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Dick Trail

The Way I Saw It

Opinion

All politics are local

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Three entities are competing for your property tax money. Now one wants to raise the ante. There is no overall comprehensive plan to set priorities. The Schools already dipped their hand into the pie and built a large and expensive consolidated elementary building that we will be a long time paying. The City had a major water project, now built, foisted upon them by the Feds which we will be a long time paying. The City now wants a multi-million dollar new public safety and administrative facility. Part of that plan will get the City out of the jail business and drop that necessary function into the lap of the County. So where is the new money to pay for the new buildings going to come from? We all already know who will end up doing the paying.

One way to set priorities, new school buildings, new city administrative/public safety buildings, or a new jail would be our very liberal President Obama's preference. He'd simply appoint a Czar to make the decision. Such czar would of course have to have to be paid well in excess of $100,000 with at least that much again to spend on staff. Let's rule that one out!

The schools have a full time superintendent, with staff, to advocate for their needs. The City has a full time City Manager, with staff, to advocate for their needs. The County is ruled by a board of three commissioners, no staff, who do the duty on a part time basis. The competition seems a little uneven but the County has the hammer in that they set the levy to generate the requested budget for all three entities. Therefore those Commissioners could set the property tax levy to squeeze out excess spending by both the Schools and the City if so inclined.

Perhaps a statesman could step forth from the City Council, the County Board or the School Board who could negotiate a compromise and a fair agreement among the three. Not likely. It is as Mayor Berry stated last week, "I pay taxes too and understand the reluctance to raise taxes but I have to do what is best for the City!" No hint of statesmanship or compromise there.

Our founding fathers were presciently wise to set up a system that will work if given the chance. I applaud the City Council's promise to bond whatever scope of construction project this Council and City Administration selects. The election required before a General Obligation Bond can be issued brings in John Q. Public, the informed voters who will say yea or nay to the long term bonded indebtedness. The voters said Yea to building the new school. The Public didn't get a vote on the unnecessarily expensive water treatment plant and there was a much less expensive option presented. Again the public said Nay to the County's plan for a new jail, the plan where the City refused to cooperate in building a combined city/county facility.

A while back, the city finagled their voters into incurring a wonderful increased sales tax. It wasn't hard to convince McCook voters to adopt the sales tax because they realized that people from outside the city limits, non-voters on the issue, would be helping to pay the assessment. The best tax ever is the one that everybody else, except me, has to pay and a sales tax comes close. The City's sales tax proceeds go to needed infrastructure improvements, especially the long neglected water distribution and sewer systems. Council also directs the City Manager to divert, reluctantly, some of the sales tax proceeds to paying down water debt. Last Thursday I detected a real reluctance on the part of City Staff to using any of their sales tax proceeds to pay off a loan for new buildings.

It will be interesting to see how the vote goes to incur additional debt, to be paid by increased property taxes, when the city attempts to sell their new building plans.

My friend, long time politician, Dr. Don Blank chastised me a bit last week for howling about the City Council not taking the advice of their appointed Airport Advisory Board. True the Council is the responsible party and can vote their heart's desire. Enter McCook politics though to understand the process. I surmise that a couple of past council members sitting in on the public meeting of the airport advisory board sniffed the wind and didn't like the way the board was leaning. So they called all their friends, the same group that finagled changing the airport name to honor their darling Cornhusker Kickback Senator Ben Nelson, and asked them to make many phone calls to council members to reverse the advisory board's recommendation. Never mind that the airport advisory members had spent many hours of their unpaid time researching the matter and made their decision in the open. The plethora of phone calls to council members was done in the dark away from public scrutiny. Councilman Jerry Calvin stated that he had more phone calls on that matter than any other since he was placed on the council. But then that is the way we do politics in McCook! Still I'd love to see the Council members' phone call logs on that issue.

That is the way I see it.

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  • A couple of corrections...1)the county commissioners HAVE a staff just like the schools and the city. The staff is all the county employees. 2) The city council members SHOULD reepresent the city taxpayers first. A statesman represents the group that elects them. 3)Mr. Trail WAS on the council when the water/sewer problem blew-up. The city was hit with millions of dollars of fines. The city had multiple meetings to inform the public what action was needed to clean-up the mess caused on Mr. Trail's watch which resulted in the city spending thousands more than it could have if he problem was dealt with under Mr. Trail's watch (tell Dick thanks for your increased water bills the next time you see him). 4)The city did NOT refuse to go along with the county on a joint facility. The issue went to the voters and the voters for BOTH the city and county said no. 5)The city did NOT 'finagle" a sales tax. The voters, for three times now said yes.

    -- Posted by dennis on Tue, May 4, 2010, at 2:26 PM

  • Mr. Trail was also on the council at the time when the council made the decision to move forward with a treatment plant. Not a single council member is left on the council who made that initial decision to move this city forward through water treatment. Everything that has been done with water by subsequent councils has been done because of that initial decision. Even the current mayor can't take credit for making the decision to choose water treatment as the best solution since he hadn't been appointed when that decision was made and he's been on the council the longest.

    So, on one hand, you lay the blame with Mr. Trail because he was "on the council" when we were fined but I see no credit to him or any of the other council members who actually made the decision to move forward with treatment. After all, he was also "on the council" when treatment was selected. Every councilmember since then has just stuck to that decision that was already made. Treatment was not guaranteed after the northern well field idea fell through. There were certainly plenty of other landowners knocking on the door waiting to get some "city money" if they had land to sell to the city for another well site but they chose treatment and they moved forward with their decision.

