I am pretty darn sure I heard Tom Corbett tell the City Council that the city required some type of "screening" for the landscapers' employees who will be working in PTC.

They didn't go into further detail but your comment jogged my memory, for what it's worth.

We have one outspoken blogger Councilman....I wonder what his opinion of this is?

Remember, the Council voted lock step for this to be done. They ultimately are accountable for the workers hired.

State law and the contract do not allow the hiring of illegals.

Don Haddix
PTC Councilman
Post 1
donhaddix.com

But in this case, I think some investigating needs to be done.

What enforcement to the contract is in place? I noticed that the makeup of employees is also suspect.

Is there a compliance check done that all of the employees for the landscaping company share the same social security number, or we taking it on faith?

The idea of laying off employees to facilitate the hiring of illegal immigrants just to save the city money could be a very public scandal, and there are folks motivated to investigate this.

And the speed limit, also state law, is routinely disregarded, even by those designated to enforce it.
Try again Councilman.

I'm baffled.

Really? You can’t figure out how thousands of people equipped with thousands of lawnmowers each responsible on average for less than an acre can get it done on one sunny afternoon. Truly, I hope this concept doesn't really amaze you.
Not a big fan of the "new" landscaping plan and hate the thought of illegals getting native jobs, but gracious, Goil, engage brain, then type.

Might wanna look up "cynicism" and re-read my post. Your inability to grasp the full content speaks more to your brain engagement than mine. Really.

I have a compound bow ready to help reduce the Deer accidents..Venison..the other white meat.

A Staff report from 2:51 PM today on 74:
CW Matthews started cutting grass today. Median is cut from Kelly to 54

As for the deer, some of us on Council noted such as DNR needs to be contacted immediately.

Unfortunately GDOT is in control of a lot of issues and they are not very open or easy to deal with or prompt at times.

Don Haddix
PTC Councilman
Post 1
donhaddix.com

They're horribly under-staffed and have more important things to do -- such as inspect 10 day hazardous materials transfer stations, monitor wastewater treatment, keep an eye on streams, etc.

let's figure to have the median mowing to be done on or about October, don't you think? Why are they wasting time mowing this stuff, anyway? Aren't they supposed to be replacing this high weed/grass with real grass before they sign this over to PTC for maintenance?
Please, what do you know about Ken Williams statements about no mulching or weeding? Explain why this work was NOT put in the Tru Green contract?
Wasn't an announcement made just recently that Hwy 54 median on the east side of the city is going to be redone with new landscaping? How in the world can this even be considered when the current medians are being neglected?

New red cedar mulch at City Hall for sure..looks very nice...also work yesterday on the median on Hwy 54 just west of the Wyndham. All in all, I think they are slowly getting their act together. Let's hope so.

But I also have to agree about the workers, as referenced elsewhere in these blogs...I'd be SHOCKED if they were all legal US Citizens. And for this I'm ashamed...we laid off good folks for this...

I don't know the full contract between GDOT and Matthews. But I do know some GDOT funding will not come online until July and that until they achieve a certain level of completion they are not going to sow the grass, which has to be completed before turn over.

As for Ken Williams statement, I have not heard it or heard any such report from City Hall. In fact, it is in the contract and I just got a report that we were working with Tru-Green on the wheres, whats and hows of performing such.

On the road landscaping projects, funds coming from the State or Fed grants, etc, were given due to specific requests for specific projects and cannot be used for anything else.

You can never know what order projects will be completed and grants will be funded. But when they happen, you take what you can get when you get it.

Don Haddix
PTC Councilman
Post 1
donhaddix.com

Mr Haddix writes:

"As for Ken Williams statement, I have not heard it or heard any such report from City Hall. In fact, it is in the contract and I just got a report that we were working with Tru-Green on the wheres, whats and hows of performing such."

It's always someone else's fault! You are on the city council, why didn't you review the contract! That's part of your job....

We need a real leader in this job!

I have just reviewed this thread. Someone previously (PTCGOIL) stated that Ken Williams was making statements. Haddix's message above is read to say that he has not heard him state it, verbally or in written form, but does know the contract and knows that mulching was part of it. HE IS STATING THAT HE KNOWS THE CONTRACT! If you are refering to the contract between GDOT and Matthews, isn't that outside of his responsibilities. Would GDOT let him review the full contrqact? I don't know.
How do you read that he does not know the contract between the city and TruGreen? Go ahead and be a partisan hack, but attack with an honest and realistic assessment of what the man states. Not statements and bloggings that reek of falsehood. I am not a support, nor a detractor yet, but geez. Please pick a horse and ride it, instead of shooting horses that you don't want to win. Show me a leader here that will stick to our community plan and make strong zoning enforcements. Persuade me with your intellectual arguments, not an attack that a simple review of three previous messages can refute.

Dear Mr. Haddix
Every time I read your posts, I found something is missing, sort of hollow...I finally figured it out....a platform! Mr. Haddix, what is YOUR platform for mayor? Tell us your plan and vision for PTC

Instead of referencing the magical "3" and every thing those "evil" people have done to Peachtree City...all while being puppets the "all powerful" developers why not lay out your platform.

