By Marty Richman
Dale Carnegie, the eternal optimist and bestselling author of “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” knew how to deal with disappointment. His advice was, “When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade.” It was later that some wag added the punch line, “If fate hands you tomatoes, make Bloody Marys.” When it comes to Tuesday’s vote to approve Measure T, I’m going to do both, except I’m reversing the order.
First, I’m going to have that Bloody Mary, and then I’ll try to make some lemonade.
It wasn’t even close. Measure T passed by a hefty 2-to-1 margin, and I’m not going to demand for a recount. My thanks to all those who voted; unfortunately, about three out of four registered voters didn’t even bother. Deciding not to vote is also a vote of sorts. It means either – “Do what you want – I have no interest” or “My opinion doesn’t matter.” Either way, that’s bad news for the city. The city may have its successes and its failures, but it cannot afford to be considered irrelevant by the majority of those who live here.
Joyce and I naturally want what’s best for the city and its residents; therefore, I sincerely hope that five years from now we will have a thriving economy supported by a reliable, recurring income stream, and Measure T supporters will be able to say, “I told you so.” However, until that day comes, “I’m from Missouri,” and they are going to have to show me.
I do have some suggestions for a good start. One of the first items on the city’s agenda is going to be negotiations with the local employee unions.
The unions were instrumental in passing Measure T by contributing economic and financial support to the campaign as well as their votes and those of their families and friends. Nevertheless, we are hardly out of the woods, and this is no time for the city to agree to unsustainable wage or benefit increases.
The city’s goal for 2008 should be to restrain the total growth of wage and benefit costs per employee to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) Cost of Living Allowance (COLA), which is 2.3 percent.
That is the benchmark used to calculate the size of the benefit increases for citizens on fixed incomes. Increases in property taxes, special assessments and related bonds have already raised the total property tax bills 3.6 percent, so the taxpayers have already suffered a rate increase of 1.3 percent more than COLA.
The unions will argue that they did not get COLA increases during the period that the city was cutting back. However, there has been a huge increase in the city’s cost for employee benefits over the last decade.
The citizens also suffered the staff cutbacks, and the citizens’ “costs” of those impacts cannot be recouped.
My second recommendation is that the city should sequester 20 percent of the Measure T funding annually to provide a strategic reserve and an economic cushion just in case their projections of rosy scenarios turn out to be wrong.
Over five years these sequestrations will build up and eventually equal a year’s worth of this emergency reserve funding. The city must hope for the best, but they must plan for the worst.
Having an adequate emergency reserve will allow the city to weather the storms of the unexpected and bridge short-term deficits.
Finally, I still believe it will be very difficult for the city to meet the economic growth rates necessary to rid ourselves of this tax. If we fail for several years, it may be impossible to make up the lost ground. In private industry they say, “What gets measured, gets done.”
Accordingly, it’s vital that the city establish interim goals so officials and citizens can measure the progress of the plan. As we compare our actual performance against those targets, we can evaluate the programs and adjust our decision making to account for significant deviations.
There’s another notable quote about lemonade, it’s from the strange mind of the comedian Emo Phillips, “At my lemonade stand,” he said, “I used to give the first glass away free and charge – five dollars for the second glass. The refill contained the antidote.”
Let’s all hope an antidote is not going to be necessary.
