Recall of City Council 2010
What do I think of the recall?
What caused the recall?
A lack of focus in Rio Nuevo contributed to public distrust. One project should be the focus until that project is completed and paid for. Squandering money on consultants resulted in a few benefiting hugely from Rio Nuevo while few jobs were created. Most of the money was skimmed off by those in the know before the job benefits actually reached the people. As for the public structures to be created with this money in Rio Nuevo, they do not exist, the money is gone and the fund encumbered for $80,000,000. We see a very few benefitting at the expense of the rest of us as the city staggers under a mountain of debt service. And there are no new museums or parade grounds for the people to enjoy.
I think an investigation and the ongoing audit will determine where the money went, what it was spent on and who got it. How about a list of people/enterprises that received Rio Nuevo money, in order of amount? This is public information. Let the audit begin when the first Rio Nuevo crew was ousted and the new regime took over.
Insular attitudes, insider mentalities, a lack of long term planning, lack of focus in Rio Nuevo, too much debt, and high unemployment have resulted in a negative public attitude. Recalls are a sign of public unrest and competition for scarce resources. The Rio Nuevo money was a rare opportunity for this community that has come to just another credit line to be obligated with nothing to show for the money. Too many people were cut out of the deal. Too much in the hands of too few. A few jobs for some very expensive people. Free land for select individuals. Rent subsidy for some and not others.
The ‘discovery’ of the $32,000,000 budget deficit just after the election left some people wondering if this information were withheld in an attempt to influence the election.
And now after all this public debt and the recession, we cannot afford more taxes and fees. With the city scrounging in our pockets for money and high unemployment rates, citizens need relief. The recall interests people because the city is insolvent and the Council raised fees and might be considering raising taxes.
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tucson Budget Crisis
Year end musings on the sad budgetary state of affairs of Tucson, Arizona, USA.
Tucson had an election and I pray the council will succeed in the difficult task ahead. Some guidelines for solving the budget cutting problem should be in place before the task is attempted. Prioritizing objectives must be done.
In this analysis the special place of the responsibilities of cities must be considered first.
The city of Tucson is responsible for providing essential services. As a definition of essential must be made, I say that the following services are essential.
I. Essential
Law enforcement
Fire protection
Water and sanitation
Garbage collection
Prosecution/incarceration/courts/public defender
Records and Elections
Related Administrative
Other services are ongoing but are not essential in the short term. These must be cut back what percent?
II. Secondary (not in order of importance)
City manager
Real estate
Zoning
Rio Nuevo
Community services
MLK revitalization(no longer low income)
Housing Management
Community development
*Audit Housing Assistance
Convention Center
Director/administration
Event development
Event services
Finance
General Services
Information technology
Neighborhood resources
Parks (explore alternate way to keep open, caretaker system)
Procurement
Transportation
To continue this categorization, the following must be cut heavily or discontinued.
III. Non-Essential (not in order of importance)
Intergovernmental relations: elected officials
Development Services skeleton crew for the downturn
Budgetary Requirements environmental services
General Services architectural and Engineering
Fleet services could be cut overall by having fewer vehicles online
Internal service fund
Is golf a net economic boost for Tucson? How much does golf generate?
Human Resources
Urban Planning and Design
Non Departmental: mishmash of causes needs weeding out
Debt Service
Cutting the budgets of the secondary and non essential services is necessary. The essential services could use an administrative reorganization and review of expenses in order to shave off a percent of their budgets. They should be given further goals to meet.
Debt service is huge and the debts should be restructured to meet existing economic conditions, in order to prevent a default. I would rather pay police and fire protection than pay debt service, if the choice has to be made. If the pundits say Tucson will ruin its credit, perhaps this is a blessing in disguise, since about ¼ of the budget goes to debt service. The city cannot afford this debt load and certainly does not need more debt in any form. Look at it this way: if you count the debt for water systems, the debt service rises to $140,788,980, which is about 29% of total stated expenditures. I wish it were impossible for elected officials to create debt that lasts beyond their term. With so much of the expenditures tied up in debt service, flexibility appears to be limited to employee pay cuts and departmental expenditures in the form of cuts in services to residents.
