More Microphone Drama

I guess the administration is transparent after all. Everyone can see right through what they are doing with the microphone/recording agenda. While trying to paint the picture of being good stewards of our money, they begin to paint themselves into a corner. Please stay with this. It is an important example of how administration operates when they don’t like something and don’t want your public opinion.

Taken directly from last night’s meeting:

Me: The high school is creating a video production studio. Have you considered reaching out for collaboration?

Mayor: It’s possible. Let’s get the first piece in place.

League of Women Voters: …wants to understand why the check had to be re-deposited.

Renee Mahoney: The problem was with the first part of the process and only 1 vendor.

LWV: That’s the vendor council gave us and we didn’t make any restrictions as to the vendor.

RM: Unfortunately I wasn’t included in all of this but I will be the meanie here saying we have to have at least 2 if not 3 vendors. (Technically it is not a have to and this is the first I am hearing of a third vendor)

Some conversation occurs to establish where the estimates for equipment are now – around $16,000, give or take.

LWV: We made no restrictions in terms of vendor or specifics except that it covers both rooms and the recordings be made available to the public and it be maintained. Everyone on council agreed.

RM: I thought your goal was to get the audio on the website. I was able to do that for free after I became aware of it.

LWV: The recordings are barely audible and it doesn’t give Joan additional tools.

RM: We do have additional tools that Joan and I are going to look at.

LWV: We can put our money somewhere else.

Dave Tadych: I personally want the league’s money.

Discussion occurs about the committee room being wired, the ability to flip a switch and turn microphones off for private meetings. There are ways around hardwiring that room. The League’s goal is to have all public meetings recorded and public meetings take place in that room during the day.

Paul Koomar: If we have the vendor estimate, can we accept the donation next week?

RM: I don’t think I’m ready.

PK: I know you’re not ready. It’s a significant donation.

RM: I’m not quite sure this is the optimal solution for the league’s money. Perhaps we don’t need such an expensive microphone, maybe…

PK: We were looking at this for other purposes. Have you ever been to a Planning Commission meeting? RM: No. PK: Ok, sometimes it is really hard for people to hear, when the room is filled we can’t hear and we have very important issues. This is more than just council meetings.

Karen Lieske: My concern is that if we don’t do something next week with the recess then we are talking two months passing then we are into September and nothing has happened.

RM: We are also talking about $6,000 from the city budget that I was not planning on. So I don’t know where we are going to get the money from. That’s my problem. It wasn’t in the budget process last fall. I was assuming the whole budget was being funded by outside vendors. We did not have $18,000 set aside. It was noted in the capital budget.

Steve Lee: That sounds like something council can fix.

PK: Every year all year long we have supplemental appropriations and you want to stand here and tell us you can’t find $6,000?

SL: We saved a substantial amount on the sewer truck.  I don’t know why we’re wasting our time on this. It’s ridiculous. This should have been done a long time ago.

PK: …retool service department. There’s plenty of money for it. We don’t buy that.

RM: I can’t go to an auditor and say here’s one vendor.

PK: I understand that. Get another quote.

Tom Henderson: You’ve mentioned RFP twice tonight and in the past. I want to understand who is going to make the final decision about what is going to get purchased and installed.

DS: Normally if we go after an RFP it’s a bigger project. So we will have to come back to council. We are trying to do this as cost efficiently as possible and we can’t do this without a second quote. And - maybe a third quote.

Paul Vincent: A member of the community made a statement about fiber optics and not having two vendors.

RM: Oh we did.

Audience: Do we look for 3 vendors no matter the project?

DS: No, we started during the height of the recession anything over $250 I wanted 2 vendors so we relaxed off that a little bit and we’re at $1,000.

RM: It depends on what it is but at $15,000 I absolutely would get more than one.

Audience: So, as a rule are we saying $1,000?

DS: We’re running about that now, again it depends on what it is…

Me: So, the figure is arbitrary. There is no ordinance. I was at those fiber optic meetings and you did not have 2 quotes. You originally had 1. And as I recall you didn’t want to get a second one because Ruth had worked so hard on the first - until Mr. Koomar insisted that you get a second quote. Only then you went back and got the second quote. The story was then that anything under $50,000 did not need more than 1 quote. Now we’ve got another project…RM: (begins to say no) I continue: Oh yes yes yes and it’s different and you’re throwing out “$250” –“$1,000” – “depending on the project”. I think we need something better than that since it shouldn’t depend on the project.

The Mayor goes on to explain that the $50,000 has nothing to do with the quotes. But hey, I got that information from Renee during the fiber optic meetings when she was specifically asked why we had only 1 quote.

Dave Tadych comments: “I’d like to maintain that Joan gets some help.” I couldn’t tell if it was Renee or Debbie that said: “Oh now you’re adding a whole other component.” Getting voice transcription tools for Clerk of Council is not another component or a new idea in this process. Of course if they want to find another reason to slow the process as much as possible, they can pretend they didn’t know about this.

As for that second quote – they are waiting on it. Since Renee and the Mayor both mentioned the possibility of a third quote - that tells me they haven’t even contacted a third vendor yet. Time to contact him, time to set up a meeting, time for them to get back to us with that quote. Wasted time.

Speaking only for myself, I resent being handled in this manner.