"At this time, I believe that accepting any stimulus funds will be a detriment to our sovereignty as a city...."
If you haven't taken a look at Councilman Nick Ibarra's Web log, "Zone 1 Matters," you are missing out on some true transparency on the part of an elected official.
After the discussion in Council chambers last night about three bills concerning improvements to the intersection at James River Freeway and National Avenue, Mr. Ibarra and Mr. Bailes voted against the second in a series of three bills related to the issue (see: Council bills 2009-115, 2009-116, and 2009-117).
2009-116, which still passed with a majority of Council voting to support it, authorized the City Manager to enter into a cost participation agreement with the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission (MHTC) for the intersection improvements. Part of that money will be received from the federal government's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Under 2009-116, the City, by it's approval, has agreed to abide by the provisions of the ARRA.
Ibarra laid out the reasoning behind his legislative decision to vote against Council bill 2009-116 in an entry at his blog, this morning.
For future reference, a permanent link to the Councilman's Web log is in the sidebar here. There is also a permanent link to Councilman Robert "Bob" Stephens blog in the sidebar, however, Mr. Stephens is not updating his blog as regularly as Mr. Ibarra.
Related: "Donations extend pools' hours News-Leader.com Springfield News-Leader"
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Showing posts with label Councilman Scott Bailes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Councilman Scott Bailes. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Springfield-Branson National Airport: Poised to Seize the Lion's Share of Federal Aviation Stimulus Funds Available in Missouri
It's unclear how many of the 125 temporary jobs created will benefit local workers
The Springfield News-Leader article in today's issue, covering the City Council's majority decision Tuesday to approve an emergency bill in a special Council meeting, for the purpose of accepting over $14.8 million in Federal Aviation Administration grant monies to build a new taxiway at the Springfield-Branson National Airport, includes information on why Councilman Nicholas Ibarra was the lone Councilmember to vote against accepting the grant. I have been unable to, for reasons I won't go into right now, contact Mr. Ibarra to discuss his reasons with him, personally.
I believe, since joining the City Council in April, Ibarra has voted against the use of any stimulus funds from the federal government, for any reason, within the City of Springfield.
In the past, Ibarra's reasoning for voting against the use of stimulus funds has included the complaint that the projects brought forth by the City do not serve to fullfill the intent of the stimulus funding to facilitate job creation.
According to the News-Leader, Ibarra noted the jobs would be temporary jobs and would end before Christmas, 2009.
Thanks to Councilman Scott Bailes, we also know the estimated 125 jobs created will not all benefit local construction workers.
"Gary (Cyr), I think when we spoke, you had mentioned 125 employed with this stimulus money, and then you mentioned Illinois Paving, do they bring their own employees from out of state?" Bailes asked.
Cyr, the airport manager, was unable to give a clear estimate on the number of local workers who would be employed on the project, citing the fact that there are many components to the project.
"They have some out of state (employees), and then local talent," Cyr said. "When I say 125, that's probably the average of a month's time frame. They may exceed that at certain points when we're doing multiple tasks out there....We did an analysis this morning with our consultants to, what do we think would be a benchmark number on average, per month, of employees that will be working out there."
Further, Cyr added, airport administration will update the number of jobs created.
"We'll be doing updates on a weekly basis on the number of employees that are on the job," Cyr said. He described the components within the project as involving dirt work; lime treated sub-grade; asphalt; concrete; lighting; painting; and striping. "We're anticipating that, probably, we're going to average somewhere with 125 plus employees during the course of this project."
Of the $28 million in aviation stimulus project funds, allotted to the state by the federal government, Springfield will bring home the lion's share.
City Manager Greg Burris said this was due to Cyr and his staff's preparedness.
"The reason that the Springfield-Branson National Airport is getting such a large percentage of these monies that are available in Missouri, is a direct result of Gary and his staff, the airport board, being exceptionally well prepared to do this. I mean, they had done the planning, they were ready to move forward on this," Burris said.
Cyr said the airport had not expected to be able to go ahead with the project until 2010.
"This was designed and talked about 4 years ago," Cyr noted. "The funding was not there, in place, to do it at that time....The stimulus money is allowing us to jump ahead and address this with the support of the FAA because it is a safety concern."
