Catherine, just because i don't agree with you doesn't mean you have to get all snotty, Unless of course thats your nature. A forum is a place to exchange opinions and ideas not a place to sling mud as you so often do.
Riverside Info » About Riverside
It's time for Katy Rush to go.
(32 posts)-
Posted Wednesday Apr 25, 2007 13:25 #
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Poor Eric Sundstrom. Do you mean like the snotty remark you posted here today?
"They have copies of the budget over at the Library.Fred Blake used to educate himself when it came to the budget. I suggest you do the same."
Do you mean your snotty suggestion that I have not studied the budget, or your snotty implication that everyone in town do the same, in lieu of their elected representatives making an attempt to explain it to them?
Posted Wednesday Apr 25, 2007 13:29 # -
The village board shouldn't be required to educate you on fiscal matters when all you have/had to do was show up to the meetings dealing with fiscal matters. Financial data is published and available to the public so go look it up. I wasn't being snotty. I was telling you to do your own due diligence. Fred Blake and I had differing opinions about various village matters but I respected him as he was always involved in all the elections voicing his opinion and acting as an election judge for many years. He also did his own homework and didn't expect the village to do it for him.
Posted Wednesday Apr 25, 2007 15:47 # -
Of course, my post had nothing to do with MY not understanding the finances:
"Speaking from the seats, Sells is absolutely correct that people do not trust that the existing tax money is being spent judiciously. See the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on consultants and lawyers already.
I think we should have workshops on village finances as we did on the redevelopment issue. Four workshops, say, explaining the current and perhaps the last two budgets. Why do certain departments get the amounts they do. What do they spend it on. What are our needs now and in the near future. PEOPLE ARE NOT SO STUPID THEY CANNOT UNDERSTAND THAT BROKEN PIPES NEED TO BE FIXED OR REPLACED. They didn't get a tax increase in the referenda because they tied it to the language of their redevelopment program and not the needs of the current residents, and because they never bother to explain village expenditures. All we see is money being thrown out the window and into the breeze at mediocrities like KaneMcKenna and Camiros."
Imagine telling the shareholders of a company that their board shouldn't have to explain company finances but that each shareholder should go to library and master it themselves. This kind of arrogance is exactly the village government's perception problem. It gives the appearance of speaking only to itself and yes-men like you, then it wonders why no one will give them more money to spend.
No, it most certainly is the job of the board to explain its spending to the taxpayers. And no, there is no reason why taxpayers should have to sift through FOIA responses and endure soporific meetings without end to understand them. There is no reason why the income, outflow, line items and the explanations for them, cannot be stated clearly and succinctly to people, unless the goal actually is obfuscation. And there, perhaps, is the answer.
See the overwhelming voting down of the TIF in the referendum. Read the signs of the times. Learn from them if you can.
Posted Wednesday Apr 25, 2007 16:37 # -
Eric - funny you mentioned viewing the VC coming down Forest. I was driving that way with a classmate from Wisconisn that was in town and visiting, and when he saw it he said - "What is that awful piece of shit." So I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you look at the other structures you mentioned I think you may find that their proportion is quite different. Go over to Quinct and look at the VC, or from the library, and you'll see that this thing is absolutely wrong for the site. But then, maybe you won't. The other day I drove past that crap your architect built at the Buresh site. Tomorrow's slum today. If the back of your Burlngton structure is going to look like that with those crummy little fire escape balconies hanging out in the air above the garages, I think people will not want to give you waht you are asking. I saw a row of whatever-you-call-thems in Western Springs the otherd ay that reminded me of your rendering as it appeared in the paper - and they were all empty. Maybe the bloom is off the rose for that kind of thing.
On the budget - at the Village meeting in the Rec Center - didn't see you there - the Village Manager brought in some babe to do the new, "upscale" art fair for a fee of $10-11K. If that kind of insanity is in the budget then why read it?
Eric - Be nice to Catherine - she went to that meeting the other night and had to endure the machinations of the Trustees telling us first that we couldn't vote down the TIF becuase there wasn't enough specificity in it, and then that they wanted to send it as is, t(he plan and map of last Nov.) to the JRB. These people are not only illogical, they are whacko. Eric, WE didn't go out and inflict this on them, THEY did it to us, and when we fight back and it backfires and they find out what people really think, do they try and do that. No, insted we have to listen to "Papa knows best" from people who you can tell don't understand that the conultants are snookering them. Someone posted an article from Naperville yesterday and it sounded exactly like the garbage that McKenna told them. " You qualify, but we better call the Swan Pond blighted just in case." And now they are preparing to give these guys still more dough. Doesn't that tick you off?
Posted Wednesday Apr 25, 2007 17:06 # -
Does anyone know how much Kathleen Rush makes? Is it true she also gets a car and free gas? Are we getting value for our money compared to Oak Brook or other communities?
The reason I am asking is that Berwyn wants to switch to a village manager form of administration: http://www.berwynbrick.com/CoreSite/CaseStudy1.asp
She would be perfect for the position: Kane, McKenna already has their tentacles in the TIF pie over there; she can switch the Camiros study to the east side of Harlem; there are way more opportunities to get involved with no-bid contracts (see the landscape planter contract for my point of reference).
Posted Sunday May 4, 2008 09:08 # -
http://rblandmark.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=2912&SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&S=61
Her annual salary through April 30, 1998 [sic] will be $123,000.
I think they meant April 30, 2008.
Interestingly:
The contract does not specify a raise for the second year of the contract, which begins May 1, 2008. It allows for the village board to determine her pay at that time, provided it isn't lower than her 2007 salary.
Did the VB vote on her salary for the next year recently?
Also, see pages 23 and 24 of the PDF (pages 77 and 78 of the printed document) 2008 budget. The total amount budgeted for department 41320 (Village Manager) is $325,536 for 2008, which includes the Village Manager, a full-time Executive Secretary and a part-time Student Intern. I'm not sure if there are other funds at the village manager's discretion in that amount. I would guess there are based on the Village Manager's salary compared to the total amount.
Posted Sunday May 4, 2008 17:46 # -
$325,536 - $50,000 for secretary and $20,000 for intern leaves $132,000 for the department. The $123,000 is for salary but what are the total costs including pension, benefits, etc.?
How does that compare to other communities?
Posted Monday May 5, 2008 11:45 # -
I think it is safe to say that she costs us $75-100. an hour - 50 weeks x 5 days x 8 hours - $150-200 a year - all in. $25 bucks from every man, woman and child ought to do it. But not if you factor in all the contracts to consultants that generate the reports and stats that she uses to lead the parade. Then you are probably looking at twice that. Of course, it is quite hard to tell because the money moves around. The point is,the policies are useless and will not work because they are predicted on creating something that doesn't work here - DEVELOPMENT. For the sake of generating more money so a few people can make higher salaries and "do something" we are throwing away the ability to care for and maintain what is best about this place - its peaceful ambiance. Build 200 condos and a parking structure for commuters and our traffic system and parks will be overrun. Ms. Rush might be great for Naperville or Downers Grove or someplace like that - where there is every franchise known to man and room for more car dealers and highway interchanges. What constantly amazes me is how she directs the scene vis-a-vis the Board. They practically salivate when given the chance to do her bidding. And we end up with garbage like the VC. I go to meeting after meeting and watch them vie to be first to make motions and second this or that. But ask some hard questions about the reasoning behind these moves - it doesn't happen very often. The goal posts keep moving.
Posted Monday May 5, 2008 22:42 # -
Spatny -
What do you think a Village Manager should be paid?
Posted Friday May 9, 2008 11:47 #
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