If they want to "educate" the populace they should cough up the numbers and let us know what they spent. This will be an unholy union between the Board and the Consultyants and the lawyers, the kind of ' trois a menage" that results in a bastard whose parentage is not established. In every town where these TIFs are established you will find the same coterie of consultant and legal firms bellying up to the public trough.
Riverside Info » About Riverside
FOIA - How much have we spent?
(28 posts)-
Posted Tuesday Mar 27, 2007 14:29 #
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I received today a letter from Ms. Rush with some figures relating to Camiros. I still do not have what I asked for. Here is my reply, delieverd to City Hall witin the last hour.
March 27, 2007
Ms. Kathleen Rush
Village Manager
Riverside, IL 60546RE: FOIA Requests
Dear Ms. Rush:
I am in receipt of your letter of March 23,2007. We both share English as our native tongue. Let's start again.
I am requesting you to provide me with six numbers, as complete and as accurate as you can make them. I want to know how much the Village has paid to each of the lead consultants - Camiros, URS and Kane McKenna, for three projects - the B2 Zoning, the TOD Study and the TIF, respectively. I also want to know, as accurately as possible, the total spent on each of these projects. That's all I ask for.
You either know or can discover this information and do not want to provide it, or you don't have a clue as to how much it is or how to find it. If the answer is that you know or can easily find out but won't provide it then you are obstructing the free flow of information to the public. If you don't know these numbers and/or don't know how to find them than there is something seriously wrong with the way the public's money is accounted for. Neither is satisfactory.
What you have provided is a smattering of documents that you assume is the minimum you need to provide. I don't believe that is the case, and I don't believe the Attorney General's office will think so either, but we'll have to wait and see about that. Certainly, you have not provided what the average citizen should know, namely, how many taxpayer dollars have gone to these three projects.
We, the public, have no way short of a full, independent audit of accurately attributing numbers to jobs. We can't tell what part of an invoice is related to a certain task, and we don't know even the names of the legal, engineering and other firms and individuals that you have used.
For example, when a public notice in the local newspaper missed the deadline and, at an extra expense of $8,000. a supplementary notice was put in the
Page TwoTribune, we normally wouldn't even know about it if we were just looking at a series of approved expenses. What was that called, advertising? When an engineering firm like Burke does work for the TIF, or Bemis for the B2 Zoning, or when money is allocated to the Planning Commission and then spent on consultant fees, we can't decipher that short of having professional auditors reconstruct the Village's manner of contracting and payments in depth. But we will if we have to.
Frankly, I find your attitude, and that of the Trustees, puzzling. Normally, I would expect all of you to want to be able to inform the residents of how well, if that is the case, you are shepherding our affairs. But in this case, you seem to take umbrage at even being asked to account for the public's money. Why is that?
Your letter states that it contains “a press release compiled by Kevin Wachtel that indicates the total spent to Kane McKenna.— I found no such document in this envelope, which contained only some numbers relating to Camiros. I did not question Mr. Wachtel's truthfulness, and I told him so in my e-mail. I do, however, question any accounting system that can't tell me what has been spent, with who, for a given project.
The Village just spent many thousands on new software for the police that perhaps might have been better spent on an accounting system that identified payments with tasks. That, after all, is what the taxpayers want to know. If a piece of equipment was involved in an accident you would want to know what it was going to cost to repair it - mechanical, body and paint, tires, etc., and what a new one would cost, and then make an informed decision on how to proceed.
It is the same for the public. The Village President asked us to become more involved, attend meetings, ask questions. That is what we are doing. So why can't you or won't you provide the rlevant figures for these three projects? We will keep asking, and you will no doubt then say we are repeating ourselves and thus don't deserve an answer. If that is where this is going than we might just as well proceed to the next level right now. If that proves to be the case, it will be you who have caused it. We need to know these numbers in ample time before the election on April 17th. They should be provided on or before the COW on April 3, 2007
Sincerely,
Donald Spatny
Posted Tuesday Mar 27, 2007 16:20 # -
http://www.rblandmark.com/main.asp?SectionID=3&SubSectionID=17&ArticleID=2409&TM=35722
Riverside finance chief explains TIF costs
At their March 19 meeting, the Riverside village board authorized the expenditure of $11,658.75 of additional expenditures to Kane, McKenna and Associates for their work relating to the possible TIF district in the central business district.
In early 2006, the village board sent out a request for proposals, with six firms responding. After a thorough review process, Kane, McKenna was contracted to complete the study in the amount of $37,500 plus out-of-pocket expenditures, with the understanding that an additional housing impact study may be required. The additional $10,000 housing impact study was approved on June 19, 2006.
Due to the increasing complexity of the project and the need for additional out-of-scope meetings with elected officials, local business owners and others, the village authorized an additional $15,000 for the contract on Oct. 2, 2006.
During this time, the village embarked on the central business district workshops, which required additional services from the TIF consultant, as the TIF was a central concern that the workshops were expected to address.
Upon receipt of the January invoice of $4,437.50, village staff determined that the services had exceeded the previously authorized contract amount and immediately alerted the village board for the March 2, 2007 meeting. Due to a clerical error, that discussion was tabled.
The village subsequently received the February invoice, brining the total due to $11,658.75 for research, meetings and preparation for the workshops. Kane, McKenna then estimated that the completion of the TIF would cost $30,000 with current boundaries and up to $100,000 if the boundaries were to be extended, with these options presented to the village board.
The board determined that future invoices would require board approval until the TIF discussion is completed.
