Citizen Will

I broke my silence at this evening’s Town Council meeting.

All throughout the Spring I’ve tried to ignore the Council’s accumulating messes. It was difficult.

The Mayor and Council acting “shocked” by the financial predicament we’re in – something I’ve been forecasting for the last 4 years. More “shock” that the drought has real impacts on the community’s growth and well-being. Greater “shock” that gas hit $4 a gallon, the housing market slumped, credit is tightening and many of the other underpinnings of a successful, sustainable community are lacking.

I’ve tried these last 5 years to get them to move on the obvious deficiencies but….

Anyway, the recent mountain of excuses that some of them have spewed about why our Town is ill-prepared and the ascendancy of political gamesmanship over good – transparent, accountable and HONEST – governance was just too much to keep quiet any longer.

Here were my prepared remarks:

The criticism the Council has heard surrounding their attempt to extended health benefits seems to fall into two basic areas: one, it is another example of the current Council’s fiscal irresponsibility and two, the impropriety – really, the sneaky fashion – that the extension was introduced: burying it on the consent agenda – introducing it at an end-of-term meeting – a meeting with plenty of distracting issues – omitting previous public discussion or disclosure.

As you are well aware of, I’ve been pushing for greater transparency and accountability in our local governmental process which is why I think a number of citizens have contacted me to discuss both of these issues.

First – let us be absolutely clear.

While the Council has said that putting forward a self-serving policy with no public oversight was a “mistake” – the papers and radio are full of their abject apologies – let us recognize that while it definitely was a “mistake” it was not – in any fashion – an accident.

Tonight, I’d like to focus on this unfortunate continuation of a troubling trend – a growing use of political gamesmanship by some of the longest serving of the Council to deflect public attention from questionable or controversial issues. What may be excellent strategy to the benefit of a few is terrible public policy.

I’m sure the more experienced of our Council are counting on public concern about this issue to abate over the summer – that is part of the strategy. I’m sure that those that have said it will have little political impact on their re-election are quite correct.

We have seen tempests like the awarding of a no-bid contract to Member Strom’s campaign treasurer blow over. We have seen public outcry over the Mayor’s request to remove term limits from his office quiet quickly. Public concern about the Mayor and Council’s recent handling of the possible conflict of interest that one of the Councilmember’s family had involving RAM Development – the Town’s partner in the fiscally irresponsible Lot #5 project – seem to dissipate rapidly.

Over the many years I have observed this Council, I have noticed more and more of late – a willingness to cut ethical corners, to delay or deny public awareness of problems – to drag their feet on practical, needed improvements increasing transparency in the political process.

Yes, it is easier to cut those corners, to delay bad news – as many of you did when you borrowed from the Town’s rainy day funds, drained our much needed fiscal reserves and put our bond rating in jeopardy.

The pattern these last 4 years has been to deny the known fiscal impact of the bonds, to trivialize the financial jeopardy the Lot #5 boondoggle puts our Town in, to pretend that the cost-overruns on the Town Operations center or the foreseeable increase of gas to $4 a gallon and many other obvious trends were not going to affect this community.

Now we’ve seen the culmination of these self-inflicted “mistakes” in this year’s tax increase. Yet, as another example of the same type of political gamesmanship that brought us the health insurance debacle, the Mayor and others on the Council continue to claim this year’s increase is an aberration – knowing fully well that more bad news is on the horizon.

The measure of ones character, they say, is how you behave when no one is paying attention. I’d add that it is also a measure of ones political character if you not only talk about greater transparency in the political process but actually support it with policy changes.

What to do, then? The majority of this Council accepted the recommendations of the now defunct Technology Advisory board on opening the governmental process – shedding more light in greater detail of our Town’s operations. Stop dragging your feet and implement those recommendations.

As I’ve been asking for the last 5 years, deliver a complete and accurate agenda 7 days prior to a business meeting. No movement on zoning or budgetary items requiring modification within those seven days. Stop burying unpopular items – like the health insurance issue – in parts of the agenda that few rarely review. Don’t mix creation of zoning districts with far-reaching affects in with zoning modifications for a particular project – like you did with Greenbridge – something, by the way, Councilmember Thorpe agreed with.

Overall, you should take the summer to think about what kind of political character you wish to be remembered for. Are you going to take the easy way out – continue your growing reliance of political trickery to the public’s detriment – or are you going to push to make your job more difficult – require and respond to greater public oversight?

I tried to keep it less than 3 minutes as I didn’t want Jim Ward – who had already sternly lectured the citizenry about keeping it short – to give me hell for going 19 seconds too long.

I had to shorten my remarks – not sure how they came out. I’ll post the video when it’s available.

There’s been racial tensions within Chapel Hill’s public works department for many years. During the last ten years I’ve heard and read about some quite troublesome behavior. I faulted former town manager Cal Horton’s “silo” style of management for covering up rather than resolving some rather nasty bits of racism. With Roger Stancil coming on-board (he got some good marks from Fayetteville’s NAACP), a reshuffling of Horton’s old lieutenants and a turnover of management personnel at the top I expected Chapel Hill would finally strengthen some basic job-related protections.

It appears not.

This graffiti (and other samples like it) have appeared in the Town’s new operations center (that costly bus barn) with some regularity over the last 6 months.

This example appears to target a particular employee that has been involved in organizing the workforce.

Tonight, Councilmember Mark Kleinschmidt did a bit of political theater – properly showing his ire at the affront then launching off into a bit of grandstanding about how he’d metaphorically throttle the offender, etc. Colleague Bill Thorpe also rose and said his piece though his was a bit more rambling (both which I’ll post as the video becomes available).

As I sat there through their outrage – and the polite applause that followed (“all good folks hate racism, right?”) – all I could think of is “Where the hell was that outrage before?”

Mark’s been on Council 6 years, Bill Thorpe served back in the bad days and 3 years this term. We’ve had news reports, civil rights lawyers – like Al McSurely, the NAACP’s Fred Battle, citizens and town employees coming before Council complaining about racial tension for years but what progress have we made?

Yes, I know we have a more balanced workforce, etc. but if the Town hasn’t been able to deal with this graffiti for months where does the Town really stand?

The Council needs to get off their seats and up to the Town Operations Center and talk directly with the good folks doing the day-to-day work of running our Town because if this crap is going on in the bathrooms, imagine what other kind problems – racial or otherwise – are going on within the Town’s workforce.