city manager resigns after heated council meeting!

You know what's funny is I feel like I'm doing something bad when I'm actually doing something very good. Jaywalking. Hey, what's Mike Andes here. I'm the founder of Augusta lawn Care. We have almost 100 locations around North America. And today I am going to be talking about what happened one year ago when we had a little run in with the local city council. Hey, everyone, it's Mike andes here@landscapebusinesscourse.com. today we're going to be doing a little bit of community service. Not because I went to jail, but because we're trying to do something good for the community. These signs here were installed about five to ten years ago. Blaine is the city that I was born in, and it's a little bit run down. We got to clean this place up. There's two of them across the street here. I'm going to briefly recap what happened, and I'm going to give you an update about what has transpired since because there's been some craziness happened. So basically what happened is I saw some local city signs that were unkept and used to look really nice, but over the course of 8 to 10 years were completely overgrown. And I said I would just go pull the weeds, install some mulch. I sprayed some all natural chemicals that were just vinegar based. All of a sudden, I had all sorts of issues. Hey, everyone, Mike Andes here. And I'm gonna be giving you an update on the cease and desist letter that the city gave me for doing volunteer work on what they call city property. And yes, they're saying that a Karen called me out and reported me to the city. The city literally gave me a cease and desist. They told me I had to take the videos down. Cause I took a video of me doing it. And they kept changing their story. They said it was because I sprayed chemicals. Then they said it was because someone reported me and they had to, you know, go to the law about it. Then they said it was because of the. They just keep changing their story over and over and over. It's come to our attention that you've entered onto city of Blaine public property, performed unauthorized work, and done so to advertise on YouTube for personal gain. All done without consent or permission. Additionally, you apparently applied pesticides or herbicides, a regulated activity, and the city cannot verify whether they are allowed under applicable regulations. Neither you nor any of your employees applied for a permit or were granted permission to perform landscaping or apply chemicals of any kind to the public property shown in the YouTube posted on June 23, honestly, they never just came talk to me, they never just called me. They never just walked up to me while I was at the signs like, hey, you got to get permission to do this. They never did that at all. Then the second time they said, you do need permission. So we filled out all the paperwork, we submitted all the information and they didn't respond. And the day of us getting up, going and do the job, the crew's there and they are threatening them that they have to leave the property. So all of that to say, I'm going to now tell you what happened a year later. Because a year later, Mike Hill, one of our local community members, the one that was really behind trying to improve the community and fix up these signs, and him and I talked prior to me doing the work and he does all sorts of other free work for the city. Well, he got elected just six months ago in January as a local one of our city council members. And so there's been some heated debates at the council meetings between him and the city manager. And so I wrote back to the newspaper, I wrote this article, I'm going to read it to you about what happened. This is the week after very heated discussion between Mike Hill and the City Manager. It was on the front page of the newspaper locally and it was a big deal. And so I wrote this, this article for, for the newspaper and said, hey, look, this is my opinion based on everything I've seen that's happened with the City Council and with the city Manager in the past. And here's just a little hint, the city manager resigned the next week. So let's go ahead and read this article and go through it together. So again, this is the letter that I wrote to the newspaper in regards to what happened at the City Council meeting and kind of giving backstory to what happened last year. After last week's newspaper article concerning the heated debate at the City Council meeting, I would like to add some perspective. I own a landscape company myself, Augusta Lawn Care, which is with 90 plus franchise locations around North America. I started our first location in Blaine, Washington nine years ago when I was 18 years old. I am also the owner of Anytime Fitness, located in Birch Bay Square, and have ties with many local community members. In June 2021, I was threatened with legal action for the City of Blaine for donating my time and materials to improve the landscape around the two signs located at the intersection of H Street and Pacific Highway. I removed unwanted trees, pulled weeds, installed bark mulch, trim the bushes and sprayed an all natural vinegar based solution to help improve the unsightly wee weeds that had grown after years of being unkept. I did this after speaking with Mike Hill who was elected to the city council in January 2022. Mike has spent years and literally tens of thousands of dollars maintaining the downtown area of Blaine using his own time machines and even a robot for steep inclined areas, all for the community and without payment. Mike Hill volunteered to pay Augusta Lawn Care to do more work around city signs on Peace Portal and Blaine Road in August 2021. Two weeks after I performed the free work in June 2021, I was sent a notice from Council of the City of Blaine. I received no phone call from the city and no one stopped me while I was working. I was charged for being on public property and said I was a liability and risk to the city since I was spraying an unknown substance. I could buy that and understand but why spend valuable tax dollars on legal attorneys when you could have just come and talked to me? I responded with an email to city officials and a video that I published to YouTube and it received hundreds of thousands of views. The city changed their story and said that a community member had reported me to them and they had to take action on every claim. If this is the case, I I think the city needs to reevaluate the way we quickly spend thousands of dollars on legal fees instead of actually improving the landscape of our city. It is incredible to me that a city would throw a cease and desist letter at a community member that is trying to donate at a time when Covid has cut city revenues and budget. The city went on to change their story when confronted by the newspaper and said the reason I could not perform free services was because of the union and work agreement the city had with employees. They threatened our staff with trespassing claims when we began the second stage of the project on the two additional signs on peace portal in August of 2021, we left the projects due to false claims that they said excavation work was scheduled to be on that site the following week. I believe the City Manager Mike Jones is working with what he got. A reduced budget and workforce in this labor market is not easy to get experienced workers with a dwindling budget. I also believe that Mike Hill deserves to voice his frustration. Mike Hill is a business owner in our community that has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars due to Covid restrictions at the U.S. canadian border during that time. He has continued to donate his time and money to employ improve our community with building projects and free maintenance Services. He has transformed downtown blaine over the past 10 years. I fear less. Our city of blaine follows the path of Seattle and Portland, where bureaucracy, red tape, and legalities block meaningful debate action and common sense leadership. We should not run away from intense debate over the future of our city. We should embrace differing ideas and strategies. Perhaps it would be a good use of funds to encourage and foster community involvement in projects to improve the landscaping of our city, thereby bridging the budget gap. This would certainly be a better use of funds than taking legal action against young people like myself who are trying to give back to the community. These types of strategies and plans will embolden our youth, create local pride, and give blaine the economic engine it needs to grow and improve.

