Time's Up, Uptown

"Overhead and operating expenses consume almost all the yearly income of your organization," wrote Banker's Hill denizen Leo Wilson in a February 19 email to Carol Schultz, the executive director of Uptown Partnership, the group that manages the Uptown community’s parking district. "The organization should be restructured."

Wilson, who chairs the Banker’s Hill/Park West Community Association, Uptown Planners, and the Community Planning Committee, is one of several Uptown residents upset about Uptown Partnership’s excessive overhead.

In his email to Ms. Schultz, Wilson cites a budget summary report from fiscal year 2008-2009. During that fiscal year, the parking management group collected $578,835 in revenues, $425,481 of which came from "City reimbursements" and $132,381 from "parking-meter sales," whereas expenditures, including salaries, rent, professional services, outside services, cost of parking meter card sales, and payroll taxes, amounted to $551,638, leaving just under $28,000 for community improvements.

"As a matter of public policy," writes Wilson in his email to Schultz, "I cannot support the continued existence of Uptown Partnership unless it is seriously reformed to assure the vast majority of its income is spent on actual public improvements."

Sitting down for a cup of coffee at a Hillcrest coffee shop on February 25, Wilson tells me that he’s been contacted by the county's grand jury office, requesting an interview about the exorbitant administrative costs at Uptown Partnership.

"I have no idea where this came from," added Wilson in regards to the request from the grand jury. "I didn't instigate it, and I don't know who did.... More than anything, [Uptown Partenership] needs to go, just as a matter of principle."

In response to the concerns from the community, Ms. Schultz disclosed Uptown Partnership's budget for the current fiscal year. In it, projected revenues have increased to $978,760, while administrative costs, including salaries, amounted to $353,760. She has not responded as to whether the county’s grand jury requested an interview with her.