Our Declaration of Independence, signed on July 4, 1776, created the United States of America, stating Bit is the Right of the People to alter or abolish.C

Two local situations should be altered to become more independent. The Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce is the major user of tax money. The Santa Maria Public Airport District relies on grants and tax money.

Instead of being an independent business, the chamber receives its operating money from Santa Maria?s hotel taxes.

Listening to the June 16 Santa Maria City Council discussion of the budget shortages, the city staff report said, Bthe budget will allow municipal services to continue, but at a slightly reduced level …C

It was painful to see how vacancies are not being filled in crucial city jobs, such as one police officer, two police records technicians and one fire-prevention officer. Yet, the chamber is slated to receive ,599,050 of public tax money in 2009-10, with no accountability to the public.

The city municipal code specifies that the chamber receive 8 percent of the hotel tax money collected, ,320,490. In 1992, an additional 2 percent in hotel taxes began being collected for a convention center, but that money goes into the city?s general fund, and can be used for any city benefit.

However, the chamber receives 70 percent of that additional tax money, ,279,560. The council can change that.

We also need to change the municipal code to free up that hotel tax money, so it could be used for community benefit.

Where is the community benefit at the airport? The airport district, with its own elected governing board, receives property taxes from the 400 square miles under its jurisdiction, from the beach to 10 miles east of Twitchell Reservoir, and from Los Alamos north to the river.

After many questionable attempts to generate revenue at the airport, leasing land has been the lone success. We still only have regular commercial airline service to LAX and Las Vegas. General aviation seems to be the most used function at the airport, where pilots can fly private planes in and out, buy fuel and get planes serviced.

The U.S. Customs Service at the airport is being discontinued, due to lack of use, after the airport board invested a lot of money to prepare the customs area in the terminal. What made that board think there would be foreign visitors landing at our airport, with few businesses here that would attract that kind of global interest?

Competition for commercial flights at Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo airports have taken away most of Santa Maria Airport?s business. However, the San Luis Obispo County Airport is self-funded. It is an enterprise operation, whereby the costs of operation are paid for by the revenue generated from the businesses at the airport.

The Santa Maria Airport District gets property taxes from us, and federal grants for capital improvements. Is spending grant money for longer runways going to better serve the public?

If the Santa Maria Public Airport were an enterprise operation, it would have to pay its own way. Hopefully a new general manager and new board members will start to show profitable operations.

Businesses should be independent of public tax money. The Chamber of Commerce is heavily subsidized with tax money, without any accountability to the public. The airport district receives our tax money with very few income- or job-producing operations, but at least the new general manager is open to disclose its finances.

We need more independence in these Santa Maria operations.

Joan Leon is a local resident. She can be reached at joanleon@juno.com. Looking Forward runs every Friday, providing a progressive viewpoint on local issues.

July 3, 2009