Hello Newport! It was so nice to see new faces at my Mayor’s hours and also at the Special Council Meeting held July 7. Your engagement is what makes it all happen. Council members are now having transparent discussions on financial matters, and we are doing a deep dive into matters for the good for the City.
The City’s line of credit was approved after a lengthy discussion by the Council and hearing comments on the agenda item from Newport residents. But that is just the beginning. Number crunching and further analysis and solutions to move our City forward appropriately and in compliance is what we are striving for. Why—because it is about time and it is imperative for the future of our City. Thank you to our Treasurer for letting the Mayor and the Council discuss the situation openly and honestly by providing the needed information. Thank you to our City Manager for gathering the information needed to begin this long overdue discussion. Thank you to our residents for your words of appreciation for the Council’s work. We are a team!
Wednesdays on the Waterfront has begun. I look forward to seeing you all there. Food trucks were out. Restaurants open. People walking our downtown area and having fun—together! See you this Wednesday.
Please remember that if you would like to be considered to be on a Board or a Commission, that you should send a letter/email of interest to me or to the City Manager who will forward it to me. I will then share those communications with my fellow Council members. We want you to be part of the great work that is happening in our gem of a City.
Here’s some news from the Freedom Runners: “A record number of you ran or walked with us. 102 in all. With your support, we are able to donate $550 to NAMI Vermont to support their suicide prevention efforts. Thank you.” A huge shout out to Phil White and Kathleen Marcil for their amazing work.
If you happened to read the NDE July 10, 2024 paper and the quotes in it by residents during public comment, you should note that it is peculiar that the positive statements towards the Mayor and the Council by Former Mayor Barnes and other citizens were not included. It is disturbing that the positive comments are not reported to the citizens of Newport.
You will also note that attorney Bjurling once again tries to renew her slanted storyline. She is quoted as stating that she asked for an “internal” forensic audit. Everyone knows this is false. She requested a “forensic audit,” and the Mayor explained the different types of audits. Included in those identifiers, the Mayor explained what an internal audit’s purpose was. The Council
had a vote on whether or not to have a forensic audit done and the Council voted “NO!” Instead the Mayor and the Council proceeded to do a deep dive into the financials of the city. Attorney Bjurling once again is quoted as stating that the Mayor did not do a deep dive. Attorney Bjurlng is clueless as to what the Mayor does or does not do. In addition, Attorney Bjurling states that she wrote continually to the Mayor and the Mayor did not respond. Again, Attorney Bjurling’s attempts to continue her misleading storyline. The Mayor, as the CEO of the City, offered to meet with Attorney Bjurling to go through her questions. Attorney Bjurling refused that offer making demands and parameters on the meeting. Attorney Bjurling had already met with the former City Manager and then again with then Programs Director along with the former Interim City Manager and with Representative Page. Regardless, the Mayor was willing to meet with Attorney Bjurling.
Thereafter, Attorney Bjurling, in typical legal sheister style harassment, began bombarding the Mayor and the Council with emails saying “this is my first email…” and “this is my tenth email.” Each email was replete with additional misinformation or accusations and included copies to the Press and other persons. It became quite clear to the Mayor that this was not someone who wanted information from the professionals and elected officials in charge but was continuing a campaign of her own. It is most probable that due to this type of questionable pattern of behavior, it is the reason why Attorney Bjurling (as she herself has disclosed) is facing complaints against her Vermont Bar license that has risen to the investigative level.
As your Mayor, you are aware that I am available and responsive to your emails and questions. Please continue to reach out to me and come to my Mayor hours. I am here for you and your Council is working hard for you. We have to deal with her distractions, but that will not interfere with our performance of good work for the City.
I want to thank NEKTV for taping my “From the Mayor’s Desk” show every Tuesday so that I have another avenue to keep Newport citizens up to date. It is very important to me that you have access to speak to me or hear from me. Again—I thank you for your confidence, Your Mayor, Linda Joy Sullivan
Mayor Sullivan continues her false narrative and lies, as well as her attempts to paint me as mentally unstable and disruptive. Here are the facts, with a google link to the supporting documentation and video links.
IS NEWPORT CITY ON THE BRINK OF BANKRUPTCY?
