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By PAUL GULLIXSON
I admit my memory is bad. I blame it on fatherhood. As Bill Cosby said, “Kids cause brain damage.”
But I can remember as far back as November. I remember the debate surrounding Measure P, the quarter-cent sales tax that passed with 57 percent of the vote. And at no point do I recall that being all about preserving public safety as the Santa Rosa City Council majority now contends.
The message seemed pretty clear at the time. Voters were asked to push the city’s sales tax rate up to 9.5 percent in order to avoid cutting police and fire positions and closing community centers, shutting down swimming pools and parks, having more brownouts at fire stations and taking other drastic steps.
Yes, it was vague. General tax increases have to be. If they’re specific about how the funds would be spent, then the measure would require a two-thirds majority to pass. Those are the rules.
Fortunately, we have a tendency to write things down here at the newspaper. So I went back and reviewed what the measure said, what we said and what other people were saying at the time. And it looks to me that the City Council majority is guilty of some revisionist thinking.
The measure began with simple language, “To help maintain essential city services, including police and fire protection, violent and gang-crime prevention, pedestrian safety; property and nuisance-related crime prevention, street paving and pothole repair; park safety; and recreation and youth programs, shall” the city adopt a sales tax increase?
Is preserving public safety part of it? Absolutely. But was this a mandate from the voters to fund public safety at the expense of everything else? No.
Nor was it the main thing advocates, including us, were talking about leading up to the election. Most of the discussion was about the draconian things that would happen if Measure P failed. In addition to closing a fire station and eliminating police positions, “Some parks will be closed and park user fees will be implemented,” read the ballot argument supporting Measure P. “On the chopping block may be the Ridgway and Finley Swim Centers, the Senior Center and our Homeless Center.”
The City Council also made clear that if the tax didn’t pass, Santa Rosa would start charging for parking at Howarth Park.
Nevertheless, the City Council majority gave the city manager the clear message last week that keeping the police and fire departments whole comes before everything else, including charging $5 to park at Howarth Park and, possibly, shutting down the senior center and the Ridgway Swim Center, things voters were promised would be avoided.
To address the city’s $3.9 million shortfall for this year, City Manager Kathy Millison had proposed a number of cuts, including a reduction of $700,00 from police. But based on the council’s direction, Millison put the money, plus another $50,000, back into the budget. She also says she may have found a way to keep the senior center and the Ridgway Swim Center open. But the funding for that is something of a mystery.
“We have an obligation to try as much as we can to maintain and to enhance those services that I believe (voters) felt they voted for when they voted for Measure O and Measure P,” said Councilman John Sawyer.
Here’s the problem. The City Council majority, including Mayor Ernesto Oliveras and Sawyer, appear to be lumping these two measures together in their minds. But Measure P was not Measure O. Measure O was a quarter-cent sales tax that voters approved in 2004 specifically for public safety. The breakdown was: 40 percent to police, 40 percent to fire and 20 percent to gang prevention.
Measure P was a general sales tax. It seems to me the directive was to spread the funds — an extra $6 million a year — out over many “essential services,” which would include community centers. If the council doesn’t agree, it should get creative in asking Santa Rosa residents how to spend the money. But don’t simply conclude that Measure O and Measure P were the same thing and invent a voter mandate that doesn’t exist.
Worse, the city could be shooting itself in the foot by committing to keep police and fire whole while still trying to get public safety employees to make concessions on pay and benefits, concessions that other city employees have already made.
Never mind for a moment that police and firefighters are allowed to retire at age 50 with a pension up to 90 percent of their salary (3 percent for each year of service). Never mind that they once paid 9 percent of their salaries toward their pensions but the city now pays all of it. Never mind that police officers now get paid to put on and take off their uniforms. Never mind that the city is $100 million behind in meeting its long-term pension obligations. It’s an issue of fairness and balance. Does Santa Rosa want to be more than public safety?
The share of the city’s general budget that goes to police and fire has grown steadily in recent years and now hovers near 70 percent.
Councilman Gary Wysocky is right on this one. He contends the council is “cannibalizing other departments.” “I don’t see the shared sacrifice,” he said on Thursday. “I don’t see it yet.”
