Board of Aldermen 09-22-2020 Page 10
Ms. Ortolano | do, | thought somebody else might dive in but this is Laurie Ortolano at 41 Berkeley Street. |
just want to speak briefly to the comments by the Mayor, pretty disappointing to hear his tone and what he
said to you folks. He said that, he used the word “deluge” of Right to Knows began about 2 years ago.
Actually | believe there was aramp up that started in June 2019 and that’s when the Legal Office started
tracking these things. | Knowthe other individual who was involved | believe put their first Right to Knowin,
in June or July. So | disagree with the 2-year time frame. | also think he said by that summer of last year,
there were 34,000 document requests, or documents provided. That’s a gross misrepresentation. He’s
talking about the request where | wanted to see the KRT Property Record Cards. Turns out those were
31,000 records which | didn’t know when | put the request in and the City denied them and didn’t produce
them at all. So that’s a misrepresentation.
Also, | am going to send to all of you the letter from Attorney Lehmann where he made the request for the
audio/video files. We did not requestthe transcripts. We were fine with just getting the audio/video files
and didn’t ask the City to do that. The City is the one that said without giving a reason, we will transcribe
these and we will redact them. And we did not ask for that. And to give you a perspective on the amount
of work, its 13 hours atape. Now|’ve been involved in the Assessing Department and lve gone to many
meetings during abatements, those meetings are 4 hours long. And they transcribe those down there ina
matter of you know two days. So 13 hours which is working not full time, 13 hours of minutes for
somebody who is skilled at that is not asking for a lot but we didn’t even ask for it. And 'm going to
produce the letter from Attorney Lehmann that verifies. Because really when | see a Mayor put out wild
accusations and really appear frightened by wnat’s happening here. | think his fear has gotten the best of
him. | think he misrepresented what the position is about.
President Wilshire
Mrs. Ortolano can you stick to the Legislation and not the Mayor please?
Ms. Ortolano Well the Mayor is the one who pitched it and he said he was going to provide some answers
to good questions raised by the public. So! hope he’s able to do that and put his fear aside and get us to
the answers. | would have liked to have heard that at the beginning instead of his frantic dialogue. | don’t
like listening to people who | don’t think have integrity. | wish he had stuck to the issue and answered some
of the questions the public brought forward so that when | gave my first input | would have something to
say for you. So step it up Mr. Mayor. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Anyone else wishing to give public comment on items to be acted upon this evening? Mr. Teeboom?
Fred Teeboom Yes, |do. This is Fred Teeboom. This is the first time | have participated in this Zoom
business. | have a comment on R-20-067 which is the use of fund balance for taxrate. First of all, there is
supposed to be a letter from the Mayor to explain why this is to be done, that’s by the Ordinance as quoted
in this Resolution. | did not see the letter from the Mayor. Can somebody explain to me why the Mayor did
not address this in a letter? Anybody?
Alderman Clemons
We received a letter today.
Mr. Teeboom | did not see that in the Budget Committee’s Agenda which took place yesterday. Anyway let
me then go forward. | hope | don’t have to do a Right to Know to request another one. The request is for
$4.5 million so the fund balance is supposed to stay above 10% of Fiscal Year Appropriations. What is the
amount in fund balance at this moment before this Resolution is adopted? Can somebody address that?
