Why I Am Running For Charlottesville City Council

The last City Council budget cycle caught my attention. In a bad way. I am a private citizen with no history of political involvement. So many City Council budget decisions make me cringe that I became concerned about how the Council made decisions with regard to spending taxpayers' money. In a nutshell:

• setting aside a million dollars of taxpayer money to start a new City ambulance service in parallel to the current CARS system seemed premature, excessive, and ill advised.
• unspent tax revenue from past fiscal years is called 'excess revenue' and is held aside for future City spending.
  
• Council quibbled over how much to cut our property tax rates, but ended up just setting a less high tax increase than they had first planned. They decided to raise our property taxes again. They have raised our taxes year after year after year. I do not support this way of thinking.
• During the recent real estate home price bubble, millions of dollars in extra taxes were generated. Rather than recognizing this, City Council just scooped up all the taxes and devised ways to spend them. When they could not spend all the money they got from property taxes, they held on to it to spend later. Never did they offer tax rebates to all taxpayers. They refer to this as 'excess revenue' instead of over taxation.
  
• Since I decided to run, I have seen more fiscal decisions from Council which I do not support- such as the targeted tax break program they decided was too complicated for the tax payers to understand, so they canceled it after suggesting it Gee, nice work. You are keeping all the money because you can't think of an effective way not to keep it? Please.
• Paying attention to how the City spends money has lead me to look hard at our budget. The City pays a great deal to support the lifestyle of the greater Charlottesville community. Is doing that what we want to do? There is little discussion of what we do, and why we keep doing it. I hope to add to the level of public scrutiny about:
  

1. How we share projects with the County,
   
2. The pros and cons of reversion to town status and becoming part of the County,
   
3. The status of the revenue sharing agreement. The County is much better positioned to enhance its tax flow from commercial establishments. Long ago the City agreed to stop annexing County land. Is that decision still reasonable today? Does it make sense to stay this land locked, while the commercial tax base of the County explodes?
   
4. Does it makes sense fiscally to have two separate systems of governance and service, like schools, police, water, public works, etc.?

I see myself bringing fiscal conservatism and pragmatism to the City Council. My focus will be on why and how we spend taxpayers dollars. I am very concerned about how and why the City is shouldering such a large share of the burden for setting the cultural and aesthetic tone for this community.

OUR HOUSING COSTS IN A BROADER PERSPECTIVE: DOES BEING NUMBER ONE CUT TWO WAYS?

This year has seen a great deal of attention focused on the area's lack of affordable housing. This is a complex issue. Nationwide, there was a huge real estate bubble, which only burst in the last year or so. Since 2001, there has been a tremendous run up in the cost of real estate, fueled in part by speculation and easy money, and also by general prosperity as reflected in the bull market on Wall Street. Therefore, the last few years may not predict the next few years for housing costs.

In general, people follow what is known as a flight to quality. Over time, people select residences in locations they think afford them the highest quality of living possible. That's how we do things in our politico-economic system. As you will see from the data below, people have voted with their feet and have decided our area is a very high quality place to live. This naturally puts pressure on the price of living here. That is not alterable in terms of macroeconomics. Yes, the median cost of housing here is high, but long term this sorts itself out by people making their own personal flights to quality [as in how much they want to spend on housing, what kind of environment they seek, schools, crowding, taxes, pollution, commute times, etc]. In a separate posting I shall discuss what I see as some of the nitty gritty points to consider when one mentions 'affordable housing'.

There are lots of data available for us to examine, although time points do not overlap exactly. From 2000- 2005, the median price of a home in Virginia increased 69%, according to the Virginia Housing Coalition. During that interval, statewide there was a 72% increase in the number of families spending over 50% of their income on housing. From 2004 to 2007, the median price of a home increased about 20% in the County, and 37% in the City. In fact, as the housing market started to tank, prices in the County retreated 5% last year, but in the City they rose 18%.