I don’t either. And I’m guessing that if community centers end up being closed, parking at Howarth Park costs $5 a day and public safety employees don’t commit to reductions in benefits, voters won’t see it either and will make that clear the next time the city comes asking for more money — if not before.
Paul Gullixson is editorial director for The Press Democrat. Email him at paul.gullixson@pressdemocrat.com. Call him at 521-5282.
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Another arguement that measure P was meant to support ALL General Fund areas and not just public safety was the fact that the City set it up as a General Tax and not a Specific Tax like measure O, even though general wisdom says that General Taxes are harder to get passed than Specific Taxes.
Thank you Paul and Mr. Wysocky.
Measure P language clearly supports your point of view. The viewpoint expressed by On-To-Truth-And-Justice (i.e., Meas P suggested “safety first”) is wrong.
http://www.smartvoter.org/2010/11/02/ca/sn/meas/P/
If our Mayor and Council members cannot get the facts straight, they shouldn’t be in a position of leadership.
I am glad I did not vote for Measure P because this is exactly what I expected to happen. We need meaningful reform, not more debate. We all know what needs to be done-we just need the folks that are getting it now to give up some of what they are getting. Will they?
Thanks for the info LETSBEREASONABLE.
From looking at the City website it seems the General Fund is at essentially the same dollar level as 10 years ago…so, yes, the entire budget is slowly being swallowed by one “untouchable” employee sector.
Comparing Police Chief pay, for instance, you’d have to scratch your head a bit when the Chief of a City of 800,000, (San Francisco), makes a handsome $300k or so per year while the Chief of a City of 150,000 (Santa Rosa) makes $200k or so.
Either SF is not paying their Chief nearly enough or we are paying far far far too much for ours.
By the way, the Chief in a City of nearly 4 million, (Los Angeles), makes about $310,000.
http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2010/11/02/who-was-best-paid-police-chief-in-california-oc/files/2010/11/other-police-chiefs-in-california.pdf
What amazes me is the wealth of opinion, with little facts to base them upon. Has anyone who has commented actually reviewed the entire city budget? I know I haven’t and I also know that the budget is comprised of many different funds and expenditures outside of the general fund and it’s expenditures. While I agree with the general statements that public safety employees need to contribute to their beneifts, like most workers do, I also agree that the core purpose of government is public safety and infrastructure, not community social programs. It appears that with all the wonderful things the tech age has given us, one con is the lack of real knowledge, we all seem to relate sound bites and bias and limited news articles with fact and then base our opinion upon them. I sincerely hope we can all do better then that and if not, I can only apologize to our beautiful children now for the horrible situation we leave them.
Nice article Paul
@GAJ – looking at old budgets for the percentage of the General Fund for Public Safety:
95/96 – 45%
00/01 – 50%
05/06 – 57%
10/11 – 60%
@GAJ – if I remember correctly, about 10 years ago public safety made up about 45% of the general fund. This would mean that non public safety has dropped from 55% to 30% – or almost cut in half – during the last 10 years…
“Yes, it was vague. General tax increases have to be. If they’re specific about how the funds would be spent, then the measure would require a two-thirds majority to pass. Those are the rules.”
What don’t you get? You supported a sales tax to increase revenue to the general fund. You endorsed candidates for city council that you thought would best allocate the distribution of those funds. The City is broke, someone has to make the hard decisions.
Nah, so much simpler to demand constant services with no increases in taxes. This is the mantra of the republican welfare class. On what planet do you live? Are things better there?
Let’s not forget that this is a hideous republican plot to drain taxes to fund tax havens for the rich and wars that sadly can not be won. Thank GW Bush.
Since they have taken a balanced budget and thrown it away, the republicans are using this as an excuse to defund or eliminate every program they can. Based on ideology, not common sense.
You want a second civil war? You’re going to get one. What would be so bad about returning the the Clinton budget and tax rates that resulted in a balanced feder budget in 2000?
Republicans do NOT want a balanced budget. They want economic disaster that will give them the excuse to kill Social Security and Medicare.
