The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 81, No. 223, Ed. 1 Sunday, July 6, 2003 Page: 8 of 87
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Vfte Partsha Pm
Local & nation
Official: Nigerian president to discuss asylum with
By JONATHAN PWHJWIEH
The Associated Press
MONROVIA, Liberia - The leader
of Nigeria is coming this weekend to
personally offer embattled President
Charles Talyor temporary asylum as a
step toward ending Liberia’s civil war,
an official said.
With international pressure mounting
on Taylor to go, Nigerian President
Olesugun Obasango will meet with him
Sunday at Monrovia’s airport the senior
Liberian official said on condition of
anonymity.
The visit would cap several days of
talks between officials in Nigeria —
West Africa’s military and diplomatic
heavyweight—and Liberia over an asy-
lum offer. The White House called on
Taylor several times in the past week to
step down.
Taylor, wanted on war crimes charges
and cornered by rebels in his final
redoubt, Monrovia, says he will leave,
but only after an International peace-
keeping force deploys in Liberia. He has
broken promises in the past to step
down.
Obasanjo’s administration said earlier
it would be willing to harbor Taylor until
he travels to a third country for perma-
nent exile. .
Obasanjo’s spokeswoman, Remi Oyo,
said cm Saturday that Nigeria and
Liberia are1 continuing to discuss
Taylor's asylum. While she said she
wasn’t aware of any scheduled meeting
between the two leaders, “anything can
develop in the next couple if days,” she
said “We’re all on standby." .
On Friday, a West African regional
bloc said it would put up 3,000 troops
for an Intervention force to stabilize the
Liberia.
Liberians, Taylor, and leaders from
many countries have called for the
United States to send troops to lead the
force in Liberia, founded in the 19th
century by freed American slaves.
In Washington, the Bush administra-
tion siaid Friday an advance team would
travel to Africa to gather facts on how
' the United States might contribute to the
force, while warning a decision won’t
necessarily come before Bush leaves on
Monday for a five-nation African tour.
Bush isn’t scheduled to visit Liberia.
The U.S. military’s European
Command headquarters is organizing
an initial assessment team of 10-15 peo-
ple to deploy to the Liberian capital, said
4*
s ^ * I /1 v t
Associated Press photo/Ben Curtis
A CHILD WALKS PAST A MONUMENT commemorating the 50th anniversary of the
Geneva Convention Saturday in the Liberian capital Monrovia. Liberian President
Charles Taylor, who has been indicted for war crimes by the Special Court for Sierra
Leone, is under increasing pressure to .step down as the U.S. contemplates send-
ing peacekeeping troops to the war-tom West-African nation.
Lt. Cmdr. Rick Haupt, a EUCOM
spokesman on Saturday. He declined to
elaborate.
In Monrovia, where hundreds died
during two rebel pushes into the city last
month, street traders, shop owners and
many among the 97,000 refugees
swelling the city glued their ears to tran-
sistor radios on Saturday in hopes of a
Bush pronouncement on their plight
S»*t, July 6,2008
........... .. SH
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Some citizens expressed concern that
an ill-planned departure by Taylor
would leave his fighters — often drunk-
en and already prone to attacking civil-
ians — completely unchecked.
“Taylor’s leaving is a must, in die
interests of peace,” said Jacob Mehn,
41. “But he should not be pushed
against a wall. He should be encouraged
to leave with dignity.”
“The solution, I think, is that Taylor
should stay here after Ms resignation to
help disarm his forces,” said Tetah
Morris, 34.
In Ghana, peace talks among
Liberia’s warring parties and political
groupings continued on Saturday.
Negotiators are hammering out details
for an eventual transitional government,
which must exclude Taylor, according to
an oft-violated June 17 cease-fire deal
While Taylor was in Ghana to open
the talks on June 4, a U.N.-backed war
crimes court in neighboring Sierra
Leone indicted him for gun trafficking
and supporting Sierra Leone rebels div-
ing their vicious 10-year terror cam-
paign, when atrocities Included hacking
off victims’ limbs. Taylor cut short his
Ghana visit and flew home an interna-
tional fugitive.
Budget
Continued from Page 1A
traffic planners, wMch hurt us.
But we are finally getting the
Garth Road plan going with the
others (North Main and
Alexander Drive) to follow. But
overall, I am somewhat disap-
$ pointed about our progress.”
Annexation plans did not go
the mayor's way either.
