My answers to the Progress Oshkosh questions

Here's a summary of what I said at the Progress Oshkosh forum last night. I spoke extemporaneously, so my summaries are not completely verbatim.

Opening Statement:

I'm Tony Palmeri and I'm asking for your support on April 3.

In my opening statement I want to focus on the word "progressive." Progressive cities have three things going for them: strong schools, strong neighborhoods, and a government that is open, forward looking, and responsive.

In Oshkosh we are lucky to have strong schools, including the great UW Oshkosh at which we are having the forum.

We have some strong neighborhoods, but this is an area that needs work. Deferred maintenance and neglect have created a situation in which we have too much inequality between neighborhoods.

And unfortunately, we do not have a government that is open, forward looking, and responsive. In fact, I am running for office this year because our government is closed, backward looking, and unresponsive.

As an 18 year resident of this city, and as someone with a reputation for asking tough questions designed to hold local leaders accountable, I'm running to open up our government, promote a forward looking agenda, and make City Hall responsive to citizens at the grassroots level--including organizations like Progress Oshkosh.

Please vote for Tony Palmeri on April 3.

Question 1: How do you feel the accoutability of the city manager should be evaluated? Has the council done an adequate job of assessing the performance of the city manager and providing substantive feedback to the community?

Palmeri statement: The Council/Manager form of government is based on a corporate model in which the City Manager is the Chief Executive Officer, the Common Council are the Board of Directors, and the people are the Shareholders.

As I've campaigned around town, the shareholders are telling me they have little confidence in the Board of Directors or the CEO. The shareholders want accountability.

At a minimum, we need to have an annual shareholder's meeting at which the people get to provide the Board of Directors with feedback on how things are going in City Hall. We also need to sponsor a survey, perhaps created by the Center For Community Partnerships right here at UW Oshkosh, that could be used to provide continuous feedback.

Those of you who support the Council/Manager form of government need to understand that if the Common Council does not address the problem of lack of leadership in the city, we are on the brink of a shareholder revolt. I'm hearing more talk of support for an executive style mayor with veto power. People are upset--I'm tired of hearing things are okay when they are obviously not.

(Note: In my one-minute rebuttal, I pointed out that the City Council will tonight vote to give the City Manager a two-percent raise in spite of a series of mishaps in the last year including Five Rivers, lack of information in the CRL/Ganther connection, and others. I said that in my classes at UW Oshkosh, my students have to meet a minimum standard to get a "C." I'm anxious to hear how the Council justifies the raise.).

Question 2: The city has already used tax incremental financing to facilitate much of the improvement in the Marion Road redevelopment area. How much of an additional role should TIF funds play in any future development proposal for the Fox riverfront in that location?

Palmeri statement: I will support any Tax Incremental Financing project as long as two criteria are met. First, the project must have community support. Second, the project must meet the "but, for" standard established in state law, which says that TIF should only be employed if development would not take place without it. I think these are two very reasonable criteria.

Here's the problem: Appleton has about 6 open TIF districts, Neenah has about 4. Oshkosh has about 17! That means that Oshkosh is perceived by developers as a TIF candy store in which the sweets are given out very freely.

I want to close the candy store. What we need to do is use TIF as a kind of leverage in negotiating with developers. We need to ask developers what they are willing to do for the TIF. Create living wage jobs? Use green building principles? Engage the community in some meaningful way? Contribute money toward lighting our bridges?

TIF was never meant to be a development sweetener. Let's close the candy store and use TIF as leverage to make sure we get developers on the riverfront or anywhere else in the city to give us something worthwhile in return.

Question 3: Do you support public funding for a bridge lighting beautification project in Oshkosh? If so, how would you propose paying for the city's share?

Palmeri statement: We've had several forums during the campaign season. I think every candidate up here has said that they would like to do something about poverty, about implementing the city's downtown action plan, and fixing the torn up streets. All of these will cost money.

Every candidate has also acknowledged that the state has placed us under strict levy limits and that we will be facing another difficult, tight budget this year.

Under those conditions, how could anyone possibly sit up here and tell you they will support public funding for a bridge beautification project? It's just not going to happen under our current budget constraints.

I do think it is time to start asking some of our local big box retailers to step up to the plate. These businesses make extraordinary profits in the city, and then take most of those profits out of the city.

Why not recruit Wal-Mart to pay for bridge beautification? They could even turn it into an advertising campaign: "Wal-Mart builds dreams and lights bridges."

In all seriousness, I encourage Progress Oshkosh and other organizations to urge major businesses in town--especially those who make huge profits while providing jobs that pay less than family supporting wages and benefits--to demonstrate their commitment to this city by supporting bridge beautification and other projects.

Closing Statement:

I want to thank Progress Oshkosh for sponsoring this forum tonight. I want you to know that I strongly support your organization's four main principles.

You believe in accountable government. I believe in that too, which is why I have called for greater openness in local government along with with rigorous evaluation of the city administration.

You believe in public, private, nonprofit partnerships. I do too, which is why I think we need to clean up City Hall. It's very difficult to get quality private sector entities to partner with the public sector when the latter is in disarray. Let's clean up our public mess and we will have a much easier time partnering with the private and nonprofit sectors.

You believe in quality of life. I believe that we need to ensure the highest quality of life for all of our citizens, which is why I've called for the creation of a Blue Ribbon Commission, co-chaired by our former mayors, to study the issue of poverty in our community and make recommendations for dealing with it.

You believe in Economic Development. So do I, which is why I have called for the creation of an Economic Development Commission that would bring together the various economic development entities in the city and arrive at a sense of what kinds of developments the citizens want and will support. Our current "faith based" model of economic development is broken, mostly because it leaves citizens out of the process and creates long term cynicism about projects that are perceived as benefiting city hall insiders instead of the people at-large.

You will not always agree with me--that's clear. But with me you will have a straight shooter on the council, and you will always know where I stand.

I ask for your support on April 3.