Definition of ‘transparency’ varies, apparently
To the editor:
Thank you Cape Coral Breeze for your front page article in the Aug. 28 newspaper “Compensation benchmark draws debate” by Valarie Harring. The article certainly answers a lot of questions the taxpayers of Cape Coral have about the recent 10 percent plus raises and the city manager’s and council’s talk of having city employees in the 75th percentile. It would be great if you could have more articles about Cape Coral’s finances, how our money is being spent.
I also thank Mr. Deile for his Letter to the Editor responding to the city manager’s attack on our hometown newspaper, The Cape Coral Breeze. I hope both the article and letter to the editor creats enough interest in the community to have a large voter turnout, it should.
I believe we do need to get a court order to get all the documents relating to all the consultants hired by this city manager including the costs to the taxpayers. The city manager says he is transparent in all he does. It is obvious that he does not understand what “transparent” means. The article that I mentioned in the first paragraph does have mention of Szerling’s consultants. Mr. Mazurkiewicz, in his remarks, said “If you’re matching W2s, it’s apples to apples,” he said. “That’s the way I always used to negotiate contracts – it’s W2 to W2. You never had to use an expensive consultant, either, just request the W2 from the markets you are losing people to.”
Also commenting on Cape Coral Breeze article this past week on the candidate question of the week, “do you support the Utility Expansion Project as it is currently implemented?” Current council member John Carioscia had the comment “The result of re-starting the UEP, was an immediate lowering of the base water bill by 3 percent and locking those rates in for 10 years, this was unprecedented.” Mr. Carioscia, my water bill has increased since the new water plant was built on Kismet Parkway, in fact the second year it increased an average of $10.43 a month, the third it was $6.64, the fourth $7.19. Yes, the fifth year I did have a decrease, it averaged the very large sum of $2.57. You now have the nerve to say your 3 percent reduction for 10 years is unprecedented.
You and the rest of the council should be ashamed for allowing this pathetic tidbit of a reduction of happening – did you and the city manager hire a consultant to come up with this figure? The water ratepayers deserve a bit more consideration of a much larger reduction in their monthly bills, especially where this council took over $13 million from the water account to buy some land they might be able to use in the future.
Richard C. Perry
Cape Coral