My Side of the Fence

There’s a meeting of the Ad-hoc fire and rescue meeting tomorrow night.  5:30 in the second floor conference room.

Interesting article over at the MJM site on the need for a new fire truck.  The discussion that follows the article is pretty interesting and I gotta tell you that the way things work in that department is just worlds different than what most folks are used to.  First of all, everything is hideously expensive.  In this particular example, we’re applying for a grant that would pay for 90% of the cost of a new tower.  Our tower is 15 years old.  Yes, we have saved some money towards new equipment but Why wouldn’t we apply?

!! Inside baseball warning !! What follows get at least a little dry…. 

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The family went to the Episcopal church retreat up in the mountains last weekend.  It’s called Shrine Mont and it is near Bryce.  The church we attend here locally doesn’t go but my Mother in Law’s church from Richmond goes every year so we hitch hike along with them.  It’s beautiful up there and up for a trip to the mountains most anytime.

I didn’t take my bike but I did meet a guy there who rides essentially everywhere.  He rode his bike from Mechanicsville all the way to Bryce.  That’s a long way baby.  He’s been hit by cars 4 times - once very seriously - but he won’t give up.It’s also a very unique experience b/c the church is an open air affair built of stone and it’s right up in the woods.

Well, the budget was approved some time ago but now we’re starting on the year end carryover process.  The City will have to “carryover” money from one budget year to another when a project isn’t completed by the end of the fiscal year.  This isn’t unusual -not all projects start at the same time or when they get started late we have to carryover their budget items.

The spending is normally planned but many times budgetary savings or excess revenue in the budget will be recommended by staff or Council at year end to get certain one time things done.  The carryover meetings are not normally divisive but, like most things, that spending is recieving much more scrutiny this year so it’s taking a fair amount of time….
Honestly, I’m tired.  I hope Council business settles down somewhat over the next month or so.  I’ve got to spend more time at work and with the family.

Congratulations to Mrs. Bass who was appointed last night as our newest Council member.  She will be sworn in on Wednesday evening.  I’ve only been involved in two of these proceedings but I thought that this group was a pretty qualified bunch.  Thanks to everyone who stepped forward for consideration!  I would encourage all to continue their involvement with the City.  Also, assuming that everything goes as planned, there will be an opening on the School Board in the near future and we need good people for that too!

So, I’ve been doing spin classes over at the Freedom center for about a year and now I’ve switched (during nice weather) to actual bike riding.  I’m trying to train up to do a couple of charity events.  The longest of these is 180 miles over 2 days.

My biggest challenge will be to drop some more weight.  As one of my friends says: there isn’t much point in paying for thousands of dollars to save weight on the bike when there are weight savings to be had for free!  I appreciate his tact but he’s right: there’s too much of me to really worry about saving a couple of pounds or ounces on the bike side!  I’m changing my diet to drop some fat.  It isn’t too tough to do.  I lost about 60lbs during a summer 8 years ago when the doc told me I was a diabetic.  This is less weight and should be simple.

The other cool thing is an app I found for the iPhone called “the bike”.  It tracks your route, speed, distance, etc via gps and then uploads it to a website that overlays your track on Google Earth.  Here’s a link to my airport ride.   It isn’t real long but I wanted to try it out on a short ride before I came to depend on it.

It’s official:  I’ve spent too much time on City Council stuff in the recent past.  I had a dream last night that the candidates for the City Council appointment were lined up outside my house.  I’m guessing they were waiting to come in and talk to me.  None were actually in the house but as I looked out the front door, the line of people appeared to be quite long - I would estimate 50 or so…..

I think I need a break…:)

The first group of candidates for the City Council appointment were up tonight.  During the raging thunderstorm, I was pretty blown away by the folks that presented tonight.  I knew some better than others but I thought all did very well.  The Mayor is exactly right, each of those candidates has qualities that would make each a good Council member.

I keep an open mind going into these proceedings - you never know what’s going to happen - so I’ll write another short post tomorrow night if I remember!

Update:  I apologize to those that posted but I didn’t mean to leave comments on for this post.  I think it a bit hinky to have an unedited discussion on my blog of the applicants even if it’s all positive….could be just me!

I don’t usually do this but let me start off by stressing that this is my opinion only.   If you don’t like something here, take it out on me: these are my thoughts and mine alone.

