How Do We Pay For ...
by Tony Chavira
So...
How do we pay for vendors on Olvera Street, who have essentially lost more and more revenue every months since the economic collapse? Their lease from the city (where they were paying $1/month or less in subsidized rent) is finally coming to an end after 50 years. How do we cover their civic expenses when they aren't paying for anything and selling things no one wants to buy?
How do we pay for the street cars along Broadway? I know that the business improvement district's been fighting for ages to revitalize this side of town, but all of the money that was put aside to begin this revitalization process has been sucked back up until the city's gullet to pay for other needed things (like city employee salaries). $7 million has already been spent to get the streetcar rolling, but how much more will it take now that we've passed the point of no return? Should we just write it off as a bad investment, or delay plans for more bountiful times?
How do we pay for more revitalization efforts throughout the city of Los Angeles? Villaraigosa hired the former Paramount Studios senior vice president of government and community affairs, Christine Essel, who ran a failed campaign to get on the L.A. city council as the new head of the Community Redevelopment Agency. She's worked with the committee that expanded the airport, but does that mean that she knows how to manage a budget that encompasses a ton of development initiatives, or has any idea what these initiatives seek to do in L.A.?
How do we pay for marijuana when the city of L.A. is trying to shut down your friendly neighborhood dispensary? The city of L.A. is strange: it's trying to simulataneously enact a new tax on legal marijuana sales while at the same time banning a ton of existing dispensaries. Is this the way a smart government who wants to encourage business works and makes money? By starting up a fruitful tax on a business it's trying to stop?
It's a crazy world we live in, my friends.
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