DON'T WAIT FOR US WRITE A POST

We figure most people realize they were tricked by who ever planned our current President’s campaign and know now what problems lie ahead for taxpayers. Several liberals and progressives have decided to avoid embarrassment by eliminating themselves as candidates and may help solve the problems. So the “IS” team wants to get back to local issues. We want to involve you in a different way by taking advantage of what you know. So far we have been selecting the subject, Post, and you write the comments. You may know a subject we should be kicking around and here is your opportunity to write a Post anonymously or with your name on it. It is easy to do. Here’s how. Go to the “comment” section on any Post, it makes no difference which one. Just write, on the first COMMENT line, “This is a Post.” We will take it from there and make it a Post so others can write their comments. We always try to Post what we think is on the minds of Suffolk citizens and you can help us achieve that goal. We know that over 45,000 different computers have hooked on to “IS” and everyone should know what you know. It’s called “Transparency.” Our Council meets many times in what they call “Closed Meetings.” We can’t be accused of that if you write a Post.

OUR SECOND READER POST

The fate of Obici House is left to those that will benefit from its destruction. How convenient that Ronnie Roundtree, the manager of the golf course, is on the planning commission and served while L. J. was a council member representing his borough? Let's also remember that Ronnie owns a construction company that donated to Linda's mayoral campaign. Now add that the Mayor is a prominent real estate agent in that corner of the city and obviously supports the destruction of the Obici House, she has not come up with any solutions to save it. Lastly, Gardy is not only a councilman and law partner with the mayor's husband; he has expertise in real estate law.

What do these citizens have in common? They want the Obici House property developed, not restored. Gardy did suggest memorabilia be preserved in case Suffolk students are taught Suffolk history. Why has the city council moved so fast on the Obici House future, there was no speedy effort when the bridge to Driver went down. Was it because no one could make any money on that deal? The Obici House is a different story…when a Roundtree family member told me Obici House restoration was too expensive they gave away Ronnie’s position. Has the possibility of public/private partnership ever surfaced? What about the issuance of bonds? Condos there would be expensive, waterfront, on the golf course, imagine the descriptive real estate ads. It is perfect and all too convenient, any other development might need help from zoning, planning commission, leases from the city, a private construction company and a connected real estate firm. If Riddick's Folly were in bad shape would it face the same demise?

Two million dollars for restoration in a recession is a lot of money. But Mr. Obici, during a much worse depression, had faith in Suffolk. Had he not stopped and invested, our little downtown would still be a rest stop on the way to Emporia. Anonymous

THE FIRST READER POST

The Daily Press headline today reads, "Suffolk ponders fate of Planters founder's mansion". They aren't "pondering" anything. The fate of this house has been a forgone conclusion for over a year and its demise was part of the city's deal with Ronnie Rountree to take over the golf course. He made no secret of the fact that he wanted it gone and gone it will be. All of this brouhaha over RFP's and unsolicited proposals has been a show strictly for public consumption so that they can now throw up their hands and say, "we've done everything we can, but now it's over." There is and has been a proposal on the table from the CPOH that would restore the house, make it self sustaining and allow for its use by the public without using one penny of taxpayer money, yet the City refuses to consider this proposal under the guise that "they haven't stated where the money is coming from" while ignoring CPOH's answer to that question. Few restoration projects within this city, or any other, in recent years has had total financing up front. Monies come from a combination of State and Federal tax credits, loans, private donations and ongoing fundraising. This project would be no different. However not being able to nail down exactly where their funds are coming from gives council and the city manager the excuse they need to reject their proposal. What a travesty! Their actions throughout have been disgraceful and have made a mockery of the process. The message that continually comes out of council is "we don't care what the people want...we know what is best and we will act regardless". They should all lose their jobs over this from the mayor on down to the assistant city manager and the citizens of Suffolk should be very watchful of the doings of this council with regards to this issue as well as others.We have an obligation to speak out loud about our dissatisfaction in the upcoming election. They should reap what they have sown and we as a citizenry should show them the door! Unfortunately for the Obici House it will be too late. (Anonymous)

NEPOTISM IS A STICKY SUBJECT

When I returned from the war in Europe the Chris Craft Corporation had promised a job for any returning veteran. My older brother was Plant Manager and said, “No.” But higher officials insisted the promise be kept. Is it nepotism if the Commonwealth Attorney hires the Commonwealth Treasurers’ wife? You can get an argument both ways. Especially when the lady is hired as a 13 on the Department scale and is suddenly moved to a 30 for reasons not quite clear. Council members decried the promotion because it just didn’t look right and you can guess what other employees thought. Our Council voted 7 to 1 against the move but was ignored. Council failed to summon the courage to say, “No” and requested services of a consultant who suggested a 27 rating was ample. But because you pay the salaries of all concerned we believe you have a right to an opinion. So, what say you?

A COMMENT THAT BECAME A POST

HEALTH CONTROL hasn't 100% been passed yet and as Big Government goes in for the kill on the healthcare industry here's how things have been working out for the part of it that has already been nationalized: The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of [January 1] at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little. …Obama in June cited the nonprofit Rochester, Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio for offering "the highest quality care at costs well below the national norm." Mayo's move to drop Medicare patients may be copied by family doctors, some of whom have stopped accepting new patients from the program, said Lori Heim, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, in a telephone interview…"Many physicians have said, 'I simply cannot afford to keep taking care of Medicare patients,'" said Heim, a family doctor who practices in Laurinburg, North Carolina. "If you truly know your business costs and you are losing money, it doesn't make sense to do more of it." The Mayo organization had 3,700 staff physicians and scientists and treated 526,000 patients in 2008. It lost $840 million last year on Medicare, the government's health program for the disabled and those 65 and older, Mayo spokeswoman Lynn Closway said. GM and Chrysler don't have to make profits anymore, why should hospitals? The idea is to provide cushy positions for Comrade Obama's union friends, not to operate efficiently. Nationwide, doctors made about 20 percent less for treating Medicare patients than they did caring for privately insured patients in 2007, a payment gap that has remained stable during the last decade, according to a March report by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, a panel that advises Congress on Medicare issues. Congress last week postponed for two months a 21.5 percent cut in Medicare reimbursements for doctors. But of course when all healthcare is under federal micromanagement, doctors will have no choice to accept whatever pay the petty tyrants in Washington deign to offer them. However, liberals still haven't solved the problem of people having a choice on whether they become doctors in the first place. This Post came in as a comment from Anonymous.

THE TIME IS NOW

According to some there is a great demand for an easy way to recycle household waste. Now is your chance, for as little as forty cents per day you get a ninety gallon tub that will be picked up every other week on your regular trash day. It looks like you can toss anything in there except organic garbage. There are about
32,ooo households in Suffolk and the vendor needs 3000 signers, less than 10%. So your problem is solved for $12. per month. Three hundred have already signed. It will be interestsing to see how quickly signers appear.

THIS IS HOW TO FIX CONGRESS

Congressional Reform Act of 2010
1. Term Limits: 12 years only, one of the possible options below. A. Two Six year Senate terms B. Six Two year House terms C.One Six year Senate term and three two-Year House terms
2. No Tenure, No Pension: A congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office. 3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security: All funds in the Congressional retirement fund moves to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, Congress participates with the American people. 4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan just as all Americans. 5. Congress will no longer vote them a pay raise, pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%. 6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people. 7. Congress must equally abide in all laws they impose on the American people. 8. All contracts with past and present congressmen are void effective 1/1/11. The American people did not make this contract with congressmen, congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work. Author Unknown

Should Local and State Governments Cut More Positions?

Under the headline "Nobody Gets Fired Except Governors In Recessions," Joe Mysak writes in his column for Bloomberg News (12/30) that "any expectation that state and local governments would use the worst fiscal crisis since the Great Depression to reduce their biggest expenditures is proving to be wishful thinking." While companies have cut slightly more than six percent of their jobs since December 2007, local and state governments have cut only "132,000 positions – 0.66 percent" since August 2008, the month they stopped adding jobs. Of the two, local governments have cut 117,000 positions out of 14.6 million workers, while states have cut 15,000 of their 5.2 million workers, according to sources he cites. Mysak concludes, "Hearing state and local officials talk about reducing headcount is like listening to an 8-year-old announce he's going to bed. You don't believe it."


Is the same logic, or rather illogic being applied to our own little slice of Heaven known as Suffolk? It will be interesting to see if the “Empire” on Market Street is trimmed at all this budget cycle to save us all and perhaps reduce taxes. With everyone trying to do more with less, why is it that the employment levels and resulting costs within our local government seem safe and the rest of us have to pay top rates? In a service organization like government, personnel cost are the number one expense in the budget and the most rational place to look for at least some cuts, one would think... While no one likes to see another lose a job, especially in this economy, we all know that there just are not the rivers of honey flowing that we saw in the mid-2000’s growth boom. Given the fact that revenues are falling and taxes are just to high for the economic realities of the day in this hard economy, it may be time to trim positions and finally lower taxes. And please don't play the game that our mil-rate is so low. It is all relative to basis values and the argument does nothing for actual costs to the citizen, especially with all the new fees they always seem to tack on each year... If you don't spend it, you don't need to tax for it, simple.

