Yesterday’s Bay City Council finance workshop was horrifying on two levels in fact folks. I put the workshop out on Twitter yesterday via my smartphone while Dwayne and Jennifer took pages of copious notes old school style. The long and short of it is the City is broke and has been broke for several months. Now the Mayor is pitching a new plan to refinance the City’s debt just weeks after telling Dwayne that City finances were groovy. The plan hizzoner is pushing will plunge the City deeper into debt to paper over the accumulated deficit the City has been financing off the back of its trade vendors and claims docket.
Accounting, legal compliance and related financial concepts are arcane, sometimes mind numbingly so thus I get a charge when audit presentations are recounted by the print media. I’ll be back with a detailed post on this exact topic but first here are the takeaways from the other two media organizations in attendance on this issue of vital public interest:
Bay eyes audit; tax hike may be near ~ Dwayne Bremer
Bay St. Louis council passes measure supporting LGBT residents ~ Jennifer Lenain
No word in either story on whether the City Council authorized the Mayor to begin discussion with Butler Snow to begin the bond refinancing process as proposed by Mayor Fillingame. In fairness to the Echo, Dwayne was fighting deadline issues. The Sun Herald is not in the game.
Doug,
The swing vote was Reed, Ward III, for the 3.2 million the Mayor now wants to strap on the backs of the taxpayers in Bay St. Louis for the next 10 ( yes, you read right) years. The bait was sidewalks and street lights on Old Spanish Trail which will include Ward III. I don’t know if there was any ice in the Kool Aid that Seal, McDonald, Compretta, and Reed were sipping, but Boudin, Favre, and Falgout weren’t having any. The first four mentioned may enjoy, along with Fillingame and Kolf, a short lived high, but the other three will have clear consciences and no hangover.
The filibuster by Fillingame which the Council President allowed was rediculous. The agenda stated that the Auditor was the only speaker, but McDonald allowed the Mayor to cut in to over an hour of the time the Council could have discussed the finances with the auditing firm. If we could bag Fillingame, he would put Miracle Grow, Scott’s, Osmocote, and all the others out of the fertilizer business.
My favorite quote of the night from the Mayor was when the Auditor informed him and the council that the purchase of the latest fire truck was illegal, his reply was “Well, in my mind it was done correctly.”
That’s it. It’s like an oncologist informing a patient that he has discovered where his cancer originated in his body. The financial and legal problems in the Bay originate in Hizzona’s mind. That statement stayed with me. It was profound. He appears to think that there is a different set of rules for him. “Well, in my mind it was done correctly.” Think about it.