Some hard questions...about BUDGETS and street lights!!!

Ms. Gilleland herself presented budgets to “Move the cash balance down to a floor of 15% of expenditures over the two year period (2012 to 2013)”.  (Our City’s cash reserve at the beginning of 2012 was 21.4%.)

Total Budgeted Expenditures in 2012 were $126.6 million and grew to $137.8 million in 2013—an increase of over $11 million dollars in just one year!!!

For two years now, we have been spending more than we have been taking in.  Where is Ms. Gilleland finding the money to pay for these decorative lights for a few of her friends???  And why aren’t City Council members asking her where the money is is going to come from when just last October she told them that everything had been cut to the bone and we had to budget money from our RAINY DAY FUND (cash reserves) just to run the city???

From the minutes of the 11/6/2012 City Council meeting:

“Mr. J. Mulligan commented that can support this budget and he will vote for it but that he doesn’t want to be in this same position again a year from now where the General Fund expenditures exceed the General Fund revenues. As a Council we have to tackle some tough long term issues.”

Well, J. Mulligan, $5,000 or so a year ($10,000 or more, if the folks in Highlands get their way) for decorative lights for a handful of residents from now until the end of time sounds like a “long term issue”.  It’s not to tough to tackle, though.  Just tell your colleagues on Council to vote NO!!! (Or were you just politicking when you said that last November and are you really a big TAX-AND-SPEND liberal???)

From the minutes of the 11/6/2012 City Council meeting:

“Ms. Gilleland addressed the issue of equalization of expenditures and revenues. She responded that the 2011 budget was a really tough time with deep cuts with the reduction of 3.7M in expenditures. She thought that the 2014 budget would be an appropriate time to examine additional reductions.”

Well, Ms. Gilleland, the time for the 2014 budget examination is only a couple of months away.  Will you be hand-wringing, and telling everyone how we have “cut everything to the bone” again???  Or, are decorative lights for a handful of friends more important than raises, public safety, upkeep of the cemetery, parks, street repairs, sewer maintenance, and all of the other worthy things that benefit the entire city we keep hearing that we won’t have money for???

And my ears must’ve deceived me  last Tuesday night, because I thought I heard Ms. Gilleland tell Ms. Scott-Jones that residents would NOT be assessed for street light utility or maintenance costs.  But read the following from the minutes of the 10/02/2012 City Council meeting:

“Ms. Gilleland highlighted the goals of the 2012‐2017 Strategic Plan. She also showed visuals of a holistic transformational strategy. She gave some food for thought that included:  Street Light Assessments that could raise $700,000 for the general fund if council is willing to pass this cost along to the residents.” 

Now pay attention Middletonians, and especially you council members who will be voting on the decorative lights for that handful of friends of City Hall on South Main Street:  When Ms. Gilleland suggests “to pass this cost along to the residents”, she is (at best) making a mis-statement of the situation.  The residents ALREADY pay these costs, so they can NOT be “passed along”!!!  We residents pay for the costs of electricity and maintenance for all street lights within our city from all of the myriad of other taxes that the City already collects from us!!!  What she is actually suggesting is that City Council “assess” a NEW TAX—a street light tax-- but not call it a “tax”, call it a “fee” and tack it onto our water and sewage usage bills!!  (Can anyone explain to me what street lights have to do with water or sewage usage???)  Now pay even closer attention:  I believe that this new TAX (disguised as a “fee”) or “assessment” will be ILLEGAL.

Now remember, Council members and all Middletownians, for two years in a row at budget time, Ms. Gilleland has said that everything has been cut to the bone, there was no money to spare ANYWHERE, and she needed big bucks from our cash reserves JUST TO RUN THE CITY!!!  And anytime the common citizen suggest an expenditure, there just IS NO MONEY!!!  Yet, whenever the "right people" want something, big wads of cash are suddenly found!!  Someone must ask "WHERE ARE THESE JACKPOTS COMING FROM???"

Also remember that there IS an easy alternative here:  Let those that want these decorative lights install them a few feet away OUTSIDE the right-of-way on their own property and leave the City (and the rest of the taxpayers) out of it!  That's exactly what the rest of us have to do if we want decorative (or security) lights.  There is absolutely no reason you can't do the same!!!  (Just coordinate through one of the numerous "historic societies" to select a uniform lamp post design!!!)

My house was built in the early 1960's.  Instead of period lighting I would just like some period pavement for my woeful street.  Can I get the rest of the town to pay for this?

ktf1179 wrote: How about investing in some new historic street lights in the many subdivisions of Middletown? I am sure with more lighting, it should cut down on the amount of crime that happens at night.

Ktf,

If you have a Duke Energy power pole on your property, Duke will be pleased to install a security light (similar to a street light) on their pole that turns on and off at the same time as the street lights.

If I am not mistaken, Duke Energy will also install a security light if you have an acceptable light post installed by others on your property, or if you have an acceptable location on a barn, garage, or other outbuilding.  I believe that they will even sell you (or arrange for you to buy from others) a decorative replica imitation gas-style lamp post and lamp for installation, for example, next to your driveway by the sidewalk.  I think that you can get one exactly like the folks on South Main Street want!  (If you and several of your neighbors decide to do this all at the same time, I’d guess that you could get a really good installation price!)

