Job elimination strikes a chord
6/5/2015, 9:34 p.m.
Mayor Dwight C. Jones and most of Richmond City Council continue to budget in shortsighted ways.
Under the mayor’s tenure, hundreds of jobs with benefits — jobs that people can raise a family on — have been eliminated. These public sector jobs are the primary vehicle for moving people into the middle class. And many, such as trash collection and in public works, are among the few jobs available for working-class people.
If the work needs to be done and it is contracted out, it costs more than having city employees do the work and it is a system that is vulnerable to cronyism and corruption. The most recent example of this brought to light was the $60,000 bill to celebrate the opening of a new school building.
The mayor says we must preserve our bond rating as justification for eliminating positions that provide city services.
Could it be that the bond rating serves the business sector and the resources for corporate welfare and that he just doesn’t consider as priorities filling potholes, picking up bulk trash, fixing broken stoplights and sewer lines, issuing building permits, educating our children and maintaining our parks?
The utter lack of vision and profound dysfunction of the city starts in the mayor’s office and trickles down from there.
SUZANNE J. KELLER
Richmond
