August 28, 2007
Council holding special session tonight
Per the P-I, 1) Council will consider authorizing the acquisition of land necessary to build an access road to the new Southside Regional Medical Center under construction, 2) Michael H. Walker of Berkshire Advisors Inc. will discuss and answer questions in relation to the efficiency review.
The article does not state the time of the meeting. I’ll ask Ms. Jackson (Clerk of Council) to confirm the meeting’s time and will post what I learn later in the day.
If you are interested in the efficiency review, be there and show your support!
The Petersburg taxpayer is getting taken to the cleaners again.
Reserve the cynicism/fatalism until after the review has been handed in; in my opinion, this is an investment in our community, and rather than taking a defeatist attitude, we should be making clear our expecations of a return on our investment and our intention to not settle for anything less.
Note time/place:
7pm, at City Hall’s Council Chambers, 3rd floor.
typical pburg, build something then figure out how to get there later, very smart. and we are getting taken to the cleaners. lets just hope that the review is given to the public and doesn’t get a confidential stamp on it and never see the light of day. also i can’t beleive that nobody mentioned the fact that canada abdicated all of his daily responsibilites at the council retreat a few weeks ago. the council agreed but only after the review in january. maybe there is a glimmer of hope after all….
Folks, let’s hear more about the review before wringing hands. My understanding, rough as it is, is that a) the city/taxpayers aren’t paying full fare for the review, b) the city didn’t pick the reviewers, c) the review will be a very open process involving input from citizens (no details yet as to how/where/when, but I have heard that much), d) there will be no confidentiality thing stamped on anything. Perhaps it would be better to ask questions about the review, than to jump to conclusions? A good place to start: show up at tonight’s meeting.
Brenda, make all the personal attacks you want on me, calling me defeatist and a cynic, your criticism rolls off me like water off a duck’s back. Should you take the time to study the facts behind the sale of Petersburgs only public hospital to a foreign corporation you would find that the Petersburg taxpayer is indeed being taken to the cleaners.
Chris,
Telling us we are being taken to the cleaners is non-productive. At least in your last comment you gave a reason you think this. Now, do you have any facts to back up your claims?
Chris, I’m not arguing other past/current problems in the least. But the past need not be a predictor of the future, particularly when different people or ideas get involved and more people are paying attention. An efficiency review has the possibility of being a catalyst for positive change and/or for discussions about same. ‘Tis an opportunity!
BTW - I’m the world’s biggest cynic. I personally live by hope for the best (put a good trade on), plan for the worst (covered by a good hedging position), but not to the point of not exploring potentially interesting steps forward. :-)
Brenda, The sale of Petersburgs only public hospital is an political issue that has made headlines since 1999. I have plenty of facts and literally boxes of FOIA requests and other documents to back up my opinion on this matter, namely, that the sale of Petersburg’s only public hospital was done for the advantage of certain insiders and not for the advantage of the taxpayer, the voter, or the patient. The conflicts of interest involved in this deal are, in my opinion, truely breathtaking. For example, the site originally chosen for the replacement hospital was a swampy parcel directly across I-95 from the chemical plant. The swamp and lakes where the hospital was to be built were owned by a former mayor of Petersburg whose son was a sitting Hospital Authority member, a US Congressman, and a close personal friend of the Authority’s long time attorney.
I think that reply should be directed to tg4360 (as I don’t doubt you know the facts on a large bit of Petersburg history, political and otherwise.) :-)
i haven’t been here that long, but i must agree with chris, whoever he is. it would be nice in a plesant world to go forward and not look back at past failures. but the fact is we have to. and the public should know all of this city’s misdeeds. from the golf course, to the 800k lost in the harbor lawyers, the 6M to the com towers built without proper permits, the bus station over a year behind, the fires, the shady acquistions of derelict properties by the city, the fact that in a city infested with drugs we don’t have a police dog, no police chief for almost three years, no hiring of the promised housing inspectors, the general corruption and the lack of leadership in this city, a rotten commonwealth’s attorney, the city’s failure to provide even the most basic infrastructure to downtown, the lost brac opportunities, the failure of schools. i could go on all night(with proof) but i’m making myself depressed…
Ok, So what do we do about all of this? I suggested an ad hoc “action group” to some key citizens four years ago and they looked at me like I was a curious fellow. I was told that “in Petersburg you can’t get anything done but you can do anything you want to do.” I have found that to be just about the case…regrettably.
