Managing Local Resources

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about the upcoming elections in Tehachapi, and the candidates and issues that will be considered by voters as they cast their ballot this November. As an employee of the City and not an elected official, my role is to manage the day to day business of the City and to avoid political discourse when possible. Instead of engaging in political debate best left to those individuals running for office, my staff and I do our best to provide facts and information to the public and the City Council so that educated decisions can be made about the future of our great City.

Of particular interest this fall is Measure F. Placed on the ballot for the voters to decide, Measure F would temporarily raise the sales tax on taxable transactions in the City from 7.5% to 8% for a period of 10 years. Funds from this Measure would support a variety of General Fund activities like street maintenance, improving senior services, enhancing public facilities, and improving other city services that impact our quality of life.

Before I go on, I’d like to mention that for information about the measure and its intended impacts, I would encourage you to start at the source.

As you know, you can’t always trust everything you read on Facebook, online forums, or even printed material. Rather, I’d encourage you check out the City’s website at http://www.TehachapiCityHall.com or to call us at (661) 822-2200.

That said, I’d like to share a few more facts about our City business, primarily as it relates to street maintenance here in this article. One of the City’s primary funding sources for street maintenance outside of the General Fund, are Gas Tax revenues. These taxes are collected by the State and then redistributed to local agencies to fund a portion of their necessary road maintenance activities. But this important source of local government revenue has not kept pace with the amount of people and vehicles using the roads. More impact, with less funding to deal with that impact, isn’t a sustainable approach.

Currently, the City’s gas tax fund pays for portions of employee salaries that perform road maintenance, it pays for pothole patching, street sweeping, new street signs and painted stripes, gravel for snowy roads, sidewalk repair, electricity for streets lights, maintenance of street landscaping (think trees and shrubs adjacent to the curbs or landscaped medians), and more. This fiscal year, the Gas Tax budget expects approximately $618,000 in total revenue, which without considering the myriad of potential expenses, might sound like a lot. But even without employees performing street maintenance, abandoned landscaping, and no streetlights, $618,000 doesn’t go a long way to providing new asphalt.

For comparison purposes, the competitively bid asphalt replacement projects completed over the last two years on Tehachapi Boulevard between Antelope Run and Mill Street, cost the City over $600,000. Even non-structural asphalt maintenance (that doesn’t improve the long-term life of the road) is more expensive than you might imagine. Basic road maintenance for roads in good condition can often cost over $0.25 per square foot. That might not seem like much, but the City has over 10,000,000 square feet of asphalt to maintain, which would amount to over $2.5 million in expense for basic maintenance of roads in good condition. Very few of our roads are actually in a condition that civil engineers would describe as “good” and therefore require much more expensive maintenance, sometimes as much as 10 times the cost of basic maintenance or more.

Managing the different needs of a water company, a sewer company, a public service company, a street maintenance company, a police force, an airport, and a recreation company, all while keeping the public’s wants and needs in mind, requires balancing and priority setting. I think the council has done a good job of investing in critical areas of our community and have had great success in infrastructure and quality of life, while still maintaining balanced budgets and effective service levels. Our major upgrades at the sewer treatment plant, water storage tanks, public safety headquarters, municipal airport, parks, and more, are evidence of that. With those core areas of our business having seen reinvestment in recent years, our focus now is roads.

Complex government problems are never as simple as they seem on the surface but I believe gathering and studying the facts on an issue is the first step in making a meaningful ballot decision. Thankfully, because we live in the United States of America, whether you vote yes or no on Measure F will be your choice. My only hope is that you don’t just take my word, or someone else’s word for it, but that you study the facts first and then go exercise your right to vote.

As always, if you ever have any questions or comments regarding

anything happening in the City of Tehachapi, I encourage you to call me at (661) 822-2200 or contact me at [email protected].