The Day the Transparency Died...in Davidson

"I’d like to emphasize that once we have a clear plan in place, we will communicate to our citizens via multiple methods, to ensure they are aware of our plans."

Those are the words of our town's Public Information Officer, Christina Shaul, regarding the $6.3 million Capital Improvement Program which passed unanimously Tuesday night. (The actual long-term number will be even higher as the Town still didn't include over $2 million for a new fire station.) Ms Shaul's comment was in an email I received back on October 22nd - plenty of time to get the word out about how much money the Town would spend prior to the vote.

Here is the agenda item for the CIP from the Town Board meeting where it was passed. The below was posted up through late Tuesday morning without even the attachment of the details. The link now has the attachment - added just hours prior to the meeting.

Normally, agenda items have a detailed summary. Normally, there are attachments giving the details. Normally, this information is available to the public before the meeting.

Normally, local governments possess a sense of obligation to keep their citizens informed about important decisions.

The Town has spent considerable time and expense upgrading it's communications infrastructure in the past few years. However, this infrastructure was not used to distribute detailed information for this most expensive decision since the Mi-Connection purchase. Not an email blast, not a Facebook post, not a Twitter tweet on the final details or cost. There was not a public hearing. There was not a PSA over the Town's phone messaging system.

There were 50+ emails from the Town over the past three months. Dozens of Facebook posts and Tweets sent. Not a single one of them was dedicated to giving the public any details about the financial impacts of this decision or the assumptions behind it.

Now, here's the truly sad part.

After last year's election cycle where transparency was a campaign issue, one would have hoped the Town and elected officials would do better to see that this type of thing does not happen. Several candidates who are now elected officials even stated their support for putting large expenditures to a vote of the public. While the CIP does not require a public vote, the level of spending is significant. One would have hoped it might have reminded those officials that clear communication to the public about spending has an impact on public trust in government.

Those hopes were dashed Tuesday night.

Davidson CIP Discussion Winds Down to December Vote

Tuesday, the Davidson Board will finalize discussions on millions in proposed new spending - $6.5 million to be exact. See details here.  This is all leading up to what will likely be a unanimous vote, in true Davidson style, in favor of opening the spending fire hose at the December meeting.

Due to previous commitments I won't be able to make this one.  However, in what is sure to be an exciting and well attended public meeting (sarcasm intended), here are some things you likely won't hear if you happen to be there.

You won't hear a single commissioner question the assumption that this spending plan requires the tax rate remain at its current artificially high rate as Mi-Connection subsidies are project to decline.  No tax relief is likely even in the event Mi-Connection improves.

You won't hear a single commissioner question the need for spending to increase Public Works to "Level B" service even when the latest, highly touted Community Survey shows Davidson residents are happy with the current service level.  Instead, the Town will continue to polish the apple.

You won't hear a single commissioner question if there is a fallback plan once commitments are made in the early years of the CIP if Mi-Connection does not continue to show improvement or the other revenue projections don't pan out.  Only time will tell if the economy improves and if the company's string of missed projections will be broken.

If this turns badly down the road, it's what you won't hear tomorrow which will be the reasons why.

Bonus Observation: Tomorrow also will see Commissioner's reports on their assigned special interestes.  Listen for Mayor Woods to provide an update on the Red Line and the discussions with Norfolk Southern on the proposed feasibility study.  How this study proceeds will determine the project's fate.

Davidson "Needs" list to pass tomorrow...

The Davidson Town Board will vote Tuesday to approve $223k in "needs". 

Only $55k of the $223k that will be approved Tuesday are in fact needs by most commonly accepted definitions of the word.  $40k goes to immediate public safety needs for police and fire equipment.  An additional $15k is for needed computer equipment.  Public safety is the primary responsibility of government and the computers are required to actually run the government.  Those are needs.

Also considered "needs":

1. $10,000 for greenway easement acquisition when during the last public discussion on the subject there was no project underway 'need'ing anything.  However, based on those discussions this one will likely turn into an annual payment.

