Citizen About Town

By Nancy C. Arcuri, Editor and Publisher

E-mail address: nancyarcuri@thecitizensvoice.net

Fax number: 626-307-9081

Monterey Park’s Budget Issues

Councilmembers Frank Venti, Betty Tom Chu and Mitch Ing have announced the city has a $4 million shortfall.  They continue to blame former City Manger Chris Jeffers, former City Attorney Tony Canzoneri, former Finance Director David Dong and now City Manager June Yotsuya.

They claim that the city manager dipped into our reserve account without notifying them of her actions. Our budget allows the city manager to use up to 2% from the reserves to cover our shortfalls.

Council has conducted several closed-door sessions regarding her future employment with the city.

On March 3 several residents spoke up in support of June Yotsuya during two meetings held that day. We feel the Council is over reacting on this issue and using it to fire Ms. Yotsuya Inflatable Water Slide as the current Council majority did not vote to hire her.

On March 10 in Closed Session after hearing from many more speakers supporting June Yotsuya Councilmembers Venti, Chu and Ing voted to fire her.

Yes, Monterey Park like all cities, counties and states in our country are in financial distress.  Most of Monterey Park’s funds are being used to pay for early retirement for the firefighters and police officers, who can retire after 30 years of service with 90% of their current salary. Most of these retirees are under 65 years old.  It is a nice plan for them because they have not put any of their own funds into their retirement plans.

A Blue-Ribbon Committee established several years ago had provided Council information on the budget before it became a crisis. The residents spent hours of their own time addressing the projected shortfalls.

Their suggestions seemed to have fallen on the Council majority’s deaf ears.

I told the Councilmembers not to play the blame game. They should look into a mirror to see themselves and all of the previous Councilmembers who put their own self-interests before the city.  A previous Council voted to put a dump into the city. Councilmembers voted to re-zone the commercial districts to make the lots smaller to keep out the big box stores like Sears and they bragged about it.  They said they did it to protect their Mom and Pop businesses. Councilmembers who allowed the commercial buildings to be sub-divided to make even smaller stores. Some of these stores don’t even have cash registers so we don’t even know if the storeowners pay their fair share of sales tax. Was the last honest Council the people who took a midnight ride to Sacramento to incorporate our city in 1916?

Monterey Park is going broke because it lacks sales tax.

We need brand name businesses to provide services to our community and bring in much needed sales tax dollars.

Residents have been waiting years for the Market Place to be built and provide much needed shopping and sales tax.

Residents have seen the length of time taken to build the North Atlantic project. Will it bring in brand name stores to provide us with sales tax?

Residents are wondering the same about the new project at Garvey and Garfield.   It has been said that a Fresh and Easy Market will not be a tenant in the project.  The location is a problem for the large delivery trucks.

Residents also see the number of vacant stores in our area.  The economy is not doing well despite all the money that the Inside the Beltway Gang has thrown around.

The youth of America, their children and their grandchildren will be paying the bill for many generations.

Overnight Parking and Permits

The taxpayers of Monterey Park already pay for using our public streets. Homeowners pay property taxes and renters pay rent that includes funds for property taxes. We all pay gasoline taxes for the roads.

Now our Council wants to charge taxpayers more money to be able to park on our streets overnight.

What about all the seniors who live in housing that the city only required parking for one and one-half cars?

What about all the tenants who live in units that don’t have enough off street parking?

What about all the residents that live in the older parts of town that don’t have off street parking for their cars?

Residents who live on East Mooney Drive between Orange and the County line in older homes are lucky to have any off street parking.

Why is Council going to penalize the Monterey Park residents who could not afford to buy or rent newer homes with parking for two or more cars?

Redevelopment Funds of $1,800,000 to be used for city’s infrastructure

The Monterey Park Council and Agency voted on March 3 to purchase the old Shell Station at Markland and Potrero Grande for the location of a new Fire Station #2 using $1,800,000 of tax increment funds for the purchase of Real Property and related Environmental Studies.  This property is at the entrance of the 60 Freeway. Staff is seeking several grants to build the new Public Safety Center that would also house a police storefront, secondary dispatch communication room and training center.

Several residents stated this is a bad time to spend money on this project.  The city manager stated these funds could only be used for re-development and could not used in the general fund to pay salaries unless it paid the salaries of those employees working on this project.

The city’s appraised value of this site is $1.6 million. A condition of the sale would be the sellers clean up the site at their own expense.

If we buy the site and are not able to secure enough grants to construct the building then the city could sell the site to a developer for another project.

I realize that we must plan for our city’s future.  I would like to be able to travel back into the past to help undo the Councils’ actions that have crippled our city’s economic growth.

I don’t have pride in our past because of the greed that has cause us so much grief.

I don’t have much faith in our future based on the Council majority who are hell-bent on destroying our city.

The legend of St. Patrick states he drove the snakes out of Ireland.  Do you suppose that St. Patrick could drive the snakes out of our City Hall?

Monterey Park needs to find a pot of gold under the rainbow or a winning Lotto ticket.

Monterey Park needs the Luck of the Irish!