Editorial

July 1 is the start of a new fiscal year for local governments. This is when the county, cities and schools start spending new tax money based on recently approved 2016-2017 budgets. All these budgets tend to launch with the same conclusions: there is never enough tax revenue; there are too many unmet needs; employee and pension costs keep going up; and everything could be solved if we only agreed to raise new taxes and vote for more long term debt bonds.

A festival worth remembering

Scientific worldview

The solution to the county’s pension problem is simple, it’s just not easy to implement. Implementation will require political courage, a commodity often in short supply. The fact there is a serious problem with the county’s pension cost was acknowledged by the Board of Supervisors in 2011.