Oh…there will be one difference between your new decorative or security light and the one the folks on South Main Street want:  Duke will charge about $10 per month to YOUR electric bill each and every month for each such light.  Sorry, but the rest of us won’t be chipping in to pay that for you.

I hope that this helps.

Here’s a tough another hard question that members of City council should be asking the Law Director:

This area of South Main Street has street lights and they are keeping those existing street lights under this new scheme!!!  This makes it clear that the new phony gas lamp posts and lights are nothing more than decorations. Isn’t it ILLEGAL to force those who did not sign the petition to spend thousands of dollars on DECORATIVE items???  They are NOT installing "street lights", they already HAVE "street lights"!  They are "adding decorative lighting"!  (And Les, if you are going to try to say that this is a safety item, then doesn’t the city then have a fiduciary duty to pick the lighting system that will attain a safe lighting level at the least cost rather than the expensive decorative scheme???)

There is NO REASON not to choose the REAL American alternative: Let those who desire to decorate their properties with fake olde tyme lights (that are historically inaccurate) do it themselves, on their own property (outside the right-of-way) and leave government and the rest of us out of it!!!

Pac,

Let me try to answer your questions as fully as I can:

“1.) I thought the home owners were paying for the street lights and the installations themselves??”

This is correct to a certain extent.  The cost of the street light, their installation, and the installation of the underground conduit, and the wiring will be assessed to the owners of the property on that section of South Main Street, based on street front footage.  Since the City owns some of the property, for example Old South Park, the City will be on the hook for several thousand dollars of this cost.  The same is true for many of the property owners who do not wish to have these extra lights installed, such as the American Legion and some property owners who have appeared before council stating that the assessment may likely cause them to lose their homes. 

It is unclear who will be on the hook for any construction extras that arise as the trenching for this conduit crosses any of the ancient sewer laterals or any other underground utilities in the area that will be encountered.  The city has refused to address this, and has “talked around” the issue as if it will not occur.

“2.) The way I read it, you are saying that the city is paying for the electricity and maintenance of the street lights once installed.”

Yes, that is correct!  Duke will charge about $10 or $11 dollars per month, per fixture for electricity and maintenance for these phony, decorative gas light lookalikes.  This comes to $4,000 to $6,000 per year in ADDITIONAL costs to our city (depending upon which set of figures you use), from now until the end of time, plus escalation due to inflation and energy costs increases, which will “necessarily skyrocket” according to our president.

“I do not understand the hoopla about paying for the maintenance and electricity for the light poles when the existing light poles, such as the one in my front yard, are serviced by duke energy and the city picks up the tab for electricity and maintenance.”

The reason the hoopla is that there are presently only about ELEVEN street lights like the one in your front yard (spaced just like the ones in your neighborhood) for which Duke charges the city the very same $10 or $11 dollars each per month.  Depending upon which scheme we are discussing, these folks want to either: a) remove those eleven street lights and replace them with FORTY-FIVE phony gas decorative lamp posts and lights; or b) keep those eleven street lights just like yours and ADD THIRTY-THREE phony decorative gas lamp posts and lights.

No one has addressed where the city will find the money to pay their share of the installation, or the ongoing yearly costs, since the City Manager has made it clear when other projects have been proposed that there was NO MONEY AVAILABLE unless something else was cut.  No mention was made of what must be cut to pay for this!!!

These folks think that these phony decorative gas lamp posts and lights will improve the looks (and therefore the value) of their properties.  Further, they are claiming that these are “period” lamp posts and lights, and supposedly these history-minded folks want their homes to look just like they did in the olden days.  The hitch is that, in Middletown, there never have been any public gas street lamps and lights!!!  (I think there have been some public "hitching posts", but that's a different story!)  Any gas lamp posts and lights in Middletown were installed by the property owners ON THEIR OWN PROPERTY and NOT in the “street lawn” (that strip of grass between the street and the sidewalk).  The irony of this whole matter is, that what they want to do “in the name of history” is totally historically INACCURATE!!!  To make matters worse, the property owners who may have refused to sign their petition because they want to keep their properties “historically accurate” may now be forced to pay several thousand dollars to RUIN the historic accuracy of their properties!!!

The saddest part is that there is a simple, economical alternative.  All that need be done is for the property owners who so desire, to have the same exact, historically inaccurate lamp posts and lights installed a few feet away on the other side of the sidewalk (just as EVERYONE ELSE in this city does), and leave the city and the property owners who do not wish to do so out of it.  The result would be the same.  The street view would be the same.

I hope that this helps you to understand the situation.

So, the five members of City Council (the Mulligan brothers had to abstain) voted unanimously to install the decorative fake gas lamps and lamp posts on South Main Street.

None of them seemed to care where the city would be getting its share of the assessment for the construction costs for these decorations.  If we are to believe what we were told last fall during the budget discussions, there is no money available anywhere except from our dwindling cash reserve (also known as the “rainy day” fund).

