Our editorial today supporting the city of Fresno's attempt to create a municipal utility district says the Fresno City Council will take the issue up on Tuesday. However, Mayor Alan Autry's staff pulled the item from the council agenda because of problems in the proposal. The city administration made that decision after our Sunday opinion section went to press on Friday morning. The Vision section is printed early and inserted into the Sunday paper.
While The Bee's editorial board supports the concept of a municipal utilities district, if the financial assumptions in Autry's proposal are flawed, that could change our opinion on the feasibility of putting city utilities under a separate district. It doesn't make sense to make a change if it doesn't pencil out. Fresno voters would ultimately have to approve the creation of the district.
I wonder if anyone has noted the irony of your editorial on Sunday in favor of creating a new special district with an elected board, then two days later editorializing that we have too many special districts with too many elected positions.
Perhaps that is the dilemma of democracy at the local level. If there is no elected body responsible to the public for a particular service, an agency may be unresponsive to the public, or too beholden to well-heeled parties with an economic interest in what the agency does (e.g. the air pollution control district).
On the other hand, having elections where nobody runs, or few people know anything about the candidates who do run, doesn't do much to advance the public interests, either.
I don't know what the solution is. Maybe it's just another one of those areas in life where we just have to muddle along as best as we can.
In my view, there's a big difference between the Bald Mountain Fire District and a municipal utility district serving one of the largest cities in California. If you can't get people to run for a district board, it seems that district may have passed its time.
It seem fairly obvious that there are too many special districts, and some should be consolidated and others abolished.
If you're arguing that you can't say there are too many special districts, and still support one that makes sense, I'll also have to disagree.
All that said, the utility district for the city of Fresno now may not pencil out. It seems that the mayor's office has new information that calls into question the financial assumptions city staff made in the utility district proposal. This is still developing, but it seems to be a very big problem that could torpedo a municipal utility district.
The mayor's folks apparently did not do their homework on this one.
I just said it was an irony, not a contradiction. A utility district *might* make sense - we'll just have to wait and see what they come back with, if anything. And having an elected board may or may not make them more responsive to the public. If no one runs against the incumbents, we won't even see their names on the ballot. Being important doesn't always equate to being high-profile.
Mr. Boren:
Which of the financial projections wasn't thought through? The ease by which they could raise rates in the future? The ease by which they could borrow oodles of new money at low rates? The ability of the City to transfer municipal revenues into the general fund (in violation of prop 218)? Or did they miscalculate the ability of union members to stack a special district board?