Editorial
Updated 2/5/2024: Adds background on efficiency consultant Glen Runyon.
Perhaps you’ve heard about the budget crisis the City of Mandeville is facing. Yes, Mandeville, the same city that has over $19 million in its general fund, over $60 million in the bank, and has zero debt.
Yep… It’s a crisis alright.
So you might be thinking, what happened?
I’ll tell you what happened: Sucette Harbor.
Almost to the man — or woman — it is the exact same group of people who fought tooth and nail to try to ram Sucette Harbor down our throats who have now pivoted almost seamlessly, in the same breath, in the same sentence, just like in 1984, to a new cause — the budget crisis.
They’re still mad as hell and now they see the 2024 election as their chance to get even. They’re hellbent to put that damned hotel-events-center-old-dude-apartments-restaurant-check-cashing-place-maybe-and-marina on the Copeland property, so all you District 2 and District 3 people with your “apprehension” need to quit being so “closed minded,” as City Council candidate Scott Discon said at the recent Alliance for Good Government forum. “Mandeville has to grow,” he insisted.
I say they’re betting that if they can get Discon elected, somehow manage to keep Kreller from imploding any further, combined with Cynthia Thompson having gone in unopposed, they could win the battle of Sucette Harbor 2.0 later this year or next.
There’s just one problem… It will all be for naught if they don’t eliminate the veto threat, ergo Madden must go.
The fake budget crisis
So now we have a budget crisis.
Their “evidence” is a recent Carr, Riggs & Ingram CPAs and Advisors report in which two slides show hypothetical scenarios of what it would take to deplete the general fund balance.
The graph in question shows what would happen to the $21.4 million general fund if the City of Mandeville paid for every wish-list capital outlay project for the next five years without a single dollar of matching state or federal funds. The result: the general fund drops to a paltry $4.6 million by 2028.
Sounds pretty dire, right? Councilman at Large Rick Danielson, District II Councilman Dr. Skelly Kreller, efficiency consultant Glen Runyon, candidate for mayor Jeff Lyons, plus the usual-suspect trolls on social media have been sounding the alarm. Even Discon made mention of it at the Alliance for Good Government forum in January: “I believe that we should be looking at ways to increase our revenue in the city. We’ve got valuable land on the lakefront that needs to be balanced with our quality of life…”
At the November 16th City Council meeting when debating a Mandeville Financial Oversight Committee revival and rewrite, Danielson said, “All of sudden it’s 2028, and your fund balance is gone because that’s what the financial forecast said. It was very clear. In 2028, at our current spend plan, the fund balance is gone.”
But the problem with this narrative is, it’s based on a false-premise hypothetical, which means the result cannot happen. The slide in question even says so: “Does not include any additional revenue sources currently being pursued for fiscal years 2024-2028. If additional funding is not obtained, projects will not commence.”
Thats right. Projects will not commence without additional or matching funding. Period. So the scenario could never happen.
But shouldn’t we look at this graph as a positive? Doesn’t it really illustrate how strong our fiscal position is? Mandeville is so strong and we have so much money in the bank, we could fund every single project that we’ve dreamed up 100-percent on our own and still not run out of money until well after 2028.
How many municipalities can say they could fund their next five years of projects from cash reserves, without additional income, without going into debt, and still have money in the bank? Not many I bet.
Leave it to the Revenge-of-the-Sucette gang to turn a positive into a negative, just to win an election and get their hotel-events-center-old-dude-apartments-restaurant-check-cashing-place-maybe-and-marina built on the lakefront.
And then they throw in a balance sheet for good measure, failing to mention that we’re still missing about $6.2 million in FEMA reimbursements from Ida — which we will eventually get. In their minds, it’s a slam dunk. I guess Hurricane Ida hitting Mandeville was somehow Madden’s fault too.
Tax cuts floated to downsize surplus
Rewind to April 8, 2021. The first regular City Council meeting of the month.
Danielson and Runyon were pushing the idea of lowering sales and property taxes and giving the general fund surplus back to the taxpayers.
Runyon said, “You are a flush with money coming in … You made reference to reducing sales tax but I’d almost want y’all to commit to doing that. Because you’re already running close to … another $2 million general fund surplus this year, by the end of the year, and that money should go back to the taxpayers.”
