Dear Citizens,
Welcome to my first weblog. Hopefully, it will be one of many.
First of all, thank you for electing me to another 4-year term. It has always been an honor to serve the citizens of East Wenatchee and it will continue to be an honor.
I have started this website to provide an informal forum for citizens to stay updated on what is happening at City Hall and for citizens to provide their input on what concerns they have when it comes to City government and what direction they think the City should take over the next four years. I hope to write a new blog about once a month.
First of all, let me give you a brief "State of the City" report.
The City Council just passed the 2008 budget for East Wenatchee which anticipates total expenditures in the sum of approximately 7.4 million dollars. The budget is balanced, of course, but only anticipates a carryover of about $250,000 into 2009. Historically during my tenure as Mayor, however, our staff has managed to limit spending to a sum below budgeted amounts. I would say we have a solid financial position but need to work on lowering expenses while finding new revenue sources in 2008.
Those revenue sources should be developed by increasing the attractiveness of East Wenatchee to visitors, a stated goal of our city since 1995. It is for that reason that I am currently working to explore the possibility of obtaining outside funding to create a Sports Plex facility in our area which could host state youth sports tournaments, for the great economic benefit such events will provide to our merchants and, indirectly, to city government. I'll have more to say about that subject as plans hopefully develop. I would appreciate your comments on the future of the City.
One major idea I have been mulling over for some time is how to consolidate the various municipal services in East Wenatchee under one roof. As the City becomes more and more urban in nature, it makes sense to have the City manage sewer services, water services, and park services.
I believe this makes sense for the following reasons. First, consolidating the services under one roof will result in operational efficiencies. Rather than paying for the services, through taxes or fees, for a City Council, for a Water Board, a Sewer Board, and for a Parks Board, the taxpayers will only have to pay for the expenses of one governing board. Likewise, the process of billing and collecting fees for utility services could be streamlined. Likewise, instead of each entity maintaining a full fleet of vehicles and equipment (a lot of it duplicative, consolidation would reduce the expenditures on purchases of new equipment and on maintenance of that equipment.
Second, consolidating services under one roof will increase public participation and awareness of what is going on in the community. As it presently stands, a citizen faces a daunting task of staying abreast of what is going on in the community. For example, if a citizen is concerned about a particular issue, he or she may have to attend the meetings of four governing bodies.
Third, consolidating services will attract business to the community. For example, if a business owner wants to build a new office or store, he or she has to run to the City for a permit, run to the Water District for a permit, and run to the Sewer District for a permit. Rather than knowing exactly what he or she needs to do from A to Z to build the building, the business owner quickly finds he or she is pulled in different directions. In the end, the process moves slowly and data farms are built in Quincy instead of East Wenatchee.
Finally, consolidation would solve the problem created by the fact that the various governmental entities are not always on the same page when it comes to planning for and managing the significant growth occurring on our community. For example, the Water District has plans to allow growth outside the urban growth area which was jointly established by the City and Douglas County for the Greater East Wenatchee area. This has recently led to litigation between the City and the Water District. Regardless of which entity ultimately wins the litigation, the ultimate outcome will means that one of the entities will have wasted years of time and effort in developing a plan which no one will follow.
Having explained my reasoning to you, my question for you the citizens is twofold: 1) Do you think that consolidating service is an idea whose time has come?, and 2) Should the City request an advisory vote on this issue during the next election? I appreciate your comments and look forward to serving you for the next four years.
6 comments:
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Mayor Lacy,
I think this is a great idea. I hope people will use this blog site to respectfully share their concerns as well as their support.
Consolidating city services certainly seems to make sense from a customer’s point of view. However, I would urge you to do a cost analysis of the initial changeover and subsequent yearly costs and how those costs compare to the system we are using today. I think if you could show a cost savings (or at least show that it won’t cost more money) and show the benefits to the citizens of having everything under one governing board, you would have a winner.
Do you anticipate any turf wars with the current sewer and water boards?
Few ratepayers know how much is being paid out to just administration within the East Wenatchee Water District which services only 24,000 water customers. East Wenatchee Water District Manager Greg Brizendine has just signed a new 5 year contract with the district with a BASE salary of $106,032.00. (Brizendine salary in 1997 was $65,400.00) plus fringe benefits include use of a new pickup, sick leave, medical, dental, life and vision insurance. These figures do not included travel expenses and other odds and ends. (Compare this figure to the Chelan PUD salary and benefits of the manager for the water department with approximately 42,000 water customers are approximately $130,000.00).
The commissioners have received and average of $10,000.00 each per year over the past five years which does not sound like much but they only put in a four hours a month which comes to about $200.00 an hour, not bad.
If the water and sewer were consolidated by the city both services could be run easily on these salaries. Many believe that this one reason the EWWD manager and commissioners have pushed to annex huge parcels of land outside the UGA. The EWWD management hopes by creating a behemoth of unmanageable proportions no one including the City of East Wenatchee will be able to touch them and that will assure job security.
Brizendine and the commissioners have also wasted ratepayer money and district time by attempting to push through these huge water annexations that are out of line and will benefit only a few. The district could have better used the districts money and time by upgrading old water mains and bringing fire flow to exiting customers.
There is no doubt that consolidation by the city would render better service, better management and less litigation and attorney fees cost passes onto the ratepayers due to irresponsible actions by management. Another positive created by consolidating water, sewer and parks by the city would be less inclination to hire or create jobs for relatives and friends, as has happened in the past and is still happening in these services.
So can you tell me what East Wenatchee politicians are going to do about the illegal immigration situation? The ICE van hasn't moved for eons!
I think it is a great idea. One stop shopping for the developer/builder for the permit process would be great! Who would build an "industrial park" without basic sewer/water treatment hookups? Great idea to implement as the city grows.
~~Charles
There are some good comments and this is a good dialogue of an old issue. If one government agency was the answer, we would have only one police, one fire, one municipal gov, and one news source. In this age of internet and communication- I fail to buy having a city take over would greatly increase public participation and create sudden growth. In fact, how would you eliminate any one of the 3 agencies since they now serve about as many people outside the city already as there are inside. And although 106,000 per year sounds like a lot for a manager, he has a 5 year contract, so his wages would not stop. And the city would have to pay the same or more, so we would have two 106,000 managers- one for city and one for county- same for parks and water? A new building would have to be built- they say the city hall is full now. Perhaps water/sewer/parks rates/taxes could be decreased- but that remains to be seen and for how long or why not without consolidating? I support lower rates- so often when an election is lost- it is run until it passes, it is overturned by a outside judge, it is recounted until it satisfies them, and they will say the voters just did not understand the issue? Although the poll results are in, that does not mean there are not ways to improve any the water or sewer district. It seems more sense to combine water and Sewer into one and even have sewer district take over the new Rock Island sewer project so there are not duplicate sewer management/equipment/ billing/ buildings/ and more. And maybe instead of a election, reduce property taxes by that amount?
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