We met to go over the Captial Improvement Plan budget last night and that went quite well. The stimulus projects that were previously funded are mostly still moving along. Ironically, the Wellington Road project is being held up somewhat as the feds are auditing the “shovel ready” stimulus project…:)
There is another meeting tomorrow night and we will cover Family Services, the Airport and PRTC. Some of that stuff we have some level of control over but Family Services is driven in large part by state and federal guidelines. The Airport is self-sufficient and PRTC is paid for with gas-tax money. I do not expect much in the way of fun and games but the meeting is at 5:30 in the 2nd floor conference room at City Hall if yer interested.
March 17, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Andy, maybe for a shovel ready project, the City should have taken the musuem expansion gallery and put that on the list. Just like the Smithsonian buildings were “shovel ready” in the ARRA.
I’ll be at part of the meeting tonight – PRTC is near and dear to my heart as I have often expressed and I did not see that specifically in the budget. But then MEGO sometimes reading budget docs.
You mentioned the other day about how you are counting on us in Manassas to step up and support her. Well, this morning I get up and read the local rag to see the Liberia cleanup is cancelled.
THIS IS IDIOTIC AND OVERREACTION BY THE MUSUEM!
Come on, apply some sense! You get 100 to 150 volunteers (and that translates to around $18,000 in free labor). This could be done by just asking the folks to come.
Need water or food? Bring your own. (Ok, small expense for a couple of porta-potties).
Need cleanup bags? Heck, I’ll go to Costco and buy a half-dozen boxes of contractor-size cleanup bags and DONATE them. Donations to government (activities & entities) can be taken on 2010 return.
Want a t-shirt? Ok, it will cost so much, but since at least 50% goes back to national organization, a nonprofit, again a tax deduction in waiting.
Biggest Cost? The City’s trucks. Now, a truck sitting on the lot at Public Works not being used is a depreciation big time in the Life Cycle management of that equipment. City will charge us $50 to have one for the weekend to load, so if 100 people show up, and give a buck, then at least two are paid for.
This is exactly what I was talking about when I said at the Public Hearing. The Musuem needs to activate the volunteers – and make use of our talents. This wailing and nashing is just nonsense!
And passing it over to Keisha for Week of Hope is a nice thought – but do we really need in our City to do something to garnish another award in Richmond or Nationally when we have plenty of folks who will come out.
We don’t have the time anymore, nor the luxury of fooling with red tape rules. People don’t volunteer on the whole because when they do, the City does not EMPOWER them unless it is within the watchful eye of City Staff. Look at the Neighborhood Group, through the evert of Cindy Brookshire and those HOAs, that did it without the City Staff looking over the shoulder.
Mr. Vice Mayor, this decision is bad and an embarassment.
March 17, 2010 at 9:34 pm
I have worked at Liberia spreading mulch and picking up trash. It was an effort led by a Boy Scout for his Eagle project. Call the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, 4-H. These are leadership development programs for youth. Empower them to lead the effort.
City courtesy trucks are $75 now, but the museum could rent out their conference room to raise money for the truck and trash bags. Kisha has work vests, gloves, trash grabber sticks to lend.
I thought there was a Friends of the Museum program where people donated $25 a year to be a member. Couldn’t some of them come forward?
March 18, 2010 at 1:46 pm
There is a friends of the museum program. They are known as the Manassas Museum Associates. They are very active in raising money for things at the museum but I don’t believe they do as much of the other stuff.
March 19, 2010 at 8:21 am
Dang, Andy! I looked it up on the City Web site.
http://www.manassascity.org/DocumentView.aspx?DID=2778
There’s a whole “Liberia Society” with each member donating $1000. Where are you, supporters?
I do my part walking Portner Ave, almost daily, cleaning up litter off part of the street and sidewalk leading toward Liberia Plantation. Call the museum and lend a hand to get this cleanup going again: 703-368-1873.
March 19, 2010 at 2:29 pm
That’ll require some new blood Cindy. They currently raise a fair bit of money….
March 20, 2010 at 5:39 am
Common sense trumps money. You save every time, believe me. I’m a former Girl Scout leader, a mom, Sunday School teacher, a community volunteer. You learn fast how to operate on a shoestring.
I had an interesting conversation with an elected official in another jurisdiction about how the best community-building activities that pull people together are the bare bones pick-up-trash events. More than the trash-generating entertainment events. You get immediate gratification, visual improvement and sense of good will, of having accomplished something to take ownership of your own city. It doesn’t make sense to cancel something that only costs for trash bags and a truck and generates good will. There has to be one person in this 35,000 population city — old blood or new blood — who cares enough to step forward and coordinate this.
Things like this make me wonder what is going with some of the recent decision making.
I went to pick up 1 By Youth posters from Kisha yesterday and it looks like the lobby of City Hall got robbed! Where is the nice furniture, awards case, reception desk? It looks like the DMV or a laundramat now.
And a $100,000 pedestrian signal in Old Town? What about the ladder truck for fire & rescue? The shooting range for police?
I apologize for going on about this, too, at this time. I recognize the City has had three deaths in less than three months, the most recent one this week. My thoughts are with the families of those who died, and everyone who worked with these valued, fine people in public service.
I just think we all need to wake up — including me!
March 20, 2010 at 10:45 pm
Cindy, you raise some good points, and Andy has his good points – there are those who will give money, and those who volunteer to be down in the nitty gritty. Both are needed for successful programs. Often times, you get lucky and find those who do both – even if monetary-wise it is at a lower level.
As for someone stepping up, I think there is in part related to Andy’s subtle reference to new blood. But even when new blood steps up, the City person in charge may not like what is said, may choose to ignore, and then find “red tape” reasons to take the efforts of the person and make it so this new blood walks away.
Cindy, I was at the Budget Work Session this past Wednesday and flashed around the news article on the musuem decision. I personally don’t think it is sitting well with the Council myself.
March 23, 2010 at 9:49 am
I think what you all don’t realize is that if you aren’t the “right type” of volunteer and one that the shop manager personally approves of, then the museum doesn’t want you. Someone should ask the former volunteer coordinator of the battles she had to fight with staff in order to recruit volunteers.And, of course, once she left, the museum staff, led primarily by the three who are still currently employed there, deep-sixed the teen volunteer program, which my daughter was a part of and enjoyed a great deal.