Although the explanation for Council Bill 2009-108 included the original estimate of $18.6 million and a net expenditure adjustment to approximately $14.9 million, it did not include a list of bidders for the project.
Related: CityConnect: "City Council Approves Airport Stimulus Project"
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The Springfield News-Leader article in today's issue, covering the City Council's majority decision Tuesday to approve an emergency bill in a special Council meeting, for the purpose of accepting over $14.8 million in Federal Aviation Administration grant monies to build a new taxiway at the Springfield-Branson National Airport, includes information on why Councilman Nicholas Ibarra was the lone Councilmember to vote against accepting the grant. I have been unable to, for reasons I won't go into right now, contact Mr. Ibarra to discuss his reasons with him, personally.
I believe, since joining the City Council in April, Ibarra has voted against the use of any stimulus funds from the federal government, for any reason, within the City of Springfield.
In the past, Ibarra's reasoning for voting against the use of stimulus funds has included the complaint that the projects brought forth by the City do not serve to fullfill the intent of the stimulus funding to facilitate job creation.
According to the News-Leader, Ibarra noted the jobs would be temporary jobs and would end before Christmas, 2009.
Thanks to Councilman Scott Bailes, we also know the estimated 125 jobs created will not all benefit local construction workers.
"Gary (Cyr), I think when we spoke, you had mentioned 125 employed with this stimulus money, and then you mentioned Illinois Paving, do they bring their own employees from out of state?" Bailes asked.
Cyr, the airport manager, was unable to give a clear estimate on the number of local workers who would be employed on the project, citing the fact that there are many components to the project.
"They have some out of state (employees), and then local talent," Cyr said. "When I say 125, that's probably the average of a month's time frame. They may exceed that at certain points when we're doing multiple tasks out there....We did an analysis this morning with our consultants to, what do we think would be a benchmark number on average, per month, of employees that will be working out there."
Further, Cyr added, airport administration will update the number of jobs created.
"We'll be doing updates on a weekly basis on the number of employees that are on the job," Cyr said. He described the components within the project as involving dirt work; lime treated sub-grade; asphalt; concrete; lighting; painting; and striping. "We're anticipating that, probably, we're going to average somewhere with 125 plus employees during the course of this project."
Of the $28 million in aviation stimulus project funds, allotted to the state by the federal government, Springfield will bring home the lion's share.
City Manager Greg Burris said this was due to Cyr and his staff's preparedness.
"The reason that the Springfield-Branson National Airport is getting such a large percentage of these monies that are available in Missouri, is a direct result of Gary and his staff, the airport board, being exceptionally well prepared to do this. I mean, they had done the planning, they were ready to move forward on this," Burris said.
Cyr said the airport had not expected to be able to go ahead with the project until 2010.
"This was designed and talked about 4 years ago," Cyr noted. "The funding was not there, in place, to do it at that time....The stimulus money is allowing us to jump ahead and address this with the support of the FAA because it is a safety concern."
Although the explanation for Council Bill 2009-108 included the original estimate of $18.6 million and a net expenditure adjustment to approximately $14.9 million, it did not include a list of bidders for the project.
Related: CityConnect: "City Council Approves Airport Stimulus Project"
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Tuesday, May 05, 2009
City Council Began Budget Discussions Tuesday
Kicked around the best way to tackle the issue
"This is the first in a series of meetings," City Manager Burris said at the Council luncheon today. He asked the City Council to give him an idea of how many meetings they thought they would like to hold in order to discuss and possibly make changes to Springfield's 2009-10 proposed fiscal budget.
On Friday, May 1, as the City Charter requires, Burris delivered a copy of the proposed budget to each member of the City Council. Councilman Jerry Compton, of course, received his copy a little later.
Springfield's Finance Director Mary Mannix Decker went through the budget, hitting the highlights and answering a few questions from Council members.
The City also released a new document with the budget. This year they published a smaller document, a summary, which targets the differences between last year's budget and the newly proposed budget. The document is 38 pages in length.
Also released today: a document outlining the repercussions of budgeted City contribution cuts to the City's non-profit service-agency partners.
