Have you ever heard of a town called Pella Iowa?
Me neither...
That is, until very recently when it was pointed out to me that Jim Twombly, the current city manager of Broken Arrow Ok, was previously the city manager of Pella Iowa.
Why is this important you might ask?
Good question. I’ll tell you why....
Jim Twombly served as the city manager between the years of 1994 and 2004. During this time he spent a lot of money to make himself look good.
Now, you may argue that the money was spent on the town, and the town benefited, so why say it was to make himself look good?
And, what the heck does this have to do with Broken Arrow?
I'm getting there, be patient, stay with me here.
During his 10 years in Pella his spending caused the debt to rise from 9.4 million in 1994, to 38.1 million in 2004. The highest per capita debt in their state!
Do the math for yourself.
Go ahead, I will wait.
Right, he more than quadrupled their debt!
Also, at the time of his resignation he stated that the amount of unrestricted cash in their city had increased by 11 million, when it in fact had decreased by 3.1 million! He also misrepresented the number of city employees they had at the time.(Read an article by the current Mayor of Pella here)
Why would he say such things? Seems to me that Mr Twombly was out for himself, and not so much for the people he served.
The connection to Broken Arrow?
I'm sure if you have been watching the news or reading local papers you are aware that the city is about to lay off employees. In fact employees have been given a date (the 25th of March) at which time they will be told if they are to be laid off and given a 60 day notice.(sounds generous and a bit unbelievable).
The lay off is due to the PROJECTED deficit, not an ACTUAL deficit.
A deficit based on the projections of the coming years.
Projections that I would imagine include spending Mr Twombly is planning.
Spending, like he has been doing already on things like a new logo, an unnecessary cost.
We know Mr Twombly already has some deficits of his own in the math department based on past behavior in Pella, one may look at that info and make some projections of their own.
Are we really going to make changes based on the numbers given by a man who cant seem to keep his facts straight?
Ask an employee of the city what numbers and projections they have been given. Then take a look at this article printed in the Broken Arrow Ledger. The numbers, once again, are not the same. Employees were told there was just under $1,000,000 in their emergency fund, and that The City would like to have $4,000,000. The ledger was told $2.4 million was in the emergency fund.
Really? The emergency fund gained $1.4 million within the same week?
Maybe Mr Twombly is dyslexic?
Nope, that cant be it, the numbers aren't even close enough for just an error in transcription.
Maybe Mr Twombly is trying to make himself look good again?
Maybe he is trying to make the employees believe that the situation is more dire than it already is?
But it isn't dire.
And, if it WAS dire, there are solutions that have been pointed out. Solutions they COULD implement, but they just WON'T.
So, the city manager, the one who just received a retroactive raise and an extra week paid vacation, is planning to disrupt employees and their family’s lives because he either has a problem with numbers, or is only out for himself.
Either way, past performance, and current discrepancies seem to indicate that Mr Twombly is not so trustworthy, or incapable of making sound decisions.
Should we have such a person in charge of tax dollars?
Making the final decisions on a budget that affect all of us?
Safety, recreation, jobs, and the future of families are all in this man’s hands.
So you might be thinking to yourself...
What about the other council members? Do they get a say?
They DO!
And YOU as their constituents are the ones they should be listening to. We should be rallying together to stop an economic crisis. Not the imagined economic crisis we are told we are in, but the very real one Mr Twombly is going to leave in his wake.
Let your council member know that you are relying on them to stop the imminent lay offs, and changes until the city manager's abilities are investigated further.
Why disrupt lives and lose valuable employees,
and as an indirect result valuable tax money that will be lost as those employees are not in a position to be buying anymore,
when we don’t even know which information is right?!
Call your council members,
email them,
stop them in the store,
and ask why!
Why is the city in crisis?
Why are we not looking at this man’s past history?
Why are we being lied to?
Request a copy of the city’s financial records. This is PUBLIC information that can be released on request.
Show up at the council meeting on the 17th and on the 24th to voice your concerns. Let the council members know you wont stand for being lied to. Remind council members that there is an election coming up on April 7th and that the people are who they answer to.
Just a note, while council members are responsible for certain areas of the city, any city resident can vote in the elections. It doesn't have to be your ward that is up for reelection.
Make yourself heard. We don’t need a city manager out for himself, we need a manager looking out for the best interest of ALL of the city’s residents and employees. This wont happen without some work!
Ask why we aren't looking into the discrepancies.
Ask for a hold on the imminent changes that will affect employees, and residents in general.
Ask what your council member plans to do about it.
