I had not sent any budget info out because these early presentations change (which they have).  Costs details and more unannounced changes are usually found only when the full line-by-line budget is provided (which they were). 

I state “evidently” because as of this date the Mayor has ignored answering my properly submitted requests for budget information. If you recall in my City Council regular session recap, the mayor is now the gatekeeper of any information council members may need that requires any written information or data.

My request (submitted April 18th) asked what department/city budget initiatives was directed to be excluded/unfunded before their presentation to the public. When council members see these budget presentations and something we thought would be included is not there, then the question is why. Some council members had to ask department directors about pay changes, since the mayor wasn’t saying. The basic response was the mayor was not providing pay raises due to the tight economy.

Interestingly, only a few days before the official budget came out and closely correlating to some visible personnel/job shifts within the Mayor’s direct staff, a 2% pay raise for employees that qualified would be provided. So economic times (and forthcoming budget exposure of substantial salary increases originating and implemented by the mayor for her closest staff) had changed in a few days.

Employee Pay Raises

As I previously stated, I had asked for budget information from the mayor and have yet to receive it. On April 25th, again following the dictated mayoral information request procedures, I asked for data on pay raise recommendations through the mayor’s communicator director. Last March 29th, 2012, council members had received the suggested pay raise data as requested from and provided by our pay study consultants Fox & Lawson.

On May 2nd, having not received any response to my April 25th request, I sent a follow-up email. I did receive a response back on May 2nd from the communications officer. She had been out of the office, but it was her understanding any wages/salaries information would be included in the budget documents next week (remember at this time no raises were authorized, per the public release of budget presentations).

I responded back that same day and stated unless the mayor was denying access to that recommendation, I would still like to have it in order to prepare for the May 13th council budget work session. I received a reply back from the communications officer that no one was denying access to information. The email proceeded to spell out how the interaction from Fox & Lawson, Human Resources and the mayor worked.

Given this is my seventh city budget, I had figured this out a while back. While I am being told no one is denying me information, it is interesting to note I still have not received the information I requested. While the Mayor is now providing a 2% a pay raise, I still do not know if that is what the expert’s recommendation was. Perhaps at the council work sessions I might receive an answer.

I am not the only council member that cannot get requested information from the Mayor after she deemed only her office can review/approve such requests.  A number of these requests are related to the budget process.

Continued message traffic from the Mayor states that some of the budget data requested is not a record that is maintained by HR/Personnel or any other department of the city that she was aware of. Some of the data requested by other council members are names of employees, their current salary, their new projected salary, number of years with the city, number of years in their current job and the pay range of their jobs.

I believe the interest in this data is sparked by the pay increases and job changes the mayor orchestrated for her closest staff.  Contrary to the Mayor’s denial that these records do not exist, all of this data has been provided at one time or another in past years to council members.

These records DO exist within the city’s financial and human resources databases or else a yearly functioning budget and payroll could not be produced. I retained the past copies of this information in order to study trends in future budgets. So for now the information stonewalling continues, but the budget data shows political job placement on the mayor’s staff is financially rewarding.

Mayor’s Staff Pay Raises

The Mayor’s initial Communications Officer quit after eight months on the job. Her Chief of Staff unexpectedly quit last month. It appears this recent event initiated position and salary changes that have just recently come to light.

The Mayor’s Communications and Public Information Officer, Ms. Rawls (whom the mayor brought in), will receive a 12.5% increase equating to $7,000; going from $55,880 to $62,880 in FY 2014. Her predecessor, who quit after eight months, was slated to make $55,000 in the FY 2012 budget.

According to the salary study approved in 2011, salary range mid-point for the average experienced communications director was $55,713 and topped out at a maximum of $66,165. The communications director prior to the McMillan administration, who had experience and training in media service and communications, was considered at the proper pay level during that study with a salary of $55,706. She attended as many meetings and worked as many hours as the mayor who hired her.

Ms. Rawls is not listed as having worked in the communications field or received educational/professional training associated with it. She is a lawyer by education and work experience along with having been Executive Director at the TN Economic Council on Women. She was working at the TN Attorney General’s office during the tenure of Mayor McMillan at the State House.

Mayor McMillan’s Executive Secretary, Ms. McCary, has also held a job (whom was brought in by the Mayor) that has received great financial generosity in terms of salary increases. Ms. McCary’s predecessor was slated to earn $36,274 in the FY 2011 budget proposal.

According to the salary study that was completed and implemented in Spring 2011, the maximum rate of pay for the Executive Secretary position was set at $40,889. In FY 2012, Mayor McMillan had increased Ms. McCary’s salary to $50,000, a 38% increase. The mayor’s rationale for the increase was new/additional duties.

By FY 2013 another pay increase equaled $53,340 or 6.7%. In the FY 2014 budget Ms. McCary now has a new job, her own office and a pay raise to $57,340; a $4,000 increase or 7.5%. Ms. McCary has also traveled a similar path as Mayor McMillan. She was Ms. McMillan’s office staff contact during her time at the State House and was at APSU with her.

The Mayor’s receptionist admin assistant, Ms Sandmel, was moved to the Executive Secretary position. However, she only draws a salary of $30,288, versus her prior salary of $26,358 in her old job position. It appears the lack of prior long-term association with the Mayor and resumption of the standard duties of the Executive Secretary position did not allow for any salary level higher than the minimum entry level according to the 2011 pay study range.

Several other things are disturbing about all of this. First, the city spent a great deal of money to fix the employee pay system a couple of years ago.  I was on the committee that worked the pay study. We had a couple of hundred too many job descriptions for a workforce of about a 1000 at that time.

During the years, the mayor/council did not provide pay raises or provided smaller raises than needed. To overcome the lack or size of raises, or to take care of a buddy or good employee, supervisors could “game” the HR system into providing a raise. If you could not get promoted to receive a pay increase and the mayor/council would not give you one, then the next best things were to create a new job or add in some important new duties with specific titles and responsibilities that would trigger crossing the threshold for a salary increase. Rewriting job descriptions to increase pay should rank as the world’s second oldest profession.

Second, Ms. McCray is no longer the Executive Secretary and now has her own office and a new job. I, and others, am unaware that this new job was posted for other eligible city employees to compete for. Those non-executive secretary tasks she took with her to the new job and any new job requirements added for the additional pay appear to make this a brand new position.

However, the “spin” is a title change and staff restructuring, thus no requirement to post the job.  This “new” position handles constituent services and supervision (of who?) and works with department heads and other city employees to solve problems and issues. I always thought that was the mayor’s job along with assistance from the chief of staff.

Third, the issue of job posting would also appear to affect the transfer of Ms. Sandmel from Receptionist/Admin assistant to fill the open position of Executive Secretary.  No one seems aware that any posting for the vacant position took place.  It shall be one of the questions presented in our work session.

Fourth, after giving at least two of her immediate staff huge raises, they have also been included to receive the additional 2% raise being given to all other employees.  The managerial/supervisory ethics and fairness issues that could be brought up are numerous.

The Mayor advertises in her public budget slides that her office has five (5) fulltime workers, no part-time and that full-time equivalents equate to five positions. It has been this way and will be that way in FY 2014. So what do we do to get the work done? Why use a financial and staff shell game that is as old as business itself.

Put money in another account code, under a title that other departments use for one purpose, but will be used for a different purpose in the mayor’s office and dump money into it to pay for a person that will not show up on the city books as an employee. In this case an increase to $28,200 (this account code was funded with $3000 last year to provide for a “temp” to cover sick and vacation time of the admin employees) to basically fund a full-time “temporary” worker. That was more than Ms. Sandmel was paid as a city employee to do that work.

It is interesting to see the financial maneuvering that is going on. That is a wrap for now. There is plenty of other interesting budget numbers that I will fill you in on later.

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

The post Clarksville Council Update, City Budget for May 13th, 2013 appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

More and more often some of our assigned council committees do not to meet on any regular schedule.  A normal schedule would be once a month.

However, there were a couple agenda items that may be of interest to readers.

Rezoning – Ordinance 78-2012-13

This rezoning was very unusual/rare with the request going from R-4 (multi-family, such as an apartment) to Central Business District (CBD). The applicant for rezoning is Eric Huneycutt and was represented by DBS Engineering (whose owner is a major donor to the mayor’s past campaigns).

The area up for rezoning is in the area of West Washington Street and Kline Alley. This area is in the Dog Hill/downtown sector. Currently there are five (5) single-family residences and two (2) vacant parcels on the 0.9 acres that make up the section for rezoning. Under the proposal this would become 10 single-family homes whose average living space was listed as 640 sq.ft. Although lot sizes vary, the average is about 3900 sq.ft.  Spacing between the houses may be as little as 10 feet.

I, and others on the council, had concerns with the rezoning request. First, current single-family residential zoning codes will not allow such small lot sizes. Some of these lots are projected to be as small as 2641 sq.ft.  Even Cluster zoning doesn’t allow for lots that small. That is why the request is for CBD zoning, where no lot size restriction exist.

It appears from the answers we got that current city code under CBD zoning will not require sidewalks, streetlights or barrier landscaping which is required in new residential development. Kline Alley is very narrow and the eight houses that would face Kline will have 18 adjacent parking slots. If these houses have visitors, then those cars would apparently park in the alley.

The DBS representative did not have a lot of detailed information to provide, as this is early in the development plan. It would also be logical that CBD zoned land could be more valuable as it can be developed into business, commercial and professional activities.

Based on the lack of details, the apparent lack of providing the amenities we now require in new residential developments, and the objection of area residents (about 35 signed a petition asking the rezoning be refused) who showed up and spoke against the rezoning, I voted against (no).

The vote was a 6-yes & 6-no vote. The mayor broke the tie in favor of rezoning. The area is swapping council ward representation based on the last census. It is going from Ward 7 (Councilman Grubbs; voted yes) to Ward 6 (Councilman Harris; voted no).

Resolution 45-2012-13

CDE Bond Refinancing of $52 million

The resolution and supporting documentation was about 52 pages long. Folks, this was some dry and mind-numbing reading with plenty of legal and bond financial requirements/terminology. After reading it and working to grasp the concepts involved, I had a couple of questions to ask of the representative expert hired by CDE to work the bond issue.

My questions related back to issues that arose during the big CDE debate (just a few years ago) on whether CDE was a city department and how much change could we impose upon its operation, if it was.

If you will recall, the bottom-line is CDE is a part of the city. Although there have been improvements in bringing CDE a bit closer to the city fold, I believe more could be done, but I ‘ll save that for another day.
One issue at that time was if we did away with the Power Board that oversees the current operations of CDE (and created a Utilities Committee from the council as an example), would the city have to refinance the debt load of CDE. During the big CDE debates on ownership, the prevailing answer seemed to be yes.

However, the expert stated Thursday night that the city would not have to refinance, if we did away with the Board, as CDE is considered part of the city. So that resolved that issue.  It was interesting to note some of the eyes that rolled, eyebrows raised, looks exchanged and side discussions carried out when I brought up the possibility of doing away with the Board.

I then asked did that just apply to the currently requested refinancing effort or to all previous debt/bonds held by CDE?  The expert stated it applied to any debt or financing CDE had conducted.

I noted in the agreement that in the event of CDE failing to meet any principal and interest payments that the bond called for, there was “no recourse to the power of taxation of the Municipality or any other funds or monies thereof”. These bonds are repaid strictly through the “Net Revenues” of CDE (in other words the ratepayers).

The expert concurred that I had read the agreement correctly that no taxpayer money could be used to bailout CDE if the worst-case financial scenario occurred. Some of the information we received during the big CDE debate ran counter to that. The debate had been that the taxpayer is always on the hook for any financial liability of its functions.

The expert stated, that with such functions as CDE, there are three debt/bond models. Payment could be through taxation, a combination of taxation and ratepayer fees, or totally ratepayer. Utilities are more often the last two models.

I then asked if CDE had financial issues what would happen if the taxpayer was not on the hook?  You may wonder why I seemed interested in the possibility of CDE having money woes?  You need to remember that the council was told that CDE had very tight finances a few years back and was having trouble meeting its power payments.

Also, CDE Lightband was slow to get off the ground and sucking up money wherever it could find it. The expert stated that those who held the bond could take legal action against CDE to force electric rates to levels that makeup any back payments and future payments.

I greatly appreciated the information provided as it resolved a number of past issues, discussions and questions.  The refinancing of the CDE passed with no dissenting votes.

Information Requests and Needs

One final item, which was not on the stated agenda, involved an email (dated Thursday, May 2nd, 2013, 11:48am) that Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan sent out to all council members and city department heads.

Her email stated:

“Council Members

It has come to my attention once again that several members of the City Council are attempting to individually direct department heads or other city employees to provide information and/or documents and data.  Many of these requests would require the department heads to create documents that do not already exist.  As I have repeatedly said in prior emails, this is a violation of the Clarksville City Charter as Council members can only act as a “body” and not individually in directives to Department heads.  I have also asked that requests for information, other than questions that can be easily answered without the creation of documents or data, come through the Mayor’s office to promote consistency and avoid duplication.  I further asked to at least be notified or copied on the emails sent to Department Heads.  Since Council members are continuing to disregard my requests , I am left with no choice but to adopt the policy of my predecessor and require all requests for information and/or documents to come through the Mayor’s office.  I am therefore notifying all Department Heads and other city employees to advise Council members that any requests for information and/or documents are to be sent to the Mayor’s office.  If you have any questions, please contact me.”

At the end of the council meeting, Councilman Allen requested to speak and ask questions/clarifications on the email directive as the council was in session and acting as a “body” as she cited in her communication. Several other council members also wished to address this. This issue has come about again since the budget process started a couple of weeks ago.

The mayor touts “open government” with the budget process by allowing citizens to see what the department directors are asking for. The approach is not as open as it is portrayed. Council members have learned that department directors were already told what and how they would request certain funding for next year.

At issue is what items were directed by the mayor not to be brought up at the initial “public viewing” of her budget preparations?  Some council members have been asking for specific documentation related to items the mayor did or did not allow to be displayed/discussed at the presentations.

At the council session, the discussions had no sooner started than Councilman Redd made a point of order. He stated that the issue of the mayor’s directive was not on the agenda and therefore should not be addressed.  Also, it seems as if someone had called for adjournment before the mayor saw Councilman Allen’s request to speak.

The mayor concurred with Councilman Redd and the council meeting ended. Seems we are stuck in a “Catch 22″. We can’t talk unless we are acting as a body. If we act as a body, things have to be on an agenda to discuss. Items have to be on an agenda by the executive session or require 3/4 approval of the council, if they are late. If you can’t get 3/4 approval you wait until the next month and start over. Of course by then it may be too late to discuss.

It seems the idea to just take some time and discuss or brainstorm a late developing idea or issue is not within the scope of management to handle. The council is paid a flat rate to work the issues of the city, not by the hour or meeting.  So not taking council time to address problems doesn’t save money, but it can cause the problem to fester.

Mayor McMillan cites she is taking the same stance on information requests as former Mayor Johnny Piper. I didn’t totally concur with Mayor Piper’s actions on this, as I don’t with Mayor McMillan. If Mayor McMillan wants to place her office in the “monitoring” position to review all of our information requests, then she needs to be more responsive to getting the information out of her office.

I had already followed the mayor’s directive on a previous information request by submitting it to her office on April 18th. As of this date, I have not received any response back. On another request for budget information, I received a response from the mayor’s office staff after a week, but not the information requested.  Other council members have noted the same lack of timely response, if we get a response at all.

Questions and requests submitted by council members are made to resolve the needs/concerns of citizens that come to us or as preparation to make decisions on issues such as the upcoming budget.  Most citizens contact us believing we have a more direct source or pipeline to resolve their concerns and address their needs.  I too believe that is the job of the council member to cut the red tape where possible and help the citizen with a timely response to the maximum extent allowed by rules, regulations and budgets.

It seems council members may have to utilize state rules associated with freedom of information requests in order to get timely information responses.  This is the same process any citizen can utilize to get local or state government information.  The official request is made, delivered to the appropriate office, logged/registered with that office and a response is required within seven workdays. If a response is not received within the allotted time frame, a citizen has the right to legal recourse.  The government entity that is slow or does not respond to the information request carries the burden of proof in court as to why the request was not answered and to address the issue.  These procedures are addressed in Tennessee Code Annotated 10-7-503 & 505.

The mayor also needs to remember that charter and code requirements apply to the office of mayor too.  The mayor violated the charter and code rules on cancelling the Dec 2012 regular monthly session of the city council.  However, that was masked over quickly and quietly. She wanted to go to Saudi Arabia with the Conference of U.S. Mayors. She had a duty to ensure the required council meeting was conducted.

However, the desire to take the trip, which was a political good will tour by the Saudis, was a higher priority with our mayor. The cancelled council meeting was dealing with ethics issues that had been battled with for much of the summer and fall. The approval or dismissal of many issues on that agenda would likely depend on a single vote that would make a bare majority one way or another.

The only method listed in the charter/code for a meeting not to be held or items voted on is to NOT have a quorum present. As that is the only legal rationale for not holding a meeting, that is what the mayor presented to the council to vote on and approve as the initial official minutes and reason for not holding that council meeting.

The council should have held the mayor accountable and conducted the meeting using the Mayor Pro Tem, if she believed the Saudi visit was more important. The council did hold firm in not accepting the falsehood (ethics issue?) that no quorum was available to conduct the meeting.  The revised minutes of that cancelled meeting basically stated it was cancelled because she was out of town.

So it rings a bit hollow (when compared to cancelling required meetings) when an “interpretation” of the rules is calling a council member’s request of information a “directive” to department directors and major violation of charter/code.  Unlike the cancelled council meeting, we are not closing shop on any department with our information requests.

A “directive” is a council member wanting their street repaved by Friday. Now that might be a problem. Anyway, we will hopefully get our requested information before the night of the first budget vote. I also asked the mayor on April 18th when she would officially submit her full budget to council. I haven’t gotten an answer back on that either.

FYI

As I told readers, the signal lights at Exit 11 and Sango are now operational.  One issue drivers need to be alert to. There are two signs hung on the same cable as the signal lights that face the cars coming off of the east bound Exit 11 ramp, which state, NO right turn on red (onto Hwy76 toward Madison Street). I have observed too many drivers running that red light. READ and HEED or the police may be assisting you with a costly reminder.

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

The post Clarksville City Council Regular Session Recap for May 2nd, 2013 appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

Ordinance 67 (Ethics): You know the history, the delays and now the moment of truth. This ordinance would create an Ethics Commission that would review ethics complaints. Basically Mayor Kim McMillan wants a 5-member commission she would appoint with council approval.

After making that decision, the possible outcomes can range from the commission informing the council a violation took place and that would conclude the commission’s input; inform the council and make a recommendation of remedial action; recommend the violator resign; recommend that violating conduct stop or be prevented from happening again; refer the matter to the City Attorney to recover loss, or request civil action be taken, or disciplinary action.

A number of potential amendments were offered, but were combined or “weeded out” by the City Attorney to three or four major changes. Councilwoman McLaughlin proposed the first amendment. Currently, anonymous ethics complaints are allowed. Mayor McMillan’s version would not allow them.

McLaughlin requested it be reinstated. However, for an anonymous complaint to be made/accepted, the same very specific information, as if a sworn compliant was made, would be required. Detailed information is not required in the current process.

There are pros and cons to allowing an anonymous ethics complaint. People do fear losing their city job if they make a complaint against an elected representative or that other less obvious reprisals would take place over time. Some council members discarded this concern as being invalid.

I know I have ward residents that fear reprisals from neighbors on codes complaints and will contact me to place the complaint and ask that their name not be mentioned at all. If people are that concerned over reporting a code violation, then it is reasonable that if your job is on the line you may chose to keep you mouth shut rather than take heat for trying to expose a real ethics issue.

One of the most famous cases in American History concerning ethics and criminal related activity was an anonymous informant known as “Deep Throat” in the Watergate scandal, which forced the resignation of President Nixon. While a “Clarksgate” scandal is not likely, there have been plenty of local and state elected officials, to include a Tennessee governor, that violated ethics and laws and went to prison.  Many of those started when someone quietly dropped a “heads-up” to a person or agency that could do something about it.

However, you don’t have to file an ethics complaint with the city just to attack another official on ethics. That was in evidence when a current sitting ward council member made ethics related comments in the media that were directed to another (now former) ward council member’s actions and profession concerning redevelopment in Clarksville. The ethics violations or inference of violations were false.

In the end, the amendment to allow anonymous complaints failed in a 5-yes & 7-no vote.  I voted yes based on the amount of required information needed to justify analysis of such a compliant.  History has shown that many problems have been exposed by someone quietly and anonymously bringing the issue to light.

The next amendment was changing how the commission members would be chosen. I proposed that each council member, including the mayor, would select a citizen from his or her ward (the mayor could pick from the whole city). That citizen would have to answer a questionnaire that reflected membership requirements that would have to be met in order to sit on the commission.

The criteria included that citizen, and anyone living within that citizen’s household, could not have participated or financially donated to a campaign for or against any sitting member on the council. This would include any Political Action Committee, such as was evidenced in the last election and tied to supporters of the mayor, against a sitting council member and another citizen running for council.

Another criterion was a citizen (and those within the citizen’s household) could not be doing business with the city through a professional contract or accept a professional contract while on the commission.  Professional contracts are not competitively bid.

I am not stating that anything illegal has taken place, but documented election records show that some campaign contributions given, professional contracts awarded, and mayoral (and many council approved) city committee appointments made have the same citizen’s name or business listed.  At issue here the council never has the information provided during these votes for approval.

Mayor McMillan took challenge with much of my amendment stating she had reviewed/studied it. One issue was changing the method that is normally used in selecting members to committees, commissions, and other groupings. The charter/code normally allows the mayor to select and the council to approve such members.

The mayor appears to feel that my proposal negates her authority to select individuals. In essence, she is correct with this particular issue. Citizens and council members vividly remember from the recent election the attack PAC that had members that the mayor selected for city committees and the council had approved. That PAC publicly went after a sitting council member and other council candidates to defeat them and also provided support to others on behalf of the mayor and her agenda.

The mayor has also commented that she has studied and used Nashville’s Ethics Commission setup as a guide.  I too looked at Nashville’s commission setup.  The interesting point with Nashville (and some other cities I looked at) is the mayor does not choose the Ethics Commission members.  With my proposal the mayor would still provide an input, just not all of them. I guess the mayor did not like Nashville’s approach to selecting commission members.

The mayor then stated she believed there were “serious” constitutional questions involved. These ranged from not allowing citizens that might be selected for the commission to provide campaign donations to council members or hold political party positions; compete or hold professional contracts with the city; or that family members living within the selected citizen’s home have to meet those same requirements.

The mayor stated that individuals have the right to perform these actions and we cannot interfere or stop them. The mayor is correct. Citizens have the right to carry out these actions. However, if we stipulate that these actions do not fit the impartial criteria requirements for our ethics commission, the city has the right to exclude them from council consideration.

I had already discussed the issues of these criteria with the city attorney’s office.  There are NO constitutional issues involved.  No citizen that participates in the issues listed is stopped from doing so.  Selection to the Ethics Commission is strictly voluntary so there is nothing to force a citizen to serve and give up those political or business activities they may already be involved with or wish to participate in the future.

The mayor had issue with the inclusion of family members being included within the criteria.   The city’s current regulations on ethical conduct include the terms of “immediate family member” or “any member of the employee’s household” (employee is defines as an elected official, paid city employee and citizens appointed to board committees, commissions, etc.) and that the members cannot participate in in certain activities due to ethical concerns.  So this was another point without merit since the city already includes “family members” as criteria.

The mayor was also against my amendment because she did not believe we could find 13 people that could meet the ethics criteria I had proposed. That was a rather shocking statement, although the mayor has said something similar before (During the selection of the CDE Board I pushed that one board member should be an engineer with a background in electrical, computers or some other technical background.

What I believe is hard to do is select someone to sit in an ethics review of a council member, committee member or department head that we do not know or have vital information on. By the mayor’s reasoning, if one of her commission selections is a donator to her campaigns, has obtained a professional services contract with the city, been an active member in her campaigns or advisor of Democratic Party issues and has a spouse involved in the same concerns, then she can still nominate them.

There are many fine citizens that are involved in every criterion suggested. That does not make them evil or unable to fairly judge right from wrong. However, most people would rather be judged by those who have as few connections, in any form, to the operations of the entity or body they sit in judgment of.

This opened a heated and major discussion between Councilman Allen and the mayor. Council Allen stated he would not feel comfortable with a commission selected by the mayor, even if approved by the council.  Too many votes have been approved only by the mayor’s vote providing the winning margin.

Councilman Allen had the floor and was making a point of supporting my amendment using a comparison of a past committee selection the mayor had made that had multiple family connections, mayoral family work ties and donor ties. Councilman Allen believed that if council members provided the membership of the ethics commission we could not see a repeat of that previous mayoral committee makeup.

The mayor did not want to hear this and jumped in to kill the discussion stating it was not related to the ordinance at hand. The mayor then stated that she knew Allen did not like her and he should vote against the ordinance and be done with it. Councilman Allen said his issues and concerns were directed to the processes and how they had been used. It got frisky as a couple of other council members jumped in out of turn.

After the smoke cleared, my amendment garnered a 6-yes & 6-no vote and then the mayor voted no. So it was defeated.

Another amendment I proposed would REQUIRE the commission to provide a course of action to fix any finding of an ethics violation. In turn, the council would carry out that action per their direction and in accordance with charter authority. That is not a requirement in the Mayor’s version.

In national reviews of ethics commissions, the flaw in the process has been that commissions may provide a punishment, but the administration or approval of the punishment would fall back to the elected body. This report stated if the elected body could not willingly engage in citing ethics charges (which some of our council members have stated) then how could they engage in selection of a just punishment.

This did not pass either with a 5-yes & 7-no vote.

With all amendments presented, the final vote on the Mayor’s ethics commission passed with a 7-yes & 5-no vote. I voted no.

The proposed Ethics Commission will be made to sound as a great advance in local ethics procedures.  However, it has sections of procedural weakness and still leaves too much operational control within the hands of any Clarksville mayor.  That procedural weakness and operational control can not support a function that is supposed to be operating in the strictest terms of an unbias review and decision making capacity.

Resolution 32 – (Design Guidelines)

You will recall in January, I sponsored this resolution to get some updated design guidelines in issues such as signage, lighting, etc. I know Ward 10 residents have been concerned with managed development along the Hwy76/MKL corridor for years.  Updated guidelines would help with that development.

Other council members and I have tried to do this for four or five years and keep getting stalled or stonewalled. This latest effort was going to request that the Planning Commission take action through my resolution. The mayor jumped in and announced she was going to set up a Task Force to look at the processes involved. These processes were not my goal, but the guidelines themselves.

The mayor wanted me to withdraw my resolution stating that her task force covered what I wanted, too.  Her written direction on forming the task force did not include design guidelines. I sat in on the first task force meeting and was not assured with what I heard that my (and other council members) goal of new common design guidelines was going to be addressed. My resolution was defeated.

After the vote, I directly asked the mayor (for the record) that since the new common citywide design guidelines are part of her task force’s mission, would they be presented at the conclusion of their effort. She stated she did not know.  She was not in charge of that task force nor could she tell them what they needed to do.

It was amazing the amount of double talk the mayor has presented on this topic alone.  In her January 30th, 2013 news release, the mayor had no problem telling the Task Force its goal would be “to review Clarksville’s design review committee structure and present recommendations to simplify and streamline the design approval process”.

There is NO mention of revised designed guidelines in her Task Force directive and now the doubletalk that my requested action was included, but no assurance we’ll see anything about it. Can you say “stonewalled” again?

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

The post Clarksville City Council Session Recap of March 7th, 2012 – Part II appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

As a brief background, the ordinance would have increased an approved spending request of $190,000 for a new chiller (AC Unit) for Clarksville City Hall. The increase would have raised the total expense to over one million dollars. This increase was due to buying a more efficient chiller (cost: $384,000) and replacing lighting fixtures in eight buildings for more efficient units at a cost of over $610,000.  The initial vote of approval on this ordinance was held last Thursday (March 7th) and ended in a 6 – 6 tie that Mayor McMillan voted yes to provide passage of the ordinance.

First, as with many special government grants or loan programs, there are stipulations on how long a program or changes must remain in place after the money is spent. It is a waste of taxpayer money to get such grants to install a program (or equipment) and then turn around and do away with it as soon as the money is spent. If certain timeline requirements are not met, there can be requirements for partial or full repayment of the grant/loan money provided.

Also, if rules are not followed, it can establish a pattern that can hurt the city in trying to gain future grants or special loans. We know the rules were the savings had to be 20% of previous energy costs, the bond/loan interest amount was to be rebated, payback was 15 years and the loan should be repaid in 12 years.

I asked what was the time requirement to retain the buildings that had new lighting systems placed within them (how long must the 20% energy savings be recorded), the answer was not known by the city staff.  That question and answer piggybacked onto another question.  I also asked what is the penalty if the city did not meet whatever the time requirements are for keeping the new light systems in place?  The answer was not known.

As readers will recall, this could be a very important question as the city has looked to sell the Gas & Water building in the past and a tornado destroyed another city building. The concern with timelines and penalties was due to how long would the city’s hands be tied with having to keep or maintain these buildings and show a savings if a future council wished to move or build new facilities to meet city functional needs.

Councilwoman Jones proposed an amendment to postpone the ordinance till the next city budget was completed (July) and we had answers to the questions asked. This would allow time to see the impacts of recently seen or expected changes in the local job market and revenue situation of the city. Her amendment failed in a 5-yes & 7-no vote. I voted in support of it.

I had a follow-up question related to the fact that this whole project was being presented as an equipment and financial package that was tied very tightly together. So how could council members support this spending ordinance tonight stating the council agreed to a million dollar project and then turn around and change votes saying we were not going to pay for it in the manner documented?

If we don’t pay as prescribed, then the bond/loan method could not be used. It seemed illogical to support the project as stated and then turn around later and ambush it by not approving the payment method.

During this line of discussion about a chiller, or chiller and lights, or project paid this way or paid that way, it seemed that more holes were appearing in the project setup.  It now appeared the final numbers of the light project were close to, but not 100%, finalized.  In previous questions if one or two buildings were taken out, then there were other buildings that could replace them.  However, if the chiller was paid separately, there may not be enough other buildings to make up the savings difference.

During these discussions Councilwoman McLaughlin proposed an amendment to eliminate the lights and buy the upgraded chiller at $384,000. More questions were raised after the amendment was placed on the floor. It was stated that the current chiller was still running. It is running, but it is in poor shape. If it goes down, City Hall would likely have to shut down and move operations. The upgraded chiller could be on site in three weeks. The regular chiller would take 9 -12 weeks. The theory was we needed the upgraded model as it could be here sooner. It would also take several days to install it.

Around this time, about 45 minutes into the session, Councilman Burkhart left the meeting.

The Finance Department was not sure that the city had enough money to pay the additional $194,000. The mayor called for a break in the session so that could be checked. After checking, it was determined we had the money.

The initial vote was 6-yes & 5-no with the mayor not showing a vote. After about 6 or 7 seconds the mayor recorded a no vote. I voted yes. The vote was tied and the ordinance did not pass.

Final Analysis

So the bottom line after all of this is the original $190,000 chiller project will still be the action be taken. No upgrade and no lights were approved. It was interesting that the mayor did not support the upgraded chiller as the votes were there, if she voted yes.

Yes, it would have cost an additional $194,000, but it would have been supportive of the mayor’s previous debates that we needed to be green and save energy. The chiller was needed now, the upgraded model had a 25-year life span and the energy savings would have paid for that cost increase in about 20 years with $9558 in energy savings/year. The regular energy chiller would cost $190,000, use the same amount of energy as the current model and last for 15-years. If you amortized the initial purchase cost of each chiller and the energy savings produced against the life cycle of each machine, the upgraded model was the more cost efficient choice ($12,667/year for the original equipment replacement chiller vs. $5802/year for the upgraded model).

Perhaps, if we had been able to openly bid the two chiller options, the purchase price might have been even lower (under TN state law when selecting/using a professional engineering service for energy projects and that service also supplies and installs the equipment it carries, you do not bid out the equipment portion as a separate process). So financially, since the chiller was an immediate equipment need and the math showed the upgraded version was the better buy (in the long run) why didn’t the mayor support it?

Sales tax collections this budget year have been lagging when compared to last year. Recent economic impact projections suggest it could get worse in the remaining four months of this budget year. Taking another $194,000 out of the fund balance makes that gap even tighter. I had previously stated in 2011 we saw this administration try to convince the council to borrow money in order to save cash that had been set aside for the airport. That effort failed, the needed cuts did not take place in the next budget and about $3 million had to be borrowed to balance the budget.

The effort to bond/loan the chiller and lighting amount and the refusal to spend more on a chiller that was more cost efficient in the long run seems to be a repeat of actions seen in 2011.  The financial picture will come clearer within the next 90 days and we will see where all the pieces lay.

It also appears the worry that the time gap in having an upgraded chiller available in three weeks versus waiting up to 12 weeks for the standard model must not have been as important as it was presented. If that timeline was that important and the current unit that close to expiring, then it would seem logical for the mayor to support the upgraded model.

That’s a wrap for now. The Part II recap of the March 7th regular session will be along shortly.  Again, thanks to the many people that made calls and sent emails to council members on the million-dollar project. It was the largest response I have seen since I have been on the council. It MADE the difference in the final outcome.

I have always stated that if you and I work the issues together, we stand a much better chance of accomplishing our goals. This effort is another example of that joint effort in action with a positive result. Thank you for taking the time and making the effort to be involved in the government process and working with me.

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

The post Clarksville City Council Special Session Recap, March 11th, 2013 appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

Ordinance 73 (Councilman Burkhart Rezoning Request) – This was the second time this request has come before the council as the initial review was denied by the council last year. The main issue and reason for that denial was the property is next to Trenton Road.

There seems to be a recent trend by this council to undo the efforts of the past 3-4 years. The previous two councils had voted more to control growth and expansion based on factors of not expanding offices and businesses into residential areas or compound already heavy traffic issues on specific roads.  The mayor, by evidence of her Burkhart rezoning vote (when not needed to determine the outcome) and other actions and comments related to the previous Burkhart effort, shows traffic must not be a major concern.

The recent reversal of a zoning denial behind the new Madison Street Publix is another example. A home was rezoned into an office on its resubmission this year, where the council had denied it last year. The mayor broke the tie vote to provide the approval on this resubmission. This runs counter to goal of the 2030 Plan, which calls for increasing residential populations in that area.

Ordinance 74 (Cluster Housing)

If you will recall, this issue has blown up due to issues in the “cluster” language that could be interpreted in different ways. The Planning Commission made changes and the council approved the changes in an 11-yes & 1-no vote. I voted yes. One more change needs to be made and that would give the city council final approval of cluster options. Councilwoman McLaughlin made that request, which I support.

However, to do this additional change a resolution by the whole council will be required. The need for a resolution versus asking the Planning Commission seemed unusual. The mayor was able to direct the Planning Commission to do the changes we voted on. Yet, when a council member requested an additional change, it seems a resolution is now needed.

Some of us are not sure why the mayor could not just direct the Planning Staff to review the option.  The councilwoman will present a resolution to that effect.

Ordinance 72 (The million dollar question)

This was the action I had alerted readers to last week. A $190,000 (cash-in-hand) air conditioning project was increased to $1,000,000 (borrowed money) project so that a higher efficiency unit ($384,000) and over $610,000 in high efficiency lights could be installed at 8 buildings.

A bond would pay for the project with a projected payback of 15 years and interest would be rebated back to the city. This would be a good deal except for the timing. We are less than 120 days away from a new budget, Hemlock officially cut almost 300 workers, Fort Campbell is looking to furlough 8000 workers the equivalent of one month’s pay between now and September 30th, Fort Campbell contractors are being alerted to cuts, a 2% payroll tax increase started January 1st, the state is looking at over $100 million in federal cuts, the city is spending more and the sale tax collections have dropped 5-months in a row compared to last year.

We first heard about this higher priced project on Thursday, February 28th and received a continuing stream of reports and statistical and financial data this past week to study before the vote.  I ask that you read the rest of my report on this spending ordinance and consider what I have provided for your review.  I received several dozen emails, calls and face-to-face meetings on this topic and while many like the idea, not one has supported doing it at this particular time in this budget and economic period.

I, and five other council members, fought this hard at the council regular session. The vote was 6-yes & 6-no.  I voted NO. Mayor McMillan had to break the tie with a yes vote. The effort to change a project that has cash on hand for payment to a “borrowed money” project (even if it does pay back in 15 years) at this time in the budget year seems very reminiscent to a financial maneuver the mayor did in 2011.

