This year's city council special election to fill the remaining term of recently retired Councilmember John Crawley's seat and next year's March city council election finds our beloved city at a crossroads.  It is a crossroads other cities in California either have recently faced or will be facing along side of us.  And it will determine the future for the city of Cerritos in the years to come.  Let me explain.

Historically the residents of Cerritos have not had to pay taxes to the city, like other residents of other cities have.  Yes, we do pay the city for certain services like water, sewage, and trash collection, but we do not pay city income taxes or city fees for street lighting or for our state of the art library.  However, there are several situations only some that I can go into that will put pressure on this city to foist those new taxes on our residents and who we elect in the next two elections could end up determining the direction the city of Cerritos takes.

First, and foremost, the state is withholding from our city $5 million dollars in gas tax revenue that by law we should be receiving, and most other cities are facing the same reality even though the state took in approximately 7.2% more revenue this year than it did last year.  The Governor has said that we will receive the money in September, but the state legislature in the bill they passed did not include in a specific date when cities could look forward to receiving the money they should have received this July and there are rumors a foot that our city and others will not see the money until December of this year or January of next year.

Next, due to economic policies by the previous Governor and the current majority in the state legislature, businesses have moved out of California or have relocated to lower costing areas within California.   This has led to a large number of vacancies in commercial and industrial real estate not just in our city but in many California cities.  However, we only have one current member of the city council who has been proactive in recruiting businesses to relocate to Cerritos, with the rest leaving that job up to staff.

On top of that California has the third highest prices for gasoline and car sales have been down this year at not just our auto square but at many other car dealers and auto malls in California.  This leads to less sales tax revenue for not just Cerritos, but other cities in California with auto dealerships than in previous years. 

Cerritos pays for its law enforcement protection from the interest generated by our reserves yet three of the four candidates running in this year's special election are advocating on their respective boards, new spending programs that this year and in the next few years we do not have the resources to fund, unless we dip into those reserves.  One is advocating more money to be spent on public art and commission control of a public art budget without City Council oversight from his commission seat, another is advocating putting in walking tracks at a cost of over $5 Million at all of our public parks simultaneously from his commission seat, and the third from his school board seat is advocating we spend even more on our schools than our city currently spends even though we have a school district that historically does not always take care of the resources our city has given them.  However, the contract with the Sheriff's Department who provides our law enforcement has gone up $500,000 this year and over $800,000 last year.  If we spend down our reserves on these types of programs in these economically tight financial times, where will we find the revenue to be able to afford to maintain the current level of law enforcement protection and the operation of our library we enjoy today?

That is why I have committed to not just endorsing, but also walking for our Planning Commissioner Carol Chen in this year's special election.  She is the only business owner running out of the four candidates, as a business owner herself she is intimately aware of the pressures that today's small businesses face and she has committed to using her professional contacts on the various business associations she belongs to recruit businesses to relocate to our fair city.  She is also the candidate who has the most experience and knowledge of how the city operates, due to her time serving on the Planning Commission, Property Preservation Commission and the Public Safety Committee, so the time it will take for her to catch up and understand the complexity and sophistication of how our beloved city operates will be shorter than the other four.  With the most effective way to battle through these tough economic times being a higher occupancy rate in our commercial and industrial real estate areas, I believe she is the only candidate of the current field with the skill set our city needs at this present time.  I believe these factors make her a more effective steward of our city's resources than anyone of the other three candidates.  That is why on June 3rd, I will be casting my ballot for Carol Chen for Cerritos City Council. 

Respectfully,
Matt Kauble
Cerritos resident

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Retraction:

At the April 17th Fine Arts Comission meeting the commissioner refered to above and another commissioner had a discussion about setting up a private corporation with the Fine Arts Commission Members becoming the board members, which would receive an endowment from the city, which would later could be independent from city counsel oversight. Later on when commenting on rules governing your commission you complained about these rules being based on "repressive criteria" and being "limiting".  This is what I remembered from my initial viewing of that commission's April 17th meeting.

After receiving from that commissioner a response to my article I went back and reviewed his comments in that meeting, with his comments about my article in the forefront of my mind.  When reviewing the video of the April 17th meeting starting at 35:45 and ending at 38:01, I saw he talked of city council and Fine Arts Commission review, and then later at 56:15 to 1:05:42 his points were concerning his view of unnecessary verbiage in the proposed rules governing his comission.  Without going back to double check what I thought I heard and saw I wrote what I wrote, believing that that was his position, namely a private corporation with board members composed from the Fine Arts commission who would have a budget from an endowment which in effect would be free from oversight by the City Council.  However, according to his email response that is not his position. It was a misunderstanding on my part of what he was asking for during his commission meeting and I ask for his forgiveness. I should have double checked with him that what I believed I saw & heard was what he was asking for.