To date the total amount paid to Kane McKenna and Associates is $80,723.14 (including the March 19, 2007 approval).
Kevin Wachtel, finance director
Village of RiversidePosted Wednesday Mar 28, 2007 09:02 # -
But that is not the total of all the money wasted on this so far. Don't leave out the lawyers, engineers, workshop costs, etc., etc. Why don't they just tell us what the totals are? How can they not know? People need to demand an accounting of this entire mess, from B2 to TOD to TIF, and I mean all of the money spent from all the accounts and budgets. Why won't the Village provide this information? It's the residents' taxes they are spending.
Posted Wednesday Mar 28, 2007 09:19 # -
OK, making progress. 80K to the minimally competent Kane McKenna. What did they do for the workshops? Anyway, I note that the newspaper reported that 75K had been spent on them already, so there is nothing fresh in admitting it.
Let's move on to lawyers, engineers, Camiros, other consultants, etc., and for which matters.
Posted Wednesday Mar 28, 2007 10:06 # -
What we need is for Mr. Wachtel, who everybody agrees is an honest and competent fellow with no axe to grind, to come up with six figures. He has one - the amount paid to Kane McKenna. Now we need to know how much in total was spent on the TIF so far besides Kane Mckenna, and then we will know what this thing has truly cost, and that will help us to better understand why they are asking so much to alter it, and how far this administration has already gone. Look, at the last meeting we were treated to the Shields and Katy show, where they pretended that she wouldn't be able to talk to KM on the phone if she didn't have an extra $4500. in hand. Even though she had already wrung up more than $11K in "out of Scope" charges. Do these people really believe the taxpayers are that stupid? Have another nice dish of hubris, folks.
Then we need four more numbers: The total amount paid to URS or whoever was the lead consultant for the TOD study. And again, the total amount spent for that - including all lawyers, engineers, etc. Then the same for the B2 Zoning fiasco. How much did they pay to Camiros, and how much in other costs. Just give us these six totals and we can add it up ourselves. If Mr. Wachtel gathers this info and attests it is correct I am prepared to believe him, and even understand if there is something minor left out, but THAT'S WHAT WE WANT TO KNOW. THAT'S WHAT IS OWED TO THE PUBLIC. NOTHING LESS. AND IN TIMELY FASHION. I hope that any Trustees that see this call the Village and tell them to do this, because they represent the public. We heard all the pallaver about "educating the public." OK, educate us. Give us this information - plain, straight, unadulterated. No delays, no excuses, no fudging the facts. Just how much of the public's money have you spent on these three items, and we will be able to judge whether we got value for money, thank you.
Posted Wednesday Mar 28, 2007 14:18 # -
I got a call a little after 5:00 o'clock saying the numbers I requested are ready. Who knows what that means, but maybe they did it. I'll get them on Monday.
Posted Friday Mar 30, 2007 22:16 # -
Don, isn't it odd that after the finance director, Kevin, said they couldn't track things this way, that now the numbers are suddenly available? I guess the thought of having Madigan's office look into how they do things made them find a way.
Posted Friday Mar 30, 2007 23:57 # -
Well I haven't yet seen what they have come up with, but it really shouldn't be uch an onerus task. If Ms. Rush sat down and wrote the names of the consultans, lawyers and engineers down on a sheet of paper for each of those projects I'm sure they all have vendor numbers or something like that, and could asily be called up. I think they use computers, but make it sound like they have an abacus. I noted your post on another thread about "consistency." I will remain constant to this quest for the facts - on how much has been spent and what, if any, has been promised or vouchsafed to who. Mike had a comment about a line in the Trib article that said something like "maybe Riverside wants to rmain a sleepy littlle town " off the beaten track. That's OK with me. When I lived in Berlin, which is often referred to as the "Chicago" of Europe, the little enclave of Lubars was and rmained a quiet little corner in the huge megopolis - and was/is very much in demand as a place to live. Likewise Ravinia, Mill Valley, - all highly sought because of their relative tranquility and much threatened by those who would give them what the others have - congestion, noise, traffic, density, etc. I see nothing wrong in Riverside refusing to join that queu. It's like what if they had a war and nobody came. We don't need to do this.
One of the worst things these people have done, even more than allow the VC to be built as it is, is set the expectation of every property owner and real estate agent that now ALL lots in Riverside's CBD can go to four stories. Why not - they can make more money on less investment. Those selling and going to live with the grandkids in Florida or Arizona don't care and want as much as they can get, and the realtors will advise them to take it. When they rolled over and gave that variance for their shiny new code and pandered to the VC developers they screwed us all. Now we'll probably have to pay the consultants more to get a proper, bulletproof code in place, and then the vultures (aka lawyers) will still be circling. If they go ahead and do this TIF and then more of the same pandering to developers who want to build their big, shoddy, ugly crap close to the train don't be surprised to see that limit of three stories rise to five or six. Their horizons don't extend any higher than the next tax levy. Woe is Riverside. We need an organization like the SF Telegraph Hill Dwellers to run this place - they stopped a freeway and eventually got it torn down and an entire interchange carted away. And they were mostly little old ladies in tennis shoes.
Posted Saturday Mar 31, 2007 08:54 # -
Good work Spatny. Can't wait to hear.
Well, California has a good and vigorous democracy going. The rich and powerful protect certain parts, and the local government is very susceptible to the will of the people.
And then there are their famous referenda. Much maligned by the politicians of course, who think it is letting the inmates run the asylum and is "micromanaging." But in fact, the current governor took his marching orders from them.
Posted Saturday Mar 31, 2007 11:48 #
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