{"id":2097,"date":"2012-08-28T14:32:38","date_gmt":"2012-08-28T18:32:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=2097"},"modified":"2012-08-28T17:06:21","modified_gmt":"2012-08-28T21:06:21","slug":"speeches-on-transparency-cant-mask-fiscal-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=2097","title":{"rendered":"Speeches on transparency can’t mask fiscal woes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Council members continue to pledge reform while police, financial crises roil<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Kathleen Brady Shea<\/strong><\/span>, Managing Editor, The Times<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cThe 2012 Police Department budget cuts have been bungled, or worse, thus placing police officers and citizens at increased risk and causing Coatesville\u2019s police officers to declare their lack of confidence in City Council to keep Coatesville safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a quote from a blistering \u2013 but factual \u2013 letter written last week by the Coatesville Police Benevolent Association (PBA), which has decried the continued understaffing of the department. To date, promises made months ago to replace officers who took the early-retirement program with part-timers \u2013 a Band-aid, \u00a0at best \u2013 have not been kept.<\/p>\n

The association also expressed a lack of confidence in acting Police Chief James Bell, who was sworn in at last night\u2019s City Council meeting. Whether Bell is qualified to hold the post temporarily holds little significance given the enormity of the city\u2019s problems, one of which was typified by Council\u2019s disdainful response to the letter.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Tonya Thames Taylor details a plan to turn a historic building that was saved from demolition into a vibrant visitors’ center.<\/p><\/div>\n

Council had an opportunity to acknowledge some of the police concerns, even elaborate on what Bell might be doing to buoy morale. They didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Similarly, they did not update the community on efforts to beef up the force. Instead, Council members David C. Collins and C. Arvilla Hunt vigorously defended Bell\u2019s hiring.<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally think he\u2019s doing an outstanding job,\u201d said Collins. Hunt called him \u201cthe right man\u201d for the job.\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cYou do have our support.\u201d she said, blithely disregarding the lack of confidence the department expressed.<\/p>\n

Councilman Joe Hamrick went further, blasting the media for reporting on the PBA letter \u2013 a diatribe that amazingly followed discussion about improving press relations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care what the FOP has to say \u2013 or the District Attorney,\u201d said Hamrick, referring to District Attorney Tom Hogan\u2019s recent comments criticizing the department\u2019s lack of \u00a0manpower. Visibly exasperated, Hamrick repeated several times that Council would \u201cnever jeopardize\u201d citizens\u2019 safety.<\/p>\n

Sorry, Joe: That\u2019s precisely what you\u2019ve done. Officers who retired have not been replaced, forcing overtime or undermanned shifts. The staffing has been \u00a0skeletal enough that the county\u2019s chief law-enforcement officer noted it publicly. Officers felt sufficient frustration that they sought help from the PBA, which generated the letter that Council would prefer to dismiss.<\/p>\n

In fact, ongoing efforts by Council members to minimize rather than address the city\u2019s problems make the financial revelations of last night\u2019s meeting even more troubling. According to numbers presented by Finance Director John Marcarelli, \u00a0the city is $1.972 million in the red, necessitating yet another trip to the trust-fund trough.<\/p>\n

Marcarelli\u2019s figures suggested the \u201cor worse\u201d phrase used by the PBA to describe the city\u2019s police budget proved to be accurate. Besides decreased revenues and skyrocketing legal costs, the budget failed to include any severance payments to the six officers who left the department in the spring.\u00a0 It also did not include any 2012 salaries for those officers, who all worked at least five months of the year, an omission that defies explanation.<\/p>\n

Fingers have already started pointing toward former City Manager Gary Rawlings, an ideal scapegoat since he\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n

Coatesville\u2019s financial problems are nothing new. The city\u2019s past includes previous trust-fund bailouts, an employee convicted of bribery, workers who have quit or been fired amid clouds of suspicion, and vows to complete a forensic audit that never materialized.<\/p>\n

If the current Council truly wants to do what\u2019s best for the city, it will stop spouting empty rhetoric about transparency and institute the reforms and improvements needed to stop the revolving door of lawsuits and restore public trust. But before that can happen, it needs to hone its communication skills and eliminate infighting.<\/p>\n

A thought-provoking presentation last night by the city\u2019s Historical Commission, a group that has done its own fund-raising, was overshadowed by police and fiscal woes. Tonya Thames-Taylor and Jeff Deacon explained how a historic building could become a vibrant visitors\u2019 center, a point of pride as the city approaches its 300th<\/sup> birthday in 2014.<\/p>\n

Thames-Taylor and Deacon, who deserved and did not receive effusive public thanks from Council for their efforts, typify the groups of unsung, energized citizens working tirelessly behind the scenes to make the city a better place.<\/p>\n

In contrast, City Council members routinely whine at the close of meetings about how hard their jobs are and how diligently they are working to improve things, comments often at odds with their actions.<\/p>\n

A month ago, Councilman Ed Simpson was blindsided at the end of a meeting when Collins, with support from Hunt and Jarrell Brazzle, unsuccessfully attempted to remove him as president. Last night, Simpson stepped down from the post, explaining that he needed to take \u201ca break for medical reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked later whether his colleagues knew he was having health problems when they staged the coup attempt in late July, Simpson said yes. He said he had planned to step down at that meeting, but was so shocked by their actions that he opted to wait and leave on his own terms. So much for collegiality.<\/p>\n

More warmth and fuzziness surfaced right after the meeting when Hunt pitched a fit because a reporter snapped her photo. Misinterpreting Hunt\u2019s wrath, the reporter offered to take another picture that was posed, not candid, but that wasn\u2019t the issue. \u201cThis is my private time,\u201d she said, still seated in her Council chair. She repeatedly demanded that the photo be deleted and then threatened that if it weren\u2019t \u201cyou know what will happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sadly, for Coatesville citizens who deserve better, what will happen is more dysfunction if Council members don\u2019t shift their priorities and spend less time sniping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Council members continue to pledge reform while police, financial crises roil By Kathleen Brady Shea, Managing Editor, The Times \u201cThe 2012 Police Department budget cuts have been bungled, or worse, thus placing police officers and citizens at increased risk and causing Coatesville\u2019s police officers to declare their lack of confidence in City Council to keep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112,3],"tags":[707,562,308,705,706,382,561],"class_list":["post-2097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-featured","tag-acting-police-chief-james-bell","tag-c-arvilla-hunt","tag-coatesville-city-council","tag-coatesville-police-benevolent-association","tag-david-c-collins","tag-ed-simpson","tag-jarrell-brazzle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}