In a not necessarily laudatory way, there is no heat on the City Council to perform during the present back-to-back budget hearings that conclude with this afternoon’s 5 o’clock session.
You won’t have to pass on lunch, ignore the kids at school or hitch a ride with a Fire Dept. ambulance to insure yourself of a desirable perch inside Council Chambers.
Based on years of community tradition, and last evening, the whole house will be available, even if you show up five minutes before or after the budget hearing ends.
Last evening’s crowd of nine included six delegates from the Chamber of Commerce and the seventh was a journalist.
No one asked to address the Council throughout the 3½ hours. And so, without fear of contradiction from the pocket of eyewitnesses, here is what happened:
The fiscal turf beneath the City Council has been parched for so many years that even modest budgetary upgrades feel like sudden prosperity, as if the leap from poverty to wealth is near enough to touch.
Gone was the handwringing of the recent past. The attitude of the speakers seemed to be, “We are far from out of the woods, but the outlook is not as grim as it has been.”
The opening session left impressions some would judge as promising:
- The $90 million General Fund budget for the fiscal year that begins on July 1 is “very conservative,” essentially the same as last year. Sixty days after its implementation, revenue from Measure Y, the new half-cent sales tax increase, will start flowing into City Hall’s coffers this month. In the name of flexibility, this will give the Council greater operating revenue and less cause to dip into its reserve fund.
- The Fire Dept. still is operating at 1973 staffing levels but continues to perform commendably. If all vacancies are filled, Chief Chris Sellers’s department will have one more firefighter than it had at its peak in the 1970s. By the end of the calendar year, 50 percent of firefighters will have been in their positions for less than a year – due to retirements, hirings, promotions.
- The Police Dept. has 105 sworn officers and half that many civilian officers, not as large of an overall roster as desired but sufficient to keep crime in check. When two vacancies are filled, Chief Don Pedersen will have a full staff.
- The Public Works Dept. is meeting its maintenance responsibilities, andthen came a familiar refrain. The capital improvements infrastructure budget, just under $4 million, is holding at a lower level than is optimal. But with the city’s financial prospects brightening, the department hopes to accelerate some projects.
- The Transportation Dept. continues to receive federal funding (80 percent), and as long as it is that high, it will meet budgetary requirements. The remaining 20 percent comes from the fare boxes, and the good news is that ridership is up.
At next Monday’s City Council meeting, the innards of a novel six-month pilot program – a shuttle system from Downtown to the Hayden Tract – not only will be discussed, butlikely thrashed out.
At issue is the hours of the shuttle, at either end of the workday, as Hayden Tract employers seem to favor or lunch hour, which the workers like.
Director Art Idea said that bus service to the Expo Station was stepped up last June 20, the day the light rail system opened. However, the demand has not (yet?) materialized.