We were all told last year that “Suffolk has a lean and hard budget”. Then we find out that this” lean and hard budget” really had so much fat in it, that it could absorb all the revenue cuts the economy could throw its way and still have a surplus for rainy-day funds and bonuses of well over $3,500,000.00… What will we see in the coming budget, show or substance?

If you use the budget sheers properly and early on, you don't have to use the AX, later...

Roger A. Leonard, MPA
Suffolk…

HOW TRUE IT IS

A gentleman wrote in the SNH that he believes the U. S. Senate is a “house of ill repute.”

Thomas R. Lord Sr. went on to suggest the vote on Health Care in the Senate was proof that body of government is a house of prostitution with a Madame in charge. Pretty strong language…I wish I had written it. He is right on especially when he points out if we were guilty of buying votes we’d be in the slammer because it constitutes a felony.

I figure Mr. Lord is a courageous patriot. What say you?

CLARIFICATION

Over on the right side of Inside is Bob's Corner where just for the heck of it I write an occasional column as I did in the SNH for about 15 years. I finished my story of World War II but like Forest Gump I still felt like running. Well my, I thought humorous, article this morning about dogs has already suffered an attack, one lady emphatically wrote that she likes dogs just as they are. I figure I must point out the truth. My wife and I have buried, over many years, Jaboff, Jigger, Skipper, Tina, another doxy, Sandy, and several cats. Our pet cemetery here in Suffolk is loaded with animals of all sorts, that belonged to us or our kids who live in the area. My oldest brother was the first Director of Leader Dogs For The Blind, headquartered in Rochester, Michigan. At that facility, when we left that state there were 14 trainers and over a hundred dogs in training. That school was started in the forties.And is sponsored by Lions Clubs all over the country. There were constant rejects and we found homes for many of them. We have known and loved animals since our marriage 64 years ago. But I would redesign the noisy pets.

LET US HEAR THE CITY'S DEFENSE

In a recent post IS team member Debra Wahlstrom charged the city with using a worthless report form used to judge RFPs submitted to the city. In this case the charge was for the way Obici restoration RFPs were treated by the city administration. The charges were further substantiated by comments, three in fact, pointing out the city's useless report form, perhaps a deliberate way to escape conversation with the those who submit RFPs. If true these are serious charges. We hope youu are following that Post and comments. They are worth a read and could be very important whenever a resident deals with the city. We would like to hear from the city officials. We know that more than 45,000 computers have logged on to IS.

We have already heard from you that whomever wrote the comments to Wahlstrom's Post should be a member of the IS team. Great idea unless he is of more value unnamed. We thank him for his revealing comments.

Was the Scoring Tool Fair?

In a December 21, 2009 editorial in the Suffolk News Herald, the city’s Director of Media and Communications gave the folks at the Suffolk News Herald a hand-slap. Ouch! I read the editorial and then decided to look at the Request for Proposals for the Obici House Renovation and Reuse. I wanted to answer the question: Was the actual RFP a fair tool?

To answer my question, I studied the scoring tool included in the RFP to determine its effectiveness as a fair tool for evaluating proposals. Why is this important? The scoring tool is what is used to award the points for each proposal – it is the place where all of the work done by firms is finally scored for merit. The scoring tool is the most important part of the RFP. So here goes.


The scoring “matrix” for the Obici House Renovation and Reuse proposal was included with the RFP handout. You see, the purpose of an evaluation tool is to ensure a valid, reliable, and bias-free evaluation of proposals while awarding points to projects. A valid scoring tool simply means that the tool evaluates what you wanted to evaluate. I would expect to see actual statements from the proposal included in the tool. A reliable scoring tool means that if you put the proposals in front of two or more people for scoring, the scores will be similar. A bias-free tool means that the scoring will be fair – no matter what persons, organization, or entity turned in a proposal. Each firm has an equal chance from the scoring side of the evaluation.

The first thing I want to do is to address the top part of the evaluation matrix – which is not really a matrix. This is simply a scoring guide. I want to commend the city for including a scoring guide in the proposal packet. That is evidence of working toward a fair process in terms of scoring the proposals. But, the scoring guide isn’t yet a valid, reliable, or bias-free scoring tool. Let me show you why.



In order to get an Outstanding, a firm must achieve 8-10 points. There is nothing in this scoring tool that tells firm members what has to be achieved in order to receive those points. What does a firm have to have in the proposal in order to get an 8? What makes it a 9? What makes it a 10? How does someone who is scoring the proposals know to give a firm an 8, 9, or 10? What makes an 8 different from a 9?

In the 4-7 Points category, a firm meets expectations and is fully qualified and has adequate experience. Why wouldn’t that be an outstanding in terms of points? What would make a firm lose points here? What is different in a proposal that receives a 4 from one that receives a 7?

