Ok, so the quote of the night from last nights council meeting was "So after everything happening out at JB Wells we started thinking." To protect the guilty I'm going to leave the names out. But honestly I had to do everything I could to keep from rolling out of my chair. My councilman shot me the "please quit laughing before I start laughing too" look. I was just grateful the speaker was facing away from me and couldn't see me.
So I'm assuming we're finally starting to think about JB Wells and how we operate it. That the hundreds of thousands of dollars we've pissed away weren't enough to get the attention of those in our city offices, it took police and firing of individuals to finally get people thinking.
I hope in the mean time all the other department heads are 'thinking' too. That they realize that this is no longer an open checkbook town with a bottomless pit of being able to get anything they want. I know that some departments have struggled over the years more than others, but even those have gotten 'luxuries' compared to our surrounding cities.
We (our city) has to get back to basics! If we don't need it right now we can't afford it. And as I tell my teenagers, there are HUGE differences between what we want and what we need. I would love to have a water system pumping 10x the water we have with great water pressure throughout town and lots to spare, with roads paved of gold and no potholes or dips that rip out the underside of my car, with roads like Ft. Wahl passable, with stoplights in sync, and great parks with walking trails, and St. George street finished, and our canoe trail finished, and and and and and....but some of these things are not needed right now (though some of them are).
Earlier this year, our city council sat down for weeks on end, working with the interim city manager and all of the department heads coming up with a budget of things that were necessary to run our town for this year. Necessary being the key word. Since that time we've added about $500,000 (that's right a half a MILLION dollars in expenditures) to that budget, with a 6 - 15 million project additional in that. All this with a budget that was already 1.5 million in the hole. That alone was a tough amount to swallow.
So why are we continuing to spend? Why are we adding non-budgeted items every meeting to our burden? The item that was in question last night was honestly a partially budgeted item. The city if finally purchasing some software that will track payments for the RVs, our city cemetery, and other elements of our city that have been run out of a shoe box in the past. Of the $31,000 that they approved, $25,000 was budgeted. It was the additional modules to run the RV slots and cemetery an a couple of other $$$ management pieces that make up the $6,000 not budgeted. And honestly we've needed something there, but why didn't we budget for this 2 years ago, hell 5 years ago when we put in JB Wells?
I'm hoping that our city listens to what was said and follows through, and honestly 'begins to think' about how we're operating all aspects of our city right now.
God Bless,
Dennis Nesser
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Property Taxes
Ok, tomorrow (Tuesday night at 530) we have a public hearing on raising the property taxes in Gonzales. There will be a second hearing at the regularly scheduled council meeting September 6th.
Now I want to make this clear, I don't want to misrepresent the situation at hand. At the last council meeting Councilman Logan made the motion to keep the rate of our taxes the same as they were last year. Per state law though this is actually an increase because of the increase in property values, and as such they must have these public hearings and vote on it as an increase in our tax rates. It is not because they have increased the percentage of taxation on the value of our homes.
In order to keep the amount of taxation the same, the council must (and still could) vote to have the effective tax rate put in place where the percentage would go down, but our individual taxes would be about the same.
So here we go, and I actually have 2 trains of thought here, one of them probably not as popular as the other one.
First to keep the tax rate the same will increase taxes by $21,000 for the city of Gonzales. To quote our Interim City Manager, "This won't even buy a new vehicle for the city". Now he was trying to say how little this was, and I'm going to tell you for all it's worth it's not even enough to purchase a new vehicle, so way are we wasting our time and money going through all this effort?
Additionally, and more importantly, if we wanted $21,000 all we would of had to do is cancel any one of the council meetings over the last 6 months. In that time they have added to our already 1.5 million dollar deficit at the rate of about $100,000 a meeting. We've added to the airport (don't you use it?), we've paid study after study after study and consultant after consultant that in my personal opinion could have waited till we till we have recuperated from the debacle of our previous management. Even on tomorrows agenda there are what appear to be unbudgeted items.
I always thought that's what we had a budget process for, you budget, you work the budget, and unless it's an EMERGENCY then you work towards next years budget to get the new stuff added. I haven't seen anything that was an EMERGENCY at any of the meetings I've attended (which is a vast majority of them). Why bother putting together a budget if we're not going to follow it?
