Bubba Implodes
Last nights candidate forum sponsored by the Salisbury Career Firefighters Association went off without a hitch, unless you were trying to defend the indefensible. Such was the dilemma faced by incumbent Salisbury councilman Gary Comegys.
Gary wants people to believe that Salisbury is in fine shape. Even Tilghman cronies John Atkins and Don Ewalt wouldn’t go that far. Where will the city get the additional revenue it needs to provide infrastructure for all of the residential development brought in under the Tilghman-Dunn-Comegys-Cathcart Axis? Mr. Comegys seems to believe that if you say “Growth pays for growth” enough it will actually be true. Unfortunately, the truth could lead to a full blown taxpayer revolt in Salisbury.
Barrie Tilghman and Gary Comegys had a plan, sort of. If you annex enough county land and build enough houses the tax base would increase enough to hide a myriad of sins. The fiscal sins created under this regime may be too numerous to count. From $2,500 coffee mugs to tens of millions of dollars in developer subsidies (called TIF’s) we have to give Barrie and her “council leadership” credit for their creativity in wasting the taxpayers’ money.
Their stock in trade is the old “bait and switch”. Don’t enforce the demolition order on the old mall and claim that the only way to get rid of the unsightly structure is to provide a $14 million subsidy to the developers. Claim that the water and sewer capacity is adequate to handle annexations for thousands of homes and then, 3 years later, claim that our water reserve is at a dangerous level - after borrowing millions to hand over to developers in the form of reimbursements.
Poor Mr. Comegys is placed in the unenviable position of defending millions handed over to the Mayor’s developer buds. His only defense seems to be that “the money that went for developer reimbursements came from the sewer and water fund and we couldn’t use that money for things like public safety”. Forget for a moment that this is not entirely true. (While they may have the water and sewer operation booked as a separate “fund”, it is still coming from one collective pocket - the taxpayers.) This still does not explain why Mr. Comegys vehemently supported borrowing almost $3 million to hand over to developers less than three months ago when they could have used that money to fund a new water tower (that just happens to cost $3 million).
When it comes to the operational areas of the city’s budget, Mr. Comegys seems to be a big fan of “studies”. As candidate Tim Spies pointed out, you don’t need a taxpayer funded study. In the case of firefighter pay, go on the web and see what the pay scales are for area departments. Can’t find it on the web? Pick up the phone. One person could come up with this information in less than one day. Mr. Comegys also wants to spend taxpayer money on important issues like a parking study and one to support the construction of a new city hall. Those are real priorities compared to crime, underpaid and overworked first responders and pending property tax and sewer fee increases.
Are there solutions to these problems? Of course. While there is no silver bullet, several candidates provided several solutions that could solve the mounting problems of Salisbury.
One of candidate Terry Cohen’s suggestions was for a city Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO). A strong APFO, coupled with impact fees for water and sewer, public safety, parks, etc. could slow residential growth to a manageable level while providing increased revenue to handle capacity related costs.
Several times Tim Spies spoke of the need to increase the city’s commercial tax base rather than the blind focus on residential development advocated by Mr. Comegys. Non-retail commercial development uses far less in services than it pays in property taxes while also providing permanent, high paying jobs.
Candidate Louis Smith, whose primary campaign issue is fiscal accountability addressed the need to know the true state of the city’s finances. Ms. Smith, along with Ms. Cohen and Mr. Spies, also spoke of the need to trim the fat from the city’s budget. How can the citizens of Salisbury expect public safety personnel to work long hours at non-competitive pay while Barrie Tilghman, with Mr. Comegys’ seeming consent, wastes the taxpayers’ money on trivial pursuits such as T-shirts, “City Living” bottled water, a sound-proof Mayor’s office, $10,000 office furniture suites and newsletters about fictitious families? Those are the nickels and dimes. The city is also wasting millions and millions of dollars on developer subsidies, change orders due to poor contract negotiation and compliance and developer reimbursements.
In a game attempt to defend his (and the Mayor’s) policies regarding residential development, Mr. Comegys provided us with this little gem. “If we didn’t have all of this residential development we wouldn’t have a $125 million in additions to the hospital and expansion at Wor-Wic (community college).” True enough Gary. There’s just one problem, the hospital and Wor-Wic don’t pay any taxes.
Technorati Tags: Salisbury, politics, salisburypolitics, GaryComegys, TerryCohen, TimSpies, LouiseSmith, BarrieTilghman
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This is the best account of the forum that I’ve seen, but the ones on duvafiles and sbynews are also informative.
The Daily Times report is pretty bad — in scope and content — and possibly reflects the Bassett/Carmean bias in favor of Barrie and her new “Dream Team” (Comegys, Atkins & Ewalt).
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First Timer,
The reason The Daily Times didn’t report anything concrete is because they left around the same time Lynn Cathcart bolted out of there in disgust.
GA, GREAT article, as always!
A good friend of mine is an assistant fire chief in a near by rural town. I was talking with him about the water supply shortage here in Salisbury. His station assisted the Pocomoke fire department fight a huge fire some time ago. Pocomoke at the time had the same type water supply problems. During the course of fighting the fire, the fire pump trucks literally sucked water from the pipes of local homes, even the hot water heaters.
At this point, several residents are trying to sue the fire department for the cost of their hot water heaters, that burnt out due to being dried up from the water being sucked right from them. With all his years in fire rescue, you would think Mr. Comegys would take this water supply shortage seriously, but to hell with public safety, this is an election year~!!!
The Daily Times headline should have been:
COMEGYS CAPTURED BY THE CAVE-PEOPLE
Hurray for the CAVE people!! Comegys was a disaster at the forum–stumbling, looking to his wife in the audience for directions, trying to dig himself out the hole. He put forth a very poor performance. It was clear: standing on his own (without Barrie to tell him what to do) he was pathetic. He must not be re-elected.
Bubba put his foot in his mouth when the subject of overtime was brought up. Announcing to the public that police, fire and ems personnel were not required by the city to provide but a benefit of living in the city. He sealed his fate with that statement.