Candidate for
Member, Town Council; Town of Moraga

Moraga has core infrastructure challenges including: 1) a diminishing town General Fund cash balance. Currently, this balance is only $760,000, which is down sharply from $2.1 million in 2001. This is $46 per Moraga citizen. 2) dropping sales tax revenues. This is a direct result of economic stagnation, a general historical/current town policy of slow or no growth, and a lack of town investment in the human resources necessary to implement solid plans for economic viability and shopping diversity. 3) property tax stagnation. Moraga has averaged only 27 new homes per year during the past 25 years. We have built no high quality senior housing, no workforce housing for our teachers/professors, firemen, policemen, or housing for our own grown children. Because our property taxes are stagnant, after inflation, we are effectively living on a 1985 town revenue base in the year 2004. 4) deteriorating roads. We continue to significantly under-spend to maintain our roads. As a result, we now have $30 million of roads that need to be replaced. 5) revitalizing our police deparment, by providing them with reasonable work hours and realistic retirement plan.