WE, the people in Peachtree City, do not need to watch the new TV show "The United States of Tara", about a mutli-personality woman. We have our own multi in our midst and once more the amoeba has split or whatever. Welcome, Lucid Troll, where do you keep Bonkers, Dollar and et al when you emerge? When you write 'we' on this site are you writing about a normal family or the many faces of you? I must admit--my favorites are when one self posts and the other responds--sometimes backing up the first and sometimes dissenting. I think I have seen you around town having conversations with yourself. I wish you would reconsider running for office. Look what we would save--five or six workers for the price of one--that is if all of you could reach an agreement on anything. Do you get tired when one of you has insomnia? Do you have a California King Sized bed for all of you to fit? Are you ever lonely? Fill us in--each and everyone of you. Inquiring minds want to know.

$ has spawned again!
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Caution - The Surgeon General has determined that constant blogging is an addiction that can cause a sedentary life style.

I'm still waiting for the lucid part tp show up.

I yam what I yam....Popeye

Welcome to the little world. BTW, what's your choice of alcohol?
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Caution - The Surgeon General has determined that constant blogging is an addiction that can cause a sedentary life style.

Are you currently earning $297,000 per year? I am pretty darn sure that the new president of these United States has a salary of about that. What job functions could he possibly do that would justify that income? Good Grief Man what are you thinking?

I believe the 297,000 a year was a combination of the City Manager, the Assistant City Manager and one other person salaries. Extreme I know, but the City Manager is not making that much alone.

It occurred to me that firing 23 employees was only going to solve less than a third of the problem.

I'd rather pay an extra hundred bucks, which will be divided in my escrow and cost me about 8 bucks a month, than see 23 people fired. Not to mention seeing the roadsides knee high in grass. Make the small tax hike for now and cut back something else later if things don't get better.

I have never understood what "cuts in service" means!

I know what cuts in capital spending means. I know what cuts in expenses mean.
I do not know what cuts in service means!

Will you stop treating my sewage?
Treating my drinking water?
Only have sewage and water certain hours of the day?
Cut out the third shift for police and firemen?
Call them at home for a fire?
Only six cop cars show up at a robbed store instead of twelve?
Maybe, like Matt Dillon you could enlist the blacksmith and a traveling Arkansas bum, Festus, to help out?
Will it take an extra 6 minutes to answer a 911 call?

Until you say exactly what "cuts in service" means, no one will believe you!

What other jobs? You chose to spring this on them at the last minute, May be if they would have heard about it LAST Year they all might have new jobs, but to spring this on them in one day and expect everyone not to be upset give me a break, its not your world being flipped upside down, not your home your going to lose, or your health care. Find them new jobs and they will gladly leave your 850,000 dollars behind!!!!!!!!!!! you all can sit up their and say this is a hard decision, and its in the best interst of the citizens that you make your decisions. But who in their right minds would not wait for feedback from the very city they serve and claim to do everything in its best interest? Contradicting yourselves huh?

The problem of doing pay cuts across the board is you have your public safety personnel required to be on duty 24/7. To cut their pay 25%, while still expecting them to work 40 plus hours a week would be cruel. Most other city employee would just not work 1 extra day a week, so instead of working 40 hours a week, they'd work 32 hours a week. This is something you cannot do with Fire/police/EMT. To cut out 25% pay for most public safety personnel would put starting pay for police at 24,000 and move anybody making over 40,000 down to 30,000. Even in the time of a tough economy you do not want to do this to the very people who are protecting your property and your lives. Do I agree in a 25% pay cut, NO, that will put most employees well below their starting pay. But a lot of people complained about have the 23 positions cut, having taxes increase and so forth. Maybe the city should look at holding off on purchases and possibly look into pay increase holds.

No one said anything about people staying home one day and working 32 hours.
More like working six days for 25% less! Suspend OT pay!

There would be no "starting pay for police." None would be hired.

Please get off the thing of "some" can not be cut!

Get over myself? First off you don't even know me! Secondly, why don't you offer to have your taxes increased 25%? I mean if you are going to so easily take money away from these hard working individuals, then the least you can do is take away the same amount from your household income and give it to the city. That only seems fair, so how about you quit being so judgmental and offer up your money. Cut the pay of public safety officials and you decrease city revenue even more, especially since speeding tickets or any other tickets bring the city money. As for the laid off or pay cut, well after the crap the public safety personnel take, they may just opt to quit. And guess what, you won't find anybody that would work harder for 24,000 a year. Might be nice not having to hear people complain about your ever move.

amc700

For the fine citizen(s) who said that they had taken an 80% pay cut... You obviously have no idea about what the fire dept. and police dept. do. Try and tell the families that have needed the fire dept. because they were having a heart attack or their house was on fire and was saved from total destruction because of the fast response of these professionals. These men and women sacrifice more than their time,they put their life on the line everyday to serve and protect the citizens. As the times get even harder, these are the people that we will need the most. No one knows what tomorrow has in store for them, it could be your life that a firefighter or police officer holds in their hands. So please keep your ignorant thoughts to yourself. We need to stand behind our public safety departments and fight for them. And for the 500,000 fire engine, this equipment is much needed to do their job safely and efficiently. Just some things to think about.

