With at least three yea votes — Councilmen Ara Najarian, Frank Quintero and Dave Weaver — set in place to assure the passage of the budget, the council will, once again, make sure that Glendale city employees are paid well compared to their peers at any level of government: city, county, state and federal.
To keep these employees in the stratospheric level of wage earners, all the council has to do, it seems, is to keep accepting the city unions’ massive contributions to their reelection campaigns.
While the council members who are the recipients of the unions’ largesse deny the connection, the public is beginning to take note.
To overcome a deficit of $9.9 million this year, the council, in addition to other important elements, has suggested closing a branch library, deferred important infrastructure projects, left positions vacant that would provide services, and removed the critical school resource officer program in our middle schools.
In addition, the council had to transfer another $22.3 million from the Water & Power account to keep the General Fund account from going under.
At the same time, they raised the cost of base water rates by 33% over the next three years to pay for infrastructure needs and replenish depleted cash reserves this time around.
Electricity, sewer and trash fee increases will likely be next for the residents. Licensing fees and other opportunities to tap businesses will likely also emerge in the council’s lexicon of new ideas to raise revenues.
We cannot afford to run our businesses or households using this method of creative financing for very long.
