6/15/11
During the 6/13 Shorewood council Meeting the subject of the annual donation to support the fire works in Excelsior was discussed. Shorewood had donated between $2000 and $2500 in previous years. $2500 was budgeted for this in 2011.
Mayor Lizee opened the discussion stating the she thought the City should increase its donation to $7500. The video of this discussion is at: http://windowsmedia.alphameetings.com/LMCCShorewood/061311shorewood.wmv at the 1 hour 9 minute point.
The celebration is organized by the Southlake/Excelsior Chamber of Commerce, whose Director, Linda Murrell, made her annual plea for funding at the meeting. It's improtant to note that Council Member Scott Zerby is the President of the Chamber.
Both Lizee and Zerby attempted to justify the huge increase in donation by saying that it's only a few dollars per household (Lizee said it was about $3). The Insider thinks that the Chamber, with only about one week to get to the $22,500 they need and only about $13,000 donated or pledged to-date, decided to hit Shorewood up for the deficit and Lizee and Zerby, as usual, couldn't pass up an opportunity to spend your tax dollars.
Since when is it Shorewood's role to cover for the rest of the cities and the shortfall in private donations? Maybe it's because Zerby is President of the Chamber and Lizee and Murrell seem to be best buddies.
So, on a 4 to 1 vote (Woodruff dissenting) Shorewood is donating $7500 to go up in smoke on July 4th.
It's worth noting that Zerby voted on this matter. Isn't voting to donate money from the City to an organization of which you're President a conflict of interest? It would be if this were a road project and you're the president of the road construction firm.
Happy Reading!
The Insider
In these days of impending federal and state shutdowns, reduced state aid, high unemployment and mortgage defaults, the misplaced priorities and political tone deafness of this crew is incredible.
ReplyDeleteBudget? What budget?
Ethics? What is that?
Shorewood is the patsy of the entire South Lake Community. They all know our check book is open so why should they pay more-or even their share?
ReplyDeleteOnly $3 a household for fireworks so people from all over the metropolitan area can come out at our residents' expense? I see no benefit to our community.
The fact that the businesses, who might stand to benefit from the huge volume of traffic and congestion that this event brings, were unwilling or unable to come up with the rest of the dough should have been a red flag to begin with.