For
the last two weeks I’ve been studying the civil war in El Salvador during the
1980’s, learning its causes and consequences.
When a friend asked why, I jokingly said “It puts my work on the City of
Lindsay in perspective.”
There’s more truth to it than I
thought. While I can attend a council
meeting without fear of being disappeared, tortured, raped and murdered,
there’s a parallel between what happens here (or doesn’t happen) and the state
of civil non-discourse that existed in El Salvador prior to that war. The primary one is the distance the haves
keep between themselves and the have-nots, and the way “having” is used to
seduce the barely-haves and might-not-haves into putting their eggs in the
haves’ basket.
That’s what I saw clearly half-way
through Tuesday night’s council meeting.
Two groups had come to register their protest over budget
decisions: the city employees furloughed
last week with their union representatives, and members of the public, largely
Spanish-speaking, who feel the proposed increases in sewer and garbage rates
are unfair. Many of the city employees held signs that fingered missing cash
reserves, the official reason given for cutting their incomes. The members of the public delivered almost
400 signed ballots for the hearing on Prop. 218 that evening, which they had
gathered in less than 5 days.
Many people spoke during the public
comment period, which was extended to accommodate English-Spanish
translation. Members of both groups were
clear about the hardships being imposed by the city, although there was plenty
of confusion about who to hold responsible.
Later in the meeting Danny Salinas blamed it on them for not attending
the budget workshops this spring, as if these consequences would have been
obvious during those discussions. They
would not.
The concerns of both groups went
unanswered, though discussion went long into the night. Facts were hard to come by as figures flew
through the air. The SEIU union
representative, who was beginning to make sense out of some of them during
Tamara Lakin’s budget discussion, initially was denied the right to ask
questions during that agenda item by the mayor, despite the fact that we had
just cemented that right a few months ago.
In the end, in the face of both
groups, three councilmembers - Danny Salinas, Pam Kimball and Mayor Padilla -
first voted to raise the sewer and garbage rates. Then they approved the pay increase
negotiated for the police by Bill Zigler, despite the 10% paycut he had dealt
the non-uniformed employees the week before without council’s knowledge, much
less approval.
By that time, many of the city
employees had bought the argument that we can’t afford to subsidize the
water/sewer/garbage account (essential city services) and must make it pay
despite the hardships it might inflict on those people whose incomes are
hanging by a dry thread in this drought.
They did not seem to find it troublesome that we still subsidize
big-time both the McDermont Field House and Wellness Center from the general
fund, which are non-essential services that only a portion of our population
can afford to enjoy. Apparently that
lucky portion includes some of our city employees, despite their 10% paycut.
Keeping a distance between ourselves
and those who have to struggle to stay alive may feel safer than trying to
figure out what to give up for equality’s sake, what to do to help close the
distance. But if that pledge we say at
the beginning of each meeting, which ends “with liberty and justice for all” is
to mean anything, we need to make decisions that don’t widen the gap.
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Trudy
Wischemann is a community development researcher who writes. You can send her your distance-closing
examples c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or visit
www.trudysnotesfromhome.blogspot.com and leave a comment there.
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