Letter to the Editor: Pete Allen

Deb McCoy’s letter (to the editor, published yesterday) is very well researched and written. However, it only exposes the issue of the commission and attorney addressing the single issue of appointing commissioners and mayor.
We have many more issues with the governing body and staff ignoring or ignorant of ordinances.
Iwill mention a few:
1. Using funds from utility accounts to fund general government,
2. Using funds from citizen approved designated sales tax to fund general government (examples are the former pool tax and street improvement sales tax),
3. Failure to set up specified accounts for utility funds and reviewing by-yearly to adjust for any shortcomings,
4. Failure to enforce excavation, backfill and surfacing ordinances,
5. Failure of staff to enforce specifications for contractors doing city work (example is sewer work performed by Ace Pipe under a “piggyback” agreement), i.e. see 7th street just west of Holbrook,
6. Failure of governing body to take action to preserve the Eagle Block building before it collapsed,
7. Failure of the governing body to provide a maintenance policy for our streets and alleys, and
8. Failure to provide a sewer and waterline master plan for upgrades and replacement of our aging systems and,
9. Ignorance of state connecting link agreement for maintenance of highway 54 (Wall Street) which resulted in the taxpayers funding the total repairs when the state would have funded under a 90/10 % agreement, with the state funding the 90%.
Hopefully, with governing body and city manager action over the past 2 1/2 years, these issues are being addressed. But I agree with Deb, the governing body must step up to the plate and keep the city on the straight and narrow pathway to success

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