Last night the Fullerton City Council held a special meeting. They called it a budget workshop, but it sure turned into a lachrymose affair. The weepy speechifying seemed more than a little rehearsed.
The meeting itself was more or less a rehash of previous meetings. Of course it should have been scheduled for July 7th but that would have interfered with the “community” budget sessions that week which staff claimed had 30 attendees; the survey that went out elicited about 70 responses. 100 out of 150,000 people. They had to admit that statistically, the responses didn’t mean much.
In an almost miraculous turn of events, staff cut the earlier projected deficit all the way down to $3.8 million. How, you ask? By eliminated vacant positions and jockeying some funds around.
Staff presented three scenarios: A, B, and C, in least to most draconian order, all draconian, of course. Option C basically kept the reserve funds around $16,000,000 by not using them in the next three years. None of the options involved laying anybody off or negotiating pay cuts with the unions. Keep that in mind, because the weepy handwringing that followed would make you think personal catastrophes had occurred.
Department by department got up to sing the blues to a receptive council. Goddamn, you’d think we were in the Mississippi Delta. The upshot was that nary a single department head had the grit to proclaim they’d get it done no matter what. No, that would be bad form.
I learned a couple of interesting facts. A police corporal – a corporal, mind you – costs $300,000 per year; and an Associate Planner is currently subsidized by the General Fund to the tune of $70,000 a year. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with the latter, the amount is shocking. It either means that Planning fees would not be sufficiently recovering costs, or that someone was projected to be costing the public an awful lot for general, non-billable time in City Hall.
I would be remiss indeed if I didn’t mention the good offices of consultant Grant Thornton, who, by means of a change order, presented a completely useless report whose “conclusions” were a summary of perfectly obvious statements. It was maddening to watch the consultant read off the Power Point slides, verbatim. I wonder how much that cost.
Public comments were highlighted by an extremely angry woman named Jody Vallejo, Chris Norby (who again touted the services of the Sheriff’s Department and the sale of surplus property), and a call in from the funny little boy-man Dominic Moonbeam
Then to the Council. Mayor Fred Jung read an odd and uncharacteristically long oration in which he took personal responsibility for the City’s budget situation and yet defended some of his more dubious votes and noted that Placentia’s privatizing their paramedics did them no good since they too, were having a budget crisis, a very strange and illogical statement. He offered that the unanticipated ICE intrusion into Fullerton was somehow responsible for some contribution to Fullerton’s financial woes, but gave nothing to support that claim. Overall, I couldn’t really figure out what in the world he was trying to communicate, although if I heard rightly he did seem to suggest at one point that a general sales tax was needed.
Shana Charles and Ahmad Zahra blathered on and on. I had to leave off to get a couple of frosty beverages. I did get back in time to watch “Dr.” Zahra compete with Jung to take responsibility for the situation, and that was pretty entertaining.
Fortunately, Jamie Valencia had little say other than to point out the relation between budget problems and municipal credit ratings; she emotionally and awkwardly read a prepared statement about the crisis, but reminded attendees that she’s only been around for a year and a half.
Nick Dunlap concluded the speechifying with a soliloquy that included the claim that somebody in the Sheriff Department confided to him that contracting with Fullerton for police services wouldn’t work and that the City would owe the Federal government an untold fortune if the Fullerton Airport were redeveloped. I think both these claims need to be substantiated.
As usual everybody sang the praises of “economic development,” the talismanic chant of those who are either extremely ignorant, extremely cynical, or extremely desperate. Just because it’s been an unproven bureaucratic activity in the past is no reason to doubt its efficacy in the future; it must be protected, even nurtured! No one said anything about proving that economic development even pays for itself. Don’t ask, don’t tell.
Needless to say, everyone also sang the praises of “police and fire” the ruthless and untouchable combination of unions that makes or breaks candidates and whose member suck up 70% of the General Fund.
The three-hour weep-fest ended in the usual way a morass of confusion out of which the City Manager, Eddie Manfo is supposed to make a final agenda item that will lead to an approval of the budget, now two weeks late. He pleaded for some direction about how to come back but got none. Oh, well. Eddie’s services cost us at least $400,000, a year, even more than a police corporal, so he ought to be able figure out something plausible.
In the end Manfro asked if it would be okay if the budget decision were made in August. Nobody said no. Then they all stood up and went home.
