DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO
By Liz Altieri
Be prepared to reach into your wallets so your city employees don’t have to. The City of Emeryville ’s Finance Committee (Nora Davis, Chair; Jennifer West, Member) is currently contemplating “revenue enhancements†to recommend to the full City Council. This is due to the grim news revealed at last June’s City Council “Advance†(as opposed to “Retreatâ€) regarding budget projections for Fiscal 2009-10, which started on July 1: “The current revenue base is inadequate in sustaining our cost structures.†While some savings are expected from freezing open staff positions, the City Council is looking to new revenues to address this “fiscal imbalance†– more taxes.
The easy way out is a special “Landscape and Lighting Assessment District†(LLAD) which can be imposed on property taxpayers without going through a regular election. A simple mailing to property owners – residents and businesses in Emeryville – can result in new property taxes which are weighted by the number of square feet owned, and if you don’t respond to the mailing, your vote doesn’t count. Twenty commercial property owners (count them: Wareham , Madison Marquette ( Bay Street ), Pixar, etc.) can sway this vote. Hey, do any of these people have projects pending before the City? Can you hear “Let’s Make a Deal†in any of these back rooms at City Hall? And who will really pay this tax? Their tenants, that’s who – other Emeryville small businesses AND their customers.
You may have recently received a telephone poll, which was commissioned and paid for by the City, to find out how taxpayers would react to this new tax. Couched in vague terms relating to “quality of life†issues, the bare facts of a new tax are veiled by threats of unmaintained parks and dim street lights. No where mentioned is the alternative of cutting city employee costs – which currently consume 72% of the General Fund.
Government employees, including Emeryville workers, have some of the most lucrative jobs around. Paid medical, dental and vision benefits, 37.5 hours work weeks, liberal vacation and “administrative†pay, car allowances (where, in our “Green” City?), retirement at 55 with almost full salaries – we are not talking fire and police here, but your average pencil pusher at City Hall. With state and local governments across California requiring closures of government offices and unpaid furloughs from employees, has Emeryville even contemplated further tightening its own belt before stretching out its palms for taxpayer silver? No way. Embittered employees might take a walk – to where, Vallejo ? Hey, can I apply for that job?
It is time to demand that Emeryville government look around its own house for ways to save money before grabbing at the public to continue financing its employees’ extravagant salary and benefits packages. We’re not going to take it any more. Contact your City Council members before it’s too late.
Liz Altieri and her husband have lived in Emeryville for the past seven years, and own their Watergate residence. Liz has worked in Emeryville since 1997. She is currently studying for her real estate license and working with All Emeryville Properties as a broker’s assistant. Liz is an emeritus Board member of the Emeryville Chamber of Commerce, and has been a member of the General Plan Steering Committee since its inception.
As a municipal employee, I'd like to counter the notion that City employees receive excessive benefits. Yes, the benefits are good, but the pay is not. I made a lot more money when I worked in the private sector, but the good benefits in the public sector even it out. Take away those benefits and employees would have much less reason to stay in those jobs and work hard serving the public. Also, let's not forget the kind of jobs we are talking about. In addition to public safety officials, we are talking about hard-working maintenance crews, recreation employees, child development workers, building inspectors, etc.
It seems The Secret Blog only supports workers when they work for Woodfin Suites. What happened to your support of hard-working union members?
Liz Altieri in the Secret News?! What are you guys doing?
The best point made in this letter is the idea that the 20 top corporate entities will have a disproportionate effect on this new tax since they are predisposed to vote YES (after the requisite wheeling and dealing). This is ripe for abuse and it's the little guy, the one with the least ability to pay, who'll get railroaded. Something smells rotten with this. Why can't we just have an election to decide how to raise revenue? This thing seems like it's specifically designed to pass. Another example about how democracy is not too popular among the aristocracy in Emeryville.
Guess who's reading the Secret News? City of Emeryville employees! You guys at Secret News can trash their work all you want and we don't hear a peep but when you make mention of the trough they're feeding at…look out!
From January 27, 2010 11:03 PM:
I'm not a City of Emeryville employee. I am an Emeryville resident.
Thanks for this letter Liz. I was unaware of this cash hemorrhage at City Hall. If we have to tighten our belts, I should think they should at City Hall too. I'm glad someone is looking out for us! Thanks to the secret news for this too.
While perhaps there may be a kernel of truth to some of Ms. Alteri's statements, her editorial's tone of thinly veiled hatred for our public employees is shameful.
California and the nation as a whole are in a deep recession. Cities around the state have eliminated a great deal of services and added all sorts of fees. Yes, the council majority is going about their attempt to raise taxes in a ham-handed and sneaky way. Perhaps if the council majority weren't so focused on shoveling the city treasury to Rich Robbins, Madison Marquette and Pulte Homes through sweetheart subsidies, eminent domain and the redevelopment agency, we wouldn't be facing these financial problems.
Emeryville is still better managed and has lower taxes than SF, Oakland, Berkeley, Hayward, Fremont, etc. I suggest Ms. Alteri may be more comfortable living in Wasilla Alaska.