What a plan! Raise taxes and continue the level of debt service no matter what happens to essential services? Not a good plan. Tell them to take a hike after you have cut these departments and downsized the budget, if that is still needed. We do not neglect the weak in order to pay debt service. We do not lay off Police and Fire to pay debt service.
Difficult decisions are ahead. May you all succeed in this task.
Dorothy Prater Niemi
December 2009
Tucson had an election and I pray the council will succeed in the difficult task ahead. Some guidelines for solving the budget cutting problem should be in place before the task is attempted. Prioritizing objectives must be done.
In this analysis the special place of the responsibilities of cities must be considered first.
The city of Tucson is responsible for providing essential services. As a definition of essential must be made, I say that the following services are essential.
I. Essential
Law enforcement
Fire protection
Water and sanitation
Garbage collection
Prosecution/incarceration/courts/public defender
Records and Elections
Related Administrative
Other services are ongoing but are not essential in the short term. These must be cut back what percent?
II. Secondary (not in order of importance)
City manager
Real estate
Zoning
Rio Nuevo
Community services
MLK revitalization(no longer low income)
Housing Management
Community development
*Audit Housing Assistance
Convention Center
Director/administration
Event development
Event services
Finance
General Services
Information technology
Neighborhood resources
Parks (explore alternate way to keep open, caretaker system)
Procurement
Transportation
To continue this categorization, the following must be cut heavily or discontinued.
III. Non-Essential (not in order of importance)
Intergovernmental relations: elected officials
Development Services skeleton crew for the downturn
Budgetary Requirements environmental services
General Services architectural and Engineering
Fleet services could be cut overall by having fewer vehicles online
Internal service fund
Is golf a net economic boost for Tucson? How much does golf generate?
Human Resources
Urban Planning and Design
Non Departmental: mishmash of causes needs weeding out
Debt Service
Cutting the budgets of the secondary and non essential services is necessary. The essential services could use an administrative reorganization and review of expenses in order to shave off a percent of their budgets. They should be given further goals to meet.
Debt service is huge and the debts should be restructured to meet existing economic conditions, in order to prevent a default. I would rather pay police and fire protection than pay debt service, if the choice has to be made. If the pundits say Tucson will ruin its credit, perhaps this is a blessing in disguise, since about ¼ of the budget goes to debt service. The city cannot afford this debt load and certainly does not need more debt in any form. Look at it this way: if you count the debt for water systems, the debt service rises to $140,788,980, which is about 29% of total stated expenditures. I wish it were impossible for elected officials to create debt that lasts beyond their term. With so much of the expenditures tied up in debt service, flexibility appears to be limited to employee pay cuts and departmental expenditures in the form of cuts in services to residents.
What a plan! Raise taxes and continue the level of debt service no matter what happens to essential services? Not a good plan. Tell them to take a hike after you have cut these departments and downsized the budget, if that is still needed. We do not neglect the weak in order to pay debt service. We do not lay off Police and Fire to pay debt service.
Difficult decisions are ahead. May you all succeed in this task.
Dorothy Prater Niemi
December 2009
Sunday, December 06, 2009
POLICY CHANGE TO STIMULATE ECONOMY
Federal and local entitlement programs: A long term approach
In a few years, years, the Federal budget will be all entitlements. They are now borrowing in order to fund operations and defense. Arizona is in similar shape. 2/3 of the federal budget is mandated and sunsets are nonexistent. Borrowing is rampant tying up revenue streams for years. The whole country is so tied up in debt, discretionary income is ????
Some new policies are needed:
Entitlements should be limited to X% of the total income, not income plus borrowing.
