"Don't even think about it"
What a meeting!
What a night!
What a night!
Last night we found out who's the boss--Vice Mayor Scott Maxwell dominated the three hour meeting. The only words that the city manager could utter were, "We can do it."
The first order of business was to appoint the Vice Mayor (Scott Maxwell), the Vice Mayor Pro-Tem (Andy Amoroso) and then appoint liaisons to various organizations. Maxwell lead the charge again and motioned for various appointments. Suzanne Mulvehill was totally ignored. She was out of the country on vacation and this new commission left her in left field. Maxwell removed item f (IPARC Issues Forum representative) and stated that he would reach out to 2 or 3 individuals to see if they wanted the position.
The scheduled presentation from the Complete Count Committee did not take place. The Committee said it was unavailable and that it had completed its assignment. The agenda clearly stated an Update from the census Complete Count Committee, the second request from Scott Maxwell. We all assumed that they would be present. Staff was prepared to give the presentation in their place unbeknown to the Commission. Maxwell asked the city attorney to find out if the committee is compelled to present per their contract. Mayor Triolo said that they were.
Maxwell immediately motioned to remove 5 items out of 9 from New Business. No explanation was given. Two of the items were for the approval of legal fees to two different law firms. One was for the pending litigation with the Firefighter's Pension Board and other Pension issues. The other was for litigation matters concerning foreclosure of code enforcement liens, recovery of monies owed to the City and, during the past several weeks, ordinance violation prosecutions, personnel mediations and bankruptcy cases. Both of these matters are extremely important to the City and to our benefit. Maxwell asked for a complete list of outstanding law suits.
Maxwell asked that the City Manager bring back a solution to rid the city of the recently passed fire assessment without instigating lay-offs..."draw a line in the sand right now--run lean and mean like we do at home," he said. He wants to understand the complete financials on the Casino. A meeting is set for Monday, November 21 at 6pm, where the Commission will workshop various policy issues.
Also, Maxwell demanded that the City Manager remove the lock at the entrance to her offices or remove the door, take your pick. Susan Stanton said that the door would be removed first thing in the morning. With people now allowed to bring concealed weapons into public buildings, I question this demand of the Vice Mayor. Safety does come first even for our Staff. We are living in violent times. She said that the pictures would be back up on our walls in one week and that the audio would return to the hallway, both major complaints, some for years, from residents.
Everything on the agenda came down to a 4/0 vote other than the creation of a Marketing Advisory Board, something I feel we desperately need. Maxwell made a motion to bring it back at the next Budget cycle which is way too long to wait. Our Casino will be on its way to completion by then. We need to market our city and this achievement as well as all the other assets we have that will attract tourist dollars. Tourism brings business and it takes time to instigate a plan. McVoy voted against delaying its creation.
I have always said that the Utility was our black hole. None of us know anything about it, commissioners included. During public speaking I urged them to ask questions of Staff--trust but verify. Last night the SCADA system which controls the functions of the City's electrical distribution system was on the agenda to approve spending $22,650 for a maintenance contract. The services from OSI are for those needed to maintain the control systems used throughout the City's Electrical Distribution System minimizing control system failures and outages throughout the fiscal year.
Clay Lindstrom, Assistant Utility Director, was called in to support the expenditure saying without it their pricing would go up, that we had no SCADA engineer in house and they were in the process of training people. Once trained, they would no longer need it. However, the back-up clearly states that all required personnel have received the training, and the Utility does not require the same number of service calls. Mary Lindsey called it another "shiny thing in the sky" that was unnecessary but it passed on a 4/0 vote.
The meeting adjourned at 9pm, one of the earliest adjournments since I can remember.
12 comments:
What a night it was! Boss as in bossy!
Have you gone out to say Wal-Mart and bought something like a TV or a washer and dryer and been offered a service agreement on your purchased item? So like most people you don’t purchase the supplemental service agreement and the purchased item fails for whatever reason. If the item is no longer under warranty do you have to dispose of the item or can you still call a repair person and have it worked on. The answer is obvious, you can still have repair work done, but will have to pay the hourly rate plus parts to get it working again. So the BS that was spewed at the meeting was just that BS, as you say nobody understands the utility and they attempt to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes.
