City Council 2020 (2nd) Budget Hearing, 3 PM
Budget presentations on Health, Fire, Police, Parking, Planning, Housing, and Transit.
You can see a copy of the Mayor’s proposed budget summary HERE.
City Council Regular Meeting, 7 PM
Item #14, 1st Reading, Ordinance to reimburse the city $1 million from FEMA.
Item #26, Resolution, Stehly and Starr are asking if people can donate their parking fines to Project SOS. I’m opposed to this. While I think it is great if people want to give their money to Project SOS I don’t think it should come at the detriment of the city. While I think parking fines are too high already, their is a reason we have them, to fund our parking system. If anyone should be funding school supplies, it should be the School District. I have often thought that schools should supply kids with the bare necessities if they cannot afford them. But instead they are handing out 16% raises while we have to have bake sales to pay for school lunches and now parking fines for school supplies.
Item #27, Resolution, the city council is moving forward with their 2020 legislative priorities, including promoting TIFs even though they have never conducted a study proving they provide ANY economic impact.
The Fair ended. Now it’s time for the weekly circus.
I agree with the Stehly/Starr proposal. Funds are earmarked for school supplies for low income. Kmart and Shopco donated for this but both are bankrupt this year. Yes, but this year only.
I do not support the Starr/Stehly proposal.
We have a 21m dollar bunker ramp that needs to be paid for with parking fees.
Kudos to the Banquet for the work they do for the SOS project. I and my 7 siblings who grew up in a household on my Dad’s teacher salary would have benefited from this program.
Now, if we could only get those families who show up at Whittier every year who could afford to buy their own school supplies to STOP………….
If the city gives funds to SOS, then that is an other example of the government bailing out employer pay in this town.
A course, it wouldn’t be called socialism, but it is. Socialism for the rich, that is.
I really appreciate that Pat and Theresa are bringing attention to the backpack program. We should be highlighting charities that are doing good work in our city more often.
My wife taught at Terry Redlin for eight years, where a lot of children of refugees and immigrants go to school. Some of these kids need all the help they can get. They come from poor families. Some of them have never been in a school environment before and others are learning English for the first time. Making sure they have some basic school supplies is the least we can do.
That being said, I question whether or not this is the best approach. I am not sure how many people would think it’s a good idea to subsidize the backpack program using money from the parking budget. There are plenty of generous people in our town that will gladly buy school supplies for needy kids, we just need to remind them to support the backpack program.
Pat and Theresa’s efforts were a good reminder to our company about the backpack program and we made a corporate donation to the Banquet for the backpack program this week.
I would instead encourage Pat and Theresa to think about they can publicize the Banquet’s outstanding needs for the backpack program for this year. Have them present at a school board meeting, a city council informational meeting, or even get them an article in the paper.