All new entitlements through legislation or initiative should have a sunset clause and an escape clause in case of a budget deficit. Flexibility is needed in budgeting.
To cut the growth of entitlements, slow population growth through tax incentives. Government subsidy of poor should not escalate with each mouth added, thus paying the poor to breed. The more well off also are breeding in record numbers, using the tax deduction to help finance it. The public schools also must accept unlimited numbers of children from any given source, which favors those with large families, while the others pay. A religious objection to population control is personal, but those who want large families should pay for it.
Suggested changes in policy:
After 1 child per person, no welfare payment raises for further children. This does not apply to food stamps, however.
After 1 child per person, no further deductions for income tax will be given by the state or federal governments and an overage must be paid for on a per capita basis.
After one child per person, any person having more than one child must pay a stipend per overage to the local school public district or arrange for private schooling subject to curriculum set by the state/federal and passage of state/federal tests.
Tax refunds to the childless.
These changes in policies would result in a slowing of population growth, which would slow the growth of other governmental costs. This would raise taxes for some, but it is those who are using the services.
Further policy changes linked:
Illegal immigration needs to be discouraged. Border security will succeed only when the economic climate does not favor hiring illegal aliens, who will work under the radar for less than the minimum wage. Perhaps the minimum wage needs to be revisited, but if population growth slows, fewer workers can demand higher wages, but only in the absence of illegal immigrant competition. Immigration policies in general need to be amended to force other countries to manage their population growth instead of relying on the USA as a population outlet.
Getting business owners out of the health insurance business and allowing them to pay what they can to workers would open opportunity. If a large business owner pays so little that their workers must apply for assistance, then possibly a stipend should be required of them, as a percentage of total profit. Reasonable compensation to the owners would be monitored in these cases.
Awareness that free enterprise will carry on under the blanket despite governments effort to control what people are paid and what these people have to buy with the money they earn. Enough already. Local trading economies will arise as will trading economies like smuggling, all of which operate without taxation or regulation. Filtering money through an administrative hierarchy in order to pay for health care makes me want to move towards cash payments that skip these people who are charging us to pay themselves to distribute this money for us. Reality check.
I still don’t get how AIG securities insurance failure milked the US government of $180,000,000,000. Did some of this $ that went to foreign banks make its way to Dubai? Prosecutors need to trail this milking and pinpoint the chain of command. What interesting news that would be. Is it true firearms permits are now more available in New York?
Like who instigated? Who set the stage? Pipeline information? Cleanup crew as recipient of riches?
We need new policy.
Suggested policy changes:
Outlaw securities, derivatives and hedging anywhere but under legalized gambling. The economy is not a toy and people depend on it.
Review economic needs within the USA before looking to export. Sell to each other and Canada and Mexico.
Free business owners from mandatory health insurance requirements
Do not force the purchase of insurance on the populace.
Link employee wages to their welfare needs to employer profits and required support payments to the state, with exemptions for subsistence business.
Ease zoning laws that discourage localized small businesses.
Ease up on taxes, regulation, licenses, fees, for all business except for public health/environmental concerns.
Fewer inspectors rather than fewer law enforcement personnel, when the government has budget shortfalls.
Policy can dictate change in oblique ways. The insistence that growth can be infinite is indicative of a lack of population curbs and the inability of production of food in the infinite is bound to coincide in a population crash, starvation of the species in the classic ecological boom and bust cycle defined by physical resources. Must we act so much like animals that we must do this to ourselves?
Friday, December 04, 2009
Opinion Bias at the Arizona Daily Star
Due to a recent problem with the Arizona Daily Star, I have taken an interest in opinion page policy analysis. Since I also subscribe to The Arizona Republic, I compared the two papers.
The first major difference between them is the amount of information about an author that the Star requires.
