Marina Matters – Priorities

“There you go again”. It’s a famous line from Ronald Reagan in one of his debates with Jimmy Carter. I feel we in Marina can say the same thing to Mayor Delgado and the current Council majority. There are two items on the Tuesday Council agenda that strike me as simply missing the point, again.

One is item F1 that is a report back to the City Council on the sphere of influence as it relates to the annexation of a portion of CSUMB. The second is item 10D. This has to do with endorsing a United States Constitutional amendment stating that corporations are not people and do not have free speech and other protections guaranteed to living humans by the Bill of Rights and the 14^th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Let me ask this simple question. If the City of Marina has a significant budget shortfall and will likely need to lay off or significantly reduce our police, fire and recreation departments in next year’s budget, then why in blue blazes are they wasting time on these subjects? What does this say about the priorities set forth by this Council?

Let’s look at the annexation first. The Council has asked staff to report to them the costs associated with the annexation process to incorporate the East Campus housing areas of CSUMB into Marina. This is a costly and time consuming process that keeps valuable City resources (time and money) away from bringing new revenue into the City. Question: should the City of Marina look to expand its boundaries and stretch its resources further when they already have a significant budget shortfall and know they will have to continue to cut services in the future?

As for the second item, supporting a resolution to endorse a constitutional amendment, it’s more of the same. This is in response to the Supreme Courts Citizens Unites v. Federal Elections Commission decision last year. While individual Council members may wish to endorse this or any other item, is this really what we are directing staff to deal with? Again, the more time spent on items that are not related to fixing the City’s budget and bringing in revenue the worse our City budget issues get.

I attended the Monterey Chamber of Commerce Leadership luncheon this past week where all of our area elected officials spoke. When it came to Marina’s time, Mayor Pro Tem O’Connell (who filled in for the Mayor) spoke. He talked about the City working to narrow its budget deficit and not cutting our public safety and recreation services. He then proceeded to list several projects that implied they brought new revenue to the City. This list included the Wellness Center (maybe a little sales tax), the new MPC Campus (none), the Airport grant (not general fund), the Airport Fire Station improvement (none), the Pilot Lounge (none), the Canine Institute (eventually some sales tax), improved bike lanes on Reservation Road (none), the Equestrian Center upgrade (none but maybe some revenue in the future but not general fund), the Labor Day and Earth Day celebrations (maybe some increased sales tax) and the Teen Center (none). While each of these has merit they do not address our City’s budget in any significant way.

The City Council outlined some 125 plus priorities when this Council’s term started. How many of these related to bringing in new revenue to the City? How many other items were added to this list at each Council meeting that have nothing to do with revenue? Why has this Council not found one extra dollar in revenue but continues to spend monies on projects that the City does not have? Why do they continue to direct staff away from projects that could benefit the City’s budget?

More later