My comments tonight are in regards to Councilwoman Brady’s cell phone bills. The News-Herald, as well as some members of the council, have already beaten this horse to death…but I suppose taking a few more jabs at it won’t hurt.I’ve read a few recent articles in The News-Herald that have really ripped into Councilwoman Brady regarding her use of the city-paid cell phone. The News-Herald says that she racked up thousands of dollars in overage charges over the last 18 months. They’ve alleged that she’s called her boyfriend approximately 200 times over the past year during “all hours of the day and night” and on holidays.


I did the math, and I figured that these “excessive” calls to her boyfriend equate to about 17 calls per month, or one every other day. Any calls that were placed on an evening or weekend are not subject to charge…as the plan includes them for free. And her boyfriend did have business with the city…he was a DPS supervisor.

The bottom line is that aside from wire-tapping the phone, nobody can say for certain whether the calls were personal in nature or business related.

A few people on this council have had a lot to say about this topic…often-times painting Councilwoman Brady as an irresponsible individual. Someone, whether intentional or not, went so far as to place a trashcan on Ms. Brady’s chair during a channel 4 news report.

Did Ms. Brady have the most expensive phone bill? Nobody has denied that; including Ms. Brady. Was the bulk of the bill incurred by personal calls? That still remains to be seen. So far, The News-Herald has speculated that this could be the case. But aside from calling each and every phone number on the bill they received from City Hall, they can only speculate.

From what I understand…Mrs. Lulko addressed the issue to Mayor Brown after the third consecutive month of overages. Her concern was that Councilwoman Brady was using her phone too much. So Mayor Brown instructed Mrs. Lulko to increase her plan minutes to the next highest plan. According to Mrs. Lulko, the plan was bumped from 500 minutes a month to 1000 minutes a month; still retaining the free nights and weekends. This was the highest plan available, and it gave Mrs. Brady approximately 50 minutes a day to conduct business via the cell phone. Being a Department of Public Services liaison, I don’t think it’s totally unreasonably to expect her to spend an average of an hour a day conducting business on the telephone. But much like The News-Herald, I too am merely speculating and casting my own opinion on the matter. But this isn’t the real issue, in my opinion.

The real issue is why didn’t anyone go to Councilwoman Brady and say, “Hey…you’re talking too much”? I could be wrong, but I don’t remember reading about anybody talking to her about her unusually high phone bills. I also don’t remember reading about anyone looking into other service providers that may have offered a better deal. I know they exist…I paid something like $50 a month for a phone with 1,800 minutes and free nights and weekends. I also know that group plans can be considerably cheaper.

So what was done to help curtail this cost? What options were explored?

For over a year, these cell phone bills were allowed to accumulate. Until one day, which just so happens to fall during the “campaign-for-reelection-season”, it suddenly becomes an issue that must be addressed immediately. Suddenly, everyone is at odds about Val Brady’s use of the cell phone.

Where was all of the concern and criticism 12 months ago? Or 6 months ago? Why wasn’t the issue addressed sooner? Why did everyone just sit back and let these bills accumulate? Why didn’t anybody think to check out other plan options that may have been cheaper?Everyone who was aware of these phone bills while they accumulated, but did nothing to properly address the issue, is guilty of pretermission. Something as simple as a 5 minute conversation with Ms. Brady, or 10 minutes on the phone with another cellular provider, could have helped prevent a few thousand bucks from being needlessly spent.

I understand that each council person is responsible for tracking their own expenses. But each council person is also responsible to curtailing the expenses to the City of Lincoln Park. The failure, in this case, can be attributed to politicking…at the expense of the taxpayers.All this negative publicity surrounding Brady for costing the taxpayers money may or may not be warranted. I’m not here to argue for or against it.

My gripe is with those who were aware of the problem, but failed to take any action. My gripe is that the only action that was taken was to shamelessly point the finger of blame 18 months later. Great…you’ve identified the problem. Why didn’t you try to fix it before it became a problem?If I am a partner in a company and I have knowledge that another partner is incurring unusually high expenses on a corporate account...shouldn't I take it upon myself to see that it stops? Shouldn’t I search for a less expensive plan option? At the very least, shouldn't I at least talk to the person about it to see if there is anything they can do to curb their expenses?Or would I wait for 18 months for them to rack up a bunch of expenses so I can go to the media and say "See look...I told you they were no good! I knew it all along!" If I knew it along, then I am pretermitting the issue; and therefore just as guilty for costing my company money.Apply the same logic to this situation…and those were involved should lower their heads in shame for letting the taxpayer foot the bill for their politicking.

This council needs to learn to work as a team. It needs to learn to collectively identify ways to save this city some money. Lambasting someone for incurring expenses that you were aware of for over 12 months but did nothing about accomplishes absolutely nothing. Except to bolster your own career at the taxpayers expense.

To those of you who are quick to speculate as to why Mrs. Brady’s phone bill was $3,000 over an 18 month period, why don’t you also ask yourselves why you voted to give a tarnished City Manager with less than 12 months on the job a $27,000 increase in pay? Or perhaps you should ask yourselves why you voted for an ERI program before the cost analysis was complete.

Despite near-insurmountable expenses, this city has been irresponsibly spending money for the last 18 months. And now suddenly, the council is on this cost-savings kick and wants to leave Ms. Brady twisting in the wind over a cell phone issue that could have been prevented months ago; had the council opted to work together instead of politicking.

If you’re going to point fingers…start by pointing in the mirror.

I thank you...and good evening.