The City of Oakland is in such dire financial straits that it is planning to use $2.9 million from state gas tax revenues to keep the city’s lights on, rather than using the money to fix pothole-riddled roads, for which the funding was intended.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday that the city is facing severe financial shortfalls, despite a booming economy that has seen wealthier households relocate from San Francisco across the bay to gentrifying neighborhoods. The problem is that the city’s costs are rising faster than its growing revenues, thanks partly to pension obligations — an increasingly common challenge for large, Democrat-run cities that made ambitious promises to public sector unions. As Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf — famous for tipping off illegal aliens to an impending federal law enforcement sweep, in an effort to defend her “sanctuary city” — noted in her recent budget statement to the city council last week: The deficit for this year will be $25 million. As a result, the Chronicle notes, Oakland — which is generously extending benefits to illegal aliens — can barely keep its street lights on.
To deal with the crisis, the city is shifting money from pothole repair to street lighting, even though the money raised by the 2017 gas tax must be used for transportation. The city will still apparently have other funds, both from the gas tax and its own revenues, to use for pothole repair — though less than it would otherwise have had. Republicans attempted to repeal the gas tax hike in a 2018 ballot initiative, but the state government gave the measure a misleading title. As a result, the measure failed, though polls showed a majority of Californians opposed the hike. The budget notes that the city will spend $150,000 per year on a legal fund to assist illegal aliens facing deportation.