Additionally I keep hearing about all this oil money, and yet our income actual vs budget was down by 3% last time I looked, meaning we're 3% shy of what we were anticipating receiving in funds for the city this year for this time period. In addition to that we were over budget in spending, in no small part to JB Wells excessive over budget spending YTD. So we're not getting as much as we hoped, and we're spending more than we said we would. Surprise!
So to be very clear, I'm in NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM in favor of the proposed tax rate the way it is laid out right now.
Now comes the part I'm sure a few more will not agree with. I'm not all together opposed to a tax increase. I don't think economically it's really the time, but here's what I told one of our council members.
If the council would come up with a real plan for road and infrastructure improvements, and say we have a 5 year plan, I would be ok with a real tax increase as long as they would decrease the taxes at the end of that 5 years.
I've seen it done in San Antonio, and it can work! BUT and I mean BUT that has to be a set in stone, the money from that increase goes to specific projects that we the people have approved, and at the end of the time period the increase has got to drop back down and the city not count on any of that money in the future. Way to often a council will come up with any excuse to keep the taxes up, but that can not happen! This can not become another "vote for the lottery to pay for our schools" slogan either. This has to be very specific what these monies would be raised for and when they were the taxes would go away.
But if those conditions would be met and our infrastructure was the target of the needed money I would be in support.
But I promise you that the $20,000 that our council is dealing with is a waste of the public hearings and nothing more than a game someone is playing. Let your councilman know that you expect him to vote for the "effective rate" in 2 weeks. That there is ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE to vote for the rate as it's proposed right now. How about make a trip to one of the 2 city council meetings and speak up for yourself? Tomorrow at 5:30 or next Tuesday at 6.
God Bless,
Dennis Nesser
Now I want to make this clear, I don't want to misrepresent the situation at hand. At the last council meeting Councilman Logan made the motion to keep the rate of our taxes the same as they were last year. Per state law though this is actually an increase because of the increase in property values, and as such they must have these public hearings and vote on it as an increase in our tax rates. It is not because they have increased the percentage of taxation on the value of our homes.
In order to keep the amount of taxation the same, the council must (and still could) vote to have the effective tax rate put in place where the percentage would go down, but our individual taxes would be about the same.
So here we go, and I actually have 2 trains of thought here, one of them probably not as popular as the other one.
First to keep the tax rate the same will increase taxes by $21,000 for the city of Gonzales. To quote our Interim City Manager, "This won't even buy a new vehicle for the city". Now he was trying to say how little this was, and I'm going to tell you for all it's worth it's not even enough to purchase a new vehicle, so way are we wasting our time and money going through all this effort?
Additionally, and more importantly, if we wanted $21,000 all we would of had to do is cancel any one of the council meetings over the last 6 months. In that time they have added to our already 1.5 million dollar deficit at the rate of about $100,000 a meeting. We've added to the airport (don't you use it?), we've paid study after study after study and consultant after consultant that in my personal opinion could have waited till we till we have recuperated from the debacle of our previous management. Even on tomorrows agenda there are what appear to be unbudgeted items.
I always thought that's what we had a budget process for, you budget, you work the budget, and unless it's an EMERGENCY then you work towards next years budget to get the new stuff added. I haven't seen anything that was an EMERGENCY at any of the meetings I've attended (which is a vast majority of them). Why bother putting together a budget if we're not going to follow it?
Additionally I keep hearing about all this oil money, and yet our income actual vs budget was down by 3% last time I looked, meaning we're 3% shy of what we were anticipating receiving in funds for the city this year for this time period. In addition to that we were over budget in spending, in no small part to JB Wells excessive over budget spending YTD. So we're not getting as much as we hoped, and we're spending more than we said we would. Surprise!
So to be very clear, I'm in NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM in favor of the proposed tax rate the way it is laid out right now.
Now comes the part I'm sure a few more will not agree with. I'm not all together opposed to a tax increase. I don't think economically it's really the time, but here's what I told one of our council members.
If the council would come up with a real plan for road and infrastructure improvements, and say we have a 5 year plan, I would be ok with a real tax increase as long as they would decrease the taxes at the end of that 5 years.
