It’s Amateur Hour for Wilmington City Government — Again

Last Thursday, the Wilmington City Council introduced a bill to make the first amendment to the newly approved City Budget. This new amendment would restore the $300K that was eliminated from the Mayor’s Contingency Fund and adds back $80K for a position in the Finance Department, and:

The amendment also would restore $89,000 to the Human Resources Department and $18,000 to the Planning Department. A $250,000 allocation for an enhanced trash and recycling program will be reappropriated, while $142,000 earmarked for small business development will be reduced to $50,000.

Should the amendment pass, next year’s budget will increase by about $487,000 to $145.6 million and leave Wilmington with a surplus of $108,141.

Got that? After a process where the Wilmington City Council actually looked like they were serious about some budget discipline (with the exception of their own $250K contingency fund), and serious about their role as a co-equal branch of the government — someone over there decided that they needed to replay a poker hand that they decidedly won. And decidedly won mostly on the merits. And this deal isn’t a compromise, either. They are simply replaying a hand to capitulate — and to get nothing for that capitulation. They certainly aren’t helping out taxpayers here, they are blowing off their co-equal bonafides and have signaled to an awful lot of people in the City that we’re pretty much on our own here. I don’t know what the vote on this will be at the next Council Meeting, but I think that it is a good bet that most of these folks will vote for additional budget expenditures that accomplish nothing. It’s a shame, really, but Amateur Hour isn’t a new place for City Council and I guess we have 3 and a half years to live with a group of people who will be paying close attention to constituent service ( a few exceptions to this expectation), but who aren’t going to be strong partners in governing. Council President Gregory is calling this move a “compromise”, but City Council gets nothing out of this deal — other than a black mark for failed leadership.

Then, we have the clusterf*** for a West Center City event that has been going on annually for 3 years. Instead of advising the group involved of new rules and/or requirements and working with them to get them satisfied, they mostly dragged their feet, provided inscrutable answers and definitively told the group NO 3 hours before the event. Amateur Hour here revolves around City Departments not understanding that they are responsible for some transition too — if rules, requirements, partnerships change, then it is up to these departments to work to communicate these to their constituents ASAP and do what they can to work with those constituents to acclimate to the new deal. This is a customer service failure from top to bottom and this event was in the works long enough that any potential issues could have been ironed out cleanly. Then, a Parks and Rec employee who also works with this group gets fired after she attends the event. As a volunteer and participant in this group — not as a city representative. At City Council on Thursday, Council President Theo Gregory hinted that the Administration may be working at being more responsive to Council Members who voted against the override of the budget. No one knows if this is exactly true, but there are Councilpeople who are wondering if things are happening or not happening based on their votes. I have no idea if this is the case, but even letting service get to a point where people can wonder about this seems to be one more failure of client service.

Because at bottom, the people being ill-served by all of this are the people who pay taxes in the city — the people they most need to keep.