I went out for dinner Wednesday night to an old restaurant under new management called Gary's. I ordered an appetizer, a salad, an entree and a glass of wine. The total came to $40, which I considered affordable, but not cheap. The food and wine were good, the restaurant location superb. At the end of the evening, I was satiated. I reached into my wallet, pulled out two twenties and placed them on the table. Then, the waiter, a nice young man named Dan, came with the check and a special offer. He said that if I allowed him to place my $5 glass of wine on a separate bar bill, that would free up $5 on my meal bill for me to order dessert. It sounded like a free dessert to me, so I reached back in my wallet, pulled out a five, placed it on the table on top of the two twenties already there, and picked up the dessert menu. Later, in the car, my dinner companion asked me if I knew what that extra five dollars that I pulled out of my wallet had just paid for. I said my glass of wine. She said it was my dessert. It caused a bit of an argument between us, but now I'm wondering. Was she right? Was Dan's offer just some fast talking?
Signed,
$5 Poorer in Richardson
10 comments:
Ed, while you know that I appreciate what you do on your blog, I will have to take issue with you somewhat for your unfortunate comments on the drainage fee.
Your source of information is Ian McCann, who you admit did a fine job of explaining things both in his blog and in his news story (appears in the printed Metro section on July 31, but may not be online due to the current technical problems at the Morning News website); however, I believe that you misrepresent the information that Ian gave.
First, Ed, you said, "In short, Richardson has been paying for drainage-related operations out of the general fund. Because "greater obligations are looming in the future," the city council wants to create a dedicated fee for such operations, presumably [emphasis mine] to raise more money to pay for these greater obligations."
Ian made it very clear that the dedicated fee would be to cover “storm water management”; indeed, the State statute that governs such a fee (Texas Local Government Code, Title 13. Water and Utilities, Subtitle A. Municipal Water and Utilities, Chapter 552. Municipal Utilities, Subchapter C. Municipal Drainage Utility Systems) requires that the amounts collected as "Drainage Charges" be applied to some aspect of the drainage system, whether cost of service (maintenance), or debt service or reserves for construction, repair or maintenance of the drainage system (see Section 552.049).
The problem, Ed, is that there is nothing in what Ian said in either place that would justify your insertion of "presumably", which you should admit is a biased word designed to suggest that some other plans may be afoot but which is not supported by the evidence you present.
Second, Ed, you said that "No wonder the utility fee is being left out of the budget" as if this was some nefarious activity designed to sneak some new tax under the table. Yet Ian addresses this issue directly. He quotes Deputy City Manager Dan Johnson: "According to Johnson, there are far too many hoops to jump through before this fee and utility fund become set in stone. Also, he and city staff wanted to confirm that a majority of the council still supported the concept."
Ian further adds (again from Dan Johnson, I presume), "This is more complicated than implementing a fee on library service or increasing ambulance rates. The city must justify the need for the storm water fee, must finalize a work plan for utility projects so it can set a fee at a rate to pay for that work, and it must conduct a public hearing before the fee is put into place. There are a lot of moving pieces before this becomes reality."
If the budget has to begin on October 1st, 2009, and the amount of work needed to be done on the Municipal Drainage Utility means that the public hearings cannot begin until after that date, then of course the new utility and its fee are not in the current budget, because it will be a mid-year thing if it happens at all (we don't know, after all, if there might be changes based on the public hearings - the Council could even decide just to drop the whole thing based on public input).
(continued...)
Third, you said, "No wonder the topic was saved for the last item on a long night's budget session agenda" as if this were additional proof somehow of nefarious behavior.
If you had read Ian's blog and article closely, you would have understood that the Municipal Drainage Utility is a work in progress, not a fixed part of the 2009-2010 budget (see above). If passed, the adoption of the Municipal Drainage Utility would create a new fund that would be added to the 7 or so funds we have now. But given that we have those 7 or so funds now, doesn't it make sense that the 7 funds that we do have be discussed first, before a fund that we might have in the coming year?
And if you would have attended the budget workshops in the past (I assume that you did not this year, or else you would not have relied solely on Ian's articles), you would know that the agenda for the 3-4 days is not tightly fixed. That is, the Council starts out with the overview and then reviews each fund piece by piece. They reserve 4 days in case it takes that long - but they have no idea how long it will take. Sometimes (like this year and last year, as I recall), things progress swiftly and they wrap it up in three days...so an agenda item that belongs at the end of the budget discussion (like this drainage thing) ends up being at the end of Day 3 rather than early on Day 4. It is not something that can be planned, as the staff has no idea how much the council members are going to talk about this or that item.
I don't think it's appropriate to use a 3rd party source like Ian McCann, but then to quote him in such a way as to make it appear that he said things that he did not say. Ian addressed the issues above (and other issues that you raised as well), but you chose to quote him differently than what he clearly intended.
It's your blog, and you certainly have the right to state your opinion, e.g., maybe the alleged $1 million should be returned to the people in the form of a tax cut, but you shouldn't misuse your source of information this way...if Ian did as good as job as you say he did, then we owe it to him to quote him accurately not only in form but also in spirit.
Bill
William J. 'Bill' McCalpin, thanks for your feedback. My response is on the blog post "Richardson Storm Water Utility Fee" as that's a more appropriate place than over dinner at Gary's. ;-)
Per your request, I will move my answer to the other thread...
Bill
Great, we get a double dose of what Bill "Murphy lap dog" McCalpin is thinking - yippee...
"Anonymous" at 8/03/2009 1:09 PM, William J. 'Bill' McCalpin is welcome to post on this blog anytime.
It always concerns me when one long winded person with blinders on has to justify the city justifications to pilpher in our pockets. Come on Bill, don't you ever wonder what the real story is sometimes? Geez!
"Anonymous" at 8/04/2009 11:18 PM, to me, pilfer means to steal and is illegal. Nothing illegal is going on at Gary's restaurant. The waiter may be a smooth talker but not a pickpocket. I'm the one who agreed to order dessert and paid the extra $5 for it.
I found it humorous that some people think that I have blinders one or am somebody's lapdog.
Since I've known many of the leaders for years (some for many years), since I've attended nearly every City Council meeting for the last two years, and since I've been involved in political affairs for decades (including running for public office in Dallas), I find it amusing that people who don't know the leaders of Richardson well, who don't attend Council meetings, who have never run for public office, and who are afraid to even use their own names, insist that they know more about the inside story than I do...
It's clearly a case of "the less you know, the more you think you know". If I may paraphrase what Ed him/herself has written in previous posts, countering well laid-out evidence with cheap ad hominem insults from anonymous sources is merely proof of...nothing...
Bill
P.S. Ed, thanks for supporting my freedom to fill up your blog pages with "long winded" but hopefully educational information...;-)...how many of these anonymous authors ever post any links so that people can do their own research?
Bill, you're welcome.
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