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I am sure Foster looked at voting patterns and chose the projects accordingly. Does he really care about our infrastructure? If so, show me the list...you go Gerrie!
Responses were not good. Many wondered why only the home owners would be taxed (not renters). Gary thought maybe the landlords could just raise their rents to compensate!? What if you were landlord of 8 apartments? Lots of missing pieces in the proposal.
There is no pretense of fairness in said proposal. Those living on the Peninsula or on the Alamitos Bay waterfront areas in homes worth some $3million to $8million would pay the same rate as those living in houses, apartments and condos worth 1/10th to 1/30th of that. That is an absolutely unacceptable disparity!
Then, there is that pesky "escalator clause", that when compounded over time will more than double taxpayer's annual "investment". This is being cloaked as a General Fund bond measure to lower required voter approval to the minimum. What assurances do any of us have that those extra monies generated by the escalator clause will not be swallowed up by the General Fund and pissed away on bloated salaries and fattened pensions? You know, business as usual at Long Beach City Hall.
There are a good many of us in the 8th council district that are counting on Gerrie Schipske to "stick to her guns"!
"In all due fairness, Mayor Foster inherited the poor decisions of a previous administration and the city council."
You know what, Juan, let's be done with rationalization. Long ago, there should have been a complete purge of everyone in city management with any kind of influence from the Hankla/Taboada/Miller years. Hell, PURGE HANKLA. His stagnant behind has no business running a clambake in this town, much less a harbor commission. It's this staid thinking that keeps Long Beach in its trademark malaise. Pat West . . . what a joke. The veneer of "outsider" without the jagged edge of innovation.
Once you've had your lunch handed to you on this tax measure in sheep's clothing, Mr. Mayor, consider truly reconfiguring the way this city is run . . .It's never too late to start from scratch, sir.
Gerrie Schipske is on the record as being opposed to any and all tax increases. Since being elected to office, so far, so good. She deserves an atta girl for that. Knowing that her district is overwhelmingly opposed to a tax increase, especially the mayor's confiscatory nightmare of a proposal, it's reasonable to assume that she will not aid and abet the crime of putting it on the ballot.
Apparently, the mayor has either threatened or is planning to threaten councilmembers' staff budgets over this deal. Now how chickenshit is that, if true?
Evidently the mayor is undeterred by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association's public threat to file a lawsuit if Long Beach puts this abortion of a tax increase proposal on the ballot. The city attorney's office believes their own BS that the proposal survives the sniff test. Apparently the mayor is pushing ahead come hell or high water. If he fails to extort or bribe a council majority to declare a fiscal emergency, he'll push ahead with a proposal that would require 2/3 majority voter approval.
The mayor and his sycophants have got to finally come to grips with the raw fact that fiscal responsibility cannot happen without pension reform.
The council is also going to discuss some sort of UUT deal to increase the flow to that revenue stream. Not sure how they're going to do that. Seems to me that the only way to do that would be to go after companies like Vonage, who provide VOIP services, to start collecting taxes on that service. If that's their intention, I call BS. I don't think the city's UUT proposal is as innocuous as many people believe.
Two facts seem clear: 1. Our infrastructure needs serious attention and 2: Schipske seems to be the only person on the current Council who seems to consistently understand that increasing taxes (special or otherwise) is not always the only way, or even the best way, to address item 1.
Is anyone else just a little confused that, on the one hand, the Council routinely bemoans its current cash-strapped condition and seems constantly scrambling for new taxation solutions to resolve it and, on the other hand, spends far too much time (any time spent is too much, really) attempting and enacting business-unfriendly ordinances like the ill-fated Big Box Ban and the recent citywide moratorium on check cashing businesses?
There's a very simple formula for municipal financial success:
Limited government (government that does not routinely exceed its mandates)
+ Fiscal responsibility (living within our financial means and establishing rainy-day funds to deal with the inevitable periodic economic downturns)
+ A business friendly attitude (passing legislation that welcomes and encourages business rather than drives it away and discourages it)
+ Crime and blight intolerance (helping the population feel safe in their community)
= a healthy, vibrant, growing, safe and financially-flush city
"Focus On Results" notwithstanding, there remains a lot of waste and inefficiency in our city government. Let's cut some serious governmental fat before we even consider further burdening *any* segment of our tax paying population.
