Mayor Don Kuchta

Mayor's Report

August 12th 2010

It is too soon to give you issue numbers, but it is not too soon to urge you to vote for the City issues that will appear on the November ballot. The 5.07 mill levy is the exact same Real Estate Tax you have paid for almost 50 years. In today’s estimated values it is worth about 1 mill. So it is only pennies a day.

The City Income Tax issue that will appear on the ballot will only affect those who are working. Please tell your neighbors how critical it is for these issues to pass. I will make myself available to speak to groups at meeting places at any time of day or in the evening. I would be glad to help understand the whys of the need to pass these issues. Please schedule meetings with Diana my assistant.

I was at a luncheon earlier this week with Congressman LaTourette. Remember that this is the man who made the Route 82 Bridge happen. He got us seed money of almost $3 million dollars that blossomed into $12 MILLION FEDERAL DOLLARS for the Route 82 Bridge. The Congressman spoke of the serious impact that regulatory agencies have on businesses. These restrictions often lead to companies leaving for Asia… who has none of these restrictions and that alone can vastly improve the company’s bottom line. Unfunded EPA and The Department of Transportation mandates are presently costing tax payer dollars in your City too. You need to know that we are constantly trying to doge the bullet of large fines by digging in our Cities wallet to meet the mandates (must dos). I am not saying that all regulations are not needed, but for right now I would rather concentrate on fixing our roads than the reflectivity of our stop signs. I really think what we have is just fine, but the City will be inventorying our signs and possibly facing a cost of replacing what could be two thirds of our signs to new Federal Standards!

Things are starting to move positively with our businesses. Don’t forget that our businesses are our life line. Blackburn’s is moving into the old Roll and Hold building. Blackburn’s has a business that is booming handling vehicle wheels.The building they owned on South Freeway Drive will be occupied by Lumacurve. Lumacurve makes airport runway signs, and they are one of only three companies that do that worldwide. Sounds like a very good thing and a solid plus for our City. I am looking forward to working with one of our local businessman and Macedonia financial development committee member, Robin Bugenske, to interact with realtors in an attempt to fill some of our vacant buildings. Macedonia should stand out because of its ideal location. We must try every way possible to let people know that.

Our post audit meeting was held last night and the results of that audit in draft form were presented to Council and our Audit Committee. This is the earliest our audit has been done since I have been in office. The first audit after I took office took 2 years, and we had to bring in RITA for months to help straightening out the records. My first audits were full of citations and recommendations.

Good.

That was a roadmap to becoming more efficient handling your money. Last year was our best audit and I am hoping to get even better as time goes by. If we had the money other cities have, it would make it easier for us to improve because they write blanket purchase orders. We can’t do that. We have P.O.’s that are written on an as needed basis. Blanket P.O.’s makes it easier to track cash flow. Watch for the audit results which will be published soon. Once again I would like to thank the people on our audit committee along with the rest of our committees, who give up their time to serve the City. The more eyes that we have watching your money…the better we can be. This is the purpose of the Audit Committee. This committee has representation from local business, from a bank, and of course Macedonia residents are represented.

We have gone back to making road improvements with our service Department. We are using the used roller we purchased when I first took office, because of existing road conditions then. You will (hopefully) soon see the Service Department also sealing the roads. Because of budget constraints, last year we sealed no roads. On the advice of our Engineering Department, we must seal this year. Some roads are too far gone to waste the seal on. The cost of sealing material or even asphalt is more than we can afford to easily buy. Our roads continue to deteriorate with no way to fix them in sight. We will do the best we can putting on band aids. This is also a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation. Doing this could affect services needed in the future. We will keep our fingers crossed that we will not have an early winter.

Our court receipts for July were $34,044.