No Surprises: Pro Change Aldermen Prevail on Key Issues / But Status Quo Officials Slow Proceeding

By Pauline Masson – 

The four progressive aldermen prevailed on key issues June 6 in their quest for change in the way the city does business, but it was a tough slog.

I concluded in my recent post that after City Administrator Steve Roth declared in writing that he would not acccpt additions that individual aldermen requested for the Board of Aldermen (BOA) meeting agenda that the progressive aldermen might just move forward without mentioning Roth’s insurrection. Which is exactly what they did. 

Their public manners were impressive, if not understandable and pretty wearing as the June 6 debate drug on for more than two hours.

Scott Lesh, acting president of the board had presented three bills at the May 16 BOA meeting that his fellow aldermen accepted and asked City Attorney Bob Jones to draft as proposed ordinances: 1- Aldermen would be permitted to speak on the first reading of a new ordinance; 2- Aldermen could add items to the BOA meeting agenda prior to the meeting; and 3- The BOA, not the mayor would select liaisons to city boards, commissions and committees.

The first reading of each the three ordinances was completed, following a lengthy push back by the mayor, city administrator, Attorney Jones and aldermen Rick Presley and Rafael Madrigal. 

On the question of aldermen adding items to the meeting agenda, Roth remained silent, But Presley carried the city administrator’s message that for an alderman to add an item to the meeting would be a bad thing.

Presley said the proposed ordinance was redundant. He said the full board as a body could call for an amendment to an agenda and if there were enough votes the agenda would be amended and the added issue would be brought up at a future meeting.  

“We don’t need this,” Presley said.

Madrigal went a bit further, saying the proposed ordinance opened up a Pandora’s box, where one alderman would be holding the entire board hostage. 

“They could be off their meds,” Madrigal said.

Mayor Filley also argued that the ordinance was not needed. She said all an aldermen had to do was ask and she would place their requested item on the agenda.

Lesh, who crafted the bill, reminded Filley that in the past he had requested an item be placed on the agenda and she refused to include it. 

Filley acknowledged that she had refused to place requested items on the agenda in the past, but said she was new as mayor when that happened. Now, she said, she would add any requested item to the agenda.

Lesh said the ordinance was needed because the published agenda is available to other aldermen and the public prior to the meeting and gives notice of items that will to be discussed at the meeting.

 Alderman Debbie Kelley agreed that public notice of what would be discussed at the meeting was the key benefit of the ordinance.

“It was not meant to be a bad thing,” she said. “If used properly it would be a good tool. Then the public would know what an aldermen is going to bring up, so the alderman could share more information.”

The biggest wordfest of the meeting centered on aldermen’s request at a previous meeting for the city administrator to find $300,000 in the 2023-2024 budget to set aside as a reserve for future swimming pool renovation, repair or replacement. The intent was that money would be added to the fund in each budget year.

One by one the status quote spokespersons said why it was a bad idea to set aside money for the swimming pool.

Roth said he could find the funds for one year, but if the line item was to be for future budgets, it would rob capital improvement projects or other line items such as payroll. He gave a lengthy “Budget 101” tutorial, explaining that a budget is a year to year thing.

Lesh said he understood, but he had identified numerous line items in the budget where revenues were purposely under estimated and expenditures were purposely over estimated, which ended up with unspent money at the end of the year that was rolled over into the next year. He said by tightening up those items, the unspent funds could be added to the swimming pool fund.

Mayor Filley said future boards might be against the idea. 

“We have future boards.  If the decision this year to take $300,000 comes about, what if the next board, or a board 3 or 4 years down the road changes that. And if we don’t have a working pool or if we do have a new pool, now what is that going to do,” she said.

Alderman Rafael Madrigal said it could damage the city’s credit rating. 

Attorney Jones had the most revealing answer. When Alderman Debbie Kelly read to to him the motion that aldermen had voted on and approved at the May 22 budget meeting. – “for administrator to find $ 300,000 from the budget to redirect it towards the pool.” –  Jones said. ”I don’t know what that means.”

For about 40 minutes, as opponents cited all the reasons they thought the city should not allocate money for a future swimming pool fund, the four aldermen kept the cool, replying “You make a good point,” or, “I understand what you are saying,” before continuing with their reasons why they felt it had to be done.

“If only previous administrations or boards or whatever you want to say would have done this,” James Cleeve said, ”This pool is old, we’ve known this was coming and haven’t done anything about it until now – and now we want to go after $6 million. So we’ve got to stop pushing the ball down the road and start somewhere. So I think we need to start .“

Roth ended the discussion saying if that was what the board really wanted to do he could “cobble together some type of plan.”

This 5-4 discussion on the future of city government could be a harbinger of meetings to come. Stay tuned.