Media Borough Council's Dog and Pony Show to Explain $5.6 Million Bond, Gifts and Loans

For a taxpayer who lives in a town with local government throwing around $1,000,000 gifts and unsecured million dollar loans, I expected to drive up to last night’s council meeting seeing valet parking, concierge service, private seating, a nice glass of Bordeaux ’72 (not that ’73 garbage) and perfectly aged Chèvre .  Boy, was I wrong.  We didn’t even get a cup of Welch’s grape juice or Velveeta cheese slices.  $5.6 million?!?!………the nerve.

A million dollar gift and $1.5 million loan?

What we did get were vague statements, generalizations and what could only be described as a poor sales pitch from Council President Brian Hall.  Forget about a comprehensive presentation, facts, figures, balance sheets or even solid evidence as to why giving the Media/Upper Providence Library was a viable use of taxpayers money; it just wasn’t provided.  I may have even settled for how many residents have library cards and figures to support whether that number was increasing or decreasing. But again, no.  In fact, Council President Hall was so poorly prepared, he didn’t even have terms and conditions to share with us for the $1.5 million load he was convincing the audience was a good idea. 

No interest rate, no payback schedule, no recourse for non-payment, no due diligence towards payback ability, etc, etc, etc.  When pressed, he did have the solicitor state that the borough would take ownership of the library if the loan wasn’t or couldn’t be paid back – Gee, ya think?.  Not sure what the going rate is for a used library, but this is a bad policy and a bad loan. Period.

A few people spoke up questioning the viability of this project.  One involved how the library was prepared to deal with the digital age.  It was stated they were considering computer improvements and wifi.  Believe it or not, that was about as good as the answers got.  When someone asked how the loan would be paid back, Robin Beaver who was on the library board and whom I’m told is also Brian Hall’s neighbor,  stated they had donors lined up and were considering having a gala!  Try getting a loan anywhere using that strategy.  As for Upper Providence’s share in this project, it looks like they are chipping in as little as possible.  In no way is it even close to Media’s contribution.

After about 15 minutes, it was clear this meeting wasn’t about taxpayer concerns, it was more window dressing for the eventuality that this was already a done deal.  If Brian Hall and the rest of borough council REALLY had the best interest of the community, they would have formed a viability committee, mailed out a survey and had a townhall meeting much like they did for Third Street Bridge.  That took three years, this request could have been done in six months.

 I suspect they didn’t because they were fully aware giving a $1,000,000 gift and what I’ll call a unsecured loan of $1.5 million, was a very bad idea.  Why else was this kept so quiet over the supposedly last 6 months, other than to not draw attention?  How this all came about would take most of anyone’s day stitching together minutes buried deep within the borough’s website.  That’s not transparency!  In fact, I’d say 99% of the the Media residents didn’t even know this was going on until I wrote about it last week after seeing it in the town talk.

If all this wasn’t bad enough, what concerned me the most was the boasting of borough finances by Brian Hall.  I think I know Brian Hall enough to honestly think he didn’t mean it this way, but it came across as though he felt entitled to spend our money with little or no meaningful explanation. Having been a last night’s meeting, that’s exactly what he’s planning to do.