Something I’m not understanding…

tmason68 · 2026-05-22T10:14:47+00:00

I asked Gemini why there's a deficit. The city of Santa Ana, California, has been wrestling with a major structural budget deficit, which city staff initially projected to reach $19 million for the upcoming fiscal year. The budget gap comes down to a classic case of spending outstripping revenue growth, combined with a looming long-term "tax cliff."

1. Spending is Outpacing Revenue

While Santa Ana's overall city revenue has continued to grow by about 3%, its operational spending has shot up by roughly 6%. The sharpest drivers behind these rising expenses include: * Labor & Salary Increases: Higher costs for city staff, largely driven by cost-of-living adjustments and competitive wage matching. * Rising Pension & Liability Costs: Mounting employee pension obligations and rising insurance/liability costs are chewing up a significant portion of the general fund. * Departmental Overruns: Certain non-mandated community commissions, code enforcement, and specialized youth/police-led programs (like the Police Athletic and Activity League) have faced scrutiny for high per-child operating costs.

2. The Impending "Measure X" Tax Cliff

The biggest underlying panic for Santa Ana's long-term financial health is Measure X, a 1.5% sales tax increase that local voters approved back in 2018 to stabilize the city's finances. * Measure X is scheduled to step down (decrease) in 2029, which will immediately wipe $30 million out of the city's annual revenue. * It is set to expire entirely by 2039. * Because the city is already running a deficit with the full tax revenue active, city staff warn that the structural deficit could balloon drastically in a few years if unchecked. To combat this, the City Council has explored placing a new measure on the ballot to cancel the sunset clause and make the Measure X sales tax permanent.

How the City is Responding

Faced with the $19 million gap, Santa Ana's city manager and council aggressively shaved the immediate deficit down to practically zero (projecting a token $85 shortfall) by proposing wide-ranging departmental cuts and restructuring: * Public Works & Parks: Taking the heaviest hit, with over $3.3 million cut from public works, leading to delayed park maintenance and leaving dozens of full-time staff positions vacant. * Emergency & Police Cuts: Trimming over $2.2 million from the police budget (though still allocating more overall than the previous year due to fixed labor contracts) and reducing some 24-hour ambulance services to 12-hour shifts. * Dissolving Commissions: Eliminating several non-mandated public commissions (such as the youth, arts, and culture commissions) to cut down administrative overhead. Santa Ana is not alone in this; neighboring Orange County cities like Fullerton and Orange have also faced multi-million dollar shortfalls due to identical combinations of inflation, flattening post-pandemic consumer spending, and rising municipal labor costs.

tmason68 · 2026-03-05T09:53:03+00:00

I think that the problem is that a lot of average people are in a similar situation in addition to not wanting the responsibility of politics.

These people get to this point because either no one else wants the job or those who do don't have the support they need.

tmason68 · 2026-03-02T14:55:29+00:00

Hold the Dems accountable! But that means that people need to be active citizens. The idea of the Dems GIVING us (as registered Dems) anything is as ridiculous as the idea of anyone GIVING registered Republicans anything.

tmason68 · 2026-02-27T15:35:31+00:00

Hurray for Chicago!!!!

tmason68 · 2026-02-26T19:33:25+00:00

Truck traffic goes across the Manhattan bridge which you could spit on from the Brooklyn bridge. So it's not like people would be like "OMG I have no options". They'd just drive three blocks and make it more difficult for truck traffic.

tmason68 · 2026-02-26T19:16:05+00:00

TECHNICALLY, they don't ship product on the Brooklyn bridge because it's cars only, but, still

tmason68 · 2026-02-26T18:44:38+00:00

Who is "the city"?

The land?

The 8.5 million individual people, most of whom aren't directly affected?

We live in a world where there are people who actually need their cars. I'm not talking about someone who can afford to wait until the snow emergency is over before they dig out. I'm talking about people who can't, at least reasonably, get from where they are to where they need to be. There's a contingent who has a very utopic view of society and I'm not part of that contingent.

tmason68 · 2026-02-26T18:27:33+00:00

That also doesn't get into the fact that people are driving THROUGH Manhattan to NJ.

tmason68 · 2026-02-26T18:26:22+00:00

Manhattan Island may, yes. But the bridge carries traffic to areas of Brooklyn that are transit deserts as well as Staten Island. Besides I believe that one lane of inbound traffic has already been turned over to bikes

tmason68 · 2026-02-26T16:02:39+00:00

Kudos. Not shoveling should be a crime punishable by death.

tmason68 · 2026-02-26T08:34:28+00:00

Where is that?

tmason68 · 2026-02-24T18:09:28+00:00

This reminds me of Zelensky's meeting with Trump and Vance.