“The main reason for our
inability to annex areas we want-
ed to was that we simply did not
have the ability to provide the
utilities we would be required
to,” he said. “It was simply a case
of having to take care of what we
already had before we could go
off and get some other areas.”
However, the mayor gave the
, city high ratings on priority five,
’ the animal adoption program
issue.
“The big issue there was the
(gas chamber) which we shut
down,” he said. “There is still
some more work to be done, but
we addressed that issue.”
And what about priorities for
the 2003-04 budget?
“This year infrastructure
issues will continue to be big as
far as my own priorities,’’ the
mayor said. “I also think we need
to look at employee compensa-
tion and benefits."
The mayor went on to explain
the value of good employees and
the difficulties involved in keep-
ing them with a decent salary
and benefits package at a time
when the opposite ends of the
I j budget are tougher to meet.
“You want to keep the best
people you can, but medical pre-
miums alone are so Mgh,” Alfaro
said. “I simply do not know how
much of an increase we can jus-
tify. I will say that I would not be
in favor of trying to cut both
I merit increases and benefits at
1 the same time. However, after
f looking at the numbers, I might
consider cutting some merit
increases.”
Don Murray, District 4
Don Murray, who represents
District 4, also listed five priori-
ties in 2002-03: no tax increase;
a strong, well-staffed city plan-
ning department; sufficient staff
and consultant oversight of bond
expenditures; staff support for
the Municipal Development
District and TIRZ and; continue
ongoing infrastructure improve-
ment.
Overall, Murray felt the city
had done well keeping taxes
down, since no tax increase was „
a part of the 2002-03 budget.
“I believe last year we man-
aged to do lt with good, prudent
management of expenditures,"
he said.
However, preventing a tax
increase would be much more
difficult for the 2003-04 fiscal
year, he added.
"This year we’ve got two
major things to account for—
the charter amendment that adds
additional cost of firefighters to
the continuing budget and the
loss of the Crime Control
Prevention District financing,"
Murray said. “When you add
those to the general econonty,
which has kept sales tax rev-
enues flat, we have some ground
to make up.”
Axed at the polls in February
2002, the Crime Control and
Prevention District, provided
revenues of $3 million annually
to the city. The addition of four-
man firefighter staffing to the
city charter, approved by voters
in March 2002, is costing the
city $1.2 million this year to
implement.
Murray added that he could
not estimate how much of a tax
increase Baytonians might see, if
any. . y
“I'm going to work hanfyto
keep taxes from going up, but !
atn not going to make a state-
ment that they will not go up
either,” he said.
As for having a strong, welT"
staffed city planning department, Godwin listed his top three
take care of the others,” he said.
“\Afe need to have a laige enough
aid professional staff to make
sure we spend this money prop-
erty and wisely.”
Having said that it would
already be tough to keep a lid on
taxes this year, frugality came in
at No. 3 for Murray.
“That gets intimately involved
in the issue of taxes, but it also
means that some services will be
cut back, and that will make
some people unhappy," he said.
Dolman Godwin,
District 6
District 6 Representative
Coleman Godwin said that he
was “content but not satisfied”
with progress in achieving last
■ w*
Murray described
achieved.
that as
ment from the director (Greg
Stubbs) on down has done veiy
well," he said. “They are obvi-
ously veiy busy with all the chal-
lenges they have and with die
rapid growth in the city. From
my personal industrial career
experience, building a strong
staff that can property plan for
and oversee expenditures is criti-
cally important to any enter-
prise.”
When it came to sufficient
staff and consultant oversight of
bond expenditures, Murray said
the city was right in the middle
of that process, and he thought it
was going well.
Murray spoke more cautiously
about ensuring proper oversight
for MDD and TIRZ and the con-
tinuing infrastructure improve-
ment.
“The activities of the MDD
and TIRZ require lots of analy-
sis, a lot of presentations and a
lot of down and dirty calculating
and research that involve city
staffers — that includes the city
manager," he said. “I would say
that has been sufficient, ade-
quate. I say that not because the
quality of our staff—the quality
of our people is veiy, very high
— but because our staff has been
stretched very, very thin and
their workload is very heavy."
Murray said Baytown was in a
"catch-up mode” with infra-
structure.
“Infrastructure is a major
problem that I and city council
were not aware of a year ago,”
Murray said. “Currently, we are
behind the eight ball particularly
with regard to sewer lines."
Asked why he thought council
was unaware of the problem for
so long, Murray said that he felt
much had happened within the
city in the past two years to bring
the problem to the fore.
