She did reply to me and also she posted that to her FB page. What she failed to do was to post my original email in its entirety. Of course she didn't. Why, because obviously she wanted to hide the projected $140 million in potential repairs.
Anyway, my policy has been to publish the replies I receive. Her reply is posted below, and following that is my reply to that. She was appointed as a placeholder to temporarily fill an open seat. I hope that the voters in Ward 3 have the common sense not to elect her at the special election. I know that I would not want a council member hiding very pertinent info from me. But then, she apparently is a proponent of the proposed new community center and maybe she is afraid that if the storm water pipe repairs came out folks might have second thought about wasting $54 million on that project.
Her reply to my original email:
Good Morning Ray,
Sorry for the delay.
I read your e-mail late last night and wanted to reflect on my post and
the meeting before responding.
First, I want to thank you for reaching out. I also want to thank you for reading my
council meeting updates. As per our
previous conversations, it is important to me that I consider all constituent
feedback. As a result of your e-mail, I
took the time to listen to the meeting recording this morning and read the staff memo again. I wanted to be sure that I did not
misunderstand any of the meeting materials.
When I listened to the presentation during the Council
Committee meeting, I left with the understanding that we have a long road ahead
of us to deal with the corrugated metal pipe system that supports a lot of our
storm water traffic. Simply put, when
storm water management comes up in future budget deliberations, this is not the place to try to cut
funding. You are correct that there are many repairs that will need to
take place in the future. These repairs
will have a substantial cost. But, just
like any other infrastructure need, those costs will be divided over several
budget years. There was no indication
that we will not have the funds in the long term to appropriately deal with the
issue. There was also not a request for
emergency funding to address unmet needs.
Based on my previous impression from the meeting, as well as my fresh look at the materials, I stand by my original post.
Thank you again for your feedback. I am not perfect, and I will readily admit
when I have made a mistake and take steps to remedy it.
Have a great weekend.
Lisa
My reply to her reply:
Lisa,
I agonized over the weekend on how to respond to you.
The only answer I came up with was to be direct.
Your reply was, IMHO, a typical lawyerly Tijuana Two Step. You said a
lot, but said nothing.
Not telling the residents of the ward what the projected
repair amounts is, IMHO bordering on ineptness on your part and a form of
deception. What’s the legal term? Lying by omission?
Tonight it may be a “small” amount but the council will
be voting on paying an additional $200K+ on an existing project.
Ray
