Monday, February 28, 2011

Fire Assessment Commentary


Our mail-in fire tax ballot came today. It's worded a little funny. The yes box says, "Yes, I support the proposed assessment on my parcel for fire suppression services, including firefighter personnel, equipment and apparatus. while the no box simply states, "No, I oppose the proposed assessment on my parcel for fire suppression services."

I went on-line to see how much our firefighters actually earn because the fire tax ballot mentions it will help pay for personnel. The state controllers web site has the amounts for 2009. Two of our three Battalion Chiefs earned over $257,000 each with more than $120,000 of that in overtime. A Fire Captain earned over $153,000 with over $40,000 of that in overtime. The rest of our firefighters earned over $120,000 on average and that's not including benefits. I can see why given these amounts the city manager wants us to tax ourselves more on behalf of the firefighters. Perhaps a better solution would be pay cuts for our hero's. At least it would show some empathy from the public sector toward us regular schmoes.

The ballot came with a breakdown of who will pay what if you vote yes. If you vote for this parcel tax and are a resident you will be adding $73.17 to your annual property tax bill, you will also be adding the whopping sum of $678.28 to the property taxes of all our local businesses and $41.13 per acre of undeveloped parcels like Dave Colt's acreage on Pedro Point.

I'm voting NO because I think it an unfair tax. The thought that a yes vote will condemn business owners like my favorite mechanic or restaurant to an additional $678.28 a year is just too much to bare, and that friends of mine will pay an extra $41.13 per acre for land that is undeveloped is just plain mean knowing how combative we as a community can be toward development. 

I'm sorry but given the impact on others I live with I can not in good faith vote for this tax. I urge all city employee's from our city manager to our lowest paid hourly contractor to take a 5% pay cut and pay into your own retirement like the rest of os do. We are hurting too and it would be nice if you could show you understand that. A simple 5% wage cut would more than equal the fire tax. What do you say folks? 

Todd McCune Bray

204 comments:

«Oldest   ‹Older   201 – 204 of 204
Anonymous said...

Anon, worse than city council? that's low really low.

todd bray said...

Anon 2;49 said "I believe the ballots were weighted then as well."

The last fire tax was a regular parcel tax and required a 2/3 majority of ballots received. It won 75% of the votes returned. Each parcel was taxed the same amount.

Blahblahblah.

Anonymous said...

Todd, I believe you're correct about the last time. It's being handled differently this time because this way stands a better chance of passing through confusion and fear. The method was very carefully and cynically chosen.

todd bray said...

The state controllers website has a link to the city of Pacifica's local compensation report that listed the wages earned by our firefighters in 2009. It is the report that showed two firefighters had earned over $256,000 each in 2009. The compensation report also lists what our police officers made in 2009 and like the firefighters the numbers are not low. The average for police captains was $150,00, Sergeants earned on average $140,000 and corporals $130,000. The compensation report lists the Police Chief's salary at $171,688.

For a city the size of Pacifica we sure have a lot of employees that are earning more than $1o0,000 a year. I counted 80 that made more than $100,000 a year in 2009 and 35 of those made more than $120,000, 13 made more than $150,000 and of course the 2 now infamous fire Battalion Chiefs made more than $256,000.

God bless them all but but are senior staff kidding me? We are a small little coastal town of 39,000 folks who are floating $100,000 salaries for at least 80 employees. Given the enormity of these salaries how dare senior staff push a fire assessment tax on us. Really, how dare they. And shame on council for going along. 80 city employee's making more the $100,000 and the only solution our city management can come up with is a tax increase?

City employees I love you but you must get real and cut your compensation. Wage freezes and perk give backs are not going to get us there. You must come to terms with the economy you are living off of and take the hits. Making 80 % to 95 % of what you did is a lot better than making 0%. 80 employees for Pacifica making more than $100,000 a year. It's immoral given the shamelessness with which the city leadership has decided the residents must simply pay up or suffer cuts.

This ain't an episode of the Soprano's city folk, it's real life.

«Oldest ‹Older   201 – 204 of 204   Newer› Newest»