ESD6 Meeting (Part 6): January 5, 2012 @ 6 p.m.
65THIS LEOPARD TO OLD TO CHANGE ITS SPOTS
ESD6 Calls for their first meeting of 2012
However, it's more of the same. The meeting will open with a Budget Workshop at 6pm on January 5, 2012. This meeting will take place at their unmarked offices on 1604 South, next to the Southside Baptist Church.
Items to look at:
#3. Review the ESD6's obligations for Equipment contracts.
This some how sounds like they may have put the horse before the cart. The district in the past asked the fire departments to allow them to file for grants and take on the responsibility, thus insuring the ESD6 ownership in the equipment. The district, now bankrupt, may be looking for a way out to avoid making the payments on the equipment or looking for a way to hold on to the equipment for their future new fire station. Either way, the VFD's will be the one's that lose in this one.
#4. PROPOSED PAY OUT--2 OUTSTANDING PAYMENTS. This will prove to be very interesting. They plan to amend the budget to allow for payment on O'Connell Robertson, the Architect firm for $55,000.and $6,850 for Jaster Quintanilla, According to documentation from the loan application, the architect fees are over $200,000 and in Sept of 2010, the ESD6 paid a company named PSI, $8,900 for geo tech work that had been voted on for the amount of $6,850. One has to wonder why they are paying an additional $6,850 to another company for work that obviously was paid for once already.
Noting: These payments according to Ms. Mendelsohn's agenda are subject to reimbursement by the USDA loan of six million dollars that the tax paying community will have to pay back within 40 years. Oddly enough, Ms. Mendelsohn mentioned at a former meeting that the loan process has been stopped and that the ESD would not be going after the loan because community members were upset and they couldn't garnish enough support for it. Which goes to show, that Ms. Mendelsohn has mislead the community, as usual, nothing has changed.
****#5. Ms. Mendelsohn, finally calls it what it is, a USDA "Loan" not a grant, but a loan. The board will review the letter of conditions for the loan. in respect to equipment refinancing and essential fire station development. (Note: now the fire station development is essential. For the last year and a half, the fire station had been mentioned about 3 times, now it is an essential.)
#6. The board will discuss amendments to this years current budget and make essential adjustments for the year 2011-2012.
MORE CUTS COMING TO AN ALREADY STRUGGLING FIRE DEPARTMENT
It has come to my attention that Ms. Mendelsohn and her board are attempting to cut their insurance policies on the fire departments by de-activating the policy on some of the vehicles from each department. As if the fire departments aren't already struggling enough with very little funding, now they are going to have to park their trucks.
South Bexar County residents are paying taxes for a service they aren't getting. County Commissioner Rodriguez and his paid campaign member and appointee, Ms. Mendelsohn are destroying the safety of the south bexar county community one dollar at a time and they are doing it rather quickly. For what purpose?
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@madashell, I believe and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but the court order I read said that while they were under the oversight of the court appointed monitor, they could not spend money on anything but fire safety and their attorney made this clear at a meeting to let them know that once the contracts were signed they could go back to doing whatever it is they are doing.
Mad as Hell 4 months ago
As I recall, the $55,000 to the architect and the $6850 to Jaster Quintanilla were bills that were connected to the community center expenditures. And as I recall, the Court told the ESD to not spend any more tax revenues on anything having to do with the community center (or evac center) and to use it only for fire safety and protection. So why are they discussing these payments? Are they assuming that the community members have forgotten all about this? Or are they assuming that no one will show up to the budget workshop and therefore what the community doesn't know, won't hurt the ESD? It burns me up that they are paying someone for clearing land that the ESD still does not own, not to mention the fact that the land was not cleared. Only a short road was cut to allow the survey crew access to the land. And, the survey company billed (and was paid by the ESD) for land clearing on the same parcel of land. Does this sound like the ESD is paying twice for the same thing? Is the ESD taking care of friends and family again? At the expense of everyone else in this community?