Paul Berg Comments on the 5/26/2015 City Council Meeting

Yes I went to city council tonight. I will try to give you a brief rundown of the agenda. The meeting was attended by an audience of myself and about a 10 year old boy. You got me. He had no questions lol, I asked if the city had taken advantage of the 315tons of “air space” that was donated by Casella Waste Systems. The Mayor deferred to Sara Andrews who stated that someone had taken care of this. For what properties she did not state.

Applications were sent out March 12th on a first come first served basis. I then referred to Andrews’ (i can use her last name only now after addressing her properly once as per the ERA) extensive job description. It is two pages long mostly single spaced in small font. One line says she Oversees the budget,grant financial administration AND OVERALL FINANCIAL OPERATIONS OF THE OECD. When I asked the Mayor once again this week where I could find the financial audit for OECD. He again said that they are a combined audit.

That OECD is part of the city and there is no independent audit for them. When I then questioned the City Clerk about a conversation we had late last week in which she told me that the firm that gathers the financial info gets OECDs financials, then gets the Citys financials and THEN combines the two.into one audit.

When I filed my RTK we discussed this and I told her I wanted the financial audit of OECD BEFORE it was combined with the city. I am guessing my next RTK will be for the firm that preforms the audit. Wanna bet? I lastly reminded the Mayor that the last line in Andrews (Sara not her husband Jeff who works for her for a mere $51,878.00 plus a STIPEND of $11,000 for his role(whatever that may be) in the new Property Maintenance Department. Which he is in hopes that the costs of the Dept. will be paid for by FEES and FINING the property owners of the City of Bradford.If he cares to dispute this I have a friend that has him stating just that on video!!

NICE Get your wallets out people. Oh and one guess who was RANDOMLY picked to be one of if not THE first person to have his one rental inspected? You got it ME!!! But my tenants are out of town and I will not let anyone in till they return from Washington State. They like a lot of people are getting out of Dodge. Moving.

Well anyway I pointed out to the Mayor that the very last line in andrews job description states simply : REPORTS DIRECTLY TO THE MAYOR OF THE CITY OF BRADFORD. HOW DOES HE NOT KNOW THE FINANCIAL STATE OF OECD AND ITS AUDIT RESULTS?

Next on to business The City is borrowing to the best I can tell (this figure is exact the rest is a lot of legalize 1/4 of a million dollars for homes to be built at Congress and Elm St. Isn’t that what OECD gets grants for ? is that not their function? It is written so that if the money is invested at a profit we must give the amount over the 1.948% interest we are paying for it back to the US Treasury.

Here is my favorite line in this six page document: the full faith,credit,AND TAXING POWER of the City of Bradford is hereby irrevocably pledged. The rest of the meeting was paying bills but one item stood out for me. It is ACCEPT QUOTE AND APPROVE PAYMENT TO SIRCHIE: POLICE No. 32958 Resolved by the City Council of the City of Bradford the proper officers hereby accept the quote from Sirchie in the amount of $17,199.24 for the purchase of police equipment and approve payment from the General Fund(410.706)

Now this could be anything, something desperatly needed by the officers. It could be anything!!!! This is a pet peeve of mine. They have a public meeting then pass ordinances and make payments and never give the details of what they are for. What’s the point of the meeting? We leave with more questions than we came with!!! Paul Berg Oh and we paid $4,100.23 to fix Tower One of the Fire Dept. after hitting a gas pump. Don’t we have insurance for this? Or is the deductible that high? I think there should be a question and answer period AFTER the meeting!!!!

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Posted by BradfordToday on May 27 2015. Filed under Local News, Opinion/Editorials/Op-Eds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.