"Business Plan for Polk City" Meeting on Sept. 21st

By definition "A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals."

Last night's city meeting was a far cry from a Business Plan meeting.  It was more like a pre-planned sales pitch with planted audience members intended to sway the rest in attendance that the city's view points are more valid than those in opposition.  The public has still yet to be presented with CLEAR, DECISIVE, FACT BASED PLANS of how the city plans to get out of its current mess and be able to continue operations in the future.  If this had been a situation where a business was applying for a business loan, the presenting parties should be able to come up with FACTS and FIGURES, not just opinions and excuses, for the tough questions the bank would be asking.  The overly generalized examples with numbers not reflecting a true representation of how the average tax payer's bills are affected by the new millage rate in attempt to pacify the audience, in addition to the numerous "I don't know" and "we'll have to get back to you" responses would not look favorable in a business plan.  The blatant misstatements that the "Bills are Paid" repeated over and over did not reinforce the audience's confidence in the city's financial status, either.  It is common knowledge that the city stills owes the County over $500,000 for back environmental impact fees that the City collected since 2006 and never forwarded on to the County.  The City Officials are not denying this outstanding debt exists, but yet insist that the "Bills are Paid."  That does not compute!

The obvious favoritism to the Pro-city audience members asking questions was very unprofessional.   I understand that some of the questions presented last night may not have been easy to answer, but getting nasty, dodging ones that did not want to be answered, and admittedly skipping over issues on your own notes to avoid controversy does not instill confidence in the public that the right people are running the city.  The city has some tough issues, so the tough questions should be expected and answered, not avoided.

In the Sept. 15th Polk County Board of Commissioners meeting, several of the Commissioners with far more experience than the current City Officials, expressed clear skepticism of how Polk City could possibly pay down the mountain of debt and continue operations considering the small tax base and limited revenue sources available to them, while still being fair to the residents and providing necessary services.  If these proven experts are questioning the City Officials about how this could possibly be done, the public's concern over these same issues is certainly justified.  The public deserves DETAILS, FACTS, and SOLID PLANS not GENERALIZATIONS.  Repeatedly the Vice Mayor/Acting City Manager speaks of cost cutting measures the city has taken as a means to be able to continue operations, mainly citing the 3 reductions in staff.  The former City's Public Works Director was making $49,608 annually, as quoted in the August 24th Ledger Article.  To our knowledge it was not disclosed what the other two positions, assuming clerical, were getting paid annually, so we will use a ballpark figure of $25,000 each, just to estimate.  With these 3 three salaries combined it would have cost the city roughly $99,608 for the year, or $1,915.53 broken down per week.  The new expert contracted Utility consultant from FGUA was needed immediately to replace the former Public Works Director at the cost of $1,700 per week.  This works out to only roughly a small $200 per week savings.  Even with additional spending plans back tabled for now, where does the city plan to come up with the next payment of over $100,000 due in February for the next loan installment due to the County on the Mt. Olive Utility System, the money for repayment of the $500,000+ in overdue impact fees (even if allowed to repay in an installment plan with interest) and be able to maintain current operations, payroll, and other regular bills coming in when the tax base is so small?  The public would like more details since this math does not add up!

Prior to attending the meeting last night, when the updated agenda was sent out via e-mail, we actually had high hopes that the City Officials would actually be presenting HARD FACTS, ACTUAL NUMBERS, and CLEAR ACTION PLANS to resolve the many issues facing the city.  We came ready to listen to some SOLUTIONS.  We left the meeting feeling set up, and still asking the same questions we had prior to arriving.  What a disappointment!  It was business as usual.