Raleigh’s recently adopted $697 million budget was sharply criticized this afternoon by Wake County Republican Chairman Claude E. Pope, Jr.

In a speech before the Wake County Republican Women’s Club, Pope said the council’s budget was stuffed with unnecessary spending at a time when everyone, particularly governments, should be cutting back.

Pope criticized the council’s decision to not reduce funding for the arts, and also took a shot at City Manager Russell Allen for accepting a $10,000 raise.

Pope compared Raleigh’s budget, which increases spending by $53 million, unfavorably with Wake County’s budget, which reduced spending by $30 million.

Pope said the presence of three Republicans on the Wake Board of Commissioners showed that the GOP is the party of fiscal responsibility.
“We applaud the efforts of the Wake County Board of Commissioners,” Pope said. “In contrast to the city, the county commissioners passed a budget that cut spending, showed compromise and fiscal restraint.”

Pope also criticized the City Council for adding $1.85 million in new spending by reducing the amount the city will put towards paying of existing and future debt.

“If you put off paying your mortgage for a year, you would no longer have a house to live in,” Pope said.

Pope praised Councilman Philip Isley, the only Republican on the 8-member Raleigh City Council and the only councilor who voted against the budget.

Pope said after his speech that he hadn’t spoken to Isley since the budget was adopted on Tuesday.

At least one of Pope's criticisms showed an unfamiliarity with Raleigh’s budget. Pope said the city should have cut inspectors since new building permits have dropped as the housing bubble has burst.
“Have any of these jobs been cut?” he asked.

The city’s adopted budget cuts 15 positions from the Inspections Department.

After his speech, Pope fielded questions from reporters. He said the City Council’s recent actions are an opportunity for Republicans to win back seats. City Council elections are officially nonpartisan, but the number of Republicans on the council has been shrinking in recent years.

Pope acknowledged that the GOP needs to field a stronger slate of candidates this fall.
“The Republican Party needs to do a better job fielding qualified candidates,” he said.

The filing deadline for this fall’s election is July 17.

The City Council held its first budget workshop late this afternoon and it included the release of more details about the proposed cuts in City Manager Russell Allen’s budget. Among the more interesting items included in the budget notes were:

•  The cut backs at parks facilities include the closing of the Shelley Lake Boathouse, as my colleague Sarah Lindenfeld Hall reported last week. The boathouse is currently open Friday afternoon and all day Saturday and Sunday. Councilwoman Nancy McFarlane asked Parks and Recreation Director Diane Sauer about why the boathouse was closing all operations. (Most of the other cuts involved scaling back hours at all facilities during nonpeak hours.) Sauer said the boathouse’s facilities weren’t used much, the concession stand typically lost money and vandals frequently targeted the boathouse. Add paddle boat rentals and flavored icy drinks to the list of items not immune to the current recession.  

•  Cutting the arts funding from $4.50 per resident to $4 per resident would mean a 14 percent funding reduction for those receiving money under the program. Total funds would decrease from $1.71 million to $1.52 million.

• If the City Council decides to move forward later this year with construction of a series of remote operations facilities and a new public safety center downtown it will require a 1 cent property tax increase in fiscal year 2011 and 2 cent property tax increases in fiscal years 2013 and 2015. The combined cost of the two projects is a little more than $400 million. The City Council won’t make a decision about whether to move forward on these projects until the late summer or early fall, and Mayor Charles Meeker has already said the council is unlikely to green light a tax increase until the economy improves.  The council doesn’t have to take any action on these projects as part of this budget discussion because no additional funding is being included in Allen’s budget proposal. Councilman Philip Isley, an arch opponent of moving forward on the public safety center, reiterated that point this afternoon. City Manager Allen responded by saying that before the council makes any decision about delaying the safety center and remote operations buildings it should tour the city’s existing facilities. Allen said city staff are operating in buildings that are meant to service a city with a population of 100,000, not one approaching 400,000 people as Raleigh is.

As the only Republican on the Raleigh City Council since the 2007 elections, Philip Isley has gotten used to hearing Democrats gripe about the state of the country under President Bush.

Now, with the election of Barack Obama, Isley is learning what life will be like with a Democrat in the White House.

During Tuesday’s City Council meeting Democrats on the council made repeated mentions to the wonder of Obama’s campaigning skills and the bright future in store for America under a new Obama administration.

A mention of human rights led Mayor Charles Meeker to say America’s human rights record should start improving now that Obama is replacing Bush. A discussion of how to reform the city’s Citizens Advisory Councils led Councilman Thomas Crowder to mention how Obama’s victorious campaign showed what can happen when you empower everyday citizens.

When Isley questioned whether the city should still proceed with plans to build a $226 million new public safety center, Meeker noted that the council wouldn’t vote to provide the funding until next summer. By that time, Meeker said, the Obama administration could have turned the economy around.

Isley, who had until then mostly ignored the Obama lovefest going on around him, finally piped up.
“I think that’s the fourth or fifth Obama reference today!” he cried.

A smile creeped over the mayor’s face.
“I said that for Mr. Isley’s benefit,” Meeker said.

Prior to laying out a budget proposal that was quickly approved by the City Council last night, Mayor Charles Meeker handed out copies of an MSNBC feature that merged all the "best places" rankings together to come up with the best places list to end all best places list. (Essentially, the author unscientifically combined the best lists from Forbes, Kiplinger, Money Magazine, Fortune and Relocate-America.com.) And guess who ended up on top? That's right. Raleigh, North Carolina.

Meeker used this press clipping to argue that such a ranking was in no small part due to the recent decisions made by the City Council to tear up Fayetteville Street, build the convention center and make other major investments in the city. According to Meeker, the city is at yet another crossroads now and needs to keep investing if it is to stay on top of the rankings. (Just think what Raleigh will be ranked after the new public safety center gets built!)

Meeker went on to make one of his more astute political moves in recent years. He took the money that will be raised from the recently enacted higher impact fees and put it towards paying down the city's debt. This enabled the council to reduce Russell Allen's proposed property tax increase from 5 cents to 4.18 cents. Granted, the decrease is less than a cent, but it allowed Meeker to make a connection between higher impact fees and lower property taxes. The move was sort of a local version of President Bill Clinton announcing that the budget surplus should be used to save social security.

A final note: The only two council members who voted against the budget were Philip Isley and Russ Stephenson. Bonus points to the person who can come with another vote when those two ideological soulmates represented the only opposition on an issue.