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| Mount Latte' |
Due to the pressing need to get certain paperwork completed and off to the County of Los Angeles soon so that a UUT extension initiative can be placed on the ballot for April of 2014, a special meeting of the City Council has now been called. That clock is ticking, and time could be running out for the City with the highest utility taxes in the State of California. We either get this done or we could very well lose our prestigious first place top of the tax stack status.
As most people who would actually read a blog like The Tattler should know, this will not be the first time the City of Sierra Madre has attempted to extend its 10% utility tax rate for an additional 5 years. In April of 2012 an extension of what was originally supposed to be a temporary utility tax increase was on the ballot, where it was defeated by a 3 to 2 margin. Which means utility taxes here will begin to sunset fairly soon, eventually returning to the 6% level they were at before this all began.
Given the state of the economy, along with the parlous personal finances of many here in town, people are obviously not in the mood to pay such high taxes these days. That this is being asked for at the same time major water and sewer rate increases are also under consideration is daunting. You can see that City Hall has its work cut out for it.
There is also a reasonable possibility that Mayor Nancy Walsh's proposal to actually raise utility taxes from 10% to 12% will be adopted by a majority portion of the City Council. There is currently no city in California that has its utility taxes at so high a rate. And while we are not the only city with a 10% UUT (Compton and Bell also tax at that level), when you consider that Sierra Madre has spread that rate out across more categories than the rest, we lead all other cities in this regard.
Unfortunately, and as is the case with the water rate increase, a certain amount of hostage taking is now being initiated by City Hall. In this case the puppy being threatened is not the water company, however. Rather it is the Sierra Madre Police Department. Here is how that message reads in the Staff Report (link):
Unless a new ballot measure is approved by the voters, the UUT will decrease from 10% to 8% on July 1, 2015, and then decrease to 6% on July 1, 2016. If a measure is placed on the upcoming municipal ballot, the Council will know whether the UUT measure is approved or fails on April 8, 2014.
The City Council requested information on the timing of a transition from in-house Police and Paramedic services to contracted services. This information was requested to develop an estimate regarding the amount of time the City would have to reduce expenditures, before it would be necessary to draw from reserves. It will take some time to transition to contract services. At this time the Council has not directed that any contacts be made with potential service providers, nor that revised cost estimates be developed, or "pro and con" analysis be performed.
For Policing services, the estimated time frame, until the transition can be completed is approximately 18 months to two years. It should be noted that the City cannot contract Police services without "meeting and conferring" with the Police Association. The 18 months to 2 years includes soliciting interest from policing agencies, conducting initial assessments of the options, meet & conferring with the Police Association, developing detailed cost estimates and deployment plans, developing a transition plan, and negotiating a contract.
That certainly does sound like a lot of work, doesn't it? It also seems to be a certain style of writing that gets used in Staff Reports often, and can only be practiced by those with public sector jobs.
The message clearly being delivered here is that if a UUT extension is not approved by the voters in a do-over ballot initiative next April, the Police Department will definitely have to go. This with no negotiations with the Police Association having yet taken place, nor any consideration of other possible measures that could be taken instead.
Something that takes this particular Staff Report out from the realm of cold hard fact it claims to be, and places it into that of Sierra Madre tax politics.
Until all the facts and figures are run, and everything else is taken into account, it is impossible to predict today what effect all of this might have on the SMPD. Which to me means City Hall is practicing tax advocacy here, done in hopes of keeping the good times rolling. In my opinion that is not doing what the City is supposed to be doing.
But like I said, when the going gets rough, City Hall starts taking hostages.
Enjoy your services. You certainly are paying enough for them.
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