To the editor:

The Aug. 21 Breeze carried a polemic over the signature of City Manager John Szerlag. The thrust of his effort was to establish that the prior Breeze editorial “Council must take control of wage goal” was factually infirm and that “Everything we (the government) do is transparent.”. This has become his mantra.

On July 12, 2012, Mr. Szerlag held a closed (private/secret) staff meeting in council chambers. Unbeknownst to the participants, the microphone was live and several residents heard the audio broadcast by the City’s public access channel. Needless to say, many untoward comments were uttered. One memorable remark attributed to the city business manager about the UEP was to the effect that he had things buried so deep in the weeds that Council will never be able to find them. Those who heard the broadcast said Mr. Szerlag chimed in that the Mayor and (Councilmember) Leetz didn’t matter as we have the votes. Efforts by the mayor to retrieve a copy of the recording met with naught, a la Hillary’s e-mails? Taking no chances that someone might come forward with a recording; Mr. Szerlag, at the July 18 Council Meeting, threatened appropriate legal action as he considered the broadcast a violation of privacy. Needless to say, the alleged perpetrators went into a deny and stonewall mode. Some on Council even decried the fact that the public became aware of the incident. This level of secrecy and arrogance would set the tone for the forthcoming years. “Everything we do is transparent.”

Other examples of staff “transparency” are the artful use of terms of obfuscation such as “non-revenue revenue” and “organizational infrastructure.” Also, some requests for information go unsatisfied. One resident made an e-mail public information request for the dollar amount staff spent on consultants last year. The response was that such information was not available. Staff would only entertain requests for a specific consultant. In another instance, pursuant to a Sunshine request for Mr. Pohlman’s official city cell phone records concerning the Thieman land purchase, the requester was forced to obtain a court order before staff complied. The city was then ordered to pay court costs and attorney fees for its prior refusal to produce the records. Have you noticed that the Budget Committee meetings are no longer broadcast? What happened to the Financial Advisory Committee, bi-weekly Committee of the Whole meetings and the Civilian Police Review Board? Remember – “Everything we do is transparent.”

Mr. Szerlag takes The Breeze to task for stating the General Fund increased by $26.6 million. He engages in a convoluted game of semantics substituting the word “collecting” for “spending.” The Breeze stated the General Fund “jumped” to $26.6 million. Mr. Szerlag, in essence, contends that because the City government “collected” $20 million of the $26.6 million in a prior fiscal year and then simply moved that sum from a reserve account into the budget, it should not count as an increase because it had already been “collected.” If you take money out of your savings account and move it to a checking account to spend, let’s say for the fire assessment or public service tax, your budget then increases by that amount. Apparently not with government math. A befuddling example of “transparent” accounting?

Mr. Szerlag objects to The Breeze using the word “escalating” to describe the increase in the fire assessment from a 38 percent to a 64 percent – representing a 68.4 percent increase – recovery of fire department costs. This is not “escalating” because staff had intended to do it all along. Apparently, if you plan an increase of 26 percentage points, it is not considered “escalating.” Perhaps he is correct. I would have said “rocketing” rather than “escalating.” Be forewarned, the City Fire Assessment Ordinance in Section 8-46 states that Council on an annual basis may raise the recovery percentage. The Burton Associates Report, on which the fire assessment is based, contemplates a 75 percent recovery rate. Get ready in the coming years for another non-escalating escalation as staff was considering it in 2013. “Everything we do is transparent.”

Mr. Szerlag next attacks The Breeze for characterizing the staff’s fiscal year 2014-2015 retroactive pay raise a “tidy retroactive bonus.” Mr. Szerlag is right on this one. A bonus is commonly understood to be a one-time payment to an individual as a reward for outstanding performance. The retroactive pay raise was given across the board without regard to any legitimate performance evaluations. Even more insidious is that it was not a one-time payment, but has become fixed into the base pay and will be paid year after year and on into retirement. A truer, one-time bonus of 5 percent was given in the Fiscal Year 2012-2013 budget. Additionally these favorable pay treatments came on the heels of prior increases. According to the City Auditor’s compensation analysis of 12-12-12 several union bargaining units received a cumulative compensation change from 2008 to 2012 of 15.69 percent, 11.06 percent and 9.9 percent.

Mr. Szerlag next defends his plan to increase staff pay from the current 66th percentile to the 75th percentile compared to certain “selected” cities in Florida. Do we compete in a state wide or a regional labor market? I concur with The Breeze’s comment that Mr. Szerlag’s statement that this increase is necessary “to get and keep good hires” is laughable. First, it indirectly disparages current employees who work at the 66th percentile, and, therefore, are not “good hires” as they are working at a level 9 percentile points below the necessary level needed to get good employees. It also fails to recognize that the community which must pay those 75th percentile wages are themselves in the 50th percentile. Lee Memorial Health System has a policy to keep its wage rates at the 50th percentile. Is Mr. Szerlag saying those who work for Lee Memorial are not “good hires” as they lag a full 25 percentile points below what he considers necessary to get a good a work force? If the 50th percentile is good enough for Lee Memorial and for the residents of Cape Coral, the 66th percentile that City staff enjoys is more than generous – and I have not even addressed their “Cadillac” benefits and retirement programs. Does anyone know what DROP is?

Mr. Szerlag, his staff and willing accomplices on Council often justify their increased spending as necessitated by reduced capital spending during the last economic downturn when the City was the national foreclosure epicenter. Note I said reduced, they frequently state there was no capital spending. Not true, for example Pine Island Road was expanded and in the process a savings of $50 million was achieved over the prior plan. We were also coerced into spending for Scrub Jay mitigation and did restoration work on the Everest Wall and a fire house renovation. However, some of the reduced capital spending was a result of staff setting the wrong priorities. They had no difficultly finding millions to eagerly finance the fraudulent swim center proposal. This was finally defeated after a 12-plus hour Council meeting. Staff quickly found $13 million to purchase the Thieman properties and in so doing removed 490 properties from the tax base, storm water fee and the fire assessment rolls. Staff simply assigned land speculation a higher priority than capital/infrastructure expenditures.

I could go on and discuss how an increase of the regressive Tier 1 portion of the fire assessment which almost doubled from $62.02 to $112.79 will cost the average homeowner more -contrary to Mr. Szerlag’s contention that it will not and also explore the issue of wants vs. needs, but space constraints preclude further discussion.

Will things improve for Cape Coral residents? Not if, as our civic record indicates, you don’t vote. The selfish interests control Council now, and have for some time. In the Sept. 15 primary you must turn out in large numbers to begin to give control back to the people. Take control away from those interests who benefit from Mr. Szerlag’s spending plans. You should know who their candidates are. Also, remember Council wants you to approve their proposed 50 percent pay raise in the coming general election.

William P. Deile

Cape Coral