On April 3, 2024, the City Council convened a Special Meeting for the sole purpose of increasing the City’s line of credit to 1.7 million dollars. This was needed to pay the City’s bills until property taxes and water/sewer payments came in on May 15th and June 15th respectively. The belief was that upon receipt of those monies, the City would pay off the line of credit. That did not happen. Property taxes have come in and water/sewer payments have been received. The money is gone. Not only is the money gone, but there remains a $700,000 balance on the line of credit which was due on June 30th. Plus, the City still needs to pay its bills and payroll from now until September 15th when the City collects water/sewer revenue. At the July 1st meeting, Treasurer Johnson requested a 2-million-dollar line of credit to this end.
Since the July 1st meeting, the Mayor and her supporters have taken to Facebook and other media sources to throw anyone and everyone under the bus for this financial crisis, even our beloved, honest, Treasurer, James Johnson. Their false narrative is nothing more than a frenzied, panicked attempt to avoid accountability.
When the Mayor took office, she inherited a budget within which she was obligated to remain. She has not. She holds herself out as a CPA and a Forensic Auditor, so she should understand how to stay within a budget. Let’s look at the City’s Legal Invoices as an example. The City’s budget for legal expenses was $15,500. To date, the City has spent $167,130 and there are two more months of legal invoices to add to that total for the 23-24 fiscal year. Using the monthly average of $16,713, the City will spend $202,282 in legal fees by the end of the year. Moreover, the FY 24-25 Budget, approved by the Mayor, only includes $18,000 for legal expenses. This is barely enough to cover one month, let alone a year. The Mayor has set up taxpayers for a replay of this mess next summer.
I recognize the perceived irony in my criticism of the legal costs, but there is more, much more to that story. I only make public records request in response to the Mayor’s falsehoods or false allegations against me. As a result, the information I seek is dangerous for the Mayor. Hence, the charges for my requests, unlike the requests of others, include numerous phone calls and emails between the Mayor and the attorneys. In my opinion, the Mayor’s consults are not legitimately tied to my request, but rather are aimed at mitigating the potential damage of her conduct. For example, in her January 2nd “Thoughts from the Mayor,” she included quotes that Newport residents had supposedly made at council meetings to disrupt the meetings. She falsely quoted me using one of her pet names, “gadfly attorney.” I made a records request for the video links to the meetings wherein these statements had been made. The City’s response was to refer me to NEK TV for the video recordings plus 3 google meet links. The cost assessed to my request was $680. Of this cost approximately $540 was associated with communications between Mayor Sullivan and the attorneys. Why? Upon further investigation, I discovered that the Mayor had copied and pasted these quotes from a presentation authored by David Fleishman, a city attorney for Pacific Grove, California. Not only had the Mayor lied to Newport Residents, she had committed plagiarism, hence the numerous phone calls and emails with the attorneys. The bonified cost of my request was approximately $140 or 21% of the assessed amount. This scenario plays out repeatedly in my public records request. Whatever the amount the Mayor is tossing around as the total of my public records requests should be reduced by approximately 75% to arrive at the legitimate amount.
On the flip side, one of the Mayor’s staunch supporters, Pam Ladds, made a public records request which totaled $14,058. Curiously, there was only one phone call between the Mayor and the attorneys and this was entered as “No Charge.” Hmm…. Further, we never heard the Mayor ranting from her chair at the council table about the $14,058 cost to the City of Ms. Ladd’s request. Hmm……
Now back to the budget: In the spring, our Comptroller recognized the oncoming train wreck. On March 26th she sent an email to all department heads, the City Manager and the Treasurer alerting everyone to examine their budget to actuals and get pre-approval of expenses over $200. She copied the Mayor on the email. At the May 6th Council Meeting, the Mayor, in a very condescending manner, took issue with the email and insisted there was no spending freeze. The Mayor stated, “The Mayor is charged with taking care that the finances of the city are properly expended and bringing before the council any items deemed worthy of their attention so that they can, we can all carry out the affairs of the city prudentially and efficiently…There is no spending freeze…Any directive or recommendation to freeze would come to the Mayor and the Council by the City Manager or Treasurer and then we would take it from there after a vote.” The Mayor then had the City Manager deliver a rosy report of the financial status of city departments.
Perhaps Madame Mayor if you had treated the Comptroller with a little more respect and listened to her, we would not be in this mess.
