One of the many reasons why the Village of Brookfield is in financial trouble today…
Garvey said over five years ago while campaigning for Village President "He would run the village like a small business." If, he would have kept that promise the village would not be broke today and on the verge of bankruptcy.Garvey and the PEP board members now blame the national economy for all Brookfield's financial problems. He used to blame the VIP Party before the national economy went belly up. PEP Loves the blame game but never ever takes the blame themselves. Truth is PEP is having a very hard time defending their allocation of taxpayer money for public expenditures because Garvey was not true to his promise from over five years ago. We see the money that he pays all his "professional" village managers, our engineering fees have tripled in the last five years and the village attorney fees have double! By the way the PEP Party owes the village attorneys' $21,179.93 since 2004, could this be the reason the PEP Party hired them when they won the election in 2005? Source: (see Peoples Economy Party latest D-2 at the Illinois State Board of Elections website)
Garvey by not keeping that campaign promise; like all his other promises, has harmed the people of Brookfield. Some taxpayers will argue that most public expenditures are unproductive and I would agree with them. However, some of these views are often the result of political views on the limited functions of local government. There are many valid issues that the village government must address when spending Brookfield Taxpayer dollars. There is no element of competition so prevalent in the private sector. Second, there is no bottom line to review to see if resources have been employed in a way that has created value for the village and the people. There is a common opinion that municipal employees are not under the same employer pressures to produce like a private business. One example… is the joke; how many Public Works Department workers does it take to fill a pot hole? The answer is four; one to drive the truck, one to dig the hole, one to supervise and one to watch. We have all heard a similar one.
This is the main reason that the former village president put his name on the Public Works vehicles because he wanted to have total accountability from the workers. If a resident had seen a DPW worker not producing, they knew who to call. PEP made a campaign issue out of a simple thing that is being done in many surrounding communities today. Finally, village expenditure decisions do not reflect the same decision processes as those processes made in private business. In conclusion, we need the run the Village of Brookfield like a small business and stick to that!
Douglas Tremper
Candidate for Village Trustee
