? Probably not.

The vast majority of calls are medical (estimate is that they are at least 80% of all calls for service) requiring either advanced life support or basic life support. Why doesn’t the city have smaller vehicles staffed with paramedics?  When a fire unit is dispatched it is told what kind of call to which it is going to respond. Smaller vehicles used for medical calls would be more fuel efficient and cost less to operate and maintain and would not require 4 man units. Or perhaps a medical transport vehicle with 2 Glendale paramedics on board should be sent. There has to be a better, more cost efficient way to respond to medical calls than sending a very big and very expensive fire truck.

Weiers

Jerry Weiers

Mayor Weiers did ask about automatic aid and what was the ratio of calls between Phoenix and Glendale and Peoria and Glendale.  Bravo. Not surprisingly, Chief Burdick didn’t have that information and said he would provide it. This is typical of staff when there is a question that they would rather not answer publicly.  Usually it’s because the answer doesn’t advance their cause. Weiers did bring up another suggestion, the use of an LPN in answering medical calls. The LPN could write prescriptions and make a determination if medical transport was needed.  That idea met with a great deal of resistance by Chief Burdick despite his admission that it is a model being used in Mesa. It could very well be an idea whose time has come. Using a truck that gets 5 miles to the gallon with 4 firefighters/paramedic is no longer cost effective at a time when the majority of calls for service are medical.

Chief Burdick, after this annoying interruption with questions of fact, was then asked by Councilmember Chavira if the department was adequately staffed and if firefighters were safe. Once again, cutting through the rhetoric, his answer was, yes today, quickly followed by a need to address excessive call volume. Whose? Those of Glendale residents? Phoenix residents? Peoria residents? We don’t know because that information was not provided.

Vice Mayor Knaack cut to chase and asked what he needed. Immediately the chief responded with another 15 firefighters and another truck ($650,000 price tag but would pay $65K a year in a lease back). Bingo.

greed 1The councilmembers’ questions certainly fed both departments’ agendas of “gimme more.” And why wouldn’t they? Look at some facts. In the last election cycle both unions, police and fire, supported Weiers, Sherwood, Hugh and Chavira. Vice Mayor Knaack and Councilmember Martinez received the same healthy union support in their last reelection bid in 2010. The police union was a minor player in both elections not having the same political war chest or available personnel as the fire union. The fire union, on the other hand, made sure there were cash contributions by individual, non-Glendale, firefighters to their campaigns, paid for printing and mailing campaign literature and paid for and put up campaign signs for these very same people now deciding to beef up these departments-because staffing levels are “unacceptable.” There is nothing illegal about any of these actions. It’s Politics 101 but it doesn’t serve, you, the taxpayer very well. Perhaps the parks and recreation people or the finance people need a union to level the playing field.

Sherwood

Gary Sherwood

Under Council Items of Special Interest, Councilmember Sherwood called for starting a search for a permanent City Attorney. What was truly mind-boggling was Councilmember Alvarez’ request that the City submit grant applications to the Tohono O’odham tribe for Public Safety dollars. What about we are still in litigation with the TO doesn’t she understand? When one is in a legally adversarial position with another, one does not ask for handouts from his adversary. She also thinks the city is mean and nasty because it owns the web page for the West Valley Resort and the TO has to pay the city annually for the right to use it. It is true. Congratulations to the city for pulling such a wonderfully, snarky yet brilliant move.

Council then adjourned into Executive session. Topics up for discussion: external audit, arena RFP, compensation for departing City Attorney and compensation for the new Interim City Manager. I suspect we will find out the results in a day or two.

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Apr 13

2

Heard around the water cooler

Posted by Joyce Clark on April 2, 2013
Posted in Blogs • City Council Actions • City of Glendale • Glendale elected officials • Glendale finances • Jobing.com arena  | Tagged With: , , , , | 2 Comments

cit mtg 2On the evening of April 1, 2013, the City made a public presentation of the state of its budget to the public. If you include myself and the councilmember representing our area there were a total of 5 people in attendance. That’s right. Three citizens and us. How embarrassing for the councilmember. Oh, but that’s OK. His only constituency these days is the fire fighters union.

staff multiplied jpgIn terms of city staff, it would be safe to say the citizens were outnumbered at least 3 to 1. There was at least 20-25 staff in attendance. Every director of every department was on hand to answer the flood of citizen questions (not), in addition to 2 of Glendale’s cable channel 11 TV crew filming the non-event. It almost begs the question as to why doesn’t the city ask the general public to RSVP? If a minimum number of citizens respond, the meeting is held. If only 2 or 3 respond, the meeting could be cancelled. After all if the public meeting had been cancelled, it would have only required calls to 3 people.

These staff members are salaried and not paid time and a half for extra duties such as attending this meeting.  These salaried personnel, if they so choose, can compensate themselves for the time by coming in to work a little later or taking a longer lunch break. It is an option available to them should they choose to use it. Many of them do not and put in more than a standard 40 hour work week.

Ms. Schurhammer, Executive Director of Finances, made a 15 minute presentation on the city’s budget. She concentrated on the city’s total Operating Budget by Fund and Department and the General Fund Budget by Department.  She pointed out that 34% of the city’s entire budget and 63% of the city’s General Fund budget goes to Public Safety. There was virtually a silent scream from all non-public safety staff asking how much more does Public Safety need? We’ll get to that in a minute.

