Who will sail through rough fiscal waters?
Jeff Lebow
Danette Goulet’s Aug. 29th front-page column discussing Ralph
Bauer’s attempts to find revenue (“Let’s take a bite out of the
city’s budget”), as well as the adjoining article on Ron Hagan’s move
to special projects, were about the same subject -- Huntington
Beach’s never-ending search for fiscal stability. Attention 15 City
Council candidates: If you do not have a plan or at least a well
thought out approach on how to balance the books in our city, you may
want take down your election graffiti.
Taken out of context, Ralph Bauer’s nickel-and-dime approach seems
humorous. While Ralph is looking for parking fees and such, Ron Hagan
will be attempting to sell corporate logo space on each backstop and
flagpole at the youth sports complex. Why are Huntington Beach
residents paying a utility user tax based on not only the water,
sewers and trash, but the city surcharge as well? Why do Huntington
Beach Time Warner customers pay a franchise fee? Shouldn’t Time
Warner pay the city for an exclusive cable franchise?
The answer is that the city is in a long-term financial crisis.
The crisis is here even before we have final resolution of the city’s
appeal of the court verdict that the city had illegally over
collected property tax for several years. If refunds are required,
look out below. The sad truth about this coming campaign season is
that we will hear candidates prioritize issues like public safety,
infrastructure repair, the beach, the environment, education,
redevelopment, high taxes, etc. These are real issues, but what we
won’t hear is how we are going to afford the investment we need to
realize all good intentions. We will not hear how they will control
rising costs of our large, powerful and comfortably retiring city
employee base of some 1,100 good people.
Since more than 50% of the existing budget is required to meet the
payroll of public safety personnel alone, all other city needs from
youths to seniors must be handled by the dollars left. Streamlining,
reducing services and outsourcing are words few candidates dare to
speak. They are tantamount to political suicide in this city. Why?
Residents do not connect the long-term costs of the periodic raises
the police, fire and city hall employees receive with the city’s
inability to afford other worthy needs. Huntington Beach Police
Department employees can retire at 55 with 90% of their peak annual
salary for the remainder of their lives at taxpayer expense? It’s not
that these fine public servants do not deserve our gratitude and
comfort upon their retirement, it is simply that we, as a city,
cannot afford to support more than a thousand employees in perpetuity
unless we find substantial new revenue streams and/or raise taxes.
It is going to take an exceptional council person to navigate this
ship through the fiscal currents. If we cannot find four courageous
and fearless souls out of the 15 hopefuls, we will surely find one or
two of them looking for nickels and dimes and selling advertising
space on “Surfhedge.”
* JEFF LEBOW is a Huntington Beach resident. To contribute to
Sounding Off fax us at (714) 965-7174 or e-mail us at
hbindy@latimes.com.
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