There is a special term for cities that find themselves in a financial predicament like the one that the city of Desert Hot Springs finds itself in now – and that term is “fucked”!
Tuesday, city leaders(?) unanimously declared a fiscal emergency – which would be the second fiscal emergency in 8 months. According to The Desert Sun:
The previous fiscal emergency, declared last November, enabled the City Council to reduce employee benefits and holidays, eliminate staff by more than 70 percent and cut most salaries by 22 percent to 35 percent….
…”We’re still operating with basically a skeleton crew at City Hall, and we’re still not able to generate the revenue needed to provide the services we’d like to,” said Mayor Adam Sanchez.
By declaring this new fiscal emergency, city leaders(?) can add a marijuana sales tax and a 1 percent sales tax increase to this November’s ballot. Voters then can vote on the measure and if it fails, city leaders(?) can just blame voters instead of themselves (of course, if it passes then city leaders(?) will take all the credit).
In the meantime, residents of DHS should be terrified as, according to The Desert Sun: only $10,000 remains in the event of a natural disaster or public safety emergency. So please no earthquakes for a bit techtonic plates…thanks.
This whole debacle does not look like it will get better any time soon – so why city leaders(?) still won’t consider the greatest plan ever to save their town is just beyond me?
