{"id":664,"date":"2019-05-27T09:29:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-27T09:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mutualhousing.com\/blog\/?p=664"},"modified":"2022-09-23T09:35:28","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T09:35:28","slug":"firefighters-misguided-in-measure-u-attack-on-mayor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mutualhousing.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/27\/firefighters-misguided-in-measure-u-attack-on-mayor\/","title":{"rendered":"FIREFIGHTERS MISGUIDED IN MEASURE U ATTACK ON MAYOR"},"content":{"rendered":"

$\"\"$ <\/p>\n

Everybody loves a firefighter, and we at Mutual Housing California strongly support these heroes and all the other first responders who keep us safe in our communities. As someone who has been homeless due to losing my childhood home to a fire, I am particularly grateful for their service.<\/p>\n

It was very sad to see, however, members of the City of Sacramento’s Fire Department being used last Tuesday as political props. In what should be a good-faith debate on discussion on how the city should allocate the tens of millions of dollars in new revenues that will result from last year’s passage of Measure U, the firefighters stormed City Hall on Tuesday with a four-alarm false narrative.<\/p>\n

“Stop Measure U Bait and Switch,” said their red-and-white signs that attracted significant attention from the news media.<\/p>\n

The message wasn’t even close to being true.<\/p>\n

From the beginning – and well before Measure U appeared on the city ballot, Mayor Darrell Steinberg proposed that the city consider the creation of a significant economic development fund to be financed through the increased sales tax revenues that would be generated through the proposal. City voters apparently thought the idea made sense. They ultimately approved the measure last November by a margin of 57 percent to 43 percent.<\/p>\n

“The excitement to me of being able to take an ongoing source of revenue and create a $450 million trust fund I think illuminates what is possible,” the mayor said at a City Council meeting on July 31. He added, “It’s an idea. It’s a mechanism. It’s a potential.” Such a fund, he said, would “give our city more ability, more capacity, to be able to do more,” rather than fight and claw in what he labeled as a “one-off” fashion for every idea that made it to the council.<\/p>\n

Mayor Steinberg’s proposal to allocate $40 million a year into an economic development fund is not a “bait and switch.” It was a leader delivering to the city exactly what he promised, and it is exactly what city voters wanted when they said “yes” to the explicit ballot language that asked them if they wanted to enhance not just public safety services, but “homeless supportive services, affordable housing, libraries, park maintenance, high-wage job promotion, and youth programming.”<\/p>\n

As affordable housing advocates, we point to figures released this week by the California Housing Partnership to demonstrate the voters’ wisdom on Measure U. With a shortfall of more than 63,000 affordable homes in Sacramento County, the level of funding for them over the past decade has been slashed by 68 percent.<\/p>\n

The mayor was right when he said in July that Measure U would support general fund spending on public safety services like the ones requested by the firefighters. He was right when he said that if the city doesn’t do something dramatic to increase its tax base, “we won’t fix our pension crisis.” He was right when he said Measure U was necessary to restore the city’s Housing Trust Fund.<\/p>\n

It is fair for firefighters, both management and labor, to go to City Hall and make their case for more funding. We need to call them out, however, when they’re wrong – even if we love them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"