Last week I attended two more community budget meetings to hear feedback from residents in District 9 and District 2. The District 9 meeting was a bit different from previous sessions, as there was no slide presentation. Instead, it included an overview and discussion to go over paper handouts on the Proposed Operating Budget with City Management.
Not much was shared on the cost of providing services to residents but rather, attendees were told: “Here are the proposed cuts.” Some factoids were thrown out, including the fact that it takes all of the city’s property tax, sales tax and utility tax revenues to provide for public safety, which is 64 percent of the budget. District 9 had 25 attendees, and they had lots of questions regarding spending on one thing versus another.
The first volley by a couple of people was that Happy Hollow is a nice place but it is not as essential as public safety. Next was a tirade about our three public golf courses. One older gentleman yelled, “We subsidize Golf!?” Which led into a discussion about that golf was a luxury and not as important as libraries. A woman said she has played on these golf courses and that the green fees should be raised to cover the actual cost of providing golf to residents. Then they both wanted to know how many millions we owe on the bonds for the golf courses but the answer was not provided. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that Los Lagos Golf Course alone was over budget…by about $6.5 million. That’s OK though, the general fund covered it!
The budget proposes giving money to the Mariachi Festival, and this struck a nerve in several people, but especially for one woman who said, “I am Jewish, so maybe you can give me money for a Jewish Festival?” The point from her and others was, why fund any ethnic festival or cultural activity? (In all fairness the city of San Jose has funded the Jewish Community Center in Los Gatos with HNVF funds.)
Freezing salaries got many head nods, but it was explained that is up to the unions and freezes cannot be done by fiat.
One lady thought public safety was a Catch 22. She said police are expensive, and if you have to cut library hours and parks to pay for police then eventually you will need more police, since kids might get into more trouble with less to do.
The notion of volunteers was brought up at both meetings and that every San Jose resident should contribute their labor doing something that the city can no longer do. At this point a city employee in the audience yelled out, “Yeah, we should have a volunteer fire department,” only to be greeted with a not-so-friendly stare from an off-duty firefighter in the audience.
District 2 held their meeting Saturday morning with 19 attendees. The most interesting comment was from two residents who participated in the January Neighborhood Meeting at City Hall, where they played the budget game of deciding what to cut and where to raise revenue. They noted that they made no cuts to public safety and were shocked that public safety was being cut. However, a moment later, they said that in their budget game they raised sales tax a quarter-cent, which brought in $35 million. Raising sales tax can only be approved with a citywide election and not by the Council.
Finally, my event last Monday night with the Concord Coalition and the showing of the I.O.U.S.A documentary turned out great. Nearly 200 residents attended the event and 75 percent had never been to City Hall. Now how many of them will return?
Here is your chance: Tuesday, May 12 at 7:05pm is a public hearing on the budget at City Hall Council Chambers. As always, you’re invited to say your piece before the Council. Time to break away from the computer and get analog.
Pierluigi,
How do you reconcile paying out 34 THOUSAND dollars for 200 arrest records for the “Task Force” and the fact that the Mayor and Council are considering paying out another 200 THOUSAND dollars for another 4,000 arrest records, during tough economic times like these? (This figure doesn’t include what you are paying staff to figure out how to do all this, and bring you back figures even BEFORE you decide to use taxpayers money to pay out another 200 Thousand dollars.)
Secondly, the court has ordered the release of thousands of harden criminals from State prisons into our communities. Our Police Department went from having 1,400 Officers to 1,367 Officers to cover our city of 1 MILION citizens! If you take Police Officers and Police personnel off crime investigations, etc. to recover these 4,000 arrest records, just how do you expect we citizens to endure increased crime because there won’t be as many Police Officers to protect our businesses, our private/public property, never mind protect us/children/seniors from gangs, murderers rapists, and thieves?
And finally, how come I have to pay for Public Information Requests, but these NON-taxpaying organizations like De Bugged doesn’t? There’s something very wrong about that Pier.