When we started the budget last year (Fall 2009), the City Manager told me, “next years budget will be worse”.  I thought he was nuts - we had just laid off a bunch of people, closed Parks and Rec and cut millions from the budget.  I took a lot of that pretty personal.  I knew many of those we laid off and finding a job in this environment can be a challenge.

Unfortunately, I now believe that the Manager might be right - the next budget could be worse and here’s why:

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Ribbon cutting for Battle Street today at 4:00.  Finance tonight at 5:30 and…

There will a drawing (out of a hat no less!) for the order in which the candidates for the City Council appointment will go.  That will be tonight right before finance in the Council Chambers.

Steve Randolph, posts the following in a different thread:

“Off this topic, but went by the city clerk’s office late this afternoon
and ten people had handed in applications to be considered for
the open council seat (today is the deadline).
They are (in no special order):

- Julie Cochran
- Sanford Williams
- Robyn Williams
- Robert Schipp
- Audrey Sensale
- Dora Brooks
- Sheryl Bass
- Bruce Gross
- Dave Core
- John Myers

The Citizens of Manassas are fortunate to have these
individuals offer their services to our community.

The public hearing for candidates to present their statements
of interest and be interviewed is set for June 3rd, and the
Mayor may continue it to June 4th if needed. The appontment
is slated to be made June 8th and the swearing in June 10th.”

One of my favorite bands over the last few years has been Green Day.   American Idiot was  a pretty incredible album and their newest effort,  21st Century Breakdown, is not bad either.  Green Day is normally referred to as a “Punk” band and while this was true for albums like “Warning”, American Idiot and now 21st Century Breakdown both solidly cement their transition to a more mainstream pop/rock genre.

I’m not a high-falutin music critic but I do like this album - there is enough “fight the man” in this album that it still moves me to hate the status quo.  Fighting the status quo -trying to make things better - is why I ran for office in the first place and if I run again it will be the main reason why.  It’s always up to those with real talent to motivate the dullards like me to try something different…:)
This album has just enough of that stuff in it to stir the darker demons that hide in the corners of your soul….try it.

Well, the garden is off to a rough start.  We got our plants at Southern States and those plants were in the “peat pots”.  Last year, the plants were in the plastic pots and we just pulled them out and planted them.  With peat pots you’re supposed to tear off the bottom of them and then plant them. 

I guess the idea is that the pot will just disintegrate in the ground but the water doesn’t seem to move through the peat pot very well.  The plant will dry out if the water isn’t placed directly in the top of the pot.  Next year I’m either going back to the plastic pots or, I’ll just tear the peat pot off.

The peas were off to a roaring start but a rabbit seems to have come by and eaten the tops off of them.  I was hoping that we wouldn’t have to use the fence again this year but it is going back up tomorrow!!

We had the first meeting of the Mayor’s Ad-Hoc Fire and Rescue committee Tuesday out at the Airport.  It was at the Airport because all of the conference rooms at City Hall were booked.  First a little bit about the issue at hand:  the City last year created a new Fire and Rescue Department headed by a career Chief.  That department works with the volunteers to provide Fire and Rescue services for our citizens.  As one might imagine, these 3 departments work together very closely on a daily basis and collaborate on somewhat longer term issues via the “Public Safety Committee”.  There have been some differences of opinion over how things should work so the Ad-Hoc committee is taking a look at it.

 The meeting lasted about 2.5 hours and I felt it was pretty productive.  The first item we discussed was putting a Council member on the Public Safety committee.  Some felt that this would be a distraction but I think it necessary.  There is a Council liason on almost every other board - Utilities, Airport, Museum, Schools, etc.  Public safety, along with schools, is the most important thing we do so we have to get it right.  Having a Council member there doesn’t guarantee a result but it does provide a level of awareness and communication that is very important to the citizens and the balance of Council.

The balance of the meeting was really a discussion of the changes that all involved would like to see made.  That changes are wanted and/or needed is not surprising, this is a complicated enterprise and I think everyone figured there would be some adjustments along the way.  Besides, when you have the long traditions that we have in Manassas, changes to the status quo in any aspect of our municipal lives require many people to cooperate and collaborate over a longish period of time and that’s ok.

We’ll meet again in a couple of weeks.  Date not set yet.

