The "other" Sally

From Sally C. 12/14/08

I just happened to have read a blogspot called recall 2008-9. It was written by a part time employee of the City of St. Helens. It appears that she loves how Mayor Peterson conducts himself and hates the present City Council. I don't know her, but it is apparent that she was heavily involved in the attempt to recall Doug Morton and Phil Barlow. In her blog she makes nasty personal attacks on the people that she works for. Bill mentioned to me that she even wore a recall button when she went to work. I can understand the concept of free expression, but I think that this person's free expression borders on outright insubordination. This alone should be a good reason to dismiss her. I am curious as to why she seems to like the Mayor as much as she does. Our Mayor is never around when he is needed, he even misses City Council meetings. I wonder what sort of ties exist? Is she related, are there friends or are there finances involved?

I personally think that St. Helens has been one of the most corrupt and self serving communities around, and it was only in the last two years that the present City Council has made an attempt to clean things up. Is this person involved with the old City Council and is she financially benefiting from some of the past corruption that used to occur?

People's memories may be short, but I still remember when Mayor Randy Sabotaged the Fire Rescue boat and because of high placed friends, was promoted instead of disciplined. I also remember how the Mayor and all his friends got cell towers, and bill board sites. Only the "in people" were given this opportunity. Does anyone remember the sale of land by the river that belonged to the Mayor and former police chief. The Mayor argued the year before that it was assessed too high, and asked that his property tax be reduced. He said that it could not be built on, was subject to flooding, and was not large enough to do anything of value.

He managed to get the assessment lowered to $36,980. Imagine everyone's surprise when he sold it the very next year for $385,000 to the City of St. Helens. Nice profit, and just one of many "Good Old Boy" happenings. Do you recall when all electrical work was given to the Mayors business, all collections were made through a Councilman's collection agency, and all the insurance went to a Council Person's insurance agency? These people ran for government positions because they could find ways in which government would benefit them personally. St. Helens is a growing community, and deserves something better than a bunch of drinking buddies running it for their own benefit.

The voters of our community finally managed to enact a change, and rid the city of most of these "close friends." After two years of clean government, a number of very wealthy and well connected people seem to want to get the new councilors recalled. Now why is this the case?

I read the recall blog, and I wonder about this part time employee blogger. Why is she so defiant and insubordinate? I know that the economy is turning bad and that cuts need to be made. I think that it might be to everyone's best interests if she was one of the people that they would consider cutting. I think that the existing Councilors are just too nice. This person, through her actions is causing problems for the City and with the publics perception of the City. Getting rid of this person would save the City embarrassment, money, and create a much more healthy working environment for everyone concerned.

from the ever-amazing St. Helens Update

PS, I'm thinking of forwarding this to Mayor Peterson and asking if my bonus checks are lost in the mail or something. Anyone know who the heck Sally C is? I just wanted to congratulate her for getting all her facts straight.

Good point

A City employee told me yesterday that he/she had overheard one of the managers making inquiries about purchasing a boat for Sand Island trips this summer. He/she was concerned that the City would be spending money on a boat when it's in financial despair. Good point.

I'm sure there will be justifications....it comes from Tourism money is the one that quickly comes to mind. The Arts & Cultural Commission just lost $12,000 of their funding (general fund) due to budget cuts. How is Tourism funded?

Thanks due

Thanks are due to Chad Olsen, City Administrator in St. Helens, for his continued efforts to find solutions to the budget crisis.

Over several weeks of council indecision, Olsen presented ideas and made suggestions. The three options he brought to the table at Wednesday's special work session finally "took" and the council agreed by consensus to use one of them as a first step to bringing the budget into balance.

The chamber was nearly full with visitors, several of them employees. The agreed upon path avoids any immediate staff layoffs (for weeks, at least four people have been concerned about losing their jobs by the end of the year) and calls for "everything on the table" when the budget committee convenes in January to start work on the FY 2009-10 budget.

The decision was a good one and the work ahead will be difficult, but I don't think we'd have gotten to this point (finally) without Chad's efforts.