“I certainty think that with
infrastructure, like a lot of things
in city government, your atten-
tion can be diverted to other
things for just a short time before
problems arise that tell you that
you have a problem."
New priorities for die 2003-04
budget, Murray said, included
maintenance of a competent city
staff, infrastructure improvement
and frugality
‘Frankly, priority No. 1 should
budget priorities for 2002-03 as
infrastructure, maintaining
the estab-
lishment of a police academy.
“We have several hundred
miles of sewer lines that are con-
crete pipes over 50 years old and
rapidty deteriorating." Godwin
said. “Infiltration (the pouring of
rain and runoff into sewers) is a
big problem.”
Overall, Godwin said, the city
was doing a good job in the face
of such a massive problem.
“They are taking on the prob-
lem area by area as priority
demands, but it’s going to take
time, patience and money to get
it all done,” he said. “I think the
staff is doing a good job staying
on top of the problem, and I
think the people down at the
public works department are
doing a good job slowly getting
things repaired as fast as they
can.”
On the subject of police pro-
tection, Godwin noted that
Baytown police have made great
strides in some areas, but singled
out traffic control as one area
where he would like to see
improvement.
“We have an excellent police
force, but as the city grows and
as the population increases, it
will face greater demands,”
Godwin said. “I think they have
made great advances in the gang
situation in town. It isn’t as much
of a problem as it used to be. But
traffic control — people running
red lights and speeding through
town, flagrantly breaking the law
— we need more done in that
area.”
Godwin spoke briefly about
the police academy. “We’re
going to have it established, they
are doing the engineering work
on it right now,” he said,
Scott Sheley, District 2
Scott Sheley, who represents
District 2, sri five priorities: a
workers’ benefits and salary
package that meets market val-
ues, a 10 percent cut in the oper-
ating budgets of all city depart-
ments, taking a pro-active
approach to four-man staffing,
meeting and maintaining quality
of lift needs for all citizens and
reviewing options for additional
sales taxes.
Sheley stated he was happy to
see the 2.5 percent raise for
employees, but not completely.
“Ws gave a perpetual raise,
which placed us in a little bit
tighter situation than the flat rate
I Wanted to give, but that’s what
council wanted and that’s otey,”
he said.
Salaries for Baytown’s city
employees, some council mem-
bers had complained in the past,
were below die state’s average,
making it difficult for the city to
attract and keep good workers.
“In some cases that was true,”
Sheley said, “bqt the market gets
skewed tty the high salaries that
some cities pay, which causes
others to knee-jerk into raising
their salaries. It can be a tough
thing to stay ahead of.”
Sheley said that cuts in the
operating budgets of city depart-
ments would be more likely this
year, aKhoughlhe amount of the
cuts may not be so uniform.
“We did some reductions last
year but this year, (City Manager
Gary) Jackson has explained that
he will sendtis a budget present-
ed in a menu fashion,” Sheley
said. “In other words, we’ll be
able to look at the budget realis-
tically and pick and choose the
reductions differently in different
departments.”
Jackson is asking all city
department heads to prepare four
budgets; one that is zero-based,
calling for no increases; one call-
ing for a 3 percent reduction; one
calling for a 6 percent reduction;
and one calling for a 9 percent
reduction.
“There might be one depart-
ment where you can cut three
percent and another that needs a
12 percent cut,” Sheley said.
“That helps us deal with the
overall picture in an informed
way.”
Regarding changes in the fire
department, Sheley said the real
problem seemed to be what he
called an adversarial relationship
between firefighters and the city.
“First and foremost we should
not be in an adversarial situation
with any of our departments,” he
said. “There needs to be a better
give-and-take between both
sides; both sides need to be will-
ing to compromise instead of
taking the position that, ‘we got
screwed.’”
Sheley also spoke about main-
taining quality of life needs for
all citizens, defining ‘quality of
life" as the basic services provid-
ed by the city.
“We have a comprehensive
bond {dan that is addressing the
needs of our streets, but we real-
ly have a problem with our sew-
ers," he said. “I have always been
told that this was a problem. I
have been told that we have 135
miles of bad sewer lines (more
than a quarter of the city's total).
But suddenly it has beebmea big
problem," he said. “I don’t want
to be adversarial here, but it
seems that it became such a big
problem when the younger
neighborhoods began develop-
ing ... I don't want foe older
neighborhoods to be any less a
priority than the newer ones.”
Sheley said the city often pre-
ferred to shift its focus away
from Baytown’s older sections.
