Hoisted from the Comments: Nancy Floreen Responds

Here is Councilmember Nancy Floreen's Response to the post below highlighting recent articles in the Gazette on growth policy:

Actually, I wasn't "attacking" anyone. I merely pointed out a fact that I believe people should know - our budget is premised on some amount of growth - this year, over 150 million dollars worth. That is not peanuts. I hadn't expected our fiscal numbers to look so bad so early, according to Ike's release right after we voted. Less growth means less revenue and more budget impact.

I never said the vote single handedly would bring our economy to a standstill - but I did say that I believe that it will contribute to shifting costs more directly to the shoulders of current residents. We'll see if I am right, but I think voters want us to worry about things like that. These debates we have are often bundled in lots of concerns, some, rather impenetrable, as Adam has pointed out. And the press rarely picks this stuff up, so if we want to make a point, we sometimes have to do it on our own.

Growth policy debates are rarely conducted in a budget environment, but this was a good opportunity to identify the relationship between decisions in one context, and their possibly unintended, un-noted consequences in the fiscal world.

I think it is useful to recognize the real life costs of our work as we proceed. What is the tipping point? we don't really know, but it is worth worrying about.

I believe us elected officials owe the public full, frank and reasoned explanations of why we do what we do and a recognition of the implications of our actions. Read Max Bronstein's piece in the Gazette as well for another take.

My reply:

Nancy, Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts.

The comment says: "Actually, I wasn't 'attacking anyone'. . ." In my earlier comment, I said you "attacked the policy" which still seems reasonable to me. Your column was entitled "County's dirty little secret", referred to "all the political spin", and is negative on the policy. Perhaps "attack" was a little strong on my part--and I apologize for making it sound like a more confrontational situation than it is--but there is clearly a clash of views.

The comment also says: "I never said the vote single handedly would bring our economy to a standstill - but I did say that I believe that it will contribute to shifting costs more directly to the shoulders of current residents." I agree. The post says: "Last week, Councilmember Nancy Floreen argued that the new controls are going to undermine the County's currently fragile economy and thus County revenues" which sounds--at least to my ears--like a paraphrase of what you said. Perhaps you are disagreeing with the column written by your colleagues on the Council and not myself?

I did later say: "it will be interesting to see if attitudes in the County shift if the economy slips into recession and growth grinds to a complete halt." After all, recessions can happen regardless of growth policy but negative growth (a key part of a recession) with the resulting impact on employment, salaries, revenues, and services can make many desire higher rates of growth--which I believe is not at odds with the point you make.

I would like to understand more clearly why you think the higher fees shift costs to county residents that they didn't pay before. After all, if the money to pay from infrastructure and its maintenance doesn't come from the fees, it has to come from taxes. I'm no expert so maybe you can help unscramble this for us growth policy novices.

Thanks again for the comment. I've always appreciated your willingness to explain and discuss your views in a forthright manner.