Last night at the SF City Council meeting, councilor Staggers was attacked for his stance against the ‘recovery zone’ resolution (fast forward to item #10).
StormLand TV had a great story about the resolution before the vote. Now watch the meeting carefully, and don’t get caught up when Costello talks about ‘saving money’ or when Staggers talks about ‘pork barrel’ spending. The best points to come out of the argument are clear 1) Other communities are more deserving of this money 2) Taxpayers are not really saving any money. The second exchange is the best, Staggers says this in response to Costello’s assumption that he is saving taxpayers $2 million dollars (paraphrasing);
“You are saving the city $2 million, not the taxpayer.  Are you going to give that money back to the taxpayer? No. Because see the city will just spend that money on something else.”
But then Costello goes into a rant about how we will build roads with it and reveals the city is $137 million behind on road maintenance. Gee, I fucking wonder why? Because over the last 8 years we have blown record tax revenue receipts on stupid projects instead the streets. And Kermit’s point is well taken. We save the city $2 million that will ultimately be blown on something else besides streets. SF city government has a proven record of doing just that.
One funny part in the exchange was when Pat was separating the city accounts (1st Penny, 2nd Penny and property taxes) then says (paraphrasing);
“Yeah, I know the money all comes from the same place, but . . .”
That’s right Pat, taxpayers don’t care if you have 3 accounts or 20 accounts, they are the ones putting money into those accounts.
It was truly a sad day when fellow councilors attacked another councilor for trying to protect the reputation of Sioux Falls. Pathetic.