Former Paradise Mayor, Ray Dalton, on local issues.
RDA Funds.
After speaking with a good number of you in the business community it is clear that you are less than satisfied with our local government but live with a certain measure of fear to oppose it. The common thread running through is that the town has not only failed in its promises made of a brighter future if only you do your part, but with the hiring of another code enforcement officer, you have experienced an unwanted presence hampering your progress rather than helping with it. The gap between “public servant� and those to be “served� seems to be ever widening.
I believe the evidence shows the town manager has an agenda of his own and it is not you. This was made abundantly clear with the transferring of a reported $250,000.00 from the Redevelopment Agency to the park fund to build a “new train museum.� That was to be a “ community park� not a monolith to the locomotive history on the ridge. We have just lost those funds, funds that are a direct result of personal dollars poured into local businesses.
Four years ago council made a commitment to this community, that if you entrusted us with the formation of an RDA we would keep certain promises; among them that your increased tax dollars would be spent on infrastructure and streetscape in the downtown and RDA areas, and to increase pay for police and fire, neither has happened. Where is the parking, where is the cluster septic system that was to bring in new restaurants, where are the traffic calming implementations, where is the leadership? The manager has stated there are projects slated for the downtown in 2007 or 2008, but 2008 is a long way from promises made in 2002, promises myself and others made.
In November of 2004 as mayor I signed Resolution 04-57 applying for a grant from the State of California with full knowledge it would be a matching grant with the museum to provide the match. Now, according to RDA meeting minutes of 1/24/06 by the town manager/exc. director the town is now paying $45,900.00 for design of the existing depot. He further states the town’s portion of the shared cost of the depot is $200,000.00 including the $114,000.00 grant. Now according to town documents the contract cost for REM Construction to do the exterior work only is $233,902.00 placing another burden on the Paradise taxpayer. But wait, there’s more. We now see that the contractor has demolished the entire building, and to date I have met with the town clerk and the assistant town manager, and no one knows who approved the demolition, nor the cost? Further more, I am in receipt of the quite detailed structural report by Stantec Consulting Inc. to the town manager dated 11/18/05 stating the building is in surprisingly good condition. What happened and what’s going on? And why is the Paradise taxpayer being held responsible for the cost?
Our business base and public safety are vital to the success of our community. The commitments made then should still be honored now, for without you, there is no downtown, no park, and no new economy. We have the ability to be one of the largest collective voices in this community, we can if we have the WILL for the coming battle, form and shape not just this election but also the future of Paradise.
Comments
Progress is slow, and I do not blame anyone for losing patience with the pace of public improvements. The town is progressing nonetheless on a number of significant projects, concurrently, with only a few planning and engineering staff to work on those public improvement projects while at the same time keeping up with the regular development projects that contractors bring to them. Given the staffing situation, it is remarkable the amount of work that they do crank out for the public at the direction of previous and current Council. Sometimes, for safety's sake, what we need is another good planner and engineer, at least one of each. Our town staff is short handed. Meanwhile, we have had to contract out jobs, and that is arguably more expensive and not as good as doing work in-house.
Regarding the Depot, the town has put some money into that project in concert with the Gold Nugget Museum's very significant contributions. I am very pleased that we will have this attraction in our new park. It is a piece of history that we should value. Walking or biking the trail, the depot and caboose are visual reminders that once there was a train stop in Paradise. Paradise grew up around that depot. The town should help preserve this history, and it is a credit to previous and present councils, the RDA committee, the Gold Nugget Museum, and our town manager that the site, as many of the original Depot boards as possible, and the history are being preserved in the town's first municipal park. It will be a park well worth visiting, and I hope many citizens will continue to contribute to the Gold Nugget Museum and to the park's "amenities" fund because there is not enough RDA money to pay for everything planned for in the park and still have money for traffic calming on the Skyway, streetscaping, and other vital and required revitalization projects.
Keep up the good work watching town government, and when you can, tell the Council what you think before we make a decision. - Robin Huffman, Town Councilwoman, 877-0672.
Posted by: Robin Huffman | October 15, 2006 04:01 PM
This whole issue of the local RDA spending lots of public $$ on the depot project is personally interesting to me. On the one hand, I'm a real train buff and the history of Ridge railroading is of more than passing interest, I believe. After all, railroads played a key role in the development of most of the western U.S.! On the other hand, I understand that attention needs to be paid elsewhere, badly, not only to public safety "downtown", but all over the community. I'm thoroughly convinced that many speeders in this Town thumb their noses at current speed limits in our residential neighborhoods because local enforcement of traffic laws seems, in these areas, to be practically non-existent! And what about sidewalks, and other safe pedestrian paths to protect us from the constant speeding on certain narrow local roads with no real shoulders, only ditches? Pedestrians shouldn't have to walk in weeds and ditches. It's just total neglect, though I understand about the lack of funds. And I don't know what the answer is, but one direction we could go in (and this should generate some local response) is to contact the Bush Administration and the present Congress (or the one that comes after) and tell them that we're tired of supporting an overbloated military budget, just so we can continue to fight never-ending wars for oil (under the pretext of the so-called War on Terrorism), just so we can travel from place to place in our personal motor vehicles! More spending needs to be made on genuine human needs and less on U.S. world hegemony (domination)! In short, our auto-based, fossil fuel burning, global warming culture is bankrupting all, AND affects small rural area towns, like ours, most of all, simply because we have the least initial funds available to begin with. So, if you suspect that there's an over-all connection between global and local issues, I'm hear to tell you; YES, THERE IS!! Much more connectivity than you may think!
Posted by: Jay Castor | October 18, 2006 07:19 AM