Comm No 0029.41 - Testimony - CA-13 - Use of Special Funds in Times of Declared Emergency

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TESTIMONY OF RICK WARSHAUER TO CHARTER COMMISSION, 8FEB19 I support CA -9, draft 2. This will fund a dedicated senior staff person to help implement the PONC program. Administration of the program deserves more than part-time attention. Please move this measure forward. I suPoort CA -18. This will transfer the administration of the PONC Maintenance Fund from the Department of Parks and Recreation to the Department of Finance, where it finally will get proper administration and priorities. Since its inception, only 9% of the fund's monies have been grudgingly and belatedly awarded to the intended maintenance fund applicants, while the remaining 91% of awards have gone quickly to a few consultants and other expenditures like a slush fund. Please move this measure forward so that PONC properties can be maintained. I oppose CA -8 and urge you not to pass it forward. Four years is too long of a wait to vote out a poorly performing County Councilor. We have all seen more than a few where even the current two-year term was interminably long. If they do not want to run for a two-year term, they can pass, and we will all be better off for it. I oppose CA -7. CA -13 and CA -16, which would lead to the defunding and debilitation of the PONC program—no amount of greenwashing will make them any better. Please do not pass any of these measures, no matter how much you have been pressured. Instead, please listen to the expressed will of the people of this county—they have been speaking unequivocally for years. Each of these three proposals would return the PONC program to the County Code from its safe haven in the Charter. The public placed it in the Charter to be free of the demonstrated defunding by the administration and council branches of county government. If moved back to the Code, the PONC and Maintenance Funds will be vulnerable to administrative arid council shenanigans. Promised budget funding will be just as vulnerable to diversion and defunding as it was before the PONC funding was protected by Charter placement, despite the Iofty wording of CA -16. In addition, CA -7 removes the restrictive covenant on PONC-acquired property interests, eliminating the likelihood of matching funds from other sources and removes the directive that the highest and best use of the PONC Fund is for attracting matching funds to amplify its effectiveness. The purpose of any and all of these three proposals is to gut the PONC program. If you vote in favor of these it will be clear to the public of your intent. At the end of your last meeting you were left so tongue-tied and twisted with interdigitating amendments that discussed two proposed charter amendments simultaneously, that it was unclear to witnesses what emerged at all or wherefrom. Basically, a few members were trying to put lipstick on a pig and try to greenwash the planned demise of the PONC program. You would do better to stick to the script or vote from the heart. If you support the PONC program vote for CA -9 and CA -18 and not for CA -7, CA -13 and CA -16. Be sure they are roll -call votes. If you have time left over, consider placing the Disaster and Emergency Fund into the Charter with specified funding increments and a hefty target amount for disasters, so it cannot continue to be regularly raided as a slush fund. This would negate the rationale for CA -13, the fund raider clause. The issues related to PONC, and some other matters before you, all come down to money --how much, who calls the shots, who gets it, and the like. If the administration that appointed you, your predecessors, and succeeding charter commissioners and the various county councils over time really want to find a better path to new money, they should plan to acquire more into the budget rather than redirect a short supply. On this island with such disparity in wealth and so much offshore property ownership, they all should look into taxing the most expensive properties and houses at much higher rates than do the residents who struggle with ever -rising property valuations and taxes. Commissioners, please do not be the pawns in this money game. Comm. No. 29.41