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HomeMy WebLinkAbout02-20-1997 City Council Minutes MINUTES B~TOG~ CITY COUNCIL TIME: Thursday, February 20, 1997 - 7:00 p.m. PLACE: Large Room, Senior Center, 19655 Allendale Avenue TYPE: Adjourned Regular Meeting/Town Hall Meeting Mayor Moran called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. 1. Roll Call Councilmembers Present: Mayor Moran, Vice Mayor Wolfe, Councilmembers Bogosian, Jacobs and Shaw. Staff Present: City Manager Peacock, Public Works Director Perlin, Finance Director Fil, Recreation Director P%pani, Assistant to the City Manager Hanlon. 2. Report of City Clerk on Posting of Agenda The City Manager reports that pursuant to Government Code 54954.2, the agenda for this meeting was properly posted on February 14. The notice of adjournment from the February 3 Council meeting was properly posted on February 4, 1997. 3. Oral Communications from the Public on Non-Agendized Items - None. 4. Discussion of City Budget Mayor Moran states that she would like to break the meeting into three components in terms of discussing the budget. First the Council will listen to comments from the public, then there will be time for Council discussion and finally time will be spent by the Council putting all the information received and reviewed together~to give staff direction on preparing the first draft of a proposed budget. Mayor Moran asks for members of the public to make comments on the budget and how the City might address the service priorities of the community. Vice Mayor Wolfe indicates that if someone is going to speak about retaining an existing program that person also suggest where the budget could be cut to allow a current program and service level to continue. Dane Christianson speaks. He notes that there is a continuing long term need to fund the Saratoga Area Senior Coordinating Council. He notes that SASCC is seeking $18,000 in general funds for 1997-98 and suggests that a part of the $94,000 generated by facilities rental, part of which comes from renting out the senior center portion of the community center complex be earmarked for that purpose rather than supporting the recreation programs. He notes that the Older Americans Act of 1979 requires the City to provide support for seniors although no mandatory dollar amount is required by the Act. He suggests that SASCC could take over maintenance of the senior center and the rental of the senior center and its associated revenues or they could contract with the City to do the rentals for them. Perhaps the City and SASCC could work together on such an approach. He indicates that SASCC could live without the $18,000 for 1997-98 because of good market results on SASCC's investments but that can not be assured in future years and provision should be made to provide such funding again in fiscal 1998- 99. Recreation Director Pisani states that since all the cost of doing rentals is charged to the recreation budget, the revenues from those rentals do flow to the Recreation Service Fund. Venise Taafe speaks. She states that the City needs to keep the Recreation Department. There are 300 children registered in the various dance programs alone and involves more that 1,000 people when the families who are part of the program are included. Recreation is a part of why people move to Saratoga; it adds value to homes and to the lives of the people who live here. She asks the City Council to consider how many people doing away with the Recreation Department would affect. She suggests that cuts be limited to those programs City Council Minutes 2 February 20, 1997 which do not pay for themselves such as the Teen Programs and the Volunteer office. Darryl Becker speaks. He stat~s that he represents the Hakone Foundation and that shortly it wil,1 be presenting a formal proposal to the City to take over complete 6peration and maintenance of Hakone ;;::;Z'.;:;;;;/;;fiZ.*";Z e. the City's Youth Commission and stresses the importance of the Warner Hutton House after school program and the contihuance of the Youth Commission. She asks the Council to please keep t~ese programs even though they do not break even. TheSe programs let kl~s get involved in a positive way in the community and teaches them how to be responsible leaders for the future. There being no further comments ~rom the general public Mayor Moran indicates it is now time for Counail co~ments. Councilmember Bogosian states that after tonight he hopes the City Manager will have received sufficient direction to put the budget together. He thinks the City should keep public safety whole, leaving police services at the current level. He believes costs can be cut by reducing personnel costs and reorganization of the staff. He suggests that public works and environmenta~ services could be consolidated and that upper and middle management ppsitions can be cut as a result. He believes that cuts should be made in long range planning. He believes that the time interval for street!and park maintenance activities can be increased. He is against the ~ale of any city property, including the parks. He believes that the istaff needs to look at ways to cut costs for recreation personnel but~wishes to save the department as an operating department for the City.] In the area of public safety he s~ggests the schools be asked to help to pay for crossing guards and the School Resource Officer, but he would prefer