Fort Myers, FL
You know how I am with government, any government, about its inability to take seriously the stewardship of taxpayer money. If you are new to the Gazette please know that my bias is always toward government waste. They are wasters. I do not try to hide the fact that I believe government and elected officials waste your money. It disturbs me.
The way the Gateway Board of Supervisors operates a budget would make any real business person cringe. There are two really big problems. The first one is that the Supervisors lack the kind of spending control that would allow them to make a tough decision. Let me give you an example. If a serious person were on that board (or part of the operational structure), they would have asked attorney Tony Pires to be prepared to render an opinion on the Charter School last night. Be ready! Read the law, give an opinion and let the board decide what path to take. Instead it really is the tail wagging the dog. They are paralyzed to do anything meaningful.
Even Pires admits "you don't have to listen to me". Instead, we have a board unable to make serious decisions (another year without a timely CSA contract, the never-ending Wetland 47 issue and now the school). Another month will go by, more attorney letters and e-mails will go back and forth, our bills will pile up and I will bet every one of you a doughnut that we lose on this issue. They are going to make us look like we are fighting education.
If we had a serious board, all of them would have contacted a few "Country Club" attorney friends and asked them what they thought. If we had a serious board, all of them would have read the law and prepared themselves to question our attorney. It was obvious none of them read the law. Instead we have Bob Nielson, our chairman, who was not even aware that Charter has not paid 2008 and 2009 yet.
Add to their inability to curb spending, an inability to accurately project revenue. Supervisor Ed Sichel pointed out that the district is "$153,000 short in revenue" to date and expects that number to balloon to $200,000 by the time the fiscal year ends in September. Brian Lamb (from our management company) says that number is more like $45,000. A shortfall is a shortfall. And you know how they make up a shortfall around these parts....not by cutting...by increasing the water rates.
