Please come to City Council Meeting tonight to voice your opinion on the lame duck push by city admin to vote on bids for city hall park demolition. It will cost 2 million more than original plan if 4 million, that 3300 voters petitioned to stop and reconsider. City admin won't wait one week to vote on this because new progressives just voted in will be sworn in next week. City admin doesn't want to risk a No Vote on these over-budget bids by our newly elected city council members. They call themselves democrats but are using the same undemocratic strategies republicans used in some states to pass bad legislation just weeks before dems took over in those states. They will use any means to bluff the people and get what city admin wants...to prevent any chance of shining a light on how this park issue stinks of hidden agendas and is bad for Burlington. Somebody's getting big bucks from this park deal and we're going to have to pay the bill one way or another sooner or later. So few people get involved, so the lack of transparency at city admin is easy to pull off. Email your city councilor and show up to voice your opinion tonight at city hall. Thanks for your interest in preserving democracy at the local level.
See attached for more info regarding this:
CITY HALL PARK: LAME DUCK SESSION

To: Mayor Weinberger, Council President Wright, and Members of the Burlington City Council
From: Wayne Senville, Ward 1 Resident
Date: March 24, 2019

Subject: Response to Mayor's & Staff's Memos on City Hall Park

Having now had the chance to review City staff's and the Mayor's explanation of the extremely high City Hall Park construction bids received, and their reasoning on why the City Council should vote to accept one of the construction bids and authorize a construction contract on Monday, I want to address what they have raised.

We now have the new numbers for what the City Hall Park work will cost. What was publicly stated by the Administration just two to three months ago to be a $4 million project has now ballooned to $5.8 million (for the work remaining to be done; about $6.3 million including money already spent). I want to focus on two issues I hope you will take into account on Monday:

1. Public Expenditures

I believe most Burlington residents would view spending $5.8 million more on City Hall Park as too costly. During the advisory question petition process, I heard from many people who were startled that we would be spending $4 million on the Park. I'm sure they'd be floored if they were told we're adding another $2 million or so to the price tag.

In their Memos to you, the Mayor and Department staff have now identified as one factor in the higher cost (adding $300,000) the need for soil remediation in City Hall Park. The Mayor claims that if we don't move forward with construction now, we'll still have to deal with this expense and, in fact, it will be even more costly.

I'd suggest the Council first needs to be fully briefed on an issue of this importance. Invite staff from the Vermont Dept. of Environmental Conservation to brief you in April in an open Council session or committee meeting. Ask them to go over the nature of the problem, and see if there are other options or alternatives. The Council should also give Burlington residents, and members of our Conservation Board, the opportunity to learn about, and weigh in on, this important issue. I see nothing in the Mayor's memo that requires the Council to rush into accepting a construction bid tomorrow because of this issue.

The Mayor now tells you that he's suddenly come up with a half-a-million in additional private donations for the Park. But that still leaves a huge hole that will need to be filled with public money (and regardless of how revenue sources are shifted around -- and whether they're from bonds, TIF, or development impact fees -- they're still public funds).

The fact of the matter is that we're not a wealthy city -- even though by the proposed spending for City Hall Park you'd think that we have few financial concerns. We're not Palo Alto, California, or Greenwich, Connecticut. We're not an especially high income city. We need to shepherd and carefully justify how we spend city funds.

What was striking to me in the staff Memo (from Parks, CEDO, and Public Works) you received is the fact that the section titled "City's Response to Higher than Anticipated Costs," does not include one single suggestion for how the Park plan could be scaled back or re-evaluated to reduce its cost.

2. Political Ethics or Norms

Even if you believe the skyrocketing price tag can be justified, I'd ask you to consider the "political ethics or norms" of taking action on Monday.* See endnote.

We can reasonably guess why the construction bid vote is on your agenda for this Monday, and not at your next meeting. The Administration is seeking to lock in a construction bid -- even one at a highly inflated price, as they even acknowledge -- by asking you to take action before the new city Council is seated a week from Monday. The bid is not going to vanish between this Monday and next Monday.

Elected officials should act with special care and sensitivity when they are in a lame-duck situation -- as you are right now. Certainly, you have the legal power to take action on the Resolution to accept a construction bid for City Hall Park. I wouldn't have concerns if such an action reflected a broad consensus. But that's far from being the case.

We've seen what's happened elsewhere in our country, especially after last November's elections, when raw political power is exercised in a lame-duck session to lock in certain policies or actions. I certainly hope that's not something we want to emulate here in Burlington. Leave it to the new Council to decide how they want to proceed.

Link to memos: https://www.boarddocs.com/vt/burlingtonvt/Board.nsf/Public

As always, thank you for considering my comments.

* Georgetown University public policy professor Donald Moynihan in his piece, "Kill the Lame Duck," Politico Magazine (December 07, 2018), notes that: "Lame-duck sessions make for bad policymaking. … We run our democracies based on a mixture of rules and norms. Rules are often unwieldy and overly constrictive, but they become necessary when norms of good behavior collapse. This is what is happening now within the Republican Party, as its members thumb their noses at the most fundamental norm for elected officials: to honor the will of the people." -- Of course, it's not just Republicans who can be guilty of lame-duck abuses.