Hyattsville Budget Hearing in Tweets

The Hyattsville City Council held a public hearing about the proposed FY 2012 budget. The hearing, which was supposed to begin at 8 p.m. on May 23, was not opened for public comment until nearly 9 p.m. due to a number of questions the council had for

Patch sent out Tweets tagged with #HyattsvilleCityCouncil throughout the hearing and here’s a round up of those updates. You can check out all of our Tweets at :

7: 41 p.m. Budget public hearing about to start. More people here than last budget hearing.

7:58 p.m. Vote: ; Hiles is VP after 5-4 vote over Tim Hunt.

7:59 p.m. Just passed ordinance to

8:14 p.m. City Administrator Rose talks about the major changes to originally proposed FY12 budget.

8:15 p.m. Major changes: deleted police officer at $150,000.

8:16 p.m. Major change to budget (2): More funding for renovations to the outside of Magruder Park building.

8:16 p.m. Major change (3): Reduces debt service payment.

8:17 p.m. Rose: still several unknowns for the proposed budget: facility, fleet maintenance studies, retiree health liability, the national economy.

8:17 p.m. Rose: European financial crisis affects us because it weakens the dollar.

8:24 p.m. Mayor Marc Tartaro said it could take some time to determine how to implement speed camera program.

8:24 p.m. Mayor Tartaro hopes to determine what will be accomplished in first 90 days once budget passes.

8:31 p.m. $150,000 for Officer for speed camera program would not come out of budget, said Mayor Tartaro.

8:35 p.m. Council member Hiles said deputy treasurer position should be replaced.

8:37 p.m. Mayor Tartaro said code department should do targeted enforcement to specific places that need it within Hyattsville.

8:39 p.m. Mayor Tartaro jokes with audience, but do people really dislike the tri-ennial code walkabouts? Why?

8:48 p.m. The public still hasn't been able to speak during the public hearing on the budget. And now it's past time for it to end.

8:49 p.m. Whoops! I take that back. Mayor Tartaro is moving on to public comment.

8:54 p.m. Former Councilman Bill Tierney tells council they should not have made the public wait an hour at a public hearing.

8:56 p.m. Tierney said council should review workers comp benefit, because it appears to be greater than the federal worker’s comp benefit.

8:57 p.m. Tierney: We have a number of staff issues ... that you need to address i.e. competency.

9:01 p.m. Former Councilman Mark Matulef talks about what constitutes a budget.

9:06 p.m. Matulef: City shouldn’t agree to fund any more special capital projects until the existing ones are done.

9:08 p.m. Only three people signed up to speak at budget public hearing.

9:12 p.m. FOP Pres Pat O’Hagan: The mayor/council then told staff that any employees still her in 2009 would be greatly rewarded. That didn't happen.

9:19 p.m. Resident "Marshall" asks: What does a communication policy fellow do? Abby Sandel: Research on long-term policy items for the council. We thought you might want to know too!

9:30 p.m. Marshall: The public needs to have much more part in the budget process much earlier.

9:35 p.m. Marshall: “Mr. Mayor, could you budget some air conditioning in here? You could bake bread in here!”

9:36 p.m. Budget hearing closed. Regular meeting open. Council scheduled a meeting for May 31 to talk about the budget.