'We Have a Spending Problem': Candidates Debate Cuts, Taxes at Ward 2, 4 and 6 Forums

The Raincross Gazette hosted candidate forums for Wards 2, 4 and 6 last month, asking all candidates the same questions on the city's budget and fiscal services. Measure Z, the city's existing sales tax, was a recurring subject throughout all three forums.

Moderator Dan Bernstein, a former Press-Enterprise columnist and longtime Riversider, posed this question to candidates at all three forums:

You've been elected to the council. You get the budget and, sure enough, there's not enough money to pay for everything the city needs. What do you protect? What do you cut or eliminate? How do you make those decisions?

Here are each candidates' responses:

Ward 2

Nonprofit director and Budget Commissioner Aram Ayra, entrepreneur and Planning Commissioner Christen Montero, Western Municipal Water District Director Gracie Torres and financial and IT consultant Mike Vahl are running for the Ward 2 seat soon to be vacated by Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes, who is running for state Assembly.

Ward 2 covers neighborhoods including Eastside, Canyon Crest, Mission Grove, Sycamore Canyon and the University District.

Vahl: "For 25 years, I've worked at Canyon Lake. I was the controller and accounting manager for 19 of those [years] in charge of budgets, and it was a $10 million budget.

And you have to start with your most important priorities, which are public safety, and that's your top one. And then you have to go down from there. You've got staff that's telling you what you need to cut. You work with your different interest groups and figure out that's just a part of being a manager, is figuring out what to cut and who's getting over budget, and why are we spending this much money on this particular thing instead of this much money. But as far as Measure Z goes, no current proposal. I would make it a special tax not a general fund."

Montero: "I think that is a great idea. But the reality also is, if we do have it as a special tax fund, if we want it to go on the ballot, it has to be a two-thirds vote, which is really difficult for a collectible for us to be able to achieve.

I think there's also the issue of accountability, right? We've seen this Measure Z come up, go to the general fund, and then all of a sudden, things that were promised don't get paid for – meanwhile, other things continue to be funded.

I think that is where the line needs to be drawn, right? We can't keep pulling money from our hard work that we've done just because the city needs more money. But I'm pretty sure we all, at one point, sat in front of the Chamber of Commerce saying yes to Measure Z.

For me, Measure Z right now for this year really helps with infrastructure, and I want to talk a little bit about infrastructure. The city has grown and…we're down quite a few firefighters right now, and just being able to serve our community, we want to continue growing housing, but if we continue growing housing, that means more fire response, more public safety response, that's more demand that we already have a shortage of but we also can't keep relying on the Measure Z to fund everything and every new idea, or deal with the fact that there's inflation and we can't meet those budgets or those needs. So I think it's time to think outside of the box.

Increase different ways to have revenue into the city, outside of having this tax that cannot go on forever, God forbid. But also, I would like to challenge everyone to be honest tonight and not change our answers in front of residents and to own our answers tonight."

Torres: "So thank you for bringing that up. But let's come back to the topic, what would we cut right, or where would we shift things? I think that was the actual question. I've done this before on the water district. Have experience in this and [looking] at where funds need to go – and a mentor of mine calls it 'meat and potatoes,' right. Get back to the basics. We got to take care of our roads. We got to take care of our trees. We gotta make sure that we don't have to make traffic worse.

And the way I see it when we're talking about affordability, especially for families like myself, if the city isn't taking care of city services, we flip two bills, we pay the taxes, and then we're paying to fix our tires, right? And they were paying to fix, you know, the roof where the tree fell, because the city…didn't take care of its job.

So we need to go back to the basics. If we end up with a budget where…we can't pay for everything we're promising in our…speeches, right where we're going to give everybody everything. We need to go back to the basics, because all this is one thing I know we all agree on, is that the quality of life in the city is good, and we need to keep that going. And so as we're looking at budgets, when we're looking at budgets at [the] Western Municipal Water District, we stick to the mission: serving good, reliable water and [all] that.

And if we're doing anything outside of that, and we need to rearrange that budget, those things are the things that get cut, the ones that do not serve that purpose and [the needs of those who live in the city].

Ayra: "I would like to answer that question, because I think that's always our response, we kick the can down the road. We mismanage the funding, and then we start saying, 'what can we cut?'

And you know, I know Gracie mentioned that quality of life is good. I've been knocking on thousands of doors in court too, and that's not what I'm hearing from folks. Our roads are not in good shape. Our infrastructure is not in good shape. Projects that should have been done years ago, like some of our rail grade separations and stuff, have not happened yet.

