City Should Rethink Budget Priorities
The mayor of Garden Grove at the City Council meeting on Dec. 3 said to some Garden Grove High School students, “It’s not fair to ask 140,000 people to pay for you kids to have a good time.” The students were part of a committee asking for funds to support their “Safe and Sober Grad Night.”
The city of Garden Grove has put out the word that it is under extreme financial pressure, just as the county, the state and the federal governments are. The mayor was probably correct when he said there were no funds available for the kids to have a party. So one wonders where the city got the funds to finance the mayor’s party in San Francisco just two months ago at the League of Cities Annual Conference.
This was the third trip that various members of the City Council have made on behalf of the city within one year. They went to Washington, D.C., last winter, Las Vegas last spring and San Francisco this fall.
If the 140,000 citizens of Garden Grove had a choice between sponsoring junkets for selected politicians and bureaucrats and spending a few bucks on a “Safe and Sober Grad Night” for their children, I wonder which they would choose.
BRUCE A. BROADWATER, Garden Grove
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