First, becoming a charter city allows for increased LOCAL control over the city’s own municipal affairs, including municipal finances.
Second, charter cities have expansive authority to POSSIBLY enter into design-build contracts. The design- build process allows a city to contract with a single entity that both designs and constructs a public works project, rather than a city separately soliciting proposals from an architect or engineer to design the project and then to solicit bids for a contractor to construct that project. This MIGHT ENABLE faster completion of projects, POSSIBLY ELIMINATING redundancies, POSSIBLY reducing risk, and MAY save costs and taxpayer dollars. Currently, general law cities are restricted to entering into only
design-build contracts for particular projects in excess of $1,000,000. This statutory authorization from the State Legislature will expire in 2016, unless it is renewed or extended by the Legislature. In contrast, charter cities may enter into any design-build contracts, unless restricted by their own charters or ordinances.
Third, although the California Supreme Court currently has a case before it that will determine the future of this advantage, many***NOTE*** FACTUAL CLARIFICATION
NECESSARY! Currently there are 120 charter cities in California. Of those 13 have partial exemptions and 37 have full exemptions. While the article states 'many' factually 58 of the charter cities have no exemptions, 13 only have partial while SEVENTY charter cities have no exemptions. More honestly stated, many more charter cities have either no exemptions or only partial exemptions than there are charter cities having full exemptions.
charter cities have historically exempted themselves from paying prevailing wages, which are required in many public works contracts of general law cities. Prevailing wages are the per diem wages set by the California Department of Industrial Relations. Prevailing wages are significantly higher than industry standard wages. It is commonly estimated that paying prevailing wage adds between 20 and 40 percent to the cost of labor on a public works project.
*NOTE* It is commonly known within the city, by most residents with greater knowledge of what charter cities are allowed to do, that one of the first changes that would be made should our city become a charter city, is that full exemptions would be created.
The cost of labor varies with each individual project, but an average labor component of 40 percent of the total cost of a project would be a reasonable estimate. The City and its residents could see significant future savings on many publicly funded projects that are included in the City’s Five Year Capital Improvement Plan and in the list of the City’s Unfunded (future) Capital Projects. City staff have projected the savings for these two categories of future capital projects to be dbetween $8.1 and $16.2 million.
Fourth, charter cities have greater OPPORTUNITIES TO CONSIDER MORE flexibility when it comes to awarding contracts for public works projects. General law cities must competitively bid any public works project over $5,000. This process can be expensive and can delay projects from moving forward, which also increases costs due to rising costs for materials. Charter cities are not required to adhere to these restrictions. General law cities also are required to select the lowest bidder on such projects, whereas charter cities may opt for a contractor that is more qualified or offers higher-quality construction. In general, charter cities have more OPPORTUNITY FOR GREATER flexibility in the area of public works than general law cities, IF THEY ELECT TO UTILIZE THE OPPORTUNITIES.
The portions of the article that report advantages to becoming a charter city neglected to inform residents and voters of possibilities, probabilities, and opportunities that may or may not happen if Measure C passes. It seems to state as fact, things that are not only not proven and might never happen in R.P.V.
Some opponents of Measure C may rightly claim that the term 'many charter cities have historically exempted themselves from paying prevailing wages..." is more myth than fact.
69.666% of the charter cities in California have either no exemptions or only partial exemptions compared to the 30.333% of California's charter cities who now have full exemptions. When is 37 out of 120 considered, 'many'?
There are reasons to support passage of Measure C and I do support passage. But when a city-sponsored newsletter is distributed to residents of the entire city, whether they support or oppose Measure AND because city expenses were used to create and distribute the article, it is necessary for there to be factual, honest, and truly objective information reported UNLESS an inclusion into the newsletter carries the information in the form of an editorial or opinion.
There are some disadvantages to becoming a charter city that were not articulated effectively enough.
Since some of the major reasons stated for becoming a charter city would most likely be accomplished through ordinance creation and not contained within this charter, any changes to things like Design-Build, prevailing wage guidelines, lowest bid contracts and so forth can be changed by a majority vote (3) of the members of any City Council.