I've seen it done in San Antonio, and it can work! BUT and I mean BUT that has to be a set in stone, the money from that increase goes to specific projects that we the people have approved, and at the end of the time period the increase has got to drop back down and the city not count on any of that money in the future. Way to often a council will come up with any excuse to keep the taxes up, but that can not happen! This can not become another "vote for the lottery to pay for our schools" slogan either. This has to be very specific what these monies would be raised for and when they were the taxes would go away.
But if those conditions would be met and our infrastructure was the target of the needed money I would be in support.
But I promise you that the $20,000 that our council is dealing with is a waste of the public hearings and nothing more than a game someone is playing. Let your councilman know that you expect him to vote for the "effective rate" in 2 weeks. That there is ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE to vote for the rate as it's proposed right now. How about make a trip to one of the 2 city council meetings and speak up for yourself? Tomorrow at 5:30 or next Tuesday at 6.
God Bless,
Dennis Nesser
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Grant and District Attorney Heather McMinn
Ok, so I've received no less than a dozen phone calls and dozens of emails asking me about my thoughts on the Grant decision. So here we go.
First of all, if you've been hiding under a rock for the last year, you probably don't know that I filled a report with with the Gonzales City Police Department that was turned over to District Attorney Heather McMinns' office, and they "lost" it. The police department refiled the charges and in over 3 months nothing has happened.
The report I filled was on Mayor Bobby O'Neal over his action after the firing of then City Manager David Huseman, and the subsequent check that was issued containing an illegal pay raise and back pay that had not been approved by the city council.
Now this is the same Mayor Bobby O'Neal that District Attorney Heather McMinn refused to prosecute back in 2009/2010 for the same voter fraud that Mr Grant is being charged with, because of "Political Pressures" and her office didn't have the resources to prosecute the charges. (For more read my old blog Justice Gonzales Style)
So honestly I'm not one bit surprised. District Attorney Heather McMinn has proven time and time again that she is incapable of prosecuting anything of a political nature. I truly believe that if she is re-elected again in May that Mayor O'Neal will retire with not so much as a slap on the wrist for his actions.
As for Mr. Grant, the 'second chance' was given to him a year ago when he failed to follow through with his probation. So now for a third chance we'll see if he's smart enough to take it and run. Do I think it's right? Nope I don't, but I don't expect anything else from District Attorney Heather McMinn and her office.
So once again "Call the DAs office. Call, let them know that if there was an illegal actions they BEST prosecute!" then "Vote in this next election! Let those involved know WE WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS KIND OF CONDUCT! Let everyone know we will remove anyone and everyone involved, that INCLUDES the DA!"
God Bless,
Dennis Nesser
First of all, if you've been hiding under a rock for the last year, you probably don't know that I filled a report with with the Gonzales City Police Department that was turned over to District Attorney Heather McMinns' office, and they "lost" it. The police department refiled the charges and in over 3 months nothing has happened.
The report I filled was on Mayor Bobby O'Neal over his action after the firing of then City Manager David Huseman, and the subsequent check that was issued containing an illegal pay raise and back pay that had not been approved by the city council.
Now this is the same Mayor Bobby O'Neal that District Attorney Heather McMinn refused to prosecute back in 2009/2010 for the same voter fraud that Mr Grant is being charged with, because of "Political Pressures" and her office didn't have the resources to prosecute the charges. (For more read my old blog Justice Gonzales Style)
So honestly I'm not one bit surprised. District Attorney Heather McMinn has proven time and time again that she is incapable of prosecuting anything of a political nature. I truly believe that if she is re-elected again in May that Mayor O'Neal will retire with not so much as a slap on the wrist for his actions.
As for Mr. Grant, the 'second chance' was given to him a year ago when he failed to follow through with his probation. So now for a third chance we'll see if he's smart enough to take it and run. Do I think it's right? Nope I don't, but I don't expect anything else from District Attorney Heather McMinn and her office.
So once again "Call the DAs office. Call, let them know that if there was an illegal actions they BEST prosecute!" then "Vote in this next election! Let those involved know WE WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS KIND OF CONDUCT! Let everyone know we will remove anyone and everyone involved, that INCLUDES the DA!"
God Bless,
Dennis Nesser
Monday, August 22, 2011
I love hooping
Now I knew immediately who the culprit was. My first instinct was, 'Oh revenge will be sweet'. But before any revenge is taken, I thought I'd let you know a bit about the message.
