LAIC Slow on Accountability, Doesn't Deserve Public Handouts

On July 20, City Commissioner Nick Abraham asked the Lake Area Improvement Corporation to submit a detailed budget to support its request for continued taxpayer funding to the tune of $240,000. LAIC exec Dwaine Chapel, whose salary eats up $100,000, agreed to submit said budget. Six meetings later, the LAIC budget still hasn't popped up in the city commission agenda packet or minutes.

Funny: if I were trying to get $240,000 in taxpayer money, and the taxpayers asked me for a document, I'd have that document to them before first thing in the morning. In triplicate.

Lake County publishes its proposed budget for FY2011 in the paper. As discussed previously, the county commission doesn't think it can afford $1000 to support Prairie Village, but for the second year in a row, the commissioners do think they have $25,000 to throw at the LAIC, which is currently more than 900 jobs in the hole on its job creation goals.

Let me apply the thinking of county commissioners Verhey and Hagemann to the proposed handout to the LAIC:

1. Gee, if the LAIC has over $100,000 to pay Dwaine Chapel to produce no results, they obviously don't need our financial support.
   
2. Over the last few years, the LAIC's total assets have increased from a quarter million to nearly $4.7 million. Looks like they're doing just fine and don't need a public handout.
   

Any chance Commissioners Verhey and Hagemann will raise these issues when they sit down to approve the final budget?