Hire more cops not consultants
December 23, 2008
On December 8, 2008, the City of Concord held its annual restructuring of public offices. The out going Mayor gave a brief summary of the last term’s accomplishments, including the hiring of new police officers, to prepare the Department for the transition replacement of anticipated retirees over the next two years. Within 9 days, citizens learned that 5 of the 8 police were not being picked up. Their training would continue at the City’s cost, but that they would not join the force for budget reasons.
A week earlier on December 1, 2008, the City of Concord had the second and final reading of its controversial RV/Camper Shell/Motorcycle and ‘Park on the Left in your driveway’ ordinance; within was the hiring of a processing clerk of the ‘grandfathering in permit’ to allow people who have such equipment to continue parking in their own driveways (a right they had but was being taken away). The cost was $100,000 for the position and allocated was another $75,000 for temporaries. The plans called for an additional $175,000 for the subsequent 2 years of enforcement. Despite a public comment advising that this was ill timed, ill advised, and ill financed, the City Council passed the motion unanimously.
At the same meeting, the public comment opened with a renewed request that the City advise the people of the City plans and actions to meet what was apparent all through the nation, namely the current economic crisis, and what its impact would be on the City. The commentator was informed that the City had an excellent staff and was using 10 year planning, thank you. Further we would be well advised to let the exxperts handle our personal finances, and please go away. Additionally we were told that there would be another meeting in January and that, as usual, that would be the proper time to review such matters.
At that same meeting, the City Council unanimously agreed to a new contract for the Pavilion management with Live Nation, a corporation that had announced just a few weeks before that it had $100 million plus in QUARTERLY profits, yet as part of the agreement, the City not only cut their contribution to the rent of the Pavilion by $300,000, it also forgave PAST DUE amounts in the tens of thousands of dollars.
During this same December 1 meeting, the City approved $15,000 bonus and a $11,000+ raise to the City Attorney.
Two weeks later, we learned that in order to save $300,000 to $500,000, the City would mandate the closure of City offices and force employees to apply earned vacation/time off for this layoff period.
This peculiar sequence of events leaves one asking the question of “Is this a coherent City policy?” How are we to understand that the breaking of the commitment to the police and the financial grab at the City Staff was happening while at the same time as everything else?
Do we have a condition on our streets where we can reduce the number of committed Real Police and at the same time hire Aesthetic Police to process permits recording the rights lost?
This brings up the questions of our entire concept of 10 year planning and our faith in the financial steps that we are told to rely upon. Apparently, when actions were taken earlier this year to hire eight officers, the 10-year plan was all OK and Green Light for the next ten years. Then, somehow, months later, that light goes Red, and the same approach says it is OK now to take on a desk job and give a bonus to our friendly staff lawyer.
But wait…There’s more!
In the interim from the decision to fill new police positions to its very celebration of that decision on December 8th, the City Consent calendar has—shock and awe, or should I say shock and awful—a number of consulting awards for everything from telling us what pretty architecture pictures could look like on Monument Blvd., to consulting on Real Estate and Financial Advisory thereof to the Redevelopment Agency ((Free hint: it stinks)).
So we are led to believe that in order to save money we have to shut down the City offices and put hardships on our own employees, but we go along as usual with consultants? What are the odds that there is a clause in the consulting contracts that allows us to shut them down for a week or two and take a savings? I wonder what the odds on this are in Vegas?.
One of the hoped for basic rules in business is “we come first.” The reasons you have consultants is to be able to be free from them on a moment’s notice so as to protect the jobs of the people you have a social commitment to. That is what it originally meant when we used to say in business “my people.” The City needs to realign itself with its people. We need to:
1. eliminate every consultant deal except for extreme emergencies for the next year,
2. review every consultant we have for early termination,
3. review all the types of consulting that was done to see if their advice and action was of any value
4. under no circumstance should we be removing police while approving desk hires for aesthetic monitoring,
5. no position is added, or rewarded while others are losing their jobs to cost savings, a hard blow to some I understand, but we must stand together in tough times and not create further divisions within staff and the community.
6. we cannot afford to appear chaotic in our response to challenges nor should we remain silent while things are seriously changing and the public is seeing government as usual on display while behind things have already changed dramatically to make the public display appear uninformed.
The City Council and the City Manager need to get on the same page. We cannot praise an action on one hand and take it away a week later. The people have to have faith in the creditability of the financial side of the City to respond to things in a cohesive, transparent manner, and not to appear as if they suddenly woke up to a financial crisis that was at the heart of a national campaign for months before the middle of December.
The Chaos Theory is something that I like to envision in my science fiction reading, not live it in my hometown.
Edi Birsan/Easy Does It (sometimes), in Concord
Tags: california politics, cops, city budget, contra costa news, concord police, california politics blog, police, contra costa politics, california, contra costa, consultants, budget crisis
Related posts
Comments
Got something to say?
Events Calendar
Follow us on Twitter
