Saturday, December 6, 2008
pool ponderings
If 30-50k in cash, or more, wasnt accounted for, would that amount to fraud, or grand theft? How many meets HAVE we had this year? Camps? dual HS meets? If pool management was aware of pool bills NOT being paid, and checked into the possibility of back-billing the HS teams AND MDAC, there would be cancelled checks and bank statements to that effect, right? If those checks were paid on bills presented toward the end of last year, they would have had PLENTY of time to clear by now, right? And the bank statements would reflect those payments accordingly, right? IF certified bank statments were compared with City documents it would be easy to see if they were accurate or not, right? Sounds like a plan. All of the above would apply to the HS teams, but maybe more importantly, to the private MDAC swim team. Perhaps, if they were paying in cash all along what they thought to be the going rate, they are not involved in anything questionable or illegal. The question at THAT point would be: where is all this cash reflected? If they werent being charged or billed, why not? Is it possible that the daily admission fees were just pocketed? Or, is it possible the daily admission fees were NEVER paid? Either way it raises some curious questions about the revenue-tracking business practices at the pool. Either the admission fees were PAID, or they werent! Certifiable documentation of either result is required! Once this has been determined the issues at the pool regarding meets can be addressed. For example, why would public tax dollars be used to subsidize a private, for-profit business enterprise? Does THAT make ANY sense to ANYBODY? Especially a business that has FOUR other business locations, significant volunteer parent participation, and only a handful of Springs kids on its roster?
pool ponderings
Pages 50 and 51 were NOT found on the City's website. Where would they be located? The desired information is in regards to pool revenues and expenditures. Others have been able to find this information, and its good to know its out there, but it needs to be seen and analyzed for oneself, or in conjunction with knowledgable others.
food for thought
Editorial Observer
Are Cuts in Hours and Pay an Alternative to Mass Layoffs?
By ADAM COHEN
Published: December 6, 2008
I had five guests in my home recently. One announced that he had just been laid off. The woman next to him said she had, too. A third guest, who is self-employed, said she is not getting any new clients. I recounted this grim story to an old friend, who replied that her husband had just learned that his job was ending.
Additional commentary, background information and other items by Times editorial writers.
Times Topics: UnemploymentWe are living in a time of mass layoffs: 12,000 jobs cut at AT&T; 53,000 at Citigroup. The Labor Department announced on Friday that 533,000 jobs were lost in November, the largest one-month decline in a generation. Many economists think things will be even bleaker in January, when holiday spending — such as it is — ends.
Government must be a big part of the solution, as President-elect Barack Obama has acknowledged by supporting a major stimulus package. But the deepening recession raises a question for businesses and workers — is it better to cut hours and salaries instead of jobs?
Mass layoffs produce big winners and losers. Most workers who remain are financially unscathed, even though their employer is struggling. Wages are actually expected to increase 3.5 percent in 2009. Those laid off are left with no salary and, because the job market is so brutal, risk losing their homes and being unable to put food on the table.
In times like these, many of the casualties are diligent, capable workers, not ones unable or unwilling to do a good job. They are victims of larger forces — like the failure of regulators to police the mortgage market, which helped set off the current downturn.
One way to reduce the need for layoffs would be to cut back on hours, spreading the available work among more employees. This was an idea that had considerable currency in the Great Depression. In 1933, the Senate passed a “30 Hour Bill” that would have barred from interstate commerce goods made by workers employed more than 30 hours a week. Its sponsor, Senator Hugo Black of Alabama, said the bill would create six million new jobs. It made no sense, he insisted, for some employees to work 70 hours a week “while others are driven into poverty and misery from unemployment.”
Black’s bill, which failed to pass the House, was too inflexible. But during the Depression, many businesses voluntarily cut hours to spread the work to help as many employees as possible survive the hard times. If companies decided to do this today, government could help by changing the rules for unemployment insurance. If an employer split a job between two people, say, rather than laying off one, both could be made eligible for partial unemployment benefits.
Businesses also could think about rolling back salaries. There already is a lot of automatic pay-cutting built into the economy. Richard Freeman, a Harvard economist, says that nearly half of private-sector workers in the United States have compensation that declines in tough times because of bonuses, stock options, commissions or tips.
For other workers, companies that are considering layoffs could instead reduce pay. In the case of unionized workers, the unions would have to agree. But as we are seeing with the United Automobile Workers union — which is offering to accept concessions as part of the Big Three auto companies’ plea for a federal bailout — many unions might prefer moderate pay cuts over job losses. For most nonunion workers, employers that want to avoid layoffs could act unilaterally to cut salaries.
There are clear drawbacks to cutting hours and salaries. If employers cannot prove that the cuts are actually necessary to save jobs, workers may feel they are being cheated and could retaliate by not doing their jobs well. The best workers, who may have options even in a tough economy, could decide to leave.
There also is the risk that if too many companies cut wages, it would feed deflation, weakening the economy further.
And for workers, there is the danger that the cuts in wages and hours that they agreed to as temporary, emergency measures could become permanent. When the economy picks up again, companies’ first priorities would have to be restoring wages and hours to their rightful levels.
So far, there hasn’t been a groundswell for cutting salaries. BusinessWeek reported that a survey in October found that 26 percent of employers were planning staff reductions in the next year, while just 4 percent planned on salary cuts. Gov. Jim Gibbons of Nevada recently proposed cutting salaries, including his own, rather than laying off state workers, and he was opposed by public employees’ unions.
But if job losses continue at their current rates — or accelerate — American workers may become more open to alternatives to the current approach of mass layoffs.
Are Cuts in Hours and Pay an Alternative to Mass Layoffs?
By ADAM COHEN
Published: December 6, 2008
I had five guests in my home recently. One announced that he had just been laid off. The woman next to him said she had, too. A third guest, who is self-employed, said she is not getting any new clients. I recounted this grim story to an old friend, who replied that her husband had just learned that his job was ending.
Additional commentary, background information and other items by Times editorial writers.
Times Topics: UnemploymentWe are living in a time of mass layoffs: 12,000 jobs cut at AT&T; 53,000 at Citigroup. The Labor Department announced on Friday that 533,000 jobs were lost in November, the largest one-month decline in a generation. Many economists think things will be even bleaker in January, when holiday spending — such as it is — ends.
Government must be a big part of the solution, as President-elect Barack Obama has acknowledged by supporting a major stimulus package. But the deepening recession raises a question for businesses and workers — is it better to cut hours and salaries instead of jobs?
Mass layoffs produce big winners and losers. Most workers who remain are financially unscathed, even though their employer is struggling. Wages are actually expected to increase 3.5 percent in 2009. Those laid off are left with no salary and, because the job market is so brutal, risk losing their homes and being unable to put food on the table.
In times like these, many of the casualties are diligent, capable workers, not ones unable or unwilling to do a good job. They are victims of larger forces — like the failure of regulators to police the mortgage market, which helped set off the current downturn.
One way to reduce the need for layoffs would be to cut back on hours, spreading the available work among more employees. This was an idea that had considerable currency in the Great Depression. In 1933, the Senate passed a “30 Hour Bill” that would have barred from interstate commerce goods made by workers employed more than 30 hours a week. Its sponsor, Senator Hugo Black of Alabama, said the bill would create six million new jobs. It made no sense, he insisted, for some employees to work 70 hours a week “while others are driven into poverty and misery from unemployment.”
Black’s bill, which failed to pass the House, was too inflexible. But during the Depression, many businesses voluntarily cut hours to spread the work to help as many employees as possible survive the hard times. If companies decided to do this today, government could help by changing the rules for unemployment insurance. If an employer split a job between two people, say, rather than laying off one, both could be made eligible for partial unemployment benefits.
