David Copperfield is America’s greatest and most successful illusionists. His magic tricks have entertained, baffled and amazed millions.
He does more than 500 performances every year, most in his hometown of Las Vegas. One illusion that helped launch his career was making a Lear Jet disappear on television in front of a live audience surrounding the plane.
Not to rest on that famous trick, he went live again a few years later making the Statue of Liberty disappear and reappear in front of a live audience while a helicopter filmed the event from above.
Forbes magazine lists him as one of the most successful entertainers of all time generating $80 billion in earnings during his career thus far.
Now, we could probably use Mr. Copperfield in Santa Clara.
While our City Council has done an incredible job at making our money disappear, they have yet to make it reappear.
The magic of making money reappear is missing at City Hall.
If you read the Weekly news report by Alissa Reyes in our online edition, you are now aware that Ed Sheeran has cancelled his Levi’s Stadium concert do to the 10 p.m. weekday curfew.
Sheeran is one of America’s most popular young artists, appealing to all ages for his talent as a performer. He also happens to be close friends with Taylor Swift, a former Levi’s Stadium favorite.
Due to the magic performed by our City Council in a manner of minutes, they have caused over $800,000 to disappear.
Unless you have been in Pango-Pango for the past six months, you already know our Council majority has voted to enforce a weeknight curfew of 10 p.m. at our stadium. This eliminates three or four event nights per year. The loss of these three or four venue events eliminate $2.4 to $3.2 million from our general fund treasury.
What kind of magic does the Council have in mind to replace these disappearing funds?
It doesn’t appear they have figured that part out yet.
However, the recent hiring of a new City Manager with a price tag approaching $700,000 has raised some eyebrows in amazement.
They lose a $800K concert and spend $700K on a new City Manager. Now that is very tricky.
Let’s see, in our basic accounting course 101 we learned “debits on the left, credits on the right.”
When you begin to add up the debits from this past year, City Council has weakened our balance sheet by incomparable fashion.
With over 20 City lawsuits pending against us, this hole could become enormous.
Council, we need every dime we can make reappear. Canceling a $800,000 event for one extra hour of great music is black magic that will turn your/our balance sheet red.
Shifting our debt onto residents, businesses and developers in the form of new taxes and fees is a slight of hand that is punitive.
Obviously, what we need is a new audit. Not for our stadium, but our Council.
We really may need the magic of Copperfield and that is not an illusion.
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