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| A white elephant |
The gutting of the incredibly valuable Tree Commission for the benefit of the Green Committee is a tragedy. There's no other word to describe it. We go from a group of hard working and extremely dedicated and selfless people to a group of unproven individuals whose total purpose for existence will be to tell us how we should conduct and live our personal lives. Trust me on this, they got rid of the wrong one. The question now is why.
The RV conversation went on for a while. One of the best live blogging comments of last night came out of it.
Mayor Moran made the remark that if he were to allow RV's to proliferate in front yards, there are members of his family who would stone him. In all innocence, Commissioner Goldstein said, "We hope you're not stoned."
The one question that remained, would it really matter?
Harabedian's SMPA payback, the so-called Public Safety Master Plan, became the big topic of the night. The odd notion that the taxpayers should be expected to pay $50,000 so that a narrative can be created justifying the expenditure of 53% of our General Fund resources on this particular style of Police Department did not fly. Not that Nancy and Josh didn't want it mind you. But even they couldn't justify spending that amount of money at a time when the City is crying poverty and almost every rate and tax in town is going up.
However, what did come out of this discussion was pretty revealing. Apparently the next round of UUT voting will become a referendum on whether we keep the SMPD, or contract out for cheaper public safety services elsewhere. A particularly unhappy example of political hostage taking in my view, but hardly unusual for this area. After all, the Mayor ofLos Angeles used similar arguments in his failed efforts to raise sales taxes there last March.
We are also about to get all night car ticketing. As if we aren't ticketed enough in this town. By a 4 to 1 vote the City Council opted to hire a third party parking ticket company. One that promises to deliver enough parking tickets to the City of Sierra Madre to turn a profit. Which, of course, fits in with City Hall's daily dash for cash. An incentive that is certain to bring even more tickets to a town already infamous for its overzealousness in dunning local motorists.
But like I said, all of this paled next to the one big issue that hung heavily over the room. The UUT do-over vote. City Hall is very concerned that it will fail in the attempt to win an extension of our sky high utility taxes, and for the second, and final, time.
We are now going into what should be very interesting times. That this meeting fell upon the first year anniversary of the defeat of Measure 12-1 and 12-2 was probably just a coincidence, but you certainly couldn't have asked for more momentous timing. It's on.
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