Businesses also could think about rolling back salaries. There already is a lot of automatic pay-cutting built into the economy. Richard Freeman, a Harvard economist, says that nearly half of private-sector workers in the United States have compensation that declines in tough times because of bonuses, stock options, commissions or tips.
For other workers, companies that are considering layoffs could instead reduce pay. In the case of unionized workers, the unions would have to agree. But as we are seeing with the United Automobile Workers union — which is offering to accept concessions as part of the Big Three auto companies’ plea for a federal bailout — many unions might prefer moderate pay cuts over job losses. For most nonunion workers, employers that want to avoid layoffs could act unilaterally to cut salaries.
There are clear drawbacks to cutting hours and salaries. If employers cannot prove that the cuts are actually necessary to save jobs, workers may feel they are being cheated and could retaliate by not doing their jobs well. The best workers, who may have options even in a tough economy, could decide to leave.
There also is the risk that if too many companies cut wages, it would feed deflation, weakening the economy further.
And for workers, there is the danger that the cuts in wages and hours that they agreed to as temporary, emergency measures could become permanent. When the economy picks up again, companies’ first priorities would have to be restoring wages and hours to their rightful levels.
So far, there hasn’t been a groundswell for cutting salaries. BusinessWeek reported that a survey in October found that 26 percent of employers were planning staff reductions in the next year, while just 4 percent planned on salary cuts. Gov. Jim Gibbons of Nevada recently proposed cutting salaries, including his own, rather than laying off state workers, and he was opposed by public employees’ unions.
But if job losses continue at their current rates — or accelerate — American workers may become more open to alternatives to the current approach of mass layoffs.
Ayers speaks out
IN the recently concluded presidential race, I was unwillingly thrust upon the stage and asked to play a role in a profoundly dishonest drama. I refused, and here’s why.
Unable to challenge the content of Barack Obama’s campaign, his opponents invented a narrative about a young politician who emerged from nowhere, a man of charm, intelligence and skill, but with an exotic background and a strange name. The refrain was a question: “What do we really know about this man?”
Secondary characters in the narrative included an African-American preacher with a fiery style, a Palestinian scholar and an “unrepentant domestic terrorist.” Linking the candidate with these supposedly shadowy characters, and ferreting out every imagined secret tie and dark affiliation, became big news.
I was cast in the “unrepentant terrorist” role; I felt at times like the enemy projected onto a large screen in the “Two Minutes Hate” scene from George Orwell’s “1984,” when the faithful gathered in a frenzy of fear and loathing.
With the mainstream news media and the blogosphere caught in the pre-election excitement, I saw no viable path to a rational discussion. Rather than step clumsily into the sound-bite culture, I turned away whenever the microphones were thrust into my face. I sat it out.
Now that the election is over, I want to say as plainly as I can that the character invented to serve this drama wasn’t me, not even close. Here are the facts:
I never killed or injured anyone. I did join the civil rights movement in the mid-1960s, and later resisted the draft and was arrested in nonviolent demonstrations. I became a full-time antiwar organizer for Students for a Democratic Society. In 1970, I co-founded the Weather Underground, an organization that was created after an accidental explosion that claimed the lives of three of our comrades in Greenwich Village. The Weather Underground went on to take responsibility for placing several small bombs in empty offices — the ones at the Pentagon and the United States Capitol were the most notorious — as an illegal and unpopular war consumed the nation.
The Weather Underground crossed lines of legality, of propriety and perhaps even of common sense. Our effectiveness can be — and still is being — debated. We did carry out symbolic acts of extreme vandalism directed at monuments to war and racism, and the attacks on property, never on people, were meant to respect human life and convey outrage and determination to end the Vietnam war.
Peaceful protests had failed to stop the war. So we issued a screaming response. But it was not terrorism; we were not engaged in a campaign to kill and injure people indiscriminately, spreading fear and suffering for political ends.
I cannot imagine engaging in actions of that kind today. And for the past 40 years, I’ve been teaching and writing about the unique value and potential of every human life, and the need to realize that potential through education.
I have regrets, of course — including mistakes of excess and failures of imagination, posturing and posing, inflated and heated rhetoric, blind sectarianism and a lot else. No one can reach my age with their eyes even partly open and not have hundreds of regrets. The responsibility for the risks we posed to others in some of our most extreme actions in those underground years never leaves my thoughts for long.
The antiwar movement in all its commitment, all its sacrifice and determination, could not stop the violence unleashed against Vietnam. And therein lies cause for real regret.
We — the broad “we” — wrote letters, marched, talked to young men at induction centers, surrounded the Pentagon and lay down in front of troop trains. Yet we were inadequate to end the killing of three million Vietnamese and almost 60,000 Americans during a 10-year war.
The dishonesty of the narrative about Mr. Obama during the campaign went a step further with its assumption that if you can place two people in the same room at the same time, or if you can show that they held a conversation, shared a cup of coffee, took the bus downtown together or had any of a thousand other associations, then you have demonstrated that they share ideas, policies, outlook, influences and, especially, responsibility for each other’s behavior. There is a long and sad history of guilt by association in our political culture, and at crucial times we’ve been unable to rise above it.
President-elect Obama and I sat on a board together; we lived in the same diverse and yet close-knit community; we sometimes passed in the bookstore. We didn’t pal around, and I had nothing to do with his positions. I knew him as well as thousands of others did, and like millions of others, I wish I knew him better.
Demonization, guilt by association, and the politics of fear did not triumph, not this time. Let’s hope they never will again. And let’s hope we might now assert that in our wildly diverse society, talking and listening to the widest range of people is not a sin, but a virtue.
William Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the author of “Fugitive Days” and a co-author of the forthcoming “Race Course.”
Unable to challenge the content of Barack Obama’s campaign, his opponents invented a narrative about a young politician who emerged from nowhere, a man of charm, intelligence and skill, but with an exotic background and a strange name. The refrain was a question: “What do we really know about this man?”
Secondary characters in the narrative included an African-American preacher with a fiery style, a Palestinian scholar and an “unrepentant domestic terrorist.” Linking the candidate with these supposedly shadowy characters, and ferreting out every imagined secret tie and dark affiliation, became big news.
I was cast in the “unrepentant terrorist” role; I felt at times like the enemy projected onto a large screen in the “Two Minutes Hate” scene from George Orwell’s “1984,” when the faithful gathered in a frenzy of fear and loathing.
With the mainstream news media and the blogosphere caught in the pre-election excitement, I saw no viable path to a rational discussion. Rather than step clumsily into the sound-bite culture, I turned away whenever the microphones were thrust into my face. I sat it out.
Now that the election is over, I want to say as plainly as I can that the character invented to serve this drama wasn’t me, not even close. Here are the facts:
I never killed or injured anyone. I did join the civil rights movement in the mid-1960s, and later resisted the draft and was arrested in nonviolent demonstrations. I became a full-time antiwar organizer for Students for a Democratic Society. In 1970, I co-founded the Weather Underground, an organization that was created after an accidental explosion that claimed the lives of three of our comrades in Greenwich Village. The Weather Underground went on to take responsibility for placing several small bombs in empty offices — the ones at the Pentagon and the United States Capitol were the most notorious — as an illegal and unpopular war consumed the nation.
The Weather Underground crossed lines of legality, of propriety and perhaps even of common sense. Our effectiveness can be — and still is being — debated. We did carry out symbolic acts of extreme vandalism directed at monuments to war and racism, and the attacks on property, never on people, were meant to respect human life and convey outrage and determination to end the Vietnam war.
