Stockton's rise from Bankruptcy:
A recent article by Rana Foroohar (Time) shows the effects of Stockton, California coming out of its bankruptcy. The city suffered severe unemployment--currently at 15%--and public workers losing budget due to large health care payments along-side with pensions for the retired. A lot was cut from health care, but the pensions remained high, and city officials worried about loosing the police (never a good idea). Truthfully though, numbers have shown that the cut in 400 police officers over the past 4 years there and in surrounding cities has greatly increased the crime rate. The bad economy has also caused people to live in "tent cities" in neighboring towns--it is understood that Stockton was one of the hardest hit towns in the recession, mainly due to mismanagement.
As you can see, this is one of those 'not good muchacho' moments. The mayor intends to get the homeless
to work refurbishing buildings, but there's still that pension tying everyone down. In my honest opinion boys and girls: they need to start trimming. You see, being out of bankruptcy can only last so long. Running out of time, the council needs to make positive decisions before their work is undone. Stockton is one of the "most miserable" towns before Detroit.
In this case, Stockton is a lot like Weserville. The unemployment was greatly noticeable, and the town has been working on ways of bringing in tourist funds. Luckily, we have not had any debt problems or with civil service *knock on wood*, but the town sizes are the similar. On the governmental level, the mayor of Stockton is working with neighboring mayors to come up with effective plans on solving this ordeal.
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I find it very interesting that you compared Stockton to Weserville. There are some startling similarities between the two, and if we aren't careful, the same fate might befall our little town.
ReplyDeleteWow, the police! Really? I would think that that would be on the high end of the "Most important to keep in check" list. This is very startling to me and really gets my mind turning about where Weserville could be headed. Hopefully, as you have said, Weserville does NOT go into any crisis as this. I think that working with neighboring towns to grow together is a great beginning to a solution to fix the problem in Stockton, especially since nationalism is a huge part of the American morale. This article has a great deal to do with our Weserville funds and increase in tourism and I think you did an excellent job of tying them together!
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