Fremont at a Crossroads

By Charles Bartlett

Are we a sleepy suburb or a lively city? Fremont is better accepting its historical identity as a quiet, family community with five townships, each with their own history and identity.

We are caught in a vicious cycle. Those who are discontent with Fremont's sleepy character want to raise revenues to support new infrastructure. In their minds more infra-structure encourages more growth (homes and retail). More growth stimulates more tax-revenue, and this in turn allows more infra-structure outlay, creating a never-ending spiral of tax-growth.

Despite city council majorities which leaned toward slow-growth over the last 30 years, Fremont has never broke from the bureaucratic fantasy of permanent revenue-growth generation. The problem with perpetual urban growth-tax revenue strategies is two-fold:

(1) It expects no limit to growth, and therefore is too optimistic about forecasted budgets. (2) It does not factor the top-heavy cost of government and associated public works when such growth either slows or reverses.

The coupling of economy and government has this effect: "As economy grows, so does the bureaucracy which is sustained by it". But when growth implodes, the bureaucracy resists contraction through higher taxes and debt. Thus, city revenue/development formulas ultimately led toward irrational growth and expenditures which tend to reinforce themselves.

The real issue this November is, "Do we want to perpetuate the endless cycle of development/taxation for city services?" And if not, then we must do what is most difficult-- a clean break away from the professional bureacracy and municipal structure which promotes it.

Consider the following:

Fremont government is not etched in stone. It's a contract established since our 1956 incorporation and is only ~ 50 years old. Our original jurisdiction, Washington Township, is much older going back a hundred-fifty years. Washington township was drawn from Vallejo and Mission San Jose landholdings which are even older.

The townships which incorporated (five townships presently make up Fremont) did so to remain independent and unburdened from the larger, encroaching city of Hayward. Since incorporation, Fremont government has grown top-heavy and ce ntralized. Fremont (re)collects property taxes from Sacramento, and these are distributed in a disproportional, unrepresentative manner between the business districts and neighborhoods of Fremont. Meanwhile our city staff is garnishing above private-sector incomes and tremendous six-digit salaries with gross pension benefits that homeowners and businessmen are locked into and must service for the foreseeable future. When city income shrinks, taxes will naturally be raised. This ultimately reduces homeownership and the presence of propertied residents in Fremont.

Every politician who wins an election tries to make their "mark" by pushing an expensive capital outlay--be it a useless cultural arts center, state-of-the art police station, or even a "central" park. What started off as a good idea is growing into a bloated government nightmare. Now Fremont (imitating bigger cities like San Jose) wants to spend even more property and sales taxes on a world-class ballpark along with new central downtown as directed by Fremont's ever-expanding Master Plan. These gross capital outlays are intended to put `Fremont' on the map, but they will ultimately yoke the population to a non-productive, expensive bureaucracy, irrational infrastructure support costs, and unrealistic revenue forecasts.

Rather than change the nature and character of our city, let's deepen our rather neglected traditions and present way of life? For a time, let's put the paradigm of perpetual `growth' aside. Let's not worry about a central downtown or keeping up with San Jose. Instead, let the micro-downtowns which once constituted Fremont's five original townships grow and prosper thru their own initiative. Let's create the means for them to do so--removing cumbersome permit requirements and building codes so small, especially family-based enterprises, can get off the ground and prosper. Let's change zoning codes so we can have universal mix residential and commercial usages, reducing our dependence on strip malls, thereby increasing exchange amongst neighbors. Let's return property taxes and non-emergency city services to the five, original townships, which are presently identified by our city's business districts. Let's empower homeowner associations, returning monies back to their source of origin, giving grassroots property owners greater control over their taxes. Let's preserve both natural and architectural historical resources which demark and remind residents of old Fremont.

Fremont has always possessed the keys to a quality civic life. We just won't admit it. We are five townships, mutually combined for the sake of families and small businesses to better remain independent of bigger cities and their tax burdens. Let's keep it that way. If we are to change, then let's reinforce quaintness rather than an endless spiral of urban growth, city services, and taxes with no goal in mind besides getting `bigger' than our rival San Jose. Rather than looking over the fence, let's be content with our own backyard, enhance and deepen it. Let's not look at neighborhoods as tax bases' but as relationships and memory. Let's reawaken our five townships and return civic life to the small, simple community.

http://www.charles4council.com