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| The spirit of Billy is with us |
I am not really sure that too many attending this meeting really understood their role in this rather carefully orchestrated production, either. But it certainly did appear that they were there to be the live studio audience, wittingly or not. And what was the role of Bruce, Karyn and Elaine in all of this? Billy Mays. Or at least Kevin Trudeau, especially during his "Natural Cures" years.
In case you are not aware, the water rate infomercial filmed last night at City Hall will be shown frequently on SMTV3, with an afterlife that could last for months. And it was carefully designed and taped for that very purpose. Which means there is a statistical probability that at least a decent sampling of people with a lot of time on their hands may actually watch it. Though I personally can't imagine that too many will be able to keep still long enough to see it all. But then again, I have a day job.
One of the key production values employed by our City Hall hosts was to keep the studio audience from participating in this confab in any spontaneous or unpredictable ways. At a City Council meeting just about anyone can wander up to the podium and say whatever it is they want. All you need are legs and a mouth. Yet at this meeting the 30 or so attending were told that they would have to write their questions on cards so Elaine could read them out loud, and then answer.
Many questions were set aside by Elaine because, in her opinion, they were not appropriate to the theme of last night's event, which was Water Department budgets, finances and bond debt. And some of those that did make it through the screen were subject to some rather stringent on the spot editing. In the case of those I turned in, edited beyond almost all recognition.
As examples, the two questions that I had written on the cards provided were both transformed rather radically when read for the camera. The first was inspired by Karyn's observation that the City's $20 some odd million dollar water debt load was actually a lot like financing your home.
The 2003 Water Revenue Bond from 2003 was $6,750,000 at inception. By 2036, when that bond is finally paid off, that number will have grown to $14,925,486. How is that like the mortgage of my house, which is not being paid for interest only?
When read for the viewers at home, both last night and soon many times in rerun, this is how it came out:
Someone has asked how the city's bond debt is like the mortgage on our homes.
Obviously not quite what I had hoped to hear discussed. Besides, when I financed my home I did it in the hopes of building some equity. I am not certain making interest only payments accomplishes that.
My other question had to do with the surprising contradiction between what City Staff claimed the purpose for raising water rates was last night, and what Mayor Nancy Walsh had boldly staked out when she spoke to the Pasadena Star News on this subject a couple of weeks back.
Can you explain contradiction between what Karyn has just said about how the water rate increase will be used, which is fixing things like our water wells, and what Mayor Walsh said it would be used for in the Pasadena Star News, which is improving our credit rating and bond covenant situations?
That one barely survived the cutting room, and then as something only marginally recognizable. It was reinterpreted like this:
It has been asked if water bond revenue can be used to fix wells.
As I had handed my card to Elaine we did have a brief conversation about this question. Elaine told me she couldn't read Nancy's mind, and that as written my question would not be asked because she didn't know what the Mayor was thinking at that time. Few do. Plus it would be unfair to the Mayor since she wasn't there last night.
I replied that I was asking her to take into account what had been said by the Mayor in an article published in the Star News, and as such a fair game for discussion. Or so it seemed to me.
Obviously Eliane was not interested in having a topic as pointed as that one included in her water rate informercial.
I do not know if other peoples' questions were edited quite as radically as mine. I do know that quite a few of their inquiries were not addressed, which I thought wasn't quite fair. Obviously these were the concerns that had gotten them out of their homes last night and down to City Hall. They deserved to be discussed.
I am also not sure that had the actual purpose of last night's meeting been publicized beforehand many would have chosen to go. I think people thought that this was going to be an open forum and a public discussion on water rates and debt. It was not.
As I've said, the purpose of this meeting was not about answering rate payer questions per se, it was about filming a segment designed for repeated informational play on SMTV3. What City Staff was looking for here was to create a working sales pitch that pushes for raising water rates. From their perspective things would need to be tightly orchestrated and controlled.
I did find it gratifying that at least one of the issues written about on this blog over the last month or so inspired some of City Staff's concerns last night. Though I do think that the "debt is actually a good thing" meme was a bit simplistic.
I am also not sure if showing pictures of dump trucks and other bright and shiny water equipment on the Council Chamber screen as examples of the goodness of debt was really all that respectful of the abilities of those attending last night. It did seem a little bit dumbed down, at least to me. I think the people there deserved better.
Of course, it was also all besides the point. The question that remained virtually untouched is this one. Will the increased revenue raised through a water rate increase be used to set the table for additional debt? Is this really about Nancy's credit and bond rating concerns? And is that really exclusive of Karyn's hope that new money will be used to enhance the integrity of things such as our creaky old water wells?