If readers recall, back in 2011 the city has set aside cash to pay for the new airport terminal. Mayor McMillan tried to convince the council it was better to borrow that money and provided an ordinance to do so. The council said no and it was defeated. Then the mayor tried to sneak borrowing the airport money back into the budget that was worked about 90 days later.

Several council members (including me) caught this maneuver and asked the City Attorney to review the Mayor’s actions. We believed it was illegal since the council had already addressed the matter and voted to deny the mayor permission to borrow the money previously. The City Attorney concurred with the council.

The mayor knew that upcoming budget was going to be rough when she proposed that borrowing plan (twice), but said nothing to the council in detail beforehand. As you will remember, the Mayor decided to borrow about $3 million just to balance that budget and pay for everyday equipment such as computers and police cars.

Indicators for the near future economics again look poor as of this date. The mayor has not said anything concerning where we stand or needs for 2014. The mayor wants to replace a cash project with a borrowed money project that is 5-times bigger. As Yogi Berra said, “This is like déjà vu all over again”.

I have received information from Senator Green’s office as to where they think the $100 million in federal cuts will hit the state. Some of that may filter down and impact Clarksville (I will report that under a separate article later).

If you share my worry with this spending at this time, I ask that you email the mayor and all council members with your concern. Unless you convince one of the council members that voted “yes” to reconsider, this late budget-spending spree will take place. Those council members that voted to spend the $1,000,000 at this time were Lewis, Guzman, Harris, Grubbs, Wallace, Burkhart and Mayor McMillan.

You may even wish to call them, as some council members do not seem to review emails on a regular schedule. You need to take this action before this coming Monday’s final vote. Their contact information can be found at the city website “www.cityofclarksville.com”; under the City Hall tab click “city council”.

During the council session on this topic, one member touted her support for spending $1,000,000 as being a good stewardship of the taxpayer dollar because of the payback and interest rebate. I agree the math and “green” efforts look good and if it were any other time but now I would support it.

However, with all the economic variables/issues I mentioned, saying we are being good stewards of taxpayer money at this time, with this project, would be the same as saying I just booked and wired payment for a special reduced price return trip on the Titanic, as I admire the view of the oncoming large “white thing” bobbing in the ocean ahead.

I also pointed out that two of the buildings receiving the new lighting are not the financial responsibility of the city general fund (you taxpayers). I alerted readers to this also. During the session, I asked why the city was paying for them. The answer was the package and funding breakout was done so fast they didn’t have time calculate the breakout, but these separate financial functions would pay their part. Those two buildings were Gas & Water and Clarksville Department of Electricity.

As near as I can tell from the discussions, the answer was NO. Unless the Board approved it, the city has no legal authority to obligate CDE to any outside spending. The mayor sat mum on this which would seem unusual because as a lawyer she always points out real or imaginary legal issues when a discussion appears to going against something she desires accomplished (more on that point in the Ethics Ordinance recap in Part II).

The Finance Department stated that if CDE did not approve the funding the city had other buildings they could add to make up the difference. That answer opened another angle I took that left some scrambling.  If we had other buildings that could replace the energy savings requirement, if CDE dropped out, why couldn’t we wait on the light upgrades for 90-120 days to see what happens with incoming revenues/budget and replace the air conditioning unit now with $190,000 we had on hand?

My thinking here was CDE will pass the budget change to make the mayor’s “green” project continue and the loss in the chiller energy savings could be made up by adding these other available buildings. The chiller only made up around 16%-17% of the total energy savings in 15 years, while each building would be in the ballpark of 10% each (all things being equal).

If we added two or three additional buildings to make up for the chiller energy loss/exclusion of this project, we could still get the required 20% savings and be able to use the interest-rebated bond in 90-120 days.  Basically, I was offering a swap in which assets to use and the timetable to use them.  Fix the immediate problem of air conditioning and wait until the budget clears up and then have a plan to spend the $1,000,000 (or less) on new lighting if the finances are right on all the economic concerns listed.

The counter to my proposal was it would take 9 to 12 weeks (which they then stated equaled 3-4 months…. I countered that that was 2-3 months as there are 4.3 weeks in a month which any engineer should know) to get the $190,000 unit in whereas, the higher price unit was only three weeks away. They stated the unit we currently are using could blow up any day and we need to get it ordered.

I countered again that the $190,000 in cash had been sitting available since July 2012 so why had we been waiting and now everything is in a hurry. If management was worried about breaking a sweat by May 2013, they should have taken care of this months ago.

I’ll stop here and report on the ethics battle in a follow-up report.  Remember, your input to the mayor and those council members that voted yes is the only thing that may change the outcome of the Monday vote to spend a $1,000,000 at this time.

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

The post Clarksville City Council Session Recap of March 7th, 2012 – Part I appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

Topics include: Clarksville Fire Rescue, Clarksville Police Department, Building and Codes Department, East West Corridor and more.

Clarksville Fire Rescue

Most citizens seldom think about our outstanding Fire Rescue services unless they see them on the way to an incident or a major fire or accident happens and they make the news.  However, every month is busy for Fire Rescue and I wanted to pass along some stats for the month of January 2013 as an example.

In January, Fire Rescue responded to 726 incidents. Incidents are not just fires. They include emergency medical service, hazardous condition (no fire), weather events and a variety of service and good intent (citizen observation of an event thought to be dangerous, but upon investigation was non-threatening; an example is someone saw smoke/fog/dust and thought a fire was in progress) calls.  It is not uncommon to have 700 to almost 900 incident calls in a month.

Some months in the early part of the year (January, February, etc.) might drop in the 400-600 call range.  The rest of the year is usually in the higher range. While all of our fire stations respond to a number of incidents a month, Stations 1 (Downtown) and 6 (Ashbury Road) have the heaviest call loads.  Stations 2 (Fire Station Road) and 3 (Maxwell Drive) cover much of Ward 10 area and are kept very busy too.

I can attest that citizens and their property are in good hands due to the professional men and women on 24-hour duty at our fire stations across the city.

Clarksville Police

Like Fire Rescue, the police department is carrying an ever-increasing workload to keep citizens safe.  For the month of January 2013, the department answered 6329 calls, made 135 felony arrests, made 551 misdemeanor arrests and had state and city citation arrests of 2820.  In addition there were several thousand other activities the department was involved with concerning citizens and city needs.

The early part of the year usually has a lesser workload on the police, if you can call 6329 calls being light. Summer and fall can see calls climb to near 8,000. These calls are handled by three police district divisions. Ward 10 lies in the District 3 zone.

Recent crimes events in Clarksville can be seen at  “https: www.crimereports.com”. In the address block of that web page you can type in a particular street address or type “Clarksville, TN” and move a map around that shows all city crimes. Where crime has occurred, a painted block with a letter/graphic inscribed will appear. Click on that block and see the details of the crime.

The police also maintain a list of intersections where wrecks/accidents occur. Sitting at #1 for 2012 is the intersection of Hwy76/Madison Street/41A Bypass with 53 accidents. This has continually been the worst intersection in the city. Next is Riverside Drive/North 2nd Street/Providence Boulevard/Kraft Street with 40. Hwy76/Sango Road is tied for third with 36. Ward 10 has two of the top three most dangerous intersections.

The top roadways for accidents for 2012 are Fort Campbell Boulevard at #1 with 449, Wilma Rudolph Boulevard at #2 with 384, and Madison Street at #3 with 257. Hwy 76 is 9th with 100 and Warfield Boulevard is 10th with 92.  Ward 10 has three of the top ten roads for accidents. I’ll reference back to these road issues later in this report.

Needless to say, Clarksville Police are very busy and using the resources they have to the fullest.  Citizens are very fortunate to have this professional and accredited police force serving Clarksville.

Building and Codes

If the city looks nasty, your neighbor’s yard looks like the day after D-Day (June 7th) 1944, the house down the street is about to fall down or you need a permit to build, these are the professionals to call.  In my opinion, they may have the most thankless job around.  Citizens are concerned when code violations are not answered quickly and those that get the knock at the door for violations jump on the inspectors for picking on them.

In January 2013 B&C worked 315 new codes complaints.  Of these, 124 were received from citizens and the inspectors initiated 191 during their route inspections.  The winter months are usually a bit slower, although 315 cases would appear to be a good workload.  However, in the spring and summer months, such as May and August 2012, the number can jump to 734 and 689 respectively.

In addition to working code violations, on average they also provide over a 100 building permits on any given month, dozens of sign permits, several hundred plumbing permits, several hundred gas permits and several hundred electrical permits.  Don’t forget that those permits will usually require an inspection, sometimes a re-inspection to correct issues, by a codes officer.

Like the police, B&C also has a top 10 list of code complaint areas they address. At #1 is care of premises. This involves inoperable vehicles, grass over 12 inches high, open storage and trash/debris. At #2 are parking issues.  Just because you own the lot doesn’t mean you can park on the sidewalk and grass by the front door of your house.  Property maintenance is #3, which includes broken windows, dilapidated roofs, fallen decks and broken gutters.  Chicken issues (remember the debate by the council on whether to have chickens in your cooking pot or your yard) have already made the top 10 by coming in at #9.

While I address many issues for the citizens of Ward 10 and work with all the departments of the city, Building and Codes is usually at the top on my contact list.  They are always professional and assist me on every codes issue I have.

Streets

Madison Street Access Road Concept

For several months I have provided you information on an access road project I brought before the Street Department and Council Street Committee starting in July 2012.  I had actually been talking the concept with some citizens and the Street Department engineers for several years, but it wasn’t until the intersection improvement at Hwy76/MLK and Madison Street that time seemed right to move with the concept.

The plan was ready for public reveal in December 2012 at the scheduled Street Committee meeting.  However, the mayor was not going to be able to attend and there would not be a quorum, so the meeting was cancelled. I had also heard by this time the bid for the Madison Street widening was delayed until February 2013. The plan was then to be revealed at the January 2013 Street Committee meeting.

I was informed that Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan had contacted the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) with my concept plan for review. Evidently, answers had not come back and she did not want the plan revealed until we had heard from TDOT, according to the committee chairman. I agreed to the delay not wanting to jeopardize any working relationship or potential funding help that might come from TDOT involvement. Thus, I looked forward to laying out the plan last week (February 21st).

During this delay period, the city has been informed that the bid on the expansion of Madison Street to McAdoo was going to be delayed again.  The February 2013 bid on the project was going to slip.  Then information of additional review or involvement by the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation might cause a further delay.  A couple of days before the February Street Committee meeting the chairman contacted me confirming the information I had collected.  I was again being asked to hold off in showing the proposed access plan.

It appears TDOT has interest in my concept, but the expansion of Madison Street. seems very fluid at the moment (again).  It could be another year until a bid goes out. Based on information I was given, the state may be interested in trying to help with the access road project, but I have heard nothing correlating to any state funding or contribution to the access project.  Given my plan has the proposed access roads connecting to Madison (a state road) at three different points and could affect current road access of businesses along that stretch of Madison, the involvement and approval of TDOT is required.  Another concern is if my access plans were pushed at this time the project could be delayed as engineering was considered.

As you know, the intersection of Madison Street and Hwy76/Martin Luther King was reworked last year with additional turn lanes being added.  That project was years behind from its original scheduled completion. Under the state proposal to widen Madison to McAdoo Creek, the Madison-Hwy76/MLK intersection will be further reworked back to Clarksville’s Gas & Water building.

That same area is affected by my access road concept.  While events are fluid there are possibilities to keep things going. The road could be done in a couple of phases.  A possibility would to start the widening of Madison where it currently narrows (going toward McAdoo) between the Kmart/Food Lion shopping center and the Wal-Mart across the street.  While that is happening, the redesigned area from Gas & Water through the intersection of Madison and 76/MLK could be relooked to include my access concept.

I have concerns with the new Madison Street – Hwy76/MLK intersection.  Two left-turn lanes were added to allow traffic coming from the Hilldale community to proceed onto Hwy76/MLK toward the interstate.  However, drivers that are heading toward town on Madison (through this intersection) and wanting to turn left into the Captain D’s or Chinese restaurant have to cross four lanes of traffic.  Some drivers are NOT paying attention to the new turn lanes and are driving into and across them to wait for the oncoming traffic to clear the remaining two lanes.

Three weeks ago I almost had a head-on collision with a pickup truck that suddenly drove across to the inner left-turn lane just as I was about to pull into the same lane.  He was going to turn into Captain D’s and I was preparing to enter for a left-turn toward the interstate.  I have witnessed three other near head-on collisions in that same section.  My access road concept would eliminate this hazard that is now being played out on a regular basis.

You will note in my Clarksville Police report, this intersection is already #1 in accidents and Madison St is #3 in accidents.  While I believe the improvements to the intersection were correctly done, drivers are not paying attention to road markings and a serious accident is going to result.  I will keep pressing my access road concept as required action, as there is a need to take some traffic off of that intersection/road to increase safety.  I’ll keep you posted.

Exit 11

Work continues slowly with stoplight poles being erected and sensors being installed in the pavement of the streets around the intersection. Citizens keep asking when will it be done.  The deadline on the project is June 30th, 2012.

Like you, I cannot wait until it is finished. I have been working this project/issue since 2000. As you will recall, Hwy76/Sango Road is the third most dangerous intersection.

East-West Corridor

Unless you read the paper, you may have missed that the dismissed lawsuit, brought about when the city stopped further development of the East-West Corridor plan, has been reinstated by a Tennessee Appeals court. If you recall, the city had placed a one-year moratorium on further development in the proposed corridor.

This was to allow the city time to get its ducks lined up for further study and funding. When it came time to commit funding for environmental studies (this would allow the city to accept state and federal funds if they should be offered) and extend the moratorium, Mayor McMillan would not support it, although she agreed to the need.

It was not made a funding priority by the mayor and the political heat was getting warm by the property owners affected by the proposed plan.  The administration embellished the potential of lawsuits if the project went ahead.

The lawsuit was dismissed last year, but is now back on the legal charts. According to “The Leaf-Chronicle” online report of February 20th, 2013, (Durrett Case Against City Of Clarksville Reinstated By Appeals Court) the city has spent $79,000 for a Nashville law firm to defend it. That does not include the amount of time and money the city has spent out of it own offices/resources to work this case.

The amount spent to defend the project cancellation would have paid about 25% of the estimated environmental study cost. The city could pay $1.5 million if it loses. That would pay for the full environmental study and much, if not all of the survey work.

Readers will also find it interesting that the East-West Corridor issue is potentially alive, other than just in the courts. It appears the administration is looking to add the corridor project to the state Major Transportation Plan. That plan will be completed by the end of the year.

While this will not be welcome news to those that fought the corridor, in reality it is not exciting news for those that know we need it. I’ll cover four issues that temper any excitement for this approach.

First, I have attended numerous briefings that discussed how road projects come about in the state.  Generally, once a project makes the plan it may take 15 years before the state gets started with it. If you have followed the long path of trying to get State Route 374 started, you know we are in year 12 or 13 of that project with no road to show.

Trenton Road is a state road and it has been years since efforts were started to get it widened.  Two engineering reports state we need the corridor completed by 2025-2030 to handle the traffic loads that are expected.

With it currently being 2013 and adding 15 years as an optimistic forecast to get state funding, we won’t see the road until 2028 at the earliest. In addition, by that time continued development will likely choke any remaining road options closed, thus killing the corridor completely. The Durrett development closes one of two proposed road paths in that area.

Second, state representatives have stated those cities that show they are serious about trying to build new roads could gain positive state attention and support sooner, if they are willing to spend some of their own money upfront.

This would represent a good faith effort by the city on a defined need. I submit we are not doing well on showing this facet of support. Not only has this council and administration not funded a recognized need, it has had to spend $79,000 to defend its actions to not fund and kill the project.  How much more lack of support can be shown?

Third, the federal government, and in turn the state, will have to tighten their belts if spending is reduced to help balance budgets.  The future looks poor that pots of money will be provided by the federal government or state for many new road projects.

Neither governmental entity seems to be able to keep up with the maintenance required for current transportation infrastructure. While I favor fighting for any outside funding that may be available, it is not prudent to use that as an excuse for no action. Even with outside funding a 20% city match is usually required. That would be $10 million on this $50 million project. Which leads me to the last issue.

Fourth, waiting for others to pay for needs and fix problems created within one’s own house is the budget battle being waged at the federal and state levels. I have a major problem with Clarksville publically announcing this future transportation problem is beyond our ability to handle with a 20-25 year lead-time to plan and finance.

This city has planned and completed several big projects in the past five years that together rival the East-West Corridor in projected scope and costs. Yet, we cannot do that for a project with four to five times the lead-time to accomplish? In addition, Clarksville’s main corridors are all state highways (Fort Campbell Boulevard, Madison Street, Trenton Road, Tiny Town Road, Warfield Boulevard, 101st Parkway, Wilma Rudolph Boulevard…to name a few).

The complaints are why can’t we do this or that to a road. The answer is too often that it belongs to the state and we have to ask permission and wait for their response. Then they may or may not do as we request. Are we willing to give up more transportation control to the state when we could possibly do it ourselves?

Food for thought. That’s a wrap. Thanks

The post Clarksville City Updates for February 27th, 2013 appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

A special session was held to swear-in elected members and confirm the mayor’s choice for pro tem. Then a couple of hours later, the usual first Thursday of the month regular voting session was conducted.

The new mayor pro tem is Councilman James Lewis. Congratulations to James. The only new face on the council is Valerie Guzman of Ward 5. Congratulations to Valerie and welcome aboard.

Ordinance 56

This was a rezoning of property at Twin Rivers and Nolen Road (request to go from R-1 residential to R-4 multiple family). Usually I do not comment on rezonings unless they are affecting our ward. However, I want to commend the residents of that area for showing up in force and speaking before the council about their concerns over expanding an apartment complex located on adjacent property.

This complex, called The Groves, is located on a hill overlooking the new bridge that crosses the Red River where Wilma Rudolph Boulevard becomes College Street.

The apartment development looks nice, but for the year or so that it has been open, it evidently has become a problem with traffic and lawlessness. Over 550 police calls were made to the complex. The problems appear to be spreading to the adjacent neighborhoods. The neighbors are extremely upset with the development and question why the city would consider expanding a complex with such issues.

