Saturday, February 10, 2007
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On February 2nd, the Syracuse City Council voted unanimously to fire City Manager Ken Hubler. This vote was then ratified on February 8th making it official. The reason Ken Hubler was fired was that the Council and Mayor felt that Mr. Hubler was taking Syracuse City in the wrong direction. Please see www.clippertoday.com/default.asp
It's too bad that the Bountiful City Council does not seem to have the fortitude to do the same thing to Bountiful City Manager Tom Hardy. He has been taking the City in the wrong direction for over a quarter of a century. City Councils and Mayors have come and gone, and yet he has been able to remain. He seems to be too powerful to get rid of, as he has orchestrated a base within the City that would make it very difficult to remove.
City Manager Tom Hardy has put a stop to city record keeping so that he does not have to answer for any wrongs done by he and/or his staff. There is no record of any complaints made by citizens regarding anything in the City. When requests for copies of complaints are made, the City Staff simply shrugs its shoulders and says, sorry, we have none, and states that it is City Policy not to maintain written records of complaints. Yet the City acts upon these complaints, or at least the ones that it wants to..... Is this proper? Is this democracy? Maybe, instead of the "assault on democracy" decried by Representative Sheryl Allen about those evil school vouchers, she should be looking into why the City Government that represents her constituents is not keeping records. We would like to see "sunshine" in Bountiful City.
During Tom Hardy's employment, the number of businesses as a percentage of population in the City has decreased. The result of this has put an extra burden upon the residents and the remaining businesses in the City. Tom Hardy has also been very sneaky about making up for much of this revenue shortfall. He has raised power rates several times, and has shuffled surplus power monies into the general fund. Businesses have also been allowed to build on small land lots without adequate parking, etc. just to try to make up for his failings. Look at Del Taco and the old new Carmacks. Fortunately, Iceberg, who bought the old new Carmacks building, also bought the house next door to provide for adequate parking and drive-through facilities. We need better City planning and foresight. This will not come from Tom Hardy. He has had long enough to do something about the same old problems with business development in Bountiful City. He is not a true friend to business and he is certainly not a friend to the residents.
Also, have you wondered why the South Davis Recreation Center has not opened to the public yet? Yes, they had a swim meet for the high schools there a couple of weeks ago, but the general public has still not been given full access to the Center. This was the Center that was supposed to have opened in September, then October, then December, then January, then February. We shall see if it makes it by the end of this month.... This Center, while a South Davis County Project, was driven by Tom Hardy. All along the way, he has made mistake after mistake. He sold the bonds at an unfavorable time to finance the construction. He cut things from the project and then added them back in. He has missed his opening deadlines, one right after another. He got the City to lend the project monies. On top of that, the building is an ugly eyesore. The project management has been abysmal. Yet, Tom Hardy, still maintains his job. He needs to be terminated. If he cannot handle a building project, how can he handle the City of Bountiful?
The Bountiful City Power System has been suffering under the rule of Tom Hardy. He has robbed the monies that should be going to maintenance and upgrades and has been stuffing that money into the general funds to cover up his mismanagement. One of these days, we will all pay for this one. We need to get him out before we have a system-wide failure.
Why oh why have our elected leaders not gotten rid of him? Perhaps, because they are part of the same crowd and clique that maintains power in South Davis County that protect one another at any cost. When will we as an electorate boot them all out? It is time for the good and honest to run for office in this community.