Money magazine recently revisited communities which it had previously ranked as Number One Place to live. That rating has not uniformly led to jumps in the median price of homes. Again, the data points are uneven. I have listed the locales in terms of length of time since each was ranked Number One. Allowing for inflation, one would expect to see the greatest increases in median home prices with the longest duration since having been designated a Number One Place to Live, but that did not occur:

Seattle was Number One 18 years ago; its home cost has risen 3 fold since that ranking.
Raleigh, Number One 13 years ago, has risen 1.5 fold since being ranked.
Gainesville, Number One 12 years ago, has risen 2.5 fold since its ranking.
Nashua, New Hampshire, Number One 10 years ago, has risen 1.5 fold.
Charlottesville, Number One 9 years ago, is up 2.5 fold since then.
Rochester, MN, Number One 8 years ago, has not had an increase.
Sarasota, Number One 7 years ago, has had a 2.5 fold increase in housing costs.

Being ranked Number One does not in itself cause huge jumps in the cost of housing. Towns may need 'curb appeal' just as homes do, and clearly some have more than others- like Charlottesville and Sarasota. Our curb appeal is pulling people to our area. None of us want to end up looking like Fairfax County! The most drastic changes to come will be in County areas as they are developed. I tend to avert my eyes as I watch the dance that plays out among developers, land owners, citizens already in place, and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors. It is very hard for those issues to end well for all concerned. Impacts of County development on the City are both tangible and intangible. For example, in a concrete sense, the folks living on and near Old Lynchburg Road are currently experiencing a huge decline in the quality of the neighborhoods, in terms of increased traffic from developments just south of the City-County border. Intangibly, this area we all love is being paved over, and the vistas which called us here, or which have kept us here, are slowly eroding. Or does it just seem slow because we are spending more time crawling in heightened traffic flow?

Overall ,on the national stage, we are viewed as a very desirable place to live, and there is only so much we can do locally to manage that perception. There will be ongoing pressure on housing costs, and much of the pressure is beyond our control.

Some Background Information About Me

I have lived in the City since 1981, in a variety of neighborhoods. Currently I live in Meadowbrook Heights. I love the natural beauty of our area, the vibrant artistic, cultural, and intellectual life of our community, and the generally friendly and decent tone we all set with one another.
Work Background:
I cam here to attend medical school, and chose to stay as I loved the area. I have worked for the Commonwealth since 1987 at Western State Hospital. I started there as the psychiatrist for deaf people admitted to the hospital, and I still take care of them. Now I also take care of people who hear. I consider myself fortunate to have been able to work in sign language, as I find it a very rich experience. At the hospital I was on the Medical Executive Committee for 13 years, which enabled me to participate in the administration of the hospital. I spent a year or two working part time at Valley Community Services Board, a sister organization to our Region Ten. This afforded me a 'street level view' of how valiantly folks struggle to get through their daily lives while trying to manage very serious illnesses. I have been on a statewide Advisory Council for Mental Health Services for hearing impaired persons. For 17 years, I was at UVA's Student Health an afternoon a week, providing psychiatric services to students. I am on the clinical faculty at UVA and work with residents and medical students. For a time I worked with the Charlottesville Association of Retarded Citizens. I consulted for years at Central Virginia Training Center in Lynchburg. I have also been on the Board of Worksource Enterprises. I am very familiar with how hard it is to find services for people with disabilities. Compared to some Community Service Boards, Region Ten has done a very good job of trying to address some of the unmet needs for housing and day programming for this group of people, as has the ARC. I have done forensic psychiatric work, largely with capital murder defendants. I am a member of various professional organizations and have chaired national committees of these organizations. I have been President of the local branch of the State Psychiatric Society.
Personal:
I grew up 'in the sixties' and that climate shaped my sense of the world, politically and environmentally [and musically]. I was raised in a military family and for years I attended parochial schools, which imbued in me an appreciation for the role of discipline in the classroom- or shall I say, a concern for the absence of discipline in classrooms and how that can impact the learning climate?
I have hosted several foreign exchange students over the years. My current companion animals are two rescue dogs. I like cooking, ballroom dancing, swimming and biking. I shop at the City Market weekly. I remember when the C & O was just about the only place to go for a nice dinner out. Heck, I remember folks telling me when I moved here about the drive in movie theater that used to be where Kroger now sits.
Some of the local and regional groups I have supported include the Free Clinic, the Salvation Army, the Food Bank, International Rescue Committee, Caring for Creatures, Voices for Animals, various SPCA's, Building Goodness Foundation, The Raymond Ford Haitian Orphanage, Rivanna Conservation Society, Southern Environmental Law Center, Legal Aid and Justice, Sierra Club of Virginia.
I value civility, generativity, and maturity in politics [and elsewhere, of course]. And a sense of humor and perspective go a long way.

