|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Submitted by Jan Batcheller and Doug Miller
A budget reflects our values.
Pleasanton’s leadership has failed its residents in balancing the budget. They propose cuts directly impacting us — fewer trash pickups, reduced park maintenance, shorter library and aquatic center hours, elimination of teen programs and school crossing guards, and reduced police and fire services — while barely touching the city’s travel budget.
This raises questions about whose values our current leadership is representing.
For the past year, the mayor, City Council and staff have spent approximately $400,000 on a 1/2-cent sales tax increase ballot proposal without convening a budget committee for an independent review of cuts.
Pleasanton Unified School District recently convened an independent committee to scrutinize their budget. Why didn’t the mayor and City Council do the same? And when a councilmember suggested oversight for the measure — if it passes — staff indicated it wasn’t needed.
This isn’t new. When city leadership pushed through a significant water rate increase, they failed to consider alternatives to ease the impact on residents. This pattern of going hat in hand to the public due to poor leadership is eroding trust.
Instead of addressing these issues, leadership resorts to fear mongering about essential service cuts if a sales tax increase is not enacted. The mayor even suggested that police and fire services may be compromised without additional taxes, which is unacceptable.
Residents do not trust the city’s information and feel financial decisions lack transparency. This sentiment is justified, as financial decisions appear half-baked and rushed. At the last council meeting, a councilmember claimed the fiscal cliff wasn’t their fault, yet took credit for cost savings from over a decade ago. This contradiction only adds to the distrust.
We had advance warning of this fiscal tsunami but did not heed the signs. Inflation spiked in 2021, yet the city didn’t adjust spending accordingly, and now is asking voters to bail them out or lose important services.
When citizens hear that over $500,000 remains in the budget for staff and council conferences, we need to ask: what other expenditures can be reviewed to ensure a balanced budget that reflects our priorities?
Pleasanton’s leadership must cut non-essential spending before threatening essential services. This failure undermines trust and does not reflect our community values. Please attend the Pleasanton City Council meeting at 7 p.m. on July 16 where the proposed tax measure will be decided.
Editor’s note: Jan Batcheller and Doug Miller are longtime, civically engaged Pleasanton residents. Miller, who moved to Pleasanton in 1991, has been active in veteran issues and is currently a member of the PUSD Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee. Batcheller, who has lived downtown for 50 years and owned two small businesses on Main Street, was a founding member of the Pleasanton Downtown Association and served on the boards of Museum on Main, Hope Hospice and Cal State East Bay Foundation.
Excellent guest opinion! I’ll be at the meeting. This council majority of 4 has lost our trust!
People supporting this current city council majority expect to be spoon-fed, i.e., skate park, and old house funding. A handful of personal ideologies influenced this majority council spending. It is time to cut the handouts to all those demanding amenities.
This council majority has engaged in poor decision-making, ignorance, undermining the contributions of others, lack of expertise, flawed communication, micromanagement, integrity issues, and resistance to change.
Thanks for writing. There is a lot to research here. Appreciate your information.
Since it appears that the public has trust concerns will city leadership, it would seem to make sense to have community oversight around new money generated by the sales tax. Isn’t San Ramon talking about doing that with their proposed sales tax increase?
A note regarding deception and sales tax discussion: In a recent city council meeting one council member stated the sales tax in Newark California is 10.75 percent, which is what Pleasanton’s sales tax rate will be with the half-cent increase. That council member ignored the Tri-Vally cities. Livermore is 8.75, San Ramon is 8,75, Fremont is 9.25, Dublin is 10.25. That council member quotes a city not in the Tri-Valley. An example of the deception on this Pleasanton Majority Council.
“When citizens hear that over $500,000 remains in the budget for staff and council conferences, we need to ask: what other expenditures can be reviewed to ensure a balanced budget that reflects our priorities?”
Reviewing the expenditures sounds great but the current members of the city council (excluding Balch) are not going to admit their poor financial planning and meaningfully reduce costs/spending. They’ll dig in, claim the spending is justified for the continued “quality of life” of residents, and demand a tax increase.
New leadership (members being voted out) is required to resolve this issue.
Michael,
I didn’t get the same numbers you did regarding sales tax rates in Livermore, San Ramon, or Fremont. Could you share where you got those numbers from?
sjd:
I searched again with the same Microsoft search engine.
Livermore 10.25 – Corrected
Fremont 10.25 – Corrected
San Ramon 8.75 – Unchanged
Danville 8.75 – Unchanged
Dublin 10.25 – Unchanged
Post Script: Once again, the 4-fold majority has gone against the tide and voted 4 to 1 to place the measure on the November ballot. The best thing about that is that it is less costly to put it on the general election ballot rather than holding a special election. One other partially positive note is that the council doesn’t get the final say in imposing the tax. We, the registered voters haven’t lost that privilege just yet, so it will be imperative to exercise our voting rights come November 5. We’ll need to educate ourselves and make certain the budget numbers we’re being fed are accurate, not inflated, and that ALL means of mitigating shortfalls are implemented. Not just the hot-button, scary ones being proposed now. Pencil-sharpening needs to be done across the entire budget and every nook and cranny needs to be examined for cost-cutting potential.
It is up to voters now to make sure we aren’t spoon-fed numbers that are exaggerated to make the situation look more dire than it really is. They got the water rate increase they wanted despite many residents stepping up to show them how it could be less severe. We need to step up again, and this time we have the final say. If you have moved since the last election, have you re-registered at your current address? Check the county elections site to be certain you are registered. It’ll only take a moment, and your vote has probably never been more important.