Debt Bonds: Funding the Future with Debt.

The City Council/Redevelopment Board is being asked to approve the issue of more debt bonds to raise funds for specific projects and to operate the City via the pass through funds which are about 27 percent of every dollar of RDA Funds.

The issue of Debt Bonds may actually facilitate the construction of the needed projects. However, we as taxpayers need to ask is this the best way to finance these projects and do we want to fund the GT City Hall and RDA at the rate and cost.

Well, let's look at the work the Redevelopment Agency has done. Most recently a they have been dependent on hired consultants, planners and project managers to do the work that in most cities the city employee would be doing. We should ask what are they actually doing at City Hall. Do they earn the salary and other compensation or is there a more efficient way to handle the Planning Department and Code Enforcement.

A contract city needs to have a strong contracts manager and a minimal staff to keep the contractors to their contracted obligations. This is often a much more efficient way to manage a small town.

Code enforcement is not keeping blight down. The Fire Department should go around to all the homes occupied or foreclosed that have weeds taller than 12 inches. Send a fire abatement notice with some teeth to it. The county will come and abate the property. Does the City have a crew to clean private property?

Businesses operate in GT without proper licenses, and there seems to be no effort to correct this loss of revenue stream.

What is good about this New Council and City Manager is that they are putting the plan in view of the public and there is less Hores trading opportunity when the plan and bonds are dedicated to specific projects. It is unlikely that the City or RDA will "Loan" each other funds improperly as they did in the Schwab Era.

This City Needs to be FREE of the RDA. Bonds and Debt is not a good way to finance your family or your city. The City is not using that money to be more productive, in a way it will increase it's resources. No the City is using that money to extend and justify it's own existance and funds it only for the short term in doing so. This Debt Issue is a short fix to the problem of funding a city off of the available and reasonable resouces a community our size have to provide for that added level of governance.

Lets all remember we are under the Governance of The USA, The State of California, The County of San Bernardino, the AQMD, and other Regional Agencies. We really need to ask, "Do we need to have additional regulation, and services beyond what is or should be provided by the other levels of government". Is having a City Government cost effective?

Unlike the National Government, Grand Terrace can't print money to offset it's debt financing. We don't control the local or regional economy. We certainly do not control the national or international economy.

I say, cut the City Function to only a Contract Manager and a Maintenance Department. All other functions are to be done by other agencies or contracted out. Including Redevelopment Agency Functions. It is time to cut to the bare bones. When we extend the budget of the RDA and the City for 5 more years, that makes a larger amount of retirement we will have to pay down the road, when the Debt Bond Funds will have been spent, and the City will be in the same place looking for more and more funds. This cycle needs to be stopped. The quicker we stop it the more likely the patient (the City of Grand Terrace) can survive in some form.

Debt Financing is like a tumor and adding more Debt Bonds to the City is like feeding the very Cancer that is threatening the city's long term existence.

When this issue of Debt is spent and gone, then what. Higher wages, Higher Retirement Obligations, and how will we pay for it then. No let's not keep feeding the tumor. It is time to have it removed... call the surgeon. It is time to amputate the Redevelopment Agency off of Grand Terrace in order to save the City.