Main Street

People matter
When it comes to money, the Healdsburg City Council can be counted on to surprise you.
The council will approve spending on things that astonish even a tax-and-spend liberal like me, and will then turn around and pinch pennies like five descendants of Scrooge.
So, Main Street was pleasantly surprised when the council chose quality over quantity Monday night, voting to receive and shelve a report that studied the impacts of laying off the police department dispatchers and contracting with the Sheriff’s Department instead.
Despite a thick report showing that such a move might save a little money, Police Chief Kevin Burke offered a spirited defense of keeping our 24/7 dispatch center staffed with our people. “In my assessment what you would give up is not worth what you would save,” said the chief.
He’s right. If we had laid off the dispatchers we would not have a 24-hour a day walk-up window for visitors and residents, we would not have a local voice answering the phone 24 hours a day and we would lose the two most senior police department employees.
Our dispatchers make it easy for us to have events, whether they’re local or visitor focused. They handle lots of calls that may not qualify as emergencies, but are nevertheless important to the callers. I doubt if a dispatch center in Santa Rosa could help a tourist (or local) who was having a medical emergency and only knew how to describe the landmarks nearest them.
The chief noted that Healdsburg is one of the few police departments left where you can call 24 hours a day and talk to a live person.
In supporting the retention of the dispatch center, Healdsburg City Council member Tom Chambers noted: “Our citizens in Healdsburg expect a high level of service and that’s fine with me.”
Amen to that, brother.
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Residents of the Riverview neighborhood are watching their dogs do their business, and it’s not part of some weird reality show. There’s a dog poisoner in the neighborhood, and most residents are keeping their pooches under close supervision when they’re outside. One neighbor told me they even knew who the guy is who is dropping poisoned meatballs over fences, but he hasn’t been caught.
A call to animal control was not helpful. I called the local guy three times. The first two times he told me he couldn’t talk right then and I’d have to call back. On the third call, he referred me to an office in Petaluma, that was closed.
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Trust me, you don’t want to become an expert in public pensions, but if you did, you’d be irritated and confused most of the time. The bottom line in Healdsburg is that we don’t pay our bills on time.
The amount we set aside each year does not cover what we owe our retirees, and it doesn’t help that the California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS) – where most of our money goes – is betting 75 percent of its $4 billion nest egg in the stock market.
As an actuary hired by the city described it this week, there are good years in CalPERS’ portfolio and there are crummy years, and the only sure thing is that you’ll have both.
The council is poised to set up a trust fund that will not only even out the amounts we owe every year to CalPERS, but will be part of a bigger plan to pay down our debt and get on track to pay as we go.
It’s sad that we now have to set aside millions – and hire people to invest them – in order to mitigate the risky investments of the CalPERS thrill seekers, but at lease there appears to be some adult supervision here locally.
Ray Holley usually requires adult supervsion. He can be reached at ra*@so********.com.