None of them seemed to care that the rest of the citizens, whether they can afford it or not, will be picking up the tab for maintenance and utilities from now until the end of time.

None of them seemed to care that the money for these ongoing costs will be coming out of our dwindling “rainy day” fund, which is (I believe) projected to be EMPTY by some time in 2015, at which point our city will officially be bankrupt.

None of them seemed to care that the city will be violating its very own City Ordinance 1210 (the so-called “Historic Ordinance”) or that the Historic Commission is likely guilty of nonfeasance of duty—even though it was these very same property owners on South Main Street who were the most vocal proponents of Ordinance 1210, that now choose to scoff at it.

None of them seemed to recall that barely an hour earlier, while discussing the financial ills of Weatherwax Golf Course, City Manager Gilleland stated  “we have about three options for about everything we do:  we can increase the revenue, we can decrease the expenses, or it can remain the same”!!!  Well, we didn’t “increase the revenue” with this decorative light legislation, nor did we “decrease the expenses”—in fact we INCREASED the expenses!!! So why didn’t these five council members take Gilleland at her word and let it “remain the same”???  It appears that “everything we do” does NOT include those things we do for friends of City Hall, such as the folks on South Main Street.

Gilleland added that “it’s important that we talk about this in terms of our priorities” (when discussing the golf course).  Apparently, decorations on South Main are a higher priority than Weatherwax Golf Course, Historic Pioneer Cemetery, a swimming pool or many other worthy projects that are not “befriended” by the folks (or by cronies of the folks) at One Donham Plaza. There never seems to be any money for most of these "un-befriended" projects.

Apparently they just don’t care…and they probably won’t “remember” this later this fall during budget discussions, when once again, Gilleland will wring her hands, tell them that everything has been cut to the bone, there is just no money left for anything, and convince them that an illegal tax tacked onto our water bills to pay for power and maintenance for street lights is really not a “tax” at all but a “fee”. 

Good job making  your casel last night Mr.P, and no real disagreement with anything that you say above, HOWEVER:

I understand what you are saying, Spiderjohn, and I understand the point of view of the folks on South Main.  However, neither those folks nor council ever did address some of the legitimate points that I raised:

The folks on South Main have already organized (several times) when they want something, so why couldn’t they get together, pick the same lamp posts and lights, and have them installed a few feet farther back from the curb (on the other side of the sidewalk), thereby achieving the same effect???

What about their precious Ordinance 1210???  If someone on that street wanted to put up a modern lamp post they could not do so without a “certificate of appropriateness”.  They would’ve been hauled before that kangaroo court known as the “Historic Commission” in a New York minute and been threatened with huge fines and jail time.  These folks, the Historic Commission, and Ordinance 1210 are all supposed to be about historical accuracy.  Last year, while looking at some pictures of Middletown in the late 1800s, I began noticing that there were no gas street lights.  I began searching for pictures of old Middletown.  I searched Library Lens and many other sources. NO WHERE could I find even one picture of even one gas street lamp in Middletown.  This “period lighting” thing is a farce.  The City is now going to violate their own Ordinance 1210, and the strongest proponents of that ordinance are complicit in this violation. Ordinance 1210 should be repealed, PRISM should be disbanded, and South Main Street should lose its standing as a Historic District for insisting on permanently “decorating” the street in a historically inaccurate manner!!!  Instead of “restoring” South Main Street, they seem intent on making it look like an olde tyme street in some other city.  Are they that ashamed of Middletown’s history???

The picture showing the supposed "safety hazard" due to darkness is a joke.  A picture taken under the same conditions, with the same camera settings in my neighborhood, Spiderjohn's neighborhood, or 85% of the other neighborhoods in Middletown would be indistinguishable from that picture. Streets in towns that actually did have gas lights would've been even darker!!

Where is the money coming from???  We are supposedly broke!!!  This question should been asked...it was not.  Why not???

Spiderjohn:

Of course the decorative lighting thing is over...for now…but be assured that I will bring it up in the future when we are told “we are broke” or that the city has “cut everything to the bone”.

And you are correct about the bigger battles to come.  In addition to the two that you mention, we cannot forget the biggest “gorilla in the room”: the combined sewer system.  Whatever the EPA mandates isn’t going to be cheap, so we can be certain that new and higher taxes are in our future.  That is why it irks me so when we squander money, in amounts large and small, on projects that either end up benefiting no one or benefit only a few.

And of course no matter how broke they claim we are, they always happen to find those necessary amounts “tucked away in one of our other funds” when friends of City Hall have a pet project!!!

I was appalled to hear the reasoning given by council members for voting “for” this farce, that the S. Main St people “had worked so hard” for this and that it would “be a shame not to vote for it.”

Are we now to understand that anyone in this town who wants anything and “works hard” for it should get it even if they cannot afford to pay for it entirely by themselves?  Are we to understand that council will have the taxpayers pick up the remainder of the bill for anything that anyone wants and works hard for but cannot totally afford?

As Mr. Presta said at Tuesday’s meeting, “If not, why not?”