The Fiscal Downside to Zoning for DollarsBy Curmudgeon
Front page story in this morning's Standard-Examiner talks about Riverdale contemplating a fifty percent hike in property taxes. From the story: "The spending plan also would increase business license fees by 15 percent, utility rates by 10 percent and create a 2 percent franchise tax on cable TV, gas, electricity and telecommunications."
These substantial tax increases are the result, the story says, of two things: (a) the Republican state legislature's insane crusade to cut taxes without rhyme or reason --- in this case, limiting by law the amount of money communities can raise via sales taxes. That put a major hole in Riverdale's budget which it will now have to fill by a huge boost in taxes and fees. And (b)because "the city’s public safety costs are three times higher than a typical city of its population because of the traffic and crime surrounding Riverdale Road."
And the cautionary tale for Ogden? Simply this: all growth is not necessarily good growth. Uncontrolled growth can, overall, sometimes not be beneficial for the residents of a municipality. [And if the Riverdale corridor does not represent unwise sprawl, I'm hard put to think what might.] As the story notes, because of the kind of uncontroled unwise growth in Riverdale, its crime control budget is three times [that's 300% folks] of the budgets of other cities its size.
What Ogden ought to be looking at is not simply "growth" --- at whatever price to the city, like selling off the city's biggest park for private gated vacation home development for example --- but smart growth, or what's sometimes called "sustainable growth" --- sustainable in two senses: growth that is not flash in the pan, that degenerates over time and leaves the city worse off in the end. Look, for example, at all the smaller towns that welcomed Wal-Marts as huge tax generators, only to see their locally-owned small businesses and downtowns destroyed in the process, and then watched as Wal-Mart changed its business plan to Super Wal-Mart regional centers, and began closing regular Wal-Marts in smaller towns, leaving those towns with boarded up downtown business districts, few locally owned small businesses left, and in the end no tax revenues from the closed Wal-Mart local stores either.
And "sustainable growth" in the sense that the growth accommodates to, and sustains [and improves] the quality of life within the city. That's smart growth and that's what Ogden should be looking at, and planning for. Not growth for growth's sake alone, at any price, at any cost to the city and its present residents.
The traffic and crime choked Riverdale corridor may be some people's vision of smart growth --- it's not mine. And it shouldn't be, and I hope it won't be, Ogden's.
42 comments:
Even more significant in this morning's S-E is Monica Thornton's letter to the editor. An intelligent "lumpencitizen's" diagnosis of the Godfrey administration's ailment, in a nutshell
It's actually quite simple. People talk about "growth" as being important for the "economy" and for "tax revenue". Yet, show me an urban area that has lower taxes than the surrounding rural areas. There aren't any. When people overwhelm an area the cost per person always goes up. Is that really so hard for people to notice???
But there are people who benefit from unbridled growth.
Real estate agents
Mortgage bankers
Bureaucrats
Media (newspaper, radio and TV)
Watch, when you hear somebody clucking for growth, it will almost always be one of these people. Other groups such as
Retailers
Contractors
also push for it, but growth usually rearranges the deck chairs so many current retailers and contractors are forced out with unbridled growth.
This message is very important. Unbridled growth not only is not a panacea, it is more often a disaster for what most people hold dear. And yet, the aforementioned groups are often very influential with government because they have to be, in order to have their disastrous policies implemented. After all, what better policy than to screw things up so badly everyone wants to move, if one is a real estate agent, making money off people wanting to move?
Riverdale really isn't a city.
It's a giant shopping mall.
The 300% increase in security is an important point. With the existing perception that the Junction is in a "bad" area, people will not want leave their cars in the parking garage to sit in a movie theater for several hours. There have also been articles in the paper (I think the SL Trib) about the need for security at TRAX parking lots.
Without good, visible security, both of these investments can easily be major losses. With foresight and intelligent planning neither of these problems should occur.
Bobby Geiger's worst nightmare!
Today in Photos
Curm-
Well put, I'm glad something was mentioned about this article. Many people often tout Riverdale over Ogden because Riverdale has enticed big boxes and other retail over the years, but the downside is rarely mentioned.