Homelessness is at an all time high as we just heard this is an issue again, with the mismanagement of the funding and the crisis that we go to every single time when we say this is, we promise that this is the last tax that we passed. We promise we're not going to ask you for money again, and then suddenly, 10 years later, we're encumbered for the next three years. And I saw this directly. I'm on the budget engagement commission. We saw the measures in the proposal before it went to Council. This is an issue.

We need accountability on how the money is being spent. Do I support fire and public safety? Absolutely. I don't think any of the candidates up here would say anything different if they wanted to get elected, obviously, but I think it's important for us to also consider where are we getting our revenue from? Our development impact fees have not been updated in Riverside for over a decade. So the large warehouses that I know all Ward 2 residents hate and don't like, they're paying the lowest amount of money into the city. They're creating the infrastructure problems that everybody is dealing with, the flat tires, the potholes and everything else.

They're creating the pollution that poisons these communities, and we are not getting money from them to pay towards this and they're passing that cost off to you as a taxpayer, so I'm completely opposed to that. I would change that as a council member on day one."

Ward 4

Incumbent Chuck Conder, local business owner Jessica Qattawi and local business owner Rich Vandenberg are vying for the Ward 4 council seat.

Ward 4 covers neighborhoods including Alessandro Heights, Mission Grove, Orangecrest and the Greenbelt, which became a part of Ward 4 during redistricting in 2023 – meaning many residents in this area will be voting in a Ward 4 race for the first time this year.

Qattawi: "Okay, so if I were to cut any budgets…right now we've got City Hall is about to get renovated. Is that a priority for us, or would it be better for us to go and fix some of our roads? That might be something I would cut the budget on. We also have a lot of city employees that are getting paid $300,000, $400,000 a year. Is that right? Is that fair? Do you guys think that's okay? That's our money that should go towards fixing the things that we have issues with, like the homeless issue, the roads, the traffic, figuring out a solution for the traffic."

Vandenberg: "We have a balanced budget, but to balance that budget required $18 million in cuts for next year. In that $18 million were cuts to our road improvements. Last year, Riverside improved 51 miles of roads, and the timing was a big thing. We did not improve enough roads to maintain the grade we have now, which is a [poor grade]...For me, to get this budget under control we, number one, take care of the core services – that's safety, that's infrastructure, parks. Those are the important things, just like when I advise a client who comes into my office who's struggling financially, and we have to rework the budget, we take care of our house first. Beyond that, the non priorities – I don't think Riverside has an income problem, we have a spending problem, and this is going to be one of the goals for me and the [inspector general]...just to look into our budget and look for fraud, waste and abuse. Without breaking down all the things, the minor expenditures, if you went through it, [you'd be a] little surprised. I think the money we spend, but we prioritize the necessities – that's our safety, that's our roads, that's our parks and our infrastructure."

Conder: "This is live social media. Too much false information. City Hall is not being renovated, number one…they're doing some work on the first floor...

Secondly, we met with everyone of the [city department directors]. We call them in, [asking] what can you cut? What can you keep your service grades at [to] give us what we need and what we cut. He came back with his cuts. He had enough to do…How you balance your checkbooks? You do the needs before the wants, and every one of the divisions, every one of them, sat there, and we got the 18 million we needed in cuts to keep the budget balanced. So if you ask me, What am I going to cut? We don't need to cut anything.

We are balanced. We're doing parks, we're doing streets, we're doing fire stations, we're doing police work, we're doing work for the people….We don't need to kind of be thinking of [cutting funding]."

Qattawi: "Well, I met with the city manager a month ago, and he said that the city's already five years in spending, so [Measure Z's] coming in, so we can try to figure out all the money we already spent for for the next five years."

Vandenberg: "In this 'balanced budget,' the city of Riverside invested $3 million into homelessness last year – some considered the most pressing issue of our city…

We invested twice as much into homeless pets last year. $6 million in homeless pets, $3 million in homeless people.

City money, Chuck, tell me I'm wrong. I said city dollars, city money. 1 percent [from] Measure Z, which on the ballot treatment said [it was] for homeless services, youth services, senior services. How much went to senior services? Zero. Youth services, zero. I know it's because I asked. 1 percent went to homelessness. Anybody who cares to fact check, please feel free to do so. I'm not going to listen to lies up here and accept them as truth."

Ward 6

Oz Puerta, executive director of the Arlington Business Partnership, Luis Hernandez, vice chair of the Board of Ethics, and Alvord Unified School District Board of Education Trustee Norma Berrellez are vying for the seat vacated by Councilmember Jim Perry, who announced last year that he is not running for reelection.

Berrellez, however, was not in attendance at the April 30 Ward 6 forum.

Ward 6 covers neighborhoods including Arlanza, La Sierra, La Sierra Hills, La Sierra South and portions of Arlington.

Hernandez: "So obviously the qualities of any good leader [is] to try and find alternatives other than trying to cut services or eliminate jobs. That's key to this.

