More "Fee" Happy Begins This Month

The water bill for this month, for both commercial and residential, will go up by $3.75 for most residential properties and by more than $21,000 a year for a handful of unlucky commercial properties. Some say it is a tax, some say it is not. The best way to identify it as a tax is by who is exempt.

Page 38 of Public Hear Drainage Fee.pdf has a bunch of properties that are exempt. They include churches, city properties, county properties and school properties. If that isn't a major hint that this new drainage fee is really a tax, then I don't know what is. If it really is a tax, then maybe it can be deducted on federal tax returns.

The new fee is effectively a 5% tax rate increase. Since "tax rate increase" is a term most council members and city staff would prefer it not be called, they call it a fee. Come the next election, will the voters think of it as a "fee" or a "tax"?

For the city's version of this new fee and what it will do, see http://www.cor.net/Utilities.aspx?id=15448. The video links don't work, but someone said they will be working again by tomorrow.

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Alabama Declares War on the USA

Every now and then you get something funny in the email. This is one of those.


President Barack Obama was in the Oval Office when his telephone rang. "Hello, President Obama” a heavily accented southern voice said. "This is Archie, down here at Joe's Catfish Shack, in Mobile, and I am callin' to tell ya’ll that we are officially declaring war on y'all!"

"Well Archie," Barack replied, "This is indeed important news! How big is your army?"


"Right now," said Archie, after a moments calculation "there is myself, my cousin Harold, my next-door-neighbor Randy, and the whole dart team from Hooters. That makes eight!"


Barack paused. "I must tell you Archie that I have one million men in my army waiting to move on my command."


"Wow," said Archie. "I'll have to call ya back!"


Sure enough, the next day, Archie called again. “Mr. Obama, the war is still on! We have managed to acquire some infantry equipment!"


"And what equipment would that be Archie?" Barack asked.


"Well sir, we have two combines, a bulldozer, and Harry’s farm tractor." 


President Obama sighed. "I must tell you Archie, that I have 16,000 tanks and 14,000 armored personnel carriers. Also I've increased my army to one and a half million since we last spoke."


"Lord above", said Archie, "I'll be getting back to ya."


Sure enough, Archie called again the next day. “President Obama! I am sorry to have to tell you that we have had to call off this here war."


"I'm sorry to hear that" said Barack. "Why the sudden change of heart?" 


Well, sir," said Archie, "we've all sat ourselves down and had a long chat over sweet tea, and come to realize that there's just no way we can feed that many prisoners." 

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Why Dan Johnson Left Carrollton

Why Dan Johnson left Carrollton was something I was curious about, but not curious enough to ever do some searching about it. Sometime back, I thought I remembered someone telling me he got fired because of developing along 35 and there were some problems over an endangered from, bird, or maybe even a worm. But the best I can remember it was him being somewhat reckless about some poor, endangered, helpless critter. Either I was told wrong, or remembered wrong. I'd be willing to be I remembered wrong.

Anyway, it seems Mark was curious enough to actually see why Dan left Carrollton.

http://www.marksteger.com/2012/02/tumultuous-and-divisive.html

Read it for yourself, but to make a long story short, it seems the city council wanted to get rid of the ugly along 35 and force in some pretty. I remember way back when driving through that area and it did have an ugly look. I didn't really think anything of it, it was just the way it was.

But from reading between the lines, I would guess that the city council strongly encourage Dan to be the enforcer of installing the pretty. Residents and businesses didn't agree. Six council members and the mayor were recalled. Shortly after that, Dan abruptly resigned.

There is always more to any story. But as for my dealing with Dan, I have no complaints. He has always seemed to have been a stand-up and decent guy. Hopefully he will enjoy being the new city manager and hopefully he will make a good one. Since our present city council is in dire need of direction, maybe he can help provide that direction better than Tex-Kef.

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Austerity? Really? Not With at Least $18,000 for Private Club Memberships

"Austerity" is not a word I really care for, but with all of the EU debt crisis going on it has become a popular word to use, much like "Hawk" was a few years ago. When reviewing the city online checkbook the opposite of austerity seems to apply considering the taxpayer money spent for private club membership.

