Long Beach City Clerk Larry Herrera announced three election cost scenarios for the City in placing the “big box” ordnance on the February 2008 ballot. The three scenarios range in cost to the City from $451,000 to $590,000 depending on a potential Long Beach City College bond on the ballot.
Whatever the council decides at their November 6th meeting on the fate of the “big box” issue, the city should listen to the words of Mayor Bob Foster that the city lives paycheck-to-paycheck.
At a time when our city is struggling to find extra money in the budget to hire more needed police officers and make long-overdue improvements to our city’s infrastructure, how can we consider spending over a half million dollars for this election?
It is unlikely the Long Beach City College Board of Trustees will vote by November 6th to place their bond on the February 2008 ballot.
Rescinding the big box ordinance will save the city, on average, $500,000. That money can go a long way towards police, fire, fighting graffiti and gang violence and even fixing pot holes! According to the city’s superintendent of street maintenance, the city’s cost to repair a pothole is $18.00. The savings in rescinding the “big box” ordinance at an average election cost of $500,000 could pay for filling 27,778 potholes.
The time is now to question our priorities and stop an ordinance that has little impact on our city other than a negative impact to our strained city budget.