Delano Record Article, December 22nd

Just wanted to share an article that was published in the Delano Record today. I was interviewed over the phone for this article. I also specifically asked the reporter Bob Cane to call Mayor Melendez and get his side of the story. Interesting how the mayor and the two councilmen didn't even bother to defend themselves.

http://home.earthlink.net/~rrodartejr/mcrg/articles/122205Record.pdf

Community Meeting Notice

Just wanted to let everyone know that we have reserved the Mouser Center for a community meeting on Saturday, January 14th at 12pm. This is the Saturday right after the next council meeting. We will be placing an ad in the Delano Record and passing out flyers in the community to notify people.

Potential Items for Agenda:
1. Open discussion on previous council meeting
2. Update on Recall Status
3. Review of Recall signature collection process
4. Any other items that come up...

Notice of Intent to Recall

I just wanted to provide a status update on our recall activities. We served the mayor and two councilmembers with Notices of Intent to Recall at the last council meeting on December 8th. To comply with the recall requirements we had to publish a copy of the Notices in the Delano Record. The Notices appeared in the December 15th issue of the Delano Record. I have included a copy of the Notices in the link below. The Notices are signed by 23 people, only 6 of which are my family members. So this is a nice wake up call to the mayor that he does not have 100% support from the community and we all don't support his "vision and goals", whatever they may be.

As part of the process, the mayor and two councilmembers are given 7 days to respond to our statement in the Notice of Intent. Well the deadline has passed and none of the three people even bothered to respond to our statement. So our official recall petition forms will not have any official statement from them. I'm sure these guys needed well over 7 days to come up with a 200 word statement to defend themselves. The mental strain was probably too much to bear and they just gave up.

http://home.earthlink.net/~rrodartejr/mcrg/intent/PubIntent.pdf

McFarland City Budget

I went to city hall this afternoon and we were provided with some records of the last budget that was proposed for the 2004-2005 fiscal year. I wanted to upload a copy of what we received for everyone to view. You will notice that the 2004-2005 budget is a proposed budget and it looks like it was not approved. Our city's fiscal year begins in June, so technically we should have had an approved budget more than 6 months ago for the 2005-2006 fiscal year. What the heck are these guys doing? How is it possible that they haven't been able to approve a budget yet? These people are just plain clueless. You'll also notice how their proposed budget for expenses is approximately 2.2 million higher than it was for the prior fiscal year. That's a nearly 66% increase over the prior year! While at the same time they expected our revenue (income) to increase by only 12%! All of this occurred under mayor Melendez's watch.

Also, note how they had to budget $65,000 in the general fund for legal fees which were not even required in prior years. Also, an additional $65,000 in legal fees under the sewer fund that was not required in prior years. Why are we incurring legal costs related to the sewer system? I wonder if they were just trying to spread out the legal costs over several funds so that they don't stand out too much.

McFarland City Budget
http://home.earthlink.net/~rrodartejr/mcrg/budget/Budget.pdf

December 8th, City Council Meeting

We had a great meeting last night. Several of us had an opportunity to voice our opinions before the council. I stood up and gave a recap of some of the issues that people had brought up at our informal community meeting a couple of weeks ago. The council tried to address some of the items but I found that many of their responses were not credible and they attempted to cast blame on the prior city administration. Two of the most astonishing things that I discovered at this meeting are that our city financial records appear to be in a state of chaos, where computers are lost, records can't be found, and somehow that has prevented us from creating a budget for the past year. Yet, the lack of a budget somehow has not stopped them from approving large expenditures. I guess our city's checking account has money that magically appears in it every month. How can we trust these people to manage our city? Most responsible, successful people that I know are able to manage their income and expenses to live within their means. Apparently, these people think that as long as the checks keep clearing we should be OK.

My favorite of the night though was the Mayor's outright statement that he believes he is entitled to have the city pay for his wife's travel costs on all of his business trips. He thinks that because he travels so much and spends so many hours away from home on city business that we should be compensating him by paying for his wife's expenses. This is outrageous! Before running for office he was well aware of the fact that the office of Mayor does not provide a salary or compensation, it is strictly voluntary. Yet, here he is telling us that he deserves this perk because he works so hard for us. According to him, he will be reimbursing the city for his wife's travel expenses, but my feeling is that he has finally realized that he has been caught and is now trying to find a way out to cover himself. I loved the story that was broadcast on Eye 29 later that same evening, he was questioned about this and he clearly lacks any credibility.

We finally served the mayor and councilmen with our Notice of Intent to Recall forms. So the recall process is officially underway. Thanks to all the people that supported and signed our paperwork. Each Notice of Intent required 20 signatures, we collected 23 just to play it safe. Although we easily could have collected 50 for each candidate. For those of you who called us requesting to sign it but didn't get an opportunity to sign it, don't worry, you will have another chance once we begin recirculating the recall petitions.

Anyway, last night's meeting was fun and a bit entertaining. I think next time I will bring my soda and popcorn to watch the show.