Obviously bringing in good paying jobs to bring in more revenue [and] to bring in more affordable housing.

The reality is that the more expensive housing gets, the less money people have in their pockets to spend on local businesses, and that's just a fact. That's a reality.

And if we focus on a lot of those different options, we can bring in more revenue. But if it comes to having to make budget cuts, obviously having to cut vital services or vital jobs, everyone at the city works extremely hard. I know from being on the Board of Ethics, I watch how hard these individuals work.

So making sure that we take a look at maybe services that aren't as vital or necessary, but help us keep as many vital city services and employees as possible is key to making sure that we stay successful and we keep going forward."

Puerta: "For a city budget, I think we need to focus on a couple things. First, we need to make sure that all core services that a city needs to provide to its residents are upheld. Public safety, infrastructure, the essentials. Once we use up all that money and we figure out where that's going, then we focus on other external services. We just talked about homelessness. There's a lot of money that the city spends on homelessness. Are we addressing the problem? Is it getting worse? Do we need to keep spending money on certain things? We need to reassess programs, activities, any sort of movement that isn't necessarily getting us results, or it's getting us results at too high of a price. If we focus on the core services, the essentials, we can make sure that we are proactive so we don't have to bring up Measure Z right now for a core service like the fire department – 84 new firefighters, two new fire stations. Why are we being forced to react right now? Why wasn't this need anticipated years ago as we saw the calls for service going up, as we saw the population rising? Why did no one think ahead so that way we could plan better so we don't overburden our residents with more taxes?"

Hernandez: "I don't think that cutting the money that we spend for homelessness is going to really help our situation any at all, but taking a look at how that money is spent and reconsidering how it would be better served and help actually helping people off the street is vital. That's only going to put us in a worse situation when it comes to Measure Z funds, obviously it's been declining.

Running a city is expensive and it's difficult to always determine what the needs are in the future. Nobody has a crystal ball. Nobody can tell what the future is going to hold, but what we can do is we can make sure that our city and our frontliners have the resources that they need to be able to protect and serve or to keep us from a situation, for example, like Los Angeles. If we don't take steps to make sure that our firefighters have the services and the resources that they need, we're going to be in a lot of trouble in the future."

Puerta: "So here's where I disagree. I do think we do see these problems coming up…There was a fire report that told us we needed 84 new firefighters and two new fire stations. What's the problem? The problem is that that report came out now when it's an emergency. What needs to be done is these reports, these studies need to be ... all these trends need to be analyzed earlier.

We need to see the state of the city, the state of the county, the state of the state, and adjust accordingly. We do know when we need to fix buildings. We do know when we need to defer maintenance. We do know when we need to buy new equipment, when we need to hire new people. We know those things are coming up. We just need to do a better job of being organized so we handle these situations faster and they don't cost you more in taxpayer dollars."

A follow-up question was asked at the Ward 6 forum:

Measure Z when it was passed in 2016 [was estimated to] bring in about $50 million a year. The sales tax revenue has brought in about $80 million a year instead. And yet we find ourselves in this situation with low staffing and obviously a very critical area. As a council person seeing this happen, what does this tell you about how the city is run and …should this have been foreseen? What would you do differently?

Hernandez: "So it's easy to stand up here and say what we would do and that we could tell the future – but if that were the reality, all the council members that Mr. Puerta is endorsed by should have seen this coming by his own comments.

So the reality is that again, it's difficult to run a city and to put this just to say, "Well, I would do this, I would do that." That's easier said than done when it comes to city services and public safety, and obviously maintaining those services means having to make sure that our public employees have a paycheck.

So if we really start to nitpick and [say], "oh, well, the Measure Z they're trying to pass is like 25 cents to every hundred dollars." The reality is that we're the ones that are going to suffer in the future when we cannot provide those services and when our police officers and firefighters are underfunded."

Puerta: "So I'll say this about the government in general. I feel that the government doesn't have a money problem, we have a money management problem. We spend money faster than we get it. That's why I'm running. I'm tired of the fiscal [irresponsibility.]

I know that if we are proactive, if we take the extra steps, if we start doing our homework now, we can make sure that we accommodate smart growth. We can accommodate the after effects of this housing mandate because we're going to have 18,000 new units by 2029. We need to start thinking ahead in five year terms, 10 year terms, 20 year terms. That's how we get these issues addressed, because unless I'm wrong, fire's a dire need. It's essential. There's no compromise on it. And we're out of money, which is why we need to put this measure on the ballot.

That's unacceptable. There shouldn't be a situation where we are reactive like that. We can do our homework ahead of time and at least have an idea of where the city is heading towards and anticipate those needs so we can do them cost effectively."