You miss read my post. I was defending our public safety. I was pointing out that if they had to take a pay cut, most would drop down to 25-30,000k per year. I know what they do especially since I am married to one and I know the countless lives they save and the countless lives my husband has save in his years of service. So I agree with you that people need to realize that just because it doesn't seem like they see the officers or fire fighters in shoot outs or fighting major fires these fine people do a lot behind the scenes.

Boy, you are a real piece of work if you think cops and firefighters are not worth 30K..I bet you don't go to work without a chance you won't come back. Look at Charleston, they cut back on public safety and 11 firefighters lost their lives. This is the #1 way our tax dollars should be spent..PUBLIC SAFETY.

I'm not really going to waste my time since the reason they are talking 20% pay cuts for city employees and not public safety is simply because you cannot have certain days/hours where public safety isn't on duty. If you do want that, the go ahead Not Again expect everybody to have that same pay cut. Secondly, I too have been hit hard by the economy but would you want to take 25% of our soldiers pay? I mean after all they are protecting our country. Now about working in public safety for 24000 when you can go a few cities or counties over and start at least 32,000, I'm not rocket scientist, but I'm pretty sure people would look there.

My solution is that I think some jobs need to be cut, cost of living should be frozen and taxes increased. If after that they need to go into pay increase freezes then they should look into that, but to cut 25% of peoples pay would devastate the city. It would do more harm then good because you would have more people unable to live with their income. Also, you would have a lower standard of living for the city, who do you think you're going to get for 24,000?

you are a waste of human breath...Follow your own advice and DIE. You are a very negative SOB who offers no real advice....I would love to meet you face to face and debate like men.

That's not a nice statement to make that someone should follow their advice and DIE!!! You are supposed to save lives! Whats an SOB? Geeez, your uptight these days, but I still got love for ya!!!!

your words echo mine exactly with one exception - you were off by about $100,000 on the truck. My understanding is that it is a total cost to the tax payers of $500,000.

I would like to know how the citys money is being spent. No one said anything about that last night. Why don't we look at how the money is being spent and go from there rather than jumping the gun and saying "hey, let's cut 23 jobs!" Makes more sense to me....Maybe part of the problem is that the money is not being spent in the appropriate manner.....

You are absolutely correct, just raise the taxes a little bit and weather the storm.

That said when raised, do they remain so? Or, do they revert back to previous levels? History is replete with tax raises and those promises broken time and again. Where is the guarantee that "government will have learned its lesson?

Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over expecting to get a different result.

Just my two cents worth.

It's obvious you have NO idea what your talking about, i.e. "Currently PTC only puts one-man per truck", as actually every front line engine and medic unit in PCFD is presently staffed with a minimum of TWO personnel, and often an addition one or two volunteers. The County FD staffs their engines with two, and have three on their two Quints. Second, where are the savings you speak of? Sure the county would like nothing more than to add Peachtree City to their Fire Tax base, as its millage rate alone is almost as much as the entire currant millage Peachtree City rate for ALL services provided. That's Fire Police, Public Works, Recreation, Library, etc.... Check the facts before you post your next uninformed blog - Save Fayette

No action was needed! All those empties will mostly stay empty, with or wothout a light!

When someone big actually does sign up, then the light will be installed during the big blush of publicity!

They punted that too.

Put off today what you can ignore in the future.

Your close; I like to call it, " stop listening to people who don't have a clue and lets get to work on fixing this mess. Wink,wink, I got your #!

I have heard of your clothes, but not a your close!

That was funny!!

Mass exodus?? Sorry but there are so many qualified people out of work right now that NO ONE is owed anything. Wake up people cut expenses, debt, and keep what you can. It's a new world.

It isn't a new world and it isn't the first time the economy has been bad. If anything we should have learned it is that taking steps backward doesn't always fix the problem. A careful examination of expenses can often fix areas of deficiency, such as high fuel cost within departments, and monitoring projects that can be delayed until the economy improves.

High fuel cost? Agree months ago but now? What do you mean expenses was there waste and why wasn't that fixed before? Projects than can be delayed how does that fit into a pay cut to keep a job?

I agree with your statements about the pay cuts. Everyone wants for people to take two steps back so we can balance an economy that isn't even close to being balanced for a couple of years. Hey I think we should get rid of the entire military and hospitals and when we get attacked again by terrorist we can all grab a shotgun and some bandages from the store and keep our country going because we have to show some good fireworks in July. If you want a really good laugh you should read Cal Beverly's crap article he wrote recently. He believes the newspaper is more important than education, public safety, and emergency medical services. Cal has had to see good employees of a newspaper that is primarily read online loose their jobs to a struggling economy. We should fire over half the teachers and public safety employees so he can feel good about loosing his assistant that fetches his coffee in the morning. Good luck to the citizens that will complain when their children don't receive the education they are entitled to, and to the people who 911 can't answer in a timely manner.