Please, no more retoric...tell us the your plan so we can start to the process of deciding if you are the right choice for mayor.

Tell us you plan on thew following:

1-Taxes - are you planning an increase?
2-Balancing the budget? How will you do that? and with a anti-development policy, how will manage the budget in the future?
3-City services...how will you maintain them under the current budget constraints?
4-City assets...are you going to sell some? what is planned with the money you raise?
5-Anti-development - how will you handle the developers? are you going to dis-band the planning commission since there ill be no development?
6-Job creation - how many jobs do you envision creating during your term of office?
7-New business..what is your plan to bring new business to PTC? How are you going to attract new business to town and what type of businesses? what is your plan?

Please tell us.
Thanks

It's about time someone started asking tough questions. I want to see some legitimate answers before I vote. I for one keep wondering why we are trying to balance the budget on the backs of the city employees. Before long you will have a workforce that is job scared and has broken morale. Every city employee I know is proud to work here. Break that spirit and Peachtree City will become like everywhere else, run down, overgrown and this will be just a job that pays the bills. This council may very well be known as the council that destroyed Peachtree City because they are too afraid to raise taxes in order to maintain things they way they are. In very short order people will say this USED to be a nice place to live. WAKE UP PEOPLE.

How do we do it if the employees are a significant outlay of expenditures. If you are stating that the employees and their jobs are sacrosanct, then what are you willing to cut to balance the budget? It seems that every line item is a sacred cow to someone. But hey, even sacred cows can be tasty and could feed many.

True, The Wedge. There has not been a single budget item yet where someone did not try to defend the status quo.

In my campaign all the signs of the problems were already a reality. I pushed for change in my agenda. So did Sturbaum.

I came on pushing to start fixing The Fred but there was no action until its budget became an embarrassment. Even then there were outcries from some to increase taxes and don't touch it or try to fix it unless special protection was given to the gold seat holders.

But with the changes I demanded it seems to be working better now. Maybe some tweaks next year to help even more. But those complaining then seem content now.

Also pushed to fix the Tennis Center and The Kedron Complex. Again anger from some to just increase taxes and don't touch anything. Again no action until it became too obvious to be ignored. But that represents over a million, between the two, in taxes.

Budget adjustments should have already been in work in 2006 and 2007. All the data was there to demand being proactive, not reactive, as we now are.

Why not until late middle 2008 did anything begin to happen? Because the majority believed the economy was going to turn around and there had been no one on Council pushing. Logsdon stated by fall 2008, early 2009, we would be recovering. Said PTC was in a recession proof bubble from the Dais. Two others agreed and two strongly disagreed.

I won't touch the fire and police anymore. Especially when we already need two more fire stations and ten more officers plus the associated equipment.

We did the Library about all we dare.

We did changes in Administration Staff to streamline and reduce costs.

The landscaping changes saved $940,000.00, which is .5 mil in taxes.

Realistically we are down to stopping services or a tax increase because until the adjustments are made on the Tennis Center and Kedron Complex we are still down about $1,000,000.

Even with those adjustments we are probably looking at a .5 mil tax increase.

The proposal by Logsdon to do a 5% across the board pay cut on employees is a non starter for me. That would shatter worker morale and more.

By law we have to balance our budget. Just continually spending out of the reserve will destroy our bond rating and just postpone the budget changes, not eliminate them.

We have a lot of things that were postponed, not eliminated, that will have to be paid for in the future. No avoiding it.

We have to get good paying jobs in here, thus DAPC with backing and more for Council. We have to get Tourism streamlined for what it is suppose to be doing. We have to get Tourism and DAPC working as a team. We have to prepare for the future, meaning end the past practice of being reactive and become proactive to needs. We have to get our ordinances up to snuff to end loosing lawsuits and protect PTC, thus my work to get them updated and the creation of the Transition Yard ordinance and updates to the GC. We have to get back to the Village Concept, Land Use Plan and Comprehensive Plan and get them solidly into our ordinances.

It was shocking to find ordinances and issues that needed adjusting but not having been touched since the early 90's, one even back to 1959.

The public does not see a lot of the efforts, since they are internal. But I have been pushing and Sturbaum and I are agressively backing change.

We have to defend home values and develop a prospering retail environment. That means Smart Growth and not just building more and more to the detriment of what is already here.

I know this was a lot of meandering when the issue was the budget. But all these things tie to the budget and have major impact on the financial well being of PTC.

We have a great city, are at a critical time and can no longer do things business as usual. Governance by personal opinion, as the judge in the Hyde case called it.

No doubt in my mind PTC can do it and come out the better for it. If I didn't sure would not be wasting my time on Council.

Don Haddix
PTC Councilman
Post 1
donhaddix.com

Stop spending more than the city takes in! I know that is a NEW concept to this council. I see that the budget was in good shape when handed over by Brown to Logsdon. Now, it is in the toilet. For the past 2 years the reserve funds were used to balance the budget. We are paying for that now. I completely agree that the way that this budget is being handled is wrong. Firing the employees was wrong. And keeping anyone on this council would be criminal!

