Frederick Column: We all want more money

The City of Novato wants more allowance, to which taxpayers can be heard shouting: “Don’t we all!” 

The town’s moms and dads say they just can’t manage these inflationary times due to the rising cost of everything,  including employee benefits and pension obligations.

Before Novatoans break out the checkbook, three things must be said.

First, from a big picture standpoint, this amounts to another body blow to Novato small businesses, who were already royally screwed by the City Council before the pandemic when it unilaterally raised the minimum wage in Novato above and beyond the state rate. So, the cost of doing business is already higher than anywhere else in Marin and now the Council wants to take away the one remaining advantage Novato retailers have  – a slightly lower sales tax rate of 8.5%. 

With friends like the Novato City Council, many retailers think, who needs enemies? 

Secondly, it is hard to hear city leaders cry poverty when just last month they voted to give every single city worker up to a $5,000 bonus. 

Why? 

Because city employees worked through the pandemic. 

What, did we not pay them for working during the pandemic? 

Yes, we did. But the city wants to give the bonus because it got some “free” money from the federal government. Look, good stewardship is good stewardship, no matter where the taxpayers money comes from. The juxtaposition of these two events is not a good look. 

And finally, someone needs to explain Pat Eklund’s comments made at the Feb. 8 City Council meeting. 

Eklund knows the city budget better than anyone. She blurted, out of nowhere, that the city does not know how much money it has, exactly. 

This is because “Bank statements were not regularly reconciled,” she asserted. “Previous management did not keep all the records straight.”

She added: “‘We do not have a thorough understanding of where all the money is. There’s a lot of uncertainty.”

Whoa. 

How do you know you need more money when you don’t know how much money you have? 

Explain that. Then, maybe the city can make the case for a tax hike. 

Maybe.

PAGING D.A. FRUGOLI

The federal lawsuit filed by Jeremy Portje, accusing Sausalito cops of racial intent when they arrested him, reads like an acting prompt from Norman Jewison’s 1967 flick “In The Heat Of The Night.” 

Portje says scary, angry-faced “Caucasian” cops came at him “smirking and chewing gum.” (Think Rod Steiger’s portrayal of Chief Gillespie.) 

In this case, we now have two radically different versions of Portje’s arrest.

Police say Portje pushed a police officer twice and injured him. However, the District Attorney’s office declined to prosecute because “intent” could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Armed with the DA’s inaction, Portje now goes full-on Chief Gillespie, saying Sausalito officers brutalized him because he is Black and Sausalito and Marin politicians are all in a Deep South conspiracy to thwart his “reporting” and harm the homeless.  He calls the Sausalito officers involved racists and “goons.”

Look, I don’t care which side you might tend to believe, this has become a freakin’ mess. 

Do we have racist cops preying on innocent Blacks in Marin, as is claimed in the Portje lawsuit? Or, is this another dog-and-pony show from the homeless lobby to garner attention to  their multiple gripes about how Marin treats the homeless? District Attorney Lori Frugoli needs to step up her leadership game here and she can start by making all the body-cam footage public. 

PUBLIC SERVICE REMINDER

As regular readers know, I like to remind readers periodically that my opinion (and $3) will also get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. 

ONE MORE THING

– Neil Diamond used to go by Neil Coal before he was famous. Then, the pressure got to him. 

– A guy just threw milk at me. How dairy? 

– A dyslexic man walks into a bra … 

– Pro Tip: A good way to get out of a conversation is to take off one of your socks and hand it to the person talking.

Thanks for reading, everybody. Until next week, avoid soreheads, laugh a little and always question authority. 

(Sherman Frederick is an award-winning journalist and publisher of Marin’s community newspapers — the Novato Advance, San Rafael News-Pointer, Mill Valley Herald, Ross Valley Reporter, Twin City Times and the Sausalito Marin Scope. He is co-founder of Battle Born Media, a news organization dedicated to the preservation of community newspapers. You can reach him by email at shermfrederick@gmail.com.)