Guest
|
Govt Money for EdgewaterMany other U.S. Cities are already standing in line for assistance money from the Govt. Why don't we apply ? If the gravy train has come in let's get on board. Obama wants to create construction jobs and assit local Govt. We could use a new public works, and police / fire complex.
|
Guest
|
Let's start walking the talkI don't think that's the right question. Until we start addressing the real issues and stop trying to point fingers and rattle cages we are never going to change.
It is not ‘why’ don’t we, but ‘who’ is going to? Not who ‘should’, or who ‘could’ but how ‘is’.
The questions might be more like, what do we need to do to task an appropriately skilled person with applying for these funds? Who is that person? Are they available to us? Who has the authority to charge them with the task? Does that person with the authority support the idea? Is anyone interested enough to seriously pursue the idea?
If we want to be successful we need to start approaching our goals one step at a time. “Do one thing at a time, do it well, and then move on.”
Step one: Find someone to champion the idea, to start the process. Someone willing to do something more than talk about it. Someone who doesn't expect someone else to do it for them.
|
whos job?
|
Do we not pay a grant writer to go after this" Money" and who directs this paid grant writer.. It is the MAYOR.. so Why if shes so into social service isn't she directing the paid grant writer to go after these opportunities?, for our poor city?
So I think its the mayor who need to get off her high horse and do what we elected her to do.. improve our city instead of hiring incompetent people .
|
Moving on
|
Okay, back to step one. If the mayor isn’t doing it (an assumption you have made with out the upcoming report from the grant writer), then let’s look at who else might be able to facilitate moving this task forward.
|
Guest
|
Perhaps we can get the Wheat Ridge City manager to run things for us. It looks like Wheat Ridge is trying to fire him for spending to much money on studies. Wow that sounds just like us without a manager. We have spent tens of thousands on studies and plans that went right in the circular file and were just amatures.
|
Guest
|
The mayor only hired the grant writer until the end of this year. I don't know what she paid them for except a very small grant for the police department. The rest was just wasted on a time payment. She, the mayor, is not interested in trying to do anything else for the city as the manager will be taking over in a few months. This would not suit our mayor as it would not give her enough recognition by the time it actually came to fruition, if she were to begin the process of applying for this grant. Do keep in mind that the opportunity isn't even available yet. But when it is, it will take more than the mayor to make it happen. She surely won't initiate anything to get it started.
|
Guest
|
Excellent point!
Council, thinking they are the best that has ever been, has actually treated their public servitude (learned that term from Swartenager last night on 60Minutes) as paid education. They love paying people to report to them. Doesn’t matter if it is was staff or consultants, they love it. If they really cared about serving us, the lowly ignorant trash citizens of Edgewater, they would actually do something. What about the landscape maintenance problem that council had? They talked the ERA and the Planning & Zoning into doing their work. All council had to do was look at their own code book to find out laws already exist to fix almost everything. Instead they made someone else do the work for them. And here’s another. A study was paid for that shows that the city could save money by changing our trash collection system. The only thing we could do to waste money is do nothing. What is council doing? Nothing. We elected them to do something, make a stand, stick their necks out, something. Not to just sit there and demand (and pay for) other people to do all their homework for them. Way too much money has been spent for council to receive reports when all we really wanted was for them to do something. Now look at us. We are dirt poor with $5,949,939 coming in and $6,525,006 going out.
|
Guest
|
Expanding on the previous posters idea:
The City Council does very little other than approving decisions (most non-legal) made by the City Attorney. There isn't a real leader to be found amongst any of our elected officials. From time to time we get a leader on a board or commission but they always get shot down.
|
Guest
|
I believe that with the trash study came a hefty price for a new trash truck. It might save money over years, but in the meantime, where does the city get the money to buy the truck necessary to implement the new program?
|
Guest
|
the cost of the 7-year payment plan for the truck was covered in the small increase in quarterly billing. 49% of the residences were not expected to see in increase at all.
|
JamieMac.
|
Recycling/Trash planBefore this discussion starts making me feel totally useless, I will let you know that I will make sure the discussion to make a decision on the plan gets on the agenda as soon as possible when council reconvenes in January.
In turn, I will ask those of you who feel strongly about it to please show up and let your opinions be known. Council may read this forum, but I'm not sure how much weight they take from it.
Jamie McElhany
|
Guest
|
Just my take, but there are seven of you on council. That means that any one thing the whole group does or doesn’t do isn’t necessarily a reflection of any one of the individual seven. And no decision is going to make every one happy. It’s just politics, you are not allowed to feel useless. You’re doing a job none of us wanted to do. That counts for something. 
By the way are you asking for us to show up if we feel strongly about trash or Obama’s money?
|
JamieMac.
|
ThanksThank you. And yes. 
|
JamieMac.
|
I would like to see the new plan for trash/recycling be implemented. I have considered that it might be less expensive to have this outsourced. "Considered." I have no facts to support this notion, and I am not even sure it is a worthy notion. Just a notion. One council member suggested that it might be more beneficial financially to the city to keep it in house. I will not try to explain this until I get a better understanding of it.
The study was very well done and gave us lots of information. But it did not answer all of the questions, and they have to be answered before a decision is made. Sometimes it comes down to council not doing enough to get the facts before we act or not taking what we have and doing something without all the facts. In my short time on council, I have come to understand that things just don't happen as fast as you or I might like them to, but I do believe that each and every council member really does want what is best for the city. We just don't all agree what that is all the time. There are a lot of things to consider in the decisions, and I want to make sure that we have considered all of it - especially when it is going to cost the citizens more money.
Although I really hate to make it sound like a city manager will be our saving grace, I guess I am thinking that. We have run ourselves like a small time city and it shows in much of what we do. We do not have professionals in many of the capacities where they are needed, and this can really bog down a city. I am holding a lot of hope for our city in a professional manager. And I am also hoping that we will have a much better direction of what it is we really need to do. I am not saying that the council and mayor are useless - although some may beg to differ - but I realize that none of us really have any experience in city management, other than what we have learned along the way. There are ethical considerations that most of us can work through. And then there are considerations that require things we may never consider without having had previous experience. That experience will prove invaluable - of that I am sure.
Hang in there, Edgewater. We will survive!
|
|
|
