Two years ago the city of Culver City changed to the City Manager form of municipal government so they would be like most of the other cities in the state, and it would make city government more efficient.
They eliminated the elected City Treasurer position to make city finances less political. They created a two-year city budget to save time. In this two-year budget, the City Council increased the number of city staff management positions and gave all management employees big pay rises for their anticipated and touted future good works to come.
These groups of supposedly unbiased non-political civil servants have entered the political arena in Culver City, and they have begun to criticize the very residents they serve.
Anytime you have a City Manager and his staff pushing their agenda and not the communities, you have, as Mayor Scott Malsin commented in one City Council meeting, “This is politics at its worst.”
This is not the way city governments should operate. The community should take an active role.
Mr. Morgan’s request in his letter to sit on a city finance committee should be honored immediately. Mr. Netzel asked a lot of good questions about hiring an Animal Control Officer and the costs involved. I don’t know if his questions were ever answered by city staff, but they should have because they already had all of the answers.
The only good thing about this public debate about the Animal Control Officer is that the community gets to see how Culver City government really operates.
You only have to go to the city website, budget documents, approved budget 2008/2009, line item detail, General Fund, Police Dept., page 108, and you will find the complete cost of the Animal Control Officer.
This is work done by city staff for approval by the City Council. The City Council approved this budget at the end of last June, and you can see the total cost for the Animal Control Officer is $129,190, for salary, benefits, equipment, training and supplies.
The salary and benefits are $70,000.00 for the year beginning July 1, 2008. This position will probably not be filled before January, and that’s a savings of $35,000 in this budget that can be used for additional costs that city staff state we may encounter.
Usually when the City Manager presents a budget to the City Council for approval, it is complete and all background work has been completed.
Also, I am assuming that the vote for approval of this budget was 5-0. It sounds like city staff felt that they could put anything in the budget proposal because surely no one would actually want them to implement an Animal Control Program.
You can also go to the city website and see the City Manager’s response to the City Council on the subject of the Animal Control Program (agenda items).
City Manager Jerry Fulwood also talks about the proper procedures for new budget requests and how he will direct his staff for next year. But he doesn’t answer the question, why didn’t they follow proper procedures this year? Mr. Fulwood also states how he respects the authority and the ability of the City Council to allocate resources and determine what programs are needed by the Culver City community.
But as City Manager he also has a professional and ethical responsibility to share his thoughts and concerns with the Council on issues that may negatively impact the core values and/or the fiscal stability of the city.
Where was that same professional and ethical responsibility two years ago when Mr. Fulwood’s staff predicted a perfect financial storm was brewing and the city needed to prepare.
At that same time the City Council was presented with Mr. Fulwood’s contract and with city management staff contracts that contained 20 to 40 percent pay raises.
I don’t remember anyone from city staff saying “Wait a minute, City Council. In light of the perfect financial storm brewing, maybe we should re-evaluate these expenditures.”
The Animal Control Program is not a complicated program to implement. It has been done successfully over and over by numerous cities in Los Angeles County. Yet in Culver City you have numerous city departments heads complaining that they are not up to the task.
The city needs new leadership capable of helping the community, now, not tomorrow.
They need leaders capable of implementing the programs the community wants and completing them more efficiently and effectively with less money.
These are the same people we rely on in critical situations to keep the city going in bad time and the question is are they up to the task.
Mr. Smith, who retired last year from the Police Dept., may be contacted at scsinvest@sbcglobal.net
