An Easy One
We already know that the then-City Attorney, Dave Gliko, gave our City Manager the opinion that Electric City Power is being operated illegally. Now, the City’s accountants have this to say:
Section 5.30.070 of Ordinance 2925 states the rates and charges of ECP “shall be designed to enable the Corporation to operate on a self-sufficient and self-sustaining basis and to produce revenues at all times sufficient to pay all operating, maintenance, debt service, repair and replacement costs of the Corporation and to provide reserves necessary or desirable for working capital, capital improvements and replacements and rate stabilization purposes.”
The City is not in compliance with Section 5.30.070 of Ordinance 2925.
According to the City’s $60,000.00 consultants, the answer is an easy one. Change the ordinance! Aside from the fact that such is a clearly ridiculous solution to a problem that has cost the City millions of dollars, I have another, more basic question. My question is highlighted, too, by an article in this week’s Tribune.
Some local residents went to the City and got permission to raise chickens. It turns out, though, that they were given bad advice and chickens are, apparently, illegal in the City limits. Acting City Attorney Chad “Parker acknowledged Bocock and Reichert might have received the go-ahead from the Community Development office, but he said the Planning office would have been a better choice. Animal control officers also could have helped, according to Parker….He added they are welcome to ask the city to change its laws. “That’s what we’re here for,” Parker said.”
What does this have to do with Electric City Power?
Well, this might sound glib or flippant, but in one case we’re talking about a few hundred dollars worth of chickens and in another case we’re talking about millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money. The two ordinances are of equal weight; there is nothing in the law that makes the ECP enabling ordinance of lesser priority. The City’s own legal agent has admitted that ECP is in violation of its ordinance, and now its accountants have weighed in too.
In all and absolute seriousness, what possible justification does the City have to hassle to chicken breeders while ignoring the malfeasance of a member of its staff and an appointed board? How can City government expect to be taken seriously when it ignores an ongoing, acknowledged, and serious violation of its ordinances while it puts the screws to its citizens?
This is emblematic of a deeper trend. Like our Treasury Secretary who doesn’t pay his taxes, or government officials whose salaries skyrocket in a deep recession, it isn’t for the people anymore. Government officials at all levels can’t be bothered to even pretend to respect the most basic democratic tenets of our government.
F— You! We’ll do what we want.
Hell, we’ll just change the ordinance.
Right?
Thank you Gregg for showing in simple comparisons the senselessness of our local government operations and leadership. If we the citizens cannot get a handle on this craziness right in our own backyard, then what can we expect to occur in our higher forms of government?
I challenge the new commissioners to take control and clean up this absolutely Silly Hall mess and return some COMMON SENSE and LEADERSHIP to our local government-PLEASE!
Just wondering; since the fine? which is $500.00 dollars per chicken and six months in jail per chicken and the parties involved had six chickens.
What fine is applied for years and months of losing who knows how many millions of dollars? Just wondering about the equality and fairness for citizens of Great Falls?
This is the SECOND Time the city staff and sitting commission has been told ECP operating illegally!!!!! And now the departing commission wants to RE-appoint
the same ECP ‘culture’ that neglected to advise the commission to amend the ordinance or raise rates? It’s OK, we’ll prosecute every individual citizen violation to raise revenue, build a new jail to hold individual violators and make everybody in sill hall indemnified.
Electric Fund from CAFR, something I had never heard of,
“DEFERED IMBALANCES will be completly expensed out the first quarter of 2012″
“The inbalance factor used is based on judgment and is what the fund could bear and still have a positive bottom line from January through June 2009.”
Huh? It does not say in these notes how much money is involved.
“Huh? It does not say in these notes how much money is involved”.
Well, as long as the money comes from us taxpayer wallets, city staff seems to care less. The point of this post, as I see it. is to have some accountability from those dunderheads at Silly Hall. Chickens pay big time for pecking at peanuts and the big PECKERS (losers) at silly hall get off scott free-not fair!
Now I know you understand all this Mary and your work to date has been exploratory especially working against this tide of craziness, but the real challenges begin in January. Lets hope the folks we just elected “get it” half as well as you do! If they do not, then they too will be so noted in our history as no better than the dunderheads they are now replacing.
I am willing to wait until February 2, 20010 to see some real reform in this town…..
I am going to talk a bit about what I think is a larger problem with the second issue (the chickens), about which I feel slightly more competent to discuss.
I think that we have a fundamental problem in Great Falls with how we go about enforcing ordinances. Virtually all ordinance enforcement in Great Falls is complaint-driven. So, if your neighbor has a lot of junk in his front yard and you call the City to complain, the code enforcement officer will drive in front of the house and make a judgement call. If the property in the front yard does not meet codes, a complaint letter will be generated to your neighbor from the City.
In such an instance, if your neighbor does not comply and bring property into compliance, then further actions can be taken as specified in the ordinance.
The problem with this is that if there is another property in town violating the same ordinance, but no neighbor complaining, then the City will not take any action. Your neighbor is effectively being penalized because he lives next to you, where this hypothetical other property suffers no ramifications from violating ordinances. I suggest that this arrangement is fundamentally unfair.
We should not have ordinances that are not universally enforced. I suggest that the City needs to reform its ordinance enactment and enforcement process to ensure that all of our residents are subject to the same rules. Raising this issue will be one of my goals for our upcoming Neighborhood Council term.
Power elite live by two very simple premises; justice to their friends and laws to their enemies.
Aaron, right on target. Selective enforcement is not fair. Also, will you push to have enforcement for code violations committed by our own city and staff?