today’s news and information gleanings from here and there!

Quote for today… “We’re going to do what’s right for the bear.” – Joe MacDaniel, Jimmy Mack’s owner, says he’s going to release Little Ricki “if veterinarians and experts can convince him it’s in his bear’s best interests to do so.” – The York Dispatch

• JCPenney slated to close in Galleria – Fox43TV

• Penn Manor’s football coach resigns for the right reasons – PennLive

• LNP – Always Lancaster‘s coverage of last night’s meeting

• At last night’s meeting, councillors praised the efforts of Georgianna Schreck and finance committee chairperson, Kelly Murphy, for going above and beyond as they worked many additional hours to prepare the 2015 budget following the departure of the borough’s manager. The municipal executive has responsibility for compiling the annual budget of all departments. Murphy and other councillors denied any knowledge of the mayor’s inferences of “rumored of secret budget meetings.”

• Transparency – The word was bandied about liberally at last night’s special council meeting. WikiPedia says transparency in government is: “The right and the means to examine the process of decision making is known as transparency. In politics, transparency is used as a means of holding public officials accountable and fighting corruption. When a government’s meetings are open to the press and the public, its budgets may be reviewed by anyone, and its laws and decisions are open to discussion, it is seen as transparent, and there is less opportunity for the authorities to abuse the system for their own interests.”

• When the subject of vehicle logs and maintenance accountability came up during last night’s discussions, the mayor said that he and the chief will beginning these processes soon; he said he hoped that the practice would be enforced across all borough vehicles.

• At least part of the script for the last night’s meeting was repeated from a newspaper editorial a few days ago, as it opined, “Two full meetings should have been held on the 2015 budget.” Wonder where that came from? We could find no mention of two full meetings in Pennsylvania’s budgeting and municipal management documents. Excerpts from several of these publications and state laws, including the typical budget calendar are shown here.

• Former councillor, Mary Wickenheiser and the mayor asked the council to return to having several separate budget meetings, “the way they used to do,” before the borough adopted the “council-of-the-whole” meeting format.

• “non est veritas in commentario” – sometimes. See the third comment at this Cole Umber news article. [Translation from Latin: In commentary there is truth!]

• According to the meeting minutes, there was discussion about the 2015 budget at the November 24 council meeting of the whole and again at the December 8 council meeting.

• The required legal notice publication was published in the newspaper of general circulation on December 9 and 11 announcing the meeting that will “consider for adoption Resolution No. 2014-22 adopting the budget for the Borough of Columbia for the year 2015 and will consider for adoption Ordinance No. 858 fixing the real estate tax millage rate for 2015 at 8.0 mills, which is $.80 of tax for each $100 of assessed real estate valuation.”

• That so few citizens attended last night’s meeting; allegations of a lack of transparency and failure to hold open meetings may be an opening to posting budgets and financial information online the way municipalities as Springettsbury Township does.

• Or one could hope for a “Sunny Award” municipal Website as this one.

• It’s happened before ... – highbeam.com