“You can look across foe map
and see things being done across
the city and see that the city’s
focus Is outside District 2 when
it comes to improvements,” he
said. “If my pointing that out
means people construe me to be
outspoken, well, that’s fine, but
that’s why we have six single-
member districts, and I owe it to
the people in my district to rep-
resent them.”
The councilman also dis-
cussed raising revenues for the
city through a sales tax increase.
“Wj need to review all options
to generate revenue and then
place some before the voters to
vote upon,” he said. “One of the
options we need to look at close-
ly is adding a half-cent sales tax,
which would be similar to what
the Crime Control Prevention
District was. That would gener-
ate $3 million per year that we
could gear toward the infrastruc-
ture problem and other services.
If people recognize that 60 per-
cent of that money comes from
outside the city, they’d be for it.”
When reminded that voters
had turned down the CCPD’s
half-cent sales tax in 2002,
Sheley said it would still be in
effect had the city council not
fumbled the issue away.
“You have to remember that
1,200 people turned that down,”
he said. “It should have never
been separated from the mayoral
election. If we would have had
5,000 people voting on the issue,
it is my opinion it would have
passed. But council feared
‘politicizing’ the issue.”
Sheley listed two priorities for
future budgets; getting manage-
ment and department heads
together with council to develop
a budget'that looks to the long
term rather than just to next year
and continuing efforts toward
redevelopment.'
Calvin Mundinger,
District3
Calvin Mundinger, who repre-
sents District 3, listed as priori-
ties expediting implementation
of the 2001 bond program, con-
sidering new revenue sources,
enhancing the city's public rela-
tions efforts, enhancing incen-
tives for revitalization and con-
tinuing to pay for youth sports
electrical costs.
“Initially that was moving
slowly,” Mundinger said of the
city’s execution of the 2001 bond
program, “which was foe reason
for me placing it in such a promi-
nent position. However, Gary
Jackson has instituted a weekly
bond project progress meeting
that I think hie contributed to
getting things moving along.”
Mundinger also talked about a
new source of income the city
managed to tap into.
“I wouldn't really call it a new
source, but in the coming fiscal
ypar, there will be additional rev-
enues coming through the indus-
trial district agreement that were
not there last year,” he said.
The councilman said Baytown
could net $800,000 to $1.2 mil-
lion per year under the agree-
ment
“We basically froze the
'amount industrial (property) val-
ues could be depredate! at 2002
levels so we will not suffer the
loss of revenues this year," he
said. “Also with the scheduled
higher rate increases which are
coming this fiscal year, it should
help us at a time when we face a
shortfall.”
Mundinger added that he also
expected to see service reduc-
tions by the city to offset foe
looming budget deficit. He also
said-the council will also exam-
ine raising property taxes.
“Will the income and some
cutbacks solve our deficit? I
don’t know,” he said. “I can tell
you that council will alter Mo
discussions about foe possibility
of a tax rate increase.”
Mundinger said he believes
voters do not want a boost in
property taxes or a significant
reduction in services.
The councilman also hopes to
Improve the city’s public rela-
tions efforts, though it Is not high
on his list “With all that has
gone on in the city with foe
pending shortfall, we have
pushed public relations to the
side,” he said, adding, “I’m okay
with that. I think we have bigger
fish to fry.”
Mundinger gave the city high
marks fra enhancing incentives
for revitalization.
“The main point there is foe
hiring of Fete’ Brooks as, the
city’s Main Street Coordinator
through foe Community
Development Block Grants to
develop a master plan and get
citizen support fra the effort;”
Mundinger said. “But we have
also made some building code
adjustments that will help in
areas that need revitalization."#
But will the city be able to
continue paying fra youth sports
electrical costs?
“At this point we have,"
Mundinger said, “however, that
and other issues similar to it are
on the table. Wfe’ve said there are
no sacred cows.”
For foe next budget,
Mundinger emphasized the need
to maintain existing levels of
essential city services
“By that I mean I hope we do
not have budget reductions in foe
areas of police and fire protec-
tion. I also hope we can continue
public works and addressing
those issues. I know that is gen-
eral but with this budget you
have to be pretty general."
District 5 Councilman Ronnie
Anderson and District 2
Representative Mercedes
Renteria were unavailable for
comment.
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Cash, Wanda Garner. The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 81, No. 223, Ed. 1 Sunday, July 6, 2003, newspaper, July 6, 2003; Baytown, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1051924/m1/8/: accessed July 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Sterling Municipal Library.