Dear editor,
I attended the last session of the city council meeting which was mainly to approve a city budget for 2020. There were widely different opinions as to how the available money was to be distributed. It ended with no agreement and sending the city administrator back to his office to bring the general fund into balance by cutting $421,000.
I am not an accountant. I do not fully understand the budgeting process. I do not know who is right or wrong over this budget squabble.
However, I am not so sure some members of the council understand it very well, either.
In my case, I would probably defer to the professional wisdom of mementoCity Administrator Sid Fleming rather than back him into a corner by insisting the general fund be brought to zero by taking a meat cleaver to the budget. Are these same members that represent the citizens of Iola willing to accept the decision of Mr. Fleming at the final meeting before forwarding the budget to Topeka? Theres not much time left before the Aug. 25 deadline.
I would like to see the poorly attended planning meeting on March 27 reconvened with all council members present. It was as close to a future vision for Iola I have read about, but only three council members and Mayor Jon Wells attended. Some good ideas were discussed.
One that comes up repeatedly, this time by councilman Chase Martin, was to reduce the number of council members. I sat on an ad hoc committee of Iola citizens in 2009 to recommend a council size. I recommended four elected members and a mayor. I now recommend that those four members and the mayor get paid per meeting attended. The county commissioners get paid; why not the city council members?
It has been recommended several times to cut trash service to once a week. Someone in the past said they have two a week to give them spare time to clean up the garbage truck. It was recommended to study the load sizes to determine if this could be done. I say do the study and see what comes out of it.
There were other suggestions made such as equipment replacement policies, a forthcoming staffing study from Wichita State University, beefing up the industrial base even though the existing industries constantly search for acceptable employees, tougher building codes for rental properties, solar generation which was shot down on June 10, support for a citywide recycling program, better management of the many vacant lots, mosquito spraying which has been restarted due to the persistence of Nancy Ford and a comprehensive look at all utility rates.
I am for cutting the city budget, but lets cut intelligently rather than doing it under the threat of a looming deadline and regret it later when the complaints pour in.
A citizen of Iola,
Paul L. Zirjacks.
