Gullixson: Robocalls expose core of Santa Rosa council race

Let’s be clear. The Santa Rosa City Council election to be decided on Tuesday is not about growth. It’s not about the economy. It’s not even about City Council dysfunction.

The eight active candidates seeking three open seats in this race are pretty much in agreement on controlling the first, growing the second and eliminating the third.

This contest is about money, pure and simple. Specifically it’s about Measure O and how much of the city’s budget should be devoted to the police and fire departments.

Some candidates want to see balance restored to the budget, ensuring funding increases for other services, such as the Parks and Recreation Department, which has seen its staff cut from 132 full-time (equivalent) employees in 2009 to 85 today. Other candidates are less willing to tinker with how the money is divvied up, with roughly $6 of every $10 going to public safety. (In 1995, it was $4.40).

This core issue was exposed last week when robocalls were left on home phones by Santa Rosa firefighters alleging that two of the council candidates “want to make Santa Rosa a more dangerous place to live.”

How is that? It’s because these candidates want to do what needs to be done and what most people - including seven out of the eight council candidates - agree should be done: change the wording of Measure O. For those who don’t recall, that’s a quarter-cent sales tax approved in 2004 that, due to an accident in wording and the collapse of the economy, has become a runaway train for funding for public safety.

The measure, which this newspaper supported, made clear that of the $7 million a year generated by the tax, 40 percent would go to police, 40 percent to fire and 20 percent to gang prevention. But in wording that wasn’t widely acknowledged at the time, it also made clear that during the 20-year life of the tax “annual funding of Police and Fire Department purposes … may not be lower than the funding approved in the 2004-2005 budget, adjusted annually” for inflation.

That was protection against public safety budgets being cut and backfilled with Measure O money. Although the wording was problematic, it all worked fine until the economy went in the tank, sinking the city’s budget with it. By 2010, the city’s general fund had dropped from a high of about $140 million in 2008 to $110 million, about where it was in 2004. Thus, what was supposed to be a suit of armor to protect funding became a budgetary straight-jacket, ensuring the growth of police and fire “baseline” funding even amid deep budget cuts.

The council was able to bypass this mandate for a few years thanks to an emergency procedure that required six council votes. Meanwhile, city officials debated how and when to make a change to Measure O - not if.

Then something changed.

First, the council this June, at the 11th hour of budget talks, gave the Police Department an extra $1.4 million above what was called for in the proposed budget. They didn’t give it out of need. It wasn’t even clear that the department had asked for it. They gave police the money, on a 5-2 vote, for one reason: to bring the department up to levels required by Measure O. The message was clear that the days of bypassing the “baseline” funding mandate were over.

Then the election came, and the dialogue changed. Suddenly to discuss changing Measure O meant “cutting” funding for police and fire.

Voters heard this in particular from candidate Tom Schwedhelm, the former chief of police for Santa Rosa, who has taken the position that voters knew what they were doing in 2004, and to change the wording is to “cut.”

“I heard loud and clear in 2004 that 72 percent of the voters (supported) Measure O,” Schwedhelm said at the September League of Women Voters candidates debate. Changing the wording would mean “fewer officers, more brown outs, less gang prevention in neighborhoods,” he said.

So there you have it. That’s how discussing how to correct an error in wording in a ballot measure from 2004 becomes putting lives at risk in 2014. And that’s also how you end up with a cynical robocall that’s trying to persuade voters that any reduction in funding for police and fire - no matter how small or reasonable - is a threat to public safety.

The fact is if Santa Rosa continues to commit to following Measure O baseline funding, the police general fund budget is projected to grow another $7 million over the next five years to $51.4 million - 40 percent above where it was just 10 years ago. The Fire Department budget is expected to grow to $35 million, which would amount to a 31 percent increase over 2009 levels.

The robocalls last week targeted two candidates in particular, Lee Pierce and Chris Coursey, although, as I noted above, all of the candidates, except for Schwedhelm, have said they support some kind of change to Measure O. My guess is those two are in the cross-hairs because somebody’s poll suggests they are a threat to win.

Regardless, reasonable people should be able to argue that this seminal measure needs fixing without being accused of either “cutting” police and fire services or being accused of putting lives at risk. If they can’t, then there’s something more threatening to Santa Rosa’s future than any of this.