| Contra Costa County, CA | November 2, 2004 Election |
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An Open Letter to the Citizens of Moraga, Article #2By Lee BrenCandidate for Member, Town Council; Town of Moraga |
This information is provided by the candidate | |
How to Restore Moraga's Financial LiquidityAN OPEN LETTER TO THE CITIZENS OF MORAGA Article #2, By: Lee Bren, Moraga Citizen I am writing to you because I am a candidate for the Moraga Town Council. In this article I want to share with you my research findings and short-term liquidity recommendations concerning Moraga's economic climate and challenges. Intermediate and long-term recommendations will be addressed in future articles. Moraga's Core Challenges: As I discussed in my August 4th article, Moraga has a rapidly declining General Fund balance which is currently $760,000 or only $46 per citizen. (Moraga's General Fund balance was $2.13 million in 2001.) Lafayette, by comparison, has a General Fund balance of about $7 million or $325 per citizen. A. Sales tax revenues from Moraga business activity are dropping. Moraga generated about $748,000 in sales tax revenues for itself for calendar year 2003. This dollar amount is lower than previous years. (Moraga receives 1% of total sales collected inside Moraga) Lafayette and Orinda, by comparison, generated about $2.1 million and $800,000 respectively, for the same time period. Orinda's Theatre Square is now a classic example of how business synergy and the Orinda Capital Improvement Plans can merge to offer Orinda's citizens diversity in town shopping and keep their sales tax revenues in their town. La Fiesta Square is also an excellent example in Lafayette. B. Our property tax revenues have been stagnant for years, bringing in about $1 million per year to Moraga, or about 18% of Moraga's annual revenue. Moragans paid over $21 million in property taxes last year, yet we only got back $1 million to our city. This is one of the lowest percentage returns of property taxes in Contra Costa County. Our town has averaged only about 27 new homes built per year during the past 25 years. C. Our roads are rapidly deteriorating, and our Town Engineer estimates we need to spend $30 million over the next ten years to replace them. Our road problems will continue to get worse since we have been only averaging $250,000 per year on maintenance our roads, although we should be spending a minimum of $750,000 per year on our 51 miles of roads. D. Moraga has its own police force, but does not provide its' officers with reasonable workshifts, competitive salaries, and a rational retirement program. In total, Moraga has only 32 hard working and extremely dedicated employees trying to serve 16,500 citizens. In summary, Moraga has been experiencing deteriorating tax revenues, resulting in rapidly weakening cash reserves and financial liquidity. Our primary financial challenges are a direct result of a very weak business infrastructure (lack of sales tax revenues), a lack of high quality and well-priced workforce and senior citizen housing alternatives (lack of property tax revenues), and very uncertain revenues from the State of California (state budget crisis). Perspective: The original 1974 Moraga town charter was based on the premise of minimum government and minimum growth. These premises continue to govern our actions today. I believe these core premises worked well for Moragans in the 1970's and perhaps until the mid 1980's. However, for too long, we have ignored investment in town strategic planning and sufficient requisite human resources to implement plans for economic viability and sustainability. Steps to Restore Moraga's Short-Term Financial Liquidity: The financial challenges facing Moraga may seem daunting. The fact is that if both short and long-term measures are applied, we will make significant headway in moving Moraga toward being financially secure and a better place to live, shop and raise our families. Short-term measures include: A. We need to immediately finance a building that Moraga purchased for cash earlier this year. Our current town council elected to pay $2.7 million cash for the new town office building located at 329 Rheem Boulevard. In addition, they paid another $300,000 to renovate the building. The monies to pay for this building were taken directly from both 1) our General Fund and 2) "borrowed" from other Moraga Restricted Funds. We need to finance this building through a bank or a private investor or a government loan program to replenish our General Fund and pay back the borrowed monies from Restricted Funds. Interest rates are at 30 year lows and we are missing a rare opportunity to borrow at incredible low rates. B. We need to begin serious discussions with the Moraga Country Club, to consider selling the city land that currently is used for the MCC golf course. The current property lease arrangement with MCC is on a long-term lease, and the annual lease revenue to our town is insignificant. This land sale would result in additional liquidity for Moraga.
C. We need to consider selling other non essential and underutilized land that our town owns. These property sales would generate immediate significant cash receipts, and eventually generate more property tax revenues for Moraga when the property is developed.
D. Take some of the monies from A-C above and a) begin the initial investment in our community by enlarging the staffs of the Moraga Planning and Finance Departments; among the new hires will be a full-time Moraga Business Liaison, charged to fill our 85,000+ square feet of vacant retail space. b) Continue finalizing a competitive contract with the Moraga Police Department. c) Under the direction of our new Town Manager, Mr. Phil Vince, continue and finalize plans for the redevelopment of our two shopping centers as well as design of new pedestrian-friendly flexible alternative housing for workforce and senior citizens. d) Communicate with Moragans about these development projects, describing the locations, the general layout, the advantages and benefits, as well as conduct site tours. (Targeted sites: non-ridgeline, blighted locations, such as behind the Safeway store along School Street). e) Significantly expand the repair and maintenance of our roads in Moraga. Please email me with questions or comments to: leroybren@netscape.net Please join me in my political campaign so we can begin a renaissance in our town called Moraga! Paid for by The Committee to Elect Lee Bren |
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