watchdog

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

THE AUTO INSPECTION HASSLE


It is interesting how things come together when you are out and about. The other day, I had to get my annual car inspection since I am unfortunate enough to live in the City of Memphis and have to pay more than my neighbors who live in unincorporated Shelby County. ($117.00 versus $87.00).


I got on line and looked at the camera photos from the three Memphis inspection stations. I looked at the one on White Station but you could not tell how long the wait was since the camera is mounted on the station and only shows the line that is backed up on the entrance driveway. You cannot see if the line extends out in to White Station and around the corner as it does from time to time. I finally decided to go on a Wednesday at 9:30 AM in the middle of the month since I am not working at a full time job as I am retired. I had to wait about 45 minutes which was better than normal. I feel for the working folks who do not have my options. (My suggestion is that a current waiting time be regularly posted on the website in addition to the photo which is worthless).


This is a problem for every Memphis vehicle owner that got me to thinking about this issue. The recent CA article about special treatment for friends of politicians makes all of us who wait in line and pay the full fee boil. First, why do the people in the County not have to have their cars inspected? Will the exhaust from their cars and trucks stop at the boundary line of Memphis and not foul our air? Also the question occurred to me about how many vehicles are registered in Shelby County (both in the City and in the County outside the City) and are they all paying their fees? I asked the Clerk (Debbie Stamson) for the number of autos registered in Memphis and Shelby County for 2008 and how many paid a fee. Simple question you would think.


Her first answer was as follows.


“As far as reviewing our records, all motor vehicle records contain personal information and are covered under the Federal and State of Tennessee Drivers Protection Act.”


My open records request was as follows.


1) I want to inspect your records and documents that show how many licensed vehicles have owner registrations at Memphis addresses and how many have addresses outside of Memphis but in Shelby County.The period should be for 2008. I do not need to see any restricted information but only the total numbers for the 2008 fiscal period.
2) I want to inspect your records and documents that show how many of the above vehicles have paid the registration fee in the same 2008 period.


I have other ideas about auto inspections but more later on those thoughts.

Friday, March 13, 2009

HIDDEN TAXES

A good friend sent me some information about the GIANT detention (proposed) pond in Overton Park and other water projects. I do not pretend to be an expert in this area but it reminded me of the hidden tax contained in the City of Memphis storm water fee hidden on the back of your MLGW bill. Also you will find there the sewer charge, the solid waste fee and the mosquito/rodent control fee. These are all items that have been removed from the normal operating budget and are regularly and quietly raised each year. They are taxes, just like your property taxes, but they slip by mostly unnoticed.

The Storm Water Fee started out in Fiscal Year 2007 at $2.54/SingleFamilyUnit/month and then it escalated to $2.88 in FY 2008, $3.30 in FY2009, $3.64 in FY2010 and then $4.02 in FY 2011.
This is a 58% increase in 4 years. I have attached the original ordinance and you will see that the increases are built into the ordinance. I have also attached the 2009 budget section showing the amount of money raised by this fee, $14 million in 2008 and $20 million in 2009. Back door taxes.


Click here to see the hidden taxes built into the storm water ordinance passed in 2006


click here to see the amount raised in this storm water fund


Wednesday, March 04, 2009

TRANSPARENCY IN GOVERNMENT


 

TRANSPARENCY IS THE KEY TO GOOD GOVERNMENT

Ever since I filed my first open records request in November 2004 and my first open records lawsuit in February 2005 I have been convinced that transparency in government is the most important tool in honest government. When a politician gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar, his cohorts proclaim that we need a new ethics code. Then they write up a set of complex reporting and gift standards and proclaim that everything is settled, that is until the next incident.

The truth is that no one can stop the borderline ethics violations such as giving jobs to unqualified cronies, giving no bid contracts to friends by setting bid restrictions that only the friends can meet and seeing that legal business goes to supporters and contributors. There are many ways to bend and stretch the ethics codes and politicians are savvy at finding loopholes.

I have been pushing and recommending for some time the use of the internet to use as a bulletin board for transparency in government. Now with the explosion of blackberrys and iphones and with the introduction of new and advanced software there is no excuse for politicians to not put every important document on the internet.

Recently I looked at the City Council Agenda on the internet. I noticed that there were two proposed ordinances that were listed on the agenda. One was an ordinance to provide for Minimum Energy Efficiency in Rental Properties, Ordinance #5292. The other was an ordinance to amend Chapter 2, Article XI, Code of Ordinance, City of Memphis so as to Change the Reporting Requirements for Small Businesses, Ordinance #5293. I contacted Councilman Jim Strickland and asked him why the full text of the ordinance was not put on the internet. He, as a councilperson, of course had the full text of the ordinances sent to him in electronic format. He checked with the council staff and was told that the law only required that the full text be published in the Memphis Business Journal and that it was published weeks ahead of showing up on the agenda for action.

He urged the Council staff to change the procedure and they agreed to publish the full wording of the ordinances and also the resolutions on the internet which they are hopefully now doing. Then I decided to check with the Shelby County government and to my surprise I found that they had been doing this since May of 2008 and I found that the program and webpage was outstanding. You can see this at http://agendapub.shelbycountytn.gov. Not only do they publish all resolutions and ordinances but they publish contract awards. They purchased a program called S.I.R.E. and it seems to work quite well.

Upon further checking I found that the City has a similar program called GRANICUS which could provide similar information but they chose not to provide the same level of disclosure as the County Commission. Also it is to be noted that Shelby County government did not outsource their IT (Information Technology) department like the City of Memphis did when they gave the work to ACS in a controversial contract.

We are making progress in transparency with these developments but it is a work in progress. The next thing that I would like to see is for all public contracts put on the internet with the wining and losing bids exposed and with the reason for the selection of the wining bidder explained if the winner was not the low bidder. The Mayor of Memphis has the contract authority whereas the Shelby County Mayor must get Commission approval of all contracts. Maybe that is why the City Mayor's job is more attractive to politicians.