I would agree and had gone on record with residents that I would not support further expansion until the owners and management of the complex established a better record of operating those apartments.  Given there was such an organized and concerned residential response to the rezoning, Councilwoman Jones had approached the requestor of the rezoning last week about potential alternatives to the R-4 request.  The requestor was not interested in changing the request.

At tonight’s meeting the requestor (Reda Homebuilders) asked the council to postpone the rezoning request until next month so he could re-evaluate some issues/concerns. The large crowd in attendance for the purpose of fighting the rezoning may have been a factor.

I am usually in favor of postponements if some middle ground can be reached. However, since the requestor had turn down that option earlier and many residents had taken time to attend, I felt the matter needed to be settled then and there. We will see what happens over the next 30 days with this rezoning.

Ordinance 57

This was another rezoning that was not within the ward, but was only a block away. The property is at Gateway Lane and Haynes Street. This is behind the new Publix complex off of Madison Street. It was a request to change a house into an office property.

This was disapproved a year ago. The rationale, then and now, was that the effort to build walkable neighborhoods close to shopping and businesses needed to be preserved and enhanced where possible.

The city keeps shooting itself in the foot (and possibly in another part of its anatomy) by stating we want have neighborhoods that can blend in to commercial shopping and business. We want people to be able to walk to the store and not have to drive. One of the goals of the Madison Street Overlay was to promote this concept where possible. The new Publix complex appears to be the ideal location to promote and keep this concept.

However, we keep allowing the creep of office and commercial establishments/rezonings into neighborhoods that are located near major shopping and then wonder why everyone drives to get someplace, clogging our insufficient road structure, and complaints grow about the lack of walkability.

The 2030 Smart Growth Plan lays out this vision of that particular area:

A new model for “crossroads development” in Clarksville has been achieved with the charming, pedestrian-friendly Hilldale Village, which is centered by the intersection of Madison Street and Memorial Drive / Golf Club Lane. The retail core of Hilldale Village is a new Publix Supermarket retail center with out parcels located on the old Memorial / Gateway hospital site.

In keeping with the existing concentration of higher density residential near the Hilldale Village main intersection, even more condominiums, senior lifestyle centers and mid-rise residential have been constructed within easy walking distance of the Publix center.

Once again we, as a city, appear great on planning but weak on leadership and management to carry out such plans for any extended time.

There will be one more vote on that measure and any residents in that neighborhood that thought the battle a year ago would have protected them and did not attend or contact council members have little time to try and reverse the second vote. I heard from a few that were against it, but just about an equal number that were for it.

However, almost all of those for the rezoning did not live in the affected neighborhood and were friends or acquaintances of the requestor.

Resolution 32

This was an interesting debate on this resolution I sponsored. As you recall from my past articles, I am trying to address updating city standards on issues such as signage and lighting for areas outside of current overlay districts such as Madison Street.

As I have had concerns with proper managed development of the Hwy76-MLK corridor, so have other council members with their areas such as Tiny Town Road, Peachers Mill and Fort Campbell Boulevard. I am determined to get this started after years of delay. As part of the regular session agenda, I sent you a copy of my resolution for your information.

If you read the newspaper account of last week’s executive council meeting and last night’s regular council meeting, you might get confused about “who is on first” and “who did what when” concerning action to address this issue. Last week, just as I am about to discuss my resolution to take action, Mayor McMillan jumps in and declares she is setting up a task force to basically do what I had mentioned a couple of weeks before and was about to discuss at that moment.

On December 13th, 2012, I alerted the council at that meeting that I was bringing forth a resolution asking the council to approve having the Planning Commission take the lead in developing new standards. I had been talking for several months to the Planning Staff about my request, but had been delayed in formalizing the resolution request for reasons due to office personnel schedules and holidays. Mayor McMillan says nothing about any task force development concept she has planned during the council session.

On December 21st, 2012, I met with the Planning Commission director, Dr. Ripple. We had a good meeting and worked out the basic ideas and some wording to build the resolution I wanted to sponsor. For the months preceding this meeting and through all the various discussions I had with Planning Commission staff, no one mentions or seems aware that the mayor is supposedly working on any task force to address the issues I want.

As Dr. Ripple and I wrap up the meeting, he states he would like to send an email to Mayor McMillan to let her know I had followed-up on my resolution development as mentioned on Dec 13 and to list some thoughts and ideas we had discussed.  I was fine with this and left to prepare a final draft of my resolution.  Dr. Ripple does not mention or provide that he has any inclination that the mayor had expressed any action or interest in addressing my concerns in the resolution.

In Dr. Ripple’s email to the mayor, he talks about updating provisions and that an advisory committee needed to be created representing all stakeholders. He states that Building and Codes and the Two Rivers function would be critical participants in the process. The meetings would be open to council members and one or more might wish to be active participants.

Other participants should be developers and professionals that deal with signing and lights. He also offered broader public meetings at key milestone points. These are all good and broad points that he and I talked about to allow flexibility to design a good set of standards.

In December 27th, during the executive session, as I am about to present my resolution the Mayor announces she will direct the formation of a task force to do what I am requesting in my resolution.  Her very general description follows the wording and concepts that Dr. Ripple and I discussed and he presented in his email to the mayor.

The newspaper notes the Mayor’s task force concept. I proceed with my presentation of my resolution somewhat pleased the mayor has jumped on board with the idea, but knowing something else was afoot.  The newspaper does not follow-up the mayor’s announcement with any questions to Dr. Ripple or myself.

Then, at Thursday night’s meeting, as I prepare to present my resolution for a vote, the mayor jumps in again and repeats she is taking action with the task force. After that, I give my presentation of the resolution.  There appears to be no questions, but there is a game afoot and sadly the next 15 to 20 minutes occurred as I had thought they would. I actually had told some members of the audience and council what I thought would happen (if only the lotto was as predictable). The mayor jumps in and states she will vote against it.

She states that she thought I would pull my resolution since she was taking action with the task force. I do not know why she would assume that. It has been beat into our heads that if a council member wants to accomplish something, then the council must act as a whole (that is per the charter). That means we have to vote for an action to be accomplished.

I wanted that vote to assure there was majority agreement this action was needed and that some successful conclusion to the effort might take place.  Just because the mayor has stated she will start a major project does not always mean it will get done. I list the city charter update and the establishment of a 2030 Smart Growth Committee that was approved a year ago and nothing has been accomplished, as examples.

The mayor then stated that a part of my resolution was too narrow in scope and I think she was referring to the title of the resolution. The title is not the enacting part of the legislation. Then my resolution was too broad. The mayor explained she was going to look at who had to enforce such standards, which was a much broader approach than I was looking at.

Then she seemed to have issue that I was looking to have the Planning Commission head-up the study. She stated they were not staffed to do so, although Dr. Ripple said they could do it. I pressed who did she see being the major department facilitating the process since the Planning Commission had always been involved with this work. She did not have any other office in mind and the Planning Commission is the only logical place to assist on this effort.

Then she began saying that my resolution had stated this or stated that and I ask her to show me where she was reading that since it was not in the resolution. She quickly sidestepped that knowing I was right. Then she states it may take a year or more to work this out. Dr. Ripple and I had thought six months minimum and would work for that. The mayor had no timelines or update reports in her task force concept.

At this point the city attorney jumped in to try and facilitate the matter. He stated that he and the Planning Commission would wind up having to write and research the changes. From his experience it would be better to possibly use the resolution to define more specific points and provide guidance after the Task Force has a chance to initially meet and outline some concepts.

The mayor settled that this might be a possibility and I offered a 60-day postponement of my resolution to work with the city attorney and reword it based on some input from the task force. The goal is to set a standard of expectation and possibly a schedule of accomplishment with my resolution.

With that the vote was 12-yes to postpone my resolution until the March regular council session.

Committees

The mayor handed out the committee assignments. She did not ask for any input from council members. Not a whole lot changed for 2013:

Councilman Wallace remains chair of the Finance Committee

Councilman Burkhart still heads Gas & Water

Councilman Grubbs remains head of Public Safety & Codes

Councilman Lewis still runs Street

Councilman Redd is the new head of Parks

Councilman Allen now heads Housing development

Councilman Harris now heads the re-establishment of the Transportation Committee

It is somewhat mystifying that the mayor retained one council member as a chairman. That chairperson missed or cancelled at least half of the regularly scheduled monthly committee meetings, to include four months in a row in 2012. I believe that shows a lack of respect for the city employees that committee is supposed to work with.

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

The post Clarksville City Council Regular Session Recap for January 3rd, 2013 appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

As a reminder during this holiday season, whether at home or out shopping, do not leave valuable items in sight within your vehicle and lock it up when it is parked. Also, for goodness sake do not leave a vehicle running while you pop into the “quickie mart” for that loaf of bread or milk.

Due to concerns about speeding in the Savannah West neighborhoods, I have asked our CPD precinct to expand radar checks to these areas at various times during the week and weekend. Drivers need to slow down and pay attention to speed limits.

With Christmas just days away, new bikes, skateboards and other wheeled toys may be out on the street. BE ALERT!

I have noted several letters to the newspaper expressing concern about what needs to be done at east bound Exit 11. As readers of my updates know, CPD will try to provide officers to work ramp traffic when possible. I have again been in recent communication with CPD about the traffic issues and they will do all they can to help the situation.

However, construction will take several more months and the asphalt plants will shut down for the winter very shortly, from what I have been told. So drivers need to be patient and be prepared that backups before the ramp exit will occur.

I was able to attend the most recent swearing-in of new police officers. With that action, the CPD was at full-authorized strength of 273 officers for the first time in the department’s recent memory.  It will be short lived as a couple of officers are retiring this month.

Congratulations to Capt. Thornton, who is our precinct’s commanding officer. On December 7th, 2012 he completed a grueling 10-week law enforcement course at Northwestern University’s School of Police Staff and Command. Capt. Thornton is a prime example of the high quality people we have staffing our police and fire departments.

Madison Street/Hwy76-MLK Road Improvement Project Concept

My 12-year effort to get support for stoplights at the East bound Exit 11 ramp, Hwy76-MLK and Sango Road has had success with a completion date of next spring.  Another effort I have pushed to gain support and money for are improvements to Sango Road.  This effort is almost complete, awaiting final Tennessee Department of Transportation approval.  Hopefully, this project will start next spring.

In an article dated September 14th 2012, I gave you the first indication of this road project I wanted to pursue. In my October 1st, 2012 articlel, I spelled out in more detail my thoughts and ideas on an Access Road Concept in that area. Many of you liked the idea and have asked what is the latest, so here it is.

The Clarksville Street Department has drawn up some road designs based on the ideas and discussions we have had. I am VERY excited at the draft concept. The concept includes/overlays the changes that WILL occur when the state continues its widening and improvement of Madison to the McAdoo Creek Road area (the last I heard is that project may go to bid in a couple of months). This state road project will change some of the entrances to businesses in that area. Most residents and perhaps some of the businesses may not realize how much. Thus, my access road concept project may be very timely.

I had hoped to officially present the concept and drawings to the council Street Committee and Clarksville Mayor McMillan this past Monday (December 17th). However, the committee had members that could not make the meeting and Mayor McMillan was not available either. In talking with the Street Committee chairman, I will hopefully present the concept in the January meeting.

The committee and mayor are aware of the concept and the approach I hope to get approval and funding for. My goal is to push this as a funding priority in the next budget cycle. While I have the concept to study, I will not release any further details until I personally present this to the Street Committee and mayor. So keep your fingers crossed for success.

City Parking

I had asked for a map copy to provide readers, but the PDF file is so large that many of you would not get it.  Mitch Robinson, Clarksville Parking Authority Chairman, has alerted me that the map has now been placed on the Parking Authority website.

Here is that address:

http://www.cityofclarksville.com/index.aspx?page=310

The map is color coded with a legend describing rates and times. The website also has other information as to what the Parking Authority wants to do.

A number of citizens and business people have talked to me about parking issues and the city’s plans, both with the Authority and city leadership. I will meet with Mr. Robinson, after the holidays, to discuss some of the concerns and issues citizens have posed to me. If readers have thoughts or concerns and haven’t expressed them to me, please email them to me within the next couple of weeks. I’ll build a list and pass those on (without names or business identification of course) to the Authority.

Customs House Museum

For about five years, I was assigned to be the city council representative on the city’s museum board.  During that time as a member, I was able to be involved in a number of planning, management and financial initiatives for improving our museum. I am very proud of the accomplishments the board, along with city council support, was able to accomplish.

Improvements to museum access in terms of new sidewalks, streetlights and entryway have changed the appearance of the facility to be more open and inviting. New membership plans, rates and advertisement have increased visitations. The Old Post Office has been remodeled and returned to its initial interior glory of wooden floors and beautiful wooden arches and trim.

These improvements were done in the hope to spur more, bigger and better displays and exhibitions for the citizens of Clarksville and Montgomery County. It appears this long range planning and work is paying off. On December 13th, the museum was the recipient of a $500,000 gift from the Clarksville Jaycees Foundation.

This gift will be used to develop an interactive history exhibit about Clarksville called “Becoming Clarksville: Honoring Legacies of Leadership”. It is scheduled to open in the fall of 2013.  Congratulations to the museum director, staff, and board for the hard work, long-term planning and dedication to excellence in gaining this gift.

A grateful thank you to the Clarksville Jaycees for their continued investment in the betterment of Clarksville.

Merry Christmas

Unless something major blows up, this will be the last email update until after Christmas. My family and I want to wish each of you a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Please be careful if you are traveling and take the extra time to arrive alive and safe.

Merry Christmas Y’All

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

The post Clarksville City Council Update for October 22nd, 2012 appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

The usual council regular session should have met December 6th, but the mayor went out of the country and evidently did not want to miss the council meeting, so she moved it. However, the mayor had the council minutes written for a December 6th council meeting stating that due to a lack of a quorum, no meeting was held and the agenda would be considered on December 13th.

That was not the case at all. There was no meeting per the mayor. This invoked a long discussion with the final version of the minutes rewritten basically stating that there was no meeting on the 6th because the mayor was going out of country/town and moved session to the 13th.

That was an early indictor that, while the agenda was fairly short, the discussions and meeting would not be.  The session was almost three hours.

Noise Ordinance – (Ordinance 10-2012-13)

This was up for its second reading and got pulled from the consent agenda to hammer a few more points/amendments.  One of those points was the operational times for garbage pickup in residential areas.  If you will recall, Councilman Burkhart got any operational time constraints deleted last month.

I advised readers that, if that action remained, you could call Clarksville Police and the noise meter rules apply. Some of you were ready to go with that option and I told the council that.

In a compromise, operational limits were imposed. Garbage trucks cannot operate in residential zoned (the key word is zoned) neighborhoods from 10:00pm to 5:00am. That beats what is on the books now, which is nothing.

Other amendments to limit the racetrack times or eliminate any constraints on equipment noise (lawnmowers, saws, etc.) were defeated.

With that, the final noise ordinance was passed. I believe the vote was 10-yes & 2-no. The reason I said “I believe” is the voting computer and speaker systems were not operational. I voted yes.

Parking Meters – (Ordinance 31-2012-13)

This item was also up for its second and final vote and was yanked from the consent agenda for further review.  The issue was the Two Rivers function along with a couple of other functions/organizations were reported to be preparing to look at parking downtown and its effects on business.

If you have read the newspaper the past few weeks, to include the December 14th edition, you have seen businesses and citizens expressing dissatisfaction with the decisions and management of Mayor McMillan’s appointed Parking Authority. As readers will recall, I too have had reservations over some actions and decisions taken by the Authority over the past 12 to 18 months.

A 19-year downtown business is closing shop this weekend. Issues with downtown, particularly parking, are listed as the reasons in the newspaper article. It seems downtown is now being hammered with an exodus of businesses.  One eatery closed recently and Brunie’s closes next week. A few new businesses have come in, but the question is how long will they stay?

I have visited with other downtown business owners who have told me directly that they are fed up with the lack of action by Clarksville leadership in determining the downtown’s future direction and associated parking issues.  Some have stated they may “hang it up too” in the not too distant future.

The debate was should the Parking Authority be authorized to spend an additional $19,000 for new parking meters if another change in parking direction was going to occur? I was not satisfied with the answers given and am still not sure if there is a defined plan for parking in Clarksville’s future. If there is, it appears it is not being communicated to those who must live with it.

The funding was approved in an 8-yes & 4-no vote. I voted no due to what I stated above.

Ethics

It has been a long and winding road on ethics for the past 4-5 months. Let me briefly recap the series of events.

1.     After a couple of months of dancing around the topic, it is put on the September 27th, 2012 Executive Session to discuss. Listed under item 10 (Mayor and Staff Reports). At the session Mayor McMillan states that if anyone wants to vote on an ethics matter they should put it on the agenda (regular session for October 4th). This guidance/direction by the mayor is documented on the 9/27/2012 video minutes of the session

2.     Based on the Mayor’s guidance, Councilwoman McLaughlin formulates Resolution 21-2012-13 to resolve complaints against sitting council members. The resolution is placed on the October 4th, 2012 for a vote per mayor’s directive.

3.     During the October 4th, 2012 regular council session McLaughlin’s resolution is addressed. It is blasted for various procedural/content reasons. After a long debate, the resolution was directed to the Procedures committee for further review (document on the 10/4/2012 video minutes of the session). The Procedures Committee would meet on October 15th. The Mayor revamps the committee membership makeup (to include herself) less than 24 hours after the October 4th regular session. I covered this in details in my October 12th, 2012 article recap of the October 4th regular session.

4.     The Procedures Committee meets on October 15th. The effort was to look at or consider individual ethics cases instead of the all-in-one approach in Resolution 21. This was one of the major issues mentioned in the October 4th regular session meeting. The Mayor backpedals from her direction/guidance of September 27th that council members should bring these ethics issues forth. She basically states she want no further action to address these cases.

5.     Councilwoman McLaughlin requests a template from the city attorney for council members to use to build individual ethics resolutions for submission to the October 25th, 2012 Executive Session of the council. Nine ethics resolutions from four council members are submitted for the session.

6.     A lively debate ensues at the Executive Session of October 25th. The mayor is not happy about the ethics issues being brought up and the path being taken. She states members should be cautious about what they say and claim. At the 39-minute mark, and for the next two minutes of council video minutes of 10/25/2012, the mayor takes aim at me. This was an interesting turn of events and was likely due to two reasons.

