|
Dear friends, Today’s BEE outlined another potential theft of the public funds. Once again, there are certain city council members who want to loot the city treasury for an immoral purpose. Remember these people when you visit the ballot box. Unfortunately for us, this is the gang that can’t shoot straight. These are the people who cannot build a road to the new high school. These are the folks who cannot build an overpass to protect our children. These are the people who cannot maintain your roads, but are more than willing to raise your taxes which will benefit the developers and new commuters who will overpopulate your city. These are the people who tried to raise the hotel tax to pay for the Gallo Art Center. Despite the fact that you voted “NO!” to that tax, they are now going to resort to closed door deals to give away those millions you said NO to. YOU live in the COUNTY. YOU have already suffered higher taxes to build the Gallo Performing Arts Center. YOU are paying for the Gallo center NOW!! Just how are YOU going to benefit from the Gallo palace? The city council are the folks who cannot provide you with much needed police. Despite the fact that Modesto is a high crime city, they will not fund a quality police department. These are the folks who have given developers the right to build 7,000 more homes in our already overcrowded city, but they have no plan for increased fire protection, increased police protection or increased street maintenance. These are the folks who are 12 years late in building out the infrastructure that was supposed to be completed in 1995. THAT was the Village One “plan”. These are the folks who have already tripled your water rates. These are the folks who are now planning to quadruple your sewer rates. And these are the folks who are now planning to increase your storm sewer costs by 1000 percent! Many of us recognize that the city of Modesto is very poorly run. We have a city manager who “forgot” that he violated the city charter and spent money he had no authority to spend. The council let him get away with that. This is the city manager who hires $40 million dollars of consultants every year, because he cannot hire competent employees. The city council lets him get away with that. Now, we are told that the county government has spent $55 million dollars on a privately operated “art center” that was sold to us as costing $30 million dollars. That is $25 MILLION dollars in lousy planning, over runs, and a multiple million-dollar lawsuit to boot!!!! And your city council wants to give away YOUR money to support yet another scandalous, mismanaged, abuse of YOUR money. Just remember these folks when you go to the ballot box. Thanks, Dave
|
Opinion 