Cleaning. You can do it for your mom.

You can do it at your house for your mom. These types of ideas are forged and created through using creativity and collaboration, not attorneys, politics, or lawsuits. Let's get on the same team and start debating the ideas, not each other, and personal vendettas. So that was a letter that I sent to the city. Since then, I've been able to be in contact with Mike hill, who is now a city council member and is trying to make some of these changes happen. And one of the things that was really shocking to me is he told me that it cost almost $100,000 for one entry level city employee by the time that they train them, insure them, giving them a truck and all the equipment. And so something that he's really, really trying to push and is very smart is why not privatize? If it's going to take $100,000 to pay a entry level $15 per hour worker because of the inefficiency and waste of being a city worker, why not privatize that? Because you could easily save 20, 30, 40% of that $100,000 just by giving it to a private company like augusta lawn care, Any other landscaping company that is going to be efficient, have systems in place, take care of the insurance and the equipment and training the employee and travel and gas and fuel, and be much more efficient. And that's why I truly believe that so much of what's going on in the public sector needs to be farmed out to the private sector. We're much more efficient. It costs much more to hire a city or government worker than it is a private worker. So why not give those jobs to the private sector that's much more efficient, saves money for the taxpayer, and is able to take a damaged economy like we have in our local community? And actually be able to put the money back into meaningful programs instead of wasting it on a bloated budget that takes twice as much as it would be for a private sector company that is creating those jobs themselves. This is one of the big reasons why I'm such a big proponent of small business is because we absolutely can do the jobs, create better jobs, more jobs at a much more efficient price than it would otherwise cost the taxpayer. I'm Mike Andes. If you like this type of content, subscribe the channel for daily videos about business and growing your company.