One word of clarification:  the changes that we are discussing are on the administrative side, not the operations side.  Our career and volunteer staff run calls together, the staffs augment one another and they all train together so no worries there.  If you call 911, the City will have qualified people respond.  This process has little or no bearing on our readiness to help citizens in the short term and will only make us better at it in the long term.

Been swamped at work for the past couple of weeks so posting has been very slow.  Going back and forth between Blacksburg burns up a lot of time and I caught a nasty cold in the process but I am thankful that the business is still relatively busy.

There is a fair amount of stuff going on this coming week.  There is a Council meeting on Monday and I believe the final budget vote is then.  On Tuesday there is a meeting of the Ad-hoc Fire and Rescue meeting that is going to sort through some of the issues with the new departmental structure, etc.  I’m also reasonably sure there is a finance meeting on Wed and since Smith is no longer on the Council, I’ll have to go to that too!

I’m trying to keep City business during the day to a minimum but there is also a meeting with the state economic dev. department one day at lunch.  Plenty to do!

Also have to start weeding the garden, training the peas and cucumbers - if the cucs are still alive.  They looked as though they had drowned or something when I looked on Thursday.  Might be replanting.

I can’t take many more rainy days.  The grass in the back yard looks like a hay field.  I haven’t posted very much lately but I’ve been very busy with work the last week or so.  Busy is good so I’ll take it. 

On the City side, Battle street is all but done and it looks great.  The budget, with a final vote at the next meeting, is all but done and we had pretty good Town Hall meeting at Haydon last night.  Seems like we might have had at least one person launch their bid for a Council seat at that meeting.  The “Fire & Rescue committee” will be meeting next week to take a look at things there.

With that, I’m off to work again.  I’ll post more soon about how the appointment process and committee meetings are going.

Councilman Smith became Judge Smith last night at about 5:00 (to me anyways).  I’m very happy for him and his family.  He has served faithfully and thoughtfully and I thank him for his service.

The proposed process for a Council appointment as adopted last night is as follows:

May 6 & 15th (on or about) - Advertisement in local papers

May 22nd - deadline for letters of interest and resumes to Clerk

Jun 3 & 4 - Public hearing for candidates to present their statements of interest and be interviewed

June 8 - Appointment by Council

June 10th - swearing in of new Council Memeber

I expect that alterations to the process are possible but that’s what we proposed last night.  If you have interest, you should contact the Clerk as I may have gotten something in the dates wrong and I wouldn’t want to be responsible for screwing up someone….:)

Interesting discussion in the topic thread just below this one.  Someone has made the point that since the Council seems to get along in public that things don’t happen or we all just go along to get along and not upset the apple cart. 

I would charactarize the Council’s relationships as “Professional”.  No, we don’t have knock-down dragouts in front of the TV cameras.  Strictly speaking for myself, that really isn’t very productive and here’s why:  Almost every item that makes it onto a Council agenda goes through at least one committee meeting.  The committee meetings are typically where the disagreements are identified and hashed out.   When something makes it onto a Council agenda, it should be ready for action.  Things that are half-baked get passed by pretty quickly - the questions mount and it rapidly becomes clear that the item isn’t soup and it gets tabled.

Also, it would be a mistake to infer that the Council members don’t disagree on things.  We do and, from time to time, it can get heated.  However, in the end we all start and end our arguments with what’s best for the Citzens in mind.  This might seem like baloney but it’s the truth.  Everyone on the Council holds this as a very important principle.

Other Council members may feel differently about all of this.

Congrats to Mr. Parrish on his recent marriage to a great lady and to Mr. Smith on his appointment to the General District Court!  I’m glad for both Gentlemen and their families.

Yes, this does mean that there will be a vacancy on Council and we will have to do an appointment within 45 days of Mr. Smith’s resignation.  I don’t know when Mr. Smith will step down, I expect it will be in the near future but will ultimately be dictated by his Court appointment.   More details will be available soon on the application process.  Number 1 question I get is “I’m interested, what should I do?”  It’s a simple answer: lobby.  Call all the Council members and lobby for your appointment.

As always, you want to talk smack about others, write ‘em a letter or call ‘em.

OK!  After the presentation of the budget, we’ll be doing a Council budget work session next Wed at 5:30.  2nd floor conference room.