As far as Treasurer Johnson is concerned, he has no culpability in this mess. He neither drafts nor approves the City Budget. He neither approves invoices nor warrants. He does not set water and sewer rates. The Mayor and the Council complete these tasks. The Treasurer simply collects the revenue established by the Council and uses it to pay the expenses approved by the Council. If there is not enough money, that is on the Council, not the Treasurer. Treasurer Johnson identified that one of the biggest problems is that the water and sewer funds are not generating enough revenue to cover their costs. Historically, the City borrowed from the General Fund to cover the shortfall. It is my understanding that the Mayor has taken issue with this practice and has insisted that it be transacted through the use of a line of credit. Treasurer Johnson has complied with the Mayor’s wishes, and now the Mayor and her supporters are throwing him under the bus for his compliance.
This brings us to the water and sewer funds. I agree with the Mayor and her supporters that the problems with the water and sewer funds date back to about 2018. The former City Manager, Laura Dolgin, migrated expenses from the general fund to the water and sewer funds so as to backfill the surplus that existed in those funds rather than refunding money to taxpayers. HOWEVER, I alerted Mayor Sullivan on August 7, 2023, the day of her very first council meeting, that these issues existed. I sent her an email with “Water and Sewer Questions” and requested to meet with her and the Interim City Manager, given that the City Manager constructs the budget. Mayor Sullivan refused to meet with me if the Interim City Manager were present. I sent 10 emails asking for an explanation of her refusal. None was supplied. I also asked her to use her accounting and forensic auditing skills to conduct an internal forensic audit of the water and sewer funds. The Mayor’s response? She delivered rants at the September 6, 2024, the September 18, 2024 and the October 2, 2024 Council Meetings to paint me as incompetent and making unreasonable requests. Curiously, the Mayor claimed that an internal audit is for compliance and controls—exactly what is needed in the water and sewer funds. The Mayor promised to do a “deep dive.” That never happened. For months the Mayor did nothing. At the December 11, 2023 Council Meeting, the meeting wherein the Council was reviewing the water and sewer fund budgets, she had no answers to questions about the apportionment of water and sewer expenses. The Mayor eventually stated that individuals whose salaries were split between the general fund and the water/sewer funds were gong to keep time sheets to approximate the appropriate divisions between the funds. HOWEVER, that is for use in FY 25-26 budget, not the FY 24-25 budget. The Council passed the FY24-25 budget with no systemic changes. None.
At the February 26, 2024 Council Meeting, the Council, seated as Water Commissioners, were readying to set water rates with no understanding of what they were legally obligated to do pursuant to Vermont Statutes. Responding to my comments, the Mayor, in an effort to do damage control, claimed that she had discussed the statutory obligations with the City Attorneys. This was a lie. She had no idea that the rate structure was based on cash accounting and thus depreciation could not be included in the expenses used to set rates. Days after the February 26th meeting, she finally consulted with the Attorneys and then suddenly, depreciation was no longer part of the calculation. Imagine that. However, due to the Mayor’s laches, the equally daunting problem of inappropriate expenses embedded in the water and sewer funds remains. Thus, the big fat mess in which the City finds itself.
The Mayor did not “take care that the finances of the City were properly expended”, she did not “bring the [issues] before the Board of Aldermen” and she did not “prudentially and efficiently carry on the affairs of the City.” She did nothing of the sort. She spent with complete abandon. She did not honor her fiduciary duty to taxpayers. She spent her time retaliating against those who called her conduct into the light, and she spent an inordinate amount of time spewing rhetoric and propaganda on NEK TV, on Newport Dispatch, in her Word From the Mayor, Thoughts From the Mayor, Update From the Mayor and on some radio program she apparently has. The result? The City cannot pay its bills without borrowing millions of dollars. Fabulous, simply fabulous.
Jennifer Bjurling
Newport Resident and Taxpayer
All supporting documentation can be found at the following link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z5mVO4FlONknZyV421DBZhHemdUd3NpYNdBzofddfKA/edit?usp=sharing
One should also note that since the May 6th Council Meeting, the budget to actuals reports which are usually attached to the agenda of the first council meeting of the month, has been withheld from the public. This report supplies the actual amounts the city has spent in the current fiscal year as compared to the amounts which were budgeted. The reports were neither included in the June 3rd Council Meeting Agenda nor the July 1st Council Meeting Agenda.