Peaceful protests had failed to stop the war. So we issued a screaming response. But it was not terrorism; we were not engaged in a campaign to kill and injure people indiscriminately, spreading fear and suffering for political ends.
I cannot imagine engaging in actions of that kind today. And for the past 40 years, I’ve been teaching and writing about the unique value and potential of every human life, and the need to realize that potential through education.
I have regrets, of course — including mistakes of excess and failures of imagination, posturing and posing, inflated and heated rhetoric, blind sectarianism and a lot else. No one can reach my age with their eyes even partly open and not have hundreds of regrets. The responsibility for the risks we posed to others in some of our most extreme actions in those underground years never leaves my thoughts for long.
The antiwar movement in all its commitment, all its sacrifice and determination, could not stop the violence unleashed against Vietnam. And therein lies cause for real regret.
We — the broad “we” — wrote letters, marched, talked to young men at induction centers, surrounded the Pentagon and lay down in front of troop trains. Yet we were inadequate to end the killing of three million Vietnamese and almost 60,000 Americans during a 10-year war.
The dishonesty of the narrative about Mr. Obama during the campaign went a step further with its assumption that if you can place two people in the same room at the same time, or if you can show that they held a conversation, shared a cup of coffee, took the bus downtown together or had any of a thousand other associations, then you have demonstrated that they share ideas, policies, outlook, influences and, especially, responsibility for each other’s behavior. There is a long and sad history of guilt by association in our political culture, and at crucial times we’ve been unable to rise above it.
President-elect Obama and I sat on a board together; we lived in the same diverse and yet close-knit community; we sometimes passed in the bookstore. We didn’t pal around, and I had nothing to do with his positions. I knew him as well as thousands of others did, and like millions of others, I wish I knew him better.
Demonization, guilt by association, and the politics of fear did not triumph, not this time. Let’s hope they never will again. And let’s hope we might now assert that in our wildly diverse society, talking and listening to the widest range of people is not a sin, but a virtue.
William Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the author of “Fugitive Days” and a co-author of the forthcoming “Race Course.”
unanswered questions
In the final analysis, yes, whoever received that money is whats important. It would also be good to know if the KIDS paid those monies, or their parents, as parents can be reliable and believable witnesses. Whoever received that money should be able to account for it with receipts, deposit slips, and or bank statements. Or not. If these monies were collected by different people at different times, a work schedule of who was working on which days needs to be produced so the admission fees can be matched with whoever was working that day. Is there somebody at the pool who is responsible for collecting the days receipts and giving them to Patti Bradley, so she can document what was received? Would that be the Pool Manager? Who? Were the meet admission fees also paid by the parents in person? or by the swim club? It is also curious that people were charged admission fees for meets at to OUR pool, and we received NONE of those fees! Apparently none were recorded for either daily practices OR meets! Yet at least one swim coach says that admission fees were paid. Why would a swim coach NOT tell the truth? Wonder if the same information is accurate for the water polo team? Mr Dotson needs to look into ALL of this.
Friday, December 5, 2008
missing cash
The $2 per swimmer per day practice fee collected was from MDAC? MSSH? MS middle? Columbus? Reagan? All of the above? some of the above? the daily logs that were reviewed didnt show much cash taken in on a daily basis, for those six weeks. The receipt DID specify what was taken in in cash, and what was by check. The checks had a # too, which shouldnt make them too hard to trace. 50-80 swimmers a day, 2 bucks each, times 6 days = $600-$960 a week. Split the difference- call it $780 a week, times how many weeks? were any receipts given? Who was this money given to? Did the swim teams pay this amount or was it the individuals themselves (the parents)? $780 x 52 weeks = $39,560. Could be more. Significantly more. 960 x 52 weeks = $49,920. Hmmm. This just gets more curious by the minute. This doesnt even begin to address meets either. At the low end that would be 30k in cash receipts that are unaccounted for. At the top would be 50k, and in the middle would be 40k, or so. Sometimes the daily logs showed 100 kids.This needs to be analyzed carefully by qualified people. Dotson is his name; straight-shooting is his game!
get in line
$2 entry fee per swimmer was for meets? practice? Krop was listed there ONCE, with 50 kids, I believe. Is THAT accurate? We hosted the Jr Orange Bowl swim meet- what kind of revenues did we receive from THAT? Or was that ANOTHER "showcase" freebie? Anybody know what, if any, revenues we received from the Iggy Pop commercial shot at the gym a couple weeks ago? The public couldnt use it for a week, so you might think we would be compensated in SOME way, no? Perhaps THAT was another free "showcase"? We have become a Fountain of Freebies. Take our Country Club, free, Mr Santana, and while you are at it, heres 100k in FREE electricity. Please take our tennis courts, free, and we will throw in 22k for you too! Mr Contractor, we have 400k in FREE money for YOU for the CC addition, over and above what it actually costs to do the job! Now the poor bathroom contractor ONLY got 280k in free extra money for the bathrooms! But he DID receive 33k and 28k in free money for the bathroom elevations and sewer hookup! Our City is a proverbial FOUNTAIN of Freebies! You want to have swim team practices and meets here for FREE! Sure! Just take a number and get in line! Theres plenty of tax money for all you special interests! And if we start to run low, the Council will just raise the taxes and fees so that ALL of you can feed at the City trough!
curiosities
The most recent information DOES sound pretty unbelievable! Are they saying that the $ 2 per swimmer was paid in cash? If so, there will be receipts, deposit slips, and bank statements reflecting that, right? The receipts on the daily logs sepearte cash from checks, and give the check numbers, so they shouldnt be hard to trace, right? Sometimes, if you give people just enough rope, they will hang themselves. Mr Dotson is an accountant and will get to the bottom of these numbers. It IS interesting how, as was stated before, two days ago none of these numbers were available, and POW! now they have just jumped up and got a life of their own! Monday night will be an exercise in creative and imaginative accounting. Fortunately Mr Dotson has 25+ years of experience and knows when the numbers dont make sense! He is the right person at the right time for this job! Of course all data needed and requested should go back at least three years, right? Lets see if there are any "adjustments" made to those numbers too. It just gets curiouser and curiouser. It would be hard to "adjust" receipts, bank statements, and deposit slips THAT far back, wouldnt it? All of these questions and altered numbers will form the basis and foundation for a request from Mr. Dotson to have an independent, outside forensic audit to put everyone concerns to rest, no? Lets see who will agree with Mr Dotson THIS time! Lets also be sure to get ALL of this on video so the people at home can decide for themselves! Monday night football- you go to Tivo- THIS will be MUCH more entertaining!
