The only thing faster at swallowing your money than a Las Vegas card table is a government body. If any of our faithful PRU readers are interested in watching, live and in person, how fast one of their local government bodies can swallow money, you're in luck!
There's another Council COW meeting tonight at 505 Butler Place! And the agenda (.pdf) is packed full of fun! The general topics covered will be under Finance and Budget, Public Works, and Procedures and Regulations!
Under the Finance and Budget action items to be covered is COW approval of that stickiest of wickets -- approval of contributions to community groups (.pdf). While the Public Works portion of the agenda includes 4 out of 5 action items guaranteed to satisfy some urges for local economic stimulation! The Procedures and Regulations portion of the meeting will include concerns relating to land sharks and candygrams.
So faithful PRU readers, if you haven't got anything better to do tonight, beginning at 7 p.m. at Park Ridge City Hall you can watch your money get swallowed by the money black hole, a.k.a. your local city government!
May 24, 2010
Another Committee of the HOLE!
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7 comments:
PRU:
Forgive my ignorance but this "approval request" does not fall into the catagory of something the Mayor could veto, correct?
Anon@2:39 --
You are forgiven.
The approval request before the F&B COW tonight is not something the Mayor has the power to veto.
The Mayor's veto authority comes into play after Council action is taken.
Our expectation is, tonight the COW will approve the payouts to community groups, the matter will then go before the City Council at a regular City Council meeting and will be in the form of an ordinance the Council will take action on. Then the Mayor may decide to veto the Council's action, and we believe the Mayor retains the authority to veto these items together or individually.
We understand the confusion created by trying to follow the bouncing ball through the hoops of the government process -- the players may be the same, but the field of play changes throughout the process. Committees of the Whole are different within the legislative process stream than regular Council meetings.
Personally, I'd rather have the money go to Center of Concern than to Blackwater, Exxon, and the Texas textbook companies that are taking Thomas Jefferson as well as any extant remnants of science out of the textbooks -- but that's just me.
3:54 PM,
Some people can't let go of the Karl Rove failed philosophy of trying to make their own reality.
...maybe there's resistance to giving taxpayer cash to CoC because it isn't "faith-based?"...notwithstanding the "controls" on using taxpayer cash for "proselytizing"...
...after all, wasn't it one of the latest "compassionate conservative Republican idols"...George W. Bush...who began "faith-based" initiatives?
...and that rabble-rousing TJ was all "separation of church and State"...what a trouble-maker!
I hadn't realized that the City of Park Ridge was planning on funding private security in Iraq with the money it may save from private group contributions. Blackwater?
Meaningless rhetoric aside, I do think there is good policy in funding groups that leverage the city's good will into volunteer efforts and more private contributions. It is a non-profit model that makes the most of city funds. Should there be a menaingful discussion and presentation to make sure that each group lives up to the hope? Certainly. But I don't think the city running these services would save money, nor do I think that even direct contracts for itemized services would produce better results.
Maybe it is just me, but I am pretty sure that getting the group from City Hall MORE involved would create inefficiencies that most of these groups would do better without.
Anonymous @ 7:37,
It's not just you...
Calls for accounting and accountability and transparency should be what our elected officials do on our behalf...representing the voters and taxpayers' interests and over-seeing our pooled tax dollars are why they were elected...
...but demands for what amounts to a burgeoning bureaucracy are just plain stupid.
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