Growth for growth's sake is plain stupid. It's very basic, we do need to take a well-planned approach about how we want to proceed as a community. The type of growth that Ogden needs is sustainable growth as Curm mentioned. How do we achieve it? I think the key is focusing on our strengths (which Ogden has many) and continue to build them up and strengthen them, one example is improving the climate for our current family owned and small businesses. Putting the same amount of resources toward them that we would put toward bringing in say a Wal-Mart or gondola would benefit Ogden (in all aspects) much more in the long run.
On the topic, one issue I have is the fact that Ogden City does not even have a long-range planning division anymore. How can a city such as Ogden not have a long range planning division? Cities are too shortsighted these days, Zoning for Dollars is a major symptom of that. We have lost sight of what truly makes our communities great. Ogden has great resources and yet they don't do enough to enhance them. I wish Ogden would look at the bigger picture and start making wiser decisions.
Crum and Jill,
While Riverdale has used RDA's and in some cases I believe poorly, Riverdale has hardly 'enticed big boxes over the years'. The first election after I moved to Riverdale was basically an election between candidates backed by the developers and those opposed by the developers. Guess who won? Not the developers slate.
Look what resulted. Lots of development. Why? Because in business the 3 most important things are location, location and location. Riverdale road has roughly 70,000 people drive it per day, only a fraction of whom are driving it specifically to visit a retailer there. For many it is a trip that must be taken and the fact that they can stop at a retailer without having to go out of their way is a bonus.
Riverdale has a resident population of between 7500 and 8000 people. So when comparing public safety budget on a per capita basis you have to understand that Riverdale is a rather small community. The other thing about the cost of Riverdale's public safety is that Riverdale has a cadillac version of public safety. They got this because they wanted to make sure they protected the golden goose that was providing substantial revenues in the commercial area. The residents benefit from that but that is not something the residents ever wanted or asked for.
Now the State decided that Riverdale was benefitting too much and so the state decided to take away few of the eggs of that golden goose. Luckily they didn't do what Sen. Bell wanted and killed it outright, but they are taking a significant amount of the revenue that Riverdale was counting on.
This was done ostensibly to curb 'zoning for dollars', unfortunately that is exactly what is going on in Riverdale now. Open space and residential don't generate any income and the city as it is now, needs the revenue to continue providing the services that it currently provides. I don't like it. I agree that it generates poor planning, but Riverdale is in a situation that it now needs to compete with other cities for retail. Up until now Riverdale was never a competitor with other cities. The companies that came to Riverdale came mostly because it was good for their business. Riverdale used RDA's to help pay for improvements to the infrastructure that supported the commercial growth. Now you will see Riverdale competing for the growth.
And Crum, the financial problems have nothing to do with "(a) the Republican state legislature's insane crusade to cut taxes without rhyme or reason --- in this case, limiting by law the amount of money communities can raise via sales taxes. That put a major hole in Riverdale's budget which it will now have to fill by a huge boost in taxes and fees." Riverdale problem was that some cities that have blocked all commercial decided that even though they don't have to put up with the problems that accompany commercial development, they want to reap the rewards. They argument is that it is their citizens who are paying the sales taxes so their communities should reap the rewards of the taxes their citizens pay. I guess they don't see any benefit of not having a Wal-Mart in their back yard.
Our meeting on May 19th to work on the budget will definately be an interesting one. I hope that we can reduce the increase in property taxes.
One person mentioned how urban areas tax rates are much higher than rural area. One of the reasons for that is that urban cities provide much more in the way of services than rural areas do. Herriman in SL county is finding that when urban people move to rural areas they expect the same kinds and levels of service that they were used to in the city and the only way for rural cities to provide those services is to raise taxes.
I hear Gary Williams is rather upset about the investigation regarding Scott Brown's violation of business standards relative to the RDA and Brown won't be rehired as a contractor.
I wouldn't make odds on that possibility. I think Brown has too much on the big shots to be cut off from the trough completely.
Well - la ti da! maybe the investigation will get around to looking at Gary Williams ethics and a few others in the Mayor's office.
Get out the sniff tester because I can already smell the stink.
Arcritic:
Thanks for the long and informed reply. You are far more knowledgeable about what transpired in Riverdale, and why, than I am. I'd only make two points in reply:
(a) As I recall it, the debate over limiting sales tax revenues to communities was part and parcel of the overall debate about limiting tax revenues in the state. I recall some cities arguing that some mechanism should be put in their hands to make up for legislatively created shortfalls such as Riverdale is now facing, and debates [last session too] that cuts in taxes should be tied to the state of the economy, so that if we entered a recession, for example, and state revenues dropped, the older tax levels would kick in to make up the difference. That was, of course, rejected. I don't think the sales tax revenue limit was quite as separate a matter of debate from the general "all taxes are bad; all taxes are too high; we must cut all taxes.... but of course without cutting spending at the same time" tone of the legislative majority.
(b) I bow to your greater knowledge about the zoning decisions Riverdale made in re: big box stores. But I'll stand on the idea that the mess [traffic and sprawl-wise] between the bridge over the Weber River at one end and the I-interchanges at the other is in fact a mess, and the result of less than successful planning on Riverdale's part.
BTW, I had not realized that Riverdale [the community] is as small a community as it is.
The Big Box question... let's take Wal-Mart as a symbol of the larger question... is a complex one. I can document the devastating impact Wal-Marts have had on small to medium sized communities [closing of local businesses, boarding up of much of downttown mainstreet], including the fiscal crises created when Wal-Mart closed small regular stores in favor of consolidating business at regional Super Wal-Mart locations.
But on the other hand, manifestly, millions of people prefer to shop at Wal-Mart [and other big box stores], and deciding for them that they should not be allowed to smacks of both arrogance and elitism.
So it's a complex question. What I'm arguing for is not a flat ban on all big box stores, period. What I'm arguing for is City planning commissions and Council members being sure they have considered all the consequences of authorizing [say] a downtown Wal-Mart for Ogden, and not just the immediate revenue-enhancement aspects. And that they consider ways to do whatever it is they decide to do [by means of good design, careful planning, etc.] so that the problems of Riverdale Road between the Weber River and the I-interchanges is not replicated here. Doesn't seem too high a bar to set.
As for law enforcement and the attendant demands development makes upon it, no argument. But if I lived in a crime-ridden neighborhood in, say, Ogden, I'd probably be a mite ticked off to learn that a beefed up police force which I'd been wanting [and not getting] for some time suddenly became do-able to serve the needs of a new mall development.
So many interests to be balanced. So many principles to be weighed and, somehow, merged into something that can legitimately be labled "the public good" by way of policy.
I'll be the first to concede, as you doubtless know better than I, it ain't easy. All the more reason, IMHO, to proceed carefully, slowly, with full discussion, and vetting of options and probably or likely consequences.
I don't envy you your meeting, Ar. Good luck.
I don't know why riverdale should raise taxes all they need is to copy Ogden city ticket quota systema nd that will bring in about 2 millon a year with all those cars driving though their city. this would not even affect the citizens of riverdale but just a little. all the rest are from out side of their city.
but in again Chief Hansen in Riverdale is not and I repeat not like GREINER!!!
Unfortunately, the debate on tax reform/tax cuts was actually a different debate from the one on sales tax redistribution. As you know the state reduced it's protion of the sales tax on groceries but left intact the portion that goes to local entities. This was because dropping the local sales tax on food would have impacted many many cities while the removal of the "hold harmless provision" the issue that affected Riverdale only impacted 10 or so cities. The debate on the "hold harmless provision" was a losing battle of those few cities who were already percieved as rich. When the debate shifted to all cities via the food tax then you began really hearing the howling.
You have good comments on lots of those issues and you are exactly right that when there are so many intrests to balance it becomes difficult to find the "best" solution.
I hate to think that elected officials would do things that are not the best but you have to realize that everyone is biased in one way or another and that different people can look at the same situation and come to different conclusions as to what is 'best'. What I wish for, and to a great degree it has actually happened with the gondola issue in Ogden, is that there be a full and open discussion. Unfortunately, in politics, as many of you have witnessed in things brought to the Ogden city council, items get held back until there is little or no time to fully debate an issue or things are presented that way, and decisions are made in a rush under time pressures and too often those decisions end up being less than the 'best'.