So, thank you, Chad.

So, the City Administrator had a meeting with the union represented employees today to discuss the City's financial situation. Somehow, between the Tuesday work session and today's meeting with employees, things have changed again.

Several of us left the Tuesday work session believing the decision had been made to accept all cuts put on the table by the departments a couple of weeks back in work session, except for the cuts to personnel in the Police Dept.

In today's meeting, employees were told that everything is back on the table. I understand that to mean staff, too. And, not just PD staff.

Is there no communication in this place? And, how long will employees be left hanging out to dry? What happened between Tuesday afternoon and Thursday afternoon? And, where did it happen? Behind closed doors?

No one seems to know the answers, but the decision to convene a special Council work session on Wednesday, December 10, at 4:00 p.m. leads some of us to believe it could be important to be in attendance. Maybe a show of faces--employees and citizens--will get these guys off the dime. Time for some decisions.

I suggest we all be there if we can. Pet projects (whine, whine, I know) need to be set aside and the good of the City as a whole needs to take precidence. Essential staff is just that: essential.

Maybe they should just "can" the Judge since earlier this year they seemed to think they could do her job better (and less expensively) than she does. And, maybe they can terminate some of the more frivolous staff positions while they're at it.

Maybe we just need a big, bad case of employee flu to see just how well the City runs without staff. It's a fair bet that SH would do better without three of the existing councilmen than wihtout existing staff. (I'd say four of the councilmen but Charles Grant has just flown the coop--sore loser or did he just never care?? Nice time to bail, Chas.)

One thing, for sure, I'm very curious as to what the delay is. They seem to all have acknowledged on Tuesday that they were finally aware there is a problem with the budget; how long do they think they can delay making some decisions?

And, lastly, just to stick a thorn in the sides of the three "pet project boys" I am sorely tempted to transcribe the minutes of the May 27 joint meeting between the City Council and the Budget Committee where Marilyn Peterson clearly stated the $1.2 million issue, and some Budget Committee members clearly indicated their understanding of the issues and asked the council to step up.

Maybe I'll send copies of the transcribed joint meeting minutes to Locke, Barlow, and Morten, and for good measure, to the Spotlight as well. Enough people in St. Helens will be struggling this holiday season, why shouldn't these guys feel a little discomfort as well?

Take your fingers out of your ears, Councilors!

I continue to be amazed that I keep hearing some of the councilors talk about not knowing anything about the potential budget woes before Marilyn Peterson told them last work session. As late as yesterday's work session, Phil still acted as if it was some huge conspiracy....that everyone knew about the budget issues except him...like people kept the information from him. I guess have to forgive them for being so upset over the recall statements.......if you can believe them, they actually didn't know!

I'm confused as to how that is possible. Marilyn told admin staff last Spring. Chad seems to think it was discussed with councilors last spring, and yet they are still whining about not knowing. Hence the title of this post.

I thought several comments were entertaining in yesterday's work session. Phil said he felt he was being "screwed" and called it a "big screw." I think he was referring to the fact that he'd not been told about the budget problems and had to read about them in the paper. (Assume he's referring to the quotes from Marilyn Peterson in the paper about the urgent need to address the budget shortfall. I think that indicates he can read, so why didn't he read his materials last Spring?)

Phil was also pretty direct, too, about saying staff needs to be cut. I wanted to jump up and suggest he and the others cut their self-awarded pay increases, work session snacks, and any other perks they've got before he said another word about cutting staff. But, I limited my show of disgust to a few eye rolls.

Fortunately, the way things played out, there will be cuts to expenses but not to staff this time around. However, it was made clear....well, let's say that I heard it: come next budget cycle (for fiscal year 2009-2010) everything is on the table. That means staff, too. The current plan is to let attrition work its wonders, but at least one manager at City Hall says that staff cuts were promised, even if it wasn't actually said in yesterday's meeting.

