Goldman for Mayor - 6 October 2008 - For Immediate Release - 804-833-6313
Goldman Has Been Alone Among the Candidates for Mayor Warning Richmond About The Mess Being Created by the Wilder-led City Hall/Pantele-City Council Fiscal Fantasy
Any fair minded commentator on the Mayoral Debates and Forums knows that Paul Goldman has been the only candidate who had the vision and understanding of local finance months ago to tell voters that the growing city fiscal and budget mess was the top issue facing the new Mayor-elect [see an example of one of my fiscal warnings issued several months ago below]
(Richmond) - Paul Goldman, candidate for Mayor, issued the following statement this morning:
"As I have been saying for months - and yes, I do use email press releases which has produced interesting comments from editorialists and reporters who apparently believe making comments about the messenger somehow make less accurate the message - the Wilder-led City Hall and the Pantele-led City Council have created a fiscal and budget mess for the next Mayor-elect.
Having been a fiscal advisor to Governor-elect Mark Warner when he inherited a fiscal mess, I am the only candidate with the experience to steer Richmond through the growing crisis that will force the Mayor-elect to make some very tough decisions in the best interests of Richmond's future.
Starting from the day I announced back in February, I have been warning about the fiscal fantasies of the Wilder-led City Hall and the Pantele-led City Council.
For the last 7 months, I have used every Debate, every Forum, and whenever appropriate in discussing the future with voters, to try and alert the city to the fiscal and budget mess we face.
I urged the Wilder-led City Hall and the Pantele-led City Council to start making cuts IN THE 2008 FY BUDGET, not only the current 2009 FY budget assuming the two sides could ever agree to meet their responsibilities and produce a fiscal document both would agree is the legal fiscal plan for Richmond.
The media's refusal to hold both Mr. Wilder and Mr. Pantele accountable for not having an agreed-upon 2009 FY budget now over 3 months into the new fiscal year - a situation that has never before occurred in Richmond or any other Virginia locality to my knowledge - has only prolonged the situation in my judgment.
To quote Bob Dylan, how "many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see?"
The answer is blowing in the fiscal wind, and it is time my friends Mr. Wilder and Mr. Pantele and the others took their heads out of the sand.
For example, here is an email press release I sent out nearly 3 months ago: .
Goldman for Mayor - 11 July 08- 2008 - For Immediate Release - Contact, 804-833-6313 -[Emphasis added]
"City Hall and City Council have been paying for a rising cost of government from a housing bubble that is not going to be there next year"
"As I have been saying for months, Wilder's led City Hall and Pantele's led
City Council need to stop wasting money on the most expensive City Hall and City Council in the state, and start cutting their expenses and government expenses, big time."
(Richmond) - Paul Goldman, candidate for Mayor "said there is reason the Richmond Times Dispatch said of all the candidates in the race for Mayor, I was the only one with real credibility as a champion of the Richmonders' fed-up with the wasteful spending at city hall."
"And that reason should be clear this morning as Wall Street is rocked again today by what falling housing prices are doing to the credit markets and the economy" Goldman continued.
In a statement, Goldman said:
"Despite all my efforts these many months, the City Council and City Hall has refused to listen and instead heaped millions and millions of more spending on the backs of real estate property tax payers by wasting money we can not afford due to what they claim is another 8% spike in average home values, on top of several other successive years of galloping high assessment boosts. .
But in the real world of the next 12 months, all these rose-colored views of our city leaders are about to face the reality of the oil, housing, and retail market place that make up our economy.
There is not going to be any such double or near-double digit increase to pay for the bloated and expanded permanent city government they have now created. For too long, instead of making the hard decisions needed to expand our job base and thus our revenue base, and rein in the most expensive city hall, city council and city school bureaucracy in the state, city elected leaders and their fiscal teams have been authorizing spending at a rate that the people of Richmond can not afford.
The inability of City Hall and City Council to figure out what is the legal city budget without another law suit that will waste more money that Richmond can not afford is a metaphor.
The more City Hall and City Council waste in spending that we can't afford, the more in the end they will hurt the people of Richmond, especially the most vulnerable among us."
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