10% of American mortgages behind
WASHINGTON - A record one in 10 American homeowners with a mortgage were either at least a month behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of September as the source of housing market pressure shifted to the crumbling U.S. economy. The Mortgage Bankers Association said Friday the percentage of loans at least a month overdue or in foreclosure was up from 9.2 percent in the April-June quarter, and up from 7.3 percent a year earlier. Distress in the home loan market started about two years ago as increasing numbers of adjustable-rate loans reset to higher interest rates. But the latest wave of delinquencies is coming from the surge in unemployment. (AP) How much evidence does our city officials need to start tightening our financial belt? freeze on hirings? raises? When do you think the financial realities will sink in to this Mayor and Council? EVER? Somehow, the City has plenty of money to pay ALL of Santana's bills, plus his electricity, TRIPLE the going rate for the bathrooms, pay 120k a year for a shuttle that nobody rides, and give away our pool services for FREE to private entities, while we are losing 300k a year! Is that just gross incompetence? unbelievably terrible management? major stupidities ? or something more sinister?
patience is a virtue
If we hadnt rushed into the gym financing at what, 5.4%, like Dotson suggested, we could be getting a 3.25% rate right now. Its 2.25% for ten year bonds now too. We will have wasted TENS of THOUSANDS of taxpayer dollars by the time this is done by not listening to Mr Dotson, and having a little patience! The only donors who will have any money to donate will be the contractors we will be overpaying at the new gym. Has the City NO fiscal sense? To borrow 2.5 million in the middle of the steepest recession since the Thirties is insanity! Sure, it keeps the contractors well-paid but with property values dropping like a rock and property taxes with them, where will we get the money to pay that back? Oh, right, just raise the peoples taxes and fees AGAIN. Or annex some polluted land, pay outrageous mitigation fees, give up any control to the County regarding zoning, and HOPE it will all be okay. Occasionally the Mayor and Council should LISTEN to the voice of reason, no? Nah, it'll NEVER happen because it might get in the way of the timetables their personal legacies.
unemployment at 16-yr high
WASHINGTON (AP)- Skittish employers slashed 533,000 jobs in November, the most in 34 years, catapulting the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent, dramatic proof the country is careening deeper into recession. The new figures, released by the Labor Department Friday, showed the crucial employment market deteriorating at an alarmingly rapid clip, and handed Americans some more grim news right before the holidays. As companies throttled back hiring, the unemployment rate bolted from 6.5 percent in October to 6.7 percent last month, a 15-year high. Any questions NOW as to whether we are in a recession? people are losing their jobs? houses? cars? savings? mind? (in the case of our Mayor and Council).
Thursday, December 4, 2008
a pattern emerges
What are the chances that the city numbers arent out yet, and wont be, until they have been massaged and altered sufficiently? To say they are just incompetent and inept is to state the obvious. To say they are doing all this with criminal intent could also be a plausible explanation, but the proof isnt there yet. All they can be convicted of so far is an amazing and unbelievable lack of common sense, judgement, and management principles. As they screw up one thing after another, a pattern emerges. Where theres smoke, theres usually fire, so its entirely possible this isnt just cluelessness, and could easily involve kickbacks, bid rigging, and fraud. The proof is just not there yet. Stay tuned.
change is in the air
While this pool fiasco may get tiresome to report at times, all the pieces to this puzzle are not in place yet and a full understanding and explanation has not yet happened. Concerned residents each do a litle research and the picture gets clearer as more information is revealed. This fiscal irresponsibility SHOULD be an issue with the Council now, and will certainly be in April. We should not be paying for all the maintenance and upkeep of City facilities for free or fire-sale rental prices at ANY time to subsidize private businesses, much less when times are tough and monies are tight. Is it not enough that we give our Country Club to Mr. Santana for free already? How many private businesses can we subsidize? How many is enough? The pool is just another example of lack of City oversight and responsibility on the part of the Council with the City Manager, and the City Manager's lack of supervision, accountability, and sound business principles with the people under his charge. Recent elections have shown the people across our nation want change. The residents of Miami Springs need change too. Yes, we can.
pool audit needed
Is the Doral contract REALLY for $600 a month for 2.5 years? Thats $7200 a year! They paid $1300 a month ($15,600 a year) at the junior college three years ago and that was only for 4 lanes! What do other similar pools charge for swim practices and meets? This is ANOTHER giveaway! Impossibly poor stewardship of our tax dollars! Incredible mismanagement !! AGAIN. STILL. The pool repairs idea with current budgeted anticipated losses sounds like it might work. It WOULD give management time to regroup and rethink what they are doing there, as what they are doing now has too many unanswered questions, missing and unaccounted for funds, and few controls in place. Horrible mismmangement, at best. At worst........
pool repairs
The 100k for pool repairs is included in the LINK contract. I spoke to the guy (Orlando?) right after he made his presentation and he assured me it was included in the bid. is it STILL in the contract? I was also assured by the same guy that there were deadlines and penalties built into THIS construction contract- a unique and novel concept that is the standard and expected in the rest of the construction world, but unheard of in MS construction contracts.
pool audit needed
The resident has daily log sheets from Oct 1st thru Nov 15th, plus some figures prior to that. There is NO sign of any $750 per day pool rental fees for either of the past two meets. How many meets have been held at our pool this year? Not just afternoon dual meets that MSSH or the middle school might have, because we dont charge for those- weekend meets or those that take up the whole day and eliminate any public usage during those times. County bond money doesnt require us to keep it open all year, it just means that anybody can use our pool, they dont have to be a resident, and therefore we dont have to check their IDs. Arent the admission fees for residents different than those of residents? If so, wouldnt we need some good ID to know how much to charge them? the pool isnt normally open in the Winter on Sundays, so if a meet ran Sat and Sunday we would have additional expenses, right? Overtime? Would the hypothetical $750 per day that we supposedly charge for pool rentals even cover those expenses? That supposed $750 per day we receive for pool rental would also almost HAVE TO BE in the form of a check, from the swim team to the City, no? Wonder where THAT money would be reflected, as there was NO trace of it in the daily logs that have been examined so far. The daily logs were pretty good in detailing how many swimmers were there from what teams, but was inconsistent at times. It did provide a good general picture of the pool usage on a daily basis. Six months of that good information would be even better than the six weeks already reviewed. The City Clerk has responded to this FOI in a pretty timely fashion so far. Lets see if it continues.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
electric cars
While we love hearing about sweet rides like the $100K Tesla Roadster, a functional and economical electric car made for the rest of us would be even cooler.
This could be it: the Th!nk City electric car, a four-seater with 110 mile range and top speed of 65 mph, priced under $25,000, made from 95% recyclable materials, and available in the U.S. in 2009.
The Th!nk City electric car is the product of Norwegian firm Th!nk Global, an auto manufacturer backed by Silicon Valley funding who has plans to assemble the cars in Southern California. In contrast to Tesla’s limited release of 300 cars per year, the Th!nk City is designed for mass production to the tune of 30-50,000 units within a few years. Th!nk already produces about 10,000 of these cars in Europe annually.
As an interesting aside, Ford Motor Company originally developed the vehicle, but (in a move they may soon regret), sold it to Norwegian investors in 2003. Why is it so cool? Because most of us don’t drive more than 40 miles in a day, and small electric cars are optimally suited for congested city driving. The benefits are pretty obvious, but if you’re worried about getting out for the weekend with the Th!nk City, don’t. Use it for city driving and keep that gas-guzzling SUV for forays into the mountains. You’ll still come out ahead.
Safety-wise, the Th!nk City meets the strict safety requirements of both Europe and the US as a highway-safe road car. ABS brakes, airbags, side-impact bars, and an advanced frame designed to absorb energy and distribute it away from the passenger’s compartment make it another blow to the myth that bigger cars are inherently safer.
If recent sales trends toward smaller vehicles are any indication (sales of Toyota Yaris up 70%), the Th!ink city could be very popular when released in the US.
Check out a few more pictures (below), and learn more from Th!nk’s website.
Addendum: Are plug-in electric vehicles a perfect answer to our transportation problems? I think you’ll see from the comments below that no, they aren’t. As one reader pointed out, dead batteries in the Th!nk City could take up to 10 hours to charge. That’s not only inconvenient, but putting 50,000 of these on the road could cause serious power draw (see Plug-In Hybrids Could Require 160 New Power Plants By 2030 (Or None At All and Plug-In Hybrids Use Over 17 Times More Water Than Regular Cars, Researchers Say). Since such a large portion of US power generation comes from coal, the increasing use of plug-in hybrid and electric cars will require serious consideration of other energy sources (for example, see How Solar Panels Could Power 90% of US Transportation).
