A lesson on Accountability

By Colleen Jordan

City Accountability

Last month, in response to a suggestion made by Brent Britschgi, a former councilman and mayor of Redwood City, Councilman Matt Leipzig proposed the Council cut in half Redwood City's utility user's tax - a 5% tax on your cell phone, home phone, cable TV, power and water bills. (Redwood City is one of only two cities on the Peninsula that taxes our utilities.) He reminded the Council that this tax was imposed over 10 years ago for specific capital projects, including the police station and the library, and that revenue from the tax has doubled beyond what is needed to pay the bond debt service. The Council spendmeisters went nuts! "That's irresponsible - we'll have to cut the police force and shut down capital improvement projects!" they exclaimed.

What's irresponsible is the wanton spending of taxpayer money neglecting a proper process of accountability and oversight. The Council recently approved a budget containing increases of nearly 4% across the board. You see, sales tax revenue is way up, the utility user's tax revenue is up, and property tax growth has almost doubled, so the city is rolling in dough. The budget gets inflated to keep up, and little attention is given to how responsibly the money is spent.

Cutting expenses and spending more responsibly should be a priority for the City. How about giving City staff the opportunity to find ways to cut costs, without sacrificing service, and rewarding them with a bonus that represents a percentage of the savings? A little motivation could go a long way.

Here are three simple ideas:

Idea #1. Start by reviewing all the bills. Especially the big ones, like the million dollar PG&E bill. (A city employee recently revealed what he believed to be years of PG&E overbilling. The matter is under investigation.) The city manager himself admitted that they "just can't review all the bills." Apparently, the city pays less attention to its million dollar utility bill than the average citizen does for their household bills. Having too many bills is no excuse.

Idea #2. Next, how about toning down that luxury skateboard park! I think it s great that skateboarders will have a place to entertain themselves, as long as they help build it and maintain it if it is going to be city-funded. But $150,000??!! That's more than twice what Half Moon Bay's or San Mateo's parks cost! The process: nobody went out and got estimates, or talked to other cities about how they got their skateboard parks. Thirty kids just walked into City Hall and asked for a park and the Council threw $150,000 at them. Now that everyone knows there's $150,000 in the kitty, how many bids do you think the city will get for much less than that?

Idea #3. How about taking part in the Power Pool sponsored by the Association of Bay Area Governments that allows local governments to leverage their combined purchasing power to negotiate better rates on their power usage? San Carlos has saved up to 7% on their utility bills by participating in this program. Redwood City, while given the opportunity, has yet to participate in this program even though 65 Northern California cities have signed on. It's so easy to spend other people's money. We need to encourage the Council to be accountable to the taxpayers that support this city.