Hasty decision hurts city
Published 5:02 pm Monday, August 2, 2010
Tough financial times often require making tough decisions, no doubt about it.
But a sense of urgency isn’t an excuse for shortsighted decisions. Which is why it was beyond disappointing to read that the Monroe City Council abruptly decided to stop making payments to the city’s community crown jewel — the YMCA, which opened in 2007.
Last week, Monroe Mayor Robert Zimmerman led the council in a budget discussion. He proposed 10 layoffs, including three police officers, to close a deficit that may reach $759,000 this year. His other options included tax increases and the YMCA money. The council voted 5-0 to cut the YMCA money.
The discussion was hasty, and belated.
On May 28, Zimmerman was clinging to an optimistic financial projection that would leave the city in the black this year, despite the fact that the budget has already been adjusted twice to pull it out of the red. (In April, city administrators asked staff to voluntarily take furlough days or other cost-saving measures. Nearly a third of the staff did, freeing up $92,000.)
Other city council members, meanwhile, suggested looking into renegotiating city employee contracts, which include automatic annual pay increases based on seniority.
At that time, Zimmerman said renegotiations would be an unnecessary emergency measure.
“The floor is not falling out from underneath us at this point,” he said.
Well, apparently in June and July, the floor fell out.
Renegotiating city employee contracts was not an option put forward by Zimmerman last week. But he offered up the YMCA payments, without bothering to notify the city’s YMCA partners, saying he didn’t see a need to give them advance warning.
That’s an odd statement, and odd behavior for a mayor, who, after taking office in January, said he isn’t against tax increases, but supports the careful use of those dollars. Zimmerman pointed to the Monroe Family YMCA, built with public and private money, as an ideal project.
It remains an ideal project, one that has greatly benefited the city and its citizens. An annual payment of $131,700 is not the cause of Monroe’s budget woes. Eliminating the payment won’t solve the city’s finances. But it will cost the city, which will lose programs while YMCA employees may lose their jobs. Invaluable and incalculable goodwill with the YMCA and citizens of Monroe and Snohomish County will also be lost.
We urge the council to reconsider this action. Without question, the YMCA is the best thing to happen to Monroe in recent memory. Severing ties, after working so hard to create the partnership in the first place, is incomprehensible.
