[img]1549|left|Mr. Marcus Tiggs||no_popup[/img]It was like a scene from Halley’s Comet at last night’s monthly meeting of the Culver City Democratic Club, which is happily tucked away again inside their old home, the Rotunda Room, Vets Auditorium.
Rare.
For the first time – and maybe only time – this campaign season, promoters of Measure Y met resistance, measured, effective pushback.
Ever since last May, when the City Council began promoting a deficit-closing half-cent sales tax proposal, and polling showed broad support, passage has resembled a cinch.
Atmospheric Change
Until, that is, Marcus Tiggs, one of the community’s astute lawyerly voices, spoke out critically, but in a carefully nuanced manner in a letter to the editor of this newspaper (“Despite Good Intentions, I Am Opposed to Measure Y’s Present Form).
He made his first speaking appearance of the campaign last night.
After Mayor Andy Weissman and City Councilperson Meghan Sahli-Wells effectively delivered the pro side to a strongly receptive Democratic audience, Mr. Tiggs, a former city commissioner, low-key and admirably disciplined, took his turn.
The hub of his argument was that if City Hall had been more imaginatively aggressive in attacking the $8 million structural deficit, the hole would be less deep, the crisis less urgent.
Further, it is not too late to adopt this stance. Sacred cows – such as the traditionally untouchable departments of police and fire – should be more closed examined and cut.
Don’t Back Off
Police still will answer your calls, he assured, and firefighters will not let your house burn down.
“When we are told they can’t find anymore to cut,” Mr. Tiggs said, “I have a problem with that.”
He does not accept the oft-repeated mantra from City Hall that the 600-fulltime-person staff is maximally lean, that Culver City’s trademark municipal services quickly will shrink and whither if more people or more monies were to be subtracted.
More always can be trimmed, he held.
“Some people are wondering, ‘why am I here?’” Mr. Tiggs began. “Am I going to recommend you vote no against Measure Y?
“Not exactly.
“What I want to do is share private observations. There is no significance, except that is what I do for a living.”
First, he established a beachhead.
“I love Culver City,” said Mr. Tiggs, a 20-year resident. “We all love Culver City, and we love what Culver City has to offer. I highly respect our Mayor, Council members, Mr. Muir (CFO), Mr. Nachbar (City Manager).”
Then it was time to inspect the meat of his considered resistance to the precise rationale for the 10-year half-cent sales tax increase.
“Let’s keep in mind the backdrop, that the city has been operating at a deficit at least the last three or four years,” Mr. Tiggs said, citing $7.9 million lost to the recession. “Assuming Measure Y passes, now we are getting $8 million,” which would cover the present deficit. “But remember, before that we still operated at a deficit.
“Taking the position that we have cut as much as we can, that there is nothing more to cut – and I am not recommending slash and burn – I don’t think Measure Y is going to be a panacea.”
Never Give up
When there is no more to cut, find more to trim, he urged. The search for new revenues, for new savings, must not stop.
“In my opinion,” Mr. Tiggs said, “we need to seriously set benchmarks for how we can accomplish further reductions.”
In spite of Mr. Tiggs’s relatively detailed blueprint, though, Mr. Weissman’s and Ms. Sahli-Wells’s arguments – services will be significantly diminished if Measure Y is defeated – not surprisingly won the Democratic Club crowd, almost but not quite unanimously.
