1) This editorial is on the money that the recent admission by the Sacramento city manager that many departments of city government have never been audited is mind-boggling, but accounts for the messes we’ve been seeing in the news recently around the library and utilities departments.
One wonders what else is lying in wait where there has been no accountability for generations…scary thought.
An excerpt.
“Sacramento City Manager Ray Kerridge made an astounding admission recently. Most city departments, he said, have never been audited.
“That lack of oversight helps explain the mess in the Utilities Department, which lost track of thousands of water meters and is under FBI investigation for possible illegal sale of those meters.
“Kerridge recommended, and the City Council approved, the hiring of two auditors to begin looking at all 17 city departments for waste, fraud and abuse. The cost is $125,000 for the first six months, but if the auditors are any good they should find far more than that in potential savings.”
2) Tent cities are springing up all over and with some cities are allowing them to stay, as lawyers win cases that restrict government from enforcing sanctions against sleeping and camping in public.
A recent article notes the increase.
An excerpt.
“RENO, Nev. - A few tents cropped up hard by the railroad tracks, pitched by men left with nowhere to go once the emergency winter shelter closed for the summer.
“Then others appeared — people who had lost their jobs to the ailing economy, or newcomers who had moved to Reno for work and discovered no one was hiring.
“Within weeks, more than 150 people were living in tents big and small, barely a foot apart in a patch of dirt slated to be a parking lot for a campus of shelters Reno is building for its homeless population. Like many other cities, Reno has found itself with a "tent city" — an encampment of people who had nowhere else to go.
“From Seattle to Athens, Ga., homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation.
“Nearly 61 percent of local and state homeless coalitions say they've experienced a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began in 2007, according to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless. The group says the problem has worsened since the report's release in April, with foreclosures mounting, gas and food prices rising and the job market tightening.”
