When the departing city manager won't say why she's suddenly resigning, and the city council won't say anything real either (other than some nonsense we know isn't true), we're left to speculate.
Because of the timing, I was pretty sure it had to do with a lack of enthusiasm about the "public space" proposed behind Mac's. I had a couple of off-the-record comments that said, compared to the interim manager Elle Cole, Colleen O'Toole was just not as enthusiastic as some expected. There was no smoking gun.
But now, two other possibilities are emerging. Councillor Dean Girbach mentioned both at the Saline City Council meeting on Monday.
The first is the Saline Area Fire Department Budget. The SAFD budget has blown up. They're going to add three new firefighters and a fire marshall. That's huge. It wasn't long ago the city funded its share of the SAFD costs out of its general fund budget. It didn't even use the long-ago voter-approved 1-mill assessment. The city started using part of the assessment a few years ago. Two or three years ago, the city began using the entire assessment. Last year, the city used the entire assessment and nearly $180,000 out of the fund balance. This year, it's about $430,000 on top of the assessment. Mayor Marl correctly noted that the current funding formula is unsustainable. The city's share of the SAFD budgets, operating and capital, (at $2.9M) is about $1 million. That's up nearly 30 percent from last year. And that was already up significantly from the previous year.
Here's the kicker. While Mayor Marl and council members Dillon and Girbach voted against the budget, it was written in large part by former Manager O'Toole. Somehow, Marl and Dillon, who were Fire Board members until December, didn't see this coming? How did the rest of council not know? Was this part of the reason why Marl tried to fire Chief Jason Sperle last year? Marl still won't even admit that happened - so again, we're left in the dark.
I can sympathize with council members who just threw up their hands and voted yes - because who wants to underfund the department of people who show up when your dad has a heart attack or your neighbor's home is on fire?
How weird was it to see Girbach throw O'Toole under the bus. Clearly, the fire department was underfunded for years. Now the community might be getting sticker shock. It was a nice discount while it lasted, but this fate was unavoidable. Long-serving council members don't really have room to blame the former city manager for looking around at what other communities charge and drafting budgets accordingly.
O'Toole was also criticized for a $1 million fix at the Rec Center, which apparently caught Girbach off guard.
A chronically underfunded fire department. An outdated money pit known as the Rec Center. These expenses probably shouldn't surprise anyone.
Council has spent years wondering if it's time to close the Rec Center. When council commissioned a study on the Rec Center, much of council expected a report that examined whether or not the city could continue to fund a Rec Center. But when it finally came in, the report didn't talk about sustainability, it recommended spending millions on a bigger pool with more family-friendly amenities. Several council members who were here when the commission was approved were mystified. But was the extent of it. Nobody bothered to seriously ask whether or not the city could keep funding the center - at least not at the council table. And they're still not asking. Any council member could ask for a special work session to consider the question and yet they don't.
The city just keeps spending the money and rolling toward a Rec Center bond project.
If there's a blame game here, a city manager hired in 2020 would rank pretty low, in my estimation. Blame the former city manager for these cost increases if you like. But this smells an awful lot like the brown tap water, or the stinky wastewater treatment plant. And maybe like a decision on the Saline River dam's future.
If you don't make decisions, the decisions make themselves.
You end up with millions of dollars wasted and people pointing fingers.
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