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• City Hall needs better leaders

  City Hall needs better leaders

  After attending the city of Fresno's budget workshop and the City Council hearing on trash privatization, I am dismayed by the poor leadership of our great city. The failure of the mayor and some of the City Council members to get beyond their conservative philosophy of government will now cost the taxpayers at least $1 million.

  Simply stated, the budget workshop showed that, despite major cutbacks to police, fire and other staff, Fresno lacks the revenue needed to maintain current, insufficient service levels. Further, even with privatization, the city budget will be underfunded.

  What the facts called for long ago was for the city to place on last November's ballot a small, short-term public safety restoration tax and then let the voters decide if they wanted either to pay for increased public safety or have further cutbacks in city government. It would have cost the city only a few thousand dollars to let the voters decide then.

• Big changes needed

  Big changes needed

  I am confused by people who think that the city of Fresno only needs to make a minor change here and a minor change there and the budget situation will be straightened out. We got a little good news a few weeks ago when we found out that the city's budget for the current fiscal year is not as bad as we expected.

  Still, the city will lose money this year. That means we have to keep moving forward on big changes such as privatization and labor concessions. The city has cut just about everything it can cut.

  Although I live in Clovis, I cannot sit by and watch my neighbors go broke.

• Seek labor concessions

  Seek labor concessions

  When it comes to the budget issue, the city of Fresno should keep its citizens safe by, first and foremost, providing fire and police services. There have been enough cuts in the area of public safety, and we should not drop services any lower.

  I strongly want to urge the mayor and City Council to continue to pursue the privatization of the residential trash services and getting the employees to agree to concessions. This could be hard, but I do not want to see any more reductions to public safety. I believe if we continue with the privatization of trash services, we can use the money wisely in the public safety realm.

  Jeffrey DeVous

• A privatization failure

  A privatization failure

  On Feb. 28, while the Fresno City Council debated the privatization of garbage collection, Resolution 44, virtually undetected, passed with a 7-0 vote. The resolution transfers $350,000 from the Parks and Recreation Department to the Convention and Entertainment Center's operating budget.

  This general fund money, intended to maintain and fund city parks, is being handed to SMG Enterprises, a private company that in 2003, won the bid to operate the convention center after Mayor Alan Autry and the council voted to privatize Convention Center operations. Now that the promise of additional revenue and streamlined operations has failed, the council is giving away our money to a failing, private company.

  On June 3, when the city asks us to outsource garbage collection, remember the failure of the Convention Center operations privatization.

• Privatize police and fire, too

  Privatize police and fire, too

  Is it an oversimplification to say that privatizing residential trash pickup in the city of Fresno, and the fees collected from the contract are an effort to support police and fire protection services, the largest line items in the city budget?

  The argument in favor of contracting is private industry can provide services more efficiently and at a lower cost than government. If this is true, the city should immediately begin the process of privatizing police and fire services.

  Think of the savings to the taxpayer when there are no more discrimination suits to defend, no more excessive force complaints to investigate and no double-dip pension schemes to underwrite. Chief Jerry Dyer wouldn't retire, head the search team to find a new chief, then rehire himself and preserve his pension, or something like that.