Related Posts on Electric Cars:
◦An Electric Car You Can Buy Today: The $20K TRIAC EV
◦Aptera’s $26,000 Electric Car and 300 MPG Hybrid Coming Soon
◦Tesla Motors Sues Fisker Automotive Over Electric Car Design
◦Tesla’s First Electric Vehicle, 2008 Roadster, Now Under Production
◦Subaru Unleashes R1e Electric Car on New York
◦Chevy Volt’s Lithium-Ion Batteries Road- Tested By Month’s End
◦Get 120 MPG Out of Your Prius (Plug It In)
◦The Sporty Future of Electrics Cars: the Lightning GT
This could be it: the Th!nk City electric car, a four-seater with 110 mile range and top speed of 65 mph, priced under $25,000, made from 95% recyclable materials, and available in the U.S. in 2009.
The Th!nk City electric car is the product of Norwegian firm Th!nk Global, an auto manufacturer backed by Silicon Valley funding who has plans to assemble the cars in Southern California. In contrast to Tesla’s limited release of 300 cars per year, the Th!nk City is designed for mass production to the tune of 30-50,000 units within a few years. Th!nk already produces about 10,000 of these cars in Europe annually.
As an interesting aside, Ford Motor Company originally developed the vehicle, but (in a move they may soon regret), sold it to Norwegian investors in 2003. Why is it so cool? Because most of us don’t drive more than 40 miles in a day, and small electric cars are optimally suited for congested city driving. The benefits are pretty obvious, but if you’re worried about getting out for the weekend with the Th!nk City, don’t. Use it for city driving and keep that gas-guzzling SUV for forays into the mountains. You’ll still come out ahead.
Safety-wise, the Th!nk City meets the strict safety requirements of both Europe and the US as a highway-safe road car. ABS brakes, airbags, side-impact bars, and an advanced frame designed to absorb energy and distribute it away from the passenger’s compartment make it another blow to the myth that bigger cars are inherently safer.
If recent sales trends toward smaller vehicles are any indication (sales of Toyota Yaris up 70%), the Th!ink city could be very popular when released in the US.
Check out a few more pictures (below), and learn more from Th!nk’s website.
Addendum: Are plug-in electric vehicles a perfect answer to our transportation problems? I think you’ll see from the comments below that no, they aren’t. As one reader pointed out, dead batteries in the Th!nk City could take up to 10 hours to charge. That’s not only inconvenient, but putting 50,000 of these on the road could cause serious power draw (see Plug-In Hybrids Could Require 160 New Power Plants By 2030 (Or None At All and Plug-In Hybrids Use Over 17 Times More Water Than Regular Cars, Researchers Say). Since such a large portion of US power generation comes from coal, the increasing use of plug-in hybrid and electric cars will require serious consideration of other energy sources (for example, see How Solar Panels Could Power 90% of US Transportation).
Related Posts on Electric Cars:
◦An Electric Car You Can Buy Today: The $20K TRIAC EV
◦Aptera’s $26,000 Electric Car and 300 MPG Hybrid Coming Soon
◦Tesla Motors Sues Fisker Automotive Over Electric Car Design
◦Tesla’s First Electric Vehicle, 2008 Roadster, Now Under Production
◦Subaru Unleashes R1e Electric Car on New York
◦Chevy Volt’s Lithium-Ion Batteries Road- Tested By Month’s End
◦Get 120 MPG Out of Your Prius (Plug It In)
◦The Sporty Future of Electrics Cars: the Lightning GT
113 mpg
Vancouver Washington, October 13, 2008— On Saturday, October 11, Craig Henderson smashed his old World book record (103.7MPG) and set a new world record in fuel economy (113.1MPG) when he drove his lightweight and aerodynamic automobile – the Avion –from the Canadian border to the Oregon border.
Henderson, a native of Bellingham, WA, completed the first Avion prototype in 1984 and drove into the Guinness Book of World Records in 1986, after a border-to-border trip that averaged 103.7 miles per gallon. In that record-setting trip, he drove along the West Coast from Mexico to Canada.
This time, he started at the Canadian border (Bellingham Wa.) at 7:25 morning of October 11 and ending at the Oregon border at Fort Vancouver at 1:00. Henderson traveled 263.1 miles and used 2.326 gallons of diesel averaging 113.1 miles per gallon, even getting stuck twice in Seattle traffic
Henderson is a contender in the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. He is among more than 120 teams from 28 states and 17 countries who signed a letter of intent to compete for their share of a $10 million prize purse, which will be awarded to those that can design and build production-capable, 100 MPGe (miles per gallon energy equivalent) vehicles that people will want to buy and that meet market needs for price, size, capability, safety and performance.
“The Avion is fun to drive, and it gets great mileage,” says Henderson with understated pride. “Our car has achieved 113.1 mpg, driving on I-5 from Canada border to the Oregon border. That’s pretty amazing, especially considering we designed and built it over twenty five years ago.”
“I am thrilled to be able to break our old record. This was a personal goal achieved for me and now we set our sites on the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE. We are in the process of building another car to compete and hopefully win the X PRIZE and we are seeking corporate or personal sponsorship to help us meet or goals,” Henderson said.
For more information about the Avion, please visit http://www.100mpgplus.com or email craig@100mpgplus.com or call Craig Henderson 360-303-4790.
The Avion is among six Washington state teams who hope to win the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE. Other teams from the Pacific Northwest who have signed letters of intent to compete include Western Washington University of Bellingham, WA; Commuter Cars of Spokane, WA; and Kinetic Vehicles of Creswell, OR. Additional competitors include India’s Tata Motors, TTW of Turin, Italy, Tesla Motors of San Carlos, CA and Cornell University of Ithaca, NY.
About the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Competition:
The goal of the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE is to inspire a new generation of viable, super fuel-efficient vehicles that offer more consumer choices. Ten million dollars in prizes will be awarded to the teams that win a stage race for clean, production-capable vehicles that exceed 100 MPGe.
The Progressive Automotive X PRIZE will place a major focus on affordability, safety, and the environment. It is about developing real, production-capable cars that consumers want to buy, not science projects or concept cars. This progress is needed because today’s oil consumption is unsustainable and because automotive emissions significantly contribute to global warming and climate change.
For more information about the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE, please visit http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org or email progressiveautopress@xprize.org.
Henderson, a native of Bellingham, WA, completed the first Avion prototype in 1984 and drove into the Guinness Book of World Records in 1986, after a border-to-border trip that averaged 103.7 miles per gallon. In that record-setting trip, he drove along the West Coast from Mexico to Canada.
This time, he started at the Canadian border (Bellingham Wa.) at 7:25 morning of October 11 and ending at the Oregon border at Fort Vancouver at 1:00. Henderson traveled 263.1 miles and used 2.326 gallons of diesel averaging 113.1 miles per gallon, even getting stuck twice in Seattle traffic
Henderson is a contender in the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. He is among more than 120 teams from 28 states and 17 countries who signed a letter of intent to compete for their share of a $10 million prize purse, which will be awarded to those that can design and build production-capable, 100 MPGe (miles per gallon energy equivalent) vehicles that people will want to buy and that meet market needs for price, size, capability, safety and performance.
“The Avion is fun to drive, and it gets great mileage,” says Henderson with understated pride. “Our car has achieved 113.1 mpg, driving on I-5 from Canada border to the Oregon border. That’s pretty amazing, especially considering we designed and built it over twenty five years ago.”
