Through my Eyes

Less than two weeks ago, after more than a month of wrangling and

internal bickering, the City Council finally approved a budget.

During that process the City Council just said “no” to the Drug Abuse

Resistance Education program, and then, with the backbone of an amoeba,

turned around and funded the program.

At the same time, the council also said “no” to funding Project

Self-Sufficiency, the Concert Band and Senior Outreach, only to change

its position faster than a politician after a significant campaign

contribution. These program cuts were initially made because the council

determined that these programs, while important, were not essential to

the community.

While all of this vacillation was taking place, the city staff was

preparing to spend a $175,000 of your money, authorized by the City

Council, on an outreach program to inform you about the importance and

magnitude of Huntington Beach’s infrastructure problem.

I’ve previously written that the citizen-based committee that analyzed

the condition of Huntington Beach’s infrastructure determined it is in

woeful condition and will cost us about $470 million over the next 20

years.

That’s $470 million more than what the city is currently spending to

maintain and repair the city’s infrastructure. And if you asked, “If the

infrastructure is in such bad shape and so essential, why doesn’t the

City Council spend more of our existing tax dollars on infrastructure?”

you’d have asked a great question.

The answer is that the collective wisdom of our City Council really

doesn’t believe that the condition of the infrastructure is that big a

problem and that in the great scheme of things, what the city is

currently spending to repair and maintain the infrastructure is probably

adequate.

If I’m correct, then spending $175,000 of our tax money to tell this

community something that the council apparently doesn’t believe is true

is not only a tremendous waste of money, but also the purest form of

hypocrisy.

How do I know the council feels this way? Well, its actions speak

louder than words.

When the council reinstated the DARE program, Project

Self-Sufficiency, Senior Outreach and the Huntington Beach Concert Band,

it implicitly told all of us, clearly and unequivocally, that it believes

these programs are more important and more essential than the

infrastructure. It told us that given a choice between further repairing

the infrastructure and these programs, the programs are more important.

Spending $175,000 of our tax dollars to tell us that the

infrastructure is of the utmost importance -- to the point that we should

voluntarily tax ourselves, in the face of its action, justifies the title

of wasteful hypocrites.

One of these days our local leaders will learn it is their primary

responsibility to provide the essentials, the absolute bottom-line

necessities, to the community, first.

This City Council has it backward. Its members are elected to provide

a DARE program, Project Self-Sufficiency, Senior Outreach and the Concert

Band, with our existing tax dollars, and then want us to vote to impose

another tax on ourselves to repair the infrastructure.

I would have preferred that it elect to repair the infrastructure

first and then ask us to vote on whether we wish to impose a tax on

ourselves for these programs.

* RON DAVIS is a private attorney who lives in Huntington Beach. He

can be reached by e-mail at o7 RDD@socal.rr.com.f7