Letter to the Editor from Donald Weyer:
Batavia City budget talks, as reported by Joanne Beck in The Batavian on Feb. 8:
1. Okay, City Manager Rachael Tabelski, since you did most of the talking on this issue, I'll address you first. Leave the $110,000 to pave the Bureau of Maintenance parking lot in the Bureau of Maintenance reserve fund or the city reserve fund, I'm not sure which, as we never know when we might need it in these times of crumbling infrastructure. Propose to put the $110,000 into the new 2024 city budget, just so the City Council can vote it up or down, and we citizens can see who "is fer us" (city property owners) and who "is agin us" (property-tax payers, again). Forgive the frontier colloquialisms. If the $110,000 isn't in the budget because the Council voted it down, then the property-tax increase to exactly pay for the now-defeated $110,000 to pave the parking lot ISN'T NEEDED. How simple is that? The only loser in all this is the Bureau of Maintenance parking lot. But that's solved as I segue into my next point, #2 coming up.
2. Councilman Geib has promised to "take a hard look into this next year," whatever that means as if this year's budget look was soft or easy. Heaven forgive that! And remember, my good man, Derek, in your freshman year on the council, the words of Benjamin Franklin, "Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today," or the unknown speaker's spookily sage advice, "Tomorrow may never come." If you insist, though sir, Mr. Geib, take a hard look at the parking lot macadam next year, maybe the worse for wear, but clearly still there, absent the work of an earthquake or some other horrific calamity. (If that occurred, we may not need a BOM parking lot!) A needed "break" here in my long-winded 5 comments today, in addition to the previous ones I've made in "The Batavian" on other days, concerning these same city budget talks. And anyway, can my proposed course of action be any more logical to you?
3. There's just something "off" about the equivalence of the $110,000 for the parking lot and the $110,000 budget increase necessitating the increase in the property tax rate. Hamlet's "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." Something in the sense of budget legerdemain, hocus-pocus, too much of the magician, David Copperfield and Houdini, and the "whammy" wizardry of Meyer Lansky; not enough of the budget-constructors' rock-solid book-keeping of Certified Public Accountant standards. I would normally want to insert the lyrics of the O'Jays' Back Stabbers here, "They smilin in your face" and more..., etc., but I will adhere to accustomed polite criticism in this opinion piece and refrain from that insertion. Just saying!
4. Councilman Bialkowski, of the entire Batavia City Council, seems the most reliable to approach the precipice of questioning disagreement/challenge to his compatriots' and the city manager's stances on serious city matters, but then Bob hesitatingly steps back, maybe because of what he sees in the abyss below, maybe he looks up skyward at the next election, who knows, and then compromises, makes nice with the other council members and the city manager. (Maybe we need a return to the City Council days of the early-, mid-career oppositional infusions of Rosemary Christian, even the late-career effusions of Florence Gioia, I don't know)!
5. Why isn't the Batavia city budget presented to the voters, similar to the school budgets?
