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FROM BILL KELLY:
Amid growing community concern about transparency, there’s still time to pause South Pasadena’s 2020-21 budget process after former city Finance Director Josh Betta’s bombshell report detailing lax financial management at city hall for the past several years.
Even a pandemic is no excuse for a lack of full debate and scrutiny, or for hurriedness in developing the city’s revenue and spending blueprint for the coming 12 months beginning July 1.
That’s why the City Council should take Betta’s recommendation and adopt a temporary resolution of continuing appropriations and then direct city staff to redo the budget while providing adequate time for city residents and tax and fee payers to see an overdue audit of the city’s financial picture, which is supposed to be done before budgeting begins.
Residents need to see that and hear and see a lot more about the rationale and assumptions behind the current budget plan that’s barreling like a locomotive down the tracks for adoption in less than two weeks.
To that end, I have developed the following petition and urge those who agree to sign it:
www.change.org/p/south-pasadena-city-council-south-pasadena-budget-process-reform
– Bill Kelly
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My wife and I both signed the city budget petition and encourage others to also read the info and exercise their First Amendment right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
The right to petition is guaranteed to us in the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution. If we don’t use it we could lose it.
Félix Gutiérrez