Predictions for 2011

We're well into the New Year now and it's time for some predictions. Before last year ended, Lynnwood City Council acted exactly as I predicted they would, namely they:

1. Proliferated and inflated taxes on everybody to a degree that can only be described as breathtaking
2. Made only piddling, token cuts to the city workforce
3. Preserved a raft of frivolous money-wasting activities

So how do you think all of that will pan out in the coming year? I know I have some ideas and it ain't pretty. My assessment and predictions follow.

We're Gonna Tax an' Tax an' Tax 'em Till We Just - Can't - Tax 'em No More...

You know. Sing it to the tune of Boogie Oogie Oogie by the immortal and ever fabulous A Taste of Honey. Can't you just see our City Council Members up on their dais belting this out with a big ol' disco ball spinning on the ceiling and the entire city workforce singing backup and dancing themselves silly in the council chambers? It's a great visual and it makes for a wonderfully appropriate rallying themesong for every stakeholder in Lynnwood's future who's concerned with the tax situation here.

Anyway, let's take 'em by the numbers, shall we? I'll group things by the parties that Lynnwood city government has chosen to victimize:

Victim Group #1: Lynnwood Residents

These are the people who are literally being held hostage by this out-of-control, shake-you-down-for-cash government; people who have made lives and homes here and face the choice of paying over these taxes... or moving.

Property Tax: this went up 35 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. The average home value in Lynnwood is $270,000, making for an additional $95 per year in property taxes, according to the Herald's story.

Politicians are prone to minimizing such money-grabs by comparing them to their equivalence in frivolous purchases, for example saying something ilke "Ninety-five dollars? Why, that's nothing! That's less than the cost of one pizza per month over the year!"

Let zem eet zee pizza!

What is clearly lost on the insulated Marie Antoinettes in Lynnwood government is that we've been in a recession of epic proportions for about the past three years now and there are innumerable people in this working-class town who have been budgeting so tightly in an effort to avoid losing their homes that they cannot remember the last time they threw money away on something as wasteful as a pizza. Hamburger Helper and a potato will keep them fed at a fraction of the cost and free up what little is left of their reserves to go toward the mortgage. But hey, this is Lynnwood government for you: "Let them eat pizza."

Utilities Taxes: these were elevated by 2%. Again, I'm sure it's "only" the equivalent of a dozen lattes or something similarly dismissive. The average fixed-income household will be hit hardest by this, but that certainly doesn't bother Lynnwood city government, nosiree. Why, my God, the alternative would be to lay off some do-nothing bureaucrats. Unconscionable! Unthinkable! Clearly, Granny will just have to buck up. Remember this the next time you see the little widow down the street at the supermarket buying cat food; she may or may not even own a cat.

Car Tab Fee: $20 per vehicle, just like that. Our household has three vehicles, so the impact for us is $60 transferred from our wallets to their coffers in one fell swoop. Naturally, it takes nothing into account other than the fact of ownership. This tax will be a bonanza revenue source for the city when it comes to households with two working parents and two or three older children, each with their own vehicle.

Victim Group #2: Employers

Employers are also held hostage to a great degree. Technically they could move their business, but the costs asociated with that are obviously going to be prohibitive most of the time, so bitter though it be, it is more costly than just paying over the increased taxes. Naturally this is not lost on Lynnwood city government, which if nothing else knows an easy mark when they see one.

Employee Head Tax: This was perhaps the single most breathtaking, unambiguous and in-your-face outright desperate and flagrant money grab of the whole lot. Overnight, at the eleventh hour of the fiscal year, employers who had been paying fifteen bucks and change per employee and had doubtlessly budgeted for the upcoming year based on that figure, were now, out of a clear blue sky, on the hook for $85 per employee -- an incomprehensible, mind-boggling 567% increase. 567%!

Victim Group #3: Shoppers

These are the people who provide the lion's share of Lynnwood's revenue, overly dependent as it is upon sales tax revenue.

Red-Light Camera "Tax": This isn't a tax per se but it's a colossal source of revenue for the city (which it has become addicted to and of course cannot spend fast enough), and is an integral part of the overall state of affairs, so it brooks mentioning here.

Connecting the Dots: Predictions for 2011 and beyond

Bottom line, it does not take any great mental effort to see exactly where this is headed.

The taxes targeted at the hostagesresidents of Lynnwood will provide an initial injection of cash into city's coffers, but the side-effect is more long term and as such it is entirely unsurprising that its seriousness is entirely lost on this city's government, which has proven itself time and again to be constitutionally incapable of understanding and taking into account the longer-term impacts of their actions.

Specifically, in this case, Lynnwood now has a reputation of being a high-risk place to settle down and make a home, and people looking for homes in this area of Snohomish County will be far and away more likely to opt for places like Bothell, Kenmore, Brier, Shoreline, Edmonds or parts of unincorporated Snohomish County. Consequently, over the long haul there will likely not be a net increase in revenues because there will be fewer people to levy the taxes against.

In a similar vein, the residents of nearby portions of unincorporated Snohomish County have gotten the signal loud and clear that this is the last place they'd want to be a part of, so I will be surprised indeed if they vote in favor of annexation -- so I predict that issue is pretty much dead in the water.

The stupefyingly huge employee head tax is a larger problem, as it also sends a loud-and-clear signal, this time to businesses: Lynnwood has done a 180-degree turn from being business-friendly to being overtly and nakedly hostile to businesses. Try as you might, it cannot be construed otherwise. An overnight 567% increase in head taxes can be interpreted in no other way than as a textbook example of a shake-down. It's an announcement that opening a business here a huge gamble.

However, what is far worse is that the Lynnwood government has pretty much solidified its reputation: it is not  unpredictable, but worse -- it is entirely predictable: one may rest assured that as soon as Lynnwood overspends -- and the past few years' behavior indicate that they may be relied upon to do so no matter what -- they will make practically no cuts to the bloated ranks of their workforce and will simply raise taxes across the board. Do you honestly think this is lost on businesses which may have been considering opening up shop here?

As the beaten, battered and bloodied economy slowly and ponderously lifts itself from the floor, I predict that there will be practically no new businesses opening in Lynnwood beyond the new Costco that's supposedly going to occupy the old Lynnwood High School, and perhaps the Whole Foods scheduled to open at what used to be Circuit City, both of which were likely already too deep in the works when the anti-business tax-grab took effect.

Businesses Fleeing Lynnwood

In fact, as the business climate improves, I predict that many existing businesses will in all likelihood make the long-term investment in their future well-being by getting out of Lynnwood, so it's entirely possible that there will be a net shrinkage, thus nullifying the huge increase in head taxes. Again, so much for long-term thinking...

And when that happens, I predict that Lynnwood city government will act predictably and enact a B&O tax to make up for the shortfalls. You can take that to the bank.

Finally, the much-discussed red-light camera "taxes"... the continued presence of these widely detested money-making cameras is in some respect the final nail in Lynnwood's coffin. I've lived here for a while now but I have kith and kin all over the Puget Sound region. I am absolutely not kidding when I tell you I have lost count of the number of people who I personally know who will not set foot in Lynnwood to visit the mall to go shopping.

Please, hear me well: they literally make it a point to actively avoid shopping here because they're terrified that one of the red-light cameras -- which are deliberately set to a shorter-than-recommended yellow caution cycle as was reported by KING-5 -- will slap them with a ticket. Even if the case could be made that they are only there for public safety (pardon me while I laugh for the next fifteen minutes), the salient fact is that the public's perception of them ensures that probably thousands of shoppers avoid Lynnwood. That means they avoid the Alderwood Mall, the car dealerships, the whole nine yards. For a city so utterly dependent on sales-tax revenue, this is simply incomprehensible.

Bottom Line
All told, the level of stark incompetence evidenced by this city's government has been nothing short of stunning. They have made it abundantly clear that the quick-and-dirty, short-term-gratification solution is the best we can ever hope for from them.

As a resident of this city that scares the hell out of me. Many of us are doing everything we can to ensure that this is not forgotten when the next elections are held and you can look forward to our keeping this in the public's face when that time comes.

Meanwhile, if you are a resident, a local business owner, or somebody who works or simply shops here, I urge you to plague city council meetings from this point forward and let your voice be heard. I grant you, the council has also made it clear that it collectively has little but contempt for "little people" who express opinions they don't want to hear, but their work meetings are recorded and freely available on Youtube, and the more people who who show up and voice their concerns, the more evidence will exist in the public record when it comes time to judge them on their record.

And you may rest assured that the government is keenly aware of the public's perception: it has been well over a month since the city council meeting during which council voted to override the mayor's veto and decisively stick it to everybody in sight with all of these taxes, yet strangely enough the minutes of that meeting (Dec. 13, 2010) have yet to be posted to the city's website. Fancy that, huh?

So, folks, consider how desperately they shook down everybody in grabbing distance, when the city opens up its $25.5 million White Elephant Water Park this spring. Your tax dollars at work! But more importantly, consider it when elections come 'round. We'll be here to remind you, depend upon it.

Meanwhile, let me humbly suggest a new logo for Lynnwood:

Budgetary Priorities, Lynnwood-Style

Yesterday, Monday 1 November 2010, Mayor Gough presented his preliminary budget to Lynnwood City Council.

Where to begin...

To get an idea of the City of Lynnwood's apparent priorities, let us consider the case of Lynnwood University, because in many ways it is a perfect barometer for measuring how seriously this administration takes the city's fiscal state of affairs. Lynnwood University epitomizes utterly wasteful and profoundly irresponsible spending, given the current fiscal environment. To call Lynnwood University a non-necessity is perhaps the understatement of the decade.

For those unfamiliar with it, Lynnwood University is essentially a glorified Show-and-Tell program. The city spends precious tax dollars to fund a feel-good program whereby citizens who sign up are taken on tours of the fire department, police department, courts, water treatment facility, and so on, and sit in a "classroom" environment where they are given presentations by city staff regarding the budget process, permitting, our forms of government, budgeting, and a lot of stuff we all learned in Civics class during our grammar school years. Coffee, tea, snacks and treats, pens and paper and presentation material are all provided, naturally, at taxpayer expense.

Now, I ask: considering that the city has threatened to lay off workers including police and fire, which are conceivably the most basic of essential services, owing to lack of funds, does it seem proper to continue funding some kind of dog and pony show like Lynnwood University?

No? It doesn't?

Then consider the following, which I am quoting verbatim from the mayor's proposed budget. On p. 70, he proposes to:

"Continue Lynnwood University on a tightened budget. Develop advertising and promotion targets to encourage underrepresented communities to participate."

A tightened budget? From slide #39 of the mayor's summary presentation to city council last night, the reduction to Lynnwood Univrsity will amount to $4,000.

$4,000? A $4,000 cut to a textbook case of porky, wasteful spending that we cannot afford? Amid possible reductions in fire and police? And in an environment so dire that the city is simultaneously proposing increases to an entire raft of taxes plus some new ones?

This is one example snatched out of the blue after just perusing these documents. God only knows how much more waste and shocking misprioritizations pervade it.

Bottom line, the city of Lynnwood is faced with historic budgetary woes and they are entirely due to two things that characterize city government:

1. Abject incompetence in assessing the state of the economy when it would have mattered most (not too long before the collapse of the nation's economy, when major decisions were being made in the city;
   
2. A striking and chronic inability to resist compulsively spending every dime that comes in.

It is not possible to overemphasize that second point, as the state auditor recently observed  in its scathing assessment of Lynnwood. This city went simply hog wild, blew through its entire budget and even exhausted its reserve funds during a time of fiscal prosperity, and is still millions in the red even despite recent historic windfalls of millions of "extra" dollars from red-light camera revenues.


If you've had it up to here, get to the upcoming meeting, this coming Saturday, and voice your discontent and demand accountability from the mayor and council alike. Show up here:

Peoples Town Hall Meeting

on

Lynnwood's 2011-12 Budget

Saturday, Nov 6th
11:00 am"“1:00 pm
Edmonds Community College
20000 - 68th Avenue West
Snoqualmie Building, Rm 113
Lynnwood

Lynnwood Mayor's Rebuttal

Man, it just keeps getting better.

The timing of the release of the mayor's rebuttal could not have been more perfect, coming as it does hard on the heels of the council's stripping the mayor's only ally of the office of council president.

Realistically, it is impossible to arrive at any conclusion other than that the council has abused its authority twice now, egregiously and with relatively flagrant contempt for the will of the people.

First (and worst) in censuring, calling for the resignation of, and curtailing the authority of a popularly elected mayor. However much individual councilpersons personally dislike the mayor, as a citizen I view their actions as a direct attempt to undermine my vote and the democratic process generally. Whether they like the mayor or not is irrelevant to me, I voted for him. Whether the mayor acts like an ass to city employees is irrelevant to me, I voted for him.

Second, last night they took similarly punitive action against the mayor's only ally on council.

And after all this, we finally, finally hear the mayor's side of the story, and it becomes relatively clear that this taxpayer-funded witch hunt of an investigation was not merely inconclusive, but was an out-and-out sham, deliberately designed to portray the mayor in as unfavorable a light as possible.

In short, it seems to have been what I've thought it was all along: an exercise in good old fashioned character assassination by city employees and council in an effort to preclude the mayor from making necessary cuts to the career-bureaucrat mandarins amid a budgetary shortfall unlike anything the city has experienced thanks to the Great Recession. This benefits the bureaucracy since the mayor is now not able to make cuts (his ability to fire or lay people off was specifically removed), so their taxpayer-funded, steady-gig jobs and primo benefits plans are safe again. And it benefits council because they arrogate to themselves powers that rightly belong to the executive branch, and if this council has done nothing else, they've proven themselves over-the-top madly hungry for power.

Your government at work, people of Lynnwood. Lying to you, working to nullify your vote, and trying desperately to make sure you continue funding an overbloated bureaucracy with your tax dollars. And if you're out of work yourself? Well, tough shit, losers. Sucks to be you!

Basically their message to us is pretty clear:

Lynnwood City Council Prez Stripped of Office

The melodrama continues unabated in Lynnwood as city council, in an unexpected move, stripped Ted Hikel of the council presidency. Obviously he'll remain on the council but a different councilman (Mark Smith) is now the president.

I'm of mixed minds on this move. On the one hand, Hikel has been criticized as being the mayor's puppet on city council and I can see some validity in that, to a degree. On the other hand, is it really fair to call the guy a "puppet" simply because he shares the mayor's politics? The same could be said of any politician on council who happens to find himself in agreement with the mayor politically.

I suppose at the end of the day I'm fine with putting somebody less friendly to the mayor in the council president's role, if only because I am a huge fan of the legislative and executive branches being at perpetual loggerheads. Not that I like fighting for fighting's sake (which does seem to be the rule and not the exception in Lynnwood). But a healthy dose of confrontation reassures me as a citizen that the system of checks and balances is working as it should and we don't have a good ole boys' club up there colluding with each other without the public's best interest in mind.

I have to say, though, that I really need to hand it to Mr. Hikel. I have great respect for the man. When the mayor was censured and stripped of some of his executive powers recently by a city council kow-towing to basically an angry mob, he stood his ground and to a great degree gave as good as he got while the remainder of the council went hog wild shamelessly making political hay and sucking up to the city employees and their unions. All things considered I remain unconvinced that there was much if any merit to having taken that move and that it was dirty politics, pure and simple. Hikel held them accountable and highlighted some of the hypocrisy of those complaining most stridently, much to their embarrassment and much to my satisfaction.

Government Work---Nice Work if You Can Get it.

The Herald has run a follow-up to an article they published back in July, and I'm gratified to see a more balanced perspective presented.

This topic was worthy of revisiting, and I'm gratified to see that this time the perspective is far more balanced and realistic. Whether intended or not, the July article came across as a partisan apologia on behalf of state government workers, depicting them as hapless victims and even going so far as to preemptively scold would-be critics who would have the audacity to point out that, unlike many, they at least still had jobs.

I'm far more inclined to feel sympathy for some of the people featured in the current article than in the previous one. The single mom with a kid featured in today's piece who makes $32,000 per annum is a far cry from the clerk previously featured who lamented the loss of one measly day's pay and its attendant deleterious impact on her ability to have "shopping sprees." People were righteously indignant, mortified and outraged to the point of red-faced fury at that kind of "let them eat cake" remark, especially coming as it does from a steady-gig government worker whose paycheck is funded by tax-paying citizens who are frequently out of work themselves, and chronically so despite their best and most persistent efforts to find employment in this devastated economy.

The larger issue here is the relatively astonishing level of narcissism, selfishness, and outright greed evidenced by many government employees, the unions who represent them, or both. Couple that with what appears to be a breezy and blithe unconcern for those who are out of work and suffering good and hard for it, and it's no surprise that a lot of people who were formerly supportive of, or at least ambivalent toward government workers, are now screaming for their self-absorbed heads on so many platters.

We see this unbelievable government-employee dynamic right here in Lynnwood, as the Herald reported just the other day in an article that explained some of the cuts that the city is contemplating in order to deal with the reality of a $20 million dollar plus shortfall. Right there, Johnny on the spot, is an outspoken government employee imperiously declaring that she is "hopeful the council is not actually going to implement the cuts" to staff. Not a single word of concessions, not a hint as to a proposed alternate solution, just a show of disbelief that layoffs could even be considered.

The worldview of public sector employees truly is something quite apart from the reality the rest of us face daily.

Mayor, Council, Staff and Unwholesome Alliances

Now that some time has passed with regard to the recent melodrama involving the mayor and the city council's censure of him, I believe I can sum up the whole state of affairs pretty neatly:

What a soap opera.

