Talk of Developing the `Last Open Space in La Mirada' Brings Up More Concerns

By Angelo Gandalf Maldonado

Fixing up our commercial areas and ensuring a future tax base should be our main concern.

In some distant past, it was the goal of each city to increase the property values of their homes because the property taxes where the main source of income. However, that era is dead and gone and far from coming back. Now the main source of income for cities in California are sales taxes, which are funneled down from the state board of equalization and into the pockets of the all telling budget. It is with sales tax that we continue our growth. Far be it for us to become another Santa Fe Springs and use fiscal zoning to increase cash flow, but because the city is basking in the wreath of a `new economy' we must still spend our money wisely and with the future in mind. However, the future is dim unless we develop a plan to maintain our sales tax revenue. The increase in homes in the area will require an increase in services. New sheriff officers will have to be hired or relocated from other parts of the county to patrol La Mirada. New city employees will have to be hired or placed on full-time status in order to maintain the common areas such as median dividers and other landscaping. This would call for more street maintenance (one the highest expenses of any city) which, no doubt, will also call for more city employees.

There is an argument that theses new residents will shop in La Mirada and increase our sales tax revenue. This argument is based on the idea that these residents will go out of their way in order to shop in town when they can just cross Beach Boulevard or Imperial Highway. Given the choice I would imagine the residents shopping where they can get a better deal, even if the deal is a lower sales tax.

The city should not be surprised that Home Depot wants a better store in a new shopping center located at Imperial and La Mirada Boulevard to compete with neighboring competition. Especially when the hardware giant has been performing terribly in the stock market and in their financial reports. The placement of a new Lowe's Hardware store at the corner of Imperial and Beach Boulevard would cripple our existing store and cause the chain to close and relocate to a neighboring city. We cannot afford to allow such a closure. The city should also not be surprised that the older, `run down' centers are performing poorly compared to the newer more modern centers.

We can not sit idly by and watch our shopping centers fall apart, as these centers have been doing for years. We can not continue to lose our sales tax revenue to neighboring Orange County, because we have not pressured our county to lower the sales tax to the same level.

We must face the fact that basic needs are going up. The cost of gasoline, natural gas, and now electricity have all increased. Our state level officials have begun dealing with this problem, but we can't wait a year or two. The sales tax must come down and the city can influence that decision and perhaps, with support from other neighboring communities, we can get the supervisors to listen.

Angelo G. Maldonado Candidate for La Mirada City Council