There have been some people that have questioned the city about budgets and such and alledged that the city has in some way mislead the people of Carl Junction about the money used to build the new facility that we will be moving into in the next week. I thought I might make a stab at answering some of these questions since I spent considerable time this week researching and familiarizing myself with the history of the events leading up to the vote on the bond issue.
1 - The bond issue language. Here is what was on the ballot.
Question NO.1
Shall the City of Carl Junction, Missouri, issue its general obligation bonds in the amount
of $4,135,000 for the purpose of constructing and equipping a new building to house the
city hall, a senior center and a community center and related improvements?
Question NO.2
Shall the City of Carl Junction, Missouri, issue its general obligation bonds in the amount
of $365,000 for the purpose of improving the streets of the City, including without limitation
Briarbrook Drive?
You will notice that neither of these questions says anything about a budget or that this is the amount that each will cost, just that the citizens were being asked to approve the issuance of bonds in these amounts. This was an extension of a previously approved GO Bond and these were the amounts that could be raised without asking for a tax increase. It had nothing to do with a budget. In fact a budget wasn't even decided on for at least 6 months or so after the approval of the bond issue. This is because it would have been a waste of taxpayer money to have been working on a building that we couldn't pay for without the bond issue being passed. This doesn't mean we didn't have some money to go toward this, just not enough. Anyone that insists this was the budget just doesn't understand the process or has refused to be part of the process along the way to see what was being done and just wants to criticize after the fact.
The fact is that 68.45% of the people that voted, voted in favor of Question 1. The fact is that 67.4% of the people that voted, voted in favor of Question 2. If there is anything at all to be upset about it would be the fact that only 681 people voted on the measure.
The ballot language had to cover the costs of building and equipping simply because had we been able to build the building for say $3,000,000 we would have not had the approval to use the bond money for equipping. To make the leap to this constituting a budget is just wrong.
2 - A Storm shelter was never mentioned in the ballot language. The only time this was ever even mentioned in anything that went out to the public was in a flyer from the Citizens For a Better Life. The city can't campaign for approval of the measure. Not that the city didn't or doesn't want one, that's just the way it happened. We did want to have one and still want to have one but it makes no sense to do that with local taxpayer money when we can do it with FEMA grants. There was no reason to hold off on the construction of the building when we were told it would take as much as a couple of years to get approval of the grant when we would not have been able to start on the rest of the building until that process was completed. There was also no pressing need to go forward with a storm shelter right this minute when we already have one at the Police department that holds up to 200 people and has not been utilized by more than a fraction of that number of people. The Chief of Police in a recent meeting said that no more than about 7 people have used this shelter. Is FEMA likely to grant money any time soon for a new shelter when the existing one isn't being used?
3 - There has been a lot of talk about doing an audit on the city. I have no problem with that whatsoever if that's what the people want. However, lets be clear on something. The city is already audited on an annual basis (that means every year). With that in mind what the people that want this are really saying is that they don't think the firm we use can add and subtract. Otherwise what's the point? All our accounting is done based on State and Federal law as well as advice from the company that does this annual audit. And if there is a problem with this company then please tell me why the City of Neosho just hired them for the audit of that city?
If these same people that constantly want to criticize about what the city is doing would spend that time and attention working with the city to make it a better place to live we would accomplish a lot more, and with their assistance probably accomplish it at a lower cost to the citizenry of Carl Junction. My real question is will these people be brave enough to step forward and be part of the planning process when we hold an open meeting on May 22nd at the new building, or will they be content to let others do the work for them then just wait for the opportunity to criticize from afar.
Comments (0)Subscribe to CommentsComment