BLOG: Don't Tell, Don't Ask

Just a short blog on the policy apparently newly adopted by our City Council and staff - Don't Tell and therefore We Won't Ask.

But we pay the taxes.  We are the populace.  We are the residents for whom the city works.  AND WE ARE THE VOTERS.  

Enabled by social media, blogs and comments, we are the watchmen of the night and we do not appear to be happy campers.

We have been oiled into believing that budgeted is the same thing as funded.  To be simpler, I want a  new Maserati and so when I sit and plan my budget for spending I put its cost into the budget and add it up and that is my budget.  I then discover that unless I do something naughty, I am not actually funded (don't have the money or means to get it) for the Maserati.

But to keep face or to aggrandize myself or to lie outright, I tell all who will listen that I am budgeted for a new Maserati and many will say "Wow" and wait to see me in the car. This is the bait and switch that is played by our civil servants who work for us.

The City fantasizes money it wants to spend.  It then spends a portion of that imagined money on feasibility studies to see how it might work, orders blueprints, renderings and other ploys to send out a "moving forward" message to the populace.

It also lines up Heery to do the budgeted, unfunded job. It is not so much a situation of the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, but more that the city has more arms than a Hindu avatar (no disrespect meant - Many Hindu avatars do have many arms and hands - look it up).

What the entire tamasha has is an air of Putinism at its best and Banana Republic at its worst.  There is no transparency.  There is no communication. There is no outreach.  Our public forum is a 2-minute screed for 20 or so sardined-in attendees at City Council meetings.  

They won't tell (their misreading of notorious Brown Act - read it and see what it does say) and so why ask. Our city government has taken on the persona of a Star Chamber.  They create ill planned projects, bleed money and essentially ignore the 35,000 people they have sworn to serve.

Aren't you sick of it? I am sick of it. I mention no names as you may have noted - some members of the council do perform outreach - but 20% to 40% is not a majority and a majority carries the motion.  How do they dare?  We let them.  How do they operate - in camera - a camera obscura that needs to be opened wide.  When is enough, enough?  When do YOU think enough is enough?