First, I had now sponsored an ethics action to clear a council member, but called for the city to cease business with the law firm mentioned which was really the root of the ethics complaint. The mayor wasn’t supportive of that action and made a point of mentioning a resolution that called for cancelling the contract with a law firm; and mine was the only one calling for that. This firm has had political ties with the mayor.

Second, while she does not mention me by name, she makes reference to a council member that sends out “City Council Updates”. Well, since I am the ONLY council member who spends considerable time to keep their constituents informed in that manner, it narrowed the field of accused very quickly. It appears my article and email updates to constituents of October 12th and October 15th, which addressed the ethics issues and revamping/results of the Procedures Committee, hit a nerve.

She cited that my articles and emails accused her, and other members, of unethical conduct, fraud and other matters. She claims what I had stated is untrue and are opinion and to use the resources of the city (city council email system) to send this out is the wrong way to do it. The insinuation was that perhaps such actions should also be the issue of ethics debates.

In response, I helped setup the council email system format. Its purpose was for communication between the elected official and the constituent. I use it for that. Given that in those emails I made predictions as to what might occur/change and the results of those actions. As I go back and review my comments the projected actions/reactions were spot on.

One of our more spirited presidents, Truman, had an excellent saying that may apply here.  He stated, “I don’t give them Hell. I just tell the truth about them and they think it’s Hell.”

7.     October 26th, 2012: it is determined that the ethics resolutions presented on the 25th are not in the proper format and need to be listed as ordinances. Council members scramble to convert the resolutions to ordinance format. Basically, it is changing a few words without affecting any content.

8.     November 1st 2012, Regular Session: The mayor decides these “ethics ordinances” (if only as a title change) are different and will be treated as a previously unseen documents. This will force a ¾ approval of the council to bring them up for action that evening. That does not occur and action is averted for another month.

9.     December 10th, 2012 Executive Session: Just as in the movie Poltergeist, the Ethics issues are still on the agenda. “They’re back”

10.   December 13th, 2012, Special Session or the Regular Session held a week late: The council session video minutes are the silent movie type. There is no sound due to technical problems. However, the words, the talking out of both sides of the mouth and music are the same as past sessions. The mayor wants the ethics ordinances killed because we have no procedures to deal with any that might pass and require further action.

That evidently was not a concern when the mayor directed council members to submit their ethics issues back on September 27th. It did not seem a concern when the city spent thousands to investigate Building and Codes and allegations of potential ethics issues were made against a council member that could have required further actions if proof had been found. Now it is a concern.

Motions were made to postpone indefinitely my ethics ordinance and those that remained on the agenda. The postponements passed. Thus, the ethics issues appear to be in limbo….for now. The games and frustration continue.  However, while the official ordinance I sponsored may be in limbo, the action I recommended IS occurring so I do feel vindicated by fighting the battle.

The city and law firm mentioned in my ethics ordinance have agreed to end current legal contracts to avoid further controversy and will not receive any others while Councilman Wallace is in office. That was part of the action I was seeking in my ordinance. By taking such action it will avoid any further “appearance” of wrongdoing.

Furthermore, I had stated that Councilman Wallace had not done anything illegal in the ethics ordinance. I do appreciate the city and law firm taking that action. Thus, mission accomplished, if by a very convoluted route.

The mayor had presented a late Ethics Code update the previous month. It didn’t get the needed ¾ vote to review it. There was nothing about a new Ethics Code for this session. However, the mayor will hold a special session around the end of January to go over a new Ethics Code. I believe there have been some changes to the version sent to us last month. I’ll guess we’ll see in the coming weeks.

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

The post Clarksville City Council Regular Session Recap for December 13th, 2012 appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

If you refer back to my October 12th email on the subject, you will recall that Mayor McMillian had told council members in the September 27th, 2012 executive session that if someone wanted to sponsor a resolution to officially close out an allegation(s) they should do so at the next city council regular session meeting of October 4th, 2012.

In a well-scripted discussion, Councilman Grubbs and the Mayor parroted that same “no action” phrase at this afternoon’s committee meeting. It appears that procedural documents that have been on the city books for years on the how’s, why’s and when’s of ethics procedures are now not clear and do not accurately explain what is a real complaint. So, how can we really know what is a real issue?

The council officially opened a case/issue for further investigation by approving and hiring an outside attorney to research issues with the City Codes Department that included allegations of potential ethical or procedural wrongdoing by Councilman Burkhart. The investigation did not find any support for the allegations against Burkhart, but the council took no official action to close the case/issue.

It is in the city records that the council officially started an investigation, but nothing will be found in the record that the council closed it after learning of no evidence supported it. This case would seem to be a rather easy one to fix and officially close out. However, the concept of doing so seems to invoke wide-eyes, raised blood pressure, and the inability to comprehend written text and previously approved procedures.

In my October 12th article, I also mentioned that Mayor McMillan restacked the Procedures Committee. This would ensure she had the votes to carry out her desire, which was to have no further action on these previous cases.  The committee meeting became the charade that was expected. The mayor basically stated she does not want further action taken to address these cases.

Mayor McMillan touts open government as the foundation of her administration’s actions. However, the documented actions and statements on addressing these issues and political gamesmanship involved would indicate otherwise.   At one council meeting she tells council members to come forward with resolutions that would address and officially close out these previous ethics allegations. Then when a council member follows her suggestion and shows up at the next council meeting with such a resolution, the mayor works to ensure that nothing is accomplished or approved in regard to that resolution for closure.  One has to ask: for what purpose?

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

The post Clarksville City Council Update for October 15th, 2012 appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

I have been bouncing this concept around for a couple of years, gathering information and discussing it with our Clarksville Street Department engineers from time to time.

I briefed my proposal at the recent Street Department committee meeting and received their approval to move forward with a rough concept design.  They will inform Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan of the project and their approval.

Here are the general concepts with my proposal

1. Building access roads along a roughly one-third to half-mile stretch on both sides of Madison Street from the Clarksville Gas & Water complex to Hwy76-MLK and from Denny road to almost (but not connecting at this concept time) to the 41-A bypass.
2. These roads would have connectivity to the businesses on each respective side of Madison Street.
3. The access roads would run behind the businesses in the affected concept area.

There are a number of details that would have to be addressed since this project would involve the businesses in the area, the city and potentially the state. There are several routes the access roads could use. Their routing could directly affect more or fewer businesses depending on scenario suggested. The access roads could have two or three entrance/exit points depending on how they are designed and are laid out.

I do want to caution residents and businesses in the proposed area that nothing is a done deal so I don’t want anyone to get too excited or upset until a general plan can be developed for all to see. So any rumors that this will happen or that will not happen are just that….rumors with no validity or fact. If you hear rumors, contact me for what is actually going on.

I believe there are many positives to this project based on input/complaints from citizens, safety issues and potential improved customer access to the businesses in the area.

Here are some of them listed

1. If readers will recall, the intersection of Madison and Hwy76-MLK has been one of the worst for accidents in the whole city. That is the reason that red-light cameras were installed (the plan is to reinstall then once all road work is completed). I have noted/observed, and my family a victim of, many other vehicle accidents or near misses in the section of Madison from Hwy76-MLK to Richview drive.  Speed, not paying attention and unexpected driver actions (no turn signals) to turn into a business are all factors in causing accidents in this area.  Taking some of these cars out of the flow that slow down to turn into businesses, or pull out trying to merge with moving traffic or those stopped to try and cross multiple lanes would improve safety.
2. Related to item one, there are multiple business access points in this area with little distance between them.  So drivers have to be very vigilant to all the in’s and out’s of cars going to these businesses. If that business traffic could be routed to an access road, it would increase safety and encourage more visitation of business that are on the opposite side of the road being traveled.
3. Drivers that want to cross multiple lanes, from a business, to merge with traffic going in the opposite direction now have more lanes to cross near the intersection of Madison and Hwy76-MLK. This increases the chances for t-bone or frontal crashes. It is also increasing the chances that drivers get confused and actually enter a turn lane for oncoming traffic thinking they can use it as turn lane from their side of the road. I observed a near-miss last week with this very action taking place.
4. Particularly in the area of the Ruby Tuesday complex and the Captain D’s, drivers wanting to visit these businesses, but not in the flow of traffic adjacent to the businesses, will stop and wait to turn across multiple lanes. This is causing clogged traffic and near-miss accidents. I have observed cars wanting to enter Captain D’s from the Rudy Tuesday side of Madison Street. They will stop and wait in order to cross two turn lanes taking traffic toward the interstate, two lanes taking traffic out of town and an additional lane that forms to take traffic toward the bypass/Clarksville. These waiting cars will clog traffic heading toward town on Madison Street, affect traffic turning onto Madison from the bypass and increases potential accidents as drivers in these turn and through-put lanes might stop to allow a car to try and cross a lane or two at a time.
5. I have had citizens say traffic and access is getting so bad that unless they are same side of Madison Street as the business they are thinking about going to, they will just skip it and go elsewhere.

I will keep you posted as this concept project evolves. Any thoughts or concerns from area residents and business to me on this project will be greatly appreciated.

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

The post Clarksville City Updates for October 2nd, 2012 appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

I have been informed by our Street Engineers that the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) selected a contractor to carry out the construction project a few weeks ago. There are likely several more weeks of work to finalize any issues and construction requirements. It is possible that work could begin within a couple of months.  The project is scheduled to be complete not later than June 2013.

After years of  “gnashing teeth”, frustration with getting traffic counts to support the need, and some cussin’ thrown in for good measure, success is about to be claimed on these vital road improvements. I greatly appreciate the support and patience of the Ward 10 citizens, the staff and engineers at Clarksville Street Department, and others such as Rep. Johnson to make this finally happen.

Madison Street/Hwy76-MLK Improvement Project Concept

In a previous article, I mentioned I was looking to “stir the pot” on another potential road improvement project in our ward. I just hope it doesn’t take 12 years to accomplish. Since there was finally success on the Exit 11 project, I might be on a roll. This project is based on the changes in our community, traffic issues and accidents, input and concerns from citizens, and my own observations and experiences from living in the area for 18 years.

I have been gathering data on potential road design and engineering, legal issues, upcoming state projects that could affect the concept and potential affects on properties involved. Due to changes last week by Mayor McMillan on how council members will approach and conduct work performed on behalf of our ward and constituents (more on that later in this article) I will have to “let the cat out of the bag” before I have all the pros and cons developed (I like to have all of my homework done on any project I propose to make sure it is valid and not to excite or upset those that may/may not be affected before viability can be confirmed and documented.  I won’t be able to now). I intend to present my plan next week and will provide readers with more details at that time.  So stay tuned.

Events This Weekend

September 15th and 16th will see the 150th Civil War anniversary of the Battle of Riggins Hill.  A living history camp, musket demos, a play and other events will take place this weekend at the Fort Defiance Civil War Park.  Due to the expected turnout and limited parking, a shuttle service will be provided on Saturday from the Two Rivers Mall/Center on Riverside Drive.  So park at Two Rivers and ride the shuttle.  Shuttle service will run every 15 minutes from 10:00am to 3:00pm on Saturday.

Saturday events run from 10:00am to 5:00pm and Sunday from 1:00pm to 5:00pm.  For more details check out:

http://www.fortdefianceclarksville.com/events.htm

Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan on Trip with State Leaders

Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan and Montgomery County Mayor Carolyn Bowers are with Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam visiting Japan and meeting with executives from Japanese companies that have business interests in Clarksville and Tennessee this week.

The trip was a bit of a surprise to a number of us council members, as we didn’t know the mayor was even out of the country until several days after she left. Even then we didn’t find out about it through the mayor’s office. We think the mayor returns next week.

Working Constituency/Ward Requests and Issues

On September 7th, 2012, council members and city department heads received an email from Mayor McMillan (see at bottom of article). This email concerned council members “assigning or requesting work directly to Department Heads and/or individual employees”.

This issue also was a concern during Clarksville Mayor Johnny Piper’s term. Mayor McMillan considers this a violation of the city charter per Article II, Section 15 which states “The council shall act in all matters as a body,……“ and Article IV, Section 2 which states “The mayor shall be the executive head of the city government,….”.

There has been suspicion in the past, and perhaps again in the present, about council members asking for city/department information for their private business concerns or for people and reasons that are not part of that particular ward constituency. It might be understandable if a mayor felt that such requests were not a fair use of city department time to be fulfilling.

However, any person or organization can make an inquiry through an open records request for any information the city has whether the mayor approves or not. As long as the request does not violate some state or federal law, the city would have to respond. A council member does not have the authority or right to assign work, but certainly would have the same right to request information/action just as any citizen does.

However, now it would seem the Mayor prefers citizens to have better direct access to information or action from a city department than a council member has. The mayor’s email states, “That any request from individual council members for the creation of documents, studies, plans, assessments or other similar matters should be routed through the Mayor’s office”.

Yet, the mayor states in the same email, “Specific constituent requests for assistance within a Councilmember’s ward can still be directed to the individual Departments but notice should be given to the Mayor’s office since many of the requests for assistance also come to our office and we do not want to duplicate the work, time and effort of the Departments.”

So basically, unless it is a duplicate request, the department is to carry out the request if a citizen asks for it. If the mayor is worried that council members may ask for too much information or help and must have her personal review for approval, then when does a citizen’s request for too much assistance cross the boundary and call for an open records request?

If a council member wants to really mess with the mayor’s system, he or she could get a citizen to make the request or ask for data directly or through the opens record request and the city would have seven (7) business days to respond or explain why they didn’t or couldn’t. That would be quicker than some of the turnaround times council members receive.

While the charter states rather clearly what the duties of the mayor are, it is rather skimpy on what the duties of a council member are outside of acting as a body and serving on committees.

However, Article II, Section 15 also states “Nothing herein contained shall prevent the council from conducting such inquiries into the operation of the city government and the conduct of the city’s affairs as it may deem necessary.”

If the mayor wants to narrowly interpret that the daily actions/requests that council members try and carry out on behalf of their constituents is to be performed as a body, then should the council list every member request as a resolution that must be voted on or investigate every request that mayor disapproves of?  I bet we could make council meetings six hours long with that.

It appears a mountain is being made out of a molehill. A little bit of leadership and a splash of management would appear to be the solution to this problem without tying up the office of mayor as the information gatekeeper.

If it was a very large project that the director believed was beyond their capability or a needed timeline was too tight, then the request would be sent up to the mayor for a review and decision.  Council members are in no position to demand or direct anything from a director or department employees. I believe we serve as facilitators between the public and the departments of the city that provide services.

Recently I was requested to meet with citizens that had a major issue with one city department. They were not getting the answers they wanted/needed, the repairs needed or the services they were paying for. The apparent lack of response reflects directly (fairly or unfairly) on that department director and the mayor.

I met with these folks to work their problems because I believe that is the job of a councilman, although it is not spelled out in the city charter. There were about two dozen homeowners represented and I listened to their concerns and told them what I would try to do to fix the issues.

I met directly with the department director and also communicated with him via email on the issues presented to me. I think things worked well and there was good dialogue between the director and myself.

The meeting between the director and myself appears to have fixed and/or put into action procedures that are now addressing the concerns of those citizens. The citizens have reported back to me that things seem to be improving. I did not need the input or review of the mayor to address this issue.

Does the mayor believe the city operations would have been better served by having two-dozen very concerned citizens submit the same requests for help and then possibly having them submit open records requests as to why this department had not or could not provide the service instead of one councilman working to fix the problem?  We’ll see where this goes.

Mayor McMillan’s Email to Council Members & City Department Heads

All-

It has come to my attention that more than once over the past couple of weeks we continue to have an issue with individual City Council members assigning or requesting work directly to Department Heads and/or individual employees.  Not only is this inefficient and disruptive of the Department Heads’ and employees’ regular duties, it is a violation of the City Charter.  Although I have previously brought these provisions of the City Charter to your attention, I will do so again to make sure you are clear on your role, duties and responsibilities as Council Members.

Article II, Section 15. Restrictions on councilmen

The council shall act in all matters as a body, and no member shall seek individually to influence the official acts of the mayor or any other officer or employee of the city, or to direct or request the appointment of any person to, or his removal from, any office or position of employment, or to interfere in any way with the performance of duties by any officer or employee.  Nothing herein contained shall prevent the council from conducting such inquiries into the operation of the city government and the conduct of the city’s affairs as it may deem necessary.  The office of any councilman violating any provision of this section shall immediately become vacant upon his conviction in a court of competent jurisdiction.

Article IV, Section 2. Mayor; duties and powers generally

The mayor shall be the executive head of the city government, responsible for the efficient and orderly administration of the city’s affairs.

I believe these provisions make it abundantly clear that the City Council may only act as a body.  I would hope that we could all work together to respect our Department Heads and our departmental employees and their time and expertise on matters that concern the operation of city government while at the same time abiding by the terms of our Charter.  Effective immediately, I am advising all Department Heads that any requests by individual Council Members for the creation of documents, studies, plans, assessments or other similar matters should be routed through the Mayor’s office.  Specific constituent requests for assistance within a Councilmember’s ward can still be directed to the individual Departments but notice should be given to the Mayor’s office since many of the requests for assistance also come to our office and we do not want to duplicate the work, time and effort of the Departments.

I am copying the members of the Power Board on this email since the operation of the Department of Electricity is unique as a result of the existence of the Power Board.  Further questions regarding the operation of that entity should be directed to Wayne Wilkinson, Chairman.  Other questions regarding the legal ramifications of our Charter can be directed to Lance Baker, City Attorney.  Any other issues, concerns or questions can be sent to me or Charlie Koon.

Thank you,
Kim

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

The post Clarksville City Council Update, September 15th, 2012 appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

Marina/Liberty Park: It has been interesting that, from the start, rumors have run rampant that marina would cost and had cost 40, 50 or more million dollars before it was over with.  Well tonight the council received some good news as to where costs were and what had happened in negotiations with the general contractor TMS over some contract disputes.

The council increased funding by under a million, as I recall, to cover some potential increase in costs due to delays and other factors. It appears we won’t use much of that increased funding. So the project looks to be coming in within a couple of hundred thousand of the target.

If that holds, it would be a tribute to the project managers that worked so hard to hold the line on costs with all the delays due to floods and a major sub-contractor going bankrupt.

What has helped this outlook and may have improved the bottom a bit more once everything is signed and sealed is the settlement the city has made with the general contractor TMS. The city has looked to enforce contract penalties where applicable. This could have turned into a major court battle, but all parties have reached agreement without going to court.

