To the Editor,
On Monday evening I attended the CFD/Mello-Roos “workshop” put on by the City of Beaumont and presented by some of the many “consultants” who have been hired to save us from the urban nightmare created by the now departed Urban Logic.
About 400 or so concerned citizens packed the School District Offices at 350 Brookside and I, like most others who forgot to bring their Attorney, struggled to take in the information and make sense of it but some new items came to light.For example, most of us pay Mello-Roos tax but at wildly differing rates and part of it is subject to a 2 percent increase annually and there is an $800 fee to discover what amount is attached to your property, if you feel so inclined to pay it off early (don’t). Why not? Well, as many citizens have noticed the Bond money has been misappropriated and we are lacking Fire Stations, recycled water and our roads are disintegrating rapidly. So we are paying but the City, under the previous “Manager”, decided not to build these vital facilities, but there was much important thinking and consulting which had to be paid for out of the General Fund, leaving it empty!
That left us with a $10 million budget deficit, a WRCOG lawsuit which could cost Beaumont $60 million and the lost Bond money to the tune of $200 million plus, so what can we do if anything as the money is probably in Switzerland or elsewhere by now? Silence is no longer an option so call, as I did, the Riverside County District Attorney’s office (951) 955-5400 and ask them what they are doing about the investigation into the City of Beaumont after the FBI raid on City Hall almost a year ago. Hundreds of calls may give them new momentum.
I’m sure that no-one is satisfied with the new transparency when you look in the rear view mirror and see the massive fraud which has deprived Beaumont of so much opportunity to improve for the benefit of new and old residents alike.
Geoffrey Wilson, Beaumont