I only found out later that after I left the City Council meeting on February 17 after being shut down by Mayor Anderson, she allowed other City Council members to freely debate the same topic. This points up one of the long standing problems with the Richmond City Council that contributes to its dysfunction. There has been a lot of talk lately about being a team. Well, the Richmond City Council has embraced the sports analogy, but it has embraced the wrong game, which appears to be “tackle the man with the ball.”
I have always said that a good idea is a good idea regardless of its source. The City Council”s playbook states that no single individual should ever generate any initiative. Staff generated items are okay because they are non-threatening. That is one of the reasons Mayor Anderson is obsessed with sending so many things to committee. Once an item gets into a committee, it becomes the committee”s initiative, and any individual”s efforts are thoroughly diluted.
Political scientists would say that this is simply one of the mechanisms of good government, and they might be correct if the City Council committee system weren”t also dysfunctional. Committees only meet once or twice a month, and when they do, they are seldom fully attended by members. Any challenging item is usually continued to one or more future meetings, resulting in weeks or months of delay. The Finance Committee manages to churn through dozens of staff-generated expenditure authorizations monthly but seems to have had little success in preventing the current budget crisis that may-or-may-not exist-because-there-has-been-no-accounting-yet. Wouldn”t that be something the Finance Committee should be investigating?
The Public Safety and Public Services Committee spends most of its time debating the pros and cons of stop signs at intersections and very little time investigating the major issues of infrastructure, crime, or curtailed fire service that plague Richmond.
When either committee gets into a complex, sensitive or controversial issue, they routinely send it to staff to resolve, after which it usually dies. Case in point is the Residential Rental Unit Inspection Ordinance. The Public Safety and Public Services Committee started to investigate why it was not being enforced. Instead, they were intimidated by industry lobbyists into recommending suspending enforcement permanently. The Committee then instructed staff to write a more industry-friendly ordinance, which never happened.
The experience that I described in yesterday”s E-FORUM of the Chamber of Commerce trying to get support from the Finance Committee for a business improvement district is similar.
Regarding Concilmembers Rogers” and Bates” assertions that a business tax on rental unit owners would be passed on to middle class working people, they must have played hooky during Real Estate Economics 101. See the West County Times article that follows this email. The fact is that the real estate market sets the rate for rentals (as well as sales), not landlords and landowners. These folks are entrepreneurs, and they are going to charge whatever the market will bear. The idea that taxes will be passed on to renters simply doesn”t compute. At any rate, a tax comparable to that charged in El Cerrito would amount to less than $0.25 a day but would almost support one fire station for a year. I suspect that most of the Richmond residents (including the “working middle class” that Rogers routinely champions) we have heard begging for full fire protection recently would be willing to pay (or have their landlords pay) an additional $0.20 a day for this service.
The fact is that the Mayor and the City Council are more interested in posturing and making sure no member looks good than conducting business in a way that actually accomplishes something. Until this changes, Richmond will continue to be at risk.
Richmond mayor stifles councilman’s proposal Posted on Thu, Feb. 19, 2004 By Rebecca Rosen Lum Reach Rebecca Rosen Lum 510-262-2713 or rrosenlum@cctimes.com CONTRA COSTA TIMES
RICHMOND – Many California cities require rental property owners to take out a business license, and Richmond should do the same, said Councilman Tom Butt.
But discussion of the idea was quickly thwarted by Mayor Irma Anderson, which sent Butt storming out of a Tuesday City Council meeting early.
Butt proposed bringing Richmond in sync with cities such as Berkeley, Davis, Dublin, El Cerrito, Livermore, Millbrae, Newark, Pacifica, Rohnert Park, San Rafael, and a host of others.
The fees aren’t exactly staggering: El Cerrito charges $78 a year; Livermore roughly $50; Pacifica $25 per unit; Rohnert Park $50 for the first unit and $25 for each additional unit.
Mostly the money is used to pay for city inspections.
“At $78 a year, you’re only talking about $6 a month or so, but when you put it all together that’s $1 million for the city,” Butt said.
No sooner had Butt launched into his reasoning than Anderson cut him off, saying the issue was slated to be discussed in the finance committee.
“It’s not a simple matter,” she said.
Tensions between various council members and the mayor have grown over the past months, with some complaining she dumps items from the agenda that she does not wish to discuss.
“Just forget it,” Butt said as Anderson rejected his explanations.
“I will,” she shot back.
Vice Mayor Richard Griffin dissolved in giggles as a clearly exasperated Butt gathered up his materials and left the council chamber, slamming the door.
“He says it takes too long to work through the committee process,” Anderson said later. “It’s a good thing Washington and Sacramento don’t see it that way. In committee, you get all facets of an issue.”
As soon as Butt was gone, the proposal’s opponents expounded on its flaws, which Anderson said was “inappropriate.”
“I’ve never seen a tax on a landlord that wasn’t transferred to a renter,” said Councilman Nat Bates.
Councilman Jim Rogers said there is no doubt the fee “will be passed along to middle-class working people.”
Late Tuesday night, Butt used his widely distributed e-mail newsletter, the E-Forum, to vent his frustrations with Anderson.
“Mayor Anderson allows some council members to wax on for 10 to 20 minutes on their favorite topic, but when I want to speak, she is quick to shut me down, argue with me, interrupt me or facilitate a ‘call for the question’ to force an end to debate before I have a chance to speak,” Butt wrote.
“I would get more speaking time if I signed up for Open Forum.”
Anderson said, “The man’s response to any frustration is throwing papers down, slamming doors and putting out that E-Forum.”