Three Card Monte

There's a reason a lot of people don't trust city government. There's probably more than one reason come to think of it. The Star reports this morning that the city council has once again been playing fast and loose with the numbers. Back in 2004 we got the hard sell to renew a general obligation bond to fund the tremendous backlog of infrastructure repair this town so sorely needs. At the time, the promise was made that all the funds from these bond instruments would go towards infrastructure repair. Technically that is still true, but in a move worthy of a three card monte hustle here's what they weren't telling us. The funds from that 2004 G.O. bond are indeed going to deferred maintainence. What you're not being told is that money is being cut from the general fund that was also earmarked for deferred maintainence. So while dollars that you thought were in addition to the current level of funding are added from the bonds, dollars from the general fund that normally were earmarked for infrastructure are moved somewhere else. Neat trick! I don't entirely blame the council. There isn't a finance or accounting degree in the bunch and expecting them to understand fiscal issues is probably akin to expecting me to understand what David Glass hopes to gain by destroying the Royals. However, it doesn't take an MBA to understand right and wrong. We deserve better.