Correction:  The Department heads didn’t have to come today, they have Saturdays off.  Only minimal staff and the Council are there today.  The Council is really earning their $4500 a year salary.

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by:  Diane Benjamin

Yes, I stopped by the Den yesterday.  If you want to see all the highest paid employees of the City of Bloomington in one place, stop by today.  The retreat continues until 4:00pm.

Some of my favorite comments:

• Mayor Renner:  Almost all Fortune 500 Companies hold retreats.  Tari doesn’t understand they use their own money earned by providing a product or service people want to buy.  The City’s money is taken from you.  In fact, they needed more recently, so they raised taxes.  Next up is raising fees, all while providing no goods that people are willing to pay for – at least not enough to cover costs.  If they were a Fortune 500 Company, they would be bankrupt.
• Mboka Mwilambwe:  Last year we all left the retreat feeling great, then that feeling died.  He wanted to know how to make it last.  Clue Mboka-it’s not going to.

I can think of at least 14 very highly paid people in attendance.  Instead of doing their jobs, they conversed about accomplishments.  Lynn Montei, the lady who got over $46,000 of your money for last year, led the discussion.  The tables even came with assigned seats!  Montei has accessed who needed watched.  I found it funny that Alderwoman Stearns was seated next to Alderman Sage.  Just like at Council meetings, his job was to cut off any of her common sense points.

Jeff Jurgens,  the expensive contract lawyer from Springfield, was also there.  Why remains a mystery, he’s not even a City employee.  I guess it was a good way to accumulate billable hours.  At $175 per hour, not including travel and overtime, he cost you over $1000.

What did they talk about?  Accomplishments made for the year, raising your taxes didn’t make the list though.  The Route 66 visitors Center did however, I bet you can’t wait for the grand opening.  Mostly is was an hour and a half of patting each other on the back.

Another topic was whether the Council needed their own Mission Statement!  They couldn’t decide if it should contain UPLIFT or PROMOTE.  Not a word about serving the public who elected them – except by Kevin Lower and Judy Stearns. Of course, they were ignored.  Fortune 500 Companies don’t serve!

The final topic for the day was:

How to make the Aldermen immaterial

Of course, they didn’t call it that.

If you are a long time reader, you know the aldermen have no input on the agenda.  Even if one wanted something placed on the agenda it wouldn’t happen.  David Hales and Tari Renner are in charge, even though Hales is the employee of the Council.  The 7 potted plants have willingly given over power to him.

The problem:

The department heads are intimidated by the Council.  (insert chuckles here____________).

Here’s the scenario:  A citizens calls their ELECTED alderman with a complaint about some City Department.  The alderman are supposed to forward the complaint to David Hales office instead of directly to a department.  Bureaucracy anyone?  The citizen is required to get in line behind everybody else with complaints, then Hales will talk it out with the proper person.  The department heads can’t be bothered by mere aldermen!  Meanwhile, the citizen will probably be contacting the alderman again wondering why it hasn’t been handled.

Why does the City even have alderman?  They are immaterial – at least as far as Renner and Hales are concerned.  They forget the aldermen were elected to represent their Ward.  Aldermen actually representing their constituents gets in the way of Renner’s agenda. (Think downtown, hotel downtown, new lighting downtown, downtown library expansion, etc)

Why do any of the potted plants deserve YOUR vote?

Meanwhile, Hales griped about employees having no time because they are so short-staffed.  Instead of all the highly paid department heads actually working, they sat around for 2 days.  Ten of thousands of dollars later, the retreat was nothing but indoctrination.

I think I heard “Kumbaya” hummed in the background.