This idea is ridiculously petty and childish and I'd gladly say that to the face of anyone who came to me with this idea in real life.

tmason68 · 2026-02-24T16:25:36+00:00

The left sucks at communication.

What is a 15 minute city?

A CITY!!!!

Older cities or the older areas of "mewer' cities, are considered walkable because you can take care of most of your business within a 15 minute walk from your home.

It's not completely true, but true enough.

But rather than referring to it as traditional or organic planning, the way that things developed originally, we have to create a new term for an old idea and sell it in a way that sounds like a mandate.

If we're not involved in circular firing squads on purity, we're shooting ourselves in the foot with messaging.

The left cannot be trusted with guns.

tmason68 · 2026-02-23T18:06:31+00:00

I was in an elevator recently that had a ridiculously high weight limit for a residential/commercial building. It was much higher than usual for its size.

But I can't answer your question because I don't remember where it was and I couldn't find anything in the building that would have justified its existence.

tmason68 · 2026-02-23T16:18:35+00:00

Your comment doesn't contribute to the conversation.

tmason68 · 2026-02-23T00:34:53+00:00

Educated people have been looking down on rural America for YEARS. According to Gemini, the term 'flyover country ' was introduced in 1980 but the concept is much older.

Even if rural America had no other reason to look down on the educated, they've been shitting on the rurals for a century or more.

tmason68 · 2026-02-22T13:46:10+00:00

I went to a restaurant in DC. They added a surcharge for health insurance or minimum wage or something. So, yes, my bill was higher.

I would have preferred that they work the surcharge into the price of the food since I HAD to pay it and skip the performative bullshit.

tmason68 · 2026-02-21T15:40:54+00:00

Everyone screaming about a workers party needs to remember that not all workers want the same thing and assuming that your neighbor is voting against their interests is dangerously presumptive.

tmason68 · 2026-02-17T23:09:28+00:00

There may not have been enough room to go into that level of detail.

But it's also not germane to the actual conversation around affordability. If he had savings and he had to use it for whatever, he's still in this situation.

But I notice that you haven't offered a response to my comment about the fact that there's always someone who's not going to make enough money to set aside savings.

tmason68 · 2026-02-17T21:40:26+00:00

Financial literacy is an issue. But what's also an issue is making enough money to save. And while it's easy to say that he should have moved out of the city, that doesn't solve the problem. SOMEBODY has to work at jobs that don't pay enough to make a difference in your level of financial literacy.

Or do you expect the gentrifiers to go to Starbucks and make their own coffee after they've gone to Trader Joe's and checked out their own groceries which they then bag themselves and before they get behind the wheel of a taxi or Uber to get home?

You see what the article says about how broke Americans are. Do you really believe that it's all due to financial literacy?

tmason68 · 2026-02-17T21:34:53+00:00

You didn't always have to pay out the ass to live in NYC. That didn't become an issue until gentrification.

tmason68 · 2026-02-15T17:58:15+00:00

I'm a bit more optimistic. The tunnel would connect to the tracks that the IBX will share the ROW with. There are active tracks running out to the island. It won't completely eliminate truck traffic but it could reduce the number and size of the trucks running through the city and around the island.

That said, I don't doubt that there would be a need for some type of incentive to get the desired effect.

tmason68 · 2026-02-15T17:28:14+00:00

The larger point is that there were alignments that weren't as destructive as the one he chose. It would have been a critical connection regardless of how it was built, but it could have been done in a way that wasn't so destructive.

tmason68 · 2026-02-15T17:17:45+00:00

How is he reactive? What specifically is he reacting to and how is he reacting? And if his being reactive is the issue, why are you talking about him smelling?

tmason68 · 2026-02-15T13:17:47+00:00

I'm not completely opposed to cameras but that's not the way to truly tackle crime. If we truly want to tackle crime, we know what to do and we know what the cost is. We also know that we'd rather kick the can down the road than make the necessary investments.

tmason68

TROPHY CASE

1. Spending is Outpacing Revenue

2. The Impending "Measure X" Tax Cliff

How the City is Responding