2. $1,200 for the Red Line trail - not the Red Line train - the Red Line trail - a planned bikeway roughly paralleling the proposed Red Line train.  At the last presentation on this project, the usage of the trail was based on the existence of the train which is at best many, many years off.  Tomorrow it will qualify as a "need".

3. $5,500 for a Town newsletter.  While potentially useful, the town has numerous other mechanisms to distribute this information including email, twitter, facebook, posting it on the website and using the Town phone broadcast to drive traffic.

4. $8,000 for a grant match for a "pedestrian plan".  How about spending that money on fixing more sidewalks?  Considering there were dozens of projects around town that need that money when Public Works made its presentation that would seem like a better "pedestrian plan".

5. $50,000 for updated Parks and Rec and Community Wellness Master Plan - The reason this is designated a "need" is that when applying for grants a more current plan is needed in addition to additional matching funds.  The Town is spending money as a "need" so that it can apply for more projects to spend more money.

6. $4,380 for audio visual aids for Town Hall.  iPads are simply not enough.

7. $33,000 for bathrooms at Ada Jenkins gym to allow for more Town use.  See number #4 about the sidewalks.

8. $40,000 for a public safety staffing study.  The travesty here is that it was relegated to the unfunded needs list when the Town was finalizing it's budget a few short months ago.  Back in June the Town funded a $75,000 re-write of its planning ordinance.  That made the cut but ensuring public safety runs efficiently did not.

It's about priorities, and "wants" rather than "needs" would be a better description for most of tomorrow's list.

Update: After months of discussion when it came time to voter on the first of multiple spending plans, there was no discussion.  No questions asked.  The $223k in "needs" passed unanimously.

Davidson CIP answers coming in...decision should be delayed until data is complete.

Here are some answers to yesterday's questions.  Thanks to the Town Staff for responding quickly.  The below is compiled from direct answers from the Town as well as other bits of information available. 

Questions for Tonight's Commissioners Chat

The below email was sent to the Town for tonight's chat.  This may be the only time there is a public forum for people to speak on the proposed millions in CIP spending.  Hopefully, the public will be provided this information before any votes occur...



From: Rick Short <rick_clt@yahoo.com>
To: "townboard@townofdavidson.org" <townboard@townofdavidson.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2012 6:51 AM
Subject: Questions for tonight's chat...

Members of the Board and Staff,

 

Do you think answers will be available to the below at tonight's chat? In light of the good news from MiC I'm hopeful some of these can now be answered before you decide to go forward. In my opinion, these are questions the Board should answer for the public before voting on the CIP. Without answers to these it is very difficult for citizens to have the necessary parameters to judge the impact of the CIP decision.

 

1. How much debt is Davidson willing to owe Mooresville as part of this spending plan? What is the expected debt for the current fiscal year and is this based on the new 30% ownership level?

 

2. What are the growth projections and timelines provided and supported by Mi-Connection management which will result in lower annual subsidies from Davidson? Based on the MiC presentation last week, these should be available.

 

3. Based on the combined proposed spending and the debt payoff to Mooresville, when can Davidson citizens possibly expect to see any lowering of tax rates and/or fees which have been kept artificially high due to the years of Mi-Connection subsidies? If the answer is “never” or “we don’t know”, that’s fine. However, the public has expected all along that some relief would be coming when the subsidies were lowered.

 

4. What is the total cost of the proposed new personnel extrapolated out for the life of this spending plan? Specifically, I’m interested in the plans to move from a level C to level B service for Public Works and the costs to operate the proposed new fire station.

 

5. If the Red Line goes forward, will the Board commit to requiring the Red Line pay for whatever costs are not covered by the federal grant for the proposed Beaty St corridor project within the CIP? If not, why not? The Red Line project plans published to date indicate roughly $1.3 million for this same corridor. Not requiring this payment as a precondition for Town approval of the Red Line will effectively be leaving a portion of this money on the table.

 

I've asked some of these questions over the past few weeks, but the answers were not certain. I'm hoping they can be made public before you vote.

 

Thanks,

 

Rick Short

 

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