“I am thrilled to be able to break our old record. This was a personal goal achieved for me and now we set our sites on the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE. We are in the process of building another car to compete and hopefully win the X PRIZE and we are seeking corporate or personal sponsorship to help us meet or goals,” Henderson said.
For more information about the Avion, please visit http://www.100mpgplus.com or email craig@100mpgplus.com or call Craig Henderson 360-303-4790.
The Avion is among six Washington state teams who hope to win the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE. Other teams from the Pacific Northwest who have signed letters of intent to compete include Western Washington University of Bellingham, WA; Commuter Cars of Spokane, WA; and Kinetic Vehicles of Creswell, OR. Additional competitors include India’s Tata Motors, TTW of Turin, Italy, Tesla Motors of San Carlos, CA and Cornell University of Ithaca, NY.
About the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Competition:
The goal of the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE is to inspire a new generation of viable, super fuel-efficient vehicles that offer more consumer choices. Ten million dollars in prizes will be awarded to the teams that win a stage race for clean, production-capable vehicles that exceed 100 MPGe.
The Progressive Automotive X PRIZE will place a major focus on affordability, safety, and the environment. It is about developing real, production-capable cars that consumers want to buy, not science projects or concept cars. This progress is needed because today’s oil consumption is unsustainable and because automotive emissions significantly contribute to global warming and climate change.
For more information about the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE, please visit http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org or email progressiveautopress@xprize.org.
any numbers that work ?
Can anybody think of any possible way those numbers could work for us? Break even would be the goal, but what deficits would be realistically acceptable? 150-200k are CERTAINLY NOT acceptable numbers for our losses. Would we be able to stomach a loss of 20k or so? That would be about 10% of our losses, and since maybe as much as 10% of MDAC is Springs kids, would that make sense? The only other alternative is to close it down during the school year. There ARE serious doubts regarding the City Managers estimates and their accuracy, and have been stated here in the past. Perhaps a reiteration is necessary. While reasonable numbers and a rational explanation from whence they came may be a new and novel concept to some, they will surely adjust their mindset and maybe even decide to try it themselves sometime.
who is being protected?
Well said, and precisely to the point. It is the taxpayers that pay the City Managers salary and they must be his first priority. Nobody should be gouged, but neither should anybody get a free ride. Fair market value is reasonable, and probably charged at the other places where they swim, no? Why not here?
commentary
Apparently Mr Giglio worked at Babcock and Southeast parks in Hialeah. In what capacity has yet to be determined. Babcock has a pool, or had a pool in the past. It does still have a working pool right? Having a pool at your house is not the experience we need at our community pool, as there are Health Dept requirements, staffing, and maintenance responsibilities at a community pool that probably wont be addressed at a personal home pool. Is there anybody who is even suggesting that the pickup basketball players are an official, profitable team? The league teams are for profit? Baseball and soccer are for-profit teams? Football is a major profit center? THAT would be ridiculous, right? Leave the local kids alone. We are interested in our taxes paying for for-profit teams to make a nice living, at our expense. You know, like at the Country Club, only a different business. Nonprofits and HS teams are not the main areas of interest, altho they should pay their discounted rates too. We cant afford ANY free lunches with the losses we are taking there.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
thriving business
We have been established for over ten years in the Miami-Dade County area. We have at present five locations in the Doral area, Miami Spring and Culter Cay. Five different locations, over ten years- sounds like a thriving business! not particularly like one that needs a free handout. The kids ARE adorable and they DO appear to be healthy. Wonder what they are paying to practice at the OTHER four locations? That would be interesting to know, wouldnt it?
MDAC practice times
PRACTICE TIMES: MIAMI SPRINGS - MONDAY THRU FRIDAY 4:30 to 6:00 p.m.And 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.
DORAL ISLES- MONDAY THRU WEDNESDAY AFTER NOON SESSIONS STARTS 4:00 TO 6:00 P.M.
DORAL LOCATION MONDAY THRU THURSDAY 3:30 TO 6:30 P.M. ISLANDS AT DORAL- MONDAY THRU THURSDAY 4:00 TO 6:30 P.M. FRIDAY And SATURDAY PRACTICE WILL BE HELD AT MIAMI SPRING- FRIDAY PRACTICE FROM 4:30 TO 6:30 P.M. And 5:00 TO 7:00 P.M. SATURDAY PRACTICE FROM 8:30 TO 10:30 A.M. PLEASE VERIFY WITH YOUR COACH THE TIMES FOR YOUR PRACTICE. Sounds like MDAC does have other places to practice. Wonder what they pay to practice there? This is off the MDAC website. They use our pool 6 days a week. Cant wait to see how much we get in revenues, if anything.
DORAL ISLES- MONDAY THRU WEDNESDAY AFTER NOON SESSIONS STARTS 4:00 TO 6:00 P.M.
DORAL LOCATION MONDAY THRU THURSDAY 3:30 TO 6:30 P.M. ISLANDS AT DORAL- MONDAY THRU THURSDAY 4:00 TO 6:30 P.M. FRIDAY And SATURDAY PRACTICE WILL BE HELD AT MIAMI SPRING- FRIDAY PRACTICE FROM 4:30 TO 6:30 P.M. And 5:00 TO 7:00 P.M. SATURDAY PRACTICE FROM 8:30 TO 10:30 A.M. PLEASE VERIFY WITH YOUR COACH THE TIMES FOR YOUR PRACTICE. Sounds like MDAC does have other places to practice. Wonder what they pay to practice there? This is off the MDAC website. They use our pool 6 days a week. Cant wait to see how much we get in revenues, if anything.
curiouser and curiouser
City Manager assured residents present that ALL required sales taxes were paid. It really starts to get curious when he was asked to break down his reported expenses and revenues to see where those lump sums were derived. He said he couldnt do that that because he didnt have access to those numbers and didnt remember them off the top of his head. When asked for a month-by-month breakdown of the expenses and revenues he said they didnt exist- because the Council had never requested that he do in that way! He DID show us a 6-month report that he said he gets on the pool with all the details, which he says he reviews VERY carefully, but couldnt make available to anybody else, for some reason. Are these the very numbers he says DONT exist? It is very curious that he stands by his annual lump sum numbers but has NO idea how those numbers we derived, or even if they are accurate! He seems to trust that they are accurate, but has NO factual basis on which to base that opinion!? It is even MORE curious when he shows us a report on the pool details but then denies it exists, as a source of information. He is a very detail-oriented person and likes to control every aspect of the City operations- but has NO information or knowledge about the breakdown of pool expenses or revenues???? after showing us that very report? VERY curious, at the VERY least.
more pool commentary
The City Manager says there ARE NO contracts in effect with the various schools and organizations that use our pool BUT there are use agreements for some groups, like the Pelican Players. Those use agreements need to be viewed and verified. Apparently no ID is required for admission as, since we take County bond money to support the pool, we have to make it available to ALL county residents. When asked how many Springs kids are on the MDAC team, he said they are a private business, but he will TRY to get that information for us. It was suggested that, since Mr Gorland has indicated considerable variations in their memebrships at different times, that 2-3 years of Springs verifiable membership be provided so that an average can be obtained and a clear picture can be established, and he agreed that would be best. Mr Giglio was at the meeting, along with two residents, and the City Manager. He indicated that he had previous experience running community pool operations but that this was just his 2nd day on the job, so we would have to be patient with him. So he gets a pass, for now. The City Manager however, has been here FIVE years, and IS responsible for City operations, the pool included. He DID take a lot of notes while the meeting was going on, which should help any possible memory lapses in the future. A lot of questions were asked during the 90-minute meeting so it may take a while to get answers to ALL of the questions. Hopefully in a week or so the answers will start rolling in. It is entirely possible that many of those questions will be addressed and answered Monday night.