Certainly nobody last night said that funds from any future misguided bond or loan episodes wouldn't be used for water infrastructure maintenance. And now that City Staff is down on record as rather zealously proclaiming that debt is good, even at the daunting level of the Water Department's heavy load, what is to stop them from adding even more in the future?
Apparently they are into that.
To me this is the real issue. But unfortunately the producers of last night's infotainment episode didn't care to write it into their TV show.
http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com
Many questions were set aside by Elaine because, in her opinion, they were not appropriate to the theme of last night's event, which was Water Department budgets, finances and bond debt. And some of those that did make it through the screen were subject to some rather stringent on the spot editing. In the case of those I turned in, edited beyond almost all recognition.
As examples, the two questions that I had written on the cards provided were both transformed rather radically when read for the camera. The first was inspired by Karyn's observation that the City's $20 some odd million dollar water debt load was actually a lot like financing your home.
The 2003 Water Revenue Bond from 2003 was $6,750,000 at inception. By 2036, when that bond is finally paid off, that number will have grown to $14,925,486. How is that like the mortgage of my house, which is not being paid for interest only?
When read for the viewers at home, both last night and soon many times in rerun, this is how it came out:
Someone has asked how the city's bond debt is like the mortgage on our homes.
Obviously not quite what I had hoped to hear discussed. Besides, when I financed my home I did it in the hopes of building some equity. I am not certain making interest only payments accomplishes that.
My other question had to do with the surprising contradiction between what City Staff claimed the purpose for raising water rates was last night, and what Mayor Nancy Walsh had boldly staked out when she spoke to the Pasadena Star News on this subject a couple of weeks back.
Can you explain contradiction between what Karyn has just said about how the water rate increase will be used, which is fixing things like our water wells, and what Mayor Walsh said it would be used for in the Pasadena Star News, which is improving our credit rating and bond covenant situations?
That one barely survived the cutting room, and then as something only marginally recognizable. It was reinterpreted like this:
It has been asked if water bond revenue can be used to fix wells.
As I had handed my card to Elaine we did have a brief conversation about this question. Elaine told me she couldn't read Nancy's mind, and that as written my question would not be asked because she didn't know what the Mayor was thinking at that time. Few do. Plus it would be unfair to the Mayor since she wasn't there last night.
I replied that I was asking her to take into account what had been said by the Mayor in an article published in the Star News, and as such a fair game for discussion. Or so it seemed to me.
Obviously Eliane was not interested in having a topic as pointed as that one included in her water rate informercial.
I do not know if other peoples' questions were edited quite as radically as mine. I do know that quite a few of their inquiries were not addressed, which I thought wasn't quite fair. Obviously these were the concerns that had gotten them out of their homes last night and down to City Hall. They deserved to be discussed.
I am also not sure that had the actual purpose of last night's meeting been publicized beforehand many would have chosen to go. I think people thought that this was going to be an open forum and a public discussion on water rates and debt. It was not.
As I've said, the purpose of this meeting was not about answering rate payer questions per se, it was about filming a segment designed for repeated informational play on SMTV3. What City Staff was looking for here was to create a working sales pitch that pushes for raising water rates. From their perspective things would need to be tightly orchestrated and controlled.
I did find it gratifying that at least one of the issues written about on this blog over the last month or so inspired some of City Staff's concerns last night. Though I do think that the "debt is actually a good thing" meme was a bit simplistic.
I am also not sure if showing pictures of dump trucks and other bright and shiny water equipment on the Council Chamber screen as examples of the goodness of debt was really all that respectful of the abilities of those attending last night. It did seem a little bit dumbed down, at least to me. I think the people there deserved better.
Of course, it was also all besides the point. The question that remained virtually untouched is this one. Will the increased revenue raised through a water rate increase be used to set the table for additional debt? Is this really about Nancy's credit and bond rating concerns? And is that really exclusive of Karyn's hope that new money will be used to enhance the integrity of things such as our creaky old water wells?
Certainly nobody last night said that funds from any future misguided bond or loan episodes wouldn't be used for water infrastructure maintenance. And now that City Staff is down on record as rather zealously proclaiming that debt is good, even at the daunting level of the Water Department's heavy load, what is to stop them from adding even more in the future?
Apparently they are into that.
To me this is the real issue. But unfortunately the producers of last night's infotainment episode didn't care to write it into their TV show.
http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com