Dear Editor: Burlingame finances get more perplexing with every city ad and newspaper article. Two facts need to be better understood: 1. The massive disclosure error was not merely a “brochure error,” unknown to the city in 2005. The city consistently and knowingly used materially understated cost numbers in a widespread multimedia campaign, not merely in the brochure, as they now claim. 2. The city indicated that at 2004 tax collection levels, the entire project could be funded with about two years’ taxes, requiring no debt. They now propose massive, long-term debt. During the 2005 election season, the city stated that the total taxpayer subsidy would be $14.7 million, although their estimates at that time were multiples of that and grew to recent estimates of $88 million (excluding financing costs). Contrary to the city’s...
[read full story]
Your Web Site
