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Park Authority Board Votes Themselves More Money
By Greg L | 8 August 2008 | Prince William County | 12 Comments
I heard tonight that the Prince William County Park Authority had an interesting meeting this week, during a time they would normally not be having meetings. They tried to raise their own salaries, Board Member Jane Byer vigorously objected, and it didn’t pass. Then they tried to give each member a ten thousand dollar discretionary fund, Byer objected again, and that failed also. But despite Byer’s continued objections, they did manage to vote themselves a five thousand dollar per-member discretionary fund during abudget cycle when every other agency is cutting their budget.
You gotta love it when appointed bodies think that no one is paying attention. They do the dumbest stuff.
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12 Comments
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Isn’t the real story here the conscientious consistency of Ms. Byer?
A textbook conflict-of-interest scenario (Ms. Byer fortunately didn’t get the memo) replicating what our Congress persons do every couple of years. My father use to say that once people assume the right to vote for a living, democracy is finished.
Kudos to Ms. Byer. Why would any of them need $5K in “discretionary” funds? They can’t pocket that money, can they? How is that legal? Am I just really naive?
Great going Jane. For years the Park Authority has run ramped and some one needs to stop it?But who? The Repb. in local office keeps wanting more money for them and their NEW Aides? Course the Demo. are not any better. Where do we find good honest,hardworking people who cares about we the citizens???
Park Authority does not need Discretionary Money? Just like the Sopes . don’t need. They use it to give to their., Their favorite charities, They use it to supplement the high salaries of their over paid Aides.
They use it for what they want.
Yes, it means more money in their Pockets. This needs to stop.
What is it with PWC and all these “discretionary funds”???
This is ridiculous - good for the lady raising hell about it. She shouldn’t stop.
We should all thank Marty Nohe for appointing Jane Beyer. It looks like he expects his appointees to examine and re-examine issues to make sure that taxpayer money isn’t being wasted or misuesed in any area of government, not just illegal immigration. We are a lucky county to have Marty and Jane watching out for us.
I did find it ironic that in near back to back threads, Mr Letiecq is criticizing Mr Nohe and then praises his park authority board member for exactly the same conservative vigilance. Jane does a great job on the park authority, and is often in the minority when it comes to these kinds of conservative issues. She used to have an ally in Jean Smith, but Jean was replaced by the new Chairman of the Board. Thanks, Jane, for looking out for all of us.
I thought I’d post a statement from a Ed W. (edwierdness) from www.azstarnet.com
The President can’t craft legislation, he can only use the “bully” pulpit to advocate for laws he supports. The House and Senate are where the real problem with enforcing our immigration laws rests. Voters have an unprecedented, non-partisan opportunity to effect great change this November.
I call it voting in “self defense”. By voting out incumbents where ever possible, we, the people, can change the balance of power and tenure in Congress. We can marginalize the damage that either a McCain or an Obama presidency will cause. By removing as many long term, all-powerful Congressional incumbents, we can upset the partisan apple cart that usurps the will of America’s Citizens.
Who knows, once we get through the catharsis of voting in self defense rather than in partisan self interests, we might see more responsible people willing to run for office, and more Citizens finding benefit in voting.
Waiting for a third party that may never arrive is definitly not in our best interests. Frequent “House and Senate” cleaning is a methos whereby we can limit the tenure and power of Congressional leaders and restore accountability as an incentive for politicians to follow the will of the people.
Congressional approval ratings are even more abysmal than President Bush’s approval ratings. There are no negative down side risks to trying someone new as opposed to reinstating someone who sucks hard! The farther politicians get from direct accountability to their constituents (incumbency) the less representative they are of the people they represent. Increasingly, incumbents focus only on the moneyed and special interests that can keep them in office. The easiest way to deal with the problem of incumbency, is to eliminate incumbency by truning out politicians at every opportunity. The benefits in reducing earmarks, and the reduction in tax payers funded pensions and pay increases would doubtless fund much needed programs from which we, the people would benefit.
Hope you like it I thought it made sense to me.
I hope, americangal4ever, that voters who actually care about this issue will vote INTELLIGENTLY and not arbitrarily vote incumbents out of office! There happen to be some of those incumbents who HAVE been fighting the good fight for us, uphill all the way, and could use some help getting a majority to fight along with them. You don’t throw out the baby with the bath water!
Just curious, but did you happen to listen to the Park Authority’s Board Audio file which tells a completely different story? In it you can hear this being discussed and voted on. Also, the meeting was publicized. Not sure where you’re getting your info?
http://www.pwcparks.org/AboutUs/BoardMeetings/tabid/105/Default.aspx
Okay Mark, I did as you suggested and Greg is pretty dead on with this post saying the non-elected Park Authority members voted to give themselves a $5000 a year slush fund of tax payer funds. The other information he has was probably discussed in the “committee meeting” that was mentioned at the beginning of the presentation. I am completely stunned that at least two board members, Mr. Wickham and one other wanted the dollar amount to be unlimited, then later said the maximum should be at least $10,000 a year. Mrs. Beyer said she would not support $10,000 and said there should be a limit. If she was against $10,000 I wish she would have voted “no” on the motion. She also said she is concerned about $80,000 going into this account due to our current budget problems. Mr. York said he thought $10,000 would be “suspect to the public” and said he would not support that amount. Mr. Thomas was the only board member who voted against the motion, but it appears he voted no because he wanted the dollar amount to be higher and not be limited. The staff member who presented this information to the board should be praised for her actions. She strongly insisted that there be a limit of $5000 and went so far to say it would “not be good business to not have a limit or to allocate the entire year end fund balance.” Good to know someone is guarding our tax dollars! It was also mentioned that this dollar amount would carry over if not used in a year. What this means is non-elected, appointed members will now have tax payer money to do whatever pet projects they want to do in their district and have the ability to “save up” thousands of dollars to do whatever they want. Wasn’t it not too long ago that thousands of Park Authority funds were misappropriated and projects that the VOTERS approved were pushed back? Why not put any carry over money towards new projects or delayed projects? Or why not put the money into the reserve account which was also mentioned by the presenter. I personally don’t support the BOCS having discretionary funds to give to whatever charity floats their boat, but to unelected bodies???? Makes NO sense. Does the elected school board have a discretionary fund that they can spend as they wish?
Vote ‘em Out!