Tom Barwin Boulder Colorado Oak Park newspaper

Tom Barwin Boulder Colorado Oak Park newspaper
Tom Barwin Boulder Colorado Oak Park newspaper

Free Readers Ensemble

Wm. B. Sullivan Realty & Co.

August 3, 2008
Tom Barwin Boulder Colorado Oak Park newspaper

Village Manager Tom Barwin Is Looking for GREENER $$$
Pastures in Boulder, Colorado.
© Oak Park Journal photo

commentary by Ed Vincent

No Gangs in his new sought neighborhood and fewer social
ills to worry about, or is it the money? Head hunters that we
have spoken to have told us that it is quiet common for village
managers to begin their search for better jobs with larger populations after their first two years in the job. Tom Barwin
came from Ferndale, Michigan with some 25,000 people and
then moved up to Oak Park with 50,000 people, his next move
should bring him to a population of nearly 100,000 people.
Guess what, Boulder is right near 100,000 people and just
like Oak Park. Oak Park doesn't seem to believe in either the
2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States or
those trouble makers on the Supreme Court. I wonder how
Boulder feels about the Supreme Court. Mr. Tom Barwin has
been quoted on the radio and by reporters of the press stating
that; " It’s just completely befuddling that our Supreme Court would be in alliance with the gangbangers.” Even though the
Democratic National convention will be in Colorado this year,
the State of Colorado allows citizens to conceal and carry their
handguns when they obtain a permit. The entire state also allows citizens in their homes to have a handgun, even Boulder,
how silly is that--I guess they believe in the law of the land in
the West.

Boulder is a younger town, with lots of college students and
very few people of any color, let alone African-Americans.
There are only 1.22% African-Americans in Boulder, it is very
mostly white folks. The statement below is from Boulder Colorado and is part of their philosophy:

"Boulder prides itself on being a progressive community, willing to challenge the status quo and being on the 'cutting edge'. City staff has accepted this challenge by developing the budget within the context of search for creative solutions for delivery of City services. The budget will emphasize measure to improve the productivity and bureaucratic 'red tape' required to residents. Teamwork and efficiency enhancements will limit the amount of bureaucratic 'red tape' required, both between functional areas within the City, and between City staff and the community. The overriding goals must be to support
the high standards set by the community, and to provide long-term value at reasonable cost."

Aside from the fact that someone seems to like the term
bureaucratic 'red tape' too much, how progressive do you
need to be when everyone has a good job, a fine education,
and the housing is all filled. Perhaps they have no homeless
people or they don't invite the homeless into their town like
Oak Park. I wonder if Tom Barwin can help them with
their budget, since their budget looks quite healthy right now.
Our budget is half way down the toilet. There was an
emergency meeting today with all staff and we were informed
that everyone was supposed to come up with ideas on how to
cut the budget. It might figure to be but a 1% cut and that
should be no problem for most accountants. Predicting large
amounts of money coming in from Oak Park's house and
condo sale's penalty tax (levied against all home sales--called
a real-estate transfer fee) was short of the prediction by almost
half, in other words $-816,000.00. All items lost money from
their predictions except for hotel incomes and liquor. Wonder
where the stimulus money went from the Feds, could be for
local real-estate taxes..

In Tom Barwin's brief stay in Oak Park, we spent some $6,000,000.00 to put some brick down on a short street
that had many folks out to protests on the issue, and a
fee that might take 200 years to repay in terms of an
investment. We lost three Oak Park Village Board Trustees,
some from new jobs in another state, the others probably bit
off more than they could chew (Village Trustees Martha Brock, Mr. Moore, and Baker). Some construction projects ran into
roadblocks (WhiteCo), others died in debate (the Colt Bldg),
and one just vanished in the lack of wind in someone's sail
(Forest Park's Circle Theater).

