Fiscal discipline in action on April 21st

One of our campaign's "Action Agenda" items was "fiscal responsibility." It was what political scientists call an "easy" issue to take a stand on, because there just aren't any voters out there who stand "against" fiscal responsibility in government.

Nonetheless, I had a nagging feeling that the Village budget had not been thoroughly scrutinized for years, because the Village was involved in so many different activities that had accumulated over the years, previous Boards never seemed to talk much about budget cuts, and yet few of those "in-the-know" could give me much insight into the machinations of the Village budget. Hmm.

Little did I know that fiscal responsibility would become my biggest concern during my first year in office. Three issues came up at our April 21 meeting that illustrate my concern.

The first was an admittedly minor $30,000 request from the Downtown Oak Park organization for the Village to help DTOP build an information kiosk on Marion Street. The problem with this request was that just four months ago during our budget hearings, DTOP had asked for this funding and the Board had said no, because we were trying everything we could to hold down expenditures. So here we were the other night with the same request being made, but this time outside of the context of the budget process. We turned it down on a 5-2 vote (Hale, Hedges, Pate, Johnson, Moore NO; Marsey, Pope YES).

The principle was fiscal discipline. There was no material change in the request from what it was in November, so there was no reason to break from our budget to all of the sudden fund the request now that the bright lights of the budget process had been turned off.

Next we had a situation with the Library. Back when the new library opened, the Village and the Library entered into an agreement for the Village to run the library parking garage. If parking revenue didn't meet expenses, the Village would bill the Library. If parking revenue exceeded expenses, then the Village would split the proceeds with the Library.

If you've read anything about our parking garages lately, you know that parking revenue never came close to meeting expenses, much less exceeding them. Yet it seems that the Village never bothered to bill the Library for the expense of running the garage (and the Library never bothered to ask about garage revenue and whether it was on the hook for anything). Until this year, when Village Manager Barwin, with our full approval, sent the Library its bill.

Shocked, the Library can't afford to pay four years of garage costs, so we're negotiating with the Library for it to pay one year of expenses for 2007 and have given it the responsibility of running its own garage going forward. Thus, it looks like we're going to write off about $250,000 in revenue owed the Village by the Library. Now you can argue that this is a wash for taxpayers, but it is not a professional way to manage the taxpayers' business, and partly as a result of these kinds of practices, the Village has no cash fund balance, which means nothing for emergencies and a potentially lower bond rating.

Finally, brick streets died a fairly quick death on April 21st. Don't get me started on brick streets! The last board funded four blocks of brick streets last year. This Board did the math and decided that brick streets may look great, but they are an exceedingly expensive beautification project that we simply cannot afford. The idea was for the half dozen or so blocks that get new water-sewer mains each year to be resurfaced with brick. The problem was that bricks add $128,000 PER BLOCK to the cost.

Proponents claimed that bricks are cheaper from a so-called "total lifecycle cost" perspective. Well, the break-even point is 100 years! I kid you not! And the total lifecycle cost analysis depends on the hope that a brick street will last 120 years -- not only the materials, but that the community will want to keep them that long rather than perhaps move towards some new, as-yet undeveloped and more sustainable road surface material. I guarantee you that brick will not be the road surface of choice as we move away from petroleum-based surfacing materials due to their cost, because firing and transporting bricks is costly, too, and not particularly environmentally sensitive.

On brick streets, the kiosk, and in our direction to the Village Manager on how to handle the library garage situation, I believe we made the right calls on April 21st, saved the taxpayers some money, and underscored the need for ongoing fiscal discipline in Village government.

One Year and Counting ...

Hard to believe that it's been a year since the Citizens for Progressive Action team was elected to the Oak Park Village Board, but I was reminded of that fact a week ago Thursday when a Wednesday Journal reporter called me while I was watching the first new episode of "The Office" since before the writer's strike (Thank God for DVRs) to ask how I thought our first year in office went.

It went fast.

So fast that I'm just now getting around to starting this blog.

The idea here is to highlight key issues and explain my perspectives on them so that readers have greater insight into what's happening in Village government and what it's like to be a Trustee. During the 2007 campaign I often said that as a Trustee, I would strive to make the kind of decisions that most reasonable citizens would make if they had access to the information and the time to study it that we as Trustees have. This blog is an effort to put readers into the Trustee's chair, so to speak, and I hope the result is a greater level of understanding of the issues facing our community.

Though I may play one on Channel 6, I am not a professional politician, so this blog will not consist solely of self-serving b.s. It will be frank and to the point, and won't pull any punches, but will always stick to the issues.

Your comments are welcome and will be posted if you want them to be, assuming I can figure out how to work the "comments" feature on the site.

Oh, by the way, you can read the WJ story about our first year in office here.