Inland Empire Progressive

San Bernardino has a shortage of professional class employees and entrepreneurs that is keeping our city from improving upon our median income. I watched this video and give full throated support for the need of more programmers as well as engineers and other STEM folks. In addition, in most cases it's free to learn to code! We just have to apply ourselves and make a dedicated effort in this area because it is not easy. However, this is not to disparage our need for blue collar folks, but we need to get them out of the construction trade. We need more mechanics, truckers, and electricians for people who feel college is not the right fit for them.

What I would like to see in San Bernardino mayor is someone who will tell it like it is, and then make the decisions necessary to lead us in a foundational direction. A balance budget, safe maintained streets, and economic localism would be a start. I really do think some sections of the population are getting shafted and used as a political punching bag (mainly the young) and others are not being brought into the fold and celebrated. Have we ever had a Cinco de Mayo parade? Or celebrated the Chinese New Year? We don't celebrate our diversity like we should.  In addition, I don't like public safety charity. They feel like handouts, when what we really need is a hand up. It's nice to have new sewing machines, lighted baseball fields, or some park benches, but will that really heal our budget woes in which a large percentage is Public Safety.  Public Safety: We need your property taxes and sales taxes! We need you to live here! When our so called heroes don't ...

My embrace of localism was a process that developed over time. When I first became engaged in political activity I didn't pay attention to what was happening locally. I was too focused on what was happening nationally. But as I became more active and participated in local activist activity, I heard a constant refrain about the city that I lived in. San Bernardino was ghetto, and it was violent, and it was impoverished, etc. Then I heard it again in Op-Eds and reporting in both of our local newspapers. It was a constant badgering of negativity and no one was stepping up to defend or protect San Bernardino. Most of its residents either didn't care, were oblivious, or were part of the defamation and degradation process. I said to myself enough is enough, someone has to defend San Bernardino's honor and that was my beginning of the embrace of localism. At first, I defended San Bernardino in the online arena trying to lance every negative boil that appeared. As I learned mor...

Bonds are a complicated feature of public finance, even after reading some books on finance and studying public budgets it can be hard to account for how much a bond release costs. But it would seem to me that if interest payments are equal to the principal then you walk away from the deal. These are not even standard bonds, these are Capital Appreciation Bonds; the same bonds that have been in the news and caused problems at Poway Unified School District where the school district owes $1 Billion Dollars on a $100 Million Dollar bond loan. From the Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports of 2011 : In October 2005, the City issued City of San Bernardino Taxable Pension Obligation Bonds, 2005 SeriesA, consisting of $36,050,000 principal amount of Taxable Pension Obligation Bonds, Series A-1 (standard bonds) and $14,351,583 principal amount of Taxable Pension Obligation Bonds, 2005 Series A-2 (capital appreciation bonds). The City issued the bonds in order to prepay its unfund...