So, What Am I Really? Democrat or Republican in sheep's clothing?

I think that, nationally, both parties are hopelessly corrupt. I view the corruption largely as a structural issue. Until there is public financing of campaigns, each party will be bought and sold by various owners, aka 'large contributors'. Various groups have huge impacts on policy and legislation by virtue of their financial contributions during and after the election process. I could never come up with an exhaustive list, but here are a few such "owners" that come to mind: the sugar industry, agribusiness, the teachers' union, the trial lawyers' lobby, the insurance industry, etc, etc. So, in my opinion, each party's decisions are tilted toward their big financial contributors.

I support what is known as Instant Runoff Voting. I encourage you to visit the website: instantrunoff.com. Basically, this eliminates 'hold your nose and vote' and it eliminates 'wasted votes' when one votes for a third party candidate. All votes count, and you can not inadvertently help the candidate you dislike by not voting for his main opponent. Their website explains how it works.

I favor this system for a variety of reasons. IRV gives third party candidates an actual chance at winning, because voters will not fear 'wasting' their votes. This allows new political messages and goals to enter the political forum. Just as importantly, it forces the major party candidates back towards the middle. They will have to be sure they appeal to a broader swath of voters to ensure they are elected. Gerrymandering has been a dreadful force in citizen's lives, as it has stacked the voting deck toward self perpetuation of whichever party is in power at the time that voting districts are constructed. In my opinion, the true purpose of political parties is to set up self sustaining machinery, sort of like political DNA, to create self sustaining future replicas of the party apparatus. Citizens be damned. Instant runoff widens the choices voters have, and enhances the political dialogue. Citizens have a better chance of voting for someone who actually represents their point of view.

This system is used in other countries, and in some US cities. I asked a member of the League of Women Voters why they did not support this cause, and she replied that it was 'too difficult' for people to understand. Maybe she was having problems- I have not encountered folks who could not understand it. Naturally, neither major party will put this on its legislative agenda, so only the citizenry can make this happen in our state and local politics. As I recall, the Libertarian party supported this in their platform. It makes sense that a third party would support this kind of electoral change.

Pundits lament the poor turn out in US elections. I think voter apathy reflects the sense that it doesn't matter much- in many but not all ways- who wins, because the winner will do what he has to do to pay back the favors he owes his big contributors, plus follow whatever the party line is. Nuanced, individual decisions by elected folks do occur, but not frequently. When voters perceive that the choice will have an impact, they turn out. We see that in hotly contested elections.

There are so many hard decisions that elected officials face. Yet, neither party wants to face voter wrath at setting limits or defining consequences. With instant runoff, candidates who wanted to challenge legislative ineptitude would have a better chance with IRV than the ice cube's chance in hell they currently face in state and national elections.

So, 'what am I'? I favor legislative processes that are comprehensive, inclusive of all relevant data and perspectives, and that are not pre-biased based on favoritism, cronyism, or party solidarity, or on fear of creating the perception of 'victory' by the other party. Maybe both parties make claim to such a stance, but check to see if their fingers are crossed.

WHY BUY THE COW WHEN THE MILK IS FREE?

Charlottesville is a landlocked 10 square miles, surrounded by 690 square miles of Albemarle County. Our population is roughly 40,00, and the County's is roughly 90,000. Thus, City residents comprise about 30% of the total population.

The City has a relatively low commercial tax base. This potentially drives more of the tax burden to homeowners. And, all City residents feel the bite of taxes on water, cable, meals, cars- etc.

If one were to design our area anew, I don't think any one would propose our current set-up: a politically and fiscally discrete central city with a limited tax base, a concentration of high service need individuals, and the financial responsibility forthe area's amenities and safety. What do I mean?

