3 on Council Cave, Cough Up the Cash for Undergrounding

Correction: After publishing this last night, I was informed the actual vote on the appropriations was 3-2, with council members Keating and Fujioka casting no votes and mayor Friedman, and council members Barbieri, and Chiang in favor. I watched the vote live on TV and again on video, but missed the no votes. My apologies.

The city council met for 6 1/2 hours in open session Saturday and ended up raiding the CIP reserves to cover an additional $1,150,000 to complete the PHUD undergrounding project. This comes after the raid of the general fund in December for $1,004,000.

That’s $2.154 million dollars of public taxpayer funds that will be spent to complete undergrounding for the residents of PHUD.

The bailout of the undergrounding district comes at the expense of many public projects that were already on hold. It’s amazing that money that was held back because of these uncertain economic times is suddenly available for an undergrounding project. The money could have been used for the community pool, pedestrian path signage, the Ronada-Ramona intersection safety redesign, Community Hall painting, Beach Access landscape plan (two large trees removed, now no money to fix the area), Dracena drainage and turf improvements, Ricardo-York stairway, Rose-Kingston improvements. Those projects clearly would benefit the majority of Piedmont residents and are dispersed all over town. Now all that money is funneled into the 144  PHUD residents undergrounding. (source: Council Agenda Report, December 12, 2009, Exhibit C p12)

Points go to Margaret Fujioka for her attempt to get a compromise with the PHUD residents to put in another $500k, the contractor to reduce profits, and the city to pay the difference. But as expected, the PHUD and contractor won’t budge. They want the city to pay.  Which means we pay. And the council voted 3-2 to pay out $1,060,000. (corrected from my earlier post of a unanimous vote for $1,125,000)

On the plus side, the council did approve a motion to add at least one member of the public to a audit review subcommittee and to start the public notice process to enact a moratorium on future undergrounding projects.

Watch the meeting on KCOM repeats or watch online. Read more about this issue.  Leave a comment or vote in our poll below.

“Infuriating” “Bumbling” “Incompetent” “Malfeasance” “Debacle” “Brouhaha”

OK, the title of this post is a bit obtuse, but they are all words used around town to describe Piedmont’s two undergrounding districts. Both the Sea View and Piedmont Hills Undergrounding Districts are mired in controversy and costs. Unfortunately, the city is again considering spending taxpayer monies to bail out a beautification project that benefits only a handful of Piedmont residents.

Because of a large number of project management errors, “massive discrepancies” in measurements of unfinished work, “significantly miscalculated values of contract work credits”, and general mismanagement, the “staff” wants the council to approve an additional $1,150,000 in CIP funds to the PHUD private undergrounding project. This would bring the total of city taxpayer costs to over $2,154,000. That’s a whole lot of money, especially in these tough economic times. If approved, Piedmont’s CIP fund of $1.8 million is being targeted for the $1.15 million dollars of additional bailout. That pretty much empties the CIP reserves.

Next, I’d like to get you thinking about the ongoing use of the term “staff” in a vague and accountability-dodging pattern. “Staff” is intentionally used to avoid singling out individuals. I propose that the council stop referring to “staff” except in the most general terms, such as when referring to the staff as a whole. When a specific person or persons in roles of responsibility continue to make these kinds of errors, the taxpayers deserve to know the names of those individuals and their role or job title, and whether they are truly “staff” or just contractors. We pay their salaries. To do otherwise reflects poorly on the many city staff who do excellent jobs for our city. If a staff member is doing excellent work, let’s also call them out by name and recognize their good work.

Finally, I keep thinking of this quote from Network. Maybe you have too.  I’m paraphrasing Howard Beale (played by Academy Award winner Peter Finch) here:

I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s work, banks are going bust or getting huge bailouts. We know things are bad – worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my HD TV and my Superbowl Sunday commercials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’ Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot – I don’t want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and heath care and Iraq and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad.

You’ve got to say, ‘I’m a Piedmonter!” So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, “‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!’ I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell – ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!… You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and undergrounding, and school budget shortfalls, and Blair Park. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: [screaming at the top of his lungs] “I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”

I know that even if you’ve never seen the movie, you probably are feeling a bit like Howard Beale. I know I am.

(Note: the above Network quote is political parody which will hopefully at least get you to smile a bit in the midst of this undergrounding fiasco or maybe you’ll put Network in your Netflix queue. Best of all would be for you to attend the council meeting on Sat, February 6th, 11am)

Wildwood Crab Feed

Come out Saturday night to the Wildwood Dad’s Club crab feed.

Buy Tickets!

Doors open at 6pm for music and cocktails. Dinner will be served at 7pm.

• All-you-can-eat fresh Dungeness crab
• Dads Club Lasagna
• Fresh Salad
• No-host bar
• Great raffle prizes
• Live music featuring the Montclair Jazz Band

And of course, your very own Wildwood Dads Club ShowProceeds from this fundraiser benefit Wildwood Elementary School and, in the past, have contributed to projects such as play structures, new computers, the lunch-area arbor, and various amenities enjoyed everyday by Wildwood students.

They Want All of Our Reserves – Special Undergrounding Meeting Saturday

From the city:

This message is to inform you that the agenda and accompanying staff
reports for the February 6th Special City Council meeting have been
posted. This special meeting will be held at 11:00AM on Saturday,
February 6th in the City Council Chambers. Please see the Council’s
web page at http://www.ci.piedmont.ca.us/citycouncil/ to access and
download the documents.

UPDATE: After reading the staff report I learn that in addition to the $1,004,832 already appropriated from the city’s general fund, that now there are ADDITIONAL mistakes requiring another $1,150,000, this time from the Capital Improvement Reserve. CIP funds are what keep ALL of Piedmont the great city it is. CIP funds should not be used for undergrounding.

Please let the city council know your opinion:

afriedman@ci.piedmont.ca.us; dbarbieri@ci.piedmont.ca.us; jchiang@ci.piedmont.ca.us; mfujioka@ci.piedmont.ca.us; gkeating@ci.piedmont.ca.us

(cut and paste that block of email addresses into your To: field)

Garrett, Jeff, and John

The election results are in and two incumbents and a former council member appear to have won the three seats on the council. Garrett Keating, Jeff Wieler, and John Chiang are the top vote-getters in yesterday’s election. In a solid showing for a political newcomer, with 16% of the vote, is Julie Watters. Sunny Bostrum with 165 votes is distantly behind. Finally, it would be interesting to know who the 19 write-in candidates were.

Thank you to all candidates for volunteering to serve our city.

JOHN CHIANG – 2,090 (29.62%)
JEFF WIELER – 1,844 (26.13%)
GARRETT KEATING – 1,797 (25.47%)
JULIE A. WATTERS – 1,141 (16.17%)
SUNNY BOSTROM – 165 (2.34%)
Write-In – 19 (0.27% )

Results are from the Alameda County Registrar of Voters and still unofficial, although all 6 precincts are counted.