Mayors Take on Schwarzenegger

Mayor Chuck Reed joined eight other mayors of California’s largest cities in Sacramento on Wednesday to ask Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to stay away from local tax revenues. Faced with a $24 billion budget deficit, the Governor has proposed taking revenues from the cities’ gas and property taxes and from local transportation funds.

Reed pointed out that San Jose has just approved a balanced budget for 2009-2010, despite an $84 million deficit at the outset. The Governor’s new proposal could set the city back an additional $50 million. In a radio interview Reed added that only Los Angeles’s roads were in a worse state of disrepair statewide.

“Our willingness to sacrifice on the state’s behalf does not, and cannot, represent a new revenue stream or a blank check for the state,” the mayors wrote the Governor and State Legislators, also pointing out that the repayment of gas tax dollars taken by the state must be repaid to the cities within three years according to the State Constitution. They added that “we must be sure that our tax dollars make their way back to taxpayers.” Read More at the Business Journal.

11 Comments

  1. Take the damn RDA money and close them down for good.  San Jose’s RDA spends bazillions Downtown and, aside from the Pavilion and the California Theater, it’s less a draw than is Santana Row, developed without a dime of city subsidy.

  2. If we enforced the death penalty in a timely manner, we’d save even more money, Kathleen.

    If you get convicted in CA, you are guilty.  I can’t speak for Texas or Florida, but in CA you get a whole bunch of “rights” that you never gave your victims. The endless appeals are what costs all the $$.  They try one tack in state court, go all the way to the CA Supreme Court.  If they fail, they go to US District Court, then go all the way to US Supreme Court.

    When that fails, they start with another tack in state court.  And on, and on, and on, ad nauseam.

    They should get one shot at it—plead all possible grounds.  If they miss one, oh well.

    There are people who have been on death row 25+ years, for crimes committed 30+ years ago.  That is outrageous, an affront to the victims, the victims’ families, and society as a whole.

    The plant manager in China whose plant sent tainted goods out was tried, convicted, and executed in six months.  That may be a bit too fast, but it’s better than our system of housing these career criminals forever during their endless, serial appeals.

    Yeah, yeah, there are rare, sometimes apocyphal stories of inncoent men sent to jail.  They may be innocent of the last crime that got them there; but they skated on other offenses.  The balance has tipped way too far in favor of prisoner’s rights (the greatest oxymoron in the English language) and away from victims’ rights, and society’s rights.  Justice delayed is justice denied.

    If we need more appellate judges to hear death penalty appeals, so be it.  Appoint them, and tell them to move swiftly.

  3. The argument that capital punishment should be discontinued because it’s expensive might be more persuasive if it was not being promoted by the very same people who go to great effort to assure that it IS expensive.
    I think they’re disingenuous.
    Capital punishment is a moral question and it should be argued on that basis- not on it’s dollar cost.

    On the main topic;
    There’s a price to be paid by the City over thge last decade for getting it’s grubby, greedy hands on State “matching funds”. That “free” money has strings attached and now we’re discovering the downside of indebting ourselves.
    Being beholden to someone you owe puts you in a position of weakness. That’s kind of why I like to pay for things up front with my own money.  Our City “leaders” need to get a clue about how the world works.

  4. JMO-I agree 100% with every thing you said. The problem is that it will never happen. So, what is the point of closing down the Cold Case Unit, testing DNA for rape victims, and other vital programs like this that would assist victims just to keep the death penalty alive and sucking the financial life out of us? (Never mind the Governor cutting benefits to the blind, disabled, elderly, and children to balance the budget.)

    Victims and their families deserve answers. If there aren’t enough investigators, ways to test evidence, and if families of victims, and Police Officers families must suffer both emotional and financial hardship due to a horrific crime, why not redistribute that money into these vital areas? It would be the first time victim’s rights got any real attention, and for once we wouldn’t be dumping money into resources for the rights of criminals!

  5. Tony,

    Nope, never worked at the RDA.  I simply feel that we get next to no value from the money the RDA spends.  What is it now that we’ve spent on trying to make Downtown into something it can never be… nearly $3 billion?! 

    Besides, it royally pisses me off that San Jose is such dire financial straits yet the RDA is flush with money.

  6. #5 Kathleen,
    I do believe JMO takes these far-out positions just to exercise his typing skills, surely he couldn’t actually believe the stuff he writes!

    Those that followed the Merc’s expose of Santa Clara DA Ben Field and his misguided attempts of prosecuting innocent bystanders wouldn’t, in clear conscience, post #3 above.
    http://www.mercurynews.com/taintedtrials/ci_9319371

    Mr. Field was about to lose his right to practice law for four years, but now the State Bar fired its chief lawyer who attempted to expunge these wayward zealous prosecutors that give the entire profession a black eye. He’ll probably be replaced by a less forceful and less effective lawyer.
    http://www.mercurynews.com/crime/ci_12556895.

    Now former DA Ben Field who harmed many innocent people and actually got some convicted might get off with a slap on the wrist. Now all his convictions are suspect, many criminals might be let go.

    I would never support letting criminals, especially vicious haters, robbers and thieves, rapists and those that prey on innocent people (including many corporations and businesses) off the hook. 
    So many lawyers ignore justice and the law (that they themselves write) in pursuit of recognition and the almighty $, then who can be trusted for truth to be revealed?

    pgp3

  7. Chuck Reed and the other CA mayors better start taking steroids!  OK, I couldn’t resist.

    By the way Greg Howe, what exactly is it with you and your hatred towards the SJRA?  Former employee are we? 

    Hopefully you’re still around in 10 years: you’ll be eating your words and loving downtown San Jose!

  8. #6, yeah, you’re right. I overreached on that one. I should have said: if you get convicted in California, its 99 44/100% sure that you’re guilty.  Yes, there is a case now and then, very, very rare indeed expressed as a percentage of criminal trials, where an innocent person is convicted by a judge or a jury.  That is regrettable; and those folks should be properly compensated.

    PGP #8—for once, I agree with you.  Ben Field should be suspended from the practice of law for a significant period of time; with reinstatement contingent upon the fact that he will never work in a D.A.s office or the criminal division of the A.G.s office ever again.

    And, D.A.s who hide/withhold evidence that results in a conviction should bear some of the cost personally; and the “fix” should be more than just a reversal.  The State Bar should look into each and every one of those cases, and exactt propoer disciplne.

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