Manic Monday

Maybe its from the lack of sleep from having young kids...

In today's Daily Pilot Pol Position article is this, a collaborative piece written by committee (Councilmembers Leslie Daigle, Mike Henn, and Keith Curry, along with Phil Batchelor, who is the City’s financial consultant on the Services and Benchmarking Initiative).

The article essentially tells me that the City set up an initiative (Services and Benchmarking Initiative) as part of the Finance Committee (for which the three aforementioned Councilmembers are on) to ask the public (in the form of a 600 resident poll) if our City Government is doing a good job?

I guess it does. Crime is relatively low. Our lifeguards save lives. Our streets are clean. We don't have potholes. Our trash gets picked up. Most building plans (like retaining walls) take less than a year to get approved. Businesses pay extra taxes (called Business Improvement Districts) to operate in the City. The basic operations of the city work well. Traffic flows relatively well.

Except...if you live next to 4 Rehab homes on your street. Or if you own a business (just like 10 other businesses within 5 miles) next to politically connected/active residents. Or you live under the Airport Runway. Or if you have kids who will be affected by the Debt-Increasing/City Government-Growing/White Elephant-Building ways of our City Council (to be fair, the results of those types of actions will not be felt by our current City leaders because we have plenty of money today...but 30 years from now, who will be left to pick up the tab?).

But then again, those criticisms don't really have anything to do with City Staff.

The most interesting part of the article?

"Operational expenses have grown from $98 million to $150 million in five years and less than a nickel of every new General Fund dollar is going to projects."

We pay a lot for our City Staff so it would make sense that our City Staff does a great job. It's not their fault they get paid well. They do what everyone employees does. They ask for, and receive, more money and more benefits...

Problem is that we have (and have had) City Councils with a spending problem. Spending soo freely that they are forced to borrow to upgrade our infrastructure. Whether its a new Library, or a new White Elephant (City Hall), borrowing is the way.

My guess...the polling will come out saying that our City Staff is doing a great job and worth every dollar they receive today...and tomorrow.