I can't wait to see the flood of letters to the editor from this story though. It will make running for office in the fall (if I decide to) a wild ride.
Years ago, my first experience with Redevelopment Agencies was Riverdale's plan to steal Mr. Yu's delightful little Maple Gardens restaurant on Riverdale Road for Toys R Us to come to Riverdale.
Mr. Yu was my client. When he told me that the Mayor and City Council members were coming to Maple Gardens to eat lunch and while they were there they were threatening that he had to take their offer or wind up with nothing I got mad.
I convinced him to hire an attorney. I also put together petitions for his customers to sign and placed them at the cash register.
We had 4500 signatures in no time so the attorney pre-empted the Riverdale City Council by taking the petitions to a City Council meeting before they voted on seizing his property using eminent domain.
But then the fight really began because the developer did not want to pay him enough to move to open another restaurant.
The Mayor and the Council and the developer also brought race into the issue. There was a big article on the front page of the Standard with statements about the race issue. This was back when the Ogden Standard was a real newspaper.
The attorney was caving into the threats but I convinced Mr. Yu to stand his ground. He wound up with enough money for his restaurant to buy the old Weinerschnitzel on Washington Blvd. and remodel and reopen again with the best Chinese food in the area.
City mayors and council people get a gang mentality at times when they think they have the upper hand. In this case, Mr. Yu won the battle.
The moral of this true story could be to stand your ground for what is yours.
But for me, the real moral is that right won out because Mr. Yu survived and Toys R Us is closed and the huge chain is bankrupt.
Shame on Riverdale politicians. They deserve whatever woes they are having.
To Arcritic:
Thanks for your long and putatively thoughtful reply, but when you say that urban folks have higher taxes than rural folks because the urban folks want more services, you must be out of your freaking mind.
Tell me, how many times do urban people get the chance to vote on the ballparks, the RDAs, the conference centers, the theaters and all the other CRAP that urban politicians stick them with over and over and over, even as the voters dismiss these same politicians over and over and over?
“Services they demand” my BUTT! Once a city gets big enough the maggots swarm in, figuring they can get all the graft they need with no one noticing. The taxes go up. The city declines. Where ya’ been boy? Take the hood off your head or at least cut yourself some eye holes.
Don’t you pass fat cat cronyism off on the public, nor blame them for the endless stupidity and ineptitude of government. There is no good government, only bad. The question is, should bad government be large, or should bad government be small. Rural or urban, the correct answer is always the latter.
You referred to “our meeting on May 19th.” Are you part of the government? Please do some good, and minimize the influence of yourself and those around you in government as much as possible. Then, and only then, may you call yourself a public servant. But in the meantime, I won’t hold my breath.
I have been outed before, yes, I am on the city council. And I would have to say that there are enough people that 'want more services' that they get them from the government. I would not disagree that some of these people want them so bad that they get themselves elected and pass it themselves.
I hope I can have some influence for good, unfortunately, I am only one vote of 5.
Arcritic,
One in five? I have to wonder where that is.
Please do not take my comments as a personal attack against you.
It is certainly those who want government to do things for them who gravitate to government. Those who want to minimize it tend to stay away. I too hope you will be an influence for good. The last thing I would ever want to do is scare one of the good ones away.
North Ogden has 5 council persons.
Layton has 5!
Ar:
It's the American political disease: demanding increased services from all levels of government that nobody wants to be taxed to pay for, including those demanding the services. [Look what happened when under the Clinton administration the congress greatly increased federal payments under medicare for catestrophic illness for the elderly, but also increased co-pays and monthly fees to finance even a portion of it. There was a geriatric revolt at the idea of the recipients actually having to pay some of the costs, and congress promptely rescinded the program. Latest example: the vast increase involved in the medicare prescription drug program under Bush with virtually no increase in funding with a hope of coming within screaming distance of the actual cost to pay for it.]
I'm sure you've heard the ditty "Don't tax me, and don't tax thee; tax that fellow behind the tree." It's the revenue version of NIMBY [not in my back yard].
At every level of government, it works the same way. Saw today a new Mitt Romney ad in which he says taxes are too high, the government is over fed, and it spends too much money and "that has to change." I also noticed he did not mention a single thing he would cut to achieve that change. Nary a one. I don't imagine it's any different at the city, county or state level. Especially during election cycles.
The Great Salt Lake Real Tax Subsidy Rip Off is yet another example. I've heard the governor and others explaining that the 35 million will not really be paid by Utahans, but by visitors to SLC via an increased hotel room tax. ["Don't tax me and don't tax thee; tax the fellow behind that tree."] I'll remember that next time Mrs. Curmudgeon and I stay overnight in Salt Lake City when we travel down for a play or a poltiical convention or a talk at the library and we are hit with the extra hotel room tax.
Examples are too numerous to mention. During crime waves, the public clammors to lock 'em up and throw away the key, increasing manditory sentences, and then when a bill comes up to expand state prisons to house all the people the public wants put away for twenty years to life, the bill fails because it is "too expensive" and would require "raising taxes." Just one example. There are so many more.
We've been short changing the VA medical system for a long time, and now everyone is outraged that vets are broken into pirority groups to decide which of them can access the system rapidly and which go on long waiting lists and which cannot access it at all. And just recently, amid all the concern for Veteran's military care, the Utah legislature refused to vote money to build a veterans home in northern Utah. Watch and wait. There'll be some horrendous story over the next year about some veteran of Korea, maybe, a medal winner, dying in an alley somewhere from an untreated illness or just general old age on the street, and people will pontificate about how awful it is and how could this be allowed to happen and why doesn't somebody do something about it. And then they will elect the same damn legislators who refused to do something about this year and last year and the year before that.
Same 'ol same 'ol....
Once again, we deserve the government we get. We elect it.
Isn't it great when politicians "blame" the public for the inefficiencies and out of control growth of government!
Like citizens demanding more and more from the local government therefore they have to keep growing to meet the citizens demands. What a crock of crap that is!
Can any body give me any examples of citizens going to their local city or county government and demanding more services?
I can give you plenty of examples of politicians coming up with new ways to spend tax payer money, usually amounting to pet projects of their own, and then boldly saying that the citizens were the driving force behind it.
Can any one tell me how their local government's give them more and better service now than they did before this horrible inflation in government started twenty years ago, or before the league of cities and towns starter organizing the politicians to work against the public by growing bigger and less efficient government?
Can any one tell me why my property taxes have gone up 300 percent in the last ten years when I don't get one damn thing more from my local government now than I did then? In fact I get far less from the bastards now than I ever have. Ten years ago if you called the cops they would actually show up! Try it now and you will be lucky to see them at all, especially in Ogden.
Every city and county in Utah has had government growth way in excess of population growth. The worst offender is a town in Weber County where the population went from 10,000 to 13,000 in ten years. That is a thirty percent increase. Meanwhile the city government grew 400 percent. While this is probably the worst case, most towns and counties have experienced the same problem during the last 15 or so years here in Utah.
Another big problem is the duplication of services that the tax payers end up stuck with. Fire, Police and ParaMedics are the worst offenders. There are lots of small towns throughout the state that have huge duplications and overlaps with these services.
As long as we keep electing the same disingenuous and opportunistic empire builders to these offices we will keep suffering from this run a way growth in local governments.
It seems like one of the refrains (lies?) we constantly hear from city governments is that housing growth is a losing proposition. That the cities spend more supporting the increase population than they bring in on tax revenue. Therefore the push is always for cities to bring in more business to balance things out and keep home owner's taxes low. (please no laughing here, they really do say this)
Now we see the city of Riverdale, which has the biggest business to population ratio in the state, raising the home owner's taxes by 50% because they can't make it on all the tax revenue they get from all the big box stores they brought in under this pretext.
Something seems to be drastically out of whack here, and I do not think it can be attributed to the slight re-allocation of sales tax revenue. (maybe ARcritic can tell us exactly what that change was and how much Riverdale still gets on sales tax compared to what they used to get?)
