Big attaboy to Thoburn!

[walter]

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/052008/met_280706152.shtml

Mistakes costly for city and developers

Click-2-Listen 


Math errors yield incorrect fair share amounts for landowners to pay.


By TIA MITCHELL, The Times-Union


Because of its own error, the city lost out on about $266,000 that would have been used to improve a Northside road impacted by new development.


A second mistake recently uncovered could cost Jacksonville an additional $1 million.

Hey he obviously fits in well downtown.  I'm sure the city council is happy they waived the education and experience requirements for him.  Makes the new fees (taxes) coming out of city hall all that much more fun!
Jacksontucky at its finest...hey Thoburn its called a cal-cu-la-tor its not rocket science.

[vicupstate]

Walter, as tempting as it is to poke fun at Brad.  (who by the way, no kidding aside, is a very nice guy.)  This post is misleading.

1.  Brad wasnt the actual person doing the calculations.  He sits in a big comfy chair, takes calls, looks at progress reports and occasionally has his secretary raise hell about his parking spot with the city.  Rolling up sleeves and doing calculations, much less sweating out the details of some crackpot scheme on the northside is strictly outside of his purview.

2.   From the actual article:  "In one case, a typo - the number of trips linked to a new development on Garden Street was listed as 116 instead of the actual 156 - led to a 2006 fair share assessment that was 30 percent lower than what it should have been. Instead of being charged, $951,381, developer George Sayar was told to pay $684,837.

After reviewing the paperwork, the council auditor uncovered the incorrect figure. It was blamed on a part-time consultant who no longer works for the city.

In the second case, one major component was initially left out of the fair share assessment. James and Fay Coleman, who planned to develop land on Brandy Branch Road, were told they needed to pay $583,091 to mitigate the traffic increases on nearby Beaver Street and U.S. 301. Their representative said he was shocked when he arrived at a council committee meeting in April and learned a new amount, roughly $1.4 million, was handwritten on the agenda.

The city had accidentally left off the impact to Interstate 10 when calculating the fair share assessment, according to discussion two weeks later at another council committee meeting. Again, the council auditor had caught the error and attempted to correct it."

3.  For whatever reason, the Council, knowing that the figures had been incorrectly totalled, still decided to use the incorrect fees.

If you have to blame anyone, blame Council.

Council used the incorrect figures because they would be sued otherwise, and any jury would likely have ruled against the city.  The mistake had already been made, and used as the basis for the negoiations.

Thoburn is NOT off the hook here.  A low level number-cruncher would not be solely responsible for something involving millions of dollars.  For these sums of money, two, three or four set of eyes would have to sign off on it.  The Auditors should have did their review BEFORE the numbers were communicated to the private land owners/developers. At least that is the way it SHOULD be.

You also have to wonder if these numbers were dileberately low, given the city's reputation for being in the pocket of developers/builders.