Second Artesia Town Hall Meeting Talks Taxes and Business

Finding ways to generate more revenue for Artesia and attracting more businesses were some of the main topics at the City’s second town hall meeting of the year last week.

Only 17 people attended the hour-long meeting at Artesia City Hall, including City councilmember Michele Diaz, residents, city employees and Sgt. Greg Knapp of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Like the , Mayor Victor Manalo reiterated that last year’s Bell salary scandal prompted him to hold a series of town hall meetings, but he didn’t go far as to discuss the salaries of city officials, which is posted on the City's website.

Instead, he discussed the City’s redevelopment agency plans and Artesia’s $7,054,190 general fund — some of the central topics of the last town hall meeting.

Mayor Manalo told attendees that the City needs “revenue, revenue and revenue” largely from the sales tax — the largest tax that the Artesia general fund receives since they do not receive money from property taxes — in order to keep its budget balanced.

However, because of the current economic downturn, Mayor Manalo said the City general fund suffers because “people aren’t buying anything in the City.”

“We’re trying to find out how much we’re losing in terms of property taxes, but we don’t have those numbers at this point,” he said, noting that the City gets around $700,000 every year from the state since it is a “no property tax city.”

He said the City has “cut across the board” to keep a balanced budget this past year, even resorting to laying off a number of city employees and implementing furlough days.

Resident Margaret Saito asked Mayor Manalo whether Artesia planned to increase her taxes and he responded that while the City Council does not have the sole authority to increase existing taxes, the City is looking into other sources for revenue.

“We have been looking at various alternatives to raising revenue in the form of a tax,” he said . “However, the only way we can do that is by putting it before the voters.”

Mayor Manalo added that increasing revenue is a huge challenge and it is the City’s responsibility to inform residents through events such as the town hall meetings

Saito went on to express her concern about adding more taxes by pointing out that the number of businesses is dwindling in Artesia and hopes the City will become more business friendly.

“One more tax may be something that is going to push that proprietor out of business [in the city],” she said. “He’s going to go someplace else. I think we need to do things to try to help them instead of raising their taxes.”

Mayor Manalo said he is “optimistic” about the Artesia’s business outlook, noting that banks that he talked to are “ready to loan money to people for their business.”

“Once people are able to secure some of those loans, we’ll start to see some of these vacancies go away and we’ll have more business,” he said. “We’re always working to be more business-friendly and all this money that we’re spending in the downtown, hopefully [Governor Jerry Brown] won’t take it away.”

The Mayor touted plans for the downtown parking structure and overall improvements to the downtown area as ways of getting more business to Artesia.

Although the Mayor and City Manager Maria Dadian tried to explain some of their solutions to the audience’s concerns about generating more revenue and attracting more business, Saito said she was not convinced that opting for more taxes was a sustainable option for residents.

“Based on the demographics of the City, which has a lot of residents on fixed income, we can’t afford more taxes,” she said after the town hall meeting adjourned. “The City needs to generate more through the existing sales tax.”

While business and revenue were the leading topics at the town hall meeting, resident Barbara Vandenhazel, however, was disappointed that Mayor Manalo did not discuss city salaries.

“Bell got into trouble because of its salaries and the Mayor should have talked about it,” she said.

Two more town hall meetings are planned for later this year, but the City has yet to schedule any dates. For more information about town hall meetings, visit the City’s website.