You've got to be shitting me! Until foster, business did whatever they wanted. And even with foster, the "unofficial" mayor keeps calling the shots with his bag of tricks.
Additionally, this city has the very worst legal counsel to be found on the planet. I'm for contracting it all out to some real slicksters. randy, is your last-years puppy dog looking for more business?
How many potholes would $400,000.00 fix?
Good question JD! I seriously doubt that city hall could even come close to finding a polling firm crazy enough to come up with a plausible scenario of the mayor's wacky plan passing with a 2/3 majority. I also wonder if any councilmember is lame enough to believe this could pass. For the council to piss away $400K to put this on the ballot would be absolute lunacy and downright irresponsible.
Or is that just pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking......
Don't laugh too much, these and other similar things, as far fetched and ridiculous as they sound, get put on the table if cuts are the only solution.
It sure is a lot easier to oppose government revenue generation -- whether through taxation or other means -- than to come up with politically correct ideas to secure such revenue.
Anyone who complains about government fiscal policies better be practicing prudent fiscal measures in his or her private life.
DW Reader, you should know that some people who oppose increasing taxes may be struggling financially for reasons out of their control, like the family whose main source of income experienced a lay-off recently. Are you going to tell this person that not only do they have to cough up more money for our city's mismanaged budget, but add the insult of telling them they are not practicing prudent fiscal measures?
I see so much waste and poor use of city resources on a daily basis, I don't think the first course of action should be to raise new taxes.
Now, I'm not an ardent proponent of always higher taxes but John Q. Public needs to pony up if he expects to receive the municipal services we ALL tend to take for granted. But I also expect government to keep waste and mismanagement under control.
Let's face it, all of our local politicians are scrambling for revenue. LA County is chasing after a feckless local income tax increase, the ports are attempting to drive away competition with their global warming scam, and Mayor Blob (and his sycophants) want to stick property owners with an onerous parcel tax...not to mention LB Unified's BS property tax proposal to perpetuate an even higher drop-out rate.
I still have a question to ask about Pat West...was he hired only because he is shorter than Mayor Blob?
Foster is well aware that his plan is unpopular, but he feels obligated to put it out there so that he can say he did all he could before he starts slashing and burning city services, which is the only other alternative. He can't win no matter what he does. If he tries to save the services, he gets called all the names we see here. And I guarantee that when the inevitable budget axe falls, he'll still be just as unpopular with the same people. He and Pat West have an unenviable task ahead.
And on West- whoever has cleverly appropriated Jim Hankla's last name here should leave the sophomoric comments about West's height and the Mayor Blob remark on the playground where it belongs.
One more thing- on the pensions already approved in the past- good, bad or indifferent, there's nothing to be done about them. The city owns them. All the kvetching in the world isn't going to help. Orange County recently tried to explore going to court as they're similarly situated and found it wasn't an option. Pensions for employees hired that aren't affected by those contracts are another matter.
I appreciate you for being smart!! Noah
Some good comments by and large, but everyone seems to be missing the point of the Mayor's "Infrastructure Bond". This measure is much less about infrastructure than it is about bailing the city out of the swamp the council and the Mayor tossed all us tax payers into recently when they voted, I believe 9-0, to give everyone in the city's employ that had not gotten a raise in the last go around, a massive package of raises for which we have no money in the till to pay for.
By dressing this pig up as an "Infrastructure Bond" the Mayor figures there is a fair shot at getting it passed - even with a 2/3 requirement. However, what everyone doesn't seem to understand is that by having this new pot of money to spend on infrastructure, future budgets will have no need to use General Fund money for infrastructure purposes. While it's difficult to determine just how much General Fund money goes to this purpose each year (and it's obviously not enough), the best I can tell it is in the range of $12-$15 million. So if this measure passes, the Mayor has suddenly 'found' that amount of unrestricted money that he can use to pay for those new raises and still maintain an increased budget for infrastructure.
Unless and until the measure somehow includes a guarantee that General Fund infrastructure spending from the General Fund is maintained at the same level as the average over the past five years all we do by passing this massive tax increase is reward the Mayor and the Council for there continued malfeasance.
Let's just say no.
