Commissioners or Consultants?

At the last City Council meeting, a problem arose in refining the City's utility users tax. There was some problem because the language for the new ordinance seemed to be changing the treatment of certain taxpayers. This was an error and got squared away, but the City Attorney mentioned that the City pays a consultant to monitor changes in state law in order to update municipal taxes. Of course, the consultant did not pick up the fact that the City could charge a Quimby Fee of more than $5,000 (rather than the old $300 fee) for park aquisition and improvement. The consultant did not pick up on the fact that AES is not a utility and should have been paying Utility Users Tax that has now caused a $23 Million dispute with the city. It seems that this consultant is not doing much good. Meanwhile, we have members of more than a dozen city commissions who are anxious to volunteer their time for the city. Perhaps it would make more sense to focus on the volunteer commissioners than the expensive consultants.

An Opponent

I got a lot of calls on Tuesday and again on Thursday from people congratulating me thinking I was unopposed. The Daily Breeze reported that I was the only person to file as of Monday, and both the Beach Reporter and Easy Reader went to press before my opponent filed late Wednesday. Nevertheless, someone else did file
as the Daily Breeze reported Thursday. Our campaign looks good, but my opponent has the ability to raise a lot of money, so please help out at contribute.leefink.com.

Building the North Branch Library

I will have more to say about the people and ideas that I learned from walking precincts this weekend, but I just came back from a meeting of the Capital Campaign for the new North Branch Library and wanted to relay some news. The first bit of news is that we did not get the state grant for which we were applying. But that is not the end of the campaign. We will have another opportunity at state grants if voters pass the state library bond in 2006, and we will start off at the head of the list. In the meantime, we need to make sure that the City sticks to its $800,000 commitment--and add more to that if we can. And we are continuing efforts to raise more than $1 Million from the community. So when you see me coming door-to-door, I will be bringing along information about the Library as well.

Weekend Walking

I spent most of the weekend walking through the
neighborhoods in District 4. It was great to get out
and meet so many great people. I'll post more on what
I learned later on, but two words come to
mind--parking and parking.

Welcome to the Blog

Welcome to the first entry on the Think Fink blog. We'll try to keep you up to date on the campaign happenings here, and I'll try to let you know what I think on the pressing local issues. In exchange, you've got to keep me up to date on what you want to see in Redondo Beach!