In the 1-3 points category, a firm will have minimal experience. What designates minimal experience? Also what does “less than expectations” mean? What does”less than desired level/insufficient documentation” mean? What gives a firm a score point of 1? A score point of 2? A score point of 3?

In the 0 Points category, what does “not documented” mean? The whole proposal is not documented? A part of the proposal or section is not documented?

These areas do not correspond on a one-to-one basis from the proposal – as they should. Each entity (e.g., city, firms submitting a proposal) should know EXACTLY each score point looks like in each area being evaluated. The scoring tool is not yet valid because there is no connection between the tool and the requirements in the RFP.

For example, look at number 1 below: Obici House Renovation, Restoration and Re-Use Plan and Property Management Program to include Architectural and Historical Preservation. What does a firm have to specifically do from the RFP requirements to get a score of 10? A 9? An 8? Since the information about how a firm achieves each score point is not there, the scoring system is flawed. A firm trying to use this tool to guide its work cannot tell what it specifically needs to do to achieve a level 8, 9, or 10 – or any other level for that matter. There is nothing that aligns the overall score system to the RFP requirements.



Another thing I’d like to address with this score system is that the way it is designed; everything counts the same. A firm can earn just as many points for having a complete proposal as it does for the actual proposal ideas. A scoring tool is also a communication tool – communicating to firms what is most important to pay attention to because it’s most important to the city. The scoring tool does not do this at all. Again, the scoring tool is not aligned to the requirements of the RFP. Even if the information is included elsewhere in the RFP, if the scoring tool is not adequate and aligned, it is a flawed tool.

A high-quality and effective scoring guide will include an actual matrix, which clearly shows how each point can be attained. A high-quality scoring tool will also align to whatever it is the city is specifically looking for in its proposals. Without this, the scoring tool is arbitrary and open to the scoring whims of the scorers. Additionally, the scoring tool will reflect the weight the city places on the items it is scoring.

Now to answer my own question – was the actual RFP itself fair to those who used it to develop their proposals? I’d have to say no for the following reasons: (1.) the RFP includes an inadequate scoring tool making it an unreliable tool that is open to bias, (2.) The scoring tool is not aligned with the requirements in the RFP making it not valid, and (3.) The scoring tool does not reflect the weight of items in the RFP further impacting its validity.

I can offer a simple and easy solution. In the next version of the RFP (or any other RFP), simply create a valid and reliable scoring tool that can fairly be used by the city and firms responding to RFPs.

GLAD TO REMAIN OLD FASHIONED

I can’t speak for team members of “IS” but I’m reasonably sure they would join me as I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year. Sure, it is the “holiday” season, but what have always kept this season sacred and happy are Christmas and the giving of gifts…an idea established more than two thousand years ago. I pay no attention to ACLU, progressives, liberals, activists, and politically correct followers; their work to derail my thinking has had no effect. I suspect the same is still true for the majority of Americans who give short shrift to their attempts to change the nation. It would be a sad and dismal existence if they all had their way. Bravo the Christmas tree, bravo Jesus Christ.

OBAMA EXTENDING HAND TO CONSERVATIVES

Obama and less than half the country’s reps claim a victory with Health Care even though the surviving bill is a tattered remnant of the original. And he had on his team the three most powerfully positioned Liberals, Nancy, Joe, Harry, and a large majority in both houses. We understand why Obama forced this on the citizens and there are those that will pay a price for it. All can see the Democrat poll lines heading south and Obama is now concerned by the enormity of his self made national debt. His attention has not been on creating jobs or the economy and fingers are eagerly pointing at his early mistakes.

It is hard to understand why Obama needs help tackling the debt when he already has more seized power than all prior Presidents plus the House and Senate. two-dozen Czars, a Cabinet of All-stars, and a partridge in a pear tree. But for the very first time he is extending his hand to Conservatives to serve on a debt reduction committee. Would it not be wise for them to decline the “generous” offer? If they take part and his reduction effort fails, we know who gets the blame.

A Good Idea

This is an idea I brought up during the 2008 mayoral campaign as a solution for reducing the burden of costs on citizens. The more effectively and efficiently we run our city and our school system, the more money citizens can keep in their own wallets. Hence, I was thrilled to see the article in the newspaper noting that Isle of Wight is looking into this. Read the article, IOW officials get advice, by Charlie Passut (Suffolk News Herald).

I still think it’s time to look at this idea in Suffolk. Here’s the basic concept. We currently run and manage many duplicate services – one complete set for the school distict and another set for the city. Citizens pay for two of so many of the services we have. What if we consolidated these services where we can? I know, I know – it does make common sense.

It is likely that we can share services for just about every area except personnel. What do you think? Would you support the idea of our city and school district looking for ways to consolidate services? Is this a thumbs up or a thumbs down for you? Tell us what you think – let’s put some ideas on the table.