The city will receive $600,000 to settle penalties, or put another way we won’t have to pay $600K of the contract for work not done on time or other issues. In addition, $25,000 will also be paid to the city to complete unfinished work.

It appears there may actually be a couple of hundred thousand in projects or finishing touches that were in the plans. Examples would be the painting of stripes on streets and a fully operational irrigation system.

This would mean that the final cost of the project could come in around $34.5 million if the savings were applied.

It was commented that the savings could go into the general fund. Councilman Allen stated that he would want to see the savings set aside to pay the debt on the marina and park and not spent for something it was not intended.

I fully support Councilman Allen’s statement and approach on how to use the savings. Frankly, there has been too much “sandbagging” of borrowed money by this administration to balance its budgets and pay for items the council initially approved and then see it set aside and spent on something else. I will continue to provide you updates on final costs as we receive them.

Ordinance 6-2012-13 (the chicken ordinance)

As with last month, there was a lively round of discussions on allowing chickens within specific residential zonings. It was brought up in the council meeting that Montgomery County Animal Control has stated it will not enforce or take responsibility for answering calls or complaints on chickens that may get loose, found to be mistreated, or left by homeowners when they move.

Last month, I asked the ordinance’s sponsor, Councilwoman Johnson, who would be responsible for those cases where chickens may go astray or need to be rounded up? She had not thought about that and didn’t have a good answer.

I asked Mayor McMillan if she found chickens running loose in her neighborhood who was she going to call?  The mayor related a story of lost kittens that showed up in her yard and she went around to find the owner. Chickens are not kittens. When I pressed the question, the mayor basically said that I knew there was not a good answer to the question. Bottom line is there was no answer. I stated I only wanted it to be official, based on her response and Councilwoman Johnson’s, that the city isn’t going to do a thing about loose chickens, other than citing someone, if they can find them.

In the chicken ordinances I studied for other cities, those that had approved them had Animal Control to enforce and round then up. Codes and the police may try to ticket those responsible, but the citizen who has an unwanted chicken in their yard will be stuck with the problem. The city officially has NO responsibility to fix that problem that it has potentially created.

The ordinance passed its second vote by an 8-yes & 4-no vote. I voted the wishes of the ward majority with a “no” vote.

Ordinance 10-2012-13 (Noise Ordinance)

Lively discussions were had with this issue too. The racetrack was at the center of the topic. There are those on the council, some of the public, and track owners that say the track was there before the neighborhoods so why should the track have any restrictions for operations put on it. They didn’t cause the problem. There is a feeling by some folks that it is too bad if you bought a home by the track, it’s your problem if the noise bothers you.

Then there are those that now live near the track, along with a new elementary school being built near it, that hope some restrictions are applied as to days and hours of operation. The feeling by those folks is we don’t want to close the track, but the city allowed these neighborhoods to be built. Some didn’t think about how close the track was when they bought a home, but they work and pay taxes here too and believe they should get some consideration about the noise.

Added to the issue is the city has not enforced the current noise ordinances which would likely force major changes at the track or potentially shut it down. This selective enforcement cannot continue after nearby meter measurements of over 90-95 decibels were recorded in the area.

A true statement was made last week about this situation, I believe by Councilman Harris. He stated the city is responsible for this problem by approving residential development in the area by the track over the years. The city could have disapproved such residential rezonings/developments over the years.

However, that leads to a sore point for some council members (past and present) who say landowners should be allowed to rezone and develop their land as they see fit and the city should not dictate or hinder that process.

So over time you wind up with city councils that lean more for development to have unhindered rights and then shift to businesses should have more unhindered rights. Too often, the residents caught in the middle feel they have no rights.

The problem is you cannot have it both ways, at the same time. A few have played whichever card suits the political or business situation facing them on a particular vote or issue. The final solution is both affected groups (track and residents) need to give a bit to finally resolve this problem.

Whether the council has the leadership to force some compromise to this ongoing problem remains to be seen. Ignoring the racetrack issue is no longer an option. I’ll keep you posted on the results.

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

The post Clarksville City Council Regular Session Report – September 6th, 2012 appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

You may have already received some emails related to this or read a story in the Sunday “Leaf-Chronicle”, which did not address or fully disclose all the details.

Here are the facts by date

1. July 16th, 2012, local attorney Mark Rassas submitted a letter and open records request to the city for information concerning email addresses contained within the city council email system.  The Mayor Kim McMillan’s Director of Communications/Public Information Officer (PIO), Ms. Rawls, received it.
2. August 6th, 2012, Ms. Rawls (PIO) notified all council members, and copied Mayor McMillan and Chief of Staff Charlie Koon, that she had received a Request for Public Information/Open Record seeking the citizen email addresses used in the city council email system. The information was collected from the “List Serve/Lyris” (city email software system) for those council members that use that particular system to inform their constituents; specifically council members McLaughlin, Lewis, Grubbs, Wallace, Summers and Jones. On that same date, I emailed Ms. Rawls and asked who had made the request. She responded on the same date identifying Mr. Rassas.
3. August 6th, 2012, I sent an email to all readers on my email system list that Mr. Rassas had made the request. I stated that council members were not informed as to the purpose or for whom he was requesting the data.
4. August 10th, 2012, Ms. Rawls sent an email to all city council members that had a computer file (PDF) attachment containing Mr. Rassas’ full information records request. The PDF (on page 5) contained a copy of the driver’s license of Mr. Rassas as part of the request package. It has been the practice that if an item provided by an office of City Hall contains information of an “official” or legal nature that is not to be distributed beyond members of the council, it will state so. There was no such statement with this email transmission. In addition, Mr. Rassas now wanted email addresses of any third party system we may be using in the course of our council duties. I do not use any third party “list serve” systems, but based on my past technology experience questioned how a private citizen could request data not maintained in a government system.
5. August 10th, 2012, Councilwoman Jones also sent an email to Ms. Rawls with the same question I had asked about third party systems. She also expressed concern that these emails belong to the citizens for city business only. She expressed her concern over any potential abuse by a third party that had these addresses.
6. August 13th, 2012 Ms. Rawls emailed me (and the council) she had consulted the state Director of the Office of Open Records Council about third party email systems. The director said there was no exception for third party systems. Ms. Rawls also stated she did not know the purpose of the request as it is not required. Ms. Rawls also responded back to Councilwoman Jones’ (and the council) concerns and questions on this same date.
7. August 13th, 2012 Councilwoman McLaughlin notified her city council email-reading constituents of Mr. Rassas’ information request. She attached the PDF provided by the PIO on August 10th.
8. During this period I had several constituents ask to be removed from the council email listing. They believed their privacy had been intruded upon and were concerned as to what Mr. Rassas would do with their email address. In this age of spam, computer viruses and other unwanted communication abuses, this was a reasonable concern.
9. August 17th, 2012, Mr. Rassas validated the potential abuse concerns expressed by Councilwoman Jones and some citizens regarding unwanted emails. It appears Mr. Rassas’ email went directly to citizen email addresses that started with a numeral and proceeded to those staring with A’s, B’s, C’s and a few D’s. Thus, a few of you got it and the rest didn’t. If you did not receive his email, I have attached a copy for your information. One of the issues he directed against a council member (McLaughlin) was the release of his driver’s license, which had been provided to all council members by the PIO.
10. August 17th, 2012 the city attorney was made aware of the issue and submitted guidance on the handling of public records requests and personal data/information. That guidance went to the mayor, city council, PIO, and legal staff.

In the email that was sent and mentioned in the newspaper article, Mr. Rassas made allegations against several city council members (to include myself), mostly related to the most recent efforts to update the city charter. I’ll address Mr. Rassas “points” separately. I have provide you a copy of his email as an attachment.

Issue 1

The first issue seems to be the release of a scanned copy of Mr. Rassas’ driver license. The license is a requirement to verify who is making an open records request. Mr. Rassas’ email does not mention nor question how a copy of his license came in the possession of all council members.

The newspaper article is not clear on this point either. The information was provided by Mayor McMillan’s PIO to council members. Mr. Rassas further states this release was in retaliation for his inquiry into the email addresses that council members use to inform their constituents.

The city PIO has control and authority over records requests and their public release. Council members would not have any access to Mr. Rassas’ drivers license without that information being provided to them. So was the PIO acting in retaliation to the records request by sending it out?

The answer is no. Especially in light that Mr. Rassas is a friend of the mayor, chosen by the mayor to sit on the latest charter committee, and is a fellow colleague of the legal profession.  It was a mistake. Perhaps the PIO had forgotten the license was still attached to the records file sent out.

When council members received this file from the PIO, no disclaimers or warnings were attached (as has been the case on previous sensitive information) and it gets sent out to citizens as part of the regular information sent by this and other council members on city happenings. Retaliation? No, it is the initial mistake now compounded.

Issue 2

Mr. Rassas next charges that methodology used by the city council email system is some sort of political conspiracy against the mayor during the charter process. He asserts that the “blind” transmissions of emails to the citizens of Clarksville who are on the council listings are proof of this. He further cites the usage of this email system by council members McLaughlin, Jones, Allen and myself as further evidence since we voted against the latest city charter.

Although council members Lewis, Grubbs and Wallace use the same email system for their constituents, he did not cite them as part of the conspiracy. Then again, they voted for the charter, which Mr. Rassas supported. I am not aware that Councilman Allen uses the city email system much, if at all. Councilman Steward does not use the city email system and he voted “no” on the final charter also.

Mr. Rassas is a citizen within my ward. During the recent charter effort I had mentioned and provided data and information on charter efforts to him. He seemed impressed and I mentioned it was the same information I sent to all of my constituents via the city council email system.

He asked to be added to that system. I did so, but a short time later Mr. Rassas asked to be deleted from the listing citing the lack of time to read the information I sent out. I did as he requested.

I am the one that initiated this system in order to help make local government more accessible to the average citizen and give information that is seldom covered or fully explained in other media formats. Mayor McMillan constantly talks about transparent and open government.

Well, transparent and open government had a major tool provided several years ago in the form of the city council email system I helped establish.

I built a similar system for parents in the school system. Some may recall the Parent Information Network (PIN) that I, and four others, helped establish. PIN used the same “blind” email system setup to provide information to almost 4000 parents. Our efforts were met with a national award in providing better communication for parents and educators. Now it seems such a system is cited as a conspiracy tool by Mr. Rassas.

Now some of you may wonder what is meant by Mr. Rassas’ “blind” emails. You will note that when you receive an email from me it appears as if I wrote to you and only you. Only your email address appears in the header of the email.

This is a nondisclosure feature used in any mass email software system I have ever worked with. I am on the email list of several other well known elected officials from the state and federal level. They also use the “blind” feature of the email services.

Issue 3

This is related to Issue #2. Mr. Rassas also did not like the “blind” email service the city uses because, in his words, “they don’t let you know who else is receiving the mail so you can’t make your opinions known to others”.

I’ll respond using two inputs I received from constituents that called me on this topic and had received Mr. Rassas’ email. They stated (somewhat jokingly) they called because their phone calls couldn’t be recorded for Mr. Rassas to try and access.

One stated, “he (Mr. Rassas) was not his councilman and therefore his (Mr. Rassas’) opinion was of no concern to him”. The other caller said “That is the reason email addresses are not listed. If they were, we would continuously be bombarded with other people’s like or dislikes. They can use the blogs, Facebook, or a letter to the editor if they feel their opinion is of such value”.

These two statements basically sum up what I am hearing about this and reflect my thoughts on this as well. The city email system is NOT a blog. However, more importantly email or list-serve systems that send mass emails out do not list addresses primarily for privacy and security.

While Mr. Rassas may lament that the distribution of his license may leave him open to identity theft, his equally mistaken effort to contact citizens and openly display their email addresses can lead to unwanted actions too.

Each of us gets spam or emails that try to get you to open them or go to other websites with official looking and sounding names. These emails or sites can try to upload viruses and other programs that will enter your computer and take private information from you.

So was Mr. Rassas trying to be malicious in openly displaying the email addresses of some citizens in his email? Of course not, but it was a mistake, just like the release of his license. His mistake worries many of you just as much as the City Hall mistake worries him.

Issue 4

Mr. Rassas stated he does “not get involved in partisan politics”. However, he accuses council members of a political agenda to oppose the current mayor, regardless of the best interest of the city.

Best interest of the city is similar to the statement “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. There are management interests, operational interests, financial interests, and (of course) political interests along with other interests. Not everyone is going to agree on what the “best” interests are.

Also, every one of you has been getting my emails for some time, to include the issues about the charter. You may agree or disagree with the viewpoints, but they are open and out there for all to read. Mr. Rassas viewpoint on this is his, and his right.  However, the “political agenda” issue is without merit. I work, research, evaluate, receive feedback from you and vote per each individual issue that comes before the council and not based on who the mayor is.

Issue 5

Mr. Rassas cites further “political agenda” issues and “flip-flopped” votes because of how McLaughlin, Jones, Allen and myself voted for the initial charter attempts several years ago.

He is incorrect on Councilwoman Jones, as she was not a member of the city council when the initial charter votes took place.

I fully explained my issues with the latest effort to you and will not rehash them again. Mr. Rassas knew them too. Mr. Rassas further works to justify his accusation that Jones was being dishonest due to using the city email system to voice her opinion and input on runoffs. Mr. Rassas states Jones argued for a runoff for the mayor’s position, but opposed a runoff for her own seat.

Mr. Rassas has again twisted the facts to support his “political agenda” theory. In the 2011 City Charter Revision Committee that I chaired, the issue of runoffs was studied and discussed in a meeting held April 5th, 2011 (reference those meeting minutes) at the mayor’s city hall conference room. Council/committee members Burkhart, Jones, Redd and myself were in attendance.

In the June 1st, 2011 meeting (reference those meeting minutes) of that same charter group Councilwoman Jones stated she had brought up runoff elections at her monthly town hall meeting.  Her constituents said they supported a runoff for mayor, but did not see the value or need of potentially spending money (about $75,000) for a councilman runoff.

Based on the input she received she asked that the city council runoff provision be excluded. Council/committee members Burkhart, Grubbs, Jones, Redd and myself were in attendance…that was the full committee as appointed by Mayor McMillan. The recommendation to withdraw support for councilman runoffs passed 5-0.

Mr. Rassas had these 2011 minutes as part of the city charter update package, because I had requested the mayor to provide them. Thus, these documented minutes show Mr. Rassas is again incorrect in his version of events.

Conclusion

Mr. Rassas claims to not be involved in partisan politics. Yet, he has “cherry-picked” specific bits and pieces of actions and decisions and “rearranged” them to try to cast negative doubts on people that have a track record of positive work for the betterment of Clarksville. The only common thread and undeniable fact is those he has attacked voted “no” on the recent charter.

Given the positive credentials and legal knowledge background of Mr. Rassas, why wouldn’t he go directly to the City Auditors, City Attorney or the mayor if he thought something was wrong?  That would have been the proper course of action if the recent course of events were really for the betterment of Clarksville. That is what other citizens have done when they had concerns.

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

The post Clarksville City Council Email System Issue appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

It was not a heavy agenda, but it did take over 2.5 hours to get through it. A couple of items took considerable time.

Ordinance 7-2012-13, Rezoning

I usually don’t mention rezonings, unless they are directly affecting our ward or are a major topic in the community, such as the barge port. However, I mention this one as it is an example that a growing number of council members are becoming more proactive in trying to regulate the impact of development in specific areas. This zoning request was on property by Gibbs Lane, which is located in the area of Trenton and Needmore Roads. The request was a change from AG (agricultural) to R-2 (residential – small lot). The property would have access to Trenton Road.

Trenton Road is a heavily traveled state road and has been earmarked for widening and improving for years. The state has been unable to provide the money to do this needed work and the city has continued to build and develop along this corridor. There appears to be no action by the state to improve Trenton in the foreseeable future. Traffic counts show this road heading toward failure, meaning it could soon become a parking lot during peak travel times. It is often bumper-to-bumper during regular travel times.

The council has disapproved several rezoning efforts on Trenton recently in an effort to curb the growing transportation issues in this area. The vote on this rezoning was 5- yes, 6-no and 1 abstain. Councilman Burkhart abstained due to looking at a potential business venture based on the rezoning action. I voted “no”. Mayor McMillan pondered voting on this rezoning and based on her comments, she would have voted for the rezoning. She stated something to the effect that if she voted, it would only create a tie and the rezoning would still fail. Thus, she did not vote. It would appear the growing traffic issues were not an element in her consideration.

Resolution 10-2012-13

The mayor was requesting authority to borrow just over $14 million to fund her budget. Readers will remember my concerns with the mayor’s budget a couple of months ago. I voted against the request. The request was approved by a 7-yes & 5-no vote.

Ordinance 6-2011-12, Chicken Ordinance

The media had been bouncing this item around for a while, but there seemed little interest on the council or the general public to address this topic. Councilwoman Johnson decided to sponsor an ordinance allowing chickens in residential areas zoned E-1, R-1 and R-1A. That covers about 49% of the residential areas in Clarksville. Councilwoman Johnson did not coordinate the proposal with County Animal Control, who would have to answer calls on any loose chickens.

An initial permit and inspection are required before chickens are allowed on a property. I had about seven emails from ward residents in favor of chickens and about five not in favor. For the past couple of months, as I saw folks from our ward, I would ask if they were favor or not on the chicken issue. The finally tally was about 6 to 1 against. Since a wide majority was against it, I too voted against it. The ordinance passed in an 8-yes & 4-no vote.

Resolution 6-2012-13, Runoffs

Councilman Burkhart sponsored another resolution to require runoffs for city mayor and council positions. His proposal would have runoffs held the first Tuesday, five weeks subsequent to the general election held that year. While this sounds good on paper it is not a valid process with the local Election Commission. If you have followed the ups and down of the city charter update over the past five years, you will recall many issues and alternatives mentioned on runoffs. I support runoffs, but the process needs to be workable.

I have confirmed the director of the local Election Commission was not contacted about this latest effort. The director has repeatedly told charter groups (including the one this past spring, chaired by the mayor) that the commission would find a 30 or 35-day turnaround next to impossible to meet. I mentioned this fact to the council at last Thursday’s executive session. Election results/machines have to be held until they are officially approved which takes about 20 days in itself. If a dispute arises the voting machines have to be held until that is resolved, which can take more time. Then machines have to be cleared/wiped, checked out and then reloaded. On top of that, a period of early voting is allowed which would take a couple of weeks before you can have an election day.