Christine Moers is the hooping queen of Gonzales, and she has a challenge for us all. Her blog welcome to my brain has discussed the merits of the old hula hoop. It truly is aerobic fun. She's shared how adults should build their own hoops, as the ones in the stores are really made for kids, and links to videos on how to accomplish this. Her challenge is for the month of September to hoop for 30 minutes a day.
So how does my chalkboard get involved? Well Christine was doing a hooping video of her and her girls in several places in Gonzales as a scholarship fundraiser. The Old Jailhouse, The "Welcome to Gonzales" sign, Heros Square, and of course 'The Chalkboard' are all places shown in her video.
I am not the perfect example of exercise, but my wife and I are planning on taking the September challenge. In todays world where we sit in front of our electronics and don't move this is a great way to do something fun and active. You can get the kids involved and it will be a family thing. Why don't you consider joining us?
If you want to learn more about Christine Moers Blog or watch the hooping video go to her latest blog here.
God Bless,
Dennis Nesser
PS - Don't think revenge still isn't in the back of my mind and heaven help the next person who writes on my chalkboard. Ask if you want something on there, if I'm OK with it we'll do something.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
JB Wells
So I'm sure that there are those of you that think I've been doing a happy dance in town square over the recent developments in our city. With the firing of 2 employees, both directly related to the investigation of theft at JB Wells. Well I'm not!
Before I get started on my tirade, I want to note that the second, Mr. Malaer was fired for and I quote, “The investigation has been able to document numerous violations of the public trust and disregard for management accountability by this person.” Now theft could be in there, but I don't read it that way. I read it to be he didn't do his job, and didn't hold those below him accountable for doing theirs. Only time will tell the whole story.
But back to business.
I'm mad! I'm upset! Actually I'm pretty pissed off! Why when everything is so obvious to me did it take 18 months and can we say over a million dollars of losses over the several years (I know it's $20,000/month for the last couple of years) to start to address this problem? Why have so many turned a blind eye to these issues and tried to defend JB Wells operations and their losses for so long?
Why wasn't our financial officer jumping up and down at city hall meetings telling us there were problems down the street?
Why wasn't our previous city managers screaming that we had to change procedures to get this under control?
Why wasn't our city council putting this on the agenda every month until it got resolved?
I know that at one point at least one of the city council members went to the police, but it wasn't in an official capacity. But maybe that was enough to get the police to start investigating. I'm not certain what one thing finally got this investigation underway, but if I had to bet it was the firing of David Huseman, and the hiring of Charles Windwehem.
I'm not sure if this investigation is over with. I'm not sure what the final outcome is going to be. What I do know is that it's time to finally get a grip on our operations in the city, and especially JB Wells. Mr. Windwehem has started turning the direction of our city operations around. We can only hope that the new city manager, that will be announced on Tuesday, will be appreciative of all he's done, and continue to turn the city around in a professional manner, with the high standards that Mr. Windwehem has set.
God Bless,
Dennis Nesser
Before I get started on my tirade, I want to note that the second, Mr. Malaer was fired for and I quote, “The investigation has been able to document numerous violations of the public trust and disregard for management accountability by this person.” Now theft could be in there, but I don't read it that way. I read it to be he didn't do his job, and didn't hold those below him accountable for doing theirs. Only time will tell the whole story.
But back to business.
I'm mad! I'm upset! Actually I'm pretty pissed off! Why when everything is so obvious to me did it take 18 months and can we say over a million dollars of losses over the several years (I know it's $20,000/month for the last couple of years) to start to address this problem? Why have so many turned a blind eye to these issues and tried to defend JB Wells operations and their losses for so long?
Why wasn't our financial officer jumping up and down at city hall meetings telling us there were problems down the street?
Why wasn't our previous city managers screaming that we had to change procedures to get this under control?
Why wasn't our city council putting this on the agenda every month until it got resolved?
I know that at one point at least one of the city council members went to the police, but it wasn't in an official capacity. But maybe that was enough to get the police to start investigating. I'm not certain what one thing finally got this investigation underway, but if I had to bet it was the firing of David Huseman, and the hiring of Charles Windwehem.
