Carefree Truth

Issue #61, July 30, 2010

 

    Councilman Doug Stavoe was the lone vote against approval of the Carefree 2010/2011 budget at the July Council meeting.  He offered no comment or explanation for his negative vote at the time.  He did, however, freely express his opinions to both the Arizona Republic and the Sonoran News in subsequent interviews.   The article below appeared in the Arizona Republic.  

 

by Sonja Haller - Jul. 14, 2010 12:23 PM
The Arizona Republic

Councilman Doug Stavoe voted against adopting the budget but did not share why during the meeting Tuesday.

After the meeting, Stavoe said his top reason was that there was too little discussion on the budget and only a handful of meetings in contrast with last year, when there were more than a half dozen.

 

    Councilman Bob Gemmill wrote an excellent response, which was published in the Republic on July 21st.    

Criticism of budget is off base

Regarding the article in the July 15th Scottsdale Republic, “Carefree OKs bare-bones budget,” it's preposterous for Councilman Doug Stavoe to allege that the town's budget process was somehow “short-tracked” and too few discussions and meetings occurred.

Perhaps the councilman arrived at this conclusion because he failed to attend many of those budget meetings, and the ones he did attend, he offered little or no input, as was witnessed at the July 13 council meeting.

For the record, the town staff and council have conducted 12 budget meetings over the past seven months.

As the town-finance liaison, Councilman Stavoe of all council members should have prioritized his schedule to participate and influence the direction of the town budget.

--Bob Gemmill, Carefree

Comment Posted Online for the Article by "involvedincarefree" on 7/14

Doug Stavoe did not attend public budget workshops and he failed to attend the June Town Council meeting. He didn't send written comments to the meetings and he didn't participate by phone.

Better attention to duty might result in more discussion.

 

 

 

The following article appeared in the Sonoran News. 

 

 

BY LINDA BENTLEY | JULY 14, 2010 

The Sonoran News 

CAREFREE – During a short public hearing to pass a resolution adopting the fiscal year budget for 2010-2011, Town Administrator Gary Neiss explained the budget process that began in May with a series of workshops.

With no public or council comments, the resolution passed by a vote of 6-1 with Councilman Doug Stavoe dissenting.

Stavoe later said his dissent was based on a number of things he has expressed throughout the process, noting the budget is also a guiding document that reflects some ideology with which he does not agree, such as giving salary increases while laying employees off.

 

 

    

    Again, Mr. Stavoe misses the mark.  Carefree staff salaries have been frozen for the past two years.  There were no raises given last year and none are budgeted for this year.  The talented and dedicated staff members have picked up the workload of the two full time and one half time employees that were laid off to save money during the 2009/2010 fiscal year.  

 

 

    

    Unfortunately, Mr. Stavoe chooses to have little or no dealings with the staff, whom he refers to as "subordinates".  When he is present,  the Council meetings are extensively prolonged as he asks endless basic questions, all of which could easily have been answered by members of the staff before the meetings.  He demonstrates very little genuine motivation to learn how the Town runs, but does not seem hesitant to criticize it in the press.

 

Lyn Hitchon   

 

 

 

Prepared by Carefree Truth