Council retreat waste of time ??

Reading about council retreat January 30th sounds to me like it was a major waste. From the sound of the article nothing was accomplished except to set goals that should be the norm.

I think it was very noble for one of them to admit that we never got what we paid for on that last safety levy. (or was that a mere slip of the ole political tongue ?)

MIDDLETOWN — Public safety. Finances. Infrastructure.

In four simple words, Middletown City Council outlined its goals for the year.

During the group’s annual retreat on Saturday, Jan. 30, council members and city staff shared highlights of the past year while looking ahead to potential concerns in 2010.

Vice Mayor Anita Scott Jones said in ranking their priorities for 2010, it just panned out that the top three were perhaps the most obvious choices.

“They are really what the city is supposed to be about,” Jones said. “ I believe if we take care of those things, everything else should just fall into place.”

Russ Carolus, city finance director, said his department’s goal is to remain “conservative in (its) outlook” and continue to closely monitor revenues as they come in.

“We want to make sure we’re proactive in looking at ways we can better handle our resources,” he said.

It likely will become increasingly important for city staff to participate in the legislative process at the state level, he said, particularly as it pertains to possible changes in police pensions.

In the end, Carolus said every service made available to residents boils down to how much money is left in the city’s pocketbook.

“The will of the people and what they want to do is accomplished with money,” he said. “Planning out how to spend and allocate those resources is a big part of the deal.”

Councilman A.J. Smith said his first priority has always been public safety.

With Middletown already “down 17 police officers from where a city our size should be,” the 2nd Ward representative said he would like to see the city increase police, fire and EMS staffing in the near future.

“We need to at least sustain what we told the public we would when they passed our public safety levy a few years ago,” he said. “We promised we would be able to maintain the staffing we had, so we need to work on putting more public safety forces in the street.” [Sorry for the confusion here] The reason I said we need to work on putting more public safety forces on the street is because we have cut below what we said we would not cut in police and fire when the public passed the levy.

“If we want to keep our citizens and attract new citizens, those individuals need to feel safe here,” he said.

Discussion during the retreat included the feasibility of establishing a dog park, restoring a socioeconomic balance to the city, updating the master plan and various issues related to housing and code enforcement.

Council members also agreed to split the $2,000 budgeted for 2010 evenly among the seven council members, with each allowed $286 for business lunches, dinner meetings and training opportunities.

Stand firm on that, AJ!!!