Star
Name
Address
Daytime phone
Occupation
Political affiliation
Issue affiliation
Candidate affiliation Campaign affiliation
150 word length
Republic
Name
Address
Phone
200 word length
The second major difference is that in the Star, submissions become the property of the Star. The Republic publishes the work in several formats and makes no claim of ownership. If an author’s work is printed in the Star, then that author has ‘sold’ it for nothing. Does this mean the author can no longer sell the piece?
The third major difference is that in the Star, submissions may be “edited for clarity and length” while the Republic makes no mention of that possibility. Who is doing this at the Star?
Having always admired the Arizona Republic as the better paper, I believe that the Star opinion page guidelines set the stage for ongoing opinion page bias on the part of the Star.
The first major difference between them is the amount of information about an author that the Star requires.
Star
Name
Address
Daytime phone
Occupation
Political affiliation
Issue affiliation
Candidate affiliation Campaign affiliation
150 word length
Republic
Name
Address
Phone
200 word length
The second major difference is that in the Star, submissions become the property of the Star. The Republic publishes the work in several formats and makes no claim of ownership. If an author’s work is printed in the Star, then that author has ‘sold’ it for nothing. Does this mean the author can no longer sell the piece?
The third major difference is that in the Star, submissions may be “edited for clarity and length” while the Republic makes no mention of that possibility. Who is doing this at the Star?
Having always admired the Arizona Republic as the better paper, I believe that the Star opinion page guidelines set the stage for ongoing opinion page bias on the part of the Star.
Monday, November 09, 2009
Health Insurance or Health Care?
The discussion is still about insurance, not health care. Is it the government’s purvey to provide health insurance or provide that government care for the infirm and ill? Traditionally, government did provide for the poor out of humanitarian reasons or out of the need to prevent revolution from the ground up. The funds came from the king and the wealthy. Religious institutions also provided assistance to the poor out of a necessity to prove they practiced what they preached but probably out of a natural human need to care for others.
I am heartened by the Republicans finally coming up with some ideas to reform health care delivery systems. I am disappointed in the Democrats for embracing mandatory insurance as the way to provide better health care for our citizens.
Requiring business to buy health insurance for employees keeps the price jacked up and the whole scheme going. The idea of mandatory insurance for all citizens will also jack the price up. Government price controls are resisted as the public option, which would limit what could be paid for a given medical service, forcing health care providers to rein in costs or services to patients or forcing them to take a pay cut. The debt overload is staggering uphill, so it is suggested commercial debt relief to medical care providers. Exorbitant commercial prices during the boom left medical businesses swamped in building debt in the form of high rents or payments.
These bills our fearless leaders are coming up with contain the idea of mandatory insurance. Our elected leaders deem it necessary to force the people to pay for insurance instead of health care. They also think that insurance companies are better at handling our money than we are.
If this mandatory insurance idea is foisted upon us, I suggest the following be implemented along with mandatory insurance payments:
All health care providers must accept all insurance. No hoity toity, no exclusive treatment salons that do not take Medicare, no ‘private’ clinics that take ‘exclusive’ insurance. If a rich person hires a private doctor for cash payments, that is private enterprise.
All health care providers must accept all insurance because all citizens are required by law to buy insurance. We lose our right to choose, health care providers lose the right to choose who they treat. This means all hospitals, doctors, clinics etc. who accept any insurance have to accept all insurance.
Price fixing between health care providers and insurance companies should be a thing of the past in that prices for procedures will be dictated by the government that requires us to buy insurance. We should not be charged more than what the insurance pays, since so many people with insurance are bankrupted by health care costs. When insurance is mandated, the health care people will earn less since price controls will be instituted.
For the health insurance people, you cannot demand we buy what you are selling without us having some ideas how we want our money managed. Insurance companies must accept controls on pay, number of employees, standards for judging claims, premium price controls and intense oversight. No more golf holidays, spa visits and celebrations of plenty while using premium money to party and gamble.
The domino effect is present here. The strongarm tactic of forcing people to buy insurance creates other hassles. Some of our legislators evidently believe it is easy to force people to buy insurance but in the interests of fairness, the insurance industry and the health care industry will also lose volition. Sure, the insurance companies will have millions more bank accounts to tap into but is it worth the change in our socio-economic structure?
Not one to criticize without offering a solution, here are a few ideas:
The mandatory insurance idea is not free market. Insurance should only be an option, not the only way to achieve affordable health care. Capitalism allows for a variety of approaches, never mandating that one way is the only way. Affordable health care is the real goal, not propping up exorbitant salaries in the insurance and health care arena. As I wrote before, why not use stimulus money to establish low cost clinics in the neighborhoods and to fund nurses in the public schools? Remember, providing health care is the goal.
I am heartened by the Republicans finally coming up with some ideas to reform health care delivery systems. I am disappointed in the Democrats for embracing mandatory insurance as the way to provide better health care for our citizens.
Requiring business to buy health insurance for employees keeps the price jacked up and the whole scheme going. The idea of mandatory insurance for all citizens will also jack the price up. Government price controls are resisted as the public option, which would limit what could be paid for a given medical service, forcing health care providers to rein in costs or services to patients or forcing them to take a pay cut. The debt overload is staggering uphill, so it is suggested commercial debt relief to medical care providers. Exorbitant commercial prices during the boom left medical businesses swamped in building debt in the form of high rents or payments.
These bills our fearless leaders are coming up with contain the idea of mandatory insurance. Our elected leaders deem it necessary to force the people to pay for insurance instead of health care. They also think that insurance companies are better at handling our money than we are.
If this mandatory insurance idea is foisted upon us, I suggest the following be implemented along with mandatory insurance payments:
All health care providers must accept all insurance. No hoity toity, no exclusive treatment salons that do not take Medicare, no ‘private’ clinics that take ‘exclusive’ insurance. If a rich person hires a private doctor for cash payments, that is private enterprise.
All health care providers must accept all insurance because all citizens are required by law to buy insurance. We lose our right to choose, health care providers lose the right to choose who they treat. This means all hospitals, doctors, clinics etc. who accept any insurance have to accept all insurance.
Price fixing between health care providers and insurance companies should be a thing of the past in that prices for procedures will be dictated by the government that requires us to buy insurance. We should not be charged more than what the insurance pays, since so many people with insurance are bankrupted by health care costs. When insurance is mandated, the health care people will earn less since price controls will be instituted.
For the health insurance people, you cannot demand we buy what you are selling without us having some ideas how we want our money managed. Insurance companies must accept controls on pay, number of employees, standards for judging claims, premium price controls and intense oversight. No more golf holidays, spa visits and celebrations of plenty while using premium money to party and gamble.
The domino effect is present here. The strongarm tactic of forcing people to buy insurance creates other hassles. Some of our legislators evidently believe it is easy to force people to buy insurance but in the interests of fairness, the insurance industry and the health care industry will also lose volition. Sure, the insurance companies will have millions more bank accounts to tap into but is it worth the change in our socio-economic structure?
Not one to criticize without offering a solution, here are a few ideas:
The mandatory insurance idea is not free market. Insurance should only be an option, not the only way to achieve affordable health care. Capitalism allows for a variety of approaches, never mandating that one way is the only way. Affordable health care is the real goal, not propping up exorbitant salaries in the insurance and health care arena. As I wrote before, why not use stimulus money to establish low cost clinics in the neighborhoods and to fund nurses in the public schools? Remember, providing health care is the goal.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Wajiristan Earthquake
Wajiristan earthquake
Portent of future displeasure
2012 AD/BC observable
Synchronous cycles days coincide
Endings and beginnings
Some try to protect a way of life
From change an impossible task
Cannot freeze time
We have no volition in that
Then come the choices
If your heritage is omitted
All are not known
But all are respected
As a choice
Those contributed and succeeded in survival
Tasmanian, Austrailian, Basque, Celt, Jew, Armenian, Pygmies, Persian,
Saami, Tamil, Olmec, Han, Mongols, Shinto, Sikkhs, Hindi, Egypt, Maya, Nazcan, Greece, Buddha, Rome, Teotihuacan
Christ and Mohammed
May we all celebrate and respect heritage
Let no man slay
For the reason of difference
Shame for humans to kill humans
When the relentless environment
Could not as their descendents live today.
As time and environment is in flux
So must be these systems
Time is frozen in memory only
Our lives are not so isolated
As when these belief systems began
Blame time if you are disappointed
Blame not the innocent
Blame the mists of time when chadars
Protected desert women from sun and disease
And males walked with women for safety
Relativism versus moral certainty
Basic right and wrong are known to all
Just excusing those different from the definition
To some all means only those resembling themselves
Is a severely rigid viewpoint
Competition for resources
Disguised as religious persecution
Ethnic hatred and competitive fear
This must be resolved
With land and resources already scarce.
Dorothy Prater Niemi 2009
Portent of future displeasure
2012 AD/BC observable
Synchronous cycles days coincide
Endings and beginnings
Some try to protect a way of life
From change an impossible task
Cannot freeze time
We have no volition in that
Then come the choices
If your heritage is omitted
All are not known
But all are respected
As a choice
Those contributed and succeeded in survival
Tasmanian, Austrailian, Basque, Celt, Jew, Armenian, Pygmies, Persian,
Saami, Tamil, Olmec, Han, Mongols, Shinto, Sikkhs, Hindi, Egypt, Maya, Nazcan, Greece, Buddha, Rome, Teotihuacan
Christ and Mohammed
May we all celebrate and respect heritage
Let no man slay
For the reason of difference
Shame for humans to kill humans
When the relentless environment
Could not as their descendents live today.
As time and environment is in flux
So must be these systems
Time is frozen in memory only
Our lives are not so isolated
As when these belief systems began
Blame time if you are disappointed
Blame not the innocent
Blame the mists of time when chadars
Protected desert women from sun and disease
And males walked with women for safety
Relativism versus moral certainty
Basic right and wrong are known to all
Just excusing those different from the definition
To some all means only those resembling themselves
Is a severely rigid viewpoint
Competition for resources
Disguised as religious persecution
Ethnic hatred and competitive fear
This must be resolved
With land and resources already scarce.
Dorothy Prater Niemi 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Tucson City Council Race
Are the hotel/motel receipts in town down? Should the city of Tucson be borrowing $15,000,000 to tear down the front of the convention center and rebuild it, all before the February opening of the gem show? As Ms. Trasoff indicates, this would provide few jobs. The jobs created would be short term, but the debt she embraces is for the long term, with the rest of us paying for those few quick jobs. Taxpayers will pay for years and years, plus high interest rates siphoned off to the moneylenders. Ms. Trasoff would have us pay and pay while she moves on.
And what about hotel receipts in town? Should the city be funding anything that competes with already struggling businesses? Should the city be going into debt to compete with local businesses?
This is a cynical attempt to gain momentary control over $15,000,000. The construction lobby would have secured one more short term job that will be paid for by the rest of us for a long time. All this without any discernable benefit to the public and the possibility that the convention center will be torn up just in time for the gem show. . Get a restraining order against any destruction of the convention center.
VOTERS! Please vote these people out.
And what about hotel receipts in town? Should the city be funding anything that competes with already struggling businesses? Should the city be going into debt to compete with local businesses?
This is a cynical attempt to gain momentary control over $15,000,000. The construction lobby would have secured one more short term job that will be paid for by the rest of us for a long time. All this without any discernable benefit to the public and the possibility that the convention center will be torn up just in time for the gem show. . Get a restraining order against any destruction of the convention center.
VOTERS! Please vote these people out.
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