Once again, a major contract came before the Commission on March 17, 2009 and a decision had to be made within three days. The questions posed by the Commission were not totally answered and in fact, some commissioners had not even had a chance to read the back-up.
Jo-Ann Golden who was Vice Mayor at that time advised that it would be better if Fire stayed in the city if property values went down. Little did she know how much value would be lost and that we along with the rest of the country would take a long time to come out of a major recession.
The day before this meeting, the County presented the City with the supplemental payment schedule of the agreement: $700,000 for the first two years, $900,000 for the third year and $1.3 million per year for the remaining term. The County also got our equipment. Book value for our equipment was only $500,000 but worth five times that to the City. Commissioner Suzanne Mulvehill was against the supplement payments and stated that the agreement was against the best interests of the city.
A big part of the reason to merge were the Pension costs. Under former city manager, Paul Boyer, he recommended that pension benefits increase by 3.73% in 2004. The pension plan turned into a "wealth building benefit for the employees and a burden to the residents." The City now pays 172% of payroll for retirement benefits. Mark Bates, Finance Director, scared the Commission into believing that by merging to the County the costs would be $8.135 million versus $6.8 million with the merger and said that the pension deficit of $13 million would rise without the merger.
Mayor Clemens admitted not even knowing how much was owed on the bond for our fire department building. We would still own it but be responsible for all the costs to maintain it. Clemens seemed to be only worried about how much money the CRA would lose. He was the former Chair of the CRA. He said that the Unions had talked to all the neighborhood associations to let them know what was going on. They told them that the agreement was a "benefit to the city." As it was coming from the Unions, this somehow made it all okay in his mind.
Chief Brice from the County kept pushing the Commission to make a decision and they finally voted 4/1 with Suzanne Mulvehill dissenting. The rest of the commission relied on city manager Bob Baldwin and city attorney Larry Karns to point them in the "right" direction. Retha Lowe admitted not having time to review the agreement but voted for the merger anyway. We always could count on Lowe to go against her better judgment.I was wrong the other night while speaking--Chief Paul Blockson did recommend us going with the County. Karns was eventually fired and Baldwin drifted away to some other city in order to float.
On April 7, 2009, the City Commission approved an Interlocal agreement for Fire Protection and Emergency Medical Services with PB County with the idea that the City would be able to reduce spending. Here we are, a little over two years later, once again trying to right the wrongful decision that was made, in a hurry, without proper information. And this is why I continue to harp on the fact that excellent management is the key to our success. We have that now if politics would stay out of it.
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