This page contains more
details about Topic #7 (on the Facts Page).
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No on H's literature says that of the
expected $1.8 million of UUT revenue, $700,000 will stay
in the General Fund "to help pay for safety." That
raises the question: Since there's no absolute guarantee
that there will be a surplus again, how can we make up
for that $700,000 and balance the budget?
We believe that there is at least
$1,400,000 in expenditure adjustments and new revenue
available to the City, with at least $1,100,000 of that
being repeatable every year.
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Expenditure Adjustments.
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Past Spending Blunders. In the past the City has
wasted money on such things as lap-top computers for the
councilmembers ($20,000), prison-style stainless steel
benches on the Plaza ($24,000), improper
inspection/planning of the repairs to the pier ($780,000
overrun), and "musical chairs" involving tennis courts
and the skateboard park, which made the project cost
$550,000 more than leaving the courts where they were
and building the park elsewhere. It spent $300,000+,
$165,000 of which was wasted, when it prematurely
sidelined a perfectly good fire engine. (Fire Engine Letter.)
It wasted $230,000 replacing the traffic signals on
Hermosa Avenue at 13th and 14th Streets, locations where
the old signals worked just fine. (Had those old signals
become unserviceable, they should have been replaced by
stop signs.) The City Hall remodel of Winter 2001-2
began life with a (approx.) $700,000 budget; now the
budget has swollen to over $2 million. (City Hall Remodel
Page.)
Past Spending Blunders, continued. The council
refuses to take control of a downtown club scene that
continues to be the source of incidents costing the City
huge sums of money for legal bills, judgements, police
time spent investigating and attending trial, as well as
for disabling injuries to police officers. The recent
Roger Clinton incident, although an international
embarrassment to our town, was probably one of the less
expensive of those incidents. In January 2001 a woman
accused a Northern California man of raping her as she
was walking home from a downtown club; a few days later
her husband discovered the accused man in the same club,
followed him to the men's room, and shot him. A couple
months before that, the City paid $440,000 to settle a
suit brought by a man whom police shot when he refused
to stop his car, endangering officers, after an incident
that began when, as he left a downtown club he "patted a
woman's posterior, angering the woman's boyfriend."
(Daily Breeze, 11/10/00.) In addition to the settlement
cash, there was also the money spent to defend the City,
as well as the wages of the police who investigated and
testified. Judging by the duration of the case and the
thickness of the case file, that defense plus those
wages cost another $400,000 to $500,000. Before that,
there were the criminal and civil (ongoing) trials
involving a nightclub manager/bartender accused of
raping patrons - one of whom was 19.
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Police and Fire Overtime. Police and Fire
overtime amounted to at least $456,000 in Fiscal Year
1999-2000 (ending June 30, 2000).
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We believe that the figures provided to the
councilmember are overtime wages paid and do not include
the cost of benefits, insurance, retirement, supplies,
equipment, and other overhead. The true cost to the City
of this overtime work is more in the range of $800,000.
We believe that currently the City is continuing to pay
similar amounts of overtime. Hermosa should take a
lesson from the City of Redondo, and carefully examine
overtime expenditures.
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Car Allowance. Hermosa is only 1.3 square miles.
The automatic $350 per month car allowance given
councilmembers and department heads should be reduced,
or changed to reimbursement for actual miles driven,
saving $25,000.
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Assistant Fire Chief. The newly created position
of assistant fire chief, not yet filled but about to be,
should be eliminated, saving $180,000. The employment
brochure issued by the City indicates that the salary
will be as high as $97,197 ($7751 per month plus 1/2 of
the City-paid 9% PERS retirement). Our previous fire
chief had sufficient spare time to be made coordinator
of the City Hall remodel. Our current full-time chief no
longer carries that responsibility. In addition to him,
fire department management includes three fire captains,
who last year made $121,440, $96,794, and $126,113 (2000 Wages, includes 1/2
of the City-paid PERS retirement). The duties identified
for the proposed assistant chief should be spread among
the chief and the fire captains. If for some reason the
money must be spent, it should be used to
add entry level firefighters (or policemen), not to add
another layer to management.
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New Revenue Sources. |
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Bed Tax. Hermosa's Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT)
rate is presently 10%. Some cities charge 14%, such as
Inglewood, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The City
keeps 100% of the bed tax. Increasing Hermosa's rate to
14% would bring in $405,000 additional.
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Sales Tax. The City can, through inexpensive
measures such as thorough street and sidewalk cleaning,
the abatement of weeds and excess signage, the siting of
small-scale special events there, as well as simply talking
about those areas, stimulate business in areas of town
that have been neglected and whose sales tax receipts
have not increased in step with the economy. (See Broken
Windows by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling,
Atlantic Monthly, available at http://www.theatlantic.com/election/connection/crime/windows.htm
or http://socsci.colorado.edu/~mciverj/2481_BrokenWindows.PDF.)
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10% increase in business on PCH, Aviation, and Pier
Avenue (Valley to Monterey) would bring in another
$110,000 of sales tax annually.
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Event Security. The City's hourly charge to
provide City police to special events ranges from only
1/3 to 2/3 of the actual hourly cost to the City.
Adjusting the rates charged to big event promoters up to
actual cost level would bring in $50,000.
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Grants for Police. The City is not
participating in the GALE grant program for under-age
liquor enforcement. The neighboring 3 cities have had a
$100,000 grant. If Hermosa particpated in the GALE
program (and other similar ones) it could get
approximately $40,000.
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Sidewalk Dining Rent. The City presently charges
$1 per square foot. In many locations the space is worth
$2 or more per square foot. Get $100,000.
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Permit Fee for High Risk Businesses. The City
continues to provide an extraordinary level of police
presence in the downtown, in effect pumping the
taxpayers' money into private companies that have
doggedly refused to pay for legitimate security
upgrades. Two years ago the businesses downtown said
they were going to form a Business Improvement District
and assess themselves in order to pick up some of the
costs. They haven't. The City should now enact a new
sales permit fee on liquor and other high-risk
businesses, as the City of Santa Cruz has done. Get
$200,000. See part of the Santa Cruz ordinance, below.
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