Danielson seemed to agree, saying the Council was in favor of reducing taxes. “One of the goals of the council was to be able to reduce our sales tax rate that is currently charged and to be more inline with other municipalities across the parish as well as being able to further reduce the property tax rate,” he said.
So let’s get this straight:
In 2024, they’re forecasting doom and gloom because the surplus might be nearly gone by 2028 if we were to spend on everything imaginable, which in reality we’re not even allowed to do.
But as recently as 2021, they promoted depleting the very same surplus with tax cuts because we had too much money.
I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t take their advice in 2021, and we certainly shouldn’t be taking it now.
Runyon was the author of the 2020 Mandeville Efficiency Study, which revealed Madden was handed an employee morale issue from the Villere years where pay remained generally flat. That study helped lead to a salary survey by SSA Consultants, and eventually across the board pay raises to catch Mandeville up to fair market levels.
As of late, Runyon frequently attends City Council meetings complaining about the budget and spending. He is often afforded quite a bit of leeway in going beyond the council’s three-minute public comment rule, though it never seems to be enough. He is not an elected official, not an appointed official, not an employee, and no longer a contractor for the City of Mandeville.
I wonder what would happen if Mandeville Daily were to show up at the end of every meeting asking for extended time to complain about the pro-Sucette cabal.
Sucette Harbor: $74,000 to the rescue
We’ve all read the text messages by now, so we know the exact moment that the budget crises took form. It came in late August and early September when the defeat of Sucette Harbor was imminent. Project proponent and lobbyist Rhonda Alleman texted Danielson:
But once again, these people’s statements are easily refuted by on-the-record information. The Sucette Harbor economic impact report shows only a combined $74,000 annually would go to the City of Mandeville.
So $74,000 is going to save Mandeville. Hoorah.
Whenever someone starts a sentence with the words “it would not be wrong if,” what they’re really saying is, “This is wrong but I think we can get away with it.”
You be the judge.
It’s rich that most of the Sucette enthusiasts actually live on the so-called “west side” of Mandeville, or the group of neighborhoods on West Causeway approach to be exact. They lost their minds when a carwash approval came before the Planning & Zoning Commission in 2021.
Maybe we should see how they would feel about a hotel-events-center-old-dude-apartments-restaurant-check-cashing-place-maybe-and-marina nestled behind Fontainebleau and Mary Queen of Peace. I’m sure all the trucks could easily make it down Rue Beauvais no problem during the 18 months or so of construction. After all, “Mandeville has to grow.”
Jeff Lyons to the rescue
The best part of this elaborate hoax is that these supposedly smart people want Jeff Lyons for mayor, to save us from Madden.
The former Piccadilly manager has touted his experience as a businessman when addressing the council on the budget. He was afforded the opportunity to describe what kind of mayor he would be at the recent Alliance for Good Government forum in January.
His lackluster performance should give anyone considering his candidacy serious concerns. Maybe he’ll fair better at the upcoming RPEC or Mande-PAC forums.
Local political consultant James Hartman, who has consulted for some of these same pro-Sucette people who are pushing Lyons and the false budget narrative, wrote an impassioned letter to the mayor and City Council in January, criticizing Madden on several fronts.
But the most interesting part of that letter was what Hartman said about Lyons: “your opponent was so weak.”
That’s not very encouraging if you’re a Lyons supporter.
“I congratulate you in advance on your likely endorsement tonight and on your likely victory in March,” Hartman wrote to Madden.
Hartman has been in this line of work for a long time, and admittedly he has an impressive list of clients. Anyone who has ever worked with James will tell you — he’s a straight shooter and won’t sugar coat things for you, which is probably a big reason people are willing to pay for his services.
Interestingly, in Kreller’s text messages, Hartman was the one person giving them the correct advice, which was not to try and fight a social media war. Too bad they didn’t listen to him.
Don’t take the cheese
At the end of the day, these Sucette cabal folks expect you to believe the following:
- A projected $67 million in the bank is a crisis when just 30 months ago they favored tax cuts because we had too much money.
- A hypothetical scenario in an auditor’s report intended to illustrate Mandeville’s fiscal strength is a harbinger of doom.
- Sucette Harbor would have rescued Mandeville from a financial crisis with only $74,000 annually.
- Weakly Jeff Lyons would make a great mayor.
Beware the ides of March.
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Mandeville Daily 
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