Pierluigi,
Thanks again for the insight into the workings of our local government. As noted by many, you’re the only Councilperson willing to enlighten the residents of our fair city.
I’m at the point where I believe the best thing that could happen to San Jose is bankruptcy. It seems like our Mayor and other Council Members are simply unwilling to face the draconian cuts that are needed to balance the FY10-11 budget.
It’s as though they’re wearing blinders, hoping that the problems will somehow disappear. Given that mindset,I’m afraid that all we can do at this point is slowly slide into bankruptcy, as Vallejo has done.
Greg #2,
I agree that our elected leaders are unwilling to address the real issue and that they are wearing blinders when it comes to solving San Jose’s budget issues. However, I don’t think they should take what amounts to an easier way of dealing with it by declaring bankrupcy.
If they are unwilling to do what needs to be done to balance the budget then we as residents need to make our opinions/demands heard at council meetings. If this fails then as voters we need to do it at the ballot box. We need elected leaders who won’t be afraid to stick up to the unions and demand that they sit at the table with them to determine an agreeble solution to balancing the budget that takes the overwhelming burden of doing so off the backs of resident. I for one want to see pay and benefit freezes/reductions without layoffs.
I do applaud the Mayor for finally coming out on the issue of pay freezes. Now if only he and the rest of the council would address the reductions issue.
Isn’t it just wonderful that our city council finds money in the budget to fund both Cinco de Mayo AND a Mariachi festival, but our 4th of July fireworks celebration was canceled due to lack of funding.
All of these guys need to be voted out of office next time around.
#4-Steve said,“Isn’t it just wonderful that our city council finds money in the budget to fund both Cinco de Mayo AND a Mariachi festival, but our 4th of July fireworks celebration was canceled due to lack of funding.” Yes, it is amazing isn’t it? They can fund 234 THOUSAND plus dollars for anti-Police groups too! Isn’t America/San Jose wonderful?
First of all, I believe that the reason that a “disproportionate” number of Hispanics/Latinos/whatever you want to call them are arrested in DT SJ is that they probably represent a disproprotionate number of people being drunk & disorderly in DT SJ.
Second, I believe the cost estimates given by SJ PD to produce redacted copies of the 4000 reports that have been requested are higly inflated. SJ PD and other agencies have routinely overestimated the costs to produce records, most probably as a means to have people drop their requests.
Third, I believe that if DeBug or ACLU, or others want records, THEY should pay for the ACTUAL costs of location and reproduction of those records… not the inflated costs that Chief Davis or his spokesperson claims them to be. If SJPD puts a 30 year veteran peace officer in charge of locating and copying the records, of course the “cost” will be high. It needs only a mid-level admin. person to run that program.
Finally, I’ll go back to First—if you’re drunk and disorderly, you should be taken off the streets, irrespective of your race/ethnicity/whatever.
I’m not sure what we expect Councilpeople to do with the mishmash of opinions they hear at these budget meetings.
If we can’t trust our elected representatives to exercise good judgement then we chose badly when we elected them and we’re hosed. All the public input in the world won’t do any good with representatives who lack common sense.
Pierluigi is one rep whose judgement I do trust and I would encourage him to follow his conscience in the many difficult decisions that lie ahead. Listen to the input but don’t try to appease everybody. You know what you want San Jose to be. Don’t lose sight of that.
Thank you Pierluigi for hosting the Concord Coalition and film. Eye opening. We need to make hard decisions in government and not pass the buck. Thanks
#8—these are just an on-the-road version of the public comment section of Tuesday council meetings. They’d like us to think we really have influence over what they decide. It’s a dog and pony show.
But you’re right—we either trust them or vote them out. On the other hand, what incumbent ever loses an election unless there is a news story about him with the word “molest” in it?
Look at our legislature. What do you think they’re gonna do when all those Prop 1’s fail? They punted to the people when they couldn’t get it done; and it’s likely the people are gonna just punt it back. Kinda like soccer—endless jogging up and down the field with little in the way of results.