Council Blow by Blow for 6-15-09

OK. It’s budget night. This is gonna be too painful to watch.
Everybody’s there but McAustin. Madison does the pledge and gets it right.

PRE-FIGHT WARM UP: Tornek wants to adjourn for William Burroughs who’s not the writer one but a guy who did a lot around town in that old money Pasadena way. He was even in the Valley Hunt Club. He died and they’re closing in his memory. You know, we can talk about how these old guys re kinda dinosaurs but
PUBLIC COMMENT: Diamond Monday Rasta man wants to open a pot dispensary. Wacko Nancy Nelson went to Ambassador College and wants it to be an arboretum.

CONSENT CALENDAR: They’re spending $300K for dial a ride and $24 mil for ARTS buses. $300K for bridge design for La Loma. A guy from First Transit comes to say they like having that $24 mil contract.

FINANCE COMMITTEE: They didn’t meet by Holden’s got stuff to get approved. City Investments: They worried they’d get hammered by the economy. Treasurer dude runs through what we all know but the council forgets that we all are having tough times. It’s a little better now. Pasadena’s doing better than most and are meeting all the legal rules. There’s $60 mil in one fund and $216 mil all together. So you gotta raise my water rates because? Oh, they’re borrowing millions to buy a new helicopter. Now I like having the eye in the sky to watch the gangbangers when they break into my neighbor’s car, but it’s a lot of $$$. They’re getting’ more money for a bunch of projects. Hey, it’s another $10K here and $5K there and pretty much it adds up to $750K. Oh. It gets passed without anybody saying “Whoa there” that’s a lot of money.

THEY BEAT IT TO CLOSED SESSION before the budget. Yo guys, lotsa dead time here while you spend money and make decisions in private.

BUDGET: We’re spending a bazillion dollars. Holden says they might have to make changes if they don’t pass the water rate increase. Right, that’s gonna happen. These people got no desire to save me and you money . They’re all jumping on how great they are to pass a budget without anybody really talkin’ about it. Holden, McAustin, Haderlein and Madison talk about how wonderful they are to do the budget and keep services going but nobody’s askin’ when they balance the budget by chargin’ us more for things like water. Madison wants them to give up their automatic pay raise. He says it’s not much money and the lawyer says it wouldn’t happen until 2010. Beck says he’s happy the council decided funding priorities. The finance guy’s got a beard now. They’re spending $681 mil. They got 2360 workers on the payroll and are spending $64 mil on projects. They’re runnin’ a deficit so they gotta fix that. They’re cuttin’ $8 mil and using $25 mil in excess reserve. That means they made a lot more money before and just kept it. I got a idea: get the Mayor and council to stop spending money on every little thing so I don’t have to pay a boatload more for water and trash. They’re still spending like they used to. Nobody’s cuttin’ anything much. Oh, and the state’s gonna really screw them over too. Public Comment from Wacko Nancy Nelson who says it’s outrageous to use the water rate hikes to balance the budget. She’s nutso but she’s right about a lot of this. She says she gets calls from Arizona about what the city council in Pasadena does. Holden’s already talkin’ defense for the water increase. Great. They already decided what they wanna do and it's raise my water rate and get me to pay instead of them saving enough money so I don't haveta pay.

Hey folks, it's budget night. Bend us over and give it to us good City Council. But hey, our council's got $25 mil extra but they still gotta get me to pay more.

SORRY FOLKS, I BEAT MY HEAD AGAINSTH TE WALL SO HARD I COULDN'T WATCH THE REST UNTIL TODAY.

DON'T LET CALIFORNIA TAKE PASADENA'S MONEY: They want Carol Liu and Anthony Protantino to promise not to take any city money to balance the state budget. Our vultures want their vultures to stay away. Good plan people. Maybe if you were showing Pasadena doing the same thing, but hey, we can charge lots more for water and then tell state people to not do the same thing to us. They're beyond hypocrites to HIPPOCRITES, big, slow moving creatures that suck up everything possible. Bogaard wants Pasadena to join a lawsuit against the state, too. So we pay more for lawyers? Good idea. Oh, yeah, Bogus Bill's a lawyer, ain't he? AND these guys even think the legislature's working to fix the problem, but California's gonna be out of $$$ in July and the morons in Sacramento ain't gonna even give up their luxury cars and big perks.

REDEVELOPMENT MONEY FOR VILLA PARK AND OLD TOWN PASADENA: The gotta make special findings to make sure it's legal to use the money for what they want. They're gonna look at Lincoln Avenue to put in parking. This one's over $3 mil.

HOUSING DEPARTMENT FUNDS FOR HOMELESS HOUSING, WELFARE HOUSING: They're doing something, but it's hard to tell exactly what. This is someting like $6 million that nobody talks much about.

CHANGING THE PLANNING CODE: Bruckner says they need to make changes so projects that get continued have to be noticed again. Business can't show their stuff on public property. Woman making the presentation is really cute and looks like she's 20. nancy Nelson wacko wants to know why they care about garage sales and says homeless should be able to aharass people and sell junk on sidewalks. Great idea. Whatever happened to runnin' 'em off when they harass people. I mean, I am real sympathetic to families who lose their jobs and can't have a lace to live, but the filthy people who lurk in doorways and stand at the freeway and hassle everybody gotta go.

BOGUS SAYS THEY'RE DOING A STRATEGIC PLANNING EVENT on Thursday. Like anybody can see that since I guess it's not gonna be on TV. Not that any of us care about what the council's gonna be up to.

Great meeting. Too 3 hours for them to get through it. They did the budget. $600+ million in about half and hour. And I find out they got $25 mil extra they are gonna use for pet projects. Hey! How about using some o'that to keep my water bill the same?

Typical. Least my councilmember was there. Think McAusin's gonnna tell her people she's not responsible because she wasn't there when they did the budget?

Weenies and weasels.

D.