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Garland French is mayor
City Council appoints French by a 5-0 vote. Bob Crumpacker, who insisted more time should have been taken to make the decision and said “once again we’re rushing headlong into the train wreck,” abstained, as did French. He will finish the two-plus years remaining on Dean Bunkers’ term.
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9 Responses to “Garland French is mayor”
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Maybe Garland will take care of the Utility issues. He has been asking for clarification of the multimillion dollar utility plan. Maybe as mayor he can start there and maybe give us quality water at a lower price. Maybe also he can slowly find ways of reducing the city costs to the point where property taxes pay for the place and fees and permits pay for the extras and departments. I hope the Library can keep going. However, that will take some creative actions to have it staffed at lower costs for longer hours. I only hope the city can hang on until 2013 when we can negotiate the contracts from a position stronger than we have now. We really need to record those meetings so there is a record for the future as to the intent of the parties. That way a future mayor, when confronted with what Dean had to deal with, can speak from a record and not just hearsay.
There is no accountability. A huge salary of $99,600 and 33% benefits are being paid to someone who was not elected by citizens and cannot be removed by council or citizen voters until the voters can vote 2 years and nine month from now in Nov. 2012.
Only dictators have no accountability except to themselves. History has shown that their egos and unaccountability corrupts them.
The new mayor can do whatever he wants. He can push for higher taxes with Lid LIft III, Lift Lift IV, Lid Lift V and so on and there is nothing anyone can do to hold him accountable until election day. We will have paid an unelected mayor more than a third of a million dollars in salary and benefits. He will not have to be accountable to voters. He can take the money which is very large and not run for election and leave a mess for the next elected mayor.
The last city manager in 11 months nearly destroyed this city. There is no guaratee an unelected mayor who may not be unbiased cannot do even more damage in 3 times the time that was available to the last city manager.
Will he balance the city budget without heavily taxing the property owners? The premise is no because there are no facts to support a yes premise. This same unbalance is being seen now far into the future for state and federal governments also.
With tremendous tax increases and inflation coming the people need representatives and executives that are accountable to their needs. Not to the needs of abnormally high city salaries and benefits. Watch the actions and ignore the hype and hope a state of no accountability is not disastrous after 33 more months.
It all boils down to trust and there is none in this city.
Mr French is a kind, ethical gentleman who has taken on an unpleasant task. He deserves support. He does not have a personal agenda. Thank you Mr French.
Maybe we could take the 450k and finance another water rate study or put a down payment on another roundabout.How about a 10 million dollar police station or an 8 million dollar public works building? Dream on my internet friends, for if we authorize the money, it will slowly drift into oblivion, like a puff of smoke.
Maybe they can redeem themselves in both the council person review and telling the citizens what they plan to do with the 450 thousand dollars the 35 cent EMS Lid Lift Levy frees up in the General Fund. The money currently spent in the General Fund would be available to use elsewhere since the levy provides some additional funds to the EMS. Hay, they could even buy the ambulances that Councilmember Skewis wants. They could open the library and interpretive center. They could keep cutting elsewhere until we are lean and mean. We could even use some of the money to pay back the utilities. We could even start looking for grants for EMS equipment. We could even start focusing on growing the businesses here that will generate B&O and Sales Taxes and not be dependent on tourism. We could even push harder on Grays Harbor Community Hospital and the State and Federal Government to get Urgent Care here. Then the fire department/EMS would not have to travel as far for a majority of their calls. If it requires medical evacuation via an air service we do have an airport. I do recall that was a justification for all the expenses to upgrade it.
it is sad that a complete process was not done in PUBLIC to establish the qualifications of Mr. French. It seems that he may have backround that will help him in his new position. The arrogance shown by the majority of the Council is not the best way to build trust with the voters. Good luck, Garland!
A new train wreck is forming. Council exchanged one old boy setup for different one with new players.
Again council in Ocean Shores proves it can never be trusted. It cannot make any decisions except from behind closed doors. Some hidden puppeteer is always pulling the strings.
Bad decisions will continue. Votes of the people are again being ignored.Taxes will be raised. An untrustworthy Council will again secretly make hidden decisions. The cycle continues.
Are taxpayers doomed to eternal bad city government that will never ever balance its budget? Will council and their unelected mayor be now free to make murky decisions? Council and their tax paid help have always allowed murkiness to exist rather than up to date transparency. Do they consider people stupid?
At least voters can make their point again and vote no a second time on council’s 35 cent property tax increase. Of course this special election will cost them about $8000.
We now know how effective those closed door meetings can be.
Question:
Where do the secret city council meetings happen and how do you get something on that agenda? It seems like those are the meetings we as citizens need to be attending.