No matter the flak I faced every day, the basic tenet of all the decisions I made and the policies and projects I proposed was to do the right thing and be fair and equitable. That forms the foundation of good public policy.
I told the city employees I would always treat them equally. Not only are they dependent on their incomes, they are working in good faith. The Charter mandated number of police and fire personnel is nothing more than a political ploy...used first when the income tax was adopted and later when the income tax rate was raised. It is being used again. There is no “theory” behind any of the personnel numbers.
What is not being discussed by the city is how to be fair and equitable to the employees and the public. What is the public currently getting for their income and property tax dollars and their water, sewer, sanitation fees and fuel tax dollars? Paved streets? Replaced water lines? Better guarantees that sewage won't back up into their homes? Flood protection?
Last year the auditor proposed and council agreed to put on the November 2010 ballot a property tax renewal to pay for flood defense. I proposed that even after the election, the city should develop a "flood defense fee" to replace the property tax. The concept went right over the heads of the council (save 2 members) and the city auditor. It also went over the heads of the local media and was misused to suggest I was raising water rates.
I voted no on this issue last November…because this method is unfair and inequitable. Why should only property owners (primarily residential owners) pay for the city's flood defense? What about all the exempt (university, schools, government offices, hospitals, churches, etc.) or abated (primarily downtown where it would flood the greatest) properties? Why do they not share in this expense?
And besides…the revenues raised by this method are insufficient owing to new federal requirements. There are now two options:
1) the levies be decertified by FEMA; flood maps be redrawn and flood insurance would be required for those properties in newly outlined flood zones
2) the city will need to find the several million dollars for levy/flood defense repairs
Unsound proposals and decisions appear to rule the day with this un-elected mayor and council. The concept of fair and equitable appears not to be in their lexicon.