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July 02, 2008
Dr. No
Despite the E-R's past contrary editorials, the City Council has taken important steps to balance the City's long-term budget.
Across-the-board 7.5% cuts in City departments and renegotiated employee group wage concessions will lead to a stronger City fiscal position for the next several years.
The E-R editors might complain about the time it took to make tough budget decisions, yet this opinion largely ignores the reality that important budget decisions should be deliberative, transparent, and give the public plenty of opportunities to weigh in.
The current Council majority has followed this deliberative process and has made some correct, albeit tough budget decisions. Kudos to Councilor Steve Bertagna for also voting with a 6-1 majority.
Bertagna is a good example of what happens when an elected official has likely decided not to run for re-election. He's taking principled positions, not just pandering to prescribed political expectations.
In contrast, Councilor Larry "Dr. No" Wahl continues to cast dissenting votes that demonstrate his lack of alternative solutions. He simply votes no, takes no responsibility, and offers no concrete steps to deal with budget challenges.
As the E-R reported, Wahl said: "Our public safety is going to suffer dramatically on this and I think it is actually quite shameful we will balance this budget on the backs of public safety and put the community at risk."
Wahl doesn't want to cut the public safety budget, which represents the largest share of the City's General Fund expenditures, but he offers no alternatives as to how he would balance the budget with draconian cuts to other departments without cutting public safety.
This is very typical of Wahl. Keep voting no and make complaints without offering any constructive alternative.
The sad part is the E-R editors will try to paint the Council majority as taking inaction on the City's budget, or at least taking too much time to finally act on the budget.
But the reality is that Wahl, who is running for re-election this year, is the real poster child for inaction since he offers no action or constructive alternative to address the City's budget challenges.
It's easy to say no when other people are doing the hard work for you. It's much harder to actually come up with alternative solutions - something Wahl hasn't done much of on the City's budget.
Just ask Bond. James Bond.
Today's Scrabble word is boojum, a spiny desert tree.
Posted by dan_nt at July 2, 2008 12:00 AM
Comments
Excellent points, Dan.
I also recommend the Chico Beat article on Wahl published a year ago. Here are some choice bits:
One city insider described Wahl as "the most difficult and irresponsible councilmember to reign in on fiscal matters."Just a year into his first term on the council, the source said, Wahl agreed in a closed-session meeting to follow the city manager's recommendation to hire only four police officers. But Wahl, realizing public safety is a popular political move, finances be damned, made a motion in the public meeting just a few minutes later to hire 14 police personnel. The rest of the council, not wanting to appear weak in public on police matters, went along and voted unanimously.
"The budget," the source said, "suddenly went from a $4 million surplus to a $3 million deficit."
and
"He's a George W. Bush Republican," said one former colleague. "He talks the talk of fiscal responsibility but pushes and votes for more General Fund spending. He's the biggest panderer to public safety unions-consistently pushing to spend more General Fund money on ongoing personnel despite fiscal warnings from city staff."
Too bad we won't see any of this in the E-R.
Posted by: Chuckles at July 2, 2008 12:26 PM