The Morning Report
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City Councilman Tony Young said he will not be able to cut his summer recess short to hear Mayor Jerry Sanders’ plan for remedying the city’s fiscal troubles, but said he was hopeful that that there was room for compromise in the mayor’s plan.
Next Wednesday’s special council meeting was called last week in an effort to expedite discussion over the Kroll proposals that Sanders adopted wholesale as a 121-point plan for improving the city’s financial management. Young said he committed to attending an out-of-town gang prevention and intervention symposium before the meeting was scheduled.
Nonetheless, Young offered his take on Sanders’ plan in a memo he wrote Thursday.
The councilman noted that Kroll rapped city officials for not deliberating important issues. Young said the city should take its time to consider its options before adopting a plan.
In my opinion the one main point that was driven home by the Kroll Report is that this City got into a financial crisis because actions and decisions were made out of political expediency and not given thorough, careful, and prudent considerations necessary for financial decisions relating to issuance of bonds, pension benefits and/or sewer rates.
The mayor said he wants the council to begin pursuing the proposals immediately.
The councilman said he recognizes that the Kroll consultants blessed their recommendations as the city’s saving grace, but he said he thought the SEC will ultimately direct the city on how to remediate its past faults.
He also said the council should weigh Independent Budget Analyst Andrea Tevlin’s comments against the mayor’s, such as the IBA’s concerns about the monitor’s duties, multimillion-dollar costs and length of tenure at City Hall. In addition, he said he was concerned about the level of staffing needed on the City Council to ensure that the officeholders can “adequately and competently review” the city’s disclosures and financial proposals.