All of council was in attendance and everything on the agenda was passed. There was more discussion about the budget, which was necessary due to its projected adoption next meeting. Here's where it stands: we are going to have to go into our reserve. This is something we cannot sustain, year after year. Something has to happen. Enter agenda item 18.
Agenda item 18 was passed, which I have significant issues with and here's why. I do not agree it is necessary to hire a political consulting firm (Lew Edwards, Oakland CA. I will post a link to their site below. Craig's article from the PE just posted 6/10 goes into some of the past relationship with Lew Edwards) to go out into the community and distribute information predetermined by a couple of council members. This is the same thing everyone got upset about when the last council majority tried to sell us CalFire. Remember? People - if it is wrong once, it is wrong twice. I do not care who the majority is. I knew before Tuesday's meeting that there is a desire to see if a tax is something the people of Hemet would be willing to back. I said at the council meeting, right now, sink or swim, I think it is our only option. Public safety needs a solid and continuous stream of funding. Keep in mind that if it is through a tax, funding is subject to the health of the economy. I do not agree that hiring a political consulting firm is the most economically savvy way to go about this given our fiscal status nor do I think it is the most honest. As stated above, the selected information will be provided to the Lew Edwards Group. They will in-turn solicit that information to the public and then gain public sentiment based on their interaction. This dictates democracy in a way that I do not appreciate. The scope of work was not provided in the agenda, nor was it provided to council on Tuesday night. Yet, council voted on this with a 3-2 majority, with Krupa, Wright and Raver voting in favor. They are "using FY 14/15 professional services budget savings to fund the effort", which does not make it sound any smarter. The amount is not to exceed $40,000. I just sat through a budget meeting that addressed fairly unreliable sources of funding and $40,000 could help out. I think this should have been done differently. I think solving this very real problem needs to be multi-dimensional and Milne and I agree on this. Every point she brought up; I was with her. To the point someone asked if the building was going to fall down. I'm not joking. Someone actually said that. It makes me wonder where the people with the money were when everything started to go south. They sat on commissions, boards, councils and little to nothing was done by most to keep this city from the brink. Doesn't it make you wonder why? The original intention of this particular ad-hoc committee was to get people from the community and gain their ideas for sources of revenue. This idea was thrown out the window and the committee made up of Krupa and Raver opted for the political consulting firm. Raver is trying to sell it as if this is our decision and we need to take this into our own hands. Then why are you, as a council member, wanting to hire a political consulting group? And why did you run for office if you weren't going to roll-up your sleeves and get into the muck of it?
http://www.pe.com/articles/city-769834-hemet-tax.html
http://www.lewedwardsgroup.com/
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