The proprietor of the SCADA system will support their product with or without a maintenance agreement, they will charge by the hour which may may not be incrementally higher. Many smaller utilities do not have a SCADA engineer on staff, one it is not needed and this is a product that can be supported by outsourcing at huge cost savings. Having an engineer on staff for SCADA in a utility the size of LW is a complete waste of manpower and cost. The entire cost of having a 500 K system, OSI (open system international) is way more than needed to the tune of 400 K overpriced. Another case of financial urgency gone wild, staff has buffaloed everyone as the level of knowledge is so weak, complete waste of 400 k. Also Mr. McVoy should investigate why Ms. Matte was terminated from Ocala, gross incompetence, I could go on about that issue, but it wouldn't help the situation. Mr. Lindstrom's comments were not factual, but with nobody to dispute them he pulled it off, LW never ceases to amaze me.
McVoy was 100% wrong and Mary 100% correct. The maintenance agreement is not required and secondly the OSI SCADA system at 500K is over 400K overkill. LW could have a very good SCADA system if bid by a RFP for under 100K. Again they sole sourced this because of convenience rather than using business acumens.
Boy am I glad Commissioner McVoy insisted on maintaining his position as Liaison with FMPA because of his technical expertise. One day on the job and he has cost us $400,000 already by insisting that the matter be addressed immediately.
Funny that McVoy lashed out at Mary Lindsey for making a critical remark on a matter McVoy judged her as having "no knowledge".
Maxwell likes to cause conflict--has a habit of bringing things up at the last 98 seconds when he had a year to do so with the finance plan for the casino. Making waves is fun stuff. There are so many of his constituents against our Casino but they sure don't mind Longboats there until 2am causing noise pollution and God know what else...reguritating their cookies on our beach. Anything goes for business...leave Longboats alone they cry. We just want to cause all sorts of hell about the Casino in general they say. This finance plan has been discussed on many occasions and was originated and approved by the Finance board, staff and the past commission.
Now it is the turtle lights. Without Longboats or any restaurant staying opened after 11pm, there would be NO problem with turtle lights. We would NOT need them.
Politicians usually only listen to their friends and the rest of us?... well, forget about it.
Mcvoy didn't cost us $400,000. Get your facts straight. The entire commission approved of the maint. contract.
I thought it was a $22,650 Agenda item that should have been postponed but McVoy insisted on having the vote for efficiency and safety reasons.
The alledged $400,000 overpricing took place earlier and may or may not have been on McVoy's watch.
Way to go,Scott! Someone FINALLY had the balls to say no to Stantons RIDICULOUS agenda.Stanton NEEDED to be called on the carpet ! She ignored REPEATED requsts by the citizens for the Commission pictires to be put back up,and the audio to be on in the hallway. The next thing that needs to go is that frosted glass that Stanton had put into the chamber room,then replaced to the tune of over 300.00 because she decided that she wanted a different kind of frosted gless. Stanton does not need a secretary and we don't need an assistant city manager .Way to go ,Scott!
I was on the Marketing Taskforce. We gave LW a list of things that could be done; most wouldn’t cost a lot of $. Before we can successfully re-brand LW to attract businesses & homebuyers we need to reduce the cost of living in LW. Reduce utility cost, taxes, fees & assessments. While we have a couple of great B&B’s, we need a boutique hotel. After we do those things we can market our “quaint little drinking town with a beach problem”. I'll be happy to volunteer my time to market Lake Worth. We have many residents that have expertise in many areas of need in our town, marketing, grant writting, youth sports and senior services and many more. If more would do a little much more would be accomplished.
Good going Annabeth. You told Maxwell to stick it without having to say it.
The meeting ended early because Maxwell was in charge and didn't take the opportunity like he has at every other meeting to stall, throw in the monkey wrenches, grandstand, cause problems, and make problems even where there aren't any.
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