Dillingham Haggblom

City Annexation—02/09/10

The 02/08/10 workshop was postponed until 02/09/10.  Sheinberg was telephonic, as was council member Bob Himschoot.  Council member Sue Mulkeit was not present, after telling Mayor Alice Ruby that the roads were too “bad” for her to drive in for.  Couldn’t Mulkeit call in then and be present telephonically?  Wouldn’t she want to be present at the last workshop prior to the council vote on Thursday?  Guess it’s not that important to her.

Mayor Ruby declared that she wanted the workshop over by 7:00 pm (it started at 6:00 pm and was scheduled to go until 7:30 pm but was not hindered by another meeting starting at 7:30 pm).  She stated that the roads were bad and everyone should be on them going home before dark.  Now, when the meeting ended at about 7:35 pm, I tried a test skid to see just how bad the roads were. Couldn’t do it.  The roads were fine.  I drove almost 10 miles and the roads were fine.  Thank you, Mayor Ruby for yet another accurate declaration of the state of things.  Luckily, this last workshop before the petition would be voted on was not rushed through.

And, fortunately, a local commercial drift fisherman was finally present.  He used language like “watershed resident”, which had not been used before, and was successful at explaining the consequences of various tax rates, such that the original favoring of the 3% tax was dropped to 2.5%.

My favorite part, though, was when there was a roughly $333,000 budget discrepancy that would require Frank Poarrns, finance director, to talk with Sheinberg the next day to clarify what happened with that figure.  The item in question was the 2010 budget, which Tubbs remembered passed at roughly -$74,000, but it was listed as roughly -$400,000 in the draft petition.  Council member Tim Sands offered that it was from the added cost of the water project, but Tubbs offered that that was not it.  Poarrns didn’t know why the two numbers were different, to the tune of about $333,000, so would have to find out.  Now, I could see a difference of say, $10,000, but $333,000?  And nobody knows why?  Are you kidding me?  The negligible amount of respect I had for the city just decreased further.

So, the petition is to be voted on Thursday, 02/11/10.  If it’s approved, it will be submitted to the LBC, and after they approve it, it will be voted on in a city election.  The income from the tax won’t be realized then until 2011, after Sands hoped for it to be in place for 2010.  Well, folks, that could have happened had you left out land annexation from the beginning.  Congratulations for contributing to the city’s budget deficits for another year.  Fine job.  I’m so happy I didn’t vote for any of you.