Councilman Burkhart said other cities manage to have quick runoff elections. That is true, but as the director of the election commission had also repeatedly said other cities have their city elections separate from other county, state or federal elections. Thus, they are somewhat less complicated and less likely to have a challenge to election results or problems that may have been encountered during the election. These other cities, with their singular elections, do not usually hold them in November. At best, 45 days might be a minimum turnaround for a runoff and that would place the election about a week before the Christmas holidays. How much interest and turnout will you get then?

All of this had been thoroughly researched and discussed to include the 2011 charter committee I chaired and Councilman Burkhart was a member of. This option was deemed not workable back then, so it was surprising to see it come back for a vote now. It was also brought up that many of us were not going to piecemeal fixes to the old charter…again.

The vote was interesting. The final was 7-yes & 6-no. It did not get the required 2/3s majority required on charter changes so it won’t go anywhere. Some council members (to include the mayor) that had not been supporters of a runoff and/or those who pushed to defer a decision during the charter process, voted for the resolution. Those of us that would like to see a runoff, but knew (and would not ignore the fact) the proposal was unworkable and/or would not support a piecemeal approach to fixing the charter voted against it.

It was brought up (during discussions) that maybe we could get runoffs voted on by the citizens. The only way to vote on charter topics is to change to a “Home Rule” charter and a couple of us mentioned that (including me). After failure to get the state to support initial efforts to get a new charter, and more recent failures to even get it out of the council, shows a new approach is needed to resolve this impasse. Councilman Allen asked Mayor McMillan would she be getting the council together to look at the issues that are still causing the problems for agreement and see if we could find solutions. The answer was basically no.

As I have told readers before, I now believe an effort to go to “Home Rule” is the only solution left. Knoxville and Memphis use “Home Rule” along with more than a dozen smaller cities. The second time the charter went to the state for review, the recommendation from the state committee was to put the charter before the people for a vote. While the intent of that suggestion was not likely a “Home Rule” endorsement, the actions required and outcome would be the same.

It is time for new leadership and solution to fix this problem and I submit and endorse that Home Rule is the answer. This approach takes the state, mayor and council out of making the final decision. A general new charter and specific issues, such as runoffs or mayoral voting, can be determined by the citizens. This alternative seems to make some nervous on the council as political influence is somewhat lessened in this approach.

Fireworks

Councilman Wallace proposed that September 1st, from 6-10PM be authorized as a one-time only date to allow folks to shoot leftover fireworks from the 4^th of July. If you recall we had a fireworks ban during the drought over the July 4^th holiday. This passed in an 11-yes & 1-no vote. Councilman Grubbs voted no.

That’s a wrap. Have a good weekend.

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

The post Clarksville City Council Regular Session Report – August 2nd, 2012 appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

Ordinance 4-2012-13 — This dealt with sale and use of alcoholic beverages in Clarksville City Parks. It establishes guidelines and permits on the selling and usage of alcoholic beverages at specific park facilities during special events, concerts, festivals, parties, weddings, etc.

It passed in a 7-yes & 5-no vote.  I voted yes.

Clarksville City Charter

The Clarksville City Charter was up for a final vote after being approved at the state level. It barely passed to go forward to the state for review this past spring. As readers will recall this has been a battle for years. Readers know the battles I have fought for in the charter and the concerns I have expressed over time.

If you recall the effort last year (2011) by the committee I chaired, we tried to update the charter with issues that had caused concern in the past efforts and new issues that had surfaced during the last mayoral election. Mayor McMillan canned that committee last August (as it was about to finish its work) due to issues such as mayoral runoffs and limiting mayoral voting to breaking ties being brought up.

The charter lay dormant until November/December of 2011 when it was discovered (after 50 years) that city committees could not have citizens on them that do business with the city.  Thus, many citizens resigned from these committees so they could keep doing business with the city.

Then all the sudden the mayor decreed that these committees could not operate due to the loss of these particular citizens and we must have a new charter to fix that. The “spin” was on how important it was we now move full speed ahead on a new charter (after wasting almost five months of not thinking about the charter at all), but with a different charter committee. A number of council members found it interesting that out of a city with 133,000 people we cannot find a few dozen to sit on committees that don’t do business with the city.

The same issues that were brought up by the canned 2011 committee resurfaced again in the Mayor’s new 2012 committee. The “spin” to avoid or delay those same unwanted issues was we did not have time to fully study them and meet the state assembly’s review schedule of May. The Mayor was able to get enough committee support to shelve several of these issues until a later date.

Several council members (including me) advised the mayor and committee, at several charter meetings, that the deferral of important charter issues or the effort to maintain an imbalance in executive (mayoral) power over legislative (council) and judicial (city judge) were going to be “show stoppers” for receiving full support.  The city judge was also on record with concerns about the lack of corrective actions needed to better separate the powers of the different offices.

Thursday night’s vote was the “show stopper” as the council was not able to muster the 2/3s vote required to pass the proposed city charter. The vote was 8-yes & 5-no. I voted no. Nine yes votes are required for passage of a charter. For now the charter is back in limbo.

Resolution 3-2012-13

Our local state representatives requested this resolution and Mayor McMillan sponsored it. It requested our permission for the state (TDOT) to study a possible road that would connect Memorial Drive Extension (near Richview Middle School) to Hwy 76/MLK (likely across from the access to the Wal-Mart, Pizza Hurt, and car dealer).

This would be at no cost to the city and would not infer that this was the top road project for the city. It passed in a 7-yes & 5-no vote.  I voted yes.

Several concerns/questions surfaced on this resolution, as it is in my ward. A question of did the state really need permission from the city to actually do the study. The answer provided was no.  However, since this study connected a state road with a city road and other municipal properties were close by it was labeled more as a courtesy.

From information I have it seemed this issue had bounced between the mayor’s office and the Street Committee for several months. Neither seemed very excited to support it.

The question was raised would this obligate the city to funding some portion of the road if the state thought it was a good idea. It is not uncommon for such actions to have a financial split between state and local governments.

However, this was not on the city radar of importance and was not in the Top 10 items of pressing needs in my ward. Because of this I told nearby residents, affected by this study, I will not support spending any city money for this road.

However, a feasibility study by the state could answer questions about such a connection whether built by the state or private means. Structure, design, traffic loads, points of access and other issues may be highlighted that would provide the city and area residents with solid data to make better decisions.

This would be data our Planning Commission and Clarksville Street Department would need to study such a road, if developed privately. Thus, some savings in time and money for these two departments would result form a state study.

There was a concern that this was a political favor for a private citizen(s). I have no information to support such a concern nor was any presented at the council meeting. Only the local state representatives who requested the resolution, the mayor (who sponsored it) and the property owners involved can answer that. Although the mayor sponsored the resolution, she did not cast a “yes” vote to support it.

Resolution 4-2012-13

This resolution was requested by the Clarksville Area Chamber of Commerce to show city support to stop congressional action that will require large mandatory cuts to the nation’s military budget.  Those cuts would, in turn, likely affect Fort Campbell.

The resolution passed in a 12-yes vote. Although Mayor McMillan sponsored the resolution she did not cast a “yes” vote as a show of support for this measure and Fort Campbell.

The post Clarksville City Council Regular Session Report – July 5th, 2012 appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

Marina and Liberty Park – I can not go into any detail here as the final wording and other legal requirements on issues the city has had with the general contractor, and vice versa, are being worked out. I believe other than some “punch list” and finishing items the project is heading toward completion.

The final touches and construction at the marina are also underway. If you want a boat slip contact marina manger Ric Cheyney. He may be reached at 931.444.0646 or visit him at the temporary office that has been set up next to the marina parking lot by the big green (I think that is the color) power building.  It says Marina Office on the front so you can’t miss it. Ric may be relocating to the actual floating marina office very shortly so if he isn’t on land, then check the floating dock office.

Clarksville City Budget – FY 2013

The second round/vote of the city budget was 180-degree course change from the first meeting. While little was said at the initial vote, plenty was said last night. I know for my part, having the extra time to see the full 650-page budget document and tracking costs and rationale exposed some concerns beyond what is seen in just the FY 2013 budget.

It also seemed that way for several other council members that had been researching the finer points of the mayor’s budget. As you recall, we only received the “complete” budget the Friday night before the following Thursday’s first vote. As usual, it was the city general budget (the budget that pays for police, fire, streets, capital projects) that drew the attention and fire.

In the end, the budget passed in a final vote was 7-yes and 6-no votes. I voted no and will explain in detail later as to the concerns I had and expressed to the council. The mayor had to vote to save her budget again.

Capital Projects

The action started with the list of over $12.2 million in Capital Projects the mayor proposed. If you reference my email on the city budget, Part III, you will see the projects listed. The mayor will borrow all but $59,120 (R.J. Corman Bridge) to pay for these projects.

In past budgets a mix of borrowing (for larger projects), grant money and funds from city revenue have been used. In this budget we will borrow money amounts for projects at or under $250,000, to include a study.

Performing Arts Center & Garage

First out of the chute was the $100,000 the mayor requested for “preplanning” a Performing Arts & Garage. The mayor was asked many questions on this one.

One of the first questions was is this related to the Roxy project that had been talked about in the past (Reference my comments in the Part III email)? The final answer was yes.

Are we borrowing the money to do this study? The answer was yes, although it was suggested by a council member that the parking authority reimburse the city since the garage is a major feature. This question/issue may see the light of day again when the mayor asks for council approval to actually borrow the money.

Why are we borrowing money for a paper project with a short lifespan? The center would be a major project that qualifies so it appears the effort is to lump it in. (Note: I believe the general feeling of City Hall is we are borrowing millions so an additional $100K isn’t a problem. In addition, the project may or may not go forward although the mayor wants it very badly.)

Are we going to compete with the Roxy? No. Basically, the city will build a new performing arts center with a garage and the Roxy (under whatever heading it would operate will be a tenant within the building). The city will own it and likely contract out to an operator that would schedule what was the Roxy and other acts and events. It appears it could be somewhat of a conference/event center with rooms to meet in. The Roxy has not had a great amount of success in it fund raising efforts and it appears the mayor will step in.

I asked the mayor if it was her intention for the city to “tote the note” and build the center with taxpayer money (minus whatever we could get in grants, etc.). The answer was yes. Of course this was the first time that many of us had heard this. It was evident from the head nodding by one or two council members, that they had been made aware of the project by the mayor.

The last known concept (by the rest of us) was to use parking revenues to build a garage under the theater and the Roxy would sit on top. The Roxy is a non-profit organization and the use or near-use of taxpayer dollars to build a non-profit facility is questionable.

The mayor seemed to get defensive on this item as discussions progressed.  She claimed she had been available to answer questions on this Capital Project request and seemed unhappy that we were plowing this issue with many questions and concerns.

It would seem that if a mayor was planning to spend a large sum for a major “quality of life” project a major press conference with a public announcement and TV coverage would have been made so everyone would know about it.  Or a mayor could at least bring it up in a regular council meeting as a major project. These were the approaches Mayor Piper used in announcing his new park and marina project.

Mayor McMillan has made press releases about when the boat ramps will open, she has made a video tour of Liberty Park and posted it on the city website and has held a press conference to announce a new charter committee. To learn about a major building proposal for Clarksville, that had been costed in the $16 to $20 million range when it was just the Roxy rebuild, council members had to dig through 650 pages of a budget documents to find it on page 648. Then the title of the project was listed as “Pre-planning for Downtown Performing Arts Ctr/Parking Garage. Many of us thought this was just the garage portion of the Roxy project.

A council member or two commented we spent $34 million on the marina (they weren’t supporters of it) and seemed amazed that council members were having a problem with this project (which they do support). There are several different issues in affect here that they prefer to ignore or haven’t figured out.

First, the city owned the park when we revamped it and added a marina. Second, we don’t own the Roxy building or the property it sits on and it seems the mayor wants the city version to go where the Roxy is. Third, the Roxy is a non-profit that hasn’t been successful in raising funds for a new theater and on the surface it appears we are bailing it out under the guise of a new city owned Performing Arts Theater and garage. Also, if there have been any federal or state grants given to the Roxy in the past, its change in entity could raise questions about repayment of those grants and who is responsible.

What is this Preplanning study going to provide? The mayor said something to the affect it wasn’t a study. The follow-up question was what were we supposed to get as a final product if it wasn’t a study. I did not hear a good explanation from the mayor on that one. The assumption is it would support building a center and garage.

If this FY 2013 study shows we should do it, will the mayor start funding it in FY 2014?  The mayor would not commit.

Since there was no financial commitment for 2014, given the mayor had not provided any previous announcements on concepts or vision of this facility (other than last evening’s discussion that Clarksville needs it for improved quality-of-life) and she couldn’t explain the exact purpose of the “pre-plan” a council member made a motion to cut the $100,000. That motion failed in a 6-yes and 7-no vote (I voted yes to cut it for now). It seems the mayor has been working this approach (taxpayer funded) for some time.

My wife and I personally support the Roxy by going plays (wish we had time for more of them) and have donated for building the new facility (What becomes of that money if the city takes over and the Roxy is a tenant?). However, the initial goal was this nonprofit would build a new theater on its own and perhaps have some assistance with a parking facility through a joint effort and revenues of the parking authority (not taxpayer). This late revelation by the mayor that the city will basically take over this project (supposedly on a grander scale) was an eye-opener. The potential costs and affect on future budget years with foreseeable revenues is a worry that I will address later.

Smith-Trahern Mansion

The old mansion is falling apart. The mayor wishes to spend $150,000 on fixing the chimneys so they don’t fall in and destroy the whole building. I think the mansion should be saved, but the mayor has avoided saying the city will step up to the plate and commit to it 100%. The public fundraiser the mayor touted last year has not been a success. The projected repair of the mansion could reach $2 million by early estimates.

I asked the mayor would she spend whatever taxpayer dollars were needed to fix the mansion (including an grants, etc.). The answer was yes.

If we are spending that amount this year, will money be allocated in the FY 2014 budget to continue the restoration process?  The mayor would not commit.

The longer we wait on total repairs the greater the damage and cost to repair. The building looks terrible due to all the rot and the few patch repairs that have been done. Does the mayor have a timeline that repairs need to be accomplished? No.

The city has not sanctioned a full study to understand the full extent of damage to the mansion or the effort and true cost to repair it.  So again, we are spending money with no objective, schedule, or true cost estimates.

Fire/Police Station at Exit 1

The mayor requests $350,000 to design and buy land for such a facility in FY 2013. Would the mayor commit to funding the actual building, equipment and personnel in the FY 2014 budget? No, she will not commit.

Parks

This isn’t in the Capital Projects list, but could be affected by it. The mayor is allocating around $25,000 to study several parcels of land to build a new park in our end of town. The parcels are available for buying and the study would pick the better one. Asking price for the land areas run up to a couple of million dollars. I asked the mayor would she commit to funding the land purchase based on the study result in the FY 2014 budget. She would not commit.

I stated a concern that the study could get finished and if we did not buy the land recommended, it could be lost and we would have wasted our money. The mayor stated I could recommend adding $2 million to the budget to make sure the land was bought on time. (My Opinion:  If I thought a project was worth spending any money on at the start, and had a time sensitive schedule, I would be committed to having a plan and timetable to see it through.  I guess I mistakenly thought that was a city mayor’s job.)

Budget Impacts For 2014 based on the Budget Actions of 2013

It was somewhere about this time in the budget battle the mayor got real aggravated and said that I wasn’t going to support the budget anyway, so let’s move on….or something to the affect.  So I figured it was time to layout the numbers and concerns I had with the whole budget and its possible impact on FY 2014.  The mayor really didn’t want to hear that.

I will have to say that with all the actions to start and spend money in FY 2013 followed by all the “no” commitments to follow up those project actions FY 2014 was interesting. Some on the council, especially the mayor, stated that their concern was with the FY 2013 budget only.

Councilwoman Johnson stated there are too many variables and potential changes that could happen by 2014 to worry about it. She went further and apologized to the audience and viewers that some on the council (that would be me and others) would ask these questions at this time (at an official meeting of the council about the budget) and it was all for the purpose of political posturing (asking questions about the mayor’s plans). All of the issues/costs I brought up were related to data that could be found in the budget (if it was read) and to information I was provided by the city Finance Dept.(if one bothered to ask).

All of the talk about not worrying about the impact of this year’s budget decisions on next year’s budget is amazing and exposes the problems we have in long-term planning and budgeting.  Such statements reminded me of a movie line.  The movie was “Gone With The Wind” and Scarlett O’Hara said “I’ll worry about that tomorrow, tomorrow’s another day”.

Yes, tomorrow is another day and that is when I’ll send my next section of the council budget report.

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

The post Clarksville City Council Budget Recap for June 19th, 2012 – Part 1 appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

In this installment I’ll give you more specific details of departments and spending. In Part II, I ended writing about Capital Projects, so I will start there.

Project: Police Department Shot House
Cost: $362,400

A training facility design to handle live fire, train tactical skills, hostage training, breaching, K-9, etc.

Project: ADA Sidewalks
Cost: $1,700,000

Comply with federal court order; program stopped last year to help budget

Project: Smith Trahern Renovation
Cost: $150,000

The building will likely need a couple of million to be fully restored. The city decided to try the donation and grants route to raise money. Some grants may be in the works, but the donation effort (not unexpectedly in my opinion) seems not to be working from the info I have received. The chimneys on the building roof have to be fixed or may collapse into the building and destroy the house and possibly injure people. I have been on the roof and personally looked at the chimneys. They are massive and are leaning and twisting. If we want to save this piece of Clarksville history, the city is going to have to start now. The city spent $50K on a new driveway a couple of years ago.

Project: RJ Corman Bridge
Cost: $59,120

City share of a grant to fix-up the bridge. Another project that has dragged for several years and will hopefully start soon.

Project: Pre Planning for Performing Art Center/Parking Garage
Cost: $100,000

I am not aware of how this money is to be spent. However, I assume it has to do with a project that I was contacted about by some local business people and citizens in regard to the new Roxy Theater about a year and a half ago. As you know, the Roxy has been trying to raise funds for a new theater for some time. The bad economy has made that process a slow one.

Councilman Grubbs and I had been involved in a number of informal brainstorming meetings with local business people and citizens, the Roxy board, and members of the Parking Authority. The thought is the Roxy would expand beyond being a theater and become a facility for numerous other events and specials. The new theater could expand up to 750 seats and possibly have a parking garage underneath the building for upwards of 200 cars.

