Commentary by Samuel Strait – July 25, 2022 In the coming months we are going to be inundated by propaganda from both the City and the County moaning about the prospect of losing their $4 million a year slush fund. We will hear all sorts of spin about the devastation that will occur should voters in November, vote to repeal one or both sales tax increases from Measures "S" and "R". It will be made to imply that the world will end and neither the City nor the County will be able to offer services that do not seem to have appeared despite assurances that "things will improve" with the new funding. Since the passage of both Measure"S" and "R" we have heard about all the "great" things that both governments have been able to accomplish, focusing on the community pool, fire and police services, road repair, and emergency services for the City. The County also has a list including the Sheriff's Department, emergency services, fire, and road repair. In the past eighteen months of receiving what now has to be $6 million dollars, have any of the stated goals been met? Can anyone point to any thing that resembles improved services? Has the expenditures allowed either government to honestly say, beyond hiring a substantial number of high dollar employees, that ANY benefit to the County's residents surfaced? Anything at all? It would seem after a near river of grant funding that seems to regularly be reported throughout the City and County and the $6 million in increased sales tax revenue flowing into local government coffers that at least something of note would have surfaced in the last year and a half. Sales Tax revenue, by the way, has come directly or indirectly out of the pockets of local residents. What you say? How can that be possible? Ask yourself when you go to buy something that is taxable, is there a sign at the cash register saying "Residents need not pay the increase in sales tax?" I certainly haven't seen such signage. When those who are non residents pay the increased sales tax, is it possible that they would have been able to spend that money to support local businesses instead of it being swallowed up by the increased sales tax? If you are a City resident and think that the City "Needs that extra revenue" ask yourself how often you actually use that community pool that you just paid over a million dollars to renovate? Ask yourself if you think that you really want to cover a nearly $400,000 short fall in revenue to operate that pool you do not even use every year? Ask yourself if you think it is a wise expenditure of $500,000 of Measure "S" money plus $750,000 out of the City's general fund, plus $400,000 of road repair funding from the State, plus another $400,000 dollars to create an Architecture's wet dream for two blocks on Front Street. Then ask yourself if the City's Police services have gotten any better? Will hiring three well compensated fire captains at Crescent Fire and Rescue to attend to twenty fires per year make you feel any safer from fire? Has your street had any pot holes filled lately? Any resurfacing been done on the streets that are more like those in a third world Country? Are you tired already of the City "who needs the MONEY" yet seems more interested in creating monuments for themselves without addressing those one time expenditures that actually would make living in the City far better? Keep those questions in mind as we move closer to November, when those in the City have to answer those questions for everyone who lives in the County and is footing the bill for the failures just in the past eighteen months. Not to forget the County's role in all this splurge of spending, nothing but deceit, and an orgy of new hires, which was explicitly forbidden in the stated purpose of the need for the additional revenue. Multiple times were we told that "no money for additional salaries and benefits!" The County quickly forgot that pledge and has done little else. Along with new hires, both the City and the County "discovered" the additional revenue to give everyone a substantial raise. Have you or a family member gotten a substantial raise recently? When the County Supervisor's constantly point to the inadequacy of wages and benefits for their employees, is $50,000, maybe $60,000, or even $100,000 plus per year something you would claim to be inadequate? Plus benefits that could amount to $15,000 on up per year. It is all well and good to compare salaries with those from out of the area, but we live in Del Norte County where City and County employees are compensated rather well by comparison. It is another three months until election day and on the November ballot will be the opportunity for both the City and County residents to weigh in on how smart of an investment both Measure "S" and "R" were to this community. In the mean time I will be regularly pointing to all the unnecessary spending being done by both the City and the County that serves very little in the way of need for additional revenue. In addition, both the City and the County seem to have money in their general funds that have magically appeared. Couldn't possibly be that previous government funding has been covered by the new sales tax revenue, leaving that "magic" surplus in both general funds could it? Can we say "slush fund" anyone?