Oak Park still has far too many streets in poor shape, bad
for cars and even worse for folks on bicycles trying to reduce
their carbon footprint. Oak Park has some natural gas vehicles, but they are underutilized and often just found parked at Village hall. Oak Park has no hybrid cars but does
spend millions of dollars supporting new businesses coming
into town (assisting with construction costs). Oak Park does
not have the FOIA turn around (Freedom of Information requests) that is common in Boulder, some questions for
records continue to go unanswered and one news source (Pioneer press-published by the SunTimes in Chicago) is
even to planning to go to court after waiting more than six months for their request.

Tom Barwin, as village manager is the man who has the
desk where the buck stops here. Oak Park fired, terminated,
or permanently laid off a man who had worked for the village
for over 33 years.    The man was given no severance compensation and was not given the chance to come back to work when other areas had opened up. When the man was
interviewed he had nothing bad to say about the village or his time here-he had committed no wrongs.   Talk about wrongs,
Oak Park continues to have on their pay roll a department head who had been found guilty of having a sexual relationship with a young woman who was under his control. The woman worked for the village and has since left, years ago.   The man in question was looking at the loss of his job, but because his wife and mother came in and pleaded with the old village manager he was allowed to keep his job and was put on an 18 month probation. Most of the employees believed that when the 18
months had passed the employee would be let go and at the same time the individual would have 20 years on the job (that was two years ago...). The man is still here and getting full pay and heading a department that has more sexual harassment issues still occurring between other senior staff and their workers-some of those workers have since felt it impossible to work here and have left.

Oak Park Village Manager eating free ice cream at a
Barack Obama political lunchtime rally in town.
© Oak Park Journal file photo

Oak Park is kept running with the help of employees represented by some 11 different Unions. The majority of
those Unions have been working for sometime without any
contract, some longer than three years. I don't know how
progressive Boulder, Colorado is but Oak Park does not
like Unions and Mr. Tom Barwin is Oak Park (the buck
stops at his desk).

Tom Barwin's good points are that he has worked to improve
the 'red tape' required for building licenses and permits,
(mostly due to Village Trustee Greg Marsey) and he is noted for improving communication with some staff and departments.

Many employees were hoping for more from Tom Barwin,
and some of them place additional blame on the prevailing
attitude at Village hall and not all on Mr. Barwin's shoulders.

Oak Park's Mall where Trees, Lawns, and public respite area was to
be destroyed and residents objected.
© Oak Park Journal file photo

Oak Park Village Manager eating free ice cream at a
Barack Obama political lunchtime rally in town.
© Oak Park Journal file photo

Past Tom Barwin Related Stories

How Will Oak Park Deal with the New Law of
the Land Concerning the 2nd Amendment???

Oak Park Union Authorizes A Strike Vote

The Heart of Oak Park's Shopping is Not Inspected or
Kept in Code, Many Violations Greet Visitors to Town.

Oak Park Residents Protest Destruction of Mall not a
GREEN Choice

Many Oak Park workers retire when Oak Park's Past Manager
Carl Swenson retired.

The Boulder Citizens can hear and meet candidates at their Public Library this Thursday, August 7 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Candidates will present themselves with their views to the Boulder council from 4:30 to 8 p.m. Friday, August 8th.
Also meetings on Saturday, Aug. 9 from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

The Council Chambers events from Friday and Saturday
can viewed live on the internet at www.boulderchannel8.com.

We wish Mr. Tom Barwin the best of luck.

PS.

While doing our research we noticed that unlike Mr. Tom Barwin's predecessor Carl Swenson, Tom Barwin does not
come to Fourth of July Parades, Ethnic Festival Parades, or
many other community activities. Carl Swenson came to
everything at all times, and appeared happy to be there.

Tom Barwin Boulder Colorado Oak Park newspaper
Tom Barwin Boulder Colorado Oak Park newspaper
Tom Barwin Boulder Colorado Oak Park newspaper
Tom Barwin Boulder Colorado Oak Park newspaper
Tom Barwin Boulder Colorado Oak Park newspaper
Tom Barwin Boulder Colorado Oak Park newspaper
Tom Barwin Boulder Colorado Oak Park newspaper