There was no physical violence at the Lindsay City Council meeting last week, but a subtle kind of civil war did break out. I think it was healthy, and long overdue.
Two issues were discussed: broken sidewalks and increasing the sales
tax, seemingly unrelated. But a third
raised its ugly head, this community’s elephant in the room: McDermont Field House and its little sister,
the Wellness Center.
There is no question but that these
two facilities have added to the community’s quality of life in some ways. However,
they have seriously detracted from our financial well-being, and that’s the
part no one wants to talk about, at least not the city’s staff. And no one probably would talk about it, except that the chronic budget deficit
they’ve created constantly “forces” us to take action against the working poor.
Let’s start with the sidewalks. About twenty people came to Tuesday night’s
meeting who had received threatening letters from the city about fixing their
sidewalks. They live on Sweet Brier
Ave., the street that leads to McDermont from Tulare Road. It’s an old neighborhood with old sidewalks
on a narrow street lined with modest houses and small yards. Until McDermont was constructed, it was also
quiet, with little traffic. Now it is
busy, parking is congested on ordinary days, non-existent on days with big
events. Residents complain of having to
clean up their yards of vomit and urine as well as fast food trash after those
events, not to mention suffering the noise from them. And now they have less than 60 days to fix
the sidewalks that have needed repair for decades.
Several Sweet Brier residents spoke
of relatives living on other streets who have had their sidewalks fixed by the
city free of charge, the result of some of this town’s transportation fund
improvements. “That doesn’t matter,”
city staff said in effect, “we’re forced by state law to impose this on you now
because we are being forced by the actions of an undesirable individual to make
them ADA compliant.” The staff’s
shameless attempts to place responsibility for their action (sending the
letters) on the squeaky man in the wheelchair, rather than take responsibility
for their inaction (i.e., neglecting
the city’s infrastructure while they built this castle in the air,) was
disgusting.
Moving on to the proposed sales tax
increase, they said, in effect “ It won’t affect you much, because people in
other cities like Tulare and Porterville, even Dinuba, already pay higher sales
tax, and you do, too, when you shop there, so no biggy. We’ll have to spend about $30 K to do it
right,” (those sidewalks on Sweet Brier are estimated to cost about $50K total,)
“and of course it’s totally up to the voters to approve it (which, by the way,
they refused to do in 2008, but that was probably because we didn’t pitch it
right.)” After a brief pause to catch
their breaths, Mr. Zigler politely concluded “We’re looking to Council for
direction.”
The Council gave them direction: they
said No Way. In a vote requiring 4
yesses, they got only two (Salinas and Kimball,) while Sanchez and Mecum turned
thumbs down. The dollar amount the staff
had estimated the increased sales tax would produce was between $188K (for
.25%) and $378K (for .50%.) Based on
figures from 2013, (the most recent available,) these numbers may overestimate
the dollars to be generated, given the decline in Lindsay’s business climate
over the last 2 years.
Had the staff proposed the tax
increase for a specific purpose, however (as many of those cities with higher
sales tax have done,) say, fixing the sidewalks in the poorest neighborhoods,
it might have been a different story. But
considering that we still subsidized McDermont $225K annually from the General
Fund – a quarter of a million dollars yearly – you can see why the Great White
Elephant was called out for review.
And that’s when the fighting broke
out in the audience between the beneficiaries and the victims. Most of the people who now must come up with
hundreds of non-existent dollars to fix sidewalks cannot afford to participate
in McDermont’s benefits or those of the Wellness Center. The opportunity costs of building these two
behemoths have caused our financial crisis and now have come due. The city staff is wanting to slough the
burden to those least able to bear it, whether that be for fixing sidewalks or
the higher costs of gasoline, medicine, toilet paper and toothpaste – what few
taxable items we are still able to purchase within these city limits.
When we find a city manager who can
see through the eyes of the poorest residents and construct solutions to help us
all rise together, then we’ll have a city worth supporting. Until then, our job is to keep naming the
elephants in the room, sacred or otherwise.
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Trudy
Wischemann is a rural advocate who writes and sings. You can send her your elephant sightings c/o
P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment
below.
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