When you think of how much penny-pinching is going on with the city leaders trying to balanace the budget you see some really odd situations.
This is a sale of "surplus property" for $1.00 each for 2 Kawasaki 1000 police motorcycles. It goes to the San Fernando Police Dept. but I am supposing that these are worth SOMETHING MORE than a dollar each.
OK, it's to a neighbor city but is this what we want to see when the city is approaching a $500 million budget shortfall.
Here is the item as it appears on the 10-30-09 agenda:
"ITEM NO. (10)
09-2209
BUDGET AND FINANCE COMMITTEE REPORT relative to the sale of surplus motorcycles at below market value to the San Fernando Police Department.
Recommendations for Council action, pursuant to Motion (Garcetti - Zine):
1. AUTHORIZE the sale of two Kawasaki 1000 police motorcycles to the San
Fernando Police Department (SFPD) for the below market price of $1.00 each, in
accordance with Los Angeles Administrative Code Section 22.547.
2. REQUEST the City Attorney to expedite preparation of the appropriate documents to effectuate the sale and transfer of the above identified surplus equipment at below market value to the SFPD.
3. INSTRUCT the City Clerk to inform SFPD [Robert R. Ordelheide, Chief ofFiscal Impact Statement: The Chief Legislative Analyst reports that the sale of two Kawasaki 1000 police motorcycles at below market value is consistent with the City's Financial Policies as the SFPD is a police department of a neighboring city, whose border is contiguous with the City of Los Angeles. This below market sale will increase the General Fund by $2.00.
Police, 910 First Street, San Fernando, CA 91340 (818) 898-1267] that the
surplus equipment must be claimed within 60 days from the date of Council
approval of the request at which time they will revert to the City's surplus
equipment pool for disposal by the Department of General Services.
Community Impact Statement: None submitted."
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I am sure that there must be some logical explanation for this that's somehow not very apparent. But for now, I need to see it to believe that the city can afford it and not just making an outright gift when there is no more money to make gifts.
Here's the motion that was made by Eric Garcetti, that ever so generous Council President, seconded by Dennis Zine, former LAPD officer, http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2009/09-2209_mot_9-4-09.pdf
And it really still looks like a gift. This just is one little part of a lot of odd things that the city does through the actions of its Mayor and Council Members that mounts up. Somebody has to tell them that they should really cut out the gift-giving when you are talking about laying off lots of employees and cutting services.
So far the city has its libraries still open regular hours, for example, but that's one area that is in danger of being cut back, and cut back a lot. There's always been a huge disconnect with that idea as the city CMs still really act as it things are NOT as bleak as they really are. They came back last month from break in Council meetings for several days of a meeting of cities in San Antonio, Texas. It's part of mixing business with pleasure, I'd say, but even more interesting is that they learned from others how to use PR, public relations, better and other ideas on management.
You might expect the Council Members to be doing the same things as before but making it sound very nice as they start using the tips on the PR end of things. They just really use up too much money without a real need. Some call it "waste."
And the Mayor? He went to Guadalajara for a Book Fair that's costing a few million dollars (federal funding for this, I believe is their justification for the huge expense. This is also to honor the mayor- and of course, that's all right down his alley, so how could anyone expect him to give a second thought to saying "No" to leaving the city again as usual. Some things just don't improve.
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