Well, there's no doubt Mayor Sam 'the Big Lie' Joshi, aka Mr. Shrink-flation, Big-boy pants, the Weathervane Millennial, the Malleable Marionette, the Event Planner, Sam the Film-flam Man, the Emperor has No Clothes, the Debt-a-nator and Mr. Swiper has the Council votes to pass his Ridiculous $175.9m Out-of-Control $pending Budget for 2024 - so why would it be necessary to move his 2024 Budget Presentation to the same night as a Council work session and why would his Council cohorts go along with it??
Seems pretty plain and simple - his Council cohorts must know he's incapable of defending his own budget from substantive questions in a public forum. So, what do they do to protect him - they go along with limiting the time the Council can ask questions after he makes his 2024 Budget Presentation.
Clearly, Joshi would be incapable of selling this inflated cash grab if there's any Council push-back allowed after his presentation, which, if history is any indication, will again no doubt be full of lies.
Not only disrespectful to their fellow Council Members by limiting their attempt to perform their due diligence but to the residents and taxpayers.
A outright attempt to block transparency in the budget review process.
Everyone should object to this change just to protect Joshi from looking like an incompetent boob in public. Even he must know he can't talk himself out of something he's behaved himself into.
I can't say how strongly I find this to be offensive and, not for nothing, I did send the following email yesterday to Bob Diehl, his Chief of Staff to express my objection to this change and the reasons why:
'Hey Bob - nice to see you again at the Veterans’ Park Memorial service. Just a couple things, if I may.First, I just found out the 2024 Budget Presentation has been rescheduled from Thursday, June 13th to Monday, June 10th.
Seems it is now on the same night as the Council Work session that starts at 6:00PM. That’s a tad bit unfair to the Council to be scheduling both on the same night as well as limiting their time ask questions and have discussions with the Mayor about his $175.9m budget before the 6:00PM work session start time.
The 2024 Budget Presentation should be on a separate night by itself and take as long as it takes for the Council to do their due diligence. It has always been done that way and for good reasons.
Further, it’s unfair to the residents and taxpayers to schedule this meeting at 5:00PM. Most people who would want to attend wouldn’t even be home from work by that time.
This change demonstrates a total lack of transparency in the budget process.
Second, as I mentioned to you, I have an OPRA Request outstanding regarding the 2024 Budget. With salaries & wages approaching almost half the total appropriations in this budget, I specifically asked for the Number of employees by Department for the 2024 Introduced Budget along with the Number of employees by Department for the 2023 Adopted Budget. Clearly, documents that anyone would need when putting together a budget by department.
You can appreciate why that would be important for anyone to understand if the Salary & Wage amounts in this budget as well as the change from last year makes sense.
Seems that, after waiting the 7 days, my May 15th request has been extended to June 7th and I was looking for your help. With the Budget Presentation now scheduled for June 10th, you’ll excuse me if I’m concerned that I may get another extension on June 7th - post budget presentation.
If you have time to talk and can help with this, I’d appreciate a call.
Just to summarize, I would object to moving the Budget Presentation to June 10th at 5:00PM and hope you can help to reverse this change to a date and time by itself and if you can do anything to help expedite my OPRA Request, I’d appreciate it.
Thanks for your indulgence.'
Ralph
Anyhoo, what's really disconcerting here isn't Joshi's inept stewardship, that's a given - it's the lengths his Council cohorts will go along with to protect it.
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