Letter to the editor: Stop creating division in La Center

Posted

Please, stop creating division amongst citizens in La Center. We have a really nice town, but if you spend any time in Facebook groups, you’d think that our city leadership was corrupt, incapable and completely oblivious to the needs of the community.

Furthermore, citizens that aren’t attending city council meetings are being misled about what’s happening in La Center. It’s absolutely wrong to create this much distrust in our town when there’s no basis for it.

For those on Facebook insinuating that the mayor and city council are misusing funds and “defunding the police” because they are caught up in some “Pacific Northwest Anarchy” movement are just wrong. Can I remind everyone that most of our town leadership is moderately conservative, which is hardly the demographic of a radical, anarchist regime?

All this information is public record, but if you don’t have the time, here’s my take on our finances: We’ll probably have less than $1 million in revenue from our card rooms this year, which was around $3 million in 2016. We fall short each year in our budget and we’ve been using our cash reserves to make up the difference. The city council and the mayor have been looking for solutions for a while, but having such a massive drop in revenue cannot be fixed overnight. This is especially hard if you can only raise around $1 million from property, sales and excise taxes.



If bad news from city council meetings result in online conspiracy theories, future city councils may choose to take difficult subjects and punt them until they are replaced by the next city council. What this will do is cause our town to deal with major emergencies with no warning. I am glad that our current city council isn’t burying this issue and is addressing it head on with all its difficulty.

Regarding our police force: Yes, it’s not ideal to have to outsource parts of our police force, but where do you make up a $2 million deficit? What if you could get the same or better coverage of police without spending $1.6 million annually and running the city into the ground financially? Yes, many want local police officers, but how do we find the funds for them? We outsource many things already, like our jails and courts to larger neighboring cities.

It’s completely unacceptable to live above and beyond the means of our town. We only have a few sources of revenue and contrary to Facebook group experts, there is no massive amount of inefficiency and “fat” in our budget. This is all available online and easy to find if you don’t trust my words. Before tarnishing the reputation of folks in leadership, please try speaking with them first and ask them anything you want. It’s all public record and available to you as a citizen.