At first, the City Council sagged at last night’s latest community dialogue at Lin Howe School on whether to pursue a sales tax increase when it was announced that only two members of a shrinkwrapped audience had filed speaker cards.
Not to worry.
Former city commissioner Linda Shahinian and former Councilman David Hauptman both rendered powerhouse advice.
A day later their solutions may sound dry – economize, scout for and avidly execute reductions in pocket-sized increments at a time.
But they resonated last evening.
“You can’t solve a problem unless you know what the problem is,” Ms. Shahainian said.
This May Be a Clean Sweep
Among the most overt of her ideas was a reduction in the city’s weekly streetsweeping schedule, as other well-known cities have done to save money.
Mr. Hauptman said it is time for residents to become more participatory. Instead of relying on the city to beautify thoroughfares, he said, “citizens can take responsibility for planting their own trees.”
Ms. Shahinian tickled a nerve when she said that it is wasteful for a busy, valuable man like City Manager John Nachbar to track down material for the “invocation” he gives to open every Council meeting, especially since it is not a traditional model invocation.
Councilman Mehaul O’Leary pushed back heavily against that idea. The immigrant from Dublin said it is one of the “purely American” traditions that he has treasured for the quarter-century he has been here.
A Misspent Time?
Perhaps most critically, Ms. Shahinian chastized the Council for lengthily mourning the state-ordered demise of the Redevelopment Agency last winter since previous Councils were perceived to have been creative in ways they spent the strictly earmarked Agency funds.
Mayor Andy Weissman said that the present Council only had been together a brief period, and “the problem (she cited) goes back decades.” He also said that by spreading around Agency dollars, “this did enable the community to enjoy a higher level of services.”
Since this was not a standard Council meeting, Ms. Shahinian held the floor for 14 minutes without interruption, outlining numerous “efficiencies” that she said almost routinely can be achieved.
Speaking cautiously, Mr. Nachbar said after the meeting that “there appears to be support for a sales tax increase. Sentiment is consistent.
“It also is clear to me,” he said, “that there is a desire for the city to seek out efficiencies. As a city, as an organization, we need to continue to try to find ways to lower costs
“Even though residents are willing to provide more revenue for the city, they want us to continue to focus on improvement in efficiency, which I could not agree with more.”
As for the newborn conundrum of whether the Council should approve a half-cent sales tax increase next Monday night for the November ballot or three-quarters of a cent, Mr. Nachbar said clarity is cloudy. “The community and the Council are in the midst of thinking it through,” he said. “It doesn’t seem any conclusion has been reached.”
Six days left to decide.
