Council Meeting Notes 10/25/2004
I attended last Monday's Town Council work session. A lot of what was discussed was covered in the Town Crier for this month, but there were some other matters.

Town Finances

I touched on this in my last post, but people I have spoken with since think I should have emphasized this a bit more. Mayor Tiberio revealed that he and Finance Committee Chair Lawrence Taylor had been working with the town's auditor and, after a lot of hard work, last year's budget would (probably) be balanced.

I'm of two minds on this. One is to congratulate the Mayor/CM Taylor on taking what they described as a $217,000 budget gap and managing to pull out an at least "almost" balanced budget. That's what I would do in the absence of the shenanigans that went on from June through September.

Instead, I'll let my "other mind" speak:

First, to quote town activist Roland Walker, the "budget gap" was created by an accounting problem, and the solution should have been an accounting solution (not a "real world" solution).

Second, despite arguments from the public and some members of the council that the budget gap could be fixed other ways than by selling the Field of Dreams, the Mayor (and some council members) insisted that this was a BIG EMERGENCY and could only be fixed by selling the field. The Mayor and CM Taylor should have rolled up their sleeves in June, found that they could balance the budget, and saved us all a lot of pain.

Third, the moderately rosy state of last years budget was at the expense of this years budget. The town received a (roughly) $110,000 grant for beautification from the county, and the money was treated as income for last year even though no work was done. The town still has a committment to spend that money, and it has to come out of this years revenues. This may have been the only thing the accountants would let the town do, but without this grant money the town would have been that much further in the red last year.

On to other matters....

Real Estate Developments

Several town officials discussed the "M Square" development, and the groundbreaking ceremony that happened last week. There will be two parts of this development, both located in the Riverside area on the northern border of Riverdale Park: a new NOAA supercomputing center, and offices for the University of Maryland's Center for the Advanced Study of Language (CASL).

The University's development will not directly add to the Town's tax base; the NOAA facility will, at least for the next few decades (most US Government development is done on a "lease to buy" plan, where the buildings are privately owned (and stay on the tax roles) while the lease is in effect, and then the properties are transferred to the Government (and disappear from the tax roles). Assuming this facility is of the same size as the USDA building nearby, we can expect an addition to the town's tax base of $35 million or so, around 10% of the total tax base. This will eventually result in an addition of $182,000 of annual operating income to the town.

These developments should bring something else to town, though: customers for local business. Town Administrator Prangley, in particular, thought that encouraging redevelopment of the Kenilfair Shopping Center (where the Riverdale Pizza Pub, Flor de Puebla bakery, and Advance Auto Parts is located) could create a nice place for these people to eat lunch. Someone I used to work with transferred to working at the USDA building and she said that it was difficult to find good lunch food nearby.

Before going to the trouble of redeveloping Kenilfair, why not get some tenants in Town Center? Doug Jemal owns both properties, and it would be a lot easier to put some businesses there (and bring more customers for the existing S&J Restaurant and the Riverdale Bookshop). Don't get me wrong: Kenilfair should be fixed up -- the vast wasteland of decayed asphalt needs quite an upgrade, but we don't want to just have another pretty, but empty, business location.

Pending Legislation

Mayor Tiberio and Councilman Badders seem to be pushing legislation for dealing with day laborers in the Kenilworth corridor. I think it's strange they don't bring this up at Legislative committee meetings.

The Campaign Finance legislation previously discussed is being studiously ignored by the Mayor and CM Davis -- the two people who seem to have issues with it. Mr. Tiberio supposedly gave comments to the legislation's sponsor, CM Kiernan, but CM Kiernan reported that they were unreadable. (To be exact, the Mayor highlighted sections of the legislation he had issues with, but didn't describe his issues.) CM Davis, in contrast, gave comments that were difficult to interpret. Maybe, just maybe, it can come to a vote and be enacted before campaign season begins.

One dumb idea seems to have been dumped recently (the Mayor described it as "having fallen to the wayside") -- using Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money to provide more bunks for the Fire Department. The Fire Department can apply for a grant to do this elsewhere, and the town (wisely) is choosing to apply for money to repair streets (48th between Riverdale and Queensbury, if my memory is correct) instead.

Street Improvements

Storm drain improvements for Somerset and Sheridan, which seem to have been "a few months away" for about a year are about to go out for bid. These have to be complete before repaving can happen. I am hopeful that these streets will be repaved during the next year or two.

Upcoming meetings/events

Council Legislative Meeting on November 1 (Monday!)
Traffic Study Committee November 2
Mixed Use Town Center Committee November 3
Finance Committee to be set at Legislative Meeting, but probably November 4 Update 11/6/2004 9:22am -- The Finance Meeting was set to be November 22, along with a Legislative committee meeting
Recreation Board on November 8
Veteran's Day Observance November 11, 11:00am at Veterans Monument
Holiday Party is set for December 11

Update 10/31/2004 9:30am EST changed discussion of accounting error after receiving feedback; corrected some meeting dates and added MUTC meeting
- posted by Alan K. Thompson @ 10:25 AM