How broken has our City Government become? You decide!
How broken has our City Government become? You decide!
You may not be fully aware of the scope of the problems our City has right now, mostly fostered by our inattentive Mayor Jack Seiler, and our incompetent City Manager George Gretsas. Today is the last Commission meeting before the Commission takes a recess until September.
Seiler’s laziness may have placed our City in a difficult financial situation for the next several months.
Today, Wednesday July 7 is the final Commission meeting before the Commission takes a recess until September. After today, no public business will be done until then. Here is what’s supposed to be covered today:
· Discussion of next year’s budget. Once again, Gretsas has submitted an absurdly swollen budget and is using up the rest of the available reserve funds rather than trim positions or reduce salaries.
· Over $15 million in a purchase request for more city vehicles and their maintenance services, for the next three years.
· Discussion/approval of cameras to catch red light runners at traffic intersections
· Discussion of the Homeless Feeding Center being proposed on NE 8 Street
· Discussion of a new lease for the Bahia Mar project
· Discussion of the fence being constructed along Las Olas Blvd.
· Plus over 100 other items, including presentations, purchases, resolutions, motions, ordinances, and consent items.
Trying to ask our elected officials to make proper decisions on all of these items in one afternoon is ridiculous. This meeting will run into the morning! Is this any way to run a City? It is becoming more and more apparent that Mayor Seiler has lost control of the governance of Fort Lauderdale.
And another small thing. This is supposed to be the last meeting where Gretsas will be serving as City Manager. His contract expires at the end of this month. For the last 16 months, the Mayor and Commission have had ample opportunity to discuss publicly the City Manager options after Gretsas and decide on a process that would insure we have a more professional and competent City Manager installed in the future. But for 16 months, there has not been one word spoken by the Mayor or any Commissioner about what to do after Gretsas’ contract expires!
And worse, this topic is not even on the agenda tonight either! That means that if nothing is discussed tonight, and the Commission meeting ends, then Gretsas walks out the door on July 31. This means that there will be no-one in our City Government authorized to write checks! Our government will effectively be SHUT DOWN until such time as the Commission reconvenes in September!
How incompetent can our Mayor and Commission be? And if our Mayor somehow proposes something tonight at the last minute, it will mean that he has been in discussion with someone himself, privately, without the knowledge of the Commission or the public. Maybe he’s planning to install a friend of his, or try to keep Gretsas as City Manager on a month-by-month basis. Our Commissioners, weary after hours of mind-numbing issues on tonight’s agenda, will have no other options to look at before leaving for the summer.
So what are we to think? Either the Mayor has violated his own commitment to the public about “Open Government” or else he is so incompetent that he is not fit to serve as Mayor. Either way, something stinks in City Hall and our Mayor seems to be the one that’s causing the odor.
Earl Rynerson
Reader Comments
Earl, now that you’ve told him what his schedule is, he might just look into it. Otherwise, he and no one else would know what the right hand was doing.
And, apparantly could care less to boot. Don’t worry though, between the Mayor, Gretsas and Lori Parrish, they’ll make sure they suck us dry of our soon to be inflated property taxes one way or another. Somebody has to pay their inflated salaries, more city vehicles, etc.,etc.,etc.,etc…………………….They won’t let that go by the wayside.
Most of the elected Officials are not feeling the pain that many residents are dealing with and do not take the leadership roles in making the changes We all need to demand Change I suggest everybody request a Meeting with the Mayor and Commissioners we must get are views Heard !!!
The City Commission is NOT taking off in August. They will meet on August 17th. Mr. Rynerson you are incorrect.
Dennis, I stand corrected. You are right, there will now be a meeting in August.
Earl
Earl:
Keep up the good work of informing us. I not only voted for you, but contributed and campaigned on my own to make you our mayor. Without your political updates, most of us would not even be aware of the issues and certainly not know the details of the issues. Hopefully, you will run again and now that the voters are learning via your newsletters how serious and devoted you are about good government in Lauderdale, they will finally make the right choice.
Bob DeBenedictis
Felt as if I were floating in a sea of mush last night and above the mush was a repeating voice “I am trying to….” over and over.
Earl, we the citizen owe you big time for looking out for our best interest. The city needs to run like a business! We need a tea party movement against the incompetent ones running our city. The commissioners need to know they work for the citizens not the employees! Cut our taxes and not our services, this is why you were elected, DO YOUR JOBS!
This is all ridiculous. The City is wasting too much money and not paying attention to what the residents want. That railing on Las Olas is the worst I have ever seen in my life. Traffic in downtown Fort Lauderdale and Las Olas is terrible. And the Commissioners are letting the First Pres Church build a basketball gymnasium in a residential neighborhood to bring in Basketball leagues from Plantation and all over the city, so traffic and parking can be worse.
We must all do our part as citizens and forward this email to all of our neighbors and friends here in Ft Lauderdale. Everyone must be aware of the unacceptable job our city leaders are doing with their spend, spend, spend policies. Please, we must all get the word out to our neighbors.
The cities fleet budget finally led me to you. Your comment:Over $15 million in a purchase request for more city vehicles and their maintenance services, is what really has my goat. Everyday I see more and more “shiney new trucks” on the streets and for the life of me I cannot figure out why this city has so many vehicles. The Parks and Recreation dept has to be one of the worst offenders. Empty huge gas guzzlers just running thru traffic trying to look like they are doing something. What are we spending money for the sake of spending money? Cutting park hours and services but yet I read about a 500 to 700 hundred thousand dollar bid to build a maintenence building for Holiday Park? If I see one more new truck in this city I think I will go nuts..
Oh and the other thing that has my blood pressure up..How can the city build a fire department with an upstairs gym overlooking the most expensive real estate in Fort Lauderdale? For God’s sake one block over the empty buildings are ghostly..the fire trucks have to stop the Traffic on A1A for ingress and egress..who allowed such a thing and how did it pass thru the city as fast as it did. The rest of us would have to jump thru hoops for a building permit..this was up and built in record time..