I do notice that this blog follows the usual pattern: we all get things off our chests but nothing really happens. The people who run this town know this about us and so they tolerate us with some amusement, I imagine.
Brenda, can we back up a mo’? “David canada abdicates daily responsibilities pending review at retreat” I need to hear more on this little detail dropped by our pal grolsch
your last comment is true. i asked a local once how many small upstart citizen groups have been formed and fizzled out over the past 20 years; dozens. and the council knows this. the only thing that will change this place is handcuffs. when people see a strong law enforcement presence and prosecution of a few key people then the rest will melt away. this starts with a real police chief and a real commonwealth’s attorney.
Welcome to Petersburg! It is disturbing to see that those newbees who have entered the city expecting much more than what is available or ever will be. The key word with the city is Eminent Domain. And if anyone should know this any better,it is Chris White. That is the tactic the city was going to use if they didn’t get the old railroad station back from the TWBTS on River Street. A posse of liers and people who had never been inside the station paraded into court and testified (lied)about the station, its owners and what they had or had not accomplished in the short time they were in possession of it. Don’t blame those who lied under oath because they were just protecting their jobs and or future contacts with the city. When the smoke cleared and the all Black jury was hung in favor of the TWBTS , threats were made against those individuals who were on the board. This whole thing was planned by the city and not the previous owner as many suspected. Does $660,000.00 sound familar? The station was part of the deal made for the property that the new transportation center will go on.
So, is someone stupid enough to build a multi million dollar hospital without an access road? Of course they are. Welcome to Petersburg!
There are those that do not much more than air their concerns. But who among the concerned is doing something to effect positive change? grolsch2, you appear to be concerned about fires and dilapidated structures. I’ve contacted the fire dept. about getting info that can be disributed. Now the question is: *how* to distribute this info? Do you have any thoughts on that?
I heard on NPR last night (but can I find the piece? — of course not. It was called ‘My Start-up Life’ if anyone else wants to give NPR’s search a whirl) a young man who started his first company when he was 14 talk about entrepreneurism. Somewhere in the piece he defined an entrepreneur as [my paraphrase, as I was driving and didn't write his exact words down] someone with a crazy amount of optimism in the face of uncertainty/adversity/etc. That totally resonated. Bring on the crazy optimism and forge ahead. :-)
hey folks, note comment #13 above — I just approved this new commentor, and of course the blog’s backend placed the comment according to when it was generated, not approved.
City managers manage the daily operations of cities. If David Canada is truly abdicating his daily responsibilities then he must be leaving his job or preparing to shortly thereafter.
allright i explain. this is public record. it occured at the council advance in smithfield. at ~8:30 friday night canada told the rest of council that he wants to give all of his daily responsibilities to rob blunt(finance) and eric(asst mngr) he only wants to work on the next budget and 2020. he wanted to do it in 2-3 weeks. after some interesting discussion council agreed, but only after the review is complete. the obvious question is(and was asked at the time) why now? i’m sure this will lead to some fun discussion. some people think nothing of it, others are shocked, and others hopeful.
brenda-don’t think that i’m sitting on my a#s bitching, if you want to know what i’m doing i’ll tell you, but not on this blog.
Fair enough, didn’t know per your prior posts.
I don’t understand this….
That would be like me telling my boss that I was only going to do what I wished to do and that someone else has to pick up the slack.
Am I missing something here?
some locals think that he has been micromanaging this city for too long so this is good. others would liken it to resigning. but the timing is whats important, why now? one council member said it looks like your trying to shirk responsibility right as people are asking the hard questions. trying to muddy the water during the review proccess. a city employee told me he tried this once before but i couldn’t get details. i think it’s a combination of many different people asking more and more questions. daylight and handcuffs…
Well if he’s delegating as he should be then it’s a good thing.
I doubt that mismanagement would be hidden from a review by the consultant but the report would say “remedies are already in place” so it would not look as bad.
Curious though and worth keeping an eye on.
I’ve been asked about the outcome of the special session —
1) I didn’t attend the meeting - and won’t be attending any Council meetings this fall - as I am teaching on Tuesdays. Thus, for the time being this site will depend on those of you who can attend to communicate to those of us who cannot re: the more interesting discussions at Council.
