November 7, 2007
SAFETY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER!
Once again the Gang in the Ivory Tower, (Ventura City Hall), has gone to great lengths to try to "pull the wool" over the eyes of the citizens of Ventura. While stumping for their latest tax grab, Measure C7 they told us over and over again that if the measure was not passed they wouldn't have enough money to pay for public safety, (Police and Firefighters). Now that measure C7 has passed and insures the city of continued extra tax income of at least $2.8 million dollars per year and quite possibly as much as $3.5 million per year you would think they would be overjoyed that they now have the where-with-all to provide the city with all the public safety we need.
Well folks it don't seem that is the case. The Gang in the Ivory Tower voted to go into partnership with the school district in supplying the money to provide police officers for the local high school campuses. (Heck everybody is for that), For the rest of this school year the plan is to provide a single officer that would work on a rotating basis and cover all the high schools in the city, this will cost the city and the school district each $33,600. After that the plan is to provide a separate officer for each of the high school campuses. The cost for that will be a bit higher, as a matter of fact it will cost the city and the school district each about $300,000 per year.
Now comes the spin, the Gang in the Ivory Tower says, even though C7 has passed, that they don't have the money and don't know where it will come from, the one idea they have come up with is to, (get this), add a surcharge to cell phones and land line phones to pay for some of the $3 million dollar cost of the 911 system. With the savings from the 911 system they could then have enough to pay for their share of the school officer program. By doing it this way, the surcharge would not be considered a tax and would not require a vote of the people. Now even though the city of Ventura has had a Utility Users Tax for around 40 years taking in a couple million dollars per year, that we were told was used for public safety, we are among a few cities in the county without school resource officers, and I can't think of any higher level of public safety than protecting our school kids.
The other idea the Gang in the Ivory Tower is tossing around, willy-nilly, is to once again put the 1/4 percent sales tax measure to the voters, (the one that lost last time), only this time they will spin it so that they will be telling us that it's a measure to put police officers in the schools. So obviously if you vote against it, it must mean that you aren't concerned about the safety of our school kids.
Does this kind of logic sound familiar to you? Bush and his cronies are always saying if you aren't for spending another 100 billion dollars on the war in Iraq, and killing another 3000 American military people, plus another 100 thousand Iraq civilians, it must mean you are for the terrorist and against the United States of America.
I wonder why, since our police officers, in cars and on motorcycles are on set patrols, roaming about the city on a daily basis, what prevents them from making a run through each of the high school campuses a few times a day? It may mean the loss of a couple of seat belt, or other tickets each day but it seems like that would be a lot less expensive than paying a collective $600,000 per year to have a single officer on each campus. I know all of us have seen cases where a car has been pulled over and there are 3 or 4 police cars or motorcycles on the scene. Or when a homeless person is being rousted and it takes 3 or 4 officers to interrogate a single person. Hey I know the officers want to be safe and you never know what is going to happen when you pull somebody over, but we need to provide the same level of safety to our school kids.
Rellis Smith
res@venturastuff.com