Saturday, May 23, 2009

May 23, 2009 Tribune, Friday, May 22: Why No News Coverage of City Council's Thursday Budget Meeting?

I posted early yesterday morning (Friday) about the big city council budget meeting on May 21 (Thursday) and the proposed cuts of $1,794,300 to the city budget. The post is here.

After I got home from work yesterday, I was reading the paper, but I didn't see a word about the meeting even though the Trib's city reporter Bob Moore was at the meeting. It was odd not to see any news about the Thursday meeting in the Friday edition of the "news"paper--especially since the Thursday meeting ended early.

Perhaps there will be a lot of "news" about this meeting in the Sunday Tribune.

Maybe Sunday will be the start of a series of articles on the city budget and how City Administrator Jim Crumley is suffering along with everyone else as he gives up his taxpayer-funded Morristown Country Club membership and a little bit of the car allowance increase that he negotiated for himself and several buds a couple of years ago--supposedly after private discussions with former Mayor Gary Johnson.

Remember the property tax increase and the sales tax increase and all the talk of "bare-bones budgets" in past years? Those "bare-bones budgets" apparently had enough money in them to pay for Crumley's Country Club membership. And car allowances and travel and food and cell phones everywhere.

Wonder what else is still in the budget that hasn't been discussed? A line-item detailed review is needed. CITY AND COUNTY.

[UPDATE Monday, May 25, 2009. Three editions of the Tribune "news"paper have come out after the May 21 Morristown City Council budget meeting, and still the Tribune has no "news" article about Crumley's suggested budget cuts or the reaction of the councilmembers to his proposals. Maybe Tribune reporter Bob Moore just came to the meeting and got copies of all the budget handouts for the fun of it and decided not to report anything. What a shame.]

No comments: