From Roger Gitlin’s Facebook posting – May 15, 2018 –
Let’s make sure the Del Norte and Crescent City public is aware of the following because I doubt you will read this in The Triplicate:
Let me say, I support a sister-city program but I think we need to prioritize our needs.
In May, the Crescent City Council voted 4-0 to send FOUR employees of the City, Mayor Blake Inscore, Councilmember Darrin Short, City Finance Director Linda Lever, and City Manager Eric Wier to Rikuzentakata, Japan at a cost of approximately $3000 each ($12,000 total)and at CITY cost to sign the Sister-City Agreement. The vote for this expenditure was supported by Councillors Heidi Kime, Darrin Short, Alex Fallman, and Mayor Blake Inscore. Jason Greenough was absent from this meeting. I write this post not as the sitting County supervisor on District 1, but as a City resident. My City complains it has no room to provide improvement in funding for essential services, no money to provide decent raises to our City Police officers where vacancies currently exist because of paltry wages, no 1/2 cost part-time blight officer as each candidate who ran in 2016
(Kime, Fallman, and Greenough) promised each would support. No funding for homeless no additional funding for streets’ improvement, and a whole host of other prioities our City residents deserve and need desperately.
BUT THE CITY OF CRESCENT CITY HAS $12,000 TO SEND FOUR PEOPLE TO JAPAN on a good will gesture. Am I the only one outraged by this expenditure?
What is the greater good of sending Blake Inscore and THREE others to Japan for the third time.
Those FOUR on the Council (Kime, Short, Fallman, and Inscore) ought to be ashamed of themselves.
And up for re-election, Chris Howard will take $3000 from our desperately tight County budget to make a cameo appearance in Japan for this signing. No additional $ for blight improvement, no additional $ for South Del Norte econonmy, and a whole bunch of other County needs
Please someone justify this expense.
The city council and board of supervisors mindset is this, “we have the money for travel so we are going to use it as we see fit.” So the question I have for them is this. If you have $12,000.00 in your bank account are you going to spend the entire amount on a 7 day trip just because the money is there? This does create mistrust of public officials. Who knows maybe the plane will finally fall out of the sky based on their bad karma.
I have spent past year watching this circus develop. I kind of wondered when the local citizens would have enough. Maybe when it becomes a tax payer expense? I still can’t fathom why anyone would think this was a good idea. What exactly is the goal here? I would think that some kind of benefit would materialize for the local citizens beyond this kind of touchy feely grand standing that the mayor and Chris Howard are playing up. What do we get out of this “Sister City” nonsense that necessitates physical presence rather than using modern technology, email, or maybe Skype? I’m sorry but I can’t find any substance here that requires yet another trip to Japan no matter who pays for it. It all seems rather pointless.
A board member of the California Redwoods Art Association has been invited to accompany this group to represent the arts & cultural exchange between these sister cities. Her trip is being funded BY DONATIONS FROM THE ASSOCIATION MEMBERS. Not by public or Association funds. Let the City Council members dig into their own pockets to fund this trip, not their constituents pockets!