Without the ability to fund these pay raises with General Fund money diverted from infrastructure the city will approach such a financial tipping point that it should finally wake up the electorate to what they have allowed to happen to our city. Maybe the threat of bankruptcy will bring us to our senses. Nothing else seems to have worked.
I couldn't agree with you more about the importance of infrastructure repairs in this city. We absolutley must take action. However, this proposal will not. I repeat, WILL NOT provide us with any more repaved streets or repaired sidewalks than what we are currently receiving. Keep your eye on the ball, please. All this bond measure does is to allow the Mayor and Council to take General Fund money that currently supports these repairs and allows it to be spent to fund all the new pay raises we gave city employees at a time we were facing a $17 million budget defecit. The $12 to $15 million in General Fund dollars will now be freed up to pay for those raises and to otherwise backfill the budget. That is the real reason for the bond - not to improve infrastructure.
Please ask Mr. DeLong if he will support an amendment to the proposed verbiage in the authorizing legislation that will require the city to maintain future expenditures of General Fund money to infrastructure projects at the same level as the average amount of these dollars spent over the previous five years plus the same 3% inflation guard built into the $120 per residential lot tax. If this measure included such a guarantee, I would support it's passage in a New York minute.
Sadly, I doubt Mr. DeLong or any of the others on the council would support such a sensible safeguard. For they are as aware as I am that they have no money to meet the vast new obligations they have committed us to without some way to 'find' a pool of unrestricted General Fund money. This is the best the Mayor could come up with to locate such a pool. Without this measure passing, we may have a true financial emergency, not the phony one that the council is asked to declare in order to facilitate the inclusion of this bond measure on the November ballot. We may well face massive cutbacks and there is a chance that even with all the cutbacks the city will find itself without sufficient money for continuing operations. While that would in the short cause severe harm to us all, I feel that it may also give us the opportunity to finally face the long term challenges of the city in a better informed and realistic manner. That, I think, is worth the short term pain.
Proof?
You ask for 'proof' but don't specifiy what it is you feel the need for proof of.
I don't think anyone disputes that the city has a structural deficit of $17M that is being addressed only with windfall profits from oil revenues and a few wallpaper cuts in staffing and services. If you want proof of that you need only go to the city's website and review a few of the quarterly budget reports presented to the council.
You want proof of the pay raises? Again I would direct you to the council agenda archives to see the items and the votes.
You want proof of the plan to use the bond money to replace the current infrastructure spending from the General Fund? We'll all have to wait for that. But I would ask that you take a good look at the FY 09 Budget when it is made public.
Once you've done that, I believe you will be satisfied.
Duke
Where I would like to see some proof is from the statement of yours I quoted. Is it your assumption that Foster is going to fund the pay raises with the proposed infrastructure money or have you been privy to conversations, memos, something along those lines? And let me be clear- for all I know, you could be correct. But to make such a blanket statement, I'm curious as to how you arrived there. I also would bet Foster wouldn't care about your proposed verbiage.
As for what Foster thinks of the prospects of this passing, I'm willing to bet if you asked him, he'd tell you he doesn't think it will. See my post number 20 above. He's likely just covering his bases here. In order to avoid the biggest cuts this city has ever seen, he's trying this first. Because if he and West do have to cut, every Long Beach citizen will notice, and many will be unhappy, for a variety of reasons. More than unhappy, they'll be pissed. And then he'll say something like "I told you so" or "be careful what you wish for", because the coming cuts won't be pretty at all.
It will be more than short term pain, it will be the elimination of some departments and programs that once gone, will cost more to bring back than it would to fund right now to keep going. There will be areas cut that have never been touched before. And I'm not trying to scare anybody into supporting Foster's plan. I'm just stating that from what I've been privy to so far, all of which is merely ideas on the table and not at a "definite" stage, to ensure they never find themselves in this situation again, the word "bloodbath" has been tossed around, in describing both programs, jobs and practically entire departments lost.
The proof you seek is right before you.
Let me try this ----
The city is near a financial meltdown due to over-promised wages and benefits made to it's employee unions. The Mayor and City Manager sit down to find an answer to this impending doom. What do they offer? An infrastructure bond measure that raises $571 million dollars to fix crumbling city property.
How is fixing potholes and building new fire stations going to cure a structural budget deficit?
It simply cannot do this unless all General Fund spending on infrastructure is diverted to fill the hole in the budget.
This ain't rocket science.