By: Tommy Smigiel
This week I have highlighted three items of interest on the City Council formal agenda. Below you will find a consent item which is a quarterly update on the City’s Legal Debt Margin. I thought the public would like to know where we stand on our debt limit. I am also including the presentation made by our new City Manager Marcus Jones, regarding the mid-year budget update. Click here for the presentation. I was impressed with the presentation as he broke it down in terms of Economics 101. This was helpful to those who are new to council and might not understand budget terminology.
On the Regular Agenda are two items of interest. R-1 is an ordinance to allow an automobile title loan establishment. This item was passed by at a previous council meeting because some members wanted additional information. I voted against tabling it to the next meeting because I read the document and was ready to vote NO on allowing this business to establish. This business falls into a category of predatory lender and preys on people who are desperate for cash by allowing them to sign over the title of their pre-paid car for a higher-interest loan. Here is a link from cnn.com explaining why car title lenders are bad ideas.
R-2 deals with language missing out of the City Code dealing with the operation of “mobile power equipment” (lawnmowers). This ordinance will reestablish the allowable times of 7:00am-9:00pm. Does anyone else think that 7:00am is too early and 9:00pm too late for your neighbor or local landscaping company to be cutting grass?
C-1 Statement of Legal Debt Margin – December 31, 2011 – The purpose of this quarterly notice is to advise City Council of the compliance with the City’s Legal Debt Margin. The Commonwealth of Virginia limits the City’s ability to issue general obligation bonds (which pledge the full faith and taxing power of the City as security for repayment) in excess of 10% of the City’s Taxable Assessed Value. As of December 31, 2010, the City’s existing general obligations are 4.46% of assessed value (44.60% of legal capacity). No action is requested from City Council. Click here for more information.
R-1 Special Exception – 6400 East Virginia Beach Blvd – Titlemax If approved, this ordinance would permit Titlemax to operate an automobile title loan establishment at 6400 East Virginia Beach Boulevard. The applicant would be required to make a number of site improvements, including the installation of landscaping on both East Virginia Beach Boulevard and George Street. Approval is recommended, based on compliance with technical ordinance requirements, consistency with approved plans, and considering the application of accepted standards for determining a concentration of uses that potentially pose problems for a neighborhood. Click here for more information.
R-3 Correction and Clarification of Section 26-3(b)(1) – Sound Levels If approved, this ordinance will amend the City Code § 26-3(b)(1) in order to state the exact hours of operation of mobile power equipment and remove a reference to a code section that no longer exists. Approval is recommended. Click here for more information.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Two finance questions:
What is Norfolk’s debt per capita?
What are Norfolk’s municipal bonds rated by the three major rating agencies?
Based on the information posted, it would appear Norfolk’s debt per capita is very high and its bond rating is not all that great, at least compared with Virginia Beach.
Add to that we pay a high real estate tax rate, how is the “new” city council going to reduce our burden?
Norfolk cannot be adequately compared to Virginia Beach because of size, per capita income, etc. Virginia Beach has a larger population and therefore it is comparing apples and oranges.
Per the new city council members, these folks have been in office less than a year, give them a chance. It is unrealistic to expect drastic changes in 6 months.
After a trend analysis of Norfolk’d budget using 2004-2009 data, the message is simple- Norfolk does not need any more long term liability, period.
Bond ratings are important and Norfolk’s rating IS comparable to VBs and as good as cities such as Orlando (which is used in comparison due to the population size). However, if the city chooses risk over reason and greenlights projects such as this one, the long term outlook is bleak.
Virginia Beach’s bond ratings are AAA (highest) across the board. Norfolk’s are Aa. Not really comparable, because we in Norfolk pay more to borrow money than they do at the beach.
Virginia Beach’s tax rate is .89 and ours is 1.11. Virginia Beach has lower crime and better schools.
What are we getting for this money?
Again, VB has a HIGHER population. When having a budget discussion, it is unreasonable to compare cities with differences in population- period. The tax revenue CAN be lower there- more population and more tourist revenue (hotel taxes).
Tommy, I appreciate the updates.
Two things, lawn mowing – Don’t think 7 too early or 9 too late, would prefer sunrise to sunset, but maybe that is a problem. Can there be a discrepency between residential and commercial areas?
RE the loans. I understand your concern about the type of business, however, denying a legal business because you don’t like it is wrong. I oppose any time the government trys to control a legal business because it isn’t liked. The smoking in restaurant issues is just such a case. If government wants to control it, do what it has the right to, make it illegal to smoke anywhere. That ain’t happening and a business person should be able to allow legal activities in his business. IMHO.