On a silly note, I made coffee this afternoon for the council meeting tonight and told the folks I work with that I spit in it. No one believed me, of course, but one person actually gave me a high-five for it and said it was about time! And, no, I didn't really do it. These guys have enough problems without my spit in their coffee!!

You tell 'em, Marilyn! But, don't expect that they will listen or hear....

St. Helens faces budget crunch

City's finance director tells council 'act now' or risk running out of cash reserves
By Kelly Moyer

The South County Spotlight, Nov 26, 2008, Updated Nov 26, 2008

Faced with expenditures that outweigh revenues by roughly $1.2 million a year, the city of St. Helens is rapidly blowing through its cash reserves.
Now the City Council must decide whether they want to cut $500,000 from the budget today to avoid major cuts in the future.

“Every month that goes by is going to make it even worse,” says St. Helens Finance Director Marilyn Peterson of the city’s increasingly critical financial situation. “The city needs to act now or we will have spent through all our cash reserves by 2010.”

City councilors aren’t so convinced. Last month they asked the city’s department heads to put together a scenario of what cuts they would need to make to reduce the city’s expenditures by 10 percent.

Last week, those department heads presented some very bleak scenarios to the council.
If the total budgetary cuts were to equal 10 percent, nearly $500,000, the city would likely have to cut $268,506 from the police department; $94,220 from city administration; $73,046 from the library; and $60,000 from the park department.
That’s equivalent to four police positions, one administrative position and one part-time library position.

“If they wait until next year, they’re going to have to cut $1.2 million,” Peterson says. “And they would lose numerous positions. The cuts, if they wait, are going to be significant.”

In the 10 percent reduction scenarios presented to council on Wednesday, Nov. 19, the city’s department heads tried to eliminate as much as they could before chopping positions. For instance, the police chief proposed cutting nearly $20,000 in materials, including $3,409.11 in gasoline and $2330.90 in equipment expenses, but still put four positions on the chopping block and said he would reduce overtime by $7,000.

The city administrators proposed doing away with the councilors’ pay, which would save $35,000, cutting the public art expense for a savings of $12,000 and not pursuing an urban renewal district, which would save $15,000. Even with those cuts, they would still need to cut a position (in this scenario, the economic development director) to meet the 10 percent reduction.

“I think they’ll need to pick and choose,” says Peterson. “They have safety issues and central services to consider, so they may choose to look at nonessential services like the library and parks.”

Skip Baker, the city’s head of economic development, says he thinks councilors may not have understood the full extent of the problem until after they adopted this year’s budget.

“There are a lot of different ways to be told you need to make cuts,” Baker says. “The council didn’t really understand how much they needed to adjust the budget until after it passed. That’s not to say that (Peterson) isn’t doing her job, because she is doing a good job, it’s just that not everything comes across in layman’s language sometimes.”

After the city’s manager, Chad Olsen, grasped the full extent of St. Helen’s financial troubles, Baker says, he sat down with Peterson to create a more understandable picture for the council. Last month, the mayor asked department heads to put together the 10 percent reduction scenarios to see what type of impact that might have on people and materials.

Baker says the situation hasn’t necessarily reached critical status yet, but agrees with Peterson that the city may be in for rough times if the council doesn’t act now.
“Once you run out of reserves you don’t have the ability to handle emergencies,” Baker says. “So you either make cuts now or you wait two years and have to make bigger cuts.”

Councilors said last week that they need more time to analyze the department heads’ scenarios and to explore other options, including looking at ways to increase the city’s revenues to better balance the financial outlook.

However, most city administrators, including Baker and Peterson are optimistic that the situation will improve in the next year or two.

“Clearly the problem is due to the economy,” Baker says. “Two years ago we weren’t going through these types of negative (numbers). We began to lose money last year as the economy slowed down. When interest rates went down we made less money from our interest, and as energy use goes down we make less money from our franchise fees.”
Peterson agrees.

“I don’t see anything that points to this getting any better,” she says of the city’s financial future. “In fact, this may get even uglier. The council should have made these decisions back in May. It’s only getting worse, so the faster they make these cuts, the easier it will be.”

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