My wife and I attended Mayor Steve Tate’s State of the City address Feb. 25. I was disappointed to see the low turnout of residents at this very important event. The speech was very long on vague, lofty goals and very short on budgetary specifics related to these goals. That opinion aside, what really irked me were a couple of statements noted in the handout flyer distributed to the attendees: “The City is committed to engaging the community and being responsible stewards of public resources” and one of the “ongoing priorities” is “Preserving and cultivating public trust.”
In my opinion, there have been many questionable misuses and squandering of public resources, with a great number involving the myriad of wasteful downtown projects. (The $3.6 million Third Street Promenade comes to mind along with the recent $200,000 “Spider.”) But one of the most flagrant, if not at least questionable spending decisions, involve the compensation package and perks given to our City Manager. As reported by the Morgan Hill Times July 17, 2014, the City Council not only gave Steve Rymer a 3-percent raise after only one year of service, but they also voted July 2 of that year to give him a 30-year, $900,000 home purchase loan at 3 percent interest with no points or other mortgage fees that average homebuyers pay. Mayor Steve Tate justified this decision “because we could provide incentives in terms of his longevity here in Morgan Hill.” I think a $200,000-plus salary with generous municipal benefits would provide more than a bit of incentive to quite a number of qualified, experienced city managers.
Then, even more outrageously, after four closed session meetings, the City Council on March 18, 2015 announced and approved giving the City Manager a $110,000 home improvement loan at a below market rate of 5 percent, in addition to a $3,200 per year raise. City resident Doug Muirhead justifiably voiced concerns regarding this at the sparsely attended council meeting, but it was a done deal regardless.
More recently, as reported by the Morgan Hill Times, an additional $10,800 raise was approved 4-0 by the City Council in its March 2 meeting. Mayor Tate was absent. This all could be seen as blatant cronyism, if not at least excessive misuse of public funds. Besides, how is someone earning $228,000 per year not able to manage securing a $900,000 mortgage from a private lender?
My purpose is not to disparage Mr. Rymer or his work, but to point out that without public input, those we entrust with our hard-earned money often spend it very unwisely. Our streets are in disrepair, our water and waste infrastructures are soon to be overburdened and our quality of life in this town will suffer. This is not the time to be spending excessively on questionable artwork, pop-up parks or extravagant public payrolls.
It’s disheartening that more Morgan Hill residents don’t get involved in city affairs unless it affects their immediate neighborhood, but city planning and spending affects us all eventually. Other than city officials and employees, there were maybe a handful of residents that attended the meeting in addition to a couple of dozen high school students there getting their civics certificates.
The city’s outreach program is weak at best. These important issues should be announced to all residents by either citywide mailings or methods other than the “Nextdoor” or City of Morgan Hill websites, which I doubt many people visit, or short blurbs in the local paper.
I encourage Morgan Hill citizens to make an effort to get involved and come see and hear how their city operates and spends their resources before making their choices for city officials in the November 2016 election.
Ask for specifics and don’t just accept lofty platitudes. It’s your money they’ll be spending.
Zenon Komarczyk
Morgan Hill