• The mayor has noted that currently all public housing in the area is within the City's limits.
• We have a regional jail. The jail charges the locality where an arrest occurred with the daily charges for an inmate's stay. So, if a Green county resident is arrested in the City, the City pays for his incarceration. The City's cultural life attracts people from all over- and City residents pay for their jail tabs.
• Police Chief Longo has suggested cameras on the downtown Mall, at a cost of $300,000. This would be billed to City residents, although people from all over use and enjoy the Mall. One could argue that the Mall is our cultural and psychological core.
• Despite having less than half the population of the County, the City has exactly the same number of police officers. So, City residents pay more per officer than do County residents.
• And- here we go- why are there 2 discrete police departments, fire departments, school boards, school systems, governments, etc? How does this make sense? And, at what price? No one would set this up de novo. Can tax payers afford this? What is the price of merging the systems, in economic, emotional, symbolic, cultural, and psychological terms?
• Does any one else find it absurd that the County office building is in the City? How about the County school in the City? Is this the Emperor's New Clothes?
• Lots of people have pointed out to me that there is City/County revenue sharing. Invariably, these are County folks. Here are the numbers:

The County remits yearly to the City one-tenth of 1% of their revenue. Recent payments have been:
FY05 $4,620,461
FY06 5,877,748
FY07 6,333,816

Meanwhile, this is the City's operating budget:
FY05 $99,646,862
FY06 105,985,272
FY07 110,462,324

So, revenue sharing provides 4-6% of the City's budget. Not a big dent.

Folks have been talking merger of services between City and County. One current candidate for City Council noted that this should be not be a 'shotgun marriage'. My take on that is this: Marriage? "Why buy the cow when the milk is free?" is more likely to be the County's position.

Can the City afford to remain the City?

Affordable Housing: a goal for future, not current, City residents

Everyone is talking about the area's lack of affordable housing. The current City Council, and the Democratic candidates for the fall election, have in general voiced strong concern about the lack of housing for people who are the backbone of any healthy community. The issue is straightforward, but solutions are not.

Before we address future housing stock, however, I want to talk about the housing of current residents. Why is there not as much concern for the affordability of current residents' housing? I am thinking specifically of the real estate tax burden. Most people spend their every dime, every month. They have finite income and they can not have expanding expenses. Why has City Council increased spending so relentlessly in the last decade? The current notion of giving low income home owners a 'tax break' [aka, a less high increase in their taxes] is the preferred modus operandi of the current Council. My position is different. I support more fiscal restraint on the City's part. Rather than Council taking in ever increasing real estate taxes and then deliberating how to spend the 'excess revenue', I think there should be a limit on City spending, or at least, a limit on real estate tax increases. For example, the people who bought homes in Belmont have been absolutely hammered by the huge increases in their assessments. While they may have paper wealth, this is different from having adequate monthly cash flow to pay tax bills.

I encourage City residents to contemplate a cap on real estate assessments. For example, we could enact a maximum set amount that assessments could go up each year, possibly two percent. When a home is sold, the assessment for the new owner could freely rise to market value. The run away train of escalating assessments could be managed. This is a problem nationwide, and all over the country, property owners are looking at solutions. Of course, the City budget will not be elastic, and so we City residents have to be prepared to take a hard look at our spending. I plan to do that in another posting.

REAL ESTATE TAX PRIMER

Have you noticed how taxpayer money gets referred to as 'excess revenue' as opposed to excessive taxation? Do you realize that City Council did not decide to just rebate to taxpayers some of their over collection of citizens' money, or even to keep taxes flat for the coming fiscal year?

At the start of the most recent budget process, the City Manager proposed a 14% budget increase, the largest increase in 15 years. The City had received extra tax proceeds largely because homeowners' assessments went up, by an average of 16%.

For taxpayers not to have a tax increase this current FY 07-08, the City Council would have had to establish a rate of 88 cents per $100 of assessed value. The rate the Council set is 95 cents. [And my pet peeve: the ambulance service. A million dollars is 2 cents on the tax rate, so eliminating the controversial new program would have allowed a rate of 93 cents.]

Did you know that Fairfax County's real property tax rate is 89 cents? Yes, we pay higher taxes than Fairfax County! And Albemarle County residents pay a rate of 68 cents! That's right, City taxpayers pay a rate that is 1.4 times higher than the County's. Put another way, County residents' rate is a third less that City residents' rate.