I'm not sure if this investigation is over with. I'm not sure what the final outcome is going to be. What I do know is that it's time to finally get a grip on our operations in the city, and especially JB Wells. Mr. Windwehem has started turning the direction of our city operations around. We can only hope that the new city manager, that will be announced on Tuesday, will be appreciative of all he's done, and continue to turn the city around in a professional manner, with the high standards that Mr. Windwehem has set.
God Bless,
Dennis Nesser
Friday, August 5, 2011
How Much More Can We Spend?
So I've not written much about the city because I haven't had the time to follow up on some things that have really bothered me about the city council actions of late. So I'm going to go over a couple of them here, even though I'm looking at them from one side, and have had no comments from any of the city councilmen.
First was 2 agenda items that were at this months city council. The first was $28,000 (not budgeted) to have a flow study done of the water system. There are problems on the northern end of town for water pressure, and complaints from industry that not only is it causing them issues, but it could be hazardous. The second part of that was $11,000+ for a gis (I believe that was the term used) mapping of the water system.
Now in my simple mind, how are you going to do #1 without having #2? How can you tell how much water flow we have if you don't know what size pipes we have, where they are, how long there are, what valves are in place, etc, etc, etc? Each and every one of those things are factors in your water flow.
So I asked, all I got was "well they are going to have to do part of #2 to get #1, but it's different, we have to spend this $11,000. Really?
Now if they had said, "The format they are going to present it to us won't be usable for anything after the study is done, but since the company will have all the information, they can give us a standardized mapping of our water system for $11,000, and we think after this we can keep it up ourselves, and when we loose employees their knowledge won't go away because we'll have it in digital format for the world to use" I might have at least understood we are paying for the upgrade to the model we just purchased. But the way they made it sound was #1 was going to be magically produced without knowing exactly what our system consist of today. BS!
Second, why did we just 'award' this $40,000 without going out to bid on it? I've noticed a lot of this going on lately. The engineer will say, 'I've got so and so ready to go ahead as soon as you approve this project.....' and no bidding is going out? Why? Oh, it's ONLY $40,000, no need to? Really? Really?
You know last I looked times were tough, and there are some hungry people out there that will work, and do a good job for less money all over the place.
As long as I'm on that subject, I know we're closing in on a city manager. I hope our city council has gotten their head around this. I look and one of the 3 finalist appears to have 'resigned' or was going to be resigned (read 'fired') earlier this year. I have a bad case of deja vue here.
On top of which there are whisperings that the $70,000k range salary that we've paid our last city manager could be doubled, or close to it. There is a 9%+ unemployment rate in this great country, and we're going to double our salary right from the start? Where do we go from there? Do like the last one and give him a 20% pay raise after 6 months? People want to work, and there are plenty of qualified (and I stress the qualified) people who would kill for a $70,000 job right now. They would kill for any job. From $0 to $70,000, yeap, that's the ticket. And even those employed right now, like the interim mayor of I believe Flatonia, knows this is a good job or he wouldn't of applied.
One, we are NOT in the position financially to pay that kind of salary. Second, I believe if you look around, while there are those making that kind of money, it's not a typical salary for our size town. So in this case I'm hoping I'm wrong, but I don't think I am. We'll know shortly though as I believe this weekend the council will decide on someone.
Last, I couldn't make it to the meeting on 7/18 because my wife was in surgery. I found at this council meeting the council approved $120,000 for a financial adviser. What have I told you lately, every time they go in there is another $100,000 in unbudgeted moneys spent. This guy has basically told us we could bond out, and borrow the $5,500,000 with a 20 year pay back of $9,000,000. Using those type of figures, the entire $15,500,000 project will be $25,370,000. How much will they have to jack up rates to cover that expense? Let me tell you they can't jack them up far enough. So once again, I see property taxes going up to pay for this. Oh, and while our city financial has say he thinks we'll have a aaa rating, I'll bet anyone the best we'll get is a Ba rating. Why? Because or finances for the last several years have been in the red, and poorly managed. So what does aaa to a Ba mean? It means that $25,000,000 might not be high enough, because it will cost us more to get the loans (bonds). And for the record, go back about a year in my blog when I first started when I said this would come to bite us in the butt later. Guess what, later is now!
