COSTA MESA UNPLUGGED:

At some blip in time during 2005 Costa Mesa began spending more cash than it was taking in. It’s been that way ever since. In fact, the city is stuck in the longest period of expenditures outstripping revenues (more than three years now) than at any other time in the last 10 years.

And it’s not getting any better. When the numbers for the 2007-08 fiscal year are revealed, expect to see that Costa Mesa again wrote more checks than it received.

The economic tea leaves that all hope will show a stabilizing economy to stem the red tide are telling just the opposite. The median price of a home in Costa Mesa has plunged nearly 20% in the last year. That may well trigger home buyers who were last in on the real estate orgy to request reassessments of their home values in a bid to win a lower property tax bill. That could mean less money for the city’s coffers.

Costa Mesa’s sales tax base has always been pinned to retail sales out of South Coast Plaza and cars driven off the lots along Harbor Boulevard. But with folks cutting up their credit cards and keeping cash in their wallets, that revenue source is likely to lag for the next several quarters.

The widening gap between cash-out and cash-in sparked Costa Mesa’s administration to encourage the City Council to place a Transient Occupancy Tax boost on the November ballot. The council balked.

So while the rest of Orange County averages a 10.5% hotel tax, Costa Mesa innkeepers will continue tacking on 6% to hotel bills in these parts. It’s been that way for the better part of 20 years.

That the City Council can’t bring itself to let voters decide on the tax increase is antithetical to everything I believe a representative democracy is about.

Nonetheless, they’ve played the card.

So what now?

It is fiscally irresponsible — and injurious to the public trust — that Costa Mesa should continue spending more than it takes in. You fix that balance one of three ways: boost revenues, cut expenses, or strike some balance between the two.

The City Council isn’t interested in the latter as a short-term solution. And it has made its position clear on the revenue side where taxes are concerned.

That leaves only cuts.

Meaningful fiscal constraint doesn’t occur by nibbling in the sections of the pie chart where the single-digit percentages rest; it occurs where the big pieces are. And in Costa Mesa, that means salaries and benefits for city administrators, fire and police personnel.

If the City Council is serious about fiscal responsibility — and increased revenues through a Transient Occupancy Tax or business license tax increase is not an option — then one or more of the five folks on that dais ought to have the guts to request that City Manager Allan Roeder report back on the public service implications, cost savings and revenue-expenditure balance effects of a 2% to 3% across-the-board cut.

Remember, though, it’s an election year. Don’t hold your breath.

Nonetheless, such an analysis will reveal how much Costa Mesans value the superior public services they have come to expect and whether they’ll pay for them or accept something less.

BYRON DE ARAKAL is a former Costa Mesa Parks and Recreation Commissioner. Readers can reach him at [email protected].