City News: Right on Time
Just as expected, the November city news is here remarkably early in the month -- you can download it now from the city website. As I predicted yesterday in a comment thread, it includes a healthy dose of taxpayer-funded campaign literature for Rebecca Cave.
Councilmember Erik Hjelle devotes his column (page 3) to reinforcing Cave's message from the previous issue, and attacking councilmember/candidate Rossbach. Unlike many columns attributed to Erik over the past two years, this one really does have the genuine feel of his writing. (The only time he uses the word "wonderful" is in quotation marks, with sarcasm. That's what real Hjelle writing is like!)
City Manager Greg Copeland devotes a full page to misrepresenting the financial and personnel impact of the 2007 budget. He trumpets a "million dollars in savings" in a budget that included a 10.2% tax levy increase, demonstrating as he has so often before his difficulty mastering the basics of mathematics. (Apparently the old "$700,000 in savings" number that he used to spout was deemed insufficiently grand, so now he is adding in the salaries of the dispatchers and their managers who transitioned to Ramsey County's payroll as part of the 800 MHz emergency communications changeover.)
Check it out, if you have the stomach for it.
Councilmember Erik Hjelle devotes his column (page 3) to reinforcing Cave's message from the previous issue, and attacking councilmember/candidate Rossbach. Unlike many columns attributed to Erik over the past two years, this one really does have the genuine feel of his writing. (The only time he uses the word "wonderful" is in quotation marks, with sarcasm. That's what real Hjelle writing is like!)
City Manager Greg Copeland devotes a full page to misrepresenting the financial and personnel impact of the 2007 budget. He trumpets a "million dollars in savings" in a budget that included a 10.2% tax levy increase, demonstrating as he has so often before his difficulty mastering the basics of mathematics. (Apparently the old "$700,000 in savings" number that he used to spout was deemed insufficiently grand, so now he is adding in the salaries of the dispatchers and their managers who transitioned to Ramsey County's payroll as part of the 800 MHz emergency communications changeover.)
Check it out, if you have the stomach for it.
posted by Frostbrand @ 8:43 AM
5 Comments:
At 9:25 AM,
Anonymous said…
What scares/bothers me the most is how brazen these people are. They have no interest whatsoever in finding common ground. Some of their ideas have been good ones but the way they've gone about implementing them leaves a lot to be desired. They just bully them through without even trying to build consensus. Hopefully, Tuesday will put an end to their reign. I just wonder what they will try to get through in the 2 months remaining?
At 10:29 AM,
Anonymous said…
What scares me is the City Manager, did you know if you drop the second a from manager it becomes manger - mm more apporpriate for Greg, says we saved $1,000,000 yet asked for a tax increase last year that should have given the City another $1,000,000, if my math is right. That is $2,000,000 - what the heck did the City Manger spend $2,000,000 on or do we now have a $2,000,000 slush fund. It should also be noted that the three say how much they support a Parks Program yet on the budget cuts over $328,526 were cut in Parks. He then says three people who left sued and settlements were reached. Maybe that is what happened to all of the money that the City saved.
At 12:58 PM,
Anonymous said…
Why would a candidate for city council list under the space for "district" list the school district rather than her election district?
At 1:08 PM,
LookingNorth said…
Frosty:
Wow! The newsletter is stunning.
I think we now know why the Big Boy is having trouble getting the info requests out the door in a timely fashion. He seems to be spending an inordinate amount of time getting that newsletter to press in time for Tuesday's debacle.
Did you really expect them to suddenly do an about face? (Note the sarcasm oozing from my keyboard.) I think not! This is just a continuation of the same M.O. Beat the crap out of the "opponent" (never mind the fact that we are all neighbors, not people on either side of some war), then take credit for what "the other side" did before we even arrived. Hjelle is loving the beating he is trying to put on Rossbach. It's sad. And Big Boy Copeland just can't take credit for those 911ers. They were technically gone before he even came on the scene. It certainly wasn't his brilliance that removed their salaries from the city payroll.
And speaking of math...Let's just assume that he can count the 991ers in his funny little accounting game. Did he forget to count the fees that we pay to the county for the 911 services?
Tuesday can't come soon enough!
At 9:15 AM,
Frostbrand said…
The answer is no, LookingNorth; he takes credit for the savings of employees transferred to Ramsey County, but no costs that the city or taxpayers continue to incur for their continuing salary and benefits.
I guess this is a variation on his response about the lawsuit settlements, where he claimed that not one dime of taxpayer money is used to pay off the legal bills and settlement expenses.
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