Posted by Mayor's Party for Volunteers, a resident of the Atherton: other neighborhood, on Nov 24, 2012 at 7:18 am

In the past when staff has suggested such an event and the town budget had a surplus, McKeithen opposed the concept.

Now it is on the consent agenda at the Mayor's request without due process.

Council policy requires for this item to be on the agenda, two council members (Widmer and either McKeithen or Dobbie) should have requested it as a agenda item to be discussed and voted on at a future council meeting after debate.

Logic would be that no council member would want their name on an agenda item request to spend $6,000.00 on a party while furloughing employees, espically after speaking against the idea in the past.

This item should be pulled off the Consent Agenda and all council members should explain why they now favor spending $6,000.00 to have a party to thank themselves, while furloughing staff.

Since the Mayor will be thanking Town Volunteers and McKeithen has twelve years as a volunteer, it will provide a nice forum for him to thank her.

Otherwise since Widmer will not be at next week's meeting, Vice-Mayor Lewis would be the one to thank Council Member McKeithen for her twelve years of service to the town. Given what McKeithen has said about Lewis to the papers; that would be an ironic moment.

Posted by party time, a resident of the Atherton: other neighborhood, on Nov 24, 2012 at 7:56 am

It appears that Mayor Widmer will not be leaving town after all and will be on hand to vote yes on the new employee compensation/benefit policy. This council also will be Kathy McKeithen's last official vote and parting gift to the employees and the town.

Some months ago micro manager James Dobbie required all town paid coffee service, cups, napkins be discontinued as a cost savings measure and a lesson to the employees how serious the financial condition was. Apparently this is not the case now or is it? I am confused.

Just an idea it might now be a better morale booster if they have $6,000 to spend on wine and chips to reinstate the coffee service.

Posted by Mayor's Party for Volunteers, a resident of the Atherton: other neighborhood, on Nov 24, 2012 at 8:44 am

Chutspah is the word to describe this event. Widmer already has staff spending time on his party and the full council has not approved it.

Yes Dobbie and McKeithen pushed through cutbacks of coffee to staff. They also believe that the reduced staff Atherton has does not have work to do Christmas Week and should be Furloughed. Yet they have staff spending the first weeks of the month planning their party.

They have also pushed for staff time to be expensed to programs. How much in staff time is this party costing the town?

When will the end of the year work get done?

This could play out this way: Both the Furlough and Party get pulled off the Consent Agenda.

The Council first states that there is no work for staff during the last week of the year and the town needs to save $14,000.00. Then the council votes to spend $6,000.00 plus staff time for the Mayor to thank Town Volunteers(including outgoing Council Member McKeithen) in front of a large crowd.

This after the Mayor had staff send out a press release that the APOA was wrong to be advising residents that the Town's budget would causing cutbacks.

Posted by Mayor's Party, a resident of the Atherton: other neighborhood, on Nov 24, 2012 at 11:02 am

[Post removed; stick to facts, not speculation]