In my opinion it is about cities not being able to live within their revenues what ever they may be. It is about the naked ambition of politicians and their mind set of having to have continual growth in order to succeed. It is about the lack of financial discipline with the people we elect and their inability to reduce government if necessary to match their tax income. It is about the out of control growth of these city governments. And here in Utah we have the double whammy of this crazy "sustain our leaders" business that allow these rascals to keep getting re-elected regardless of how incompetent they are.
When a business has reduced income they usually reduce their spending to match. In city and county governments they usually do just the opposite. They never reduce local government, they just raise the taxes!
Dave Harmer just appeared on Comcast local newsmakers on cnn headline news channel. He restated the ski-in ski-out university deal, blah blah, 12 major ski companies, blah blah, gondola from downtown, etc.
Lionel:
Talk to any Congressman or Senator or state representative and they will provide you with a long list of citizen-demanded services. On the national level, medicare prescription services come immediately to mind. On the state level, vouchers for private school educations. On the local level, playing fields for youth sports teams and increased police protection, patrolling and highway projects like legacy and better public transit [more frequent, faster] and.... Well, you get the idea.
I don't know what the situation is in your town, so I can't speak to that. And I have no doubt that some elected officials, maybe many of them, have what one wag called "an ediface complex" and like to build grand structures, branded with their names. [I'm willing to bet that the infamous Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska ends up becoming the Sen. Ted Stevens Memorial Bridge.]
You may not want the particular services your town is spending money on, but there are people in your town who demanded them of elected officials almost certainly.
As I said, talk to any congressman, senator or state legislater and they will tell you about the endless stream of people trooping through their offices, writing them letters or emails, demanding this or that service be created or expanded or improved. And a year later, the same people will be writing angry letters to the newspapers if what they wanted happens about rising tax rates.
Want more evidence that all these officials are in fact giving the public [generaly speaking, not clearly every member of it] what it wants? Look at the rate at which incumbents are re-elected. In the US House of prepresentatives it's 90%. I think in Utah the reelection rate for incumbents is just as high, if not higher.
Gannett News Organization Ranks Gondola-less Ogden Area Among Top Ten Places To Live In US
Yes, it's true. From today's SL Trib: The Ogden-Clearfield area has been listed among the top ten best places to live in the nation.
Gannett reports today that the northern Utah metro complex ranked sixth in the book ""Cities Ranked & Rated." [Link here .]
But... but... Ogden doesn't have a flatland tourist gondola sky ride that will take people from downtown to Weber State. How could the Gannet people have been so blind....?
How much is all this nonsensical news reporting costing the citizens of Ogden?
Just goes to show the state reporting has reached. No one actually checks out the real facts. The editors just pick up any old thing and print it.
The point is we're GOING TO HAVE a gondola, Curm. Little Bobby told us this hisself.
Last week one of our gentle readers even sent us this truly delightful video clip, shamelessly downloaded from the Gondola Cult Lair, portending things to come in Emerald City.
The Gondolists have apparently mastered the science and technology of time travel, we guess.
(They're obviously far more formidable than previously believed.)
Rudi
The graphics on the gondola video are very amateurish! The scale is wrong, the visuals are mostly about car traffic on Wall with this chintzy little gondola graphic going through the picture right at the end.
Also the still pic they use of the gondola going up the mountain, with the city in the background, doesn't even remotely resemble Ogden!
Jeeze, if they can't even do simple promotional material with any class, how the hell do they expect to build the real thing!
They'll build it with our money.
Did you know that we recently lost a police officer...6 months out of the Academy? He went to Layton because his police car kept breaking down on the way to answer calls! He said he didn't feel 'professional"
Well I guess not. IT doesn't serve the public well, does it?
Some of our officrs are driving junkers by other cities' standards. Our cops have to have 100,000 miles, plus another 100, 000, with all the idling? before they are turned in.
Other cities put on TWENTY thousand miles and then sell the cars at auction.
One cop I know has a car that was bought from the SL Sheriff's sale! Already had MANY miles on it.
Some cops can't get their cars repaired properly. One cop took his car into his own mechanic to get it repaired right!
How will it be for you to call 911 because a burglar is breaking in...your wife is home alone facing a massive threat and the cop can't get there becaue his car overheated, stalled or completely broke down blocks from your home??
There are NEW police cars at BDO....waiting for those 15 slots to be filled by new cops.
Who will join this force when they can be and feel 'professional' for more money someplace else?
Who is in charge of this fiasco? Your Chief/Senator Griener and the ultimate moneysaver of all....Godfrey!!
Who can count the number of scandalous shenanigans in this town?
Observer 1
The person in charge of the vehicle fiasco is Fleet Manager Richard Brookins. He has this "formula" for vehicles to get from purchase to end of life. But, yes, they have to get about 100,000 miles on them. It is a fools plan. More surprisingly though is that Mayor Matty had, at one time, told Brookins to extend the mileage limit to 120,000 miles. This was because his father, I guess an one time mayor or council member for Harrisville, had a "city car" he drove for 120,000 miles. What that fool does not understand is, as was mentioned earlier above, the idle hours or better yet engine hours. Police vehicles spend a good amount of time running. Probably 6-8 hours or more running during a 10 hour shift. Fortunately for the police Brookins convinced the mayor to lower the mileage to 100,000. I don't think it is really fortunate however when they are driving the crappy old cars they do have. Some of the cars they have are nearly 12 years old!!!!!!!
exactly my points!!!
It is my understanding that several of the old junkers have had their transmissions replaced multiple times as well as a few engines. What a joke. What a laughing stock!!!!! For a mayor who is supposedly "high tech" fan, his police fleet sure seems to be in the dark ages.
OK Ozboy here is the story on sales taxes.
Back in the 70’s the state authorized a 0.75% local option sales tax. This sales tax was implemented by cities and the money collected in the city stayed in the city. As it became obvious to many that cities with larger commercial bases were reaping huge rewards, especially with the coming of regional malls, the bedroom communities saw that those cities with large commercial bases were getting rich off that tax. I am not old enough to know the exact reasons why the state allowed the local sales tax but one was to help the city pay for some of the extra costs of having those regional type commercial centers.
In 1983, there was a revolt of sorts against those cities getting ‘rich’ off of retail development (they figured many of their citizens were paying taxes to this other city and they saw this other town able to not only pay for its police department but also build parks and provide other services without having to raise property taxes). One proposal was to switch from a point of sale distribution of the local sales tax to a population based distribution so that the sales taxes went to the cities where the tax payers lived, rather than where they shopped. A compromise of sorts was agreed to that they would split the sales taxes 50/50. Half would be distributed based on point of sale and the other half would go into a pot and be distributed among all cities based on population.
Of course, this would still mean that some cities would take significant hits because they could lose a significant portion of their current sale tax revenue, there just wasn’t enough money to go around. So they agreed to raise the rate from 0.75% to 1.00% and go with the 50/50 split. One last compromise was that since they were making the pot of money bigger and there would be money to go around that no one should loose any money. So they decided that if a city didn’t have enough population to get their current rate, that they would be ‘held harmless’ and the amount to be distributed to them would be no lower than the 0.75% from the prior rule. The extra needed to make up that shortfall would be proportionately taken from cities who under this new formula actually received more in sales tax revenue than was actually collected in their city (the bedroom communities that had very little retail compared to their population).
This is how it was from 1983 until 2006. In 2006 (this idea has been around longer but finally passed in 2006) a bill sponsored by Sen. Greg Bell former mayor of Fruitheights (a bedroom community with very little retail) removed the protection of the ‘hold harmless’ provision. Sales taxes would be distributed under a straight 50/50 distribution method. So as to no kill those ‘hold harmless’ cities the bill included a provision that said for the next 7 years you will get the greater of the amount you received in 04-05 or the amount you would receive under the 50/50 formula.
Under the 50/50 formula Riverdale would have received about 0.57% on sales in the city. The dollar amounts are 3.42 million under the 50/50 split vs. 4.5 million under the ‘hold harmless’. So Riverdale will get about 4.5 million (the amount we received in 04-05) for 7 years or until that 0.57% of sales exceeds the 4.5 million. To increase sales tax revenue Riverdale can either increase retail sales in Riverdale or they can increase population or some combination of both. My understanding is that to make up the deficit only with population increase Riverdale would have to increase from today’s approximately 8,000 residents to 40,000 residents. With Riverdale’s land mass and current build out, 32,000 more residents in not feasible. Just as a note, the states population is growing faster than Riverdale’s so, in fact, the 50% we receive for our population base goes down each year.
The other way we can increase sales tax revenue is to increase retail sales. Now we can expect that retail sales will increase somewhat with inflation but that is no where near what is needed. I believe we were told we would need about the equivalent of 2 more Super Wal-marts to fill the gap today by increasing retail sales. That also is probably not very realistic.
On other hit that Riverdale took was that the legislature picked the 04-05 year as the base even though we were mostly through the 05-06 year. In 05-06 Riverdale received about 5 million in sales tax revenue. So in 06-07 Riverdale lost about 500K in revenue from sales taxes. This is in a budget of about 6 million.
One last thing to realize is that Riverdale only collects about 400K in property taxes to increasing them by 50% is only going to increase revenue 200K out of a 6 million budget.
I don’t say these things to try to get sympathy, I am just putting out the facts as I know them. My personal feeling is that if they were going to change the rules to the game about the hold harmless, it should have been done way back in 83 when it was agreed to. If they had done a phase out then, some cities would not have continued to develop the way they have over the last 25 years.
So, will the OPD and FF union guys be up at the Council telling everyone what is going on? It will carry more weight to hear from the ones who have to drive these pieces of junk!
From what I understand the OPD "Union" is actually an association with little or no "national" union ties. While they do represent the police during pay negotiations and some policy issues within the department, they have little influence elsewhere. I believe that the car issue has been brought up before by officers at council. However, the powers that be (Godfrey and Brookins) pretty much do what they want. Brookins has the mayor believing that he can cost effectively keep older crappy cars on the road. Nevermind that they look terrible and old. The older cars make the department look like a used car commercial. Funny they did not put up a picture of one of the older cars on the billboard at 19th and Washington advertising that OPD is hiring. I think the vehicle issue is a losing battle. The city will never have enough money to replace the older cars at once or even over 2 years. By then there will be even more older ones that will need to be replaced. I don't think the council can bail the city out of that any way easy. It got too far behind. Playing catch up will be a huge undertaking.
What ever happened to the NASCAR idea for the police cars? You know slapping paid advertising stickers on them? Does Ogden not have enough business that can afford that?
The city knows all about the problems facing police and fire, but keep their heads in the sand. They are hoping that when the crap really hits the fan is just beyond their time in office. Crumbling fire stations, aging fire and police fleets and a steady stream of employee turnover are nothing they haven't heard of.
The mayor has also told Brookins that a fire engine needs to be kept for 25 years instead of 20. Just like the police fleet the fire engines are purchased used. The last one the city bought new is about 13 years old and the welds on the frame are breaking.
The money saved by OPD driving the new hybrids will help replace the aging fleet, Right? They can't just be out there to make the city look good, can they?
Please, gentle readers.
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Thanks for the lesson ARcritic. A very confusing history, but you made it understandable. Usually politicians do just the opposite!
What about cutting the city budget to actually match the income? Has your town considered this unique idea? Has any town ever considered it?
If the 50% proposed tax hike is going to be such a small amount in comparison, why not run on a platform of living within the budget without the 50% tax increase? Seems like a winning campaign to me. Actually advocate the town living within a budget like most citizens have to do.
Incidently, Greg Bell was the Mayor and before that councilman from Farmington, another no business town. He does now live in Fruit Heights however. He is also doing development in Farmington that he had the inside track on because he was mayor! His protoge followed him into the mayor's chair, but was defeated by a populist and inexperienced guy who ran on an honesty and financial responsibility platform in the last election. He actually advocated that the city live withing its budget and quit rolling over for any developer that came to town. He won by a big margine and is doing extremely well in office.
One last question, what ever happened to the Dagnillo family that owned so much of the land along the North side of Riverdale road? Are they players in Riverdale these days?
I think they only bought 3 Hybrids. 2 are for patrol and the other went to an "Administrator". Not exactly replacing the fleet is it? How can they replace the fleet at 3 new cars per year?
ArCritic:
My thanks as well for unravellin the history of the sales tax changes. Appreciate your taking the time.
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