Special Board Meeting Follow-Up...
The special board meeting to be convened at 5:30PM tonight deals, in part, with the Waste Management strike and garbage pick-up delays. I received an email from President Kempinski over the week-end discussing my Village Buzz piece of late last week.
He indicated that the Waste Management topic had been added to the special meeting agenda to "keep the Board apprised as to the status of collection, and determine if the Board wishes to change companies should the company fall even further behind". He went on to state that he didn't want to change companies but that he felt compelled to explore alternatives in case service should drop to even lower levels.
I had indicated that our personal experience was that Friday's pick-up was made on Friday. He mentioned that the village had received calls indicating that pick-ups had been delayed two days in some instances.
President Kempinski also discussed the eventuality of switching to Veolia if Waste Management's service degraded to the point where that would be necessary. His reasoning seemed to be that, if this went on for some time, and if many communities had similar experiences, there could be a wholesale departure from Waste Management that would overwhelm Veolia's capabilities.
He believes that, if Veolia comes back to the village indicating that it would be willing to accept the terms of the Waste Management agreement, the Board would be willing to switch.
A couple of thoughts come to mind:
If the current agreement has a five-day clause and if Waste Management continues to pick up garbage within that time span, does the village have any real recourse?
Even if there is a wholesale move away from Waste Management, maybe Germantown would, by staying with Waste Management after some agreement renegotiation actually see improved service since Waste Management would have less business and would likely be trying very diligently to repair the image damage it would've suffered.
I'll report on the discussion from today's special meeting in a 'Village Buzz' item tomorrow, if not before.
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School District Budget Deliberations...
An earlier segment on the current budget debate within the Germantown School District referred to some debate as to the size and configuration of the budget for the coming year.
It appears that this debate continues and centers on the draft prepared by the Administration which does not yet meet the constraints that at least some Board members feel necessary. A target amount of $39,495,814 had been established last spring. The administration has continued to stand behind a proposed budget that is some $650,000 higher.
Obviously, the school district has a relatively new business manager although he did have experience gained as a member of the school board when assuming that position. There was over-spending in several accounts that were discretionary in nature as opposed to accounts that are relatively 'locked in'. This apparently has caused some concern as to fiscal constraint.
We also have a new superintendent who certainly has been working hard to learn his new district's idiosyncrasies and needs while also working to build his board and staff relationships. That may be at work to some degree but it seems that staff would be anxious to follow its new leader rather than 'stand in the doorway'.
I suppose that staff might be expected to seek more money than the board is willing to provide, but, at some point, posturing has to give ground to reality.
