Commentary by Samuel Strait – October 16, 2022 As much as I respect the opinions of Roger Gitlin in his weekly column in the Triplicate, he is after all entitled to them, I respectfully disagree with his latest effort, Eye on Del Norte, "Don't let some of the letters of the alphabet confuse you". Within the article is his articulated opinion of the impending November 8th ballot measures "T" and "U", vote NO on "T" and YES on "U". He goes on to say he opposed both measures when the sales tax was raised on both the City and County residents in 2020, then on the basis of a single comment in a City Council meeting has changed his mind on repealing the City's sales tax increase. I am left confused by his reasoning, as he seems to think that the City's use of the sales tax money is somehow more beneficial to its residents than that of the County. Let us begin with the impression he has left us with which is a commenter at a City Council meeting objected to the new equipment being purchased by the Police Chief, Richard Griffin, some how implies that police officers will be "less safe" using existing equipment. How is it that existing equipment has anything to do with officer safety, unless they are currently operating with defective equipment, which is hardly the case. Just exactly how is it that the commenter is misinformed and new equipment in this highly inflationary period isn't questionable and wasteful? What does that have anything to do with questioning the accepted notion that policing is highly perilous and dangerous? It does not sound like police officers were being asked to go weaponless or without vehicles, merely the optics of new equipment at this time when local City residents are struggling with high cost and higher taxation could be viewed as wasteful and unnecessary. Roger, if he will pardon my familiarity, goes on to talk about his satisfaction that "funds are not being squandered". Crescent Fire and Rescue has been graced with nearly $600 thousands dollars of Measure "S" money half of it budgeted to hire three fire captain and a part time fire chief to replace ONE part time Chief. Granted they did receive some necessary equipment that could have been paid for in the City's general fund rather than giving the City's employees a 3% raise at the beginning of 2022. The Police department invested more than half their Measure "S" in new equipment which was discussed above, the remainder has been utilized to bribe current officers and those being trained not to abandon ship at the first opportunity. The new officers which are currently attending the police academy will be unlikely to offer any improvement to service for years to come. Those already employed were formerly accounted for by the City's general fund, that was until Measure"S" funding became available. This recent maneuvering in the general fund miraculously allowed the City to find $750,000 from the general fund to insert into the two block Front Street Project. Likely one of many miracles that occurred following the receipt of the sales tax increase. Street improvements, if you exclude the extravaganza of Front Street, consist of a "theater" of highly visible streets that in no way would be considered a priority for immediate repair. The signs, advertising this theater, set the City's election spin machine back $7,000 and the flashing lights at the street side of each project could be considered a "road hazard" for motorists. And that leaves the Fred Endert Pool which will be costing the City currently $375,000 per year and increasing into the future just to keep the doors open for a small county population of 27,000 citizens and shrinking, where only a tiny fraction of that population actually uses the pool. Unfortunately the high school popularity version infused in 60% of the City's electorate do not understand that a community pool in a community of this size is an extravagant luxury that most will infrequently or never use, but continue to pay "big dollars for" while the streets and street lights in front of their houses disintegrate by the day. While Mr. Gitlin fastens on the fact that Measure"S" represents 20% of the usable portion of the general fund, it actually only represents less than 5% of the over all budget of $44 million. This is a budget that has more than doubled in the past decade and is unlikely to decline any time soon. The notion that the funding of Front Street and Beach Front Park, set to cost $30 plus million by the time most features are in place, completely ignores the tiny detail of what it will take to maintain such extravagance. As far as the misguided notion that Crescent City will become a "destination resort" or it as a flourishing small town, there are a number of missing ingredients for that to even be a fantasy. Namely a nearby large population center, a benign climate, and sufficient capital to make the kind of improvements necessary. I suppose when you put the ox before the cart, those trivialities are hardly worth mentioning. The biggest problem with what Mr. Gitlin has outlined, is that neither the City nor the County have employed their funding in a sensible fashion, nor will they. The arguments Roger has outlined for why the County's sales tax should be reduced are equally applicable for the City. Both have squandered their share of the sales tax funding with no visible improvement of services to most of the local population. The County and City both speak to the dysfunction within their governments and have no viable solutions to any of the issues that they claim to have. Growing government, which both have done with a zeal, is completely irresponsible for an area that has its citizens screaming for relief from the burdens of government taxation and government induced inflation. Loosing tax dollars to Brookings is but a symptom of the growing crisis local residents are facing, and retaining even the impact of an increased sales tax in Del Norte County and the City is having an enormous effect on the ability of many in the area to simply survive. While I am genuinely sorry to say this, but voting to retain the City's share of the sales tax revenue is to reward the City for its appallingly bad behavior towards those that they represent. There can be no mistake that the "No vote crowd" who have posted their ignorance through out the City have no compassion for the many that are severely affected by the damage to their livelihood by both sales tax increases. Clearly they have the means to survive, the same can't be said for many of those that live within the County or City. Vote YES to lower the sales tax on Measures "T" and "U". A YES vote on both T and U LOWERS the Sales Tax, a No vote keeps you paying more.