Marketing our passing through environment

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Pacifica Tribune, Letters-to-the-Editor, 6/6/12.  "Marketing Pacifica" by Bill Moore

RV Resort 15 minutes from civilization

Fish and feed the feral cats

If you have lived in Pacifica for any length of time, it becomes impossible not to be an environmentalist. I have lived here for over 38 years and am still in awe of the view coming down the Highway 1 hill from San Francisco; I have to be careful when I turn onto my court least I hit one of the deer parading down the street and as I sit on my deck overlooking Linda Mar Valley I move once in a while so the Turkey Vultures circling overhead don't think I am easy prey.

With that said, Elaine Larsen's editorial in Wednesday's May 23 Tribune was astute, well written and absolutely correct. I love this city and its environment but not once did I think like Councilwoman Sue Digre, "Our environment is our economy." This City has been an environmental oasis for longer than I have been here and how has that done for us financially so far? We are going broke and there is no foreseeable relief.

Great tourist stop, find by map

If the recession we are going through didn't teach us that there are no absolutes, nothing will. Ms. Digre wants to lay blame on the premise that we have not marketed ourselves properly. Having been in charge of sales and marketing for three corporations and having a much bigger budget than Pacifica I am curious on how she wants to market Pacifica.

She would first have to know what we should market. Is it our beaches? They are good for surfing not for swimming and dangerous for children. Is it our hiking trails? Good for hikers but not everybody hikes and children get bored. In my opinion we are not a destination city. We are a sleeping community and a pass-through city. People pass through going somewhere else. That makes it extremely difficult to market, so we have to have council people that can live and govern within those parameters. That in my opinion has not and is not happening.   

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In running businesses I have learned you have to know what your costs are going to be, have enough revenues to cover the costs and additional revenue to make a profit. To do that you have to pay salaries and negotiate contracts on what you can afford, and we have not done that. Instead we show comparisons to what other cities pay. In the Feb. 8 Pacifica Tribune, Ms. Ritzma, our financial director, supplied comparable salaries from other cities for each administrative position in Pacifica. That's like asking if the Captain of the Titanic was making as much as the other ship captains.

Paragliding from Mussel Rock

Comparisons do not matter. In any business you pay what you can afford based on the amount of money being brought into the business. In this city, comparisons are used to justify the pay and benefit increases the administrators have awarded themselves. This was done with decreases in revenue. Since we cannot afford it, and revenue is down, management salaries and benefits have to be cut and contracts renegotiated.

Santa Cruz next

Here we are looking at the 2013 budget and still have to do the same things; cut people and programs and raise fees and taxes. We have already given away our Fire Dept. and now we are doing research for a ridiculous idea on how to outsource our Police Dept., and bring in the San Mateo Sheriff Dept., to patrol our city. Our Pacifica Police Department is doing an excellent job and is responsible to us in Pacifica. The Sheriff is responsible to San Mateo County.

We should be researching the possibility of outsourcing administration. We outsourced our attorney and we have been told we are saving money. Finding a company with financial experience and lawyers to negotiate contracts shouldn't be difficult to do. At a minimum that would eliminate the City's very high health and pension contributions to the administrators whose job was outsourced.

This council has to start making themselves accountable and do the job they were elected to do. If they cannot do that job, or fail at that job, they should quit or, as is happening now, face recall.

Reference posted on Fix Pacifica - Elaine Larsen, Editorial, 5/23/12.

Posted by Kathy Meeh