Good luck and Gods speed to our council this weekend as they finish deciding who will be our next city manager. I hope the money we've spend weening them out was worth it, because whoever comes in will have to be a Houdini and pull money out of the empty coffers. I hope they know what grant writing is all about and pull in enough cash to pay for themselves and put our town back on the financial stability, and infrastructure recovery we desperately need in this town.
God Bless,
Dennis Nesser
First was 2 agenda items that were at this months city council. The first was $28,000 (not budgeted) to have a flow study done of the water system. There are problems on the northern end of town for water pressure, and complaints from industry that not only is it causing them issues, but it could be hazardous. The second part of that was $11,000+ for a gis (I believe that was the term used) mapping of the water system.
Now in my simple mind, how are you going to do #1 without having #2? How can you tell how much water flow we have if you don't know what size pipes we have, where they are, how long there are, what valves are in place, etc, etc, etc? Each and every one of those things are factors in your water flow.
So I asked, all I got was "well they are going to have to do part of #2 to get #1, but it's different, we have to spend this $11,000. Really?
Now if they had said, "The format they are going to present it to us won't be usable for anything after the study is done, but since the company will have all the information, they can give us a standardized mapping of our water system for $11,000, and we think after this we can keep it up ourselves, and when we loose employees their knowledge won't go away because we'll have it in digital format for the world to use" I might have at least understood we are paying for the upgrade to the model we just purchased. But the way they made it sound was #1 was going to be magically produced without knowing exactly what our system consist of today. BS!
Second, why did we just 'award' this $40,000 without going out to bid on it? I've noticed a lot of this going on lately. The engineer will say, 'I've got so and so ready to go ahead as soon as you approve this project.....' and no bidding is going out? Why? Oh, it's ONLY $40,000, no need to? Really? Really?
You know last I looked times were tough, and there are some hungry people out there that will work, and do a good job for less money all over the place.
As long as I'm on that subject, I know we're closing in on a city manager. I hope our city council has gotten their head around this. I look and one of the 3 finalist appears to have 'resigned' or was going to be resigned (read 'fired') earlier this year. I have a bad case of deja vue here.
On top of which there are whisperings that the $70,000k range salary that we've paid our last city manager could be doubled, or close to it. There is a 9%+ unemployment rate in this great country, and we're going to double our salary right from the start? Where do we go from there? Do like the last one and give him a 20% pay raise after 6 months? People want to work, and there are plenty of qualified (and I stress the qualified) people who would kill for a $70,000 job right now. They would kill for any job. From $0 to $70,000, yeap, that's the ticket. And even those employed right now, like the interim mayor of I believe Flatonia, knows this is a good job or he wouldn't of applied.
One, we are NOT in the position financially to pay that kind of salary. Second, I believe if you look around, while there are those making that kind of money, it's not a typical salary for our size town. So in this case I'm hoping I'm wrong, but I don't think I am. We'll know shortly though as I believe this weekend the council will decide on someone.
Last, I couldn't make it to the meeting on 7/18 because my wife was in surgery. I found at this council meeting the council approved $120,000 for a financial adviser. What have I told you lately, every time they go in there is another $100,000 in unbudgeted moneys spent. This guy has basically told us we could bond out, and borrow the $5,500,000 with a 20 year pay back of $9,000,000. Using those type of figures, the entire $15,500,000 project will be $25,370,000. How much will they have to jack up rates to cover that expense? Let me tell you they can't jack them up far enough. So once again, I see property taxes going up to pay for this. Oh, and while our city financial has say he thinks we'll have a aaa rating, I'll bet anyone the best we'll get is a Ba rating. Why? Because or finances for the last several years have been in the red, and poorly managed. So what does aaa to a Ba mean? It means that $25,000,000 might not be high enough, because it will cost us more to get the loans (bonds). And for the record, go back about a year in my blog when I first started when I said this would come to bite us in the butt later. Guess what, later is now!
Good luck and Gods speed to our council this weekend as they finish deciding who will be our next city manager. I hope the money we've spend weening them out was worth it, because whoever comes in will have to be a Houdini and pull money out of the empty coffers. I hope they know what grant writing is all about and pull in enough cash to pay for themselves and put our town back on the financial stability, and infrastructure recovery we desperately need in this town.
God Bless,
Dennis Nesser
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