City of Broken Arrow
City Manager
Jim Twombly
918-259-8419
jtwombly@brokenarrowok.gov
Assistant to the City Manager
Stephanie Higgins
918-259-2400, ext. 5429
shiggins@brokenarrowok.gov
Assistant City Manager
Dave Wooden
918-259-2400, ext. 5332
dwooden@brokenarrowok.gov
Finance Director
Tom Caldwell
918-259-2400, ext. 5411
tcaldwell@brokenarrowok.gov
City Clerk
Mary "Liza" Bryce
918-259-2400, ext. 5421
lbryce@brokenarrowok.gov
Council members
Mayor Wade McCaleb
918-693-4557
wmccaleb@brokenarrowok.gov
Vice Mayor Mike Lester
918-250-8111
mlester@brokenarrowok.gov
Richard Carter
918-857-1556
rcarter@brokenarrowok.gov
Craig Thurmond (term is up, and election April 2009)
918-294-0835
cthurmond@brokenarrowok.gov
Philip Tucker (term is up, and election in April 2009)
918-798-8176
ptucker@brokenarrowok.gov
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
First time here?
Visit the first post, "Why?", to learn a little more about your City Manager.
e-mail is welcomed
concernforba@yahoo.com
Blog Archive
Disclaimer
The information found on this blog is true to the best of my knowledge. All opinions expressed here, are just that, my opinion.
12 comments:
Great research!
I have a hard time understanding when during the month of February the city of Broken Arrow had a 200,000+ gain over last year in Sales Tax Revenue the city is still getting further in the red according to city leaders.
With 49 positions not being filled this should have created some savings also..??? Where is this money?
I encourge people to go to the Oklahoma Tax Commision Website and look at the sales tax checks the city has received over the last few years.. and compare those numbers. They continue to go up yet the city is getting further in the red and cutting back. Where is the money going?
Now the city administration, police administration and judge want to raise traffic fines and utilities to compensate for this deficit. They want to put the problem back onto the citizens of Broken Arrow. They want to raise the minimum traffic fine from $104 to $150 to match the City of Tulsa. That is ridiculous!! The MINUMU traffic fine for a moving violation will be $150. That is $150 for going 1-10 mph over the limit.
How about NOT spending money on changing the city logo. Leave the vehicle markings alone. Or if you do have the graphics changed...have city employees do it instead of paying an outside entity to do it. Layoff Keith Sterling. Doesn't each department have a public information officer anyway? What exactly is his job and how much money does he make????
If the citizens of Broken Arrow knew how many officer's the police department was short, they would be beating down Jim Twombly's door. We need more cops and firefighters, not a guy that is paid big bucks to stand in front of a camera a couple of times a month.
I say the citizens should get rid of them all and start over!!!
I have a hard time understanding how the City Manager can think it is more benefitial to buy land for 2.4 million dollars than to keep the employees the city has.
Can you clarify which piece of land are you referring to?
They are wanting to buy acreage around the Creek Turnpike and Aspen. The idea is to buy the land and split the bill with the turnpike authority for on and off ramps. Theory being that some big retail will go in. But wait, here's the kicker, the price tag is about 2.5 million! Hmmm, we have been told we are about 2.2 million short for the next year's budget! Someone do that math!
Assuming 2.2 miliion is the right number. How would anyone know what to believe at this point?!
If layoffs will help the city survive this "crisis" lets go for it!
But, as previously noted if the number of city employees laid off translates in to fewer dollars spent resulting in fewer tax dollars collected... maybe we should rethink the process.
What if we take the total savings of all those salaries and see if we can come up with that number by changing who gets laid off!
Let's start with the big money...
Layoff the City Manager first (if we are in a crisis do we need someone paid huge money to sit around and think up ways to make it worse?)
then the assistant city Manager (we don't need an assistant to a non-existent job do we?)and then any of their employees who's jobs do not directly change the level of city services we citizens actually need (like police and fire protection, garbage collection, etc).
Keep only the most critical employees at city hall, say a competent book keeper and a stalwart tax collector. Hold this position for the duration of the financial storm and then determine what other positions should be added as the budget improves!
And in the meantime elect only those council members that agree with this position.
Again, your average service city employee makes between $12,000 and $36,000 a year dependent on their duties and length of service. Most of those people are either the sole income for their families or are employed so they can make ends meet in their families. They are hard workers and dedicated to the city and to customer service for the citizens of BA. How many cities the size of BA have a public infomation officer, a director of tourism, a government liason, an assistant city manager, an event planner, and manager after manager in even the smaller departments. If layoffs are eminent shouldn't the fluff be eliminated or the employees offered salary concessions before going after the actual worker bees of the city? Just wondering....
One way to save jobs and cut spending is get rid of the free trash bags. Yes, its a nice idea but I would rather buy my own trash bags if I knew someone got laid off because the city spent money needlessly on this perk. I am pretty sure it's in the hundreds of thousands to buy those trash bags. How many salaries could be paid for a year with that? Quite a few I imagine.
Actually the total for the purchase of the trash bags is $285,000. This does not include the over 1,000 man hours it takes to distribute the bags at a cost of approximately $14.50 an hour. Rounding out at just over $300,000 per year for this "service", at an average rate of approximately $30,000 per year for your typical service worker, you just saved ten (10), count 'em, ten jobs!!
I have heard that the actual price that they are looking to change the tickets to is around $159.00
Post a Comment