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| Wheee! |
To be sure, this should be a rather instructive evening for the taxpaying public of our Foothill Village. It will show us how our money will be spent should the residents here somehow fall for the City's demands that we extend our utility taxes at the same State of California leading double digit levels they're at now. And all the way through to the year 2022.
Think of it as a boutique spending mentality in a dog food tax environment. With the taxpayers getting the pooch's end of the deal. So please, at least for this moment in time, won't somebody take the Mayor's credit cards away from her?
OK, so I have gotten way ahead of myself. There are a lot of other things on this week's meeting agenda that must be discussed before any of that.
First, the lawsuits portion of the meeting, which is always conducted in a private room. This because, as you know, we are not permitted to know what they're up to back there. It's lawyer stuff. For this evening's meeting there are three legal cases in effect, but we don't have a clue about two of them. So we'll pass on discussing those. But this other one is kinda interesting.
Pursuant to Calif. Government Code Section 54956.9(a)
The City Council/Agency finds, based on advice from legal counsel, that discussion in open session will prejudice the position of the local agency in the litigation.
Existing Litigation: Paul Woloski v. City of Sierra Madre - Case No EC061376
As has been my lot in life for the last 5 or so years of doing this blog, I scoured the Internet in search of any evidence of the existence of a Paul Woloski, and what I found was intriguing. Apparently Paul Francis Woloski resides on Sierra Madre's legendary Orange Grove Avenue, and is the President of something called the Delta Dawgs Foundation, aka "The Dogs of War." You can view what is quite a colorful website by clickinghere.
This organization purports to raise money for military veterans and their families, which would be a good thing. I am fairly sure that this has nothing to do with the lawsuit, but who knows? I guess we'll find out someday. Oh, and "Calif. Government Code Section 54956.9(a)" means litigation has been formally initiated.
Let us now get to the money spending portion of Tuesday evening's event.
ACTION ITEMS
1. CONSENT - a) ADOPTION OF RESOLUTION No. 13-80 OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SIERRA MADRE APPROVING CERTAIN DEMANDS
The demands the agenda speaks of total up to $553,513.75. A relatively modest sum for a City Council meeting these days. Some of the more notable remittances flying out the door include $37,998.48 for Third World Edison, our electric power source. At least when the weather is good. $25,342.75 is for something called a "Smart Classroom 2012 State Homeland Defense." Ordinarily you don't read the word "smart" in any sentence that includes the term "homeland defense," but I am sure it is grant money so we should act nice. City Hall's personal law firm, Colantuono & Levin, gets $22,002.95 for providing legal cover for various outrages visited upon the residents. Our Washington DC lobbyists, The Ferguson Group, get $5,000. Since they will soon have to tolerate the jejune presences of Nancy Walsh and Johnny Process in Washington DC for a couple of days, they've probably earned it.
All very routine, I'm afraid. Let's move on.
b) QUARTERLY FINANCIAL STATEMENTS, FIRST QUARTER AS OF SEPTEMBER 30, 2013
Our very own one woman Greek Choir, Finance Director Karin Schnaider, will come on down to share with the City Council the parlous state of the City's finances. From now until the April 2014 UUT do-over extension vote, just about everything Karin says will point to certain financial disaster should it fail at the polls. Which it did by over 60% in 2012. How a City with the highest utility taxes in the entire State of California can be this broke is mystifying. But Karin, who is a nice lady and actually lives here (a rarity for staff members these days), will do her very best to convince you that this is the case. It is a job, I suppose. Bring your cleanest hankie.
c) APPROVAL OF RESOLUTION No. 13-81: POSTPONEMENT OF WATER CONSERVATION TARGET PENALTIES
Karin Schnaider gets to speak on this item as well, which makes you wonder about the current state of her Karma. A ways back the City Council approved penalties for the excessive use of water. This was done in hopes of lessening the demands upon our highly at-risk aquifers and water wells. The wells went dry anyway, so our waterless water company had to go and beg the SGVMWD to send us some from their supply, which they did. However, this made any fines for the over use of water here superfluous since we no longer needed to be concerned about our wells running dry. It already happened.
This item is basically a city face saving exercise. Karin will claim the fines are being rescinded because the residents conserved water, but should we behave irresponsibly they could come back. Which is silly. The fines went away because the wells ran dry.
2. PUBLIC HEARING –
ORDINANCE No. 1348, AN ORDINANCE AMENDING MUNICIPAL CODE CHAPTER 17.22 SECOND UNITS
The Staff Report has an Executive Summary for this item, and since we are all obviously managerial material, I thought I should share this information with you here.
The City Council will consider Ordinance No. 1348, amending Chapter 17.22 of the Municipal Code to revise various zoning standards related to Second Units, including minimum and maximum allowable floor height, parking and affordability requirements. The proposed revisions implement a housing program objective of the 2008-2014 Housing Element adopted by the City Council in June 2013, to encourage the creation of second units and meet the City's regional housing needs (RHNA). At its September 5, 2013 meeting, (the) Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval of the second unit code text amendments to the City Council.
