The following  announcement was received from the Piedmont League of Women Voters on proposed state tax measure to help school funding-

An advocacy  forum on Proposition 30 on the November ballot will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 19, from 7:30 – 9 p.m. at the Ellen Driscoll Theater, 325 Highland Avenue.  > Click to read more…

The following letter was sent to the City Council and PCA Editors:

We find it extraordinary the City would go to such dramatic lengths to alter the minutes for the September 4 comments by Mr. Grote [City Administrator] to Ryan Gilbert’s Open Forum comments concerning the misstatement of Council unanimously endorsing the Measure Y Parcel Tax. > Click to read more…

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM-

At the Sept. 4th City Council meeting, I asked to make a comment during the Open Forum, a proceeding required by the California Brown Act. I expressed my belief, shared by one or more staff, that the proposed Parcel Tax (Measure Y) faced failure, primarily because enough residents lacked confidence in the Council’s ability to manage the City’s finances properly.

My perception was that the Council’s actions lacked both sufficient transparency and independent review in the underground fiasco, Blair Park and other matters, resulting in substantial financial losses to the City.

Before I could propose a partial remedy, namely that the City should immediately retain an outside advisor for all employee contracts rather than relying on the City Administrator, Councilman McBain interrupted to state that what I had to say was not “City Business”, but rather part of a political campaign, and thus should not be allowed.

The Mayor deferred to the City Attorney who opined that it certainly was within the scope of City Business and should therefore be allowed. Mr. McBain stated his sole motive was to seek “clarification”. The Council offered no substantive comment.

Mr. McBain, your stated wish not to infringe on the First Amendment is laudable. But you tried to use your position to do just that.

Piedmont citizens should be encouraged to address their concerns to the Council, without prior restraint, and without the patently partisan and astonishing attempt to deny public comment. Mr. McBain, what part of City finances do you think fails to constitute City Business?

Do you truly believe that any citizen, irrespective of political beliefs or streets on which they live, should be subject to an obstructionist request for “clarification”? Was this truly your motivation?

So, if you were contemplating apologizing, apologize to the citizens of Piedmont instead. You should do it. They deserve it.

Aaron Salloway, Piedmont Resident

Editors’ Note:  The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association.

Comparison to other cities indicates high Piedmont costs –

Backers of Measure Y try to scare voters into supporting the parcel tax by claiming that loss of the tax threatens critical public safety services, especially the fire department. So it’s worth asking the question, “How do Piedmont fire department staffing and costs compare with similar small, affluentcities?” Not favorably, is the short answer.

In its report to the Council last year, MTRC prepared summary budget comparisons with several cities. We have updated the information to currently available budgets. For fire protection, the comparable cities (those with their own fire departments, not consolidated with other jurisdictions) were Larkspur, Mill Valley, San Marino, Sausalito and Albany (fire chief shared with Piedmont).

Piedmont’s population is 10,667, compared to an average of 12,622 for the other cities. The most striking comparisons between our fire department and those of the other cities are as follows:

To summarize the links between the different bits of data, Piedmont is almost 20% smaller than the average of the other cities, yet its fire department has 26% more staff. As a result, fire protection in Piedmont costs 53% more per dwelling than the average, and the ratio of houses protected to fire department employees in Piedmont is only half of the other cities. The surplus cost for fire protection in Piedmont is nearly equal to the amount of revenue raised by the parcel tax.

The fire department in Piedmont has two central functions: fire fighting and ambulance/paramedic services. The ambulance portion of the budget is about a quarter of the cost of each shift, and responding quickly to paramedic calls is one of the city’s highest priority services. However, in a city that experiences, on average, about one house fire per year, it is reasonable to question the premium paid for our overall fire department size.

The city of Albany, with whom we share a fire chief, has almost twice Piedmont’s population and number of dwellings, and a larger area. Yet its fire budget is 15% less than Piedmont’s and the personnel count on a regular fire shift is 25% smaller. The comparisons are striking and deserve detailed examination by our City Council.

For more information on the parcel tax issue, go to www.NoOnMeasureY.com.

Michael Rancer, Chair of Piedmont’s 2011 Municipal Tax Review Committee

Editors Note:  The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association.

The following letter was sent to the Piedmont Civic Association:

When voters read the argument in favor of Piedmont’s Measure Y parcel tax, they’ll see the usual points from city leaders desperately seeking to pass a tax, and a significant misrepresentation.

Mayor Chiang and Councilman Wieler were authorized by their council colleagues to write the ballot argument – a move necessary to ensure compliance with the Brown Act and electoral code.

Despite all their caution, the Mayor and Councilman seemingly couldn’t help themselves from embellishing a very important fact, in order to strengthen their argument. Chiang and Wieler wrote that the “City Council unanimously supports renewal” of the tax. This is the important concluding message to the proponents’ argument. If true, this conclusion would send voters a strong message of support, an overwhelming endorsement, from their elected leaders for this tax.

The statement is not true. It’s an absolute misrepresentation of the facts. The City Council never voted to support the tax. Council voted to place the tax on the ballot, to allow voters to make a decision. Ballot placement is not an endorsement of the tax.

The Council also authorized the Mayor and second member to sign arguments relating to the Measure. The Council passed no resolution endorsing the tax.

Furthermore, at least one Council member, Garret Keating, was always clear that he only supported placing the measure on the ballot so that the voters of Piedmont could make a decision for themselves. He reiterated his neutrality on September 4th.

As soon as the argument was filed, we alerted City Administrator Geoff Grote, City Clerk John Tulloch, the Mayor, and Council members to the misrepresentation. The City Attorney was also aware of the correspondence. Despite all the outside pleas to have the offending language removed, staff and Council have refused to correct the misrepresentations.

