Agenda-driven personal ideals are over

The heading of this letter says it all. Just who am I talking about? One guess. Yes, it is Mayor Patterson. It is not the very fine city staff or some of the councilmembers. No need to name them, you already know who they are.
The mayor built a wall around herself. She is backed up by her committee appointees and her two new committees. These all follow her personal agenda ideals. The consequences are very clear. Staff time is consumed by the mayor and her tactics to get items on the agenda and have staff respond. There is no time for economic development issues. I spoke about economic development at a recent council meeting. The mayor instructed a staff member to send me the documents and hoped I would read them. I am and always was aware of those documents. They mean nothing if the mayor’s interpretation of economic development differ from what it really is. Does the mayor even know the difference between a Business Park and an Industrial Park? It does not appear so.
It has taken nine years, but the council now knows that the mayor’s two-step agenda process is over. This two-step process will stop with very fine professional guidance from our very fine new city manager with the backing of the councilmembers. It will now be city of Benicia first. As the city proceeds with economic development, we will see how little Mayor Patterson knows or even understands economic development. We already know she does not understand the budget. She recently said the budget was balanced with a $1.2 million fix. Guess what? It was not balanced. It needed another $2 million to balance it. It also produced another cut of about 6.5 percent for a two-year total of 10 percent. This is very painful to our fine city staff. But the mayor had an out. She blamed the previous city manager for not telling the whole story.
Sorry, Mayor Patterson, it appears with regard to finances and management skills, you are way over your head. That will come to a screeching halt with the stopping of the unnecessary two-step personal agenda items. We will see a much different approach to city business going forward. Your only options are to join the team or be left out.
The 2018_election will be very important to this city. We will have one new person on the council, and it will be someone who is pro-Benicia– or as I say, “Benicia First–, not personal agenda ideals. It does appear the city now has a grip on what did hold up movement. It’s the mayor, and that will be halted. I will be watching closely how the mayor reacts to this. Her body and facial reaction tells the story. Stay tuned.

Bob “The Owl” Livesay,
Benicia

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