Published in edited form Wednesday, June 26, 2013 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette
The agenda that should have been considered by the Lindsay City Council last night will be considered this Friday instead. The agenda will include the approval of the budget for the coming fiscal year, a matter that concerns every taxpayer within the city limits.
Given the public importance of this meeting, it is unfortunate that it was not held at its regular time, and worse, scheduled for an evening few people would give up to attend. All the council members have known for at least two months that the budget vote would come on June 25th. But at the June 11th meeting it was suddenly discovered that the three senior members had schedule conflicts and would be absent: Mayor Ramona Padilla, Mayor Pro-Tem Danny Salinas, and Pam Kimball who, according to city clerk Carmen Wilson, would be up in the mountains on holiday and didn't want to come all the way down for this. So the meeting was rescheduled "for lack of a quorum" from 6 p.m. Tuesday the 25th to 6:00 p.m. Friday the 28th.
Forgive me, but this just feels like more shenanigans. If any one of the three were missing, that would give the two junior members the possibility of defeating the budget in a 2-2 tie vote, or using that power to negotiate for more residential streets to be repaired under the Capital Improvement Program. If two members were absent, there would still be a quorum and thus no legal reason to reschedule. It required the absence of all three, and that's what they got, leaving no room for negotiating the removal of pork barrel projects or staff positions that this money-strapped community could do without.
The most condemning project is what's called the Mirage Avenue Overlay. For the one block between Samoa and Hermosa, the price tag is $225,000. When compared to other street repaving projects during the pre-budget study session on May 14th, several council members noticed a large discrepancy. For instance, the Alameda St. Overlay from Orange to Bond, fixing four blocks of a street in far worse condition, is only $150,000. When asked for clarification, the city planner explained that the Mirage project isn't just an overlay, but also new curbs, gutters, and sidewalk treatment extending the downtown improvements one more block northward.
Several councilmembers, including Pam Kimball, seemed to think that wasn't a very good use of money and that it might better be spent elsewhere, such as overlaying Mirage from Hermosa to Tulare for $235,000. It probably was the most consensus expressed during the entire study session. When Finance Director Tamara Laken said she would take the Council's direction back to the drawing board, I thought we would see that project disappear, or at least moved to future years.
But there it is, a totally inessential project tying for second place (in terms of costliness) with overlaying Valencia Street from Mirage to Harvard, four blocks of badly cratered pavement. Some of our most heavily traveled neglected streets are not even on the repair list for the next five years, such as Hermosa from Mirage to Harvard, or Harvard from NDS to the south city limit. But there's a roundabout planned for Hermosa at Westwood for the following year, with a price tag of $375,000.
The roughest road ahead will be for the Council to reign in the staff's dreamy projects and trade them for some responsible maintenance. Since the installation of the two junior members in January, the Council has shifted from simply rubberstamping staff projects to actually questioning them. But to move from questioning to redirecting them is going to take some real public support.
We residents of Lindsay have become so accustomed to futile complaining that it's hard to imagine participating effectively. But if we want smoother streets and fewer frivolities, we have to let Mayor Padilla and other council members know.
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Trudy Wischemann is a believer in Jeffersonian Democracy who writes. Please feel free to leave a comment below.
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