    -- Posted by McCook1 on Tue, May 4, 2010, at 6:39 PM

  • Yes I was on the Council when the decision was made to treat rather than develop the northern water field which would have not required treatment and been cheaper in the long run. I just got outvoted as the majority rules and Phil wanted the most expensive option!

    -- Posted by Dusty on Wed, May 5, 2010, at 2:53 AM

  • I also remember Mr. Trail was on the council when it was a regular occurance to have uncivil verbal battles with other councilmembers, when state and federal agency reps would not even come to McCook because of how they were treated by councilmembers and the big fines were handed out because of years of fighting. He was also on the county commissioners when it was a regular happening to have verbal fights and threats of physical violence with other commissioners. Statesman? And Dick says he was on the council when the decision was made to treat the water. That means he is now complaining about the fact that the council did NOT get a vote of the people to move foreward with building a water treatment plant when he was there. Is Dick critical of his own decision? Did Dick vote to pay a million dollars for the North well field? Did the government then say the water was contaminated and could not be used to drink? What exactly should we be happy about his votes? The million dollar well field? The hundreds of thousands of dollar treatment plant? The fines for delays? The reputation of an unfriendly council/commissioners? His inaction to remove the past city manager? Everyone has warts. Including Dick, and the current council and commisssioners. Some even have selective memor...including Dick.

    -- Posted by dennis on Wed, May 5, 2010, at 7:40 AM

  • For an example of a genteel, civil, politically correct dissertation see the above. "Hissoner" the Mayor may have a thin skin!

    -- Posted by Dusty on Wed, May 5, 2010, at 1:02 PM

  • All I'm saying is you are painting with a very broad brush by saying someone is responsible by simply being on a council because by that general logic, if anyone on the council is responsible for the bad decisions is also responsible for the good decisions made during their time too.

    Case in point, our current mayor served on the council when we had this problem in the '90's and didn't do an adequate job to fix the problem. Should we blame him for not fixing this problem back then when it would have been a lot cheaper for all of us? He was on the council, after all.

    -- Posted by McCook1 on Wed, May 5, 2010, at 1:13 PM

  • I believe the facts will show that Mr. Trail voted for the North well field then voted against it. There is no record of him voting for the treatment plant. The problem was not just the vote but the delays in a decision. Mr Berry was on the council in the early 90's but the water was not a big issue then as the Clinton administration had not yet directed the EPA to lower the parts per million of "contaminants". After he left the council the issue arose. Back then the "dump" as Mr. Lyons called it, was the hot topic of the day. Mr. Berry did vote for the treatment plant solution. Everyone is entitled to their own opionions but everyone is not entitled to their own facts. This ends my comments on this issue....

    -- Posted by dennis on Thu, May 6, 2010, at 11:00 AM

  • You're absolutely right that we're entitled to our own opinions and not our own facts. So, let me present the facts:

    http://www.mccookgazette.com/story/1090353.html

    You will see that it was February 2004 when the council decided to move forward with a water treatment plant AND a new well site with lower nitrate water. Both of these plans were started by this council and completed under the following council. They then decided to accept proposals for engineers to design the treatment facility in May 2004. In July 2004 an engineer was selected to design the water treatment plant. In August 2004 the engineers had already began drawing up the plans for the treatment plant. Jerry Reitz also resigned in this month, providing the vacancy our current mayor was appointed to.

    So a quick review of the facts will show that water treatment with a new well site was already selected as the solution. Engineers were hired and had already began designing the plant BEFORE Mr. Berry jumped in. Therefore, Mr. Berry could not have voted on choosing a treatment plant as the solution since he wasn't around when that decision was made. He continued the process that was started before his arrival.

    This problem was dragged on throughout all of the early '90s. In '90 the council took the entire year to decide whether they should establish a well by a TCE plume. Honestly, it's all there, you can't make this stuff up. By the end of '91 the City had received its 4th CDBG extension to address its water problems. By mid '92 it got a 5th extension and by August '92 they apply for a 6th and get a warning from the state. Most likely for dragging along with no results. By the end of '94 they had applied for nine extensions. Now at what point does somebody speak up and say, "hey, we need to move on this and get it solved"? Is it after 3 extensions, 4, 5, 6? You don't have to be psychic to see that when you've had that many extensions you need a solution ASAP before the state really comes down on McCook but I'm sure when the state is giving you all kinds of extensions on compliance things are just great and nobody had any worries.

    Unfortunately, at that time, we didn't have anybody who could see that these extensions weren't going to be granted forever nor did we have someone who could lead us to a real solution. The dump was a big deal at the time because there was more pressure on the city but just because something is not a current "hot topic" doesn't mean that it doesn't need to be addressed in a reasonable time and manner.

    -- Posted by McCook1 on Thu, May 6, 2010, at 7:10 PM

  • Calling to mind the upcoming story telling festival, I am reminded of the story of the politician that sat on a local board. He was so tired of being on the short end continually. The votes seemingly all ended 2-1, with the subject of the story being the one vote. He decided to take care of that, and talked a like minded acquaintance to run for the board to assure him of a guaranteed 2-1 in his favor. Imagine his surprise when he was the one not re-elected. I think the story teller mentioned that the subject of the story was too conservative, and hence lost the election.

    -- Posted by hulapopper on Wed, Jun 9, 2010, at 9:15 PM
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