meeting with City Manager
The City Manager said today the the parents of the host swim team man the admission gates and sell concessions and heat sheets. They keep whatever monies they make so he wouldnt have those figures, but he DID say that the parents, one year, did buy some lane buoys for the pool. He wasnt clear if anything else has been put back into the pool but will check and get back with us. Admission monies apparently go into the main host swim team fund, which is used for entrance fees and other costs. WHAT other costs is not clear. When asked what is different now than 4 years ago, when he recommended closing the pool during the Winter, no rational reply was forthcoming, just something about the Council deciding to NOT close the pool at that time. When asked about the basis on which he made the recommendation to close during the Winter, to the best of memory he just relied that they asked for his recommendation and he gave one. No details about what led him to make the recommendation were offered. He said he just didnt remember, as it was 4 years ago. It was interesting to find out that businesses that are based in MS are the only ones required to have a business license. Pool rental fees are charged by the day or the event, he said, and documentation is available to support that claim. Apparently some pools, like the Jr college pool, charge by the lane, but we do NOT. He said we charge a monthly fee, and didnt know what that fee was, but WILL research that and make it public. Punch cards are a discount pass of up to 50%, in denominations of $20 each, and are good for the Fiscal Year. How many admissions one gets for that twenty bucks is not clear- 20? that would be one dollar each admission, certainly a SIGNIFICANT discount! there are also some adult swim lessons and there are records to document those lessons coming soon. All lessons are charged the same price, no matter if beginners, intermediate, or advanced. All are handled in-house and with WSI personnel, according to the City Manager. Since Columbus is a private school he was sure they HAD paid something but didnt know the exact numbers and will get back to us on that. Average revenue intake for aerobics was requested for the past 3 years was requested and is on the list of things to be done, and published. he wanted it made clear that it would take a little time to find and present this information to interested parties. He also said that a fully comprehensive and thorough report on the pool operations was being prepared even as we speak, and will be presented to the Council Monday night.
pool comments
Lets look at the numbers a little differently: 200k in losses during the school year. Five Springs kids. The paxpayers are paying $40,000 for EACH Springs kid to be able to use the pool during the school year! Does THAT make ANY sense? In this deepening recession the taxpayers lose 200k while the private swim team gets a free pass, plus they make money on the meets, admissions, and heat sheets! That shows NO concern or regard for the interests of the residents by city officials, AGAIN. STILL. WHEN will this madness end?
pool comments
Its good to see the discussion has gotten lively! First, is there ANYONE who believes that Springs taxpayers should subsidize a private, for-profit entity? Next, is there ANYONE who believe Springs taxpayers should subsidize that private swim team that is made up of 95% or more nonresidents? As far as I know, the Optimist Club is a local organization made up of local volunteer residents that provide a lot of services and time coaching to large numbers of our kids, and should be commended for that. Is there any doubt or question about that? The MSSH basketball and vollyball teams should be charged a nominal fee, part of me says, but the other part says they are nonprofit, mostly our kids, and they have to use our gym due to circumstances beyond their control (they are renovating their gym, much as WE should be doing). Also, it is a time-limited occurrence of one season only. Still, they should pay SOMETHING. All official teams should pay something; the nonprofit HS teams should pay the discounted rate that they would pay anywhere else in town. For-profit teams should also pay the going rate that is charged everywhere else in town. Parents EXPECT to pay for the expenses of their child. Springs parents expect that too. They DONT expect to pay the expenses of everybody else's kids too, as they expect THOSE parents to pay for that. That is pretty basic, and what it really comes down to. If we can help somebody else's kids at a small deficit we may consider it, but just as a neighborly gesture, NOT as a giveaway. Losses of 200k per school year and 300k per year are NOT small losses. We have absorbed many of those losses in the past but in these difficult times we can NO longer do it! Its simply a luxury we can no longer afford. Why would the parents of those kids, or anybody else, EXPECT us to? We willingly and completely support our kids; is anything less expected of other parents? We like to be good neighbors, but will NOT be taken for fools. Let it be somebody else's burden for a while- we cant afford it.
Monday, December 1, 2008
recession now? yep
WASHINGTON - The economy fell into recession late last year, according to a panel of economists that is responsible for determining the dates of business cycles. Monday's declaration by the panel of the National Bureau of Economic Research confirms what many private economists, lawmakers and members of the general public already have assumed and puts an official date on it: A U.S. recession began in December 2007. For those of you who were waiting for final confirmation; we have been in a recession since last December. Where are our contractor buddies to cheer us up and tell us how good THEY are going to do at the new gym? If we just had MORE Happy Talk, all this would disappear. Its obvious that Unhappy Talk about record rates of unemployment, forclosures, bankruptcies, and the like that have caused all this mess! Sure, it may be hard to find anything good to say when you have lost your job, home, life savings, and business but thats just because they arent trying! They are all just content to sit home and collect their unemployment checks!!! Lazy, shiftless bums...... all of them.. and probably all Democrats too... they just need PATIENCE!! as I am sure that some of the contractors wealth will trickle right down to them.... maybe... eventually ... perhaps.... soon..... any minute now....
interest rates drop
Can it be true, that the 10-yr interest rate dropped to 2.25%, the lowest in history? Why are we paying 5.4% for this new gym? If they had waited, like Mr Dotson suggested, we could have gotten it for HALF of what we are going to pay!! How big of savings would THAT have amounted to over the life of the loan? TENS of thousands of dollars!!! The Mayor and Council are not in the least concerned however, as its the RESIDENTS who will be paying all this extra interest for the duration of the loan!! Its not like it might, actually, be coming out of THEIR pocket, now is it? Its ONLY money, right? OUR MONEY!! And if the well starts to run dry, not a problem! They will just raise our taxes and fees!! AGAIN!!!! But not to worry, they are cutting back on expenses with a vengance! Just this week, they saved $20 a month on those dreaded and costly overtime bills for the secretaries!
questions in need of answers
Is the Doral Swim Club a seperate entity from the Miami Dade Aquatic Club? These are excellent questions that need and deserve answers! This a great oppurtunity to shed some light on this, yet another highly questionable and very poorly managed city service. Do you think it would be helpful to know if there are ANY bills still outstanding from MDAC, the high schools, Rip Tides, or the scuba guys? How much have we received in revenues from them in the past? Where would THOSE billing invoices and deposit slips be? How much revenue do we receive for renting our pool for water polo camps? Are the Rip Tides nonprofit? How do we (Springs pool officials) document the swimming lessons level, participation, teachers, and revenues? Are kids taking swimming lessons also counted as casual users? how much is charged for swim lessons? how many total swim lessons do we give per year? are they charged whether they show up or not? what percentage are given during the Summer? the rest of the year? what was our total annual pool heating bills for the past three years, broken down monthly? Why do we NOT have a sign-in sheet, so we can verify whether to charge resident or non-resident fees? How do we document residency, or not? Who is responsible for cash taken in on a daily and weekly basis? There is much that needs explanations and understanding here. This is a good start. Lets see what the answers are.
meeting with City Manager
A resident has an appointment to meet with the City Manager tomorrow at 10am. Any and all interested residents are invited to be there, or submit questions here they would like asked tomorrow. The Council has referred the residents to the City Manager in the past for answers to their questions, so this is an oppurtunity to get the answers directly from the guy who knows! Its painfully obvious that Mr Gorland DOESNT know. Witnesses should discourage any embellishing of what exactly happens tomorrow and a couple have already been enlisted. Good, straight, pertinent questions of fact are the goal here, without the personality factors.
