Contentious Albany City Commission passes FY 2017 budget by 4-3 vote

ALBANY — Commissioners snapped at one another. There were enough did-that-just-happen moments to fill a TV sitcom. And there was even a brief moment when talk turned to coming back Thursday night for another crack at the city’s budget.

In the end, though, an exhausted Albany City Commission passed the city’s $274,082,481 Fiscal Year 2017 budget by the narrowest of margins, 4-3, during its business meeting Wednesday night.

Ward VI Commissioner Tommie Postell exchanged heated words with Ward IV’s Roger Marietta; Ward II’s Bobby Coleman and Ward III’s B.J. Fletcher exchanged not-so-pleasantries, and Marietta had to withdraw a motion to add funding to the Albany-Dougherty Economic Development Commission’s budget — two days after the Dougherty County Commission had voted to cut their portion of the EDC’s budget by $50,000 — before City Manager Sharon Subadan’s first city budget was passed.

“You’re entitled to your opinion, and I respect your opinion, but I think you’re dead wrong,” Postell said of Marietta’s proposal to increase the EDC’s budget by the amount cut by the county on Monday.

And even after Marietta agreed to pull the additional EDC funding from his motion to approve the budget until the board had more time to discuss the issue, Postell, Coleman and Ward I’s Jon Howard voted against the budget.

Howard said he would not vote for the spending plan because it included utilities increases that amounted to “almost $41 a year.”

“That may not seem like a lot to most of us, but to some people, that’s a hardship,” Howard said.

Coleman said he would vote against the budget because it included a proposal to add a public affairs employee at a salary of $61,000 a year.

“I was chastised for opposing a contract for part-time workers (at a recent work meeting),” Coleman said. “We could take that $61,000 and add two full-time employees. We don’t need a public affairs person.”

Told by Subadan that the commission had unanimously agreed at its retreat earlier this year that “telling our story” was one of the commission’s priorities, Coleman said he did not remember supporting that item and declared, “We don’t need to pay someone $61,000 for something we can do ourselves.”

Fletcher said the board should use common sense.

“One of the smartest things we’ve done as a commission is hire Sharon Subadan as our city manager,” Fletcher said. “We need to use a little common sense and let her do her job. Maybe we need to start videoing our retreats, because I clearly remember that we unanimously voted to make telling our city’s story a priority.”

Coleman responded angrily.

“There are no ‘big yous’ and ‘little I’s’ on this board,” he said. “Everyone has common sense, we just might have different ideas. I take offense to your comment.”

With Ward V’s Bob Langstaff proclaiming Marietta’s motion didn’t pass his “smell test” because of action taken by the County Commission on Monday, the Ward IV commissioner agreed to remove the additional EDC funding from his motion as long as he was guaranteed that the board would take up the matter later. The city, Albany Area Chamber of Commerce and Dougherty County each have been supporting the EDC at an annual level of $250,000. County commissioners, however, unexpectedly cut their support in FY 2017 to $200,000 when they adopted their budget Monday.

“I’m not grandstanding,” Marietta said. “This is something I’ve been thinking about before the county did what they did Monday. I think the EDC could use the additional funding to advertise across the state.”

Mayor Dorothy Hubbard asked Marietta if he’d talked with EDC officials about his plan. He said he had not.

Langstaff said to Marietta, “You say you’re not grandstanding, and I believe you. But with what’s going on with the county, I just think the timing is wrong. The idea of an 11th-hour addition just doesn’t pass my smell test.”

After the EDC funding was removed from the motion, the board voted 4-3 to pass the budget. But that didn’t stop the budget discussion.

Postell and Coleman started talking about concerns they had with the budget, which continued for another 20-plus minutes before Marietta called for a point of order. “We’ve passed the budget,” he said. “Can’t we move on now to the next item on the agenda?” His comment drew an angry response from Postell before Hubbard halted the discussion and returned to the agenda.

Before the discussion moved forward, though, City Attorney Nathan Davis noted that three votes against the budget implied that “unanimous consent” was not given to “dispense with the second reading” of the matter. He said if that was the case, the city would have to take a second vote at a subsequent meeting before the budget could be formally approved.

“Oh, no, we have to pass this budget tonight,” Hubbard said. “If we don’t give consent for this process to move forward tonight, we’ll be back here tomorrow night. By state law, that’s our last day to pass the budget. I’ll be up here every day if that’s what we’ve got to do.”

Howard, Coleman and Postell retained their votes against the budget, but they gave consent to dispense with the second reading so that the approval could stand.

When the question of changing the city’s meeting times arose, an item that the board had opposed 4-2 in a non-binding vote at last week’s work session, Coleman again spoke out vehemently against the matter, saying he did not want to come, as Subadan had proposed, to morning and afternoon meetings on the same day.

Coleman brought discussion of that matter to a halt when he declared he would not grant unanimous consent, meaning it would be held over for another month. Fletcher mentioned the Dougherty School Board’s process of holding work sessions that are immediately followed by business meetings, and the discussion continued.

“My only goal in this was to add another regular meeting to our schedule each month so that we could do the city’s business more quickly and more efficiently,” the city manager said.

When Davis indicated holding work and business meetings on the same day, one immediately following the other, was one of the options he’d suggested, Coleman said he could agree to that kind of schedule. After a bit more discussion, the board voted unanimously to hold back-to-back work and business meetings on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month. The second-Tuesday meetings will start at 8:30 a.m. and the fourth-Tuesday ones at 6:30 p.m.

Coleman also offered a tribute to outgoing Assistant City Manager Wes Smith as the meeting drew to a close.

“When I first came onto the commission, Wes showed me a lot of the things that I needed to know,” the Ward II commissioner said. “I want to thank Wes publicly for his service to our community and thank him personally for the help he gave me.”

Howard and Postell offered similar sentiments.

The commission went rapidly through the remainder of its agenda with no discussion, and ended the night with Howard’s announcement that the city would grant 10 percent pay increases to judicial employees Ralph Scoccimaro, Ingrid Driscoll and Gerald Williams and 15 percent increases to Municipal Court Judge Willie Weaver and Davis.