TO: MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS - 10/12/10

Our server may blow up today. Why? People are not happy and the inbox is filled with many concerns from the headlines this morning.

Why?

This story…

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-10-11/story/jacksonville-city-hall-panel-selects-most-expensive-proposal-study

and this story

http://jacksonville.com/entertainment/arts/2010-10-11/story/24-area-cultural-organizations-receive-grants-city

The City Council just raised taxes again after all the other new fees were levied on the tax payers. We question why we are spending money on projects like these after so many city services cost us more now.

How can you justify this? How can you really look people in the eyes and tell them you can do a better job of spending their money instead of them?

You will accuse us of being back woods people and not understanding how the arts are important to building a city. We enjoy the arts and if the arts organizations in town managed their own finances and held their own fundraisers, the people who support them would fund them. Should we spend over $2 million funding projects for the arts? Is that the job of the city? And we would like to see a spreadsheet showing the amounts awarded to these organizations in the last 5 years. Have those amounts increased or decreased?

The next story – To spend more than $1 Million for a study to see whether minority and women owned business are receiving fair consideration for government contracts that would take approximately 18 months to complete is OUT OF LINE. And, the lowest bidder was for $1 million LESS. We question why that determination was made.

Let me remind you how someone from the city office called the TU and challenged my contract with JEA which was for $90,000 and took 3 years to complete. They also said – “Ask her if she is a hypocrite for doing this?”

My answer: No. This work ended with a valuable document – The JEA Board Governance Manual - which will be used for years to come to ensure the board works under a governance structure which had not been in place before now.

Here are a few questions regarding the Study on minority contracts:
1) Do we need this study? Who thought we did and why are we seeking bids on this question?

2) Are we being abused price-wise by these contractors for the study and can they really justify the costs of their bids?

3) Could a spreadsheet in Excel be created showing all the city contract work awarded with a column titled “Minority or Women Contract.” That column could then be checked if the contract was awarded. Try a spreadsheet first before you spend over a million dollars to discover the same answer.

4) The highest bidder was awarded the contract and that makes no sense and it smells really bad.

We are requesting that the questions noted in this email are answered by you as well as these others:

How much money and how many contracts were awarded for “studies” in this year’s budget? To whom?

How much did we spend and how many contracts did we spend last year on “studies?” To whom?

A simple Excel spreadsheet will work just fine to answer these two questions.

The people of Jacksonville are watching how the money is spent. When you increase taxes and fees – you must expect that to happen. Especially when our unemployment is at a record high, homes are upside down and people are saving pennies to pay their bills.

It’s the duty of each citizen to ask questions and raise concerns when money seems to be wasted and this ladies and gentlemen smells like waste to many.

If you have any questions about our questions, please let us know. We would love to hear from you by Monday, October 25^th and if that is not possible, please let us know when you can answer these questions. The people are waiting for an explanation.

As you scratch your head and wonder why the people are asking so many questions, I thought you might enjoy the following article from US News and World Report. Here’s an excerpt and the link to the article. These are the people of the First Coast Tea Party and we have grave concerns about our future. Do not discount them or us. We love our city and we will voice our concerns.

http://politics.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2010/10/07/the-tea-party-movement-is-a-middle-class-revolt

Richard Nixon popularized the idea that there existed in America a “silent majority” at odds with the values and vision of the leftist radicals who put the nation through a period of prolonged social upheaval back in the 1960s.

Today the “silent majority” is silent no more. As seen in the Tea Party movement the middle class, on whose shoulders the heavy burden of the nation’s economic health and well-being fall, are beginning to rise up.

They are not social outliers. They are leaders in their communities. They are the kind of people de Tocqueville would have seen as the glue keeping the country from breaking apart. After decades of being taxed and regulated and spent into hard times, seeing their futures and their childrens’ futures put out to sea on an ocean of red ink, watching their economic liberty and their ability to pursue happiness erode, they are fighting back.