Councilman Doug Burlison didn't believe the City Council would be able to give Burris a good idea about how many meetings they might want to hold to discuss the budget until they'd had a week to look it over, forming questions and comments. Other Council members agreed with Burlison.
Councilman John Rush felt he needed more time to understand the budget. He said he had been trying to figure out a systematic way of looking at it and had been unable to do so.
Decker said, in the past, they have gone over it page by page. And, while it is up to the City Council to decide their procedure, Decker suggested time might be better spent by considering specific critical issues.
They casually decided they would begin their discussion at the next City Council luncheon by looking over the changes from last year to this year's proposed budget and they specifically asked to hear from Parks Director Jodie Adams and the Director of the Springfield-Greene County Health Department Kevin Gibson.
Councilman Scott Bailes said discussing priorities would be more helpful to him as a starting point. He wondered about the wisdom of cutting the parks department in a couple of the areas cited. Bailes felt by instituting cuts at Mediacom Ice Park and other potential sales tax generating sites, if the Department would not be, not only absorbing the initial general fund budget contribution loss but, lose revenue from sales tax receipts. He wondered if the parks budget was restored in those areas, what might be cut in their stead. Burris noted the Parks Department had decided for themselves the areas in which they cut their budget to deal with the cut in contributions from the City, as proposed in the new budget.
All of the budget workshops will be televised on TV23 and available for viewing at their Web site.
In other news, Mayor Pro Tem Dan Chiles said he had talked with Mayor Jim O'Neal's wife over the telephone. She had indicated the Mayor had come through his hip replacement surgery very well. She said they are estimating the Mayor could be released from the hospital on Thursday or Friday.
Related: Proposed Springfield budget full of cuts Springfield News-Leader
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"This is the first in a series of meetings," City Manager Burris said at the Council luncheon today. He asked the City Council to give him an idea of how many meetings they thought they would like to hold in order to discuss and possibly make changes to Springfield's 2009-10 proposed fiscal budget.
On Friday, May 1, as the City Charter requires, Burris delivered a copy of the proposed budget to each member of the City Council. Councilman Jerry Compton, of course, received his copy a little later.
Springfield's Finance Director Mary Mannix Decker went through the budget, hitting the highlights and answering a few questions from Council members.
The City also released a new document with the budget. This year they published a smaller document, a summary, which targets the differences between last year's budget and the newly proposed budget. The document is 38 pages in length.
Also released today: a document outlining the repercussions of budgeted City contribution cuts to the City's non-profit service-agency partners.
Councilman Doug Burlison didn't believe the City Council would be able to give Burris a good idea about how many meetings they might want to hold to discuss the budget until they'd had a week to look it over, forming questions and comments. Other Council members agreed with Burlison.
Councilman John Rush felt he needed more time to understand the budget. He said he had been trying to figure out a systematic way of looking at it and had been unable to do so.
Decker said, in the past, they have gone over it page by page. And, while it is up to the City Council to decide their procedure, Decker suggested time might be better spent by considering specific critical issues.
They casually decided they would begin their discussion at the next City Council luncheon by looking over the changes from last year to this year's proposed budget and they specifically asked to hear from Parks Director Jodie Adams and the Director of the Springfield-Greene County Health Department Kevin Gibson.
Councilman Scott Bailes said discussing priorities would be more helpful to him as a starting point. He wondered about the wisdom of cutting the parks department in a couple of the areas cited. Bailes felt by instituting cuts at Mediacom Ice Park and other potential sales tax generating sites, if the Department would not be, not only absorbing the initial general fund budget contribution loss but, lose revenue from sales tax receipts. He wondered if the parks budget was restored in those areas, what might be cut in their stead. Burris noted the Parks Department had decided for themselves the areas in which they cut their budget to deal with the cut in contributions from the City, as proposed in the new budget.
All of the budget workshops will be televised on TV23 and available for viewing at their Web site.
In other news, Mayor Pro Tem Dan Chiles said he had talked with Mayor Jim O'Neal's wife over the telephone. She had indicated the Mayor had come through his hip replacement surgery very well. She said they are estimating the Mayor could be released from the hospital on Thursday or Friday.
Related: Proposed Springfield budget full of cuts Springfield News-Leader
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