Fostorians begging for transparency

There was a Public Notice in the Review Times paper about the Proposed Amendments regarding the Finance Director and Law Director and explaining the role of City Manager in Fostoria. Publish dates were April 12 page A8 and April 19 (which was redacted on April 17 pg A6). "It has been stated during a public City Council meeting voters just aren't educated enough on the matter." This is insulting to the citizens who have been asking for answers for a very long time. The lack of transparency is what is stopping this change in city government. Why should we as citizens have blind trust at this point? We are well aware that the change means less public input and more city government control. Of course, we are skeptical. We had a meeting over a year ago with an advisor/consultant well versed in the role of a City Manager who gave the pros and cons of this form of government. He gave a list of ideas to help get citizens feeling more in favor of the change and how to become involved. Several city council members were in attendance, yet they have not done a single thing that was suggested. Instead, there's a total lack of transparency. Council member Cassidy boldly proclaimed the citizens are "uninformed " and they just needed more time to get educated on the matter. That's the arrogance that leads to distrust and the reason our city will not get behind him. It seems the change in government is somehow linked to another failed idea, the rental inspection legislation. Are the city officials working for Fostoria or just a few businessmen who will profit from Public Private Partnership plans? We have no way to know since the plans have been secret and when attempting to have conversations with certain offices at our municipal building the conversations are lost since no one can be found in their offices or will answer any calls. There is a charter committee. Why are they not listed on the city website, along with their email address and phone number? The public and taxpayers should not have to play detective to get answers. We lost grants and no one was accountable for putting us in financial distress. The new financial director was recently pushed out, in favor of keeping the state in control of our finances. Heidi was doing a great job for the city. So why push her out? We still have so many questions, but we are fully informed about city management government and left to our own devices. We aren't "ignorant whistledicks", as councilman Cassidy described the potential mayoral candidates at a public meeting. We are educated but we don't trust the changes because there's no transparency. If city officials want our trust and our vote for this idea, we first want answers to the following questions: 1) What is the city plan? What public-private partnerships are you considering? Why is this rental legislation so important? 2) WHO are you considering as the City Manager? We should know names, faces, and viewpoints of the person you have in mind. 3) Will you agree to an online checkbook with transparency of all spending? Once YOU educate US, we may consider the change reasonable, but until then we consider it a power grab to benefit a few and not the majority.