News from the desert (since the Desert Sun has apparently lost interest in covering this bit of Indio news):
Crisis and strife seem to follow former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard from place to place. Southard's favorite sport has always been taking pot shots at councilmembers who don't tow the Southardian line and manipulating other councilmembers into granting lavish management pay packages.
As we saw during Southard's 17-year tenure in Claremont, high pay did not equate with high performance. Claremont nearly lost $5 million in the 1990's investing in the Orange County Investment Pool, which failed spectacularly. And the $17.5 million settlement paid out to Palmer Canyon residents for the 2003 Padua Fire was partly due to the failure of Southard's staff to fully implement the city's Vegetation Management Program to control brush in the Claremont Wilderness Park.
Southard's other favorite pastime is playing fast and loose with finding creative revenue sources, something Claremont is dealing with to this day. Currently, Indio's Utility Tax is being questioned. Indio has levied its Utility Tax for over 20 years the tax rate is currently 5 percent and generates about $6.8 million per year, according to a 7/18/08 Desert Sun article.
The Desert Sun reported that the legality of two percent of that Utility Tax is in question and that Indio is having to put the matter to a vote on the November ballot:
A handful of Indio residents gathered outside City Council chambers Wednesday holding large white posters in protest of the city's collection of the utility fee.
Despite the organized opposition, the City Council approved 4-1 a resolution that places a utility tax initiative on the Nov. 4 ballot.
Voters will be asked to ratify 2 percent of the 5 percent Utility Users Tax being levied.
The tax on public utilities generates about $6.8 million a year for the city. If the 2 percent is not approved, the city will lose out on $2.7 million a year.
“It is not going to be passed. The citizens are not behind it,” said resident Richard Arnold, who helped organize the protest.
Councilman Mike Wilson voted against the measure because he wants the city to stop charging the 2 percent tax until it is approved by the voters.
City Manager Glenn Southard said it would have been too cumbersome to ask all the utility companies to remove the tax and then add it back again in November if the measure passed.
If the tax measure fails, then the city at that time will re-examine the budget, he said.
The city first began collecting the tax at 3 percent in 1985 and then in 1992 increased it to 5 percent.
There is also a second part to this story that may have Indio Councilmembers questioning that $318,000 per year they're paying Southard through 2011.
It turns out that Indio's electric company, Imperial Irrigation District Energy (IID), has failed to collect Indio's Utility tax from at least 4,000 businesses and residents (that number may actually be much higher). In Indio it is the duty of the tax administrator (his Southardness) to audit the city's Utility Tax annually. Because of Southard's failure to execute his audit duty, Indio potentially lost out on millions of dollars.
The current Indio council has generally had a 4-1 majority supporting Southard. Much like the situation in Claremont in 2003-05, Southard has butted heads with a councilmember who questions him. In Indio's case it's Councilmember Michael Wilson. Wilson suggested last month that the city suspend that extra two-percent in the Indio Utility Tax until it could be voted on in November. Makes sense - it were illegally implemented, why continue to levy it until voters can have their say? Southard would have none of that and got the Indio council to continue to levy that extra amount, saying it would be too much trouble to ask IID to collect lower amount until November.
Given the Utility Tax fiasco and with a council election coming up, some of Southard's supporters on the Indio City Council may be rethinking their support of their man. We're also hearing rumblings of a mutiny among some of Southard's department heads who appear to have seen through Southard's games.
The Indio City Council, which has August off, has had to convene a special closed session today at 4pm. The agenda lists two items, one anticipated litigation and the other an initiation of litigation. It's quite possible that Southard's job is on the line just as it was during the height of the Irvin Landrum crises here in Claremont.
If Indio brings in Southard's favorite consultant, Dr. Bill Mathis, to mediate, you know Southard's won this one and has once again saved his owned hide by flim-flamming a gullible city council.
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