Did you know that the school budget went up 12% while the enrollment declined 4%?

Did you know that in FY 07, the City gave over $4500 to out of town public media stations: WVPT and WHTJ! Charlottesville Transit Service [CST] was announced as a sponsor during the radio's fundraising drive. Is someone going to tell me that CTS ridership will grow because of advertising on public radio? I think most folks tuning in to public radio have already figured how how they will be travelling.

The majority of City tax revenue comes from real estate tax. And overall, over a third of the City's budget comes from real estate tax. Quoted in the Daily Progress on June 16, Leigh Middleditch, chairman of the Jefferson Partnerships's Board of Directors said our area "relies too much on its real estate tax base." More on this in another post.

Ambulance-scam or Boondoggle?

Background:
Seemingly out of nowhere, this spring the City announced its plan to begin a new ambulance service in FY 07-08. Starting price tag would be one million dollars [That is two cents in the real estate tax rate.] The rationale presented in the Daily Progress was that CARS response times were slow.

Take a look at CARS:
Charlottesville Albemarle Rescue Squad has been in existence over 40 years. It is one of the busiest all volunteer squads in the USA. The City has never funded CARS!!!!! Albemarle County does give it funds from its budget. CARS owns about 8 ambulances and on any given shift, operates 2 or 3 of them, leaving the majority idle.

Furthermore, many localities pay a bonus stipend to their firemen who are also medics/EMT's. Charlottesville FD does not. Albemarle County pays its firemen approximately $10,000 annually in recognition of that extra skill. The County deploys their fire staff to CARS, generally during weekdays when it is hard to get enough volunteers to work. This also allows medics to stay clinically active with their skills. Charlottesville FD does not do this.

And what's up with those slow response times?
Well, here's where it gets really interesting. If you look at the numbers- and that's where the story is- it turns out that the national standard is that a rescue agency should respond to calls within 8 minutes 90% of the time. How was CARS doing? It responded within 8 minutes 84% of the time. That's right- it was off by 6%. I have seen no analysis of where and when the slower responses occurred. Friday nights? Wednesday at noon? Northern stretches of the County? No data analysis. This is what energized/enraged/engaged me. That lack of critical thinking about a problem is not acceptable, in my opinion. Rather than a sledgehammer response of starting a whole new, taxpayer supported City service, why not start out by figuring out what exactly was not up to speed, and trying to formulate a focused solution? In other words, if CARS is slow on a given day, should we put in the ability to change red lights to green, or beef up staffing that day, or staff an extra ambulance? It is not justifiable to start a whole new, expensive, taypayer supported program as the first response to a not big problem!

Did you know?

• That the City proposes using the million dollars to buy 2 new ambulances? [Remember- CARS has many parked ambulances on any given day.]
  
• That the million dollars is in the budget and has been allocated for the new service to start?
  
• That the City said the new ambulances would be located at their fire station which is a stone's throw away from CARS? If slow response times are a geographic problem- serving northern County, for instance, how does the proposed location make anything better?
• That City ambulance runs would add to the data as to the number of calls the fire department responds to in a year?
• That any new City service would be a recurring expense for taxpayers in terms of salaries, health insurance, pensions, etc.?
• That there was such an outcry over this that a regional task force was formed AFTER THE OUTCRY to look into the problem? That's my beef: City Council was derelict in not taking that approach initially. Instead, they voted to spend a million dollars of tax payer money to start a brand new program. That level of performance is not acceptable.
• The former fire chief is now a member of City Council.
• The current mayor, Mr. Brown, who is a candidate for City Council, stated in a Daily Progress profile that he was concerned about this million dollar expenditure. He's the mayor! It went through on his watch. He expressed his concern after the outcry.
• That sometimes police may hold back an ambulance crew which arrives on scene, for various reasons. The crew is not said to have arrived [think: response times] until they actual reach their patient[s].
  

Overview

I am running for City Council because I became concerned about our budget process. I hope City residents will take a look at some of the fiscal issues we face. We can either make active choices about our forward direction, or we can drift [backwards] into the future.