Detailed Candidate Statement

By William C. Mason

A summary of views about issues facing Covina. Please see http://www.wcmason.com for detailed information.

Children, seniors, parents, young men and women -- all of us, whether we own our homes or rent them -- deserve to live in a community where parks are valued as an integral part of our quality of life. Special interests -- and their council allies -- who want to turn our green space into over-priced, high-density residential developments must not be allowed to profit at the expense of our community. Citizens need more green space, not less.

As an educator, I know Covina needs a 21st-Century library. I'll forge partnerships that meet the need.

For years we have been promised a library that truly meets the need. Proposals have been offered ... and have been tossed aside, simply because they did not originate with the council or city manager. To date, what we do have is nothing but broken promises and lost opportunities. Resources that could have been used to serve the entire community -- to build a library for Covina -- have instead been siphoned off into large-scale projects from which only a few will benefit, but for which all will pay, and pay, and pay ... Partnerships that could have been forged have been ignored because of petty turf wars and a lack of leadership. We need a library that will serve students, parents, small business owners, and every other citizen who has an interest that he or she would like to pursue.

As a father, son, and former fire-paramedic services committee member, I know Covina needs additional paramedics. I'll not rest until our seniors and children are protected from unnecessary pain, disability, and death.

People deserve paramedic protection equal to the need. Thirty years ago, Covina started providing emergency medical services with one paramedic squad. By 1982, that was deemed inadequate. Since then our population has increased by more than 50 percent, and has grown older. The fact is that current service levels are below what they were only twelve years ago, and below those levels provided by other communities, such as West Covina, La Verne, Alhambra, and the City of Los Angeles, who take a more enlightened and caring approach by providing paramedic service that is progressive, more responsive to its citizen's needs, more efficient, and less costly! Recent council actions grudgingly restored what was cut -- but that action was taken only after Kevin Stapleton and his fellow council members were publicly criticized for their position, as expressed by the mayor, that some people simply would not get the paramedic services they needed, a situation coldly declared to be acceptable. In fact, in cruel and unflinching tone, Stapleton went on to say that whether or not someone received a paramedic in a timely manner was simply "the luck of the draw." And the sad fact is that, even if all of the paramedic cuts were restored, our paramedic service would still be inadequate.

Such calloused disregard for public safety, even while expanding the ranks of upper management and granting large pay increases to upper management, speaks volumes about the failure of this council majority as trustees of public resources and their willingness to place political interests above the needs of Covina and its citizens.

As a former businessman and Covina planning commissioner, I know taxpayers deserve fair returns on their investments -- that expenditures of public funds for redevelopment must provide measurable economic gains. I'll support only those expenditures for economic development that (1) deliver benefits to taxpayers sufficient to pay for the projects, and (2) provide additional revenues.

Redevelopment funds, Prop A funds, and Prop C funds are taxpayer funds , and should be invested only when the benefits to be generated warrant such an investment. Under the direction of the city manager and city council, taxpayers have already been committed to more than $20 million in expenditures for just two parking structures and a pedestrian overpass in the downtown area -- a figure that will likely more than double in the coming few years. Unfortunately for taxpayers, for every $9 million spent, downtown Covina will need to generate additional taxable sales equal to all taxable sales in the entire City of Covina, including Ikea, WalMart, Home Depot, Bert's Mega Mall, K-Mart, SavOn, Walgreen's, car dealerships, Shopper's Lane, and every other restaurant or fast food business, small business, furniture store, liquor store, gift shop, and gas station throughout the entire city! Given that kind of financial commitment, it's little wonder that the private sector prefers that the taxpayers pick up the tab -- thus maximizing private-sector profits. So the question is simply this: If the private sector, whose business it is to invest money wisely -- sees that kind of expenditure as undesirable, then why are taxpayers being asked to underwrite such expenditures? Why are taxpayers being asked to protect the private sector's bottom line? Who are the city council and manager trying to please? And, more important, why?

And, by the way, the $20 million isn't even being spent on items that will increase the flow of pedestrian traffic through downtown Covina. Instead, it will provide additional parking spaces for MetroLink commuters who will be either in a hurry to get to work or in a hurry to get back home.

As a Covina-Valley Unified School District personnel commissioner, I know open government fosters honest government. I'll demand transparency -- more open government.

Taxpayers are entitled to detailed information about how city hall appropriates, expends, and manages taxpayer resources -- including detailed budget data, analyses, and background information. It is the availability of such information that allows citizens to hold their government officials accountable -- whether those officials be elected, appointed, or hired. For too long, city hall has stonewalled on the release of important data, or released it in bits and pieces without ever releasing all that was sought. And when information is finally released, it is done in the most inefficient, ineffective way possible: After spending millions of dollars to update computer systems, citizens are still unable to go on-line to retrieve critical, detailed information.

Even more troubling is the tendency of elected officials to hold and tolerate the holding of closed-door meetings in violation of the law, particularly the Brown Act pertaining to open meetings. So calloused is their disregard for the citizens' right to know that city hall has been warned by the district attorney to cease and desist such practices. Unfortunately, we cannot know whether or not they have complied. Indeed, a city official who facilitated a Brown Act violation in order to shut down debate on an important housing issue was reappointed to a key city post, even though the violation was widely known by members of the council who reappointed him. Detailed information about every aspect of local government should be available to each and every citizen -- and that access should include on-line access. Citizen access should not be restricted to the limited hours of operation for city hall or the library, or by the imposition of unreasonable fees. On-line access is user-friendly and cost-effective: The information is already stored electronically; it only needs to be made available.

As a homeowner, I know Covina must protect taxpayers' home investments by maintaining our infrastructure. I'll accept nothing less.

Streets, water lines, sewer lines, storm drains, and other important infrastructure need to be properly maintained, and the money so allocated must be spent for the intended purpose -- not redirected elsewhere, as was done with the money for Azusa Avenue. Moreover, taxpayer funds must be more carefully managed in order to assure that the money needed is available. The problem is not a lack of resources -- it's in the lack of creativity, vision, and in the spending habits of upper management and the city council. For example, one former council member suggested a novel, yet efficient, way to tap into additional Proposition C funds -- but was soundly rebuffed by the council majority for purely political reasons.

As a husband, I know how tight family budgets can get, especially when soaring energy prices gouge working families and seniors. Consistent with promises made -- but broken -- by city officials, I'll insist on a utility tax-exempt baseline to ease that burden.

Covina's utility tax was intended to be a temporary tax -- a short-term solution for a short-term, definable problem. Indeed, current city council members were elected, in part, based on their promises to end and/or reduce the tax. Instead, they have used the tax as a funding vehicle to reward the special interests that support them. And in spite of the fact that utility tax revenues have risen far beyond any expectation -- due, in part, to rapidly rising energy costs, no effort has been made to reduce our dependency on the tax or to ease the burden on working families and seniors -- even though the city manager, with the approval of the city council, promised that city hall would not profit from the increased burden placed on families as a result of dramatically increased energy costs.

An exemption for baseline usage would restore to families and seniors that which has been unfairly taken from them, and force council members and city hall to make good their promises.