The new City Manager from Riverside County and his very new Finance Director from San Diego have told the citizens of Chico that we must cut $4.8 million from our budget or there will be dire consequences. They, the ultra conservative local daily and their friends on the City Council say we must use a majority of this year's discretionary money to pay back money borrowed from fluid and stable rainy day funds during the recession and State money grab.
I ask myself, "what's the rush." The impact will be a disaster to the citizens of Chico if they do it: 19 less police, 10 fewer firemen, no park grounds crew, barely any lifeguards, longer waits for business applications. The list goes on and on.
It sounds far more like radical conservative political ideology than the best thing for the citizens of Chico. We're not running out of money. The economy is improving, big stores are opening up and tax revenues are increasing. Chico State is getting more money. All of the funds are solvent and increasing. Pay back a little at a time and put more police on the street, more firemen in our neighborhoods, don't fire the tree crew in Bidwell Park, don't fire the Arts Coordinator.
It appears as though a so Cal notion of "austerity" (starve the people a bit) is taking precedent over a prudent and gradual solution to our recovery. I may be wrong. So, show us the figures of how it might work more gradually and why we have to suffer so that inert funds may be repaid.
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