This past week, Q-line asked: How do you think the Council should spend the budget surplus?
Here are your responses: “The Council should invest this money in cleaning up this city and making it the lovely seaside attraction it once was. Replace inadequate-sized garbage dumpsters around the city, clean and repave all the alleys, steam-clean the filthy sidewalks — that would be a good start. Any money left over, give to the new skatepark, lighting, additional hours and securites. Not a penny to the bums.” “$2.5 million is not a princely sum when it renders down to the daily maintenance of the city. I personally would like to see some the surplus spent on the resurfacing of the California incline between Ocean Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway. The observation deck in Palisades Park needs refurbishing. Redebatement is also needed at the base of the 70,000 palm trees that beautifully line our streets, especially along Wilshire Boulevard. This overgrowth of weeds highlights that the merchants along Wilshire are not willing to engage in weed pulling. Merchants should understand that the aesthetics of the city and the business locations are very important. Finally, potholes are beginning to reappear in the streets of the city. With potholes, a shovelful of asphalt and time saves nine.”
“What they should do with this extra money is buy some land, far away, build a camp there and put all the bums there... Then use the leftover money to get some heavy machinery and clean up all the junk they left behind, hose it down and sterilize it once and for all. That goes for the Promenade and all the alleys as well.” “I think it would be an excellent idea to level the streets because now that I am on a wheelchair, it would make it easier for us, disabled people.”
“Holy Taxpayers, Batman! The City Council has two and half million dollars left from gouging the public. What do you think is the best thing to do with it? Well, Boy Wonder, most city councils would find a way to refund that money to the people who gave it. But City Hall would have a heart attack taking a counter-revolutionary stance like that. Holy progressive-liberal-big-spenders, Batman! How about mini parking structures along Montana and Wilshire since businesses are allowed to proliferate without adequate or no parking for customers or staff? How about an emergency fund for disasters like earthquakes? Robin, you have to spend money to make money. Saving taxpayers money puts too much pressure on our comrads at City Hall”
“Santa Monica already had the highest garbage and water rates in the universe and now they gave landlords another raise. New and expanded fees are added every year such as fire and health inspection fees. Instead of funding phoney-baloney program, why not refund the money to landowners to help them pay their bills.”
“No doubt that some people will prefer to spend the surplus money on services for the homeless, well the delegation that returned from New York said that they had great success removing the homeless from the streets. I heard a homeless person being cited by the police for sleeping on the sidewalks of the Promenade. She complained that she had lost her New York driver’s license. May it be that they left the streets of New York for those of Santa Monica? This sounds like a federal problem. We can’t spend federal money based upon where people came from.”
“Why not improve the water quality along Santa Monica’s coast the Council was speaking of doing and charging the residents of Santa Monica for. The surplus money should be spent on this rather than having the Santa Monica residents pay for that. There is a considerable need based upon the article speaking of a new funding source, to reduce pollution, to reduce bacteria and chemicals. This would certainly be good use of the money.”
“I would love to see the city give $2.5 million if it has excess to the currently hired homeless czar. He should take that money, get all the homeless and vagrants out of town since he has a year to do it, since that’s all he’s been hired for. That should be plenty of money to get them all out. Then, what that will do is free up $20 million or more that the city can spend, perhaps, on affordable housing for those who reside in this city, not for ones from the outside who don’t live in Santa Monica, but because of federal grants, get to take the affordable housing availability before the local residents do. That, of course, is a pipe dream because what we’ll probably end up with is some sort of singing pipes as artwork installed for that $2.5 million.”
“It makes us sick every time we open our gas, electric and phone bills to see our crooked city council is skimming another ten percent off us. Let them give it back.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 4, 2006. Read the original PDF.