Back in December, 2012, both the Fire and Police departments had their respective budgets balanced and were prepared for a vote of approval from the sitting council at that meeting. However, Vice Mayor Frate made a motion shark 2that their budgets be tabled and brought up again when a permanent City Manager was hired. The vote was 6-1 with me being the lone, dissenting vote. That action left their budget departments” doors open just a crack. Now, sensing an opportunity, they are smashing open those doors with a fire truck and tactical vehicle. They sense blood in the water and this new council (led on this issue by Councilmember Chavira, a Phoenix firefighter) is willing to give them everything and anything they want. Chavira will take care of his brothers in Glendale and we can only guess that Phoenix Councilmember Danny Valenzuela (a Glendale firefighter) will take care of his brothers in Phoenix.  Sweet, isn’t it? It has a nice, quid pro quo ring to it, doesn’t it? Note that the city does not have a permanent City Manager. Yet he will have to deal with the largesse that this council dispenses.

cit mtg 1After Ms. Schurhammer’s presentation, Ms. Julie Watters of the city’s Media and Communications Department, led the meeting by asking if there were any public comments. Mind you, a citizen could not ASK a direct question, only comment. If anyone had a question, they were directed to talk to that specific department director after the meeting. This is a tried and true practice that Glendale has practiced for years and which I have hated for just as long. For you see, if the question is a difficult or uncomfortable one, the answer is made only to the citizen seeking the answer after the meeting. After all, the city wouldn’t want all those citizens hearing that awkward answer to that difficult question. Would it? It’s a divide and conquer strategy that I believe is unfair to the citizens of our community.

cooler 3What were the water cooler musings? Several sources echoed one another. Much of it, dear reader, is old news for I have blogged about it previously. Nevertheless, here goes:

  • The Coyotes will be sold this month by the NHL.
  • The idea of 4 separate arena management contracts (you remember…hockey, entertainment, education and cleaning) still has legs and is not dead.
  • The general consensus is the Coyotes will be leaving Glendale as the city and the new team owner will not be able to come to mutually satisfactory terms on the arena lease management contract.
  • Or the other theory is that the team will stay in Glendale briefly (2-5 years) and then relocate.
  • This new council has no will to make the necessary and needed cuts over the next 4 years and likely will not sunset the temporary sales tax increase in 2017.

super bowlAll departments will struggle to come up with adequate funding to support the hosting of the 2015 Super Bowl in Glendale. Further diminishment of citizen services may be the only way to fund the costs.

 

 

 

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Apr 13

1

Who will be the gorilla?

Posted by Joyce Clark on April 1, 2013
Posted in City of Glendale • Glendale finances  | Tagged With: , , , | 1 Comment

budget 3The Glendale City Council typically meets in workshop session every two weeks on a Tuesday afternoon at 1:30PM. It is also televised on Glendale’s Channel 11, which only works if you have Cox cable service and live in Glendale. It is also available online at www.glendaleaz.com.

coins 1This is the busiest time of year for any city council as it decides where to allocate resources (revenues) for the coming year. Money in local government is power and each department fights to retain or grow its part of the pie(chart). It will be interesting to see who the gorillas are this year.

What can we expect this Tuesday? Several important items are up for discussion, some of which will be discussed inman money open session and some of which will be discussed in the non-public, executive session. First up in the open session will be the periodic legislative update. There should be discussion (I would hope) on the state’s attempt to take away cities’ construction sales tax. This issue is huge and if the state prevails, look for every city (including Glendale) to try to find ways to mitigate this loss which could be substantial.

firefighterNext up will be Council Items of Special Interest on the Police and Fire budgets. Making it to a workshopPoliceman agenda is interesting in and of itself. Last week Councilmember Chavira called for such a discussion and his suggestion met with deafening silence by the rest of Council. Yet here we are, a week later, and it has made its way to a workshop. Even more curious, at the previous council’s January 8, 2013 meeting, it was scheduled to vote approval to take actions to balance both department budgets. Instead a motion was made and approved by a majority of council (I was not one) to place all actions on hold until the appointment of a permanent city manager. There is no permanent city manager…yet…but like an unruly stepchild, the issue is before the new council. Hmmmm…

Then there are the six items listed on the council’s executive session agenda. Three of them are hot topics. One is consultation with the newly hired external auditor with a price tag of $200,000; another is that council is to give the contractCity Manager and City Attorney direction regarding arena management (don’t forget Beacon Sports’ fee of $100,000) and the Coyotes; and the last of the trio is to resolve the compensation package for the former City Attorney and I assume, the Acting City Attorney as well. The first two items deal with contracts and the third with personnel. All, unfortunately, are legitimate topics of private discussion.

It would be extraordinary if council resolved the Coyotes issue in Esession but, the NHL will first sell the team to whomever and then the council will decide if the Coyotes stay or go when it makes its decision about the arena management contract. Don’t expect any news on the Coyotes issue from Glendale today or anytime in the very near future.

On Monday, April 1, the city will host its first of two community meetings on the city budget. I plan to go and learn the “media line” that will be used to sell it to the community this year.

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