Opinion: Use Measure S money to pay down debt
To the community,
All of the fussing and feuding over S, B, and R reminds me of a family fighting over money that a rich uncle, who died, has left in a poorly written will. Who will get what?
The dead uncle is S and its off spring B. And of course the ice rink has failed as a revenue source for the city. And R has created more factions that we don’t need.
Bill Crawford
In 2000 I wrote the ballot argument against S. I believed then that S was all about the rink. Seems I was right. There’s just one S ball field and few “new” post S bike paths.
I think it’s time to use the “surplus” tax money and pay down the debt. That should stop the fussing and feuding. And it’s time to admit that S is a failure.
Bill Crawford, South Lake Tahoe
How about the 800,000.00 dollars missing
from the bike trail maintenance fund. What happened to it? The fan will be working overtime.
Return the money directly to the pockets of the taxpayers whose pockets were inappropriately picked.
OK, Bill, let’s assume that you were right. And that proves what? And what is the point of “admitting” that Measure S is a failure? Your ego? Measure S did not promise “new” bike trails, ever. The ice rink was never intended to be a revenue source for the city, like most city projects, it was meant to enhance our city’s recreation, not to be an investment to make money. The area got exactly what the bond measure promised, increased recreation and funding for maintenance of the bike trails. What exactly is your solution and plan of action after “admitting that S is a failure”? Or do you just like to continue to throw bombs with no answers?
I would like to hear about the “missing” $ 800,000, though. However, I think that the $ 7,000,000 that the city “loaned” to redevelopment is far more important and will reveal further dishonesty and lack of ethics in the city council than any multi-agency recreation measure. The same city council that YOU sat on.
Paying down any debt is admirable, but whose debt should the city and county residents pay down with their tax dollars, exactly? And what legal basis would be used to accomplish the paydown? Lots of questions. No answers. No leadership. Just bomb throwing to satisfy your ego?
A significant amount of bike paths/walkways are absolutely unacceptable! They don’t drain in the winter causing huge slick ice sheets to make a hockey player envious. These are the paths your kids, and grandkids walk to school on, go to church, ect…. not to mention your sisters and moms, and grandmothers.
Quality essential infrastructure cost money. Hopefully this rampant unsafe condition can be remedied.
Although I agree somewhat that the original “strategy” was to focus on the ice rink, other recreational issues had to be included not to appear as if only one sport – which would not fly. Including ball fields was the answer, as was inluding bike path maintenance, to position the City for the capital grants for building more. O&M as leverage was a good move.
However, it now appears that a forensic audit may be necessary, as the numbers are not adding up. The major asset of ‘S’, the rink, has now shifted to a family member (with no experience) of a major proponent of ‘S’, using its’ “losing money” as a convenient reason – 2, then 3,000 per month rent for a 38,000 sq. ft. sophisticated building is dirt cheap, as is the small percentage to be paid over the 600,000 the City barely made.
There are also additional questions needing answers about the set-aside maintenance funds, as this is now almost a decade of no money spent. If memory serves, the last bike trail constructed was 15th street – we would be happy to be wrong – but those set aside were only for maintenance anyway,
So the numbers are in question.
Is someone relying on the citizens’ notoriously short memory & attention spans, along with staff and citizen attrition ?
We need reassurance on these items. . .
Don’t except the money to be returned, it’s gone somewhere else for whatever reason it was allocated for,this been the norm for a long time.(steal from petere to pay paul).
We’ve been taken advantage of for years by our council members but that’s become acceptable also.
WHY . . .?
Bill is right on this issue, and was right about the mess that got us into the “big hole in the ground”. Since most get on the council and want to create a legacy for themselves, no one listen4ed to his common sense.
I voted against it too. But you can’t just change your mind about where that money is going and have it be so.
2/3 of the voters approved the money to be taken from the property owners in the basin for a specific use and that’s the way it is. If the rules could be changed every time a politician changed his/her mind, we would be in even deeper doo than we are!
why