But with the benefit of a little hindsight and some more recently developing stories regarding Lynnwood's fiscal state of affairs and its plans to implement layoffs to counter them, I believe it's relatively clear what really went down and why.


As a longtime resident of Lynnwood, I was surprised indeed when I read the initial reports that the city council intended to censure the mayor without the public's having seen any evidence as to why (the investigative report having been secret at the time of their vote). I was more surprised when they went even further, stripping him of some of his executive authority and calling for his resignation.

Initially, I naturally thought that the reasoning behind such a draconian course of action must be based on evidence that is completely and unambiguously compelling, and that there must be an issue of urgency in rushing this to a vote without full (or indeed any) disclosure to the voting public. Surely the mayor must be a monstrously abusive browbeater and, more to the point, a sexual harasser extraordinaire.

Imagine my surprise when the report was finally released and proved nothing of the kind. As in, nothing remotely of the kind. Not even in the ballpark. Basically it "proved" (since he-said-she-said testimony is apparently proof nowadays) that the mayor is difficult to work with, and may be patronizing, condescending and rude. In short, a Type A, Theory X manager.

From what I can tell, that's exactly what the employees of this city need, and here's why.

To begin with, it's fairly clear what's really going on here. To set the stage, you must remember that Lynnwood's city council has never been able to get along with the mayor, and the loggerheads mentality goes significantly beyond the natural and desirable state of mutual antagonism between legislative and executive branches that is the hallmark of a healthily functioning government. In Lynnwood's case, a number of councilpersons either have run or are likely planning to run for the mayor's job, so they have a vested personal interest in knocking him down, one way or another, by hook or by crook.

Add to this the fact that the city's employees are, with good reason, scared witless that their "sure thing" government jobs are no longer such a sure thing at all.

And so you see classic power politics at work. Coucil wants to do all it can to hamper and hobble the mayor, if only for spite it sometimes seems, and over and above that, individual councilpersons have their eyes greedily set on the mayor's job for themselves.

City employees are terrified that they'll be laid off due to the economic collapse and the fact that Lynnwood is something like $25 million in the hole. And this mayor, it seems, is just the type of no-nonsense manager who will not hesitate to perform the necessary layoffs.

So it's natural that the city's employees would collude with the council to rob the mayor of his ability to terminate employment.

To the extent that I and every other resident of this town have the privilege of subsidizing these people's continued employment at the very time that untold numbers of us are unemployed ourselves, I find this scenario, well, I suppose "unseemly" is the diplomatic way of putting it.

But I can tell you this. In light of everything that has transpired to date, I will be voting against every councilmember who voted to take this action against the mayor. In some cases, it will be difficult because I support their stances on other issues. But at the end of the day, some things are beyond the pale and we have long surpassed that benchmark in this fiasco.

And I will sure as hell vote for Geoff, if he can find it within himself to run again for mayor when this term is up.

Priorities, Lynnwood Style

I tell you, this town is going to hell in a handbasket. A 23-year-old gal was hit in a freaking shootout in the North end of Lynnwood. I have a friend with two very young kids who live just blocks from there, in a good, solid, nice middle class neighborhood of single-family homes.What the hell is this place coming to?

But what really, really gets me is this: despite life-threatening shit like this going down on a fairly regular basis here in Lynnwood, the powers that be are threatening us with cuts to law enforcement due to the ongoing budget crisis. This city is about $5 million in the hole due to shockingly incompetent budgeting and this is being used as an excuse to cut police presence.

At the very same time, the powers that be are continuing renovations on the public swimming pool costing us about $27 million...

And they are continuing to fund an obviously worthless department called "Lynnwood University," which so far as I can tell consists of a couple of people who put on little educational shows to inform Lynnwoodians about how chicken farms and timber shaped our destiny or whatever...

And they have collected record levels of revenue from red-light cameras placed throughout Lynnwood...

And they have just imposed a raft of brand new taxes on our utilities...

So basically, they have tons of money coming in from red-light cameras and new taxes, and they can fund luxuries like a swimming pool and dog-and-pony shows, but there's not enough money to pay for law enforcement in an environment where Lynnwood residents are being shot down on a fairly regular basis.

So really, I have to ask our city government: what, exactly, will it take, short of a 1930's style depression, to get you to do what you were elected to do, prioritize sanely, and trim the damn fat from your spending program? This is not a rhetorical question, I'd honestly like an answer.