Council should trust City Manager’s advice, pass Budget Plan

Passing a city budget plan is never an easy chore for the city council.

But passing a plan to reduce the city’s growing deficit is going to be near impossible, if the last council meeting is any indication.

But if the plan that Acting City Manager Erik Tungate is voted down, the council will have little time to come up with a workable alternative. And if councilmebers come to a deadlock on a plan, the state will surely intervene and appoint an emergency financial manager to take control of the city.

Let’s just say this, the council hired Tungate to come up with a plan to avoid payless paydays and eliminate a projected $3.5 million budget deficit by this time next year.

At some point the council has to trust the person they hired, and who reviewed the city’s financial plan and came up with a very conservative guide to get out of debt.

And by conservative, we’re not talking politics. We’re talking a very realist plan to move forward.

This council has a bad habit of micro-managing their city managers. It’s time just to have faith and allow the proposed plan to move forwad.

Yes, property owners are going to be hit with some extra service fees.

And yes, certain councilmemebrs are going to argue they can’t afford that.

The alternative, however, is we no longer have a police and fire departments that we have today. Something will have to go if this plan is not adopted here.