Letter to the Editor: LFP Citizens spoke volumes
Saturday, August 21, 2010
To the Editor:
The Citizens of Lake Forest Park have spoken volumes by voting to reject Proposition 1 overwhelmingly, 78.6% to 21.4%.
The fact that the measure is failing by such a large margin represents a “Vote of No Confidence” in the Mayor, senior members of the Administration, and the City Council except Councilmember Wright who consistently opposed this measure."
We learned first hand during this campaign that the Citizens of Lake Forest Park want, more than ever, to participate in governing their City in the future.
The City conducted a survey in 2007 to determine what is important to the people who live in Lake Forest Park. Here are the top 4:
* Safety and Security
* Infrastructure Maintenance
* Preservation of the Environment in the face of development
* Parks and Recreation
Members of the City Council must now roll up their sleeves and adjust the cost of government and its programs to match Lake Forest Park’s primarily residential tax base while preserving what is important to our citizens. This problem cannot be solved by a knee jerk 10% across the board cut as proposed by the Mayor.
Stephen P. Plusch, Chair
No LFP Levy Lid Lift Committee
Posts
3 comments:
Steve,
The levy vote was about how to close a $700,000 budget gap, and the people strongly favor reducing services. Period. Your “expert” opinion that it was a condemnation of our elected officials and city staff does not make it so. (Although your campaign literature consistently denigrated the work of a lot of good people at city hall, and your signs referred to them as “drunken sailors.”)
Sniping at the city as it goes about implementing the peoples' will looks a lot like political posturing on your part for next year’s election.
Mr. Phillips, as the spouse of a city employee, has a particularly sensitive position in all of this. As far as I know, none of the official "No on LFP Prop 1" commitee signs contained the language he quotes. If there are other signs posted by individuals not representing the committee, I did not see them and did not endorse them.
The reason people objected so strongly to Prop 1 was that it took a very long-range approach with a formula that could possibly have (a) resulted in an unexpected windfall or (b) ended up in a worse position than before. None of us has a crystal ball in this present economy, except that we cannot, nor should we, count on the 3-plus percent CPI increase cited in the city's projections.
This vote shows that the majority of LFP voters were surprised at what the council had been up to, and are prepared to take much closer note and participation in city activities in the future. Rather than a knee-jerk "Tea Party" reaction, as some in the opposition have suggested, this is democracy in action. For that we should all be grateful.
"As far as I know, none of the official "No on LFP Prop 1" committee signs contained the language he quotes. If there are other signs posted by individuals not representing the committee, I did not see them and did not endorse them."
A video of the signs is posted on the "No on Prop 1" Facebook page. If the "no" group disapproves of this language, then it seems strange to have this video on their page.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FcPBuj6G3M
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-Forest-Park-WA/Lake-Forest-Park-Vote-No-Proposition-1/135920639753585?v=wall
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