The Public Safety Bond
I chock this one up to a victory for common sense.  I have to admit I was just incredulous when I saw all those polls that showed a majority of city voters supported the bond.   The name “Christmas Wish List” took life in the final days before the election and became the nail in the coffin on this one.  I have opposed the Public Safety bond from the beginning, just as I have opposed the Hogle Zoo bond proposal, because the cost-benefit analysis did not merit out a justification for raising my (and your!) property taxes some $300 a year. 

I support updating critical infrastructure needs, and that should be taken care of first and foremost. However, the City refused to play ball with the County and look at joint venture opportunities.  Those opportunities would have saved taxpayers millions, but would have come at the expense of the long-standing turf battles between police chiefs and fire captains.  I admit I am relatively uneducated as to the details of the relationship, but I take Mayor Corroon and Sheriff Winder at their word when they say they tried to reach out to the City players and work out a partnership.  They say their partnership offer was rebuffed despite the existence of a large County fire training facility just 12 blocks outside the city limits.  It smells like turf spirit to me, and I’m not gonna pay for it. 

The County is putting together a public safety master plan, which includes several of the same projects contemplated by the bond.  This kind of thoughtful approach is the kind of blueprint the City needs, and Mayor Becker has already pledged to participate.  Long-term planning for public safety needs will provide the foundation for fiscal prudence and inclusive community justice.  I am looking forward to seeing what Mayors Corroon and Becker come up with—stay tuned! 

Others ballot issues: 

Yay Luke Garrott!  Having a professor on the Council should be fun to watch!

Boo Jordan School District.  Having grown up in Cottonwood Heights I think I have a little license to say the following:  those people are crazy!  Mayor Cullimore and his ilk have succeeded in creating their own little fiefdom over there.  When they proposed incorporation to their residents, they promised that it wouldn’t cost taxpayers a lot of money because they vowed not to create their own fire department, police force, or large municipal government.  All of which has, of course, proven not to be true.  The temptation to increased your sphere of power was just too great for the local elected officials out there, and now their State Senator has pushed the break away of the already-built-out Eastside from the burgeoning Westside, and left them to fend for themselves after subsidizing the Eastside for all those years.  Again, I understand the desire to have smaller school districts, but at the end of the day, in lieu of more local control, what you get is another redundant bureaucracy managing fewer schools.  For resource programs alone, they will have to duplicate services and hire twice as many teachers and resource education professionals to accommodate the same number of students as before.  It just doesn’t seem to square with conservative principles, so I am, again, confused why Republican leaders are pushing this one. 

Yay Eagle Mountain.  Elected, yet another, new mayor.  Lets hope they can keep this one a full term!

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 5:33 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.