From the L.A. Daily News, "In crisis, city hall talks new tax hikes - Council faces 1,500 layoffs if revenues aren't found to offset a more than $200 million deficit," By Rick Orlov, Staff Writer, Updated: 02/03/2010 09:02:48 PM PST
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_14329429 Here's the idea and it's not a good one for taxpayers already living in a state with the highest taxes in the country:
Bill Rosendahl is the same one who did not want to give up the Calligraphy people- and if that's something that stays in the budget in tough economic times, they you are in for problems in seeing what SHOULD go, if not that PURE LUXURY that serves to stroke people and businesses. Bill Rosendahl is one of the people behind kicking up the parking meter rates. Not anyone you would call "a friend of the public."As the City Council delayed a decision on making layoffs and eliminating city
departments to balance the deficit, some council members began talking Wednesday
about proposing new taxes to help ease the city's budget woes.
Councilman Bill Rosendahl suggested placing a parcel tax for an
undetermined amount on the November ballot to generate more revenue, in part to
help pay for the city's ballooning pension costs. Councilwoman Janice Hahn said
she wanted to consider submitting a variety of potential tax increases to
voters.
Aside from the mention of tax hikes, the story today adds that, "The council debated for six hours, with hundreds of city employees showing up to express their anger about potential layoffs." This is something of another luxury that happens only in this arena, the Los Angeles city government. It is something that most people in the private sector do not see in their jobs at all and it sounds pretty crazy when you study what's going on.
For the private sector, when the decision is made to do layoffs, usually there is not anything to do but pack up and leave. But take the City situation. It really amounts to having the employees blast the boss and then they expect to get some changing of minds as their reward. A real life, non-government job would have security called and out you go with that escort and it's over. And I don't think the city employees recognize what an oddity the system creates for them to do that. They do their work- of course they do, and was that supposed to be a unique thing for an employee? This is another place where we see reality drift off track again.
There was a photo in the L.A. Times today of a city worker wearing his bright safety vest and speaking during public comment. It said, as closely as I can remember, "What am I going to do for a job if I get laid off?" That happens to be everyone's thought in these times, and there is not going to be an easy answer.
But you know what? In city government, they flip flop so much in what the decision will finally be, that it often works. There is not that much resistance put up to the public pressure- and it's not the public, as here, it's employees. Anyone who gets a group together to fill up the seating in council chambers has a good chance of influencing outcomes. The Intimidation factor at work.
This is really why nothing happens. You might notice a theme, "We do our jobs" and "We work hard," but if you were the boss, wouldn't you say that that was the reason they got hired in the first place. That whole line of reaoning is lacking some real bsic logic, but you know with the layoff, it's financial and not performance that is mainly driving this.
And HERE, city council members have agreed to put off a decision for 30 days to decide what they will do. Meanwhile the meter is still running on mounting deficit until there's actioni actually happening.
But I will leave it at that and tell you later about the decision that WAS made: trash rate hikes for some seniors and disabled.
And how high will these proposed taxes be that will still probably be short when the time comes to find a figure?
I heard today that the revenues now compared to last year are at 97% of last year's and revenues have not been higher- the problem is in the way council and the mayor continue to spend and management continues to allow waste. There's lots of abuse in there, too, mostly known to insiders and not a whole lot of people willing to take responsibility to fix or report it.
So much needs to change here. If you agree with approving tax hikes, it's just making you an "enabler" to these spending junkies. Money is the fix for them. Elections are coming for the even-numbered council districts and new blood is called for since this crop of representatives is firmly set in their ways and it's not helping us; it's not getting the job done that they were hired to do.
And woe is us if ANY of them does becomes mayor- since being voters, we control that choice if there's enough to take that responsibility. It's bad enough now in the city with Tony V. , "the 11% Mayor"and you see he's not improved his habits one bit, even with increasing his staff to the 200 person range, they can't produce solutions. What about cutting THAT part of staffing? Those positions rate a pretty impressive pay check. Hmm?
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