But in Richardson, "Austerity" seems to mean "Business as Usual" more than it means spending in a thrifty manner. Why else could you call the spending of $9,510.95 of taxpayer money at the Canyon Creek Country Club?  What else would you call spending $8,609 for membership fees for some of the city elite. I am guessing that not all city employees get these membership, just the elite. I would figure with these elitist make 6 figure salaries they could afford to spend their own money at the private clubs they would want to join. But I guess not. I guess it just isn't the same and it is so much nicer to spend other people's money, taxpayer dollars, to join a private club, wine and dine and play games.

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More Carnage at Plano/Renner

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Three vehicles crashed, 4 people loaded into ambulances, one that didn't get away and one that did get away for now. Most of the time, people just linger around their wrecked cars. But one Hispanic hit, panicked and then ran; the one driving the red pickup. The police had his GF laid out on the parking lot before taking her away.

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Quarter of a Million to Feed City Employees Each Year? How Many Water Slides Will That Buy???

Having the city checkbook online sure does save money and time on open records requests. In case you do not know where to find the online checkbook, you can find it at this link: Transparency.aspx?id=13247.

I have already download the information from there into a spreadsheet which you can download for yourself at RichardsonCheckbook-All.xls.

While it is not just way too simple to use, if you are patient, you can figure it out. One great tool for looking through it is the download to excel button.

Now, back to the quarter of a million a year it take to feed the hungry mouths at the taxpayer expense. Hre is a spreadsheet with some of the information, PartialForCostCOR.xls. One of the tabs on that page is "PCard". I don't know for sure yet, but I think that a PCard is a purchase card that is used like a credit card. There are some crazy things in that section when looking at some of the expenses.

One such example is a $1,150 charge to Dickey's BBQ  It was apparently charge to the "Water Production" account for training. Another is a charge for $400, again to Dickey's BBQ to the Recycle Department for training. Creamy Donut have a $27.96 charge to the Eisemann account. I know, you would have thought the donuts would have been charge to the police account, but no, it wasn't. We have healthy cops in our little town who know better!

Just for Decembers of 2012 there were 49 charges for a total of $16,714.14 for what appears to be related to only food. I don't know if December 2012 was an average month or not. But there are about 50,000 items listed and I haven't been through them all.

But if it were an average month, then for 12 months the total would be over a quarter of a million dollars, included the $36,384.65 for John Jaushlin food services, $29,231.79 for Royal Catering Services and $12,599.25 for Weddings and Celebrations food the city paid for.

This seem to contradict why Mayor Bob Townsend was saying the other day about how "austerity" have been implemented in Richardson. To the contrary, it looks like a free spending spree on food for Richardson's special people. Add to that, the Richardson Chamber of Commerce getting over a million dollars a year and pretty you you will have what some people call "real money".

I can't wait to hear the explanations on why in a town where the average employee's pay is about $50k, there seems to but such a need feed them like they are homeless, broke and hungry. Any guesses?

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Richardson Chamber of Commerce Sucking Down Over $1 Million a Year From the Taxpayers

The Richardson Chamber of Commerce is really sucking down taxpayer funds to the tune of over a million dollars a year, according the Richardson's disbursement website. For 2011 disbursements to the Richardson Chamber of Commerce were $1,091,951.50. There seems to be some pretty big suckers over there at the RCC. In July of 2011 there was a $200,000 a year jump in transfers. Mark Solomon recently said he didn't want to spend any money on a city charter review but would prefer to pay for a new water slide at the remodeled Height Park water park. Just curious, but how many water slide and other improvements could we get by letting the chamber pay its own way?

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The good news for the Richardson Chamber of Commerce and bad news for the Richardson taxpayers does not end there. In addition to the taxpayers funding the the vast majority of the expenses for the non-profit private organization, the taxpayers are also paying the bill for the Richardson Chamber of Commerce's public relations firm, Cooksey. The big question here is why does the Richardson Chamber of Commerce need a public relations firm? Isn't the Richardson Chamber of Commerce itself supposed to be a PR firm which is independently run to benefit the city rather than suck down taxpayer funds?

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Back in December of 2008 Bill Sproull signed a contract, in which the City of Richardson taxpayers foot the bill, for not only the Richardson Chamber of Commerce, but also put the citizens on the hook for services provided to the Metroplex Technology Business Council. So why would the City of Richardson agree to pay a PR firm to provide services to a non-profit that has little to do with Richardson itself? Probably the answer would be that if there is a vote to buy, or an opinion to sway, the Richardson leaders are very willing to use taxpayer money to buy the favors they want.