2) I am told by someone who showed up at 7:25pm or so that the meeting wrapped up at 7:30pm or so (and that a TV crew was rolling in when everyone present at the meeting was walking out the door — apparently the brevity of the meeting was unexpected). Anyhow, he was told that Council approved giving the City the means to obtain the parcels necessary to build an access road to the hospital. He didn’t have any comment on the 5 mins he witnessed between Walker and Council, though he mentioned that he asked Walker if there will be a public comment period and the answer was, yes, and that such a period will be advertised after the review folks have gotten a lay of the land, so to speak.
Eminent Domain, why was no one interested a while back when the state and feds revised long standing legislation. My head was duct taped together for weeks. This is in fact how things get done in development when government plays. Wait for the uproar when they extend the road the other way and put in a new exit from 95 at Rives Road and make it four lanes ( maybe six) and link the new 460 alignment and the truck route links for the new railroad yard. Crater Road will be six lanes. And then there is the drainage problem, the site has always been, shall we say, a bit swampy? The prior site proposed for the hospital was directly adjacent to 95, Wagner Road which is four lane divided, truck ready, accesses the interstate and Crater Road at a signalized intersection and has very good soils. Who knew? Well, everybody. Yes, I have built and renovated hospitals. Trust me, suck it up and move on. Vow to be more vigilant and vocal about the next one early. As Brenda pointed out, the past is just that - get up tomorrow with a load of “crazy optimism” and make some freakin’ lemonade. Lemons we got.
David delegating is a good thing, especially if it’s to free him up to work on the big picture, after all the assistant and the finance guy need stuff to do too. And about the housing concerns and fire safety stuff - there is a new grant funded position in the code compliance office whose main purpose is to deal with these issues, and a nice little manual backed by local and state law commonly referred to as the “slumlord code”, actually the Property Maintenance Code. Any one can own a copy for less than fifty dollars from the International Code Council. I propose that any individual or group who owns more than one non-owner occupied real property, especially residential, be required to have a local business license as a landlord, to be licensed, bonded and insured, with an annual fee per property sufficent to pay for annual inspections by the city. Further, that all utilities be the responsibility of the landlord (included in the rent) to prevent shutoffs, death or injury due to utility shut offs to be at least negligent homicide. And it should be the responsibility of the landlord to provide backup systems for other types of outages. The annual fee for each property to be doubled for vacant properties and that vacant property be mothballed as per National Park /Secretary of the Interior guidelines. Other locales have Building Courts just to deal with such issues. Yeah, harsh. People don’t get it that property ownership is about responsibility, not just privilege. The same goes for commercial properties, walk any alley in the ‘Burg before you ask why. And , yes, in light of the current roof collapse on Old St in a City owned property, it goes double.
Factoid: A building and all of its systems, be it house or hospital, ages one Year of normal wear and tear every Month it sits with no water in the pipes, electicity in the wires and ventilation and natural daylight in its rooms.
Hey Gail, where can you do the most good, on council, a board, commission or where you are? This is some good factoid stuff, but then again, it doesn’t take much to make me happy. How can the things that you have said, be translated into a proposal that the city would have to look at and comment? Where does our theorizing and postulations end and our putting into methodical action begin?
I agree with everything you are saying, I just want it to be more than words. How do we make it happen? Can we get City Manager David Canada to delegate some of this stuff? Can we get city leaders to give your ideas any real thought and discussion? Do city council members have any real thought or discussions or do they just dance to the tune of City Manager David Canada? Let us see if the efficiency review can help us to answer that and other questions.
I trust that the Progress Index is going to report on the efficiency review. The “Special Meeting” of council as reported in the PI was to talk about the road to SRMC and the efficiency review. However, in the follow-up report after the meeting, it was all about the road to the hospital and NOTHING, not a single word about the road to the truth about how our city has been and is being run. Go figure, NOT ONE WORD. I called PI reporter Mr. Wiggins and left a message of my concern about this apparent oversight in his follow-up. He sent word that PI will report on the efficiency review. Incidentally, there was no mention of the review or of the request by David Canada to abdicate the throne at Tuesday’s council meeting. Go figure.
I would personally enjoy a whole new thread discussing only the efficiency review. How that was initiated, where it is, how its funded, who’s involved. What are the goals and the plan for instituting changes and recommendations.
Failure to plan is planning to fail… as to where I can do the most good, I’ll fill you in on that one later.
Gail, I understand more info on the review will be forthcoming in the near future.