petty politics redux
Mr Garcia stated that keeping the overtime for the secretaries to a minimum was "essential", so he voted to combine the Ecology and Parks and Recreation boards. It will save one hour of overtime for a secretary- $20 tops. Where was his concern when the Council was paying over $210,000 EACH for the bathrooms? $600 a square foot for the Country Club enclosure? 33k to connect the sewer pipes, a 5k job ? How about when we paid $38,500 for the elevations, a 6k job? Please. To say he is concerned about saving $20 for a Board to meet and that it is "essential" to the financial wellbeing of our City AFTER okaying hundreds of thousands of dollars in blatant giveaways and overpayments is ludicrous! Dont insult our intelligence!!!! Its a political payback and an attempt to dilute the influence and divert the focuses of the Ecology Board. This is petty politics at its worst. Save us $20 while giving away hundreds of thousands of our tax dollars? Please. You had your chance to save some REAL money and blew it! Spare me.
pool comments
They are very clear about expenses (how much its costing US). They just dont seem too clear about how much money was taken IN. Its the same problem there was, and IS, at the golf driving range, where revenues TRIPLED overnight when automated machines were put in to dispense golf balls. Somehow, even after they were installed, the employees found a way to frequently break the machines so they could go back to the old way, and revenues dropped accordingly, again. The pool generates a lot of cash, especially during the Summer months, but also during meets. Makes one wonder if ALL the cash and revenues are being accounted for at the pool too, doesnt it? If it wasnt being accounted for, would that be considered grand theft or fraud? Three years of free pool usage would amount to OVER 100k in expenses to the MDAC that were never charged to them(not to mention meets)- is THAT why there ARE no contracts? no records? poor admission records? few effective controls in place? Are we talking about kickbacks here, or just incredibly, unbelievably poor management? ANY business has contracts with the people they do business with, dont they? especially if the services provided run up into the HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of dollars, right? Apparently that business concept has eluded our city officials, at the pool anyway, as they do have contracts in other areas ie CC, tennis courts. They even had contracts for the CC project and the bathrooms- even tho they were horribly written, left out many safeguards for the taxpayers, had no deadlines or penalties, and were unenforcable as written- the IDEA was there, the concept. There are NO contracts at the pool. NONE. ZERO. ZIP.
pool mis-management continues
Mr Gorland says he has no way of knowing how many admissions there are and that the numbers listed are just estimates. After FORTY YEARS they dont have a system in place to track admissions? Thats just unbelievable, and I dont believe it. There ARE some controls in place. As the DIRECTOR, shouldnt he KNOW that? If the controls are not being utilized properly it is HIS JOB to insure sufficient controls ARE put into place, and utilized properly, right? LOTS of cash disappeared at the golf driving range too, another cash business of the City - is that whats happening here? What business would run with only an estimate of the revenues that are being taken in? talk about incompetency! ineptitude! incredibly poor management! How many more ways can be found to describe this total and complete failure (at the very least) to manage our pool facility responsibly?
Sunday, November 30, 2008
further comments
The operating losses to us to keep the pool open from Sept thru May are about 200k. Resident usage during that time is usually 2-3 adults and 3-4 kids per day, so resident usage is minimal and decreases as the Winter gets cooler. The main beneficiaries are the swim teams, which practice for free, while the expenses are borne by the Springs taxpayers at a cost of 200k per year. Simple? yes. Fair? NO. When will a verifiable roster of possible Springs kids on MDAC be available?
pool comments
Great schools are certainly an important factor to consider when buying a home in ANY locale. The main consideration here is less the school teams involved (although they too should pay a reasonable amount)and more the private swim team that is being subsidized by the the Springs taxpayers. $600 a month is a ridiculous figure that wont even cover the cost of heating the pool during the Winter. Explaining THAT figure should be interesting, at least. Families in the Springs, and Doral one would suppose, are tightening their belts now and diminishing their expenses- which is exactly what the City of MS ought to be doing, under these tough economic circumstances. To continue to lose HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of our tax dollars unnecessarily shows poor judgement, lack of any organizational or management skills, and/or a lack of caring or concern by our city officials. Our pool losses have increased steadily over the past three years as the private swim team benefits from FREE pool practices AND meets. There is NO known record of MDAC being billed for ANYTHING for at least the past three years and no contract with ANY of the entities using our pool is known to the City Clerk. NOBODY IS PAYING, except the Springs taxpayers.IF MDAC has been paying, where are the revenues? the cancelled checks? the receipts? FREE use of our pool while we lose 300k a year HAS to stop! Everybody should pay the going rate - high schools pay the going high school rate, private swim clubs pay the going standard rates; scuba pays a standard rate, etc. We can NO LONGER provide a free lunch for 82 kids because 6 or less of them live in the Springs. Nor should we be expected to do it. Its a luxury we can no longer afford. Period. If they want to make us a reasonable offer, we should consider it against our expenses and the usual standard fees charged in Dade Co. on a cost/benefit basis; otherwise save the 200k and close it down while the kids are in school.
commentary
There is no doubt that swimming is an excellent sport and good for our kids. Nobody is questioning that there are dozens of dedicated and selfless volunteers and parents that make a swim team successful. Those are givens. The question is whether we can AFFORD to give a free ride to all the surrounding swim teams while we lose 300k a year? The reality is that we are in a recession that is deepening every day. People are tightening their belts and cutting back on expenses that are not absolutely necessary. The residents of MS are willing to work with the residents of other cities to work out a fair and equitable solution, if one can be found. The residents of MS are no longer willing to bear this burden alone. If no reasonable solution can be found, closing the pool during the off-season would be a last option, as a means to minimize our losses in these difficult times. There are other options close by for MDAC. Closing may not be the most desirable outcome, but losing 300k a year is not very desirable for the Springs residents either.
comments
While we appreciate the 15k gesture on the part of the City of Doral (not MDAC), when you consider that 95% of that team comes from Doral, shouldnt that be expected? The City of MS is losing 200k in the off-season to keep the pool open so that their private team can practice here and have their meets. 15k does NOT go a long way to remediate our 200k in losses. We would save that 200k by just shutting it down in the off-season. That is the prudent and simple solution. Why would 13,000+ residents be expected to indulge a handful of Springs kids and take those BIG losses when it benefits a private team of mostly somebody else's kids? If they were to split the losses, maybe it would make better sense, but, as it is, it makes NO sense. If they want the convenience of practicing here, they should be willing to pay reasonable and standard expenses. Then we could look at it from a cost/benefit basis. To do anything less would be fiscally irresponsible to the large majority of taxpaying Miami Springs residents.
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There are serious doubts that ANY family would choose to live here and buy a home because of the swim coach. I know of NONE that have done that in over forty years. The reason we cant afford to pay for everybody else's kids is because we cant afford it- we are in a recession that is deepening every day AND we are already losing 300k per year. We may be willing to give our handful of kids a break on the price to practice here but we should NOT be expected to pay for everybody else's kids too. It is simply a luxury we can no longer afford. If the others want to contribute their fair shares to keep the losses to a minimum and the pool open, that could be considered, but to pay 5% of our losses when 95% of that team is NOT our kids, is just unacceptable. While the pool is not designed to make a lot of money, its also not designed or intended to LOSE 300k a year. We have shouldered the load and taken the losses for years- its somebody else's turn now.
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