Another disadvantage to R.P.V. becoming a charter city with this particular charter is as follows:
Should Measure C pass and should the City Council create full exemptions to prevailing wage guidelines by expending city funds, staff time, and other costs, then to find that the California Supreme Courts rules against the city of Vista California's lawsuit, charter cities having partial or full exemptions would see those ordinances becoming unconstitutional unless and until a future ruling by the District Court of Appeals or the United States Supreme Court. Not waiting to see what happens to the exemptions currently enacted by 50 of the 120 charter cities, may cost R.P.V. taxpayers funds that waiting would not necessarily cost them.
Because some of the most important reasons for becoming a charter city in the first place have been deliberately left out of the language of the charter, no vote of the electorate is required to change those provisions and ordinances.
The article does not mention on who authored the charter and whose opinions were used in writing the charter, other than the legal opinion by the city attorney.
I think the residents have the right to know and it is the obligation of the authors of the charter up for a vote to have their names listed for all of the residents' information.
I have offered comments and opinions from both sides of the charter city issues that I have found misleading, factually incorrect, incomplete, and problematic for me.
Both sides need to be completely open and honest so that the electorate can be educated by having the facts and well-considered opinions to base how they will mark their ballots by 8:00 PM on March 8, 2011.
I am voting Yes on Measure C. I cannot ask you to do the same. I won't ask you to vote NO either. But I will ask you to learn everything you can from all sides of the measure and use your brain and guts to arrive at a decision you can be comfortable with.
I just wish I was more comfortable with my decision to vote YES. I would not be comfortable voting NO on Measure C.
My brain and my gut tell me "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I will vote NO on C.
ReplyDeleteThanks mellonhead, for your comment.
ReplyDeleteThe article in today's Daily Breeze stating that Gov. Brown wants to take away all the monies from redevelopment agencies has me very worried.
Yes, I am a raging progressive, but I am also very interested in continued funding for redeveloping areas like downtown San Pedro and other areas that need to see businesses and jobs come back to help the area recover.
I also know that redevelopment funds can be used to provide entertainment and recreation opportunities and I am all in favor of that, too.
There are only a very few reasons why I am still going to vote Yes on Measure C and one of them has the opportunity to keep the redevelopment money our city has, remaining in our city, for use in our city.
The claim in the newspaper that redevelopment money would be going towards education is problematic when first read.
Further along in the article wording stating that only a portion of the returned funds may go towards education, so I still believe we should not give Sacramento any of OUR money back.
A charter city has the opportunity to help fund public education via a school district and it is something our city is not allowed to consider as a general law city.
Furthermore, voters spoke loud and clear in 1978 that they really didn't care all that much about school funding when they approved the property-tax limiting Proposition 13.
Because I have voted in every election since I turned 18, I was 23 when I voted NO on Prop. 13, because I felt that education still needed to keep being funded.
The chickens have come home to roost as far as Prop. 13 and education funding goes. I do not believe monies used for cities should be used for public education unless the residents of that city wish to help provide some funding for schools in their local area.
But mellonhead, your assertion about our city not being 'broke' is a very brilliant one, more than you might know.
Not only does our city meet its current budget, it has 11 Million Dollars in reserves. Having and using local redevelopment agency monies keep our budget in better shape, but the loss of those funds could change part of the picture.
Also, we are looking at having to spend city funds for a large portion of the San Ramon Canyon repair. That project has not been estimated to be around as much as $21,000,000. Even 1/3 of those costs being borne by our city is a huge amount that could eliminate most of our reserves and put our city into a far worse financial situation should some very important businesses have trouble.
I strongly feel that we need to protect city funds, including redevelopment agency money, from being taken away from our city without our approval or vote.
I have absolutely no ill feelings about those who vote NO on Measure C because I understand many of the issues opponents have stated.
I feel that I need to vote Yes because of what I have commented on here and because I think having the opportunity to use Design-Build options when dealing with contracts and projects, is very important and positive.
I have more faith that our City Council members, both current and future will have our residents' interests as the most important thing.
I will obviously look for City Council candidates who have illustrated this and those who have put special interests, i.e. Marymount College's attempts to build dorms, I will inform folks about.