The present administration and city council are going all out to try and generate revenue through sales tax initiatives, refinancing large bonds and borrowing month to month payroll money through anticipation loans. The City of Clearlake”s cash flow problems were not always such a desperate situation as they are today.
The financial deficiencies were exacerbated by the increase in wages and personnel that City Hall deemed was necessary. This expansion in personnel and salary increases started moving forward about 1985, and soon after that an oversized city hall was built.
The actual number of public services that were available in 1982 have been eliminated. This city desperately needs their own animal control department as we had in 1982-1984.
Another big loss was the cancellation of the weed abatement program that required all property owners be responsible for their brush and grass and the disposal of same, whether they were living on the property or absentee owners.
The city hall is only open 80 percent of the time and closed entirely one day a week. There is more broken down or abandoned vehicles parked on private property than there was 10 years ago. The main arterial streets in the city are a dirty mess of gravel, silt and debris. Just recently a $47,000 striping job was accomplished by way of a city contract. It is standard procedure to wash and clean with vacuum suction street sweepers before performing this type of public works painting. This didn”t happen in Clearlake. Clearlake”s public works department allowed the painting over dirt, gravel and whatever was left in the roadway for the last 20 years.
A half cent sales tax is not going to save the City of Clearlake. It will only finance more inefficiency at City Hall and widen the separation between the citizens and their government. Apathy is the password in this community and the information gap surrounding the city council continues to widen.
You ask how can that be with such a “new” city council? First of all there is probably not even four score and 10 people out of Clearlake”s entire population that know what is possibly going on in City Hall. Only about half of that number have any technical understanding of public works, standard infrastructure or construction engineering. The entire city council doesn”t have any knowledge or experience with infrastructure and public works and they hired a city administrator that”s in the same category except for her political exposure in previous public works experience.
The city council”s argument for Measure “Z” is to improve our infrastructure by improving the major arterial streets first. If City Hall could even realize $500,000 annually from the proposed $800,000 collected, then they wouldn”t even be able to reconstruct and properly finish Lakeshore Drive from Highway 53 to the Clearlake Park Post Office. In other words, $500,000 for 20 years is $10 million and that would not be enough money to build Lakeshore Drive to even average standards.
Once again, I will repeat what the public needs to understand, and that is the city council does not have a definite composite infrastructure needs plan. The administrator and city council keep talking about “paving” the streets, and they need to think roadway structure and the costs related to the first phase of street construction.
To adequately remove the rain water from our City”s streets would take 40 years of sales tax receipts, because right now the costs would exceed $20,000,000 for a storm drain system.
I have repeatedly asked this city council and administrator to consider a city wide construction bond to build all the streets properly and develop a modern public works plan to take care of the system. Instead of being open minded and looking for solutions to Clearlake”s infrastructure and cash flow problems, our city government has spent years speeding down a dead end alley with a cliff at the end. This “pie in the sky” planning has put Clearlake in a no win situation financially with an infrastructure system almost completely wiped out in one part of the city and never having been constructed in the other parts of Clearlake.
The city council once again has chosen a band-aid quickie way to fix an on going serious problem. The city coffers are empty and the city streets are going, going, gone! Instead of voting yes for Measure “Z,” it would be best if you insisted that the city council seek a long range plan that includes a city wide street bond along with a practical solution to controlling Clearlake”s financial debts.
Frank Brumfield is a resident of Clearlake.