The tragedy for small California cities today is that our corrupt state government in Sacramento has confiscated most development planning authority from such places as Sierra Madre. They ostensibly did this by claiming it would somehow help the environment, but that has been proven to be pretty much a crock of merde.
The real reason? Land use is big money, and the elected crooks that run the central planning regimes of this state know they can get beaucoup money (and free tickets to Josh Groban concerts), by peddling development planning rights to such rapacious interests as the Realty and development lobbies.
The Second Unit thing is a nice idea and all, and gosh it just might help us deal with SCAG head and Soviet expatriate Comrade Hasan Ikhrata's (link) Sierra Madre RHNA number, at least for a little while. But the end result will be higher development density levels here, resulting in more congestion, more traffic, and therefore higher greenhouse gas levels.
Sometimes you just have to let Sacramento know that you're on to their lying.
3. DISCUSSION – CONSIDERATION OF DRAFT ORDINANCE AMENDING SECTION 3.36.180 OF CHAPTER 3.36 OF THE SIERRA MADRE MUNICIPAL CODE REGARDING THE UTILITY USER’S TAX EXTENDING AND MODIFYING THE RATE STRUCTURE TO PRESERVE AND FUND IMPORTANT CITY SERVICES
We'll just cut to the chase here. The City is saying that our utility taxes need to remain at the highest levels anywhere in the State of California because otherwise we will lose our public safety services. A claim that is both an act of ugly cynicism and dishonesty on the UUT 3's part. However, this is the story the hostage takers on our City Council will bleat about endlessly all the way to next April's election.
The actual reasons behind our continuing to have to pay double digit utility taxes is city employee union negotiated pensions, benefits costs and salaries. That along with this city's disastrous $15 million dollars in 2003 water bond debt, which currently we are only paying minimal interest on.
Personally, I don't see why I should have to pay a state leading 10% utility tax rate to financially support city employees for the rest of their lives. But that is what this is all about. Hopefully enough people will get it.
4. DISCUSSION – MEMORIAL PARK RESTROOM REMODEL
Mayor Nancy Walsh, using the Senior Community Commission as her human shield and funding source, is pushing just as hard as she can to spend $60,000 in resident cash and turn the public restrooms at the Hart Park House in Memorial Park into a "unisex family bathroom" and a storage space.
The current lady's room will be turned into a storage space for the Hart Park House crowd, while the current men's room will be transformed into a unisex lavatory that will be able to accommodate only one person at a time. Real excitement if you have more than one kid.
The thing is, this building has two public restrooms now, and families have been using them for decades as they are right next to the playground. So what we are actually being asked to fund is turning one of the restrooms into a space for storing bingo boards and plastic birthday party cutlery, and the other into a unisex one-at-a-time lavatory. Wait'll this one starts making the rounds.
Along with the $150,000 "wayfinding signs" mentioned above (and below), this brings Mayor Nancy Platinum Card up to $210,000 in completely unnecessary expenditures, and in just one meeting. And we haven't even voted on the do-over UUT extension yet.
5. DISCUSSION – SAN GABRIEL VALLEY ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP
The San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership is run by former Sierra Madre Mayor Bart "El Monte" Doyle (click here), the author of such Sierra Madre catastrophes as the $15 million in 2003 water bond debt we are currently paying interest only on because we cannot afford to do otherwise. That plus the Downtown Specific Plan, a nasty predatory development scheme that led to a city-wide citizen revolt, Measure V, and a level of resident hostility Sierra Madre had never seen before, and has yet to recover from.
The SGVEP is essentially an organization run by utilities, banks, Realtors, developers and various large corporations that would love to be able to make some dough by throwing this town wide open to the kinds of development most Sierra Madreans don't want here.
Expect Nancy Walsh, Johnny Process and Josh Moran to fall all over themselves to try and convince everyone that we need to join this awful organization. We've always known that they are in Bart's pocket.
6. DISCUSSION – CITY SIGNAGE PLAN
Nancy Walsh wants the City to shell out $150,000 it doesn't have yet for something called "wayfinding signs." These would be like the ones you can find in Pasadena directing to you to such attractions as Old Town Pasadena and the Rose Bowl. We don't have any of those, but you do know how beneficial to the unique character of our community aping Pasadena would be.
This is a ridiculous amount of money to pay for a handful of signs. I think that if you were to put this one out to bid it could be done by a local sign company for around $2,500. And perhaps one of the arts organizations in town might take on some of the design aspects, and for free? That would be a good use of their talents, I think.
Please, stop the madness. Take away Nancy's credit card.
7. DISCUSSION – APPROVAL OF STRATEGIC PLAN FROM OCTOBER 15, 2013 RETREAT
This little tin can got kicked down the road at the last CC meeting because nobody thought it was important enough to make some time to discuss. So here it is, back again. This is what I said last time:
This thing just never seems to go away. It just mutates. I swear that if I ever have to read things such as "Preserve our Small Town Character with a Vibrant Downtown" or "Maintain Financial Stability and Sustainability," or "Attract, Develop and Retain Quality Staff," I am going to do something desperate. Like wash my car. Or comb our long haired cat.
These are meaningless concepts. You should require no further proof that this city needs a new City Manager. The one we have now is fresh out of ideas.
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