The concept was liked and last April/May Councilman Grubbs and I informed Mayor McMillan during a budget meeting about the idea. She was in favor and we received the “green light” to press ahead with further ideas and thoughts with the people involved. The idea (at least from my viewpoint) was the parking authority would soon pay off the debt on the current parking garage. This would free money for development and building of an additional garage downtown, likely as a part of the new Roxy.

The Parking Authority was finally running in the black and had implemented positive changes in operation based on the 2009 Parking Study. The initial concept would be the Parking Authority would handle the cost of the project through its parking revenues and not have it placed on the taxpayers. However, now a couple of things raise my concern about this project and the potential use of taxpayer money in relation to a non-profit function.

First, the appearance of this $100K for a Performing Arts Center/garage. Second, an article in today’s paper stating the experiment to provide free parking has seriously cut parking revenues. According to the story, on the one block where it is being tested revenue dropped by $900/month, or 40%.

Those two items, plus a helter-skelter approach to paid parking elsewhere with free two hours on one street, no meters on the next, and a reverse-angled parking experiment that doesn’t seem to be very popular has me very concerned. On top of that, the Parking Authority is showing a drop in revenue in the FY 2013 budget of $30,000 after making $77,000 more than expected in FY 2012.

Looks to me as if our management of parking is in the wrong direction and space. Another concern is who is really running the Parking Authority? The mayor? The Authority? Anyone? The reason I ask that is the mayor brought forth (via the council rep and parking manager) several months ago a change in a budget request that the Authority had neither seen or approved. If the mayor can make such changes without the Authority being involved, then we don’t seem to need an Authority.

An article in today’s paper stated the city wanted to “accentuate” the positive in an effort to counter a Letter to the Editor where the past Parking Authority chairman, Mr. Robinson, blasted the current effort of the Authority as not having a coherent parking plan. I would agree with Mr. Robinson. A reversal in financial direction and the potential expectation of using taxpayer dollars to build the next garage are not positives. I am sure there will be more to come on this.

Project: Fire Station/police precinct Design/land (Exit 1 area)
Cost: $350,000

Project: Fire Station #6 Third Bay Add
Cost: $450,000

Project: Trenton/Tylertown Road Drainage
Cost: $150,000

This is part of the continued fix on the Woodstock neighborhood flooding problem

Project: Intersection Improvements
Cost: $250,000

Project: Paving
Cost: $1,700,000

General Fund money is also paying for paving in the Street Dept Budget.

Project: Public Safety Communication System
Cost: $7,000,000

The current radio system is so old we cannot get parts for it. We are about one level above two cans and string. We are paying for high priced hybrid radios to use on the old system as replacements due to no one building the old models. One good lightning strike on the old system would really put the city in a hurt. In my book this is the number one item of the Capital Projects List.

As I mentioned in my last report, the information I have states the mayor will seek to borrow all of this. If the projections are accurate, we have around $2.7 million in reserve surplus. I question the additional debt service increase for projects that cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars. I especially question borrowing money for a $59,120 project. It is likely the entire list could be bundled into one bond or note. However, to drag out payments on small projects does not seem a logical way to operate. As another example of what does or not go into the Capital Projects list, there is a request for a new HVAC Chiller for a building. The cost is $190,000, yet that was built into the department budget.

DEBT Cost/Service

People often wonder how much debt the city has. Here is a budget recap total by year:

FY 2011 – $99,252,199

FY 2012 – $102,141,303

FY 2013 – $108,516,350 (projected)

While all Capital Projects would cost over $12 million if approved and borrowed, about $6.4 million would actually be added due to the city paying off other debt on the books.

Other Budget Areas

Legislative & Mayor Office

I always get questions on how much elected officials and the staff that work directly for the mayor get paid. So here are the answers from the proposed FY 2013 budget.

Mayor – $118,300/yr. (same as last year, mayoral pay is frozen through 2014, vehicle furnished)

Mayor Pro Tem/councilman – $8973/yr.

Councilman – $6573/yr. (council pay is 1/18th of mayor’s)

Chief of Staff – $95,504/yr.

Mayor’s Executive/Admin Secretary – $53,340/yr. (the last one in that job under Mayor Piper was paid $36,274)

Legislative Budget for FY 2013 – $674,477; FY 2012 Original Budget – $614,987

(includes the councilmen and City Clerk)

Mayor’s Budget for 2013 – $542,424; FY 2012 Original Budget – $543,993

(includes Chief of Staff, Communication officer and admin)

Clarksville Police

FY 2011 (actual) – $21,464,967

FY 2012 (Budget) – $23,574,679

FY 2012 (Amend) – $22,139,602 (includes the Apr. reduction)

FY 2013 (Proposed) – $24,195,151

Increase includes two new officers for programs, $353,405 for cameras/laptops, $822,406 for marked units, $119,355 for unmarked units, $19,313,862 in total salaries and benefits, $3,545,493 in operating expenses.

For more information, see:

2013 Clarksville City Budget Update – Part 1

2013 Clarksville City Budget Update – Part 2

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

The post 2013 Clarksville City Budget Update – Part 3 appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

After several months of work the mayor got the final budget pieces to council members Friday night (June 1st, 2012) and wants the council to conduct its first vote this Thursday (June 7th). I will send out Part III on the budget tomorrow.

The Overall Picture – 3-year Comparison

Revenues – (made up of tax collections, license/permit fees, fine collections, in lieu of taxes and assorted other fees and investment income)

FY 2011 (Actual) – $70,338,921

FY 2012 (Budget) – $77,563,546 (Mayor McMillan’s first budget)

FY 2012 (Amended) – $82,546,471

FY 2013 (Proposed) – $75,150,573

The FY 2012 (Budget) revenue was based on borrowing $2.5 million and taking/transferring $1.5 million from Capital Project Fund.

The FY 2012 (Amend) revenue was based on the borrowed $2.5 million being enlarged to $3 million, the Capital Project Fund and the unexpected tax collection increase of about $3.75 million.

The FY 2013 (Proposed) revenue shows tax collections dropping about $2.5 million and doesn’t appear to be borrowing any money to balance the city general fund budget.

Expenditures – (money spent on city departments, taxes to state, fees to county, joint functions with county (airport, planning commission, etc.), non-profits, city sponsored functions, Transit System, capital projects, debt, etc.)

FY 2011 (Actual) – $72,279,890

FY 2012 (Budget) – $77,544,799

FY 2012 (Amended) – $75,233,462

FY 2013 (Proposed) – $81,045,568

As you can see in most years, at the beginning of the budget cycle preparation, more money is scheduled to be spent than is projected to come in.  However, this is not always a financial doomsday setup for several reasons.  During the year some projects may be scraped and the money is no longer needed for that purpose, thus expenditures are reduced.

Sometimes projects or equipment cost less than projected and expenditures go down.  While grants are always on the city’s platter to go for, they cannot always be counted on to happen.  However, unexpected grants help lower expenditure costs.  While personnel positions are fully funded for a year people will retire, quit, or be fired and a gap in time and pay saved from when the last worker left and the new worker arrives will occur.

Fuel and maintenance costs may be lower than projected and more savings are recognized.  Also, as we saw this year, late budget cuts can be taken to cut expenditures.  However, there is a limit as to how far you want to push expenditures beyond revenue projections.

Reserve Fund Balance

It must be noted that it may take the city three or more budget years to collect all taxes, revenues and fees due it.  That is why you see terms such as “actual”, “budget”, “amended” and “proposed”.  These are snapshots of the various yearly budgets at different phases in their cycle.  As an example, budgets in FY 2008 and FY 2009 (not listed in this report) initially showed projected revenue deficits of several million dollars in each of their proposed budgets, but actually had surpluses after several years.

Those surpluses are added to the Fund Balance, which is the city’s reserve or “rainy day” fund.  The city’s reserve fund balance policy requires that a minimum of 20% of a projected budget to be set aside at the very beginning.  It is the very first pot of money that is locked up and not touched.  As the name implies, it is held in reserve (a positive fund balance) and not dedicated to any spending requirement.  The reserve fund balance shows the city has backup financial means and has not spent the last “dime” it owns.  It also helps when the city borrows money, allowing us to get better interest rates because we are a low risk by having money in reserve.

Many people (and some council members) get confused thinking that when a projected budget shows more spending for a year than incoming revenue, the city is out of money completely and needs to borrow or raise taxes.  The reserve fund can build up over time due to unexpected extra collections and lower expenditures over the year.  After a 20% reserve is set aside for projected spending, any amount over that can and is often used to make up for any shortfall in the upcoming budget year’s revenues.

You may ask if 20% is enough?   Several years ago the percentage was a couple of points higher, but analysis showed we had excess money sitting around doing nothing when there were needs to be met.  We could lower the reserve to 18% and not affect our bond ratings or emergency needs, if they arose.  However, our city accountants get too nervous when that is mentioned.

While I have been on the council, the reserve fund balance has carried enough extra money above the 20% reserve requirement to offset any unequal revenue-expenditure projections for any new budget.  That is until last year with Mayor McMillan’s first budget.  The mayor’s initially proposed FY 2012 expenditure budget was around $4.5 million short in revenue and could not support the spending she wanted and maintain the required 20% reserve fund balance requirement.

In order to avoid needed cuts (which some of us were calling for), she chose to borrow $3 million and siphon $1.5 million from the CPRD, including those funds as “revenue” to the city.  That is why half the council and myself were pushing hard for at least a couple of million dollars in cuts last year.  We didn’t have the money to spend last year unless we borrowed it.  The borrowing of money is the only reason we had a “balanced” budget.

The mayor’s budget is showing a surplus for the end of the 2012 budget of $7,313,009 (revenue: $82,546,471 – expenditure: $75,233,462), which she is throwing into the reserve fund balance.  That looks and sounds good, but you must understand how the majority of that came about and what we are about to spend in FY 2013.  Tax collections were unexpectedly high ($3.75 million), about $2 million of the $3 million in borrowed money for FY 2012 was not spent but kept in reserve (reference my comments in Part I), and the city finally took a $2.3 million budget cut in April which really eliminated the need for the $2 million borrowed (but kept).  In addition, some other costs were higher than projected even with the budget cuts, so after working all the pluses and minuses the surplus was $7.3 million.

FY 2011 initially had a projected revenue deficit of over $5.1 million, but the reserve fund balance (even after setting aside 20%) had the excess funds to handle it.  By the end of FY 2011, due to revenues and cost cuts still trickling in, the revenue deficit was down to $3.9 million and by the end of FY 2012 it down to $1.9 million.  So over a couple of years around $2 million has been returned to the fund balance.

So FY 2012 may end with an incoming reserve balance of $17.5 million, plus the $7.3 million surplus for a total of $24.8 million.  A minimum of $16.2 million will be required in the reserve fund balance for the mayor’s $81 million budget expenditure, leaving about $8.6 million for any revenue deficit.  That looks and sounds real good.  However, recent history seems to show that when the projected revenue deficits reach over $3 to $4 million the reserve fund balance may not ever completely recover.  That is why I have shown you data from the FY 2011 budget cycle as an example.

The mayor’s projected revenue deficit for FY 2013 is $5,894,995.  Deduct $5.9 million (rounded) revenue deficit from the projected reserve balance surplus $8.6 million you have $2.7 million left.  This looks pretty good until you look how the list of Capital Projects will be be paid for.  2013 Capital Projects costs are over $12 million with that full amount appearing to be paid through borrowed money, instead of the usual mix of bonds, general funds and grants.  It would also appear that some of the suggested Capital Projects could have (should have?) been listed as city department outlays that would normally be paid out of city general fund revenues or the surplus reserve balance. The borrowing of such money versus spending the revenues on hand pads the surplus, but adds to future debt and bond payments.

For more information, see: 2013 Clarksville City Budget Update – Part 1

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

The post 2013 Clarksville City Budget Update – Part 2 appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.

After several months of work the mayor got the final budget pieces (and most important – predicted revenue and predicted spending totals) to council members Friday night (June 1st, 2012) and wants the council to conduct its first vote this Thursday (June 7th).

Instead of the mayor providing council members one complete package with all the data, she broke it out over several of the “budget workshop” presentations she had set up. The problem was many on the council (including me) did not know these presentations were the mayor’s “final” version of her budget. However, even when that was cleared up, the final department presentations given last Thursday did not contain the numbers the mayor said she wanted. So even the staff and departments trying to present what the mayor wanted couldn’t keep it straight.

The mayor’s budget is likely the most important document that office will produce each year.  Since the mayor must have council approval, it would seem natural to ensure that all council members understood how this process was to be set up, but that information was not communicated well to the council.  Also a document of such importance should have warranted a couple of “special sessions” so the mayor could “officially” present her budget.

This was not done and the “mayor” presentations were treated no different than the department presentations (attendance optional).  With many on the council having kids/family in graduations, vacations scheduled and other end of school events going on, the period of mid-May was a poor time to try and do anything that had multiple segments.  The mayor’s office kept changing schedules because so many would be gone and that added to the confusion.

Budget History – 2012

If readers will recall, last year’s budget (the one that will conclude at the end of this month) did not set well with half the council. Both votes by the council were ties and the mayor had to vote both times to get her budget passed.  I and other council members believed we needed to cut a couple of million dollars off the projected budget due to uncertainty of the economy and having just committed to a $3.9 million raise for employees.

While the new census was to direct more state funding to Clarksville to cover most of the new raises, we did not know the exact amount. Many believed we needed to see the full impact of that raise, receive any new state funding that was coming our way, and see how the economic recovery went before proceeding with too many other ventures and spending.

As you will remember, the mayor touted that it was a balanced budget even with a substantial spending increase (around $5 million). Of course, it was balanced by having to borrow $2.7 million (later upped to $3 million) just to operate the city. In addition, the mayor also had to siphon $1.5 million out of the Capital Projects Revenue District, which was the city “piggy bank” for major capital project payments and investments to balance her 2012 budget.

We had to stop the mayor twice from spending the money set aside to pay for the new Airport Terminal, when she want wanted to borrow money for it instead. Plus, we were hoping that $3 million was still coming from the state on census money.  Despite showing all these financial concerns, we continued to hear from the mayor and some council members that her budget is balanced, so what was our problem.

It was not even 90 days after budget implementation of the mayor’s “balanced” budget that Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan had to make public (News Release dated Sept 21, 2011, subj: Mayor Makes Early Budget Moves) that she needed to have departments looking at budget reductions of 5% or almost $3.4 million dollars.  The mayor deflected blame onto delays in economic recovery, possible cuts in state and federal aid, and indebtedness of previous budgets.

The mayor stated the potential cuts were not related to the current budget (yes, they really were and we tried to point that out during the budget process), the possible cuts were not action that required city council action (yes they did and she had to come to us in April to cut the budget and you can reference my City Council Regular Session Recap Report – Apr 5, 2012 on that action) and that this reduction action was to make sure all city departments were operating as lean as possible (that should have been a “given” at the start of the budget process).

Actions During The Budget Year

The 2012 Budget Cut

The ”threat” of budget cuts seemed to disappear for a couple of months after September’s announcement.  I raised the question at the Public Safety Committee in December 2011 as to what those departments were looking to cut.  It appeared the police department was going to offer some cuts, but most other departments said they had not asked for more than needed during the budget or saved some money on cheaper equipment purchases or slowed hiring actions, but otherwise had nothing that they could voluntarily give up without effects on services.  In the end, instead of every department taking a 5% cut the mayor allowed the police to take the brunt of it with a $1.6 million cut out of a total $2.3 million city wide cut.

The mayor’s rather quick turnabout on needing a budget cut did validate that some of us on the council saw problems with that proposed budget and tried to take the proper leadership role at the beginning of the process based on the data available in May and June of 2011.  It was interesting to note that when we were proposing those cuts, there were those on the council that said such actions could lead to service reductions, workers losing their jobs or the loss of new jobs.  Some of those actions were a possibility with the cuts proposed to the council by some of us.  Those against such reductions stated we should leave the mayor’s balanced budget alone. When the mayor did cut a couple of million, those same council members were nowhere to be heard about loss of service or jobs. Instead they praised the Mayor for taking decisive action on the budget.  Political pandering is a poor substitute for leadership.

Money Borrowed to Balance the 2012 Budget

As I mentioned, the mayor had to go out and borrow $3 million to balance her 2012 budget.  A large portion of that money was borrowed to pay for police equipment.  With the police taking budget cuts, much of that money was no longer needed.  As of April 2012, the Director of Finance stated that close to $2 million of that borrowed money had not been spent.  So were we going to give it back and repay the debt…..the answer was no.  Were we saving it for some unknown project or need….the answer was no.  I’m not sure we got the whole story, as it appears the mayor was “sandbagging” the money at this late date in the 2012 budget year to salvage her up-coming 2013 budget.

Sales Taxes

During the late part of 2011 and early months of 2012, the sales taxes generated in the State of Tennessee and Clarksville were considerably higher than expected.  In April, the Director of Finance told the council the city had about $2 million in unobligated funding due to higher than expected tax receipts.  Those tax amounts were likely through February 2012 for the budget year.  According to latest figures/projections provided by the Finance Department, we should get about $3.75 million more in taxes than projected at the initial planning of the 2012 budget.

I am very pleased that tax receipts came in much higher than any projection.  Every city hopes for such results.  However, these actions and results formed more disconnects on how we seemed to be managing our money.   We knew we had $2 million in additional tax funding in April with more increases to come.  We knew what the state was going to do as they finished developing much of their budget in April for an early May closure.  We knew the police were going to turn right back around in the 2013 budget and ask for the same money to buy people and equipment they were going to give up in the 2012 budget cut (which they have).  So, why stall the budget reductions for months, then take a cut in April and turn around and basically restore funding in July?

The Budget Stage Is Set For 2013

In my next report, I’ll send you the overall numbers that Mayor McMillan has submitted to us.  As a preview, I will say that the 2012 city budget is supposed to finish at an expense amount $75,233,462 (last June it was to be $77,547,079 before the cut).  The proposed 2013 budget is $81,045,568.  The 2011 budget ended with costs of $72.3 million and in two budget cycles under Mayor McMillan the city budget spending is looking to increase 12% by 2013.

The large upward bump in tax collections is not projected to last into 2013 with reductions of about $2.5 million to occur from 2012 collections.

Editor’s Note: This article contains the view points of Councilman Bill Summers and may not represent the views of the rest of the City Council, the City of Clarksville or ClarksvilleOnline.

The post 2013 Clarksville City Budget Update appeared first on Clarksville, TN Online.