Bill McDonald’s Pinky Promise
ByI started off the week bothered by the fact that the city council meetings take so long to appear on the city website after the meeting has concluded.
The question of the amount of time that it would take is among one of the greatest conundrums of our generation.
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dupont washington, dupontwa, realdupont
While the world may never know some things, like how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop and the posting of the February City Council Meeting, we do know that it took only 9 days to post the March 10, 2009 city council meeting.
It is interesting that February’s meeting still is no where to be found.
While that is disappointing, it did give me the opportunity to enter the wayback machine and re-examine some of the content of council meetings held last year. One in particular stood out: July 8, 2008.
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dupont washington, dupontwa, realdupont
In this meeting, Bill McDonald proposed a novel concept where the city could solicit a wider cross section of public feedback. This feedback could be used to help council set priorities in the city by taking the citizen input, then formulating a plan of action during the “budget season” to follow in a few months hence.
It was an unexpected moment of forethought and scope.
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dupont washington, dupontwa, realdupont
At the city’s disposal was a new way to gain knowledge of what the voters in town were thinking. Remember, at the time, the first fire levy ballot amount had yet to be conjured. The city must have been thinking that since it was facing the reality of asking for a property tax hike, they needed an edge. A way to refine their approach to ensure success; and to finally put to rest a long standing headache in town.
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dupont washington, dupontwa, realdupont
But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. They never followed through.
No touch pads. No professional polling. No new perspective of a broader cross section of the citizens of DuPont.
What they did get was a failed levy; more citizen distrust from a near slight of hand from the general fund; and no medical transport or other fire services.
At the end of the last video, you can hear our handsomely compensated and hefty pay increase recipient clearly say that he will make it happen.
It didn’t.
This is not a big surprise. Nor is it a surprise that there is no explanation as to why the city chose to insulate themselves from public opinion that may have actually yielded a levy dollar amount that would have ensured success. Nor is there any apparent accountability to the mayor, his supervisor; or from the mayor to her constituents.
No, all that we have is another levy coming up. Another roll of the dice.
Ah, but look at it this way, at least their lack of current meeting on the web led me back to the video of a summer meeting and the promise they broke. Thanks, Bill.
Bill McDonald gave himself a $6000 raise this year. Which touchpad button was pushed to make that happen?
Slimey!
John Ehrenreich – Are you a man of your word? Make some tough decisions. You say you are well trained to do so. You are behaving like a sheep!
I do applaud Roger Westman for using his principles to cast council votes.
Maybe all of the city’s problems will disappear once they move into their new diggs.
Was the mayor a cheerleader in high school? Because she sure is one now.
Making great things happen.
No survey. No touch pads. No focus groups. Plenty of taskforces and agencies though…and council doesn’t even listen to them (except for the fire taskforce). Why should this suprise anyone?
Our state government is publically questioning weather or not they should ask for an increase in taxes from residents, or do they look inward and really make the tough choices and make cuts now.
Has the City of DuPont had this discussion? Have they capped salaries? Have they asked people to take a pay cut? Have they talked to the Lakewood Fire Union about freezing wages since that is the biggest expense out of the fire department budget? What has the City of DuPont done on behalf of the taxpayers to really show us that they have tightened up their belts and done all they can before asking residents to fork over another $250 to $300 that we simply don’t have in our bank accounts right now? No, they haven’t. They gave EVERYONE in the organization a pay increase. This is AIG on the local level folks.
Wake up Mayor! Stop listening to the Lakewood Union and being intimidated by them and start listening to the residents who live here. Were broke. You are not doing your job when it comes to really finding a solution that meets the demand and what people can afford.
John E., your comments are disappointing since you seemed to believe so strongly in seeking citizen participation. You spoke of being trained to make hard decisions yet this great idea never happened. What changed? Did you suddenly stop representing the people of DuPont and become another city hall lap dog.
Here is a message to the city council: You do not save money by doing nothing, you waste money by doing nothing!
It is obvious the blind is leading the blind, deaf, and mute!
I don’t have that special tough decesion training you speak of, so I will make a simple decesion. I will vote no on the levy and I will vote for anybody who isn’t already on council in November.
I had to turn off the 3/10/2009 replay when Bill was talking. I couldn’t take all the “um”s! It seemed like every other word was “um”. Geez ever heard of Toast Masters? Think about what you are going to say before you say it. Take a pause if you need to get your thought. I could only imagine if someone was having to type everything he was saying! “Well, um, the, um, figures, um, um, um, shows that, um, that, um, revenues, um, over, um the next year, um, will, um, well, be lower.” ARRGGH!!!
Question. If many homes and commercial buildings have dry- or wet-dwelling or building automatic fire sprinkler systems; it follows, does that not lower the fire department response complexity and costs needed for any existing DuPont fire department first responders, else why or what benefit is dwelling fire suppression systems installed to who and how must does each person have to pay to maintain and test any fire building fire suppression and alarm system located within their building?
And, just thinking about the ‘complexities of DuPont General Government’ as people seem to blog about with comments made; as a result, I have made a suggestion for a couple books that DuPont ‘Citizens’ might just find an interesting read -See “Books: Suggested reading because things get complex from complexities” available at
http://www.talkdupont.org/community/showthread.php?p=139#post139
It seems-to-me DuPont ‘Citizens’ face some decisions about DuPont future services delivered to ‘Citizens’; since most-service must consider ‘Taxpayers’ funding, the local natural resource gravel mine considering digging a bigger hole, parks and recreation, business districts, transportation, and public safety services improvements -it follows, the ‘Citizens’ of DuPont should have reasoned or thought about a lot-of-issues once created that will become ‘Taxpayers’ forever, and with complexity of delivery of government services the ‘Citizens’ benefit received just-might-not increase that much for the cost of complexity and resources necessary to deliver the beneficial ‘Citizens’ service?
So, be careful what you wish for in DuPont services tomorrow because, where I live in Tacoma, I see what Tacoma permits to be funding and built for Tacoma ‘Citizens’ benefit; naturally, becomes a ‘Taxpayers’ expense to maintain for all tomorrows until just abandon-in-place and not paying the cost for maintenance and required spending to maintain the ‘Citizens’ value of the past constructed capital project or asset; as a result, this is why I suggest: Be cautious related to necessary general government complexities ‘Taxpayers’ projects and future ‘Taxpayers’ cost.
Do you speak in tongues? I can barely understand this last post. Of course we the tax payers get what we vote for and pay for. Our tax base here is one of hte lowest in the county and DuPont has not kept up the costs associated with a master planned community and to put it bluntly, has been taking it from both ends by Quadrant from many years and not saying ENOUGH! Glacier doesn’t pay squat to the city in regards to taxes. Maybe an extraction fee, most definately property taxes on land de-valued for mining. If the application is approved, we could fit downtown Tacoma inside the big hole here left by Glacier Northwest. How’s that for a tourism gig? As far as the fire levy goes, if we don’t have a lot of fires to respond to, then why the hell are we forking over $300 extra a year for fire protection if the call volume doesn’t call for it? An ambulance would be nice, but we don’t need the latest and greatest whirley gigs and do-dads just so Lakewood firefighters can play with them and break them (like our Ambulance). Lakewood is shoving this thing down our throats and playing to the fears of every housewife in this town. Wise up ladies. Vote no.