I expected it, but still it’s a blow. Rolf Hechler and Amanda Forrister were returned by the people to the city commission, leaving the city’s current good-old-boy “leadership” largely intact.
A vote for either of them means the majority of voters believed Hechler’s and Forrister’s hype that they have and will continue to address the massive water, wastewater and electric infrastructure crises, just as their ads in the Sentinel said.
What they did in city meetings showed zero leadership, zero study of the issues, zero critical thinking. They didn’t make department heads report. They rubber-stamped whatever was put in front of them. They passed budgets that raided utility funds and deferred maintenance and repairs on utilities for years and years in order to pay for the golf course, the airport, the swimming pool, the parks and other nonessentials. Like Roman senators, they gave the people “circuses and bread” to distract them from the realities. They only stopped raiding utility funds because previous-city manager Bruce Swingle did so. Probably for the first time in the city’s history, the city commission approved (rubber-stamped) a budget last July that left utility-fund revenue in the respective utility’s coffer.
But with Swingle gone, Hechler and Forrister are already pursuing circuses. They recently ranked capital projects and among the top five is a $12-million swimming pool/recreation facility. Forrister showed support for a new police station at $4.5 million. Both supported the massive Ralph Edwards Park renovation that is still ongoing, which cost has never been reported. Both supported the “feasibility study” that will allow development across the river. The people will pay for a vehicular bridge that will carry water and wastewater pipes, expanding the failing systems.
Hechler, for years, has touted the spaceport as an economic savior. We’ve been waiting since 2006. It too is being paid for by the people in the form of gross receipts taxes at the local level and capital outlay funds at the state level. In addition, T or C citizens are paying about $30,000 a year to rent a space to provide a visitors’ center for the spaceport. It used to be located at the Lee Belle Johnson Center, but that is in a dismal state, its floor cleaving, with nothing being done about it for over two years. It used to be a community recreation center and meeting place for the people, but the spaceport and tourist trade was deemed more important. Now the people will have to pay big bucks to repair the building.
Expand the tax base through development and by attracting more tourists. That has been Hechler’s credo for years and years. Forrister hasn’t articulated this credo as well, but her votes confirm she agrees the city should be chasing development and tourism, which in turn will attract more people desiring to live and do business here, which will increase the tax base. Neither Hechler nor Forrister have shown much concern that the people are always asked to pay for these “build it and they will come” projects. I guess the people agree with them.
I don’t understand why the people didn’t notice that under Hechler and Forrister their property taxes doubled, their water rates went up 70 percent and their wastewater and trash collection went up about 30 percent in the last four years. Electric rates are set to go up too, unless they decide to sell the facility. Who knows how that “study” the people have paid for is progressing? Under Hechler and Forrister the evidence gathering and feasibility of a sale has remained a secret.
What I really don’t understand is how the people could return Forrister after she was caught red handed disobeying animal-control laws she had recently signed into law, animal cruelty among the charges. Instead of submitting to the charges, Forrister tried to get out of them, violating the Government Conduct Act by pressuring the chief of police to intercede on her behalf with the animal control officer. Using one’s government position to benefit oneself personally is illegal, but her fellow city commissioners had no problem with it.
Hechler, et al., also ignored Forrister’s flouting of animal control laws. Instead of holding her accountable, they helped her get out of the charges, approving a kennel license, the giving of which also violated city laws. Forrister didn’t have to show she had city dog tags or that her dogs had rabies vaccinations before receiving the kennel permit. The people paid about $20,000 for a special prosecuting attorney to drop the charges the morning of her trial, citing her “compliance” with the law, facilitated by her fellow commissioners.
I guess the majority of city voters don’t want to hold their city commissioners accountable and like them to be treated as if they are above the law.
That leaves Ingo Hoeppner as our only hope. I hope he is for the rule of law and accountability. I hope he isn’t going to join fellow city commissioners in rubber-stamping but tries to bring fact-finding and evidence-based decision making to the act of governing. I hope he at least requests that city department heads report regularly and in writing. I hope prospective capital projects are first discussed in depth before an engineering firm is mysteriously hired by unnamed city staffers for unknown reasons. I hope the current and slated $31 million in capital projects is reported on in depth and regularly in writing. I hope a master plan is written for dealing with the $200 million or so that is needed in water and wastewater repairs that also includes street repair costs. I hope a city planner/engineer is hired, or at least a water/wastewater engineer who can protect us from engineering firms which goals are to make money, not ensure the people’s hard-earned money is wisely spent. I hope property taxes and utility fees don’t skyrocket more than they have, or if they do, that the money is spent wisely and transparently.
For 200 million dollars you could probably just build a new town.
Sigh. Yes, it’s a sorry state of affairs- both for the city and the schools. I hope Ingo is up for the challenge. While I do understand the folly of putting mere frivolities over basic maintenance of infrastructure, I do want to put in a pitch for the swimming pool. That was one of the few amenities that the town offered to seniors (which comprise a large part of the population (not to mention the tax base) of the town. I don’t know if it justifies the $12 million expense you mentioned but I would suggest that if regular maintenance of the existing facilities had been funded that fancy new place would not have been needed. But taking care of the folks who live here has never been a priority. It’s always been the focus of bringing new, fancy, shiny projects to attract MORE folks here to not take care of, thereby enriching the entrenched movers and shakers, builders and bankers, pavers and constructers. Same as it ever was. Cash cow for the big kids and cow crap for the rest. So it goes.
The swimming pool used to be a free public hot springs facility. For some reason they turned it into a chlorinated swimming pool. As usual, a half-baked job. Then they had to pay to heat the pool, with the hot springs pipes right there.
I think the money wasted on this not-regulation sized pool in the hot springs district is the perfect example of the city’s lack of planning, lack of engineering, lack of understanding, lack of willing to understand. It should have been maintained as a hot springs pool and a real swimming pool built with the cooperation of the school district and maybe the Village and county and EB.
Within the last 4 years it took two years to fix a leak at the swimming pool that they knew about, and it was leaking about 33,000 gallons a day. It was an easy fix too.
This is the result of really bad city management. A leadership void at the top.