San Jose city officials, facing a $65 million shortfall, are penny-pinching everywhere they can. Or are they? Yesterday, the council signed off on cutting 52 positions. Another 18 employees could lose their jobs in March. Meanwhile, Councilwoman Nancy Pyle shelled out more than $6,000 to buy new furniture for her city hall office.
Pyle defends her purchase (which obviously isn’t going to save even one part-time job) saying she cut costs elsewhere and saved money from her council office account to replace the ratty pink-polka dotted furniture in her office.
Each council office is allocated $262,882 for office expenses that include salary for staff and operating costs. It’s not uncommon for council members to replace outdated furniture when they are elected to office, says Kathy Sutherland, Pyle’s chief of staff. In fact, she said, Pyle has been waiting (and saving) for four years to get rid of the 20-year-old furniture.
“The old conference table was rectangular with legs that extended all the way to the edge providing plenty of opportunity for anyone sitting along the sides to knock their knees on the legs,” Sutherland says. That explains it.
Obviously, our City Council is not serious about cutting costs. Closing 52 open positions doesn’t save a dime – all it does is avoid additional costs in the future.
As for the 18 layoffs, that’s just a “rounding error” when one considers the thousands of employees and the 65+ million dollar deficit.
I’m betting that the City will handle this situation in two ways: 1) reduce or eliminate some services altogether – namely those that are high visibility to residents, e.g., library hours, street-sweeping, etc. That will, of course, induce voters to vote favorably on tax increase measures; and 2) increase all manner of fees to cover much of the deficit.
Our politicans are very good at the game of taxing and “feeing” us to death But they’re lazy and uncommitted when it comes to cutting out the fat. The watchwords this year are, “Hold on to your wallet and back up to the wall!
Now don’t you be buying any of that gangbanger style furniture. This shows how much of the group at City Hall does not get it. We have honest yeoman of the neighborhoods helping people by finding them donated lawn mowers and also helping understand the codes, and we have Nancy “Marie Antoinette” Pyle looking down from the building and saying “let them eat Boston coffee cake!” Then we have Victor Ajlpuny producing belly dancer movies well getting another contract.
Geesh!
Fly,
Did Pyle bring the furniture from her home or was it left over from Pat Dando’s term?
And is it really polka-dotted?
Wow 6K for new furniture because she didn’t like the pattern? It must be nice. Here at the SJPD we routinely get needed item requests rejected because they cost over $150 and that doesn’t fit the budget guidelines. Hey maybe the councilwoman has a polka dot dry erase board we can use. Or maybe we will become like teachers buying office supplies for our classes with our pay raises!
i think that 4 years is long enough to wait for decent furniture.
Was the furniture purchased from a San Jose store?
I seem to remember that the new city hall was equipped with all new furniture at fabulous cost, to outcries from this blog and elsewhere about how people usually take their furniture with them when they move.
If her furniture is 20 years old, what was bought with that six figure bill for furniture that we all paid for a few years back?
$6,000 will not even buy a halfway decent stereo. Maybe a CD player.
$6K for new furniture is news worth writing about? Is it a slow news day at the Metro?
Well, for $6k at least now Ms. Pyle’s conference table guests can get willy-nilly with their under-table leg and knee swinging without fear of the dreaded low-speed knee-knock-on-the-table-legs-take-me-to-the-hospital episode anymore.
Want to save some money? How about you switch to every other week garbage service? One-time cost outlay for larger cans for those that want them and creating new routes then the savings kick in. You’d probably still have to have weekly service for some apartments and businesses, but you could drastically cut down on the labor and fuel. Added benefit is less wear on roads and a little more piece and quiet in our neighborhoods.
If we paid for a whole bunch of new furniture when the mayor and council moved into The Taj Gonzal, how is it that Ms. Sutherland claims that Ms. Pyle’s furniture is 20 years old? Does the new kid on the block just get hand-me-downs?
Ms. Pyle you should be embarrassed and ashamed of such an expenditure in this economy!!! Fact is we may not be able to do anything about it now, BUT come your re-election bid we WILL remember…