Oliverio on the Dangers of Municipal Mission Creep
Planning Commissioner Pierluigi Oliverio takes a critical view of how city governments--including San Jose--invariably take on more and more expensive responsibilities--even if they're not funded, in the city's charter, or within its historic charge. He worries that this never-ending accumulation of expansive civic duties endangers the fulfillment of core and basic city services. An exclusive Opp Now interview.
Opp Now: We suggest in an article nearby that the Labor v Business dialectic isn't the appropriate way to analyze SJ politics--that those groupings are splintering. Do you think that makes sense?
Pierluigi Oliverio: The traditional union coalition is clearly being stressed by the hard left Woke movement. It makes a lot of traditional union members uncomfortable with its harsh rhetoric, cancel culture, and take-no-prisoners approach. We only need to look at some of the recent comments from Hillary Clinton, James Carville and recent mayoral elections in New York City and Seattle. But that said, some policies the Woke movement endorses--such as affordable housing--do support union construction trade jobs. However, other policies the Woke movement supports end up re-routing city tax revenue from city workers to non-profit organizations, which creates tension.
ON: It's kind of funny to see these national political issues play out in San Jose--this seems more like the Blood Sport city politics you see in NY, SF, Chicago, and LA. Not in sleepy ol' SJ, where historically we have a kind of middle-of-the-road, let's-get-along political culture.
PO: City government provides services to everyday people: picking up your trash, sewers, police, etc. It does things in the visible realm. In many ways, city government is at its best when it's boring, and stays away from all these hot-button issues that, while relevant broadly, are not in city government's brief. But elected city representatives want to be leaders. Politicians have ambition. Media wants controversy. So, it's not surprising that municipal offices start going off course, making sweeping proclamations, taking over other governments' responsibilities and basically getting caught up in mission creep.
ON: Mission creep may even be a generous way to describe it. It seems that by stretching out what the city does, it costs more and more to just deliver baseline services, because revenue is being redirected to Blue Sky, Feelgood ideas, that don't really do anything except generate thumbs up on social media.
PO: The mission creep will continue until a recession, then all of a sudden politicians will start to worry about core services because citizens will demand it. San Francisco's not even in a recession but London Breed has done a complete U-turn on law enforcement because citizens of SF said: Enough. London Breed went even so far as to use the word "bullshit" to describe failings of SF in getting to their present predicament.
Remember, all mission creep begins with a little program here, a little program there. Then over time they just get bigger and bigger and more and more expensive, and like barnacles growing on a freighter, it just starts to weigh the whole thing down such that it can't make it out of the port. Every decision matters, and every time you create a new program that is not a core service, you start taking funding away from those core services. The city government is not the feds: we can't borrow money indefinitely; we have to run a much tighter ship. For example, road paving--which should have been a basic city service in San Jose--required a tax increase just to get it done since there is not enough focus on core services.
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