Probably the most curious thing about the way Richardson leaders have taken to all of this, is that there is not one other city in the area that finds a need to or that has hired a PR firm. Not one. The city leaders always seem to be saying we need to do this or that "because everyone else is doing it". That is, unless it is direct election of the mayor, or the perceived need to hire a public relations firm. 

The Richardson way.

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How Anonymous is Right, Why the City Leaders Got It Wrong

From the comment section

1. AnonymousFeb 14, 2012 11:41 AM

   Some cities with the Council/Manager form of government have a mayor and like minded council members whom have been in office for extended periods of time. These cities tend to have an entrenched Manager and staff with whom the elected officials have become too comfortable and therefore complacent in approving the advice or actions management provides.
   
   Typically over time in these long term environments, staff ceases to propose several alternatives to the Council thus providing them with their elected mandate to question, discuss and determine which was the best solution, but instead puts forth just one method to solve an issue or alleviate a problem. They have come to expect the Council ratifying that single option with little or no questions or discussion. Over the years, this process of deferring to staff proposals, explanations, or suggested actions becomes the norm.
   
   It is no surprise then that studies show staffs in those long term environments have the highest pay and benefits of cities of similar size.
   
   And so it's understandable the longer the staff entrenchment, the need to perpetuate itself becomes paramount. It's human nature to want to keep pay, perks and benefits at current high levels. When change does occur at the top municipal position because of retirement or death, entrenched management faces its biggest challenge.
   
   A current compliant relationship with a Council that has grown over time is to entrenched management's benefit, because such a Council is far less likely to seek an outside city management successor. Current management stresses the benefits of promoting from with-in its ranks by stating the advantages of doing so: the current "vision" of the city would continue uninterrupted, the "good working relationship" between management and Council would not be disturbed, and of course, valuable time and expense would be saved by elevating one of the current mangement to the city manager's position.
   
   Unfortunately, the decision to promote from within also perpetuates the reversal of proper Council/City Management roles, where the staff in effect becomes the final arbiter and the Council simply the unquestioning ratifyer. That "in house" decision encourages the continuance of sometimes decades old practices without the enlightenment that review and interviews of outside applicants would engender.
   
   Sometimes the easiest and thought to be proper choice proves not to be correct in the long term.

Whispers Called it Correctly - Dan Johnson, Next City Manager For Richardson, TX

Much(?) to my surprise, Dan Johnson will be the new city manager for Richardson beginning June 1, 2012. See the press release here: http://www.cor.net/PressRelease.aspx?id=15585

In typical city council fashion (most of the time), it was a anonymous unanimous vote for Dan Johnson to replace Tex-Kef. After earlier statements that indicated there would be a wide ranging search for the next CM, the search ended before it began.

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Kroger Decides to Open a Gold/Silver Exchange

Seems that Kroger's wants to expand into areas other than groceries and will lease space to Gold and Silver Buyers, so says Yahoo Finance. Plans are for the store at Coit and Beltline to also open up a gold and silver exchange inside the store in February or March 2012. Financially it may seem like a good idea for Kroger's to lease some space that otherwise might now be used, but otherwise, it might seem to be a bad move considering how the shoppers from the neighborhood might react

Karen Leach Tanker OK, I just heard from the Richardson Heights Neighborhood Facebook page that a gold and silver exchange is being constructed inside our Kroger. I Googled and found this article. I'm soooooo not happy about this. Break out Grandma's jewelry and sell it at Kroger. Yippee. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/texas-company-brings-silver-gold-152400669.html

• Texas Company Brings Silver and Gold Rush to Dallas

  
  

  finance.yahoo.com

  
  

  Gold & Silver Buyers, the largest purchaser of precious metals in the state of Texas, is expanding into the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, with plans to open 12 locations over the...

   February 10 at 2:01pm

  
  

  Sandra Mitchell Hoffer Yeah - saw that too. I am very unhappy about this.

  February 10 at 2:49pm · February 10 at 8:23pm

  
  

  Andrew Laska We are formulating a plan to deal with this. Stay tuned.

This has quite a few people upset. They look at the gold/silver exchange as relative to the check cashing facilities, car title loans storefronts, payday loan outfits and pawn shops. While these types of business are legitimate they too often seem to take financial advantage of the people who can least afford being taken advantage of financially.  

If you have no opinion one way or another, you can sit quietly by and do nothing. Or, if you want to put some pressure on Kroger's to stop the planned gold and silver exchange from opening or maybe reversing course, email gary.huddleston@kroger.com.

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