
California Cities Keep Declaring Fiscal “Emergencies” and Investors Are In On It - hyperrail
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-04/muni-investors-shrug-at-california-s-fake-fiscal-emergencies
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kyledrake
Why don't they declare an emergency on the actual problem, chronic shortages
of housing supply, and reform their zoning and tax/rent entitlements to fix
it?

It's hard for me to take anything California government does seriously right
now while they're ignoring the 10 ton elephant in the room that's causing
almost literally every other problem.

If they don't start addressing this with a significant attack plan extremely
soon, their tax base will leave the state in droves, and they will never raise
taxes enough to make up the difference. It's an emergency, declare it one and
do something real about it.

~~~
roel_v
"their tax base will leave the state in droves,"

 _Man that place is a dump, nobody goes there - it 's always too busy._

~~~
anoncoward111
What you are describing has been happening in New York and New Jersey for
literally decades-

-so much so that we have lost electoral seats in Congress because of our population shrinkage, while Florida has gained.

~~~
moorhosj
Are you saying this sentiment has existed for decades or the population loss
has existed for decades?

New York and New Jersey each recorded their highest population levels ever in
the 2010 census.

~~~
anoncoward111
Ah, apologies. I thought the population was shrinking. What is actually
happening is that the "population growth rate" in NY and NJ is not as high
(anymore) compared to the population growth rate in other states.

This isn't due to babies being born in Florida but not New York-- it's due to
older, existing humans moving from NY to FL.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/nyregion/22nycensus.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/nyregion/22nycensus.html)

headline: New York will lose 2 of its 29 seats in the House, while New Jersey
will lose 1 of its 13 seats, because of population shifts reported by the
Census Bureau on Tuesday.

~~~
moorhosj
Yes, western and southern states are growing faster than northeastern states,
this isn't new information. It's almost like that part of the country was
settled first and then saw two Great Migrations in the 20th century. When
those migrations ended in the 1970s, the population began re-orienting towards
the south and west and away from the northeast and midwest.

~~~
anoncoward111
I am becoming confused.

1) Do you believe people are leaving NY/NJ despite overall population rising?

2) Do you believe that of those people who are leaving, they are leaving
because it's too expensive and crowded here?

3) Do you believe that of those people who are staying/moving here, do you
think they are moving here because it is NOT crowded?

~~~
moorhosj
Huh? I corrected your initial statement that population was falling. I never
mentioned crowing or cost-of-living. I was simply explaining why other states
are growing faster than NY/NJ and the rest of the northeast.

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blackflame7000
"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an
opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." \- rahm emanuel

------
saghm
> Because of rules designed to limit tax increases, cities can get proposed
> tax hikes on Tuesday’s primary ballot only by declaring a crisis. At least
> two have done so this year, following at least 50 since 2008.

That doesn't seem like a particularly informative year to use as a cutoff;
2009 would have been the first year of primaries during the recession, so it's
not inconceivable that there were a number of municipalities in a financial
crisis then.

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kelnos
I don't really have a problem with this. Declaring a "fiscal emergency"
doesn't allow the city to enact new taxes, it just lets them put new taxes on
the ballot for people to vote on. They're just using a loophole that let's
them get around what is IMO a silly law.

(Then again, if this loophole didn't exist, perhaps this would encourage them
to fix the actual problem with the law.)

~~~
dragonwriter
They (local government bodies) can't fix the problem; it's a state
Constitutional rule that can only be altered by the citizenry. The State
legislature—but not the impacted local bodies—could _propose_ a fix, but can't
enact one.

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pietroglyph
It seems silly and potentially dangerous to limit when a city can legislate
democratically (even with the Fiscal Emergency exception.) Is there any good
argument for this, other than people not liking taxes?

~~~
gweinberg
The idea of constitutional limits on government sounds "silly and dangerous"
to you?

~~~
greglindahl
Constitutional limits like the Bill of Rights sound awesome to me.

As a Californian, all of our crazy constitutional limits on taxes are less
awesome. After many years of unequal taxation, similar buildings in the same
city pay wildly different amounts of tax, and the difference will only grow
over time. People are less likely to move for a new job, businesses get less
for selling commercial buildings because a tax benefit is lost when a building
is sold. It's one of the worst aspects of California's direct democracy
system.

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notMick
Why don't they reduce spending?

Surely there are expenditures deemed "being nice" which isn't a real
neccessity for the local citizens?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Why don't they reduce spending?

Because the citizenry doesn't want that. Oh, sure, in abstract terms they do,
but when it comes to any specific set of concrete cuts, they tend not to.

~~~
nikanj
The citizenry reliably supports any cuts that don't affect them personally.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The citizenry reliably supports any cuts that don't affect them personally.

That's not true, either; plenty of spending programs that directly effect <
50% of the population will face more than 50% opposition if cuts are proposed.

