Walnut Creek Council Candidate Justin Wedel Announces Webpage detailing the Council's Poor Management of City funds
September 21 2010
In order to better inform the public the spending spree of the Walnut Creek City Council over the past 10 years, candidate for City Council Justin Wedel has launched a webpage to highlight the details of the Council's poor management of the city's financial resources.
To build public awareness about the city's deteriorating fiscal situation, Wedel launched a new section of his website entitled Walnut Creek Report It can be viewed at www.justinwedel.com/wcr.htm . This new section utilizes reports provided directly from city staff and data collected from the dity's publicly accessible website.
"We can no longer blame Walnut Creeks fiscal crisis on the global economic downturn," Wedel said. "We must recognize that the City Council has been on a spending spree in the past decade and has played a large role in our current financial dilemma."
At a recent Walnut Creek candidate forum, both of Wedel's opponents declared that they "didn't agree Walnut Creek has ever gone on a spree, but acknowledged the city must make more fundamental adjustments to its expense ledger to avoid further red ink," according to the Contra Costa Times. Wedel argues that the facts regarding the city's spending spree prove otherwise.
He states that Walnut Creek used to enjoy significant monetary reserves and a yearly budget surplus of more than 30 percent. Wedel criticizes the City Council for the amount of spending and for not making the tough decisions he believes are necessary to protect the long-term financial wellbeing of Walnut Creek. Specifically, he cites the current budget that fully funds arts and recreation programs, while simultaneously cutting back funding for the police department and other vital community services. Wedel faults the City Council for allowing a significant budget shortfall that resulted in the city's needing to pull from the already dwindling reserves.
Justin Wedel is a local business owner and form IT executive with major Bay Area companies, is married, with one daughter and has lived in Walnut Creek for most of the last 10 years.
