Inconvenient Truths Come in Many Packages

Inconvenient truths come in many packages. I remember as a child the "debate" about the source of smog in Los Angeles. While I would get sick and my eyes would sting, I listened to adults argue about where smog came from. (Later on when I was working at Cal-Tech-JPL which is in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains north of Pasadena, I would have morning coffee outside and watched the grey stuff literally form like a vapor trail along the valley's freeways). For years the public read and listened to industry, oil and auto companies protest loudly that cars were not the source of smog. Technically, this is true. Smog is formed from the action of sun and warm temperatures on the chemicals emitted by refineries, power-plants and cars. Today it is universally accepted that cars pollute and contribute to smog. A similar so-called debate about tobacco raged on for years about whether tobacco did it or did not cause cancer. Lies and more lies by the tobacco industry came to light after a whistleblower and other heros produced documents about the deliberate scientific-speak obfuscation by the tobacco industry.

As Ronald Reagan famously said, and I paraphrase, "here we go again" with the so-called global warming, climate change debate. This is not a debate but a calculated effort by a few to cast doubt in the public's mind about whether or not we should be changing our fossil fuel habits.

Survey - we want your opinion

We want your opinion about city budget solutions. Take a survey! The following introduction explains the survey available by clicking on the link below. After you take the survey of which services you think are important and which services could be cut, you may want to make other recommendations. Unfortunately the survey does not provide for comments. Please feel free to click on the "comments" link at the bottom of this post and make your comments.

The City of Benicia wants to know what your priorities are for City services. While the City has fared well during the first two years of the economic recession, City revenues dropped sharply this year and are not expected to return to previous levels soon. This revenue decline impacts the City’s ability to support the current level of services.

This survey of community priorities will help ensure that we know what the community values most and enable us to tailor our spending in ways that match community priorities.

Thank you for taking the time to answer the questions in the survey. Working together, we will make the best decisions possible.

Your answers to the questions below will tell us about the importance of a list of services provided by the City of Benicia. Please note that only services, programs and facilities funded from the General Fund are listed.

Click on the following link to take the survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/3DJ72MP