Every city I have lived in get's to this budget crunch phase where they don't have the will to raise taxes and refuse to cut spending. The alternative they come up with is always the same...first we will see a proposal for "red light cameras" at major intersections in PTC to "improve safety." They are basically revenue generating machines for municipalities. Next we'll get a huge list of new laws that need enforcing like "no cell phones while driving." Just wait...it's coming. I can hear the Mayor justifying it in his tiny head.

Ok increase taxes? So I'm on the side of not cutting these jobs but if private industry is paying more than why stay at a 25% cut? Ah we pay two to three times the taxes of those counties around us (education being the highest). Small increase?? UrKidding right?? Let me get this right. In an economy that has the highest unemployement rate someone is willing to give up a job all together and find something new then take a pay cut. Ok

I was the very person that clearly asked that if we were talking about a 20% pay cut across the board if the council, Mayor and the City manager would be included and I was told "YES". Lets see... Hmmmm If we can save $880,000 with employee cuts and the City Manager Makes $297,000 yearly that adds another $59,400 to the amount. Does anyone realize that just a 20% reduction in his pay is more than any one of the 23 employees make in a year? In some cases it is the salary of 2 of them. What is wrong with the picture?

(guess that's not such a funny lead in after Michael Vick) but anyway, are you really under the impression that any City manager in this county makes 297k a year?

Actually that is the second person who said that the city manager makes close to 300,000 and both were at the meeting last night.

I am pretty sure that the 297k under city manager included the assistant city manager. Might also include one of the Staff assistants (not sure about that) Still a bunch of $$$ but just wanted to clarify, because there wasn't a line item for the Assistant. Most of you probably don't even know why there is an assistant city manager, he never has to say anything, or make decisions, so why do we have one? Im suprised nobody last night brought up the DUI stuff...Everybody stayed composed, and citizens gave their two cents....

As far as strictly head count why does Police and Fire need more people now (in a recession) than in 2005?

In 2005 the Fire Dept had 47 full time and 15 part time and in 2009 they have 59 Full Time and 21 Part Time??? (18 More bodies, than 2005!!!) And Police went up from 62 to 68. I guess they needed more people to work their Haunted House and Pumpkin Sale. Im all for safety but it's getting to a point where even if we reduced their headcounts by 15-20% it won't effect the time it would take to reach the scene of a fire (since we rarely have a fire anyway) as long as there are enough emt's to be first responders to traffic etc.

The police have time to park and chat with their fellow officers in unpatrolled areas, to shoot the breeze instead of getting on the street and creating revenue for the city.

Amazingly in those years (2005-2009) Public Works and Recreation stayed the same...(except for additional library staff) 7 Full Time and 12 Part Time (seems excessive also especially since they just reduced hours)
Click Here Here is the link to the budget.

Folks we can debate all day trying to decide who goes and who stays in PTC as workers in the future. We can talk about the money not there to pay bills. We can talk about a tax increase. We can talk about everything under the sun except the really main issue. The issue is the CITY MAMAGER not doing his job for along time. We pay him a vast amount of money to run the city, have a good fiscal plan, stand out as a good example both as a Citizen and Manager all of us can respect, and to make sure the city operates effectively and at the lowest cost possible and keep us safe. All of the fine citizens that are making suggestions here that are reasonable and have merit, are what we have been paying the City Manager to do and he has failed in that job. Just think about it for a second !!!! Ok let's just get rid of him tomorrow and finally hire a City Manager that has a background at fixing the type of problems we are now having. We know the current one can not do it because almost every suggestion he makes causes more problem the citizens now have to try to fix. I hope the city has learned not to hire some guy who is a friend of a City Councilmen to run a 12 million dollar company like Peachtree City. 4 years later we have a mess that may take us years to fix on either the backs of the lowest paid workers or with increased taxes on the citizens. Well let's just get rid of him like they do in a company when it is failing. Small Problem: He is in a business relationship with the Mayor who has done nothing but give him a raise each year, a bonus each year, saved his job with his very public DUI, allowed him to hire his son with a DUI as a fireman, hire department heads that are failures, add an assistant City Manager that seems to never be at work, cause unions to be appear both in the Fire and Police departments, hire past buddies to do consulting work for the city without bidding out the projects and on and on and on. Team that with a Mayor who could not balance his checking account with a calculator but ran on a platform as a top notch Money Manager. Do you know how sick and tired I am hearing citizens talking about elected official sitting in bars around town all the time or smelling liquor on their breath when they are talking to them in the morning, afternoon or evening.

Yes we have major problems that need to be fixed right away and they are right in front of us. Starting with a new City Manager with experience, and NO connection to Mayor. Then a new Mayor in Jan. 2010. I do not know either of these guys and did not vote for the Mayor, but it does not take a very bright person to see that they let ship sink while they took care of themselves.

I would not let either of these guys run the cash register at my business never mind my 12 million tax dollars. We need to point the finger where it belongs and that is the guy running the operation of the city. McMullen needs to be shown the door and quickly.

No, I think not.
Another rumor gleaned from misreading something!

It is likely the total salary of him, his assistant, his secretary, and office expenses!

Last I heard his salary was about $130,00 plus and his asistant about $100,000 plus.