The city shouldn't spend more than it takes in. We agree on that. So you can do 1 of 2 things or both of them... raise more money (taxes and fees) and cut expenditures. I am not in favor of raising taxes so I must be on the side of cutting expenditures. If that is where you are at as well, what would you cut, if not people? Any cut is controversial. Leaders do it anyway. Where do you think we should cut?

I would start with the cutting the100% pay raise that the council is getting on January 01, 2010. Postpone it at the very least. No new shopping centers until the ones we have are no longer half empty. I personally would have tried to implement an across the board pay cut for all city employees, with a pay back plan. Keep the good employees. Don’t just wipe out an entire department. Cut the dead weight. That is just a quick start off the top of my head.

The people whom you categorize as "dead weight" are also employees whose families will blog vociferously to save their jobs. Outside services is the area that frequently gets looked at for cost cutting. Mainly because private companies already exist that do it and are willing to bid it. It remains to be seen if the cut was a good one as far as the average citizen is concerned. Do we raise taxes to keep our medians in better shape? Do we cut the labor? We will see in the future what the taxpayers value more I guess

Wedge, what you are not hearing is the across the board DarkMadam is endorsing was 25%. They overwhelmingly rejected it when asked, so I guess we were suppose to just impose it.

Also, a part of the contract Council insisted on was those who lost their jobs were first in line for Tru Green to hire. Word is none applied, but not judging them on that account, since they have to decide if they wanted to work for Tru Green or not.

So far a mixed bag on responses. The complaints have stopped for the most part as the services get more up to date and 74, the main source of complaints, is being mowed, many back the decision rather than upping taxes and most are just silent.

As with all things, it is impossible to make all happy and easy to complain without having any answers as alternative.

Yes, DarkMadam gave a list to Council of suggestions. No, they didn't work and she was supplied with answers as to why they didn't work.

Don Haddix
PTC Councilman
Post 1
donhaddix.com

With-in 6 months after 9/11 all of the employees of American Airlines with the exception of the pilots took a 21% pay cut. It is going on 8 years now and they have just gotten back to where they were in 2001. It took some changes indeed, we ate a lot of beans, but it can be done. So don't tell me that a bunch city employees can't do it, if that is what it takes to keep the city with-in budget then do it.
Hard Times take Hard Decisions.

Obama's weapon of Choice!

I was never for the 25%. If you remember, that was a spur of the moment thing at the 1st council meeting where the original vote was to take place. I NEVER said 25% and noone EVER wanted it to be Permanent. It was a stop gap to buy time to do research. I was for a pay cut with a pay back plan. To be specific, I was for a 10% pay cut with a payback plan of 3% for the first year, 3% second year and 4% on the 3rd year, leaving time for budget adjustments along the way. Yes I did get answers but they were "political" answers. Anyone who wishes to see them has only to ask. Times are tough and the budget was not handled properly. And to answer about the "dead weight"... I would do this in ANY company. If the people were not productive employees they need to go. There are way too many qualified people who will be productive out there to take the job. I was looking for a way to keep the employees and ride out this rough period. It is a well known fact that Haddax and I don't agree. But if he wants to call me out he really needs to be correct as he has reminded me from time to time.

If any city service can be done to an acceptable level with contracted labor verses permanent positions, then it should be seriously considered. Most companies outsource janitorial functions as an example. As far as the city goes, the landscapers and grounds keepers are a good comparison. There was very little risk to the health, safety, and welfare of the general populace to have this segment privatized. The fact that it could be privatized at that much of a cost savings tells me that the city was pushing maintenance and lawn service to abnormal levels, or the salaries were not commensurate with private industry. Obviously we have made a decision. The question that now arises is do we want to live with it. The other serious question that we need to ask is why our lawn and maintenance costs were so much more than private industry.

I still am not sure I trust those figures. I have not asked for the figures to review. But the number keeps changing.

good luck

I agree, 25 was too much to bear. 5% would save the City some money. And yes, count me in as one who would have rather raised taxes a .5 mills than lay folks off.

That said, at 9PM for the Saturday night Kenny Loggins show, the Amphitheater would not sell a lawn ticket for $35 bucks..so they didn't get my money. They must be making money hand over fist, if they can turn down paying customers.

Will add you. But still a minority position.

This is where it starts getting more complex. Calculating in the impacts of the benefits freezes, cuts etc, I stopped counting and rejected the 5% when the total impact passed 11%.

Sure, 5% does not look real bad if you don't look at any other numbers. But when you roll in the other numbers serious pain starts setting in, especially to the lower pay workers.

Nor can you look at the .5 mil in a vacuum. Add in the .5 we are having look at now and you just doubled the tax increase to at least 1 mil with greater increases in out years through at least 2013 than we will have without the personnel costs.

It was about one for one on the 48% that split between all tax increases and all service and personnel cuts. The remaining 52% some of both was the correct path, which I agree with.

Nobody wanted to cut anyone. But we had to do something. No one has come up with any viable alternatives.

Yes, working to get more jobs here to fuel PTC, but that takes time, which our budget does not have.

Don Haddix
PTC Councilman
Post 1
donhaddix.com

That's for sure...

on Hwy-74 right now!