The VIRTUAL "Sky Has Fallen" Legacy

Folks:

Say it isn't so........

Pontiac residents deserve better from their leaders

Web-posted Mar 13, 2005

Pontiac residents soon will become familiar with the word "nonfeasance." It means failure to fulfill an obligation.

And it will describe far too much of what has not been going on in the city's government during an as-yet-undetermined number of years.

Mainly the city administration has not managed to keep track of how much money it has collected from taxpayers, has not returned much excess money collected as income tax and has continued to spend money, regardless.

This not a situation that can been blamed solely on Mayor Willie Payne or the current City Council. Predecessors left a mess behind. But Payne has been in office for more than three years.

Now, the municipality, seat of one of the most prosperous counties in the nation, faces a debt estimated at anywhere from $5 million to more than $30 million. That is in the context of an annual budget of some $230 million.

The wonder is that no checks have been returned marked "insufficient funds." Then again, perhaps some have, and we haven't heard about it.

Council members have repeatedly demanded an accounting but were not so concerned about fiscal responsibility that they thought of postponing buying themselves new cars - a strange city entitlement - or of denying themselves city-paid travel.

This isn't simply a matter of not keeping up with the paperwork. Spending decisions involving public tax dollars were made without significant public input in some cases, including the building of an entertainment stage atop the Phoenix Center parking garage.

Money that otherwise would have gone to such public bodies as Pontiac schools, Oakland County and city government was diverted under a special state law to the open-air theater. It was spent as cash in what amounted to secrecy.

The project was a surprise to everyone except those appointed to handle such money.

More than $10 million was involved, and it turns out some of that had been intended for completion of the vital Strand Theater and the rebuilding of sidewalks, lighting and so forth downtown.

Instead, it went to a stealth project that, to add insult to injury, is apt to create a noise pollution problem in the city center.

Now, City Hall faces substantial spending cutbacks, no doubt involving layoffs of many employees who provide services to taxpayers.

It is either do it now or run the city into the ditch to be rescued by a stern state takeover.

The truth is that a lot of taxpayers would like to see just such vigorous shaping up by an outsider of what has become an almost hopelessly disorganized and incompetent enterprise.

At Pontiac's City Hall, officials have not only lost track of the money, they've lost control of events, as in the case of the parking deck project.

Meanwhile, the Pontiac Silverdome twists slowly in the winds of indecision as City Hall ponders two mediocre offers for the sale of one of the most valuable pieces of property in the state. Unfortunately, the city has no municipal confidence, as well as little competence, and no doubt will accept one of them.

Pontiac, basically, is a fine city, and its residents do not deserve this.