City is hiking up an impossible slope

If what we imagine is real, then we could surpass the limitations of our physical world; and If we hear an uncorroborated opinion frequently, it could become an unquestioned truism.

Those that don’t believe only need to will themselves to accept it. That is the narrative our current city leaders deliver regularly. If the facts don’t fit, just repeat a mantra and believe.

On any Tuesday we sit and watch the Glendale City Council ignoring financial trends while making illogical conclusions.

Imagine a runner with a backpack tackling a hill with a moderate slope. Every 12 paces the vertical distance gets higher relative to the horizontal distance so his effort must get proportionately stronger. But there will be a time when the slope would be so great that even if he got rid of his backpack, all his clothes and consumed his energy drink, he would stop or collapse.

That is the reality we face with Glendale’s expenditures on payroll. The pay and benefit obligations are now a huge load on the budget. The runner got rid of half his backpack (capital improvements), his energy drink is insufficient (property taxes and fees), and he is now stealing the energy drink of other runners (taking capital improvement money from the city’s utility) to maintain his pace.

We watch the budget and council sessions helplessly as the small herd of decision-makers try to keep the runners going while loading up the backpack with even more benefits. The hill is now a mountain. No more running is possible. Only the precarious jumping from ledge to ledge is left.

Herbert Molano
Glendale