At the September 4th City Council meeting this issue was raised during Open Forum. Administrator Grote, Mayor Chiang and Councilman Wieler publicly acknowledged the misrepresentation. Councilman Wieler apologized directly to Councilman Keating.

When asked directly to act to correct the misrepresentation Mr. Grote stated the City will take no action and declared that any resident could go to Court to correct the matter.

A city administration that prides itself on its partnership with residents is now blatantly disregarding that important relationship by refusing to correct the public ballot material misstatements. The City could have easily petitioned the Superior Court to correct to the misrepresentation. The City Attorney could have drafted and filed the writ at minimum cost to the City. There would have been no opposition, and a more truthful argument would be printed and sent to all Piedmont voters.

Instead, the City, which has never been afraid to litigate, is suddenly coy. Mr. Grote suggested that any voter can petition the court to correct the misrepresentation. Why place the burden and the responsibility of correction of the City generated rebuttal misstatement on the voters?  The City has ample time to restore transparency and honesty to the November election. It’s the only decent thing to do.

Ryan Gilbert, Member Municipal Tax Advisory Committee and co-signatory
to the ballot argument against Measure Y, www.NoOnMeasureY.com

Editors’ Note:  The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association.

Click on picture to view video.

The following is a letter from a Piedmont resident.

 At the September 4 City Council Open Forum, Councilman McBain cut off Aaron Salloway’s remarks concerning City financial matters which included comments specific to the City retaining an outside negotiator and advisor for all future employee negotiations. Mr. McBain declared  such discussion was not City business and was merely election posturing. Mr. McBain wished to stop any further comments from Mr. Salloway. City Attorney Tom Curry disagreed and opined that Aaron’s remarks related to City business and can be allowed. Evidently Councilman McBain wishes to curtail our First Amendment rights, alter the long history of open forum in Piedmont and stop residents from addressing the Council as to how their taxpayer money is spent.

At the same Open Forum Ryan Gilbert stated that the City has provided false information on the proponent ballot rebuttal argument. The offending statement is the closing remark of the proponent rebuttal, that the City Council has unanimously endorsed the Measure Y parcel tax. This is a misstatement as the Council passed no resolution in that regard and has not unanimously endorsed the Parcel Tax. The error was then publicly acknowledged by City Administrator Grote, Mayor Chiang and the rebuttal’s author, Councilman Wieler. Asked directly by Mr. Gilbert,  Mr. Grote stated the City will take no action to correct the ballot and declared that residents could go to Court to correct the matter.

The City has placed the burden and the responsibility of correction of the City generated rebuttal misstatement on the voters. The sanctity of the ballot box is fundamental to our Democratic system, yet the City will take no action to remove false information which it created. The City should obtain a writ to remove the offending language from the ballot. Short of that the City can notify voters by a city wide mailer. To do otherwise indicates that City Hall will provide false information to voters and will take no action to remove the misstatement.

Rick Schiller

September 5, 2012

Editors’ Note:  All Council agendas include: “Public Forum – This is an opportunity for members of the audience to speak on an item not on the agenda. The 10 minute period will be divided evenly between those wishing to address the Council.” See the September 4 meeting draft minutes page 1.

The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association.

Piedmont is faced with uncontrolled liabilities –

The 5 majority members of the Municipal Tax Review Committee are to be thanked for presenting some unpleasant, yet hugely important, information concerning the financial situation of our lovely Piedmont.  Here are some of the surprising … and scary… facts which I was previously not aware of, and I suspect many of the other readers also may not be aware:

1)        Piedmont has a $40 million un-funded employee benefit liability; which is about $10,000 for every Piedmont household, or looking at it another way, is $400,000 for every full time position within the Piedmont city government.  (Note: this is an un-funded liability!)

2)        The Piedmont city employee fringe benefit costs are now nearly 60% of their employee salary, and this has grown from 33% in 2004.  (This is huge growth; especially in these difficult times.)

3)        The dollar difference between the current 60% fringe benefit costs as a percent of the employee’s salary costs versus the 2004 amount of 33% equates to about $1.9 million dollars per year.

4)        The Parcel Tax, if passed, will generate revenue of about $1.6 million dollars, which is similar to the $1.9 million amount being paid annually which is in excess to the amount being spent in 2004.

5)        To tie things together, it is clear the Parcel Tax revenue of $1.6 M is needed to pay for the yearly excess fringe benefit of $1.9 M.

Based on all the above, it seems clear to me that we should not be passing the City Parcel Tax (Municipal Services Tax).  Further, that the Piedmont City Council should implement actions to bring Piedmont’s employee fringe benefits down to an affordable level, and do so while maintaining the quality and quantity of our existing services.

David Schmidt, Piedmont Resident

Editors Note:  The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association.

I have read the arguments for and against the extension of the parcel tax, and was struck by the seeming contradiction between some of the City’s recent actions and the arguments in favor of renewing the parcel tax. > Click to read more…

 Impacts on Piedmont Schools Depend on November Vote-

The Piedmont League of Women Voters will present a  forum titled “School Funding—Why Proposition 30 Matters to You” on Wednesday, September 19, from 7:3o to 9 p.m. at the Ellen Driscoll Theater, 325 Highland Ave., Piedmont.  The program is free and open to the public. > Click to read more…

Pro and Con Campaigns Heating Up –

There will be a contested November election in Piedmont.  The City Council has placed a measure to renew the City parcel tax on the ballot, and opponents have organized to actively oppose the measure, based on concerns regarding the Council’s fiscal responsibility. > Click to read more…