City Hall has run out of money for New Year’s Eve fireworks, but not for its own raises | Opinion

Suddenly the city of Sacramento does not have the money to put on a New Year’s Eve fireworks show. The traditional pyrotechnic display near Tower Bridge in Old Sacramento may be gone for good.

Just a few weeks earlier, a unanimous Sacramento City Council somehow found the money to grant 6% raises to staff and another 4% next year, adding a $24 million burden to the budget next fiscal year.

And City Manager Howard Chan clearly thought there was plenty of money in the budget for the council to grant him 10 weeks paid vacation on top of a 5% raise, likely continuing his distinction as the highest-paid municipal manager in the state. But, as it turns out, the council’s 6-3 (abstentions) vote to grant him the raise on Dec. 12 was illegal, violating a state law that prohibits hastily-called special meetings for executive raises.

Can anyone in city hall say with a straight face that they don’t have money for the same old fireworks show? Or did they have the money and decided instead to spend it on themselves?

Regardless, the show is off. As The Bee reported Thursday, city spokeswoman Jennifer Singer says the cancellation is because there are not enough financial resources or city staff to put on the show.

Precisely what exorbitant cost the city is avoiding by the show’s cancellation was not immediately clear Thursday. Questions to the city about this year’s potential cost, and that of last year’s event, were not answered.

The job of any city manager is to make the city council look good. Chan has mustered the uncanny capacity to make council members look repeatedly impotent and out of touch with the public — precisely when he is seeking to extract 10 weeks paid vacation out of them. He has made them look bad by asking for such a ridiculous amount of paid leave. And then by staging an illegal, hastily-announced meeting for the raise. And now, by announcing that Sacramento does not have enough money to do a fireworks show on New Year’s Eve that the city has managed to afford for years, and which helps support the business community in the bridge district.

Aren’t the city council and mayor in charge of the budget? Apparently, not during the holidays, with this sudden imperative for unprecedented cost cutting that leaves no money for a fireworks show. So much for public notice and a scheduled council debate on spending. City hall’s theatrics over executive compensation has left the council and mayor looking weaker by the day.

There is perhaps a silver lining; if the city suddenly no longer has funds for fireworks on New Year’s Eve, how can it afford all this vacation time for Chan as he is requesting happen at the council’s Jan. 9 meeting?

For now, the message from city hall and the city council majority is loud and clear: We have money for ourselves. On New Year’s Eve, there is no longer money for a few fireworks,. Feel free to stay at home and watch television instead.

This story was originally published December 29, 2023 at 5:00 AM.