On Tuesday, June 13, at the regular Glendale City Council voting meeting, a majority of five voted to approve the proposed budget for FY 23-24.
Is any city budget ever perfect? Will it please everyone? Obviously, the answer is no. Out of the hundreds of items within the budget, Councilmember Tolmachoff objected to expenditures regarding four items: the Downtown Campus Renovation Project, Heroes Park Sports fields, the Veteran’s Community Project and covered parking for our city attorneys.
Councilmember Tolmachoff chose to ignore the countless positive elements of the budget. Items such as $12 million for new fire trucks or initial funding to improve every right of way within the city or our continued commitment to treat every street and to renovate our city parks.
Councilmember Tolmachoff literally threw the baby out with the bath water because her advocacy for four items was not accepted by a majority of the council. She had countless opportunities to advocate for her positions during the three months of intense council review as well as council workshop discussions of the proposed budget. The fact that her arguments on these four items did not prevail should not have been so compelling of as to vote no on the entire budget.
This is not the mark of responsible leadership. A true leader would not have attempted to encourage other councilmembers to defeat the city’s entire budget and throw the city into chaos 17 days before the start of the city’s fiscal year.
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We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.
