The following letter to the editor was published in the El Segundo Herald newspaper (HeraldPublications.com) on Thursday, February 16, 2012 in the Letters section on page 10. The El Segundo Herald has a strict 250-word limit, including the title.
What happened to pay-as-you-go?
In order to pay for 13 Capital Infrastructure Projects the City of El Segundo wants to obtain an approximately $10,000.000 Lease-Revenue Bond using our City as collateral. This $10,000,000 Lease-Revenue Bond over 20 years will cost approximately $15,800,000 with yearly debt service payments of $775,000. Whatever happened to pay-as-you-go?
So why this type of bond? Simple, Lease- Revenue Bonds circumvent Proposition 13’s requirement that taxpayers vote on bonds. These types of bonds are legal gimmicks. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is working to get a bill through the state legislature that would make Lease-Revenue bonds illegal.
Note: a second to-be-constructed swimming pool at a cost of $6,800,000 with yearly maintenance costs of $650,000 is one of the proposed “infrastructure” projects. Infrastructure my eye! Infrastructure projects are sidewalks, roads, tree trimming, maintenance of City facilities and the like, not wish list tickets such as construction of a second pool.
Twice this town has said “No” to a second pool – a city survey study in 2005 and the defeat of Measure Q in 2006.
Liz Garnholz
El Segundo Police Officers' Association (ESPOA) Exposed