If you’ve ever had a meeting with a Scottsdale city council member in his or her office, you know what it’s like to make out in a coatroom…because that’s what it feels like. It’s really a little embarrassing to think that meeting with the movers and shakers of our community require our elected leaders to literally rub elbows with them.
To that end, someone on the council has proposed that the city knock down some walls and reconfigure that space to make the offices bigger. Not a bad idea, but…here’s what’s wrong with it.
It’s going to cost about $30,000 at the same time virtually all your municipal services are increasing in cost, the pavement on the roadway in your neighborhood is deteriorating, and many residents are moving out of Scottsdale because they can no longer afford their rent/mortgage payment…or because they are tired of having “entertainment uses” jammed into their neighborhoods.
Even the city treasurer can’t make up his mind about whether we’ll have a balanced budget (I’m betting we won’t, but who listens to me?), and he’s trying to float tens of millions of dollars of bonds to make up for projected shortfalls in capital funds (and a bunch of other goofy projects). You can bet that whatever is decided, your taxes are going up!
$30k isn’t a lot of money by comparison to the millions we flush every year ($4 million to the Cultural Council for the annual payment on their no-bid, no-deliverables, 20-year contract comes to mind). But seriously?
Not to mention the fact that at $18,000/year, council salaries almost ensure that any candidate will have to have a a retirement income in order to devote enough time to do a good job.
I can’t believe Mayor Lane actually let this discussion get so far as to become public knowledge, let alone tasking staff to come up with estimates. In an election year, no less! Yet, here it is: