Campaign Issue(s) 2010

By Walter Maurer

Key issues in this election include not only Mandatory Trash & Recycling (which has dominated the Council's landscape for nearly two years) but also the underlying foundational issues of 1) challenging unjust higher authority, 2) adhering to lawful procedures, and 3) promoting transparency in City government. But how will those other issues -- police, streets, sewers, etc. -- be addressed and paid for?

http://www.ridgecrestca.com/opinions/letters_to_the_editor/x1273022478/Letter-to-the-editor-Walt-Maurer-for-city-council

In my opinion, the Mandatory Trash & Recycling issue may be summarized as follows:

1) The City's waste diversion study, Kern County's study, and an independent study funded by our tax dollars in the 2008-2009 timeframe all concluded that the City exceeded AB 939's 50% diversion requirement.

2) Cal-Recycle (formerly the California Integrated Waste Management Board) claimed that the reports were erroneous. The Council, instead of insisting upon proof of claimed errors, signed an agreement with Cal-Recycle which included a provision to put Ridgecrest under a Mandatory Trash & Recycling Ordinance. The Council publicly stated that Cal-Recycle refused to accept anything less than a mandatory ordinance, that Cal-Recycle could sue the City up to $10K daily for non-compliance, and that the Council could not reasonably expect to win in court should it challenge the validity of Cal-Recycle's claims. Consequently, the Council enacted its Mandatory Ordinance 09-01 in March 2009. (Interestingly, some months later Cal-Recycle subsequently told local media that it had NOT required the Council to adopt Mandatory Trash & Recycling. Apparently our Council was hoodwinked at the expense of Ridgecrest citizens.)

3) In September 2009 the Council established Resolution 09-57 to formalize an agreement with Benz Sanitation for implementing the mandatory trash & recycling program. The agreement (which should have been an Ordinance per the City's own Municipal Code) foolishly committed the City to reimbursing Benz Sanitation for delinquent bills.

4) In October 2009, citizens began receiving trash and recycling bins, followed soon after by bills from Benz which increased from the typical $25.88 pre-mandatory price to $61.04, thereby instantly drawing attention from more than a few angered citizens.

From that point on, several side issues emerged, including the lawful qualification of the Voluntary Trash Initiative (VTI) in December 2009; Council's refusal to put VTI on the June 8, 2010 ballot as required by the Election Code; Council's attempt to return to pre-mandatory status (supposedly with Cal-Recycle's blessing) by changing the ordinance to provide a voluntary (opt-out) option; and most recently (October 20, 2010), Benz Sanitation's breach-of-contract lawsuit against the City.

What was my response to, and participation in, the above events? Here's a summary -- and as you read this, please remember that I am the ONLY candidate who fought Mandatory Trash & Recycling from Day 1 as noted below:

1) In early 2009, I publicly opposed Mandatory Ordinance 09-01 before its passage, and requested that the Council require Cal-Recycle to meet with concerned Ridgecrest citizens. (Although Cal-Recycle staffers did travel to Ridgecrest to meet with City officials, these meetings were not publicized nor were citizens invited.)

2) In late 2009, I joined a few other citizens (who adopted the name of "Don't Tread On Me - Citizens For Freedom) in authoring and qualifying VTI.

3) In March 2010, when a majority of the Council disregarded the Election Code and denied citizens their right to vote on the lawfully-qualified VTI -- an action I considered to be entirely un-American and unforgivable -- I joined two other citizens in filing a lawsuit against the City with the objective of eventually requiring the Council to put VTI on the ballot. (In the first phase, our lawsuit was rejected primarily on procedural errors on the part of our attorney, but the fundamental question of whether the Council had an unwritten option to reject VTI because of its so-called illegality has not yet been heard by a judge.)

4) In July 2010, upon observing signals that the City was ramping up efforts to hire a collection agency to collect so-called delinquent trash bills from citizens, I contacted the City's Finance Department in writing to obtain the identities of the collection agencies who had been contacted for quotations. The City's response was that I would not receive this information until a selection had been made. (Apparently that still has not happened as I write this in late October.)

5) After hearing for months that progress was being made on the trash issue, I joined a few citizens in meeting with Benz in the September-October timeframe to verify the City's claims of progress. Benz stated that in fact, little progress was occurring, e.g. the City was not requesting meetings.

I mention the above items to demonstrate that 1) I have challenged unjust higher authority (first Cal-Recycle, then our own Council), 2) I strongly believe in requiring our elected officials to obey what the laws plainly require, and 3) I have personally experienced how difficult it can be to obtain information from our City staff.

Now I'll offer a few specific examples of how the Council has fallen short in these areas which are foundational to good government:

CHALLENGING UNJUST AUTHORITY (a.k.a. WILLINGNESS TO FIGHT):

- The Council had three reports in its favor, yet backed down to Cal-Recycle out of fear that the City could not win if Cal-Recycle took the City to court. From the City's point of view, it was far better to put the Mandatory Trash & Recycling costs on citizens' shoulders than to risk being fined $10K per day (a ridiculously-high figure for a small community which even Cal-Recycle's attorneys did not cite in their anti-VTI remarks).
- Several Councilmen who opposed Mandatory Trash & Recycling made some passionate citizens-rights speeches in tones -- only to recant those remarks in subsequent meetings and telling citizens that it was time to acquiesce and "move forward".
- Several Councilmen commendably voted to VTI on the ballot out of principle -- but only after echoing the party line that VTI was illegal.

ADHERENCE TO LAWFUL PROCEDURES:

- Ridgecrest Municipal Code Chapter III, Article 5 clearly requires 1) that a Trash Franchise be established by ORDINANCE, and 2) that such franchises be NONEXCLUSIVE. But in 2009, the Council established an EXCLUSIVE recycling franchise agreement with Benz Sanitation via RESOLUTION 09-57, thereby creating a meaningless document which violated the City's own code! (Of course, one could argue that this was a lucky error: the City cannot be sued for breaching provisions of an invalid agreement, right?)

- California Election Code 9215 clearly requires that the Council must adopt a lawfully-qualified initiative or put it on the ballot, and provides no exceptions to this rule. But in March 2010, the Council did neither.

- As a so-called compromise to keeping VTI off the ballot, the Council put what they believed to be non-binding poll questions (Measures A and B) on the June 2010 ballot -- but in doing so, the Council again failed to follow the Election Code requirements! Thus, Measures A and B appeared on the ballot without the required "Advisory Vote" identification title.

- On August 18, 2010, the Council, in its desperation to do something -- anything! -- to demonstrate progress on the trash issue, voted to increase the monthly single-can trash rate from about $13 to $18 after completely disregarding several citizens who correctly pointed out that the Council has no authority to set trash rates, only to accept or reject rates proposed by Benz. Why didn't the Council immediately act to table this discussion + especially because no Resolution was even included in the Council's agenda packet?

TRANSPARENCY IN CITY GOVERNMENT:

- In early 2010 the Council moved Public Comment to essentially the end of their typically-long meetings, thereby deterring many citizens from sitting through an entire meeting just in order to make a few minutes of remarks. (Due to public request and/or the generosity of the Mayor, opportunity for public comment early in the Council meetings has now been restored.)
- Information requested by concerned citizens -- often several times -- has generally not been provided in a reasonable amount of time (or in some cases, not at all).
- A new policy was recently established which now prohibits the City's staff from providing information directly to citizens.

All of these characteristics -- willingness to fight for citizens, adhering to lawful procedures, and promoting transparency in government -- are crucial if a Council is to maintain the trust and goodwill of its constituents. Accordingly, if elected I will strive to promote these attributes which would serve the Council well in dealing with all those other issues that have gone largely unnoticed due to the Trash Issue's preeminence: street repairs, sewer repair, water drainage, etc., etc. Which brings us to perhaps the biggest issue of all: COST.

On a typical Ridgecrest budget of around $13M, there's not much money left -- perhaps only 2 or 3 million? -- in the General Fund after subtracting expenses for the Ridgecrest Police Department and retirements/pensions for City workers. While I believe that there are non-essential expenses that can be trimmed from the General Fund, the fact remains that Ridgecrest receives back only about 3 cents on each dollar that is sent up to the County and State. Here's the hard truth: Ridgecrest can NEVER hope to get out of our funding shortfall solely by jacking up occupancy and/or sales taxes, or by dreaming about all those as-yet nonexistent revenue streams that new businesses would provide if we could just attract them to the middle of nowhere in CALIFORNIA. The solution must require a direct challenge to higher authority on the grounds that THE COUNTY AND STATE ARE IMPOVERISHING OUR LOCAL COMMUNITY! I don't yet know if this is an endeavor that would require a State-level Initiative or something less formidable in scope -- but in any case, such an action will require FIGHTERS. Frankly, based on our Council's track record regarding its dealings with Cal-Recycle, I have little confidence that they're up to the challenge -- but let me give a real-life example to illustrate that there are elected officials who can indeed rise to the occasion:

While visiting Coeur d'Alene, Idaho in early September, I attended a Council meeting at the suggestion of a friend who knew of my political leanings -- and I was amazed to hear that city's public works director give an update on the status of a most interesting legal matter. Turns out that earlier this year the Environmental Protection Agency handed down an unjust mandate (sound familiar?) that would require the city to comply with Washington State's downstream water standards or face fines of up to $30K per day (sound familiar?). To which Coeur d'Alene's 7-member council responded by UNANIMOUSLY voting to SUE THE EPA!!! (And truth be told, I was compelled to publicly commend them for their backbone and courageous action.)

Lastly, no discussion involving governmental costs is complete without mentioning TAXES, as that is the only method by which government obtains funding (other than allowing the Federal Reserve to "inject more money into the economy" by printing more increasingly worthless ink-on-paper -- but that's another story). I'll again draw on my recent visit to Idaho by quoting some excerpts from a short brochure offered by their Assessor's Office:

TAXATION

Taxpayers DEMAND SERVICES

Taxing authorities NEED MONEY to provide those services.

Taxing districts such as cities set operating budgets which in turn determine TAX RATES.

If you are concerned about increasing taxes,
- DECIDE whether you are willing to DO WITHOUT SERVICES or to REDUCE SERVICE LEVEL to KEEP TAXES LOW

That's about the best "there's no free lunch" explanation I've ever seen regarding taxes. As I've already mentioned in my campaign, my default position on any proposed measure that seeks to remove more money from your pocket is NO unless you, fellow citizens, DEMAND that your taxes be raised in order to receive more of those services -- street repairs, parks, and so forth -- that you are WILLING TO PAY FOR.