It’s difficult for a hard-working, over-burdened city staff to
take the realistic approach to what has become four years of
patience, four years of uncertainty, four years of flat wages.
It’s difficult for a hard-working, over-burdened city staff to take the realistic approach to what has become four years of patience, four years of uncertainty, four years of flat wages.
But as sympathetic as we are, now is the wrong time for Hollister’s largest union to demand pay increases. Leaders of Service Employees International Union Local 521 did so Monday at the City Council meeting.
Since the 2002 sewer spill and subsequent building moratorium, Hollister’s crippled economic development has stripped city leaders of their ability to take an offensive tack toward a fiscal nightmare.
The severity of Hollister’s economic downturn cannot be overstated. The city simply has no money to spend on wage increases right now. If it did, we trust the Hollister Police Department would have more officers on the streets.
The voters defeated a tax hike proposal last year that would have fixed – while doing little to mend a structural crisis – some of Hollister’s problems. Citizens, in essence, said enough is enough when it comes to spending discretionary income on city government.
As tax increase supporters organize for another push this November, those same voters would take it as a sucker punch to the chin if city officials pleading a case of desperation approve pay hikes to existing workers.
Suddenly the water that plea of desperation holds evaporates, and a tax increase that may stand to ease some of those workers’ pains becomes even more inconceivable.
What we need during this time of turmoil and frustration from a patient group of workers is even more patience than they’ve shown already.
It’s a lot to ask. But it’s necessary if the city hopes to dig itself from a mess caused by previous leaders who allowed development to far outpace infrastructure.
For now, both union and city officials should agree on a short-term contract that expires shortly after voters take another look at a tax hike proposal and as Hollister presumably unravels itself from five years of stagnancy through new development.
In the meantime, city officials, namely council members, must act more aggressively to generate revenue by attracting what commercial enterprises they can and by boosting a seemingly unlimited tourism industry.
And unhappy city workers, as difficult as it may be, should consider what those in the private sector examine when business has faltered. In a free market, there’s always the option to seek employment elsewhere.
