In 2010, our Country had a Great Recession. What happened to the City of Turlock’s finances in that Great Recession? The City went to the bottom; the city had very little money and had to lay off large numbers of our staff.

We all know what occurred in our Country in March of this year. We were hit by the Corona Virus. What has happened to the City of Turlock’s financial position now? We are almost out of money, with our reserves dropping over 75% in the last six years. The Council has made major cuts in all departments in the City.

Police Officers aren’t able to respond to a burglary or car theft most of the time, because there aren’t enough Police Officers on duty; they can only handle the emergency calls in our City. The City has had to cut back on Firefighters, and one of our Fire Stations in the City is only partially staffed every day of the week. Staff has been cut from Parks and Recreation, and from the City Administration, we have key administrative positions in our city that are unstaffed.

Today our City has a 7.875 cent sales tax, almost all of that goes to the State and County. Our City only gets less than 1 penny of that 7.875 cents. Measure A will allow our city to have a Sales Tax of its own; all of the Measure A sales tax revenue will stay right here in Turlock. No one can take it away from Turlock except by a vote of our Turlock people.

Each year around 400,000 traveler’s and people from other cities come to Turlock to shop in our great stores, and eat in our fine restaurants. With a ¾ of a cent sales tax increase from Measure A this will allow these people to help alleviate our cities financial crisis.

Measure A is equitable; it is not a burden on people with high incomes. It is not a burden on people with fixed incomes, or people with low incomes.

Please vote “Yes” for Turlock; Please vote “Yes” on measure “A”.

— Milt Trieweiler