I hope those elected officials don't forget about the stupid-expensive, proprietary radio system they're about to throw taxpayer money away on......and then pay the state $300 a year for each and every radio they have that operates on that system. Hey! It's not THEIR monay!

Shores is facing a budget crisis because the Cooper administration can't effectively deal with enormous and unsustainable legacy costs. Councilman Kedzierski pointed out a year ago that a million bucks needed to come out of the budget. Mayor Cooper promised public safety wouldn't be affected , but how did he try to balance the budget this year? By not replacing a police officer, and farming out public safety dispatch!

The budget needs to be balanced by more immediate and drastic cuts in employee & retiree benefits, not by raising taxes! Cooper foisted the new charter with the phony promise that the 20 mill tax limit was only for unforseen future castatrophes. Now they want to raise taxes another 1.75 mils?

Besides cutting legacy costs, administrative costs need to be pared back. How about Mr. Vick taking a pay cut & giving up his car allowance? Have city hall open only 3 days a week & make the administative jobs part time. When property values rose & taxes skyrocketed, did residents see any increase in services? No way, most of those extra tax dollars that came in went for higher benefits under the Kenyon / Cooper regime.

If our public officials can't handle things, its time for an emergency fiscal manager in the Shores. Under the new state law, a fiscal manager has the powers to more effectively effectively deal with legacy costs. And it's also time to revise the Shores charter to remove the abililty of council to raise taxes without a public vote!

The extreme meassures proposed in the comment, regarding what Grosse Pointe Shores should do, come from an individual who wasn't even at the meeting last night. He wasn't at a previous meeting(s) either and his comments certainly don't reflect the positions affirmed by the City Council, sitting as the Finance Committee of the Whole, after many budget review meetings, some until well after midnight, led by Finance Chair Ted Kedzierski.
The consolidation of the Shores dispatch with the Farms is a perfect example of the efficiencies
Governor Snyder is urging communities across the state to strive for. Yet this individual condemns our Mayor for something the Council voted unanimously to move forward on. He further condemns the recommendation of our Public Safety Director, with regards to not hiring an additional officer at this time. Last but not least, he proposes to install an emergency fiscal manager, as if we were the City of Detroit! Had the costly, failed recall attempt succeeded, Gov. Grandholm would have determined the future of GPS. Apparently, if some of these people can't call all the shots, then outsiders are preferrable to our own elected, volunteer, unpaid officials.
Our Council, Mayor and talented City Manger have acted responsibly and wisely throughout these difficult financial times. GPS has been leading the way in reforms and efficiences, without the drastic reductions in service that some consistently chronic complainers in our community are proposing.

I think Mr. Lee makes an excellent point: "When property values rose & taxes skyrocketed, did residents see any increase in services? No way, most of those extra tax dollars that came in went for higher benefits under the Kenyon Cooper regime. "

As for Mr. Kurtz's suggestion.. let's continue with the consolidation. Let's have the city managers car pool and pay for actual miles used or use SKPYE.

Sad thing is, Harry, when you look at the years of deficit spending, depleted (and at times negative ) fund balances, and lack of adequate fiscal reserves that got our city on the state fiscal watch list under Mayor Cooper's regime, Grosse Pointe Shores is sinking in the same fiscal boat as Detroit. And I'd definitely prefer an empowered outside fiscal manager to straighten up the mess, as opposed to Mayor Cooper and his cronies who have several years to come to grip with reality, but have fallen miserably short. They remind me of Nero fiddling while the city of Rome burned!

Mr. Kurtz, after all these years, I expected you to be exhausted playing the role of court jester for the Cooper administration. What fascinates me is how effective your perennial, sycophantic behavior has been in turning so many Grosse Pointe Shores residents against you—whether you realize it or not, your actions have been counter-productive to your cause! As far as I am concerned, however, please keep it up—in fact, I would be grateful if you would take your rhetoric up a notch or two. Voters need to be aware of the true incompetence of their mayor and his council minions (Boyce, Galbenski, Geraghty, and Graziani) as well as the deviousness of our duplicitous city manager, Brian Vick. None of these officials have acted responsibly or wisely during these difficult financial times, and certainly not in the best interests of the people who elected them. Grosse Pointe Shores has failed miserably to lead the way in reforms and efficiencies without imposing drastic reductions in services to our community. (By the way, you obviously don't even know how to spell the word "efficiences" (sic) correctly, do you? In fact, I'm rather surprised you actually knew how to spell the word "reforms" correctly! Why don't you go back to school and take an English grammar class? While you're at it, a basic American history course wouldn't do you any harm, either!) If we keep these same people in office beyond Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011, Grosse Pointe Shores will never celebrate its bi-centennial.

You can't state things any better, Mr. Walton! I'd encourage any Shores resident who hasn't read it, to click on the link below and review your recent letter to the Patch comparing how Grosse Pointe Shores is run to a monarchy:

http://grossepointe.patch.com/articles/grosse-pointe-shores-resident-shares-opinion-on-public-building-moratorium

I really like you analogy of the court jester!

It is outrageous Mayor Cooper can schedule his own town hall meeting at city hall , in violation of the council's recent moratorium on the public use of Shores' buildings. When Finance chair and Mayor Pro Tem Ted Kedzierski recently asked at a council meeting to schedule a town hall meeting that he has wanted to do for some time to bring Shores residents up to speed on our sick finances, he was told by appointed councilman Brian Geraghty that he should use the Grosse Pointe library for his town hall meeting. What hypocritical behavior by Cooper and his minions!

