The biggest issue before the upcoming city election isn’t just affordable housing it is how the city is misappropriating millions in tax surpluses from 2021. (Item #86)
Typically surpluses from the previous year are not given out or appropriated in the following year until a financial report from that year is presented to the public and city council in a public meeting.
It should certainly NOT be given out before an election. The council, that normally controls the purse strings should have gotten the report and had public working sessions with public comment to determine how this money is to be spent, and it should have happened after the election.
Instead, the mayor is keeping information from some of the councilors and certainly from the public and secretly appropriating this money as booty prizes and then dropping it in councilors laps to approve. It’s a violation of the charter and certainly an ethical violation, it may even violate campaign rules.
In my humble opinion, with $74 million in surpluses the best way to spend this money is to give tax rebates to the core neighborhoods for property owners to spend it on home and neighborhood improvements (stipulated). Instead of complicated grants and added bureaucracy, just give it back to the taxpayers and have them decide how they will spend the money.
It’s bad enough we have been overtaxed, but to turn around and hide it from the council and public and to hand it out to the mayor’s special friends is just sickening, especially right before an election.
ENTIRE PDF OF PRESENTATION
