Blaming the victims
"I hope the voters will understand when we put a tax measure on the ballot again we are spending every cent we have right now and it's not even scratching the surface," Spriggs said. -- Merced Sun-Star, 4-9-07
In one of the nation's fastest growing residential construction areas, producing nearly the nation's least affordable housing stock in an area now facing among the nation's highest rates of mortgage foreclosure, this councilman suggests that the condition of the streets and roads of the city and county is the fault of the citizens, specifically because they refused to approve a sales-tax hike to pay for transportation costs, the highest and first portion of which would have gone to the UC Merced Campus Parkway. The blame lies with this city council, which passed project after project and condemned the public schools for at least trying to fight for a larger share of the developer dollar. It was unwilling to charge high enough fees to developers of the physical and financial mess they have made of Merced to pay for a little more slurry on its crumbling city streets. Maintenance and repair of public infrastructure, except when it relates directly to new development, is not on this self-important council's agenda. Instead, it blames the public for its own miserable neglect of public works. This council's leadership is rapidly turning most of a small Valley city into a ghetto surrounded by unfinished subdivisions.
"One Voice" leadership is impressive in its unanimity. The problem seems be the same as it has been since UC Merced arrived: Merced leadership has been unanimously wrong. Maybe this was because, caught in the backwash of other people's feeding frenzies, it forgot that it was elected to represent citizens, not special interests.
Bill Hatch
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4-9-07
Merced Sun-Star
Roads to get some attention...Leslie Albrecht
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/13469608p-14080252c.html
Five miles of South Merced roads will soon get needed maintenance, but the work will barely make a dent in the city's road repair backlog, officials say...a plan to spend $1 million to coat...roads with slurry seal. The city has an $89 million backlog in needed road repairs, said Tucker, but in a good year, Merced receives a total of $4 million for all transportation projects. The South Merced slurry seal project will be funded with money from Measure C, the half-cent sales tax that went into effect on April 1, 2006. As of February 28, the new tax had generated $4,511,190, said city Finance Officer Brad Grant. Most of that money has been used to hire 12 police officers and nine firefighters. But the city hasn't been able to fill all of the public safety staff positions budgeted under Measure C this year, so the Measure C citizens oversight committee voted to shift $1.5 million in unspent dollars to the South Merced slurry seal and other projects. Unfortunately it's only a drop in the bucket," Councilman Bill Spriggs said. "When you look at the (road repair) needs and you look at what we're able to fund, it's scary." ...Spriggs took the opportunity to remind voters that if they had passed Measure G last June, the city would have more cash to spend on road fixes. The ballot measure would have created a half-cent tax to generate $446 million over the next 30 years for transportation projects. About half the money would have been earmarked for road maintenance, Spriggs said. Voters rejected the measure twice in 2006, but supporters said after the June election that they'll probably put the tax before voters again soon. "I hope the voters will understand when we put a tax measure on the ballot again we are spending every cent we have right now and it's not even scratching the surface," Spriggs said.