It's a good thing Shores residents will have the opportunity to clean house in municipal elections this fall!

GPS leadership successfully implemented a Blue Ribbon Financial Advisory Committee, of highly regarded residents, Business Owners, CPAs, Doctors, Lawyers, Managers and even one of the harshest, longtime critics of several council members and our Mayor.
Most on the committee worked diligently with our talented City Manager, Brian Vick and Council Liaison, David Galbenski, for many months and came up with a list of specific ideas to address long term Legacy Costs in the future. The June 2nd GP News lead story confirms the prudent actions being implemented, pursuant to the "unanimous" approval of the Shores Council.
GPS audited books speak for themselves so, where's the smoking gun, the big investigation or news expose, that surely would have resulted from all the unfounded allegations of the naysayers?
Instead, we hear positive news in addressing the same difficulties all communities in Michigan are experiencing, as a result of the devastating recession. All this success, despite the never ending litany of name calling and unsubstantiated allegations by a small, politically motivated, same old news, sky is falling group, that offers no encouragement, no solutions and nothing positive, for well over a decade now.
Meanwhile, the Shores continues moving forward. As the saying goes, lead, follow, or get out of the way. Better yet, if you hate it here so much, after all these years, move somewhere else and get on with your lives, assuming you actually reside here.

Ms. Kurtz hits the nail on the head."As the saying goes, lead, follow, or get out of the way. "
So I ask him to support me in calling upon the esteemed members our council to make arrangements
to broadcast the upcoming town hall meeting - daily- with times published on Channel 12.

Harry:

I definitely reside in Grosse Pointe Shores and have accumulated years of excessive tax receipts representing many thousands of carelessly-spent municipal dollars to prove it. In 2008, who approved Mr. Kenyon’s pay check of $207,676, Mrs. Kenyon’s paycheck of $149,844, Finance Director Ricketts paycheck of $145,471, Police Chief Poloni’s paycheck of $113,119, Park Director Cooke’s paycheck of $94,679, DPW Director Smith’s paycheck of $101,371, and police officer paychecks extending into the $90,000+ range? Who approved Mr. Kenyon’s 2009 pension check of $337,619? When City Manager Vick hired in, who agreed to give him 12 years worth of automatic pension vestment, so that after only 13 years of service (now 10) he can retire handsomely on the backs of Shores tax payers? Who agreed to give him a $550 per month car allowance? Who approved a $3.4 Million-dollar marina when our own accountants advised against it? Many questions, but just one answer: Jim Cooper and his cronies, that’s who! Why is our control-obsessed mayor not insisting that the marina contractor completely replace the wall of failing concrete in our “world-class” marina? Please don’t come back with the usual rhetoric of: “that was in the past.” Is a person who robbed a bank “in the past” immune from present-day prosecution? It’s called accountability!

To be continued!

Harry:
You say the GPS audited books speak for themselves? I’ll say they do! Our new accounting firm clearly pointed out that Grosse Pointe Shores “does not appear to have sufficient segregation of duties,” and that “expenditures had exceeded the amounts appropriated for the elections and insurance activities within the City’s General Fund.” The accountants went on to say that they could not confirm whether our financial statements are accurate because “providing an opinion on compliance with those provisions was not an objective of our audit, and accordingly, we do not express such an opinion.” Furthermore, if our books are so squeaky clean why did members of the Shores administration cringe at the April Council Meeting when Councilman Schulte asked whether Grosse Pointe Shores has ever requested a forensic audit?

Regarding the Blue Ribbon Committee: None of their recommendations have been actively implemented so far. If you check, you’ll find many BRC members are largely disappointed in how reluctant the city has been to apply their recommendations. One member even sold his house and left the Shores based on our poor management. We’ve also yet to see a nickel saved from the proposed dispatch consolidation. In fact, before we even begin to realize a savings we’re about to go deeper in debt to buy a more sophisticated – but hardly necessary – radio system as Mr. Adams points out in his very salient comment posted above.

To be continued!

Harry:
You mention a small, politically motivated group. Isn't that what best describes you, your next-door neighbor Jim Cooper, and your small clique of cronies who think they should have exclusive control over this city to the disregard of everyone else.

Do other cities have problems? Sure, but those cities didn't have the means nor the tax base that GP Shores enjoys. Properly managed, this city had every opportunity to maintain a balanced budget, without the millage increase of 2009, and without cheating residents out of their rightful 12.6% property tax reduction in 2011. That's right, if Mayor Cooper and Mr. Vick had not appealed to Wayne County, without even going to the council for their input, Shores property owners would have gotten the tax relief that the law is supposed to afford as property values plunge. Now the Cooper & Vick want to stiff taxpayers even more by applying an additional 1.75 mils to the 2011-2012 budget!

You're wrong, Harry, I don't hate the Shores, I just can't tolerate those fiscally irresponsible politicians and civil servants who have depleted the once healthy Shores fiscal reserves by spending money like drunken sailors.

To review the data on Shores finances under Mayor Cooper check out the documents at http://www.shoresrecall.com/page24/page24.html

Harry, I won't stoop to respond to your mean spirited comment about moving, other than to say as a doctor I don't dispense advice to patients that I wouldn't follow myself!

As a friendly reminder, Patch welcomes healthy debate about issues but would like to remind everyone to stick to the issue.