by Jack Lee
It’s not debatable anymore, the City of Chico is headed for bankruptcy. We have barely enough cash to last 6 months then it’s lights out and the City paychecks stop.
The City manager says this is not the time to be pointing fingers, rather we need to think about the future and how we deal with this crisis. Okay, I understand. He’s in a tough spot because he serves at the pleasure of the Council and the leftists that dominate the City Council totally blew it! So, I do appreciate his need to tread lightly, but fingers need to be pointed. This is the first step to resolving any crisis. We must identify what went wrong, who did it in order to fix it. Asking only how do we fix it isn’t enough. (Washington is going through the same sort of delima right now on a number of issues.)
While the red ink flows and there are forced cuts in services, spending and personnel, the City better darn well be ramping up to find new businesses to locate here. Because, we can chop until there’s nothing left, but if we don’t have a dependable tax base that won’t mean a thing. This sort of dependable revenue comes only from commercial enterprise. It’s not coming from low income housing or more homeless shelters.
Raising fees, taxes, and borrowing money is only a temporary fix. This method eventually only leaves us weaker. The only true solution to any fiscal crisis is prudent long term asset management coupled to aggressive business development for a secure revenue stream. You can’t do that if your council is bogged down over paper v plastic, global warming resolutions, Fair Trade coffee beans, or spending money to build daycare centers for bums.
Real sustainable tax revenue comes from businesses offering locals good paying jobs. We can’t depend Chico State to save us this time. I know, it’s been our salvation in the past, but even those mega bucks are not enough, not anymore. Besides, their money is mostly from your CA tax money. It’s not new money created from taxable profits!
This must sound totally foreign to our leftists on the Council, but it’s how America was built and this is the direction we must go so we can continue to fix the pot holes, keep cops on the beat and other things you have come to expect.
All fingers and toes will be pointing to those on the City Council who have played fast & loose with the largess to the Lefties while leaving the taxpayer out in the cold.
Public safety is the ONLY thing the council should have been taking care of instead of bums, artsy projects, buying unneeded land, “sustainability” groups and “feel-good” projects.