Oh come on! Ms Altieri has a legitimate claim here. There's nothing wrong in looking out for the bottom line. In fact, without conservatives looking out for this, bureaucracies will advance beyond their effectiveness as a consequence of the universally recognized inherent self perpetuation dynamic. Liz is doing the community a service here. To claim illegitimacy based on your seeing a "thinly veiled" agenda is a defensive mechanism. Let's allow real debate in our city, people.
Isn't it always instructive that the people who have the most, want to share the least?
I have said in public, and will reiterate here, that I will support this tax if 1) City Hall convincingly demonstrates that it has done all it can do to reduce its own expenses, and 2) there is a "sunset" provision on this tax, to give the City time for either the economy to improve or to shrink its costs to match incoming revenue.
Here's a novel idea for the city as well as the country; people and corporations paying taxes each according to their means. We should build a sustainable infrastructure. Everyone deserves to earn a living wage and have benefits–everyone. It's the greedy, the rich, and the ones that own everything that have allowed this country to reach the state it is in. The only way to change it is to think in terms of all of society and not just what is in it for you.
You should be pleased to know, the council are indeed making cuts to their staff and programs–they are proposing getting rid of their early education program and all of the teachers, some who have worked there for 31 years. And boy do they make a salary–they are some of the lowest paid employees you can find anywhere in the city, even those teachers that have degrees earn pitiful pay. You may not think that early education is an important part of education or of a city; after all children don't vote therefore they are not citizens. Children are citizens right from the start, and they deserve the same rights and respect as anyone else. The city's answer to tightening its belt, means getting rid of a program that does serve families now and hopefully will in the future.
The good news is there is no argument for the center for community life. If you do not support a thriving center for children and families, such as the one we already have in Emeryville, then why on earth would you support another, especially with its price-tag?
Ever since Regan there has been an ongoing bizarre attack on public servants. Do you think the private sector will give a hoot about you, me and the community, or anything but their bottom line and monstrous profits?
Who will end up with one of the most beautifully designed centers in childcare? I guess it will be a corporate company working for one of the big boys in town. How much will they have to pay for it? Probably next to nothing; another give away to the private sector. But that is one of the only ways private employees end up managing to get their benefits paid isn't it?
Each according to their means…this is the famous "ability to pay" axiom that used to be the guiding principle for the great progressive taxation ideology from the thirties through the seventies. This model was taken apart by Republicans starting in 1980 up until now. Here in Emeryville, we've done the Republicans proud with our highly regressive business tax where the biggest businesses pay at a lower rate than the small business (the Secret News did a great story on this). So small business subsidizes big business; exactly the opposite of how historically the tax code has been envisioned.
I don't mind paying taxes, if they go towards public service (not for war). I'd pay more taxes to ensure that city employees continue to receive their benefits.
Amazing to see Liz assented to write a commentary for the Secret News. She's usually more of a "Emeryville Connection" type of person. How are you enjoying our noisy Woodfin protests these days, Liz?
edit–jan 31 8:51 can you add an a in Reagan? It was my comment.
Thanks
Nobody likes paying taxes. Saying you do is like saying you enjoy root canals, so long as they are done for the greater dental benefit. We just want the government to spend the money efficiently and we expect the taxes to be collected in a fair and equitable manner. Anxiety rises when there is a lack of credibility with those two issues. In Emeryville, there is a lack of credibility on both issues, hence letters like Liz Alteiri's.
To: Anonymous Jan. 31 @ 8:51 – we can only publish or reject comments, we can't edit them, sorry.
I find it very interesting to be corrected by someone who writes:
"Nobody likes paying taxes. Saying you do is like saying you enjoy root canals."
Not the most accurate analogy, nor is it true that "nobody" likes paying taxes. Maybe this person doesn't enjoy taking responsibility as a citizen, but I do. As a Social Dem, I view my tax-paying similarly to my charitable gift giving. I'm blessed to have a job when so many around me don't; why shouldn't I pay my fair share? Heard of generosity? Care for others? Don't tell me that completely disappeared with Reaganomics, never to return.
–Emeryville Resident who doesn't mind paying the fair share
When I used the word 'nobody' I meant virtually nobody. I said nobody "likes" paying taxes. You said you "don't mind" paying them. There's an important distinction. You're missing the point. Of course I appreciate having a government…I'm not an anarchist…they're about as rare as someone that "likes" paying taxes. I said since taxes are an unpleasant necessity, we expect the government to spend efficiently and we don't want to feel that some people are getting off easy…we want the collection to be fair and transparent.
-A fellow believer in the necessity of (good) government
That's fine Ms. Altieri, as a city employee I am leaving on my own. The benefits and extra time off do not make up for the abhorrent pay rates.
I have had enough of making 50% of the market rate for my position to have people like you trash the hard work, dedication, AND UNPAID EXTRA HOURS I have put into this community.
Why don't you rail against the corporate welfare, or the massive corruption that is evident in this city? Instead, you pick on the lowest paid, and hardest working.