Then we can see what revolution looks like. Think about your parents. Ready to support us privately after you pull the rug out from under the benefits we have paid for and counted on all our lives?
Then we can see what class warfare looks like. Guess we all have enough guns?
I for one would have liked Mr. Gullixson to let us know what % of the budget Public Safety ate up 30 years ago, 20 years ago and 10 years ago.
It would put into perspective the stunning and apparently insatiable money grab this current generation of Public Safety employees continues to foist on the taxpaying public.
They won’t be satisfied, it appears, until they hit 100%.
I’d also be curious to see what City departments have been gutted in that time to feed the monster.
Good ariticle. No differnet than the previous bicycle lovers going one way.
One question, why all the money for bikes when they pay no license fees? Why share the road with someone who does not pay for it.
Thank you Mr PAUL GULLIXSON and everyone at ‘The Santa Rosa Press Democrat’
And thank you Councilman Gary Wysocky.
“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Thomas Jefferson
Mr. Gullixson, your opinion piece is what is called a “plausible denial.”
The Measure P language speaks for itself. Public safety first and then social services. You are going into the weeds trying to explain the unexplainable. The voters were not confused. You and Councilman Wysocky may not have liked the outcome, but that is democracy. Something liberals often don’t appreciate.
These kinds of measures voters are asked to vote on always get into trouble. There are always those politicans and editors who intrepret what the measure was ment to say with what they believe the voters really wanted. This point has been proven time and again in Sacramento.
It is one of the reasons California government is so dysfuntional and broke.
It looks like this city council has the backbone to deliver what was put on the ballot this time out.
Doesn’t this just make you sick? The last bunch on council wanted to spend all of our money on bicycle overpasses and rotaries. This bunch is throwing what little money we have left to the bargaining unit that already enjoys the lion’s share of the budget. Anyone with a lick of sense can see that until the police and fire folks take some meaningful concessions to their pay and benefit packages, we will remain on this route to financial ruin. Paul, you said it right. Shooting ourselves in the foot is exactly what we’re doing. What incentive is there for police and fire to make those necessary concessions if we’re going to sacrifice every other city service to sustain them. Pretty soon all we will have left is police and fire. Goodbye parks, pools and senior services.
This is precisely why we should resist all future tax increases. They get it, and then do what they want with it. If the intent of the voters gets in the way, too bad. Regardless of alphabetical order, ‘P’ was not supposed to be the logical next step to ‘O’, it was a good faith and generous gesture on the part of the people to try to be part of a solution that was supposed to help make their city whole, not just public safety, and not just to bridge the gap between the contrivance of the next bait and switch. At this point, I have very little doubt that any and all allegations of campaign improprieties and back room politics have everything to do with this decision. The ability to draw any other conclusion defies logic, and any attempt at denial would be an insult to the collective intellect of the citizens. Yes, Mr(s) Olivares, Sawyer, Bartley, and Ours- I’m calling you liars, thieves, corrupt, and treasonous. At this point, regardless of how the city’s solutions play out, the first order of business should be your removal.
How about we do a little math. The current general fund budget is $109 million. Next year’s general fund, thanks mostly to the sales tax hike, is expected to be $116 million.
But, it seems, a $7 million increase in funds was insufficient to sustain current city services starting July 1. There remains, we are told, an almost $4 million shortfall.
Apparently, the city needed a revenue increase of 10%(!) to keep services at the current level. If true, the preceding exclamation point was appropriate.
While I guess immediate budget cuts are unavoidable, that’s hardly the conversation the city council and city manager ought to be having.
We aren’t they focused on fixing the underlying problem? Otherwise, we will just continue to careen from one budget crisis to the next and the need to raise taxes will be never ending.
Isn’t ‘selective memory’ great? It always amazes me how politicians, government, city employees, police and fire service employees and unions are able to invoke selective memory to always get more from the taxpayers, no matter what was promised us on the last ‘you gotta pass this fee/tax increase’ or everything as you know it will come to an end.
Here’s something that needs to come to an end: always demanding more and more taxes for even less service. When you have anywhere from 45% to 70% of government budgets going to the cost of labor, medical and retirement costs, something’s got to give.