Monday, October 10, 2005
Scrutinizing Foley's Bucks
Recently our municipal loose cannon, Councilman Eric Bever,
made a large point of criticizing how Councilwoman Katrina Foley
had dispensed some of her discretionary funds this summer. He
was apparently joined by Mayor Allen Mansoor in requesting this
subject be discussed by the council with an eye toward
establishing guidelines by which such funds can be distributed.
The item was placed on the agenda for the council's October 11th
regular study session.
In my opinion, this discussion really revolves around the definition of two words, "discretionary" and "judgment". One definition of "discretionary" in my trusty dictionary reads as follows: "Having or using the ability to act or decide according to your own discretion or judgment".
When you cast your vote for a council candidate you may have said to yourself, "I trust this person to use good judgment on my behalf as they go about doing the city's business." Part of that trust must, in my view, include how they dispense the dollars in our city coffers, including the discretionary funds allocated to each of them. The key here is judgment. If Foley, in her judgment - and in light of the fact that there are no specific guidelines and that City Manager Allan Roeder apparently advised her that there was no prohibition on the use of the funds - felt the use of city dollars for the purposes mentioned in Bever's complaint was an appropriate use of those funds, it provides the voters in this city one element by which to measure her performance as a council member.
The dollars in question are insignificant when compared to the total budget. Under other circumstances one might think that Mayor Mansoor and Councilman Bever are just being good fiscal watchdogs when they bring this question up. I suspect, based on their behavior since the last election, this may not necessarily be the case. To me this smacks of pure petty partisan politics. If a majority on the council feels rules for the use of each member's discretionary funds are necessary, I caution them to make those rules broad in scope and not try to micro-manage this issue. One never knows how their decision might come back to bite them. We are, after all, measuring their judgment, too.
11:53 pm pdt
In my opinion, this discussion really revolves around the definition of two words, "discretionary" and "judgment". One definition of "discretionary" in my trusty dictionary reads as follows: "Having or using the ability to act or decide according to your own discretion or judgment".
When you cast your vote for a council candidate you may have said to yourself, "I trust this person to use good judgment on my behalf as they go about doing the city's business." Part of that trust must, in my view, include how they dispense the dollars in our city coffers, including the discretionary funds allocated to each of them. The key here is judgment. If Foley, in her judgment - and in light of the fact that there are no specific guidelines and that City Manager Allan Roeder apparently advised her that there was no prohibition on the use of the funds - felt the use of city dollars for the purposes mentioned in Bever's complaint was an appropriate use of those funds, it provides the voters in this city one element by which to measure her performance as a council member.
The dollars in question are insignificant when compared to the total budget. Under other circumstances one might think that Mayor Mansoor and Councilman Bever are just being good fiscal watchdogs when they bring this question up. I suspect, based on their behavior since the last election, this may not necessarily be the case. To me this smacks of pure petty partisan politics. If a majority on the council feels rules for the use of each member's discretionary funds are necessary, I caution them to make those rules broad in scope and not try to micro-manage this issue. One never knows how their decision might come back to bite them. We are, after all, measuring their judgment, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment