Wavelength: Ian Interviews Marine Mammal Rescuer Sue Pemberton

Paul Donahue photo

On PCT 26's award-winning TV show Wavelength, genial host Ian Butler interviews community movers and shakers. Watch past shows online anytime at:

Wavelength Archives

On the most recent show, Ian interviews Sue Pemberton, longtime marine mammal rescuer, on why she thinks Pacifica should outlaw fireworks on the beach. You can view this program online anytime at:

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Comments

[keri santos]

The city refinanced sewer bonds in 2000, 2002, 2003 (and possibly a few other times) to do exactly what it is proposing now. How did that work out?

[Lionel Emde]

There are all kinds of questions regarding the sewage treatment plant and its outstanding debt.

The sewage treatment plant budget is a kind of black hole into which increasing millions of taxpayer dollars are disappearing.

According to a study quoted in a San Bruno (!) City Council report, Pacifica pays the third-highest sewer tax in two counties (San Mateo and San Francisco). Now that isn't a recent development; this has been built up over a long time, and much mismanagement.

So we're going to "save" some interest, when the principal is so large as to dwarf many other long-term debts the city has.

Big Deal.

[Carl May]

It's so weird that some chanting the develop-to-infinity mantra believe a city can come out in the hole on the cost of services provided over the taxes generated by each house built but make it up in volume of houses.

It was before I moved my business to Pacifica from the midcoast 14 years ago, but I seem to remember a City Council was recalled by the voters when it proposed something like a landscape and lighting tax to balance a budget containing the municipal services the citizens of Pacifica insisted they wanted. Innumeracy is nothing new in this town, though its current public revival in the rantings of pavementheads and those with low levels of reading comprehension and germane information may make it seem so.

[Pacifica Index]

The City of Pacifica is not "floating another bond" to pay for sewer repairs. It is seeking to restructure the outstanding current debt on its 2001B Wastewater Revenue Bond with a private placement issue at a much lower interest rate. All with the advice and guidance of financial advisors Stern Brothers & Co. Much like refinancing one's mortgage, the savings as a result of this restructuring is projected to be in the range of $383,960.

Since rates are at historic lows (private placements take their cue from US Treasury bond rates), the city is borrowing an additional $2,570,000 via this single private placement to finance ongoing sewer improvements. Since these are mandated improvements, the alternative would pretty much be limited to placing that $2,570,00 on the backs of ratepayers or pursuing other -- more expensive -- options.

These financing vehicles are part of the "smoothing out" process the city is pursuing with regard to spreading out the rate increases over many years.

Please see our Featured Story (www.pacificaindex.com) for discussion of this and other agenda items from last night's City Council meeting. Additionally, consult our Index (www.pacificaindex.com/theindex.html) for source documentation provided by the city, arranged by topic (Sewer/Wastewater/Stormwater System and dozens of others).

Indexing has been completed back through November 9, 2009 and is ongoing.

We hope visitors to the site find the Index useful for locating this sort of information and documentation.

[keri santos]

I also forgot to mention that Todd Bray, Dan Underhill, and Carl May think the city is just fine.

Let's see, fire already went to Daly City, police dispatch went to SSF, police is going to the sheriff's office (based on the silence from City Hall on the issue).

The city cannot pay the bills and is relying on refinancing bonds to pay the bills, the city pension fund is broke, and the bond issue was a complete failure.

And you three guys think this is good!

You guys really crack me up?

[keri santos]

Todd, so are you blaming Prop. 13 for the low taxes going to the city or the fact that most owners are on Prop. 13 taxes?

Yes, I do own a house. Bought and paid for.

So the city is floating another bond to pay for the sewer repairs it agreed to make, due to a lawsuit for the 7.5-million-gallon sewage spill. They are also refinancing the sewer plant bonds to pay city bills.

[todd bray]

Keri, not to belabor the issue, but houses generate only property taxes, and unfortunately Pacifica along with every other California municipality receives only 11 percent of the property taxes collected by the county tax assessors statewide. So if your property taxes are $4,000, Pacifica gets back only 11 percent of that, approximately $440.

There are add-ons like parcel taxes, sewer taxes, and such that are special funds dedicated to a specific use. These add-ons equal about an extra $1,400 or so a year on top of a house's property tax.

Keri, do you own a house?

[Carl May]

The "growth is good" belief paradigm has long been solidly discredited on a quantitative basis. But it is so politically correct that politicians, bureaucrats, Chambers of Commerce, etc., don't dare express anything but blind allegiance and act accordingly. Developers, like those in SAMCEDA in San Mateo County, "own" many local governments and always press their quest for short-term profits with little regard to long-term consequences and with no recognition of the stupidity of championing misplaced and unending growth on a finite earth.

One of the organizations that does not march blindly into oblivion is the American Farmland Trust, an outfit that has long fought loss of productive agricultural land and supporting natural resources to development. Its website and publications contain quite a bit on the irrationality of urban overgrowth. (Development of rich agricultural land equals more people with less and poorer agricultural production. Now there's a Malthusian recipe for disaster.)

There are many academic studies of overpopulation and urban growth, but the modern guy who probably did the most to get the modern ball rolling about 15 years ago was Eben Fodor. He now actively consults on such matters and what he and his associates are about can be found at www.fodorandassociates.com.

In spite of the Pollyannas, true believers, and profiteers preaching the growth religion, you can't get around the numbers and the consequences in the real world. No locality is exempt from analysis and critical thinking on the suitability of urban growth, and, especially, residential growth.

[Peter Loeb]

Keri: It's a long-established cost/benefit ratio that's been researched by universities, communities, and land use consultants. If you can't find any reference to this by googling, it must be because of the search terms you're using. Google this phrase: "costs of residential greater than revenues." That will give you links to several articles that should help make sense of this. Here's one: http://conservationtools.org/guides/show/15-Cost-of-Community-Services-Studies

[keri santos]

Dan, can you please post some links that show where cities don't make money from housing?

I have googled this and cannot find where this makes any sense.

[Dan Underhill]

@keri santos: The only part of any proposal that any developer was willing to put in writing was lots and lots of residential units. Residential units make money for developers while the cities and towns lose money. I saw some beautiful renderings for the quarry, but housing was the only issue discussed in a meaningful (legally documented) way. As far as bringing in business that will actually enhance city revenues, every council has followed every lead, as far as I can tell. The reasons for our economic dilemma are the ones I have cited. If you are right about it being so easy, or even so possible, put together the deal, bring in your investors, and make that fortune. You will find a great deal of support. Many of us shop Pacifica whenever we can.

[keri santos]

Todd,

City Councils past and present failed. The quarry has been empty for 25-plus years that I have lived here. The wastewater treatment plant lies vacant and the city is trying to have a developer build a new library on the site. Why not tear down the old library and build it on that site?

I spoke to a lady who is moving her business to Pacifica to take advantage of cheaper rent. Go through Linda Mar shopping center and Eureka Square. Many, many vacanct storefronts.

So besides raising taxes every chance it gets, what has the council done to improve the business climate around town?

[Larry Rosenstein]

Dan said it best. A lot of people criticize the city for a lack of economic development, but I never see any specific ideas for what the city should do.

As far as Sue Digre's comment goes, a year ago the Chamber of Commerce put together a proposal to help the city market Pacifica that starts with "In our estimation, the best way for the City to increase revenue in the short term is to boost tourism," which is basically the same idea.

The chamber's long-term solution was "Fill Commercial Vacancies" and its proposal was to "design and maintain a searchable commercial real estate website." It turns out that the city's website provides most of what the chamber suggested. There is a listing of available commercial space, information about the various business districts, and links to them as well as to the chamber's website.

[Dan Underhill]

@ Keri: I am really interested in your ideas for a Pacifica economy. So is every member of every City Council we have ever had. Residential developers have always suggested more and more residential development to solve our problems, but residential development has been proven to cost cities more than it brings in, so that ain't the solution. The couple of tiny industrial areas we have in town could possibly accommodate a few more businesses, and it is pie-in-the-sky possible that the next Apple Corporation is starting up right now in some Pacifica garage. We have some tourism and that might grow a bit if we promote the place and continue to take care of the environment that makes for Pacifica's natural beauty. Any one of the empty storefronts could become rented to some new business that draws customers from over the hill instead of being totally dependent on local residents as their only customers, as is true of most Pacifica businesses. Many self-starters in this town have been working on these issues for a long time and you are certainly welcome to join them. The idea that our environment-is-our-economy is presently mostly true, but it doesn't preclude your introducing that business or industry that pulls us out of the hole. I say go to it and blessings upon you.

[todd bray]

Keri, who are you?

[keri santos]

Todd, are you willing to cut your salary?

[todd bray]

""What Todd forgets to understand is that other cities have a tax base, which Pacifica does not!""

Keri, all the more reason to address municipal salaries.

[Lionel Emde]

Glass-Steagall is a completely different subject, and has nothing to do with how public-sector employee costs have risen dramatically in the years since 1999.

Our City Council did as almost every other city council did: It said yes to employee contracts that, taken as a whole over time, have brought many cities to the unthinkable edge of default. Pacifica has no sales tax base to speak of, and we will pay the price for this one-two whammy very soon.

[keri santos]

Dan, I find you and other liberals like to put all the blame on George Bush and his policies and/or lack of policies for the mess the country is in. But you don't put blame on City Council for the mess the city is in. Pacifica never had an economy, unless you buy into Sue's "the ecology is our economy" BS.

The problems with the economy are fighting two unnecessary wars. High gas prices. Real estate values falling 50 percent to 75 percent and double-digit unemployment.

Bray keeps harping about city employee salaries, and it sounds like he is sour grapes. Every city has high salaries and a high pension obligation. What Todd forgets to understand is that other cities have a tax base, which Pacifica does not!

[Dan Underhill]

I agree with Todd that those localities where public sector employees have chosen to cooperate, cut their pay, and keep everyone employed is the best possible temporary local solution. I also believe that in the long run it would not be enough to offset a banking sector that is not regulated in any significant way. Until we reinstate Glass-Steagall (I am not talking about an "updated" version but rather the real thing that kept us from having a depression for more than 70 years), nothing else we do will matter much.

[todd bray]

Folks, residential development costs local governments more than it brings in. That cost is personnel.

It continues to be painful to watch our public workers opt to throw their coworkers under the bus rather than act rationally to save their jobs by volunteering to reduce their compensation to a realistic level that our local revenues can afford.

Unfortunately, this interview with Pete DeJarnatt only highlights the problem for me. Pete is a smart fellow. I really respect his logic. But Pete is admittedly burned out. I would have hoped he would be a leader into looking at things like AB506 that would allow the city to forcibly reduce work force compensation. Unfortunately he has decided to be, well, not a leader.

Taxing people like me who earn two to four times less than the city employees (whom the half-cent sales tax would artificially support) not only is cynical, unimaginative, and irresponsible, it's flat out cowardly.

I'm sorry, all, but the interview to me was a wasted effort for Pete, Ian, and the viewers. It was a nice exit piece for Pete, which he deserves, but other than publicly copping to being burned out (which was mighty brave), there wasn't much to the show, for me at least.

I'm glad Pete is finally hanging it up -- glad for him.

[Carl May]

On the taxation side of things, Pacifica is an example of urban residential overgrowth. The city's mothers and fathers, and everyone else glassy-eyed with the growth ethic, would do well to look into the work of Oregonian Eben V. Fodor, who shows that residential growth generally costs local government (and, therefore, the taxpayers) more in this day and age than is generated in new taxes from the growth. In other words, a deficit is not relieved with new residential development; it increases! There are even instances in which it would be cheaper for a local government to buy undeveloped property and keep it open rather than endure the costs that will be created by residential development on the property. Start with www.fodorandassociates.com.

[Dan Underhill]

@ Carl May: I shall pay close attention to what you have to say on these subjects in future. We need to find the very BEST compromise we can on each and every such issue. Unless all the angels show up and set it all to rights for us, it will, of course, be a compromise as all of those flora and fauna will be trying to do what they do while, at the same time, all of those human beings will want to continue to do all of those human being types of behaviors. There is probably a way to make all of this work out OK. Let's all keep trying.

[Dan Underhill]

@ keri santos: None of the terrible outcomes you mention are desirable. None of the terrible outcomes you mention have happened to Pacifica yet, even though they have happened to other nearby cities much earlier in this depression and even though our town is one of the poorest in the county and even though Pacifica started out with some serious economic disadvantages. We live on a tiny bit of buildable land between the very famous Pacific Ocean, noted for its serious lack of customer base, and some very unstable coastal hills that have quite rightly been designated as park land, which is, of course, also not containing many paying customers. Having a meager customer base and a meager, at best, industrial section of town leaves us with considerably fewer options than many of the towns that have actually already experienced the disasters you mention. The City Council offered us an out. It suggested a tiny tax that would have helped us avoid the disasters you speak of. A majority of us refused to countenance such a tax, so now the council is operating with no help from the people at all. We have still not experienced the disasters you mention, but if and when we do, I am going to have a hard time pinning it on the council.

[keri santos]

So Dan, you think the city being bankrupt is a good thing. Outsourcing police and fire. Not being able to pay for basic city services is a good thing. Cannot say I understand your logic.