Getting Expenses Under Control
One of my urgent priorities after getting elected to the City Council is going to be prioritizing our expenditure. As a CPA, fiscal responsibility is the number one skill that I will bring to the City Council. I strongly believe that the budget can be balanced without either increasing our taxes or imposing new ones.
How do we do this? This can be done by getting our priorities right and refocusing on city government’s core missions: maintaining our infrastructure, providing essential services such as police and fire, and preserving our neighborhoods.
The current Council has lapsed in all three of these areas. Our roads and bridges are falling apart while we are trying to spend millions of dollars to build a huge underground parking structure; all told, we will be spending close to 100 millions dollars (including interest payments) for the police court complex, yet the current administration seems to be finding it difficult to adequately fund our police and fire services; PUDs are being approved all the time while the neighborhoods’ wishes are ridiculed and ignored.
We really need to get back to basics and do what we are supposed to do in terms of the City Council mission. We need to negotiate with the City employees’ unions in good faith in order to be fair to the tax payers as well as the employees. We also need to urgently make provisions to bridge the unfunded pension liabilities of the City.
We can definitely reign in on ballooning overheads, stop all gigantic white-elephant construction projects and eliminate waste to trim to expenditure side of our budget.
Transparency
I believe that transparency in governance should also include transparency in the accounting and budgeting systems. Ballooning overheads that are not being reigned in are merely being shifted around the various “buckets.” I believe that this does not do justice to the taxpayers who find it impossible to grasp the real cost of most services. It also leads to faulty decision-making processes. For example, burying excessive overheads in another departmental budget might lead one to believe that the unit to which the costs are transferred is running a loss and thus should be privatized. This leads to the potential loss of assets such as golf courses and parks. I strongly believe that the accounting and budgeting systems have to be completely overhauled. This would provide the residents an opportunity to debate issues of costs and choices in a meaningful way. Meaningful public debate cannot occur in an environment of incomplete and/or incorrect information.
This leads us to the next related issue of accountability. Having a rigorous accounting system would ensure that departments are held accountable for their operational efficiency, costs and revenues. Again, this would facilitate reigning in of costs as inefficiencies cannot be hidden in unrelated activity budgets and financial statements.
Services
*Maintain our roads and bridges.
*Improve and expand our recycling and solid waste removal programs.
*Adequately fund public safety; stop the movement towards cutting police and fire services.
*Improve snow removal services.
*Maintain our parks, lakes and other natural habitats.
*Halt the privatization of golf courses and pools.
Environmental Quality
The Environment is another big issue that has been neglected under the current council. Installing solar panels in Kerry Town and parking meters are symbolic and not substantive. Here are some of the issues that I feel that need to be addressed.
* Completely halt the sale or lease of park lands for developments or parking lots.
*Expand recreational options by preserving and maintaining our natural resources such as parks, woods and waterway. Save Huron Hills golf course from privatization. Save Argo dam and preserve the multitude of opportunities it presents for recreational activities.
*Implement Allen’s Creek Greenway.
*Expand alternate modes of transportation by improving bike paths within the city; expanding bus frequency and improving connections. Improve services within the city before considering expansions outside the city limits.
*Stop building projects that do not take into consideration environmental hazards such as increasing the possibility of flooding in the city.
*Expanding green improvements programs to home owners as well; rebates for solar panels, water saving toilets, etc.
Neighborhood friendliness
*Increase the pool of affordable housing without destroying established neighborhoods and the existing pool of affordable housing; question the alleged benefits and projections behind the justifications for the PUDs.
*Uphold zoning ordinances. Extensive use of PUDs has become a way of ruling by exception. PUDs in general allow politicians to pick winner and losers. It also moves power from institutions to powerful individuals (politicians/administrators) and undermines democracy.
*Affirm the right of neighborhoods to determine their character.
*No special favors for developers.
*Density should be for downtown area. Jumping zoning areas and building density into near downtown and other areas is in effect contributing towards sprawl.