Thanks for your input Doug. The General Assembly has the ability to limit pay day lenders, however they have failed because the political lobbying is too strong. Maybe Vivian can weigh in on this more since she has been following this issue for years.
Maybe commercial and residential could be separate. I know that the lawn care company for the condo association next to my neighborhood was out this summer at 6:30am to beat the heat. Really annoying when a weed wacker is buzzing and wakes up your 1 year old.
I’m not a fan of predatory lenders. Norfolk already has too many and doesn’t need any more. The GA opened the door on these lenders in 2002 and because of the amount of money they have contributed to candidates – money, I might add, that they made on the backs of the working poor – the GA doesn’t have the guts to turn off the spigot. Just because something is legal doesn’t make it right. That’s the case here. The Virginia Interfaith Center correctly predicted that payday lenders would shift to car title lending when small reforms were made to rein them in. Predatory lending is legalized loan sharking. And it should be outlawed, just as loan sharking is.
As for the lawn equipment – I’m a late sleeper (when I can) and there is nothing more annoying than being awakened by the sound of lawn equipment. 7am sounds too early for me but I can understand the need for it. (And 9pm sounds too late, except in the middle of the summer.)
What kind of restrictions do other localities put on the operation of such equipment?
you stole my line, just because legal “doesn’t make it right”.
Not a fan of the lenders either, but as long as it is legal I question the city not allowing it, hate it when government takes the role of protecting us (read adults) from ourselves. If there are ordinances limiting the number in the city, or in a specific area, etc. use those guidelines. If they don’t exist, draft an ordinance.
From a purely theoretical standpoint, my question for you is at what point does something
illegal become (and I hate this term) immoral and therefore the law should be ignored until it can be overturned?I ask because you keep saying “as long as it is legal.” It was legal in this country to hold slaves. It was (and is) legal to discriminate. It was legal to smoke anywhere.
Unless somebody challenges the law, a lot of things are legal.
Will-
Using the 2009 CAFR data- the long term liability per capita is 5327.84.
While Norfolk’s ability to manage it’s debt is adequate in the short term, the long term projections are poor in contrast to other similiar size cities such as Orlando.
The CAFR can be found here:
http://www.norfolk.gov/fbs/cafrreport.asp
Is this information/City Council update disseminated anywhere else besides Vivian’s blog?
The City of Norfolk has an email list that you can sign up for that will get you an email on Friday afternoon with the council agenda. It is also posted to the city’s website – see this from last week. The additional info is generally posted Monday morning – I don’t see it posted for this week.
To my knowledge, the informal agenda is not generally made public, although the newspaper is aware of it.
As for Councilman Smigiel’s personal views on the items on the agenda – they are posted here, they end up on my Facebook page, are included in the blog aggregators to which this site belongs and are included in the daily email to those who subscribe to the blog.
Vivian and Politics with Pam:
The informal agenda and minutes are also available at the Norfolk website.
http://www.norfolk.gov/City_Hall/
The left side of the page includes a link to “Informal Agenda”. Using the top buttons, if you click on “City Hall” you will see “City Council Work Session Summaries” and that is where you will find the minutes to past meetings.
As with most things Norfolk, these are usually posted too little, too late. So Tommy posting them here and at his website earlier are a much needed and welcome addition to the information pool.’
And finally, to Tommy Smigiel, a much belated but very sincere THANK YOU! for your participation here on Vivian’s blog and for your vigilance at City Council.
😉
Thanks again Tommy. And the Saturday Town Hall is a terrific idea. I will repost here what I posted this morning on PilotOnline:
“Important questions to prep for Saturday’s meeting:
(1) Details of this latest proposed “deal” are needed by the public. The details of this proposal were supposed to be provided to council at the 1/11/2011 informal session. The matter was withdrawn. Therefore, no documents available. Where are they?
(2) Same thing on the 2/8/2011 meeting. It was a closed session and therefore the presentation that was scheduled to be made by Woolard is likewise not available to the public. Where is it?
(3) Next Tuesday’s meeting, 2/15/2011. This article states that it is an afternoon meeting. Yet, there was an agenda item on this week’s meeting to change it to 7pm. What happened? Not changed? Why?”
And finally, what can we do to increase attendance Saturday? The Va Pilot has “quiet filed” the story so far the Business section … really??). There is precious little time. Whatever I or others can do to help, let us know.
“Pam”.
I think the simple fact that this update is posted on a widely read blog such as this is a HUGE step up from the councilman’s predecessor.
At least Tommy is reaching out to constituents and not just with sham “newsletters” during election season. I only saw newsletters or ANY update from the previous councilman only when he was raising $$ or running a campaign.