AI5: City Indirect Cost Allocation Plan & AI 4
Middle East ceasefire resolution
I am encouraged to see this new cost allocation plan
approach, hopefully the first steps in rationalizing
future annual city budget development in a more
conventional and less unusual process and format
than in recent years.
Given the council has declared the city to be in a
‘financial emergency’ it is heartening to see evidence
of intelligent thought being applied to put us on a
healthier financial footing for the future.
Despite all this hard work for our (probably
overwhelmed) city staff and some members of the
council, sadly we are still seeing examples of
leadership failure by the Mayor and vice Mayor in
the style of recent past councils that got us into the
fiscal and organizational mess we are in now.
Whoever thought agenda item 4 was a good idea
appears to be completely unaware of how
contentious encouraging public debate and trying
to craft statements about geopolitical events
thousands of miles away is.
I’m sure this has cost city staff and council dearly in time and costs and will no doubt result in endless
personal opinions and perspectives contributed
during the council meeting by people who may or
may not live in our city.
The latest Middle East tragedies are absolutely a
subject for free speech and individual opinions, but
encouraging using our tiny city’s council meeting as
a forum for this is like arguing politics at the
department of motor vehicles. We are trying to fix
our financial and organizational emergencies, not
attempt to craft pretentious and quixotic group
political statements that all citizens are unlikely to
agree with and which will have no future bearing or
geopolitical value.
There are far more useful and constructive ways we
can personally take to try to help and resolve this
latest disaster at a national and international level,
but there’s a real danger for council and city staff
being politically seen to ‘take a side’ on behalf of our city by personally debating political views, which is
unhelpful in creating prejudices amongst the
electorate.
I strongly suggest council stick to the basics of city
management, and whoever proposed the
resolution follow their path on a personal not an
official collective council opinion level.
I really wish city citizens paid as close attention to
the issues that will greatly affect their lives locally as much as they do in making statements about foreign
conflicts to council. I am deeply antiwar and
appreciate concern, but this is not the forum for
debating international conflict.
Oliver Marks
Downtown Sebastopol