to keep the crossingSguards, especially at Saratoga and Fruitvale Avenues. He suggests that the sheriff assume code enforcement dutyinstead of keepin~ the Community Service Officers. He feels the City needs to look at recovering total operating costs where possible. He believes the City should look into marketing and renting all City property at fair market Trent. He suggests that management perks such as car allowances And housing assistance should be discontinued. Councilmember Jacobs states that the City needs to define what essential services are; that for n6w cost should be disregarded so that the Council can focus on whether a~service is a mandate and whether the City can exist without it as a City. That is, such things as finance, planning, streets, law enforcement!are all central to the existence of a city. Then decisions should be ~ade as to how much to spend on each essential service. If there is money left over, either return that money to the taxpayers or provide ' some level of discretionary services. One criterion for considering th~ funding of discretionary services should be whether they are self isupporting. The City should also consider ways to use private or non-profit agencies to take over the provision of discretionary, noneessential services and that this transfer should be planned to be ~phased in over the next year to be complete by fiscal 1998-99. Councilmember Shaw states the fact!that this budget building process is iterative needs to be kept in mi~d. He feels that the City should prepare a worst case scenario first, that there should be no reduction in the minimum general fund balance requirement, and that windfalls should not be counted on to make things better. He agrees with the idea of keeping the sheriff services up but hopes .that the City will pursue cost red~ctions with the new contract. While he feels the School Resource Officer is very valuable, and a number of letters from the schools have so i~dicated, he would hope that they are supportive enough to help with ~he funding of the Officer in the future. As for code enforcement, ~he feels that an approach of benign neglect should be utilized, excep%where a squeaky wheel exists, and such problems can be assigned toithe sheriff to handle rather than City Council Minutes 3 Februa~ 20, 1997 continue to have the Community Service Officers on staff. He believes the City should keep a high level of recreation services. Rather than destroy the program, charge the department with the task of becoming full cost recovery for operations in fiscal 1997-98 and to increase indirect cost recovery in future years. If necessary, reduce staff to keep pricing competitive with other agencies. He suggests that the Council consider reducing its monthly stipend by 20% if management perks are going to be reduced. Vice Mayor Wolfe states that while he supports continuing the current level of law enforcement that does not means that costs can not be cut somewhere in that budget. He asks if the School Resource Officer is really that essential except for public relations purposes for the sheriff? He feels that maybe the City should try an approach where all budget areas are cut 15%, because if law enforcement is sacred, then other services will be hit much harder. He suggests there is a need to look at a time frame for transition to the reduced organization and/or privatization where that might make sense. Mayor Moran states that in her mind it is helpful to approach this problem as if Saratoga was a new city. If that was the case what would essential services be, then costs would be considered. It is her view that essential services can be prioritized as follows: 1. Public Safety-police 2. Public Works-streets, medians, parks 3. Planning-environmental services 4. Maintenance and replacement of infrastructure 5. General Administration-finance 6. Debt Service Repayment-as soon as possible She notes that the fiscal 1997-98 revenue picture will not represent the long term reality. The 1998-99 revenue picture will do that, and it will be less. She agrees that the City should not plan to count on restoration of the Tax Equity Allocation money, or any other windfall. She feels it is important to keep the commitment to future capital projects. She does not feel that it is a priority for the staff to search for new revenue. She believes that the budget needs to continue to be balanced each year. She believes this means to keep the $2 million reserve policy. She favors keeping the 3% contingency in the budget. She suggests that parks be relandscaped where doing such will reduce maintenance costs. She favors working with the Hakone Foundation to revise the relationship to reduce City costs for maintenance. Council then set their budget priorities and instructions using the Service Priority List handed out to all attendees at the start of the meeting. Generally the priorities were that Public Safety, Environmental Services, Public Works, Debt Service, General Government,Intragovernmental Services and Capital Projects were essential, while Community Services and Community Support were not. Specific decisions in various programs included, seeking school assistance for funding the SRO and crossingguards, reduce the level of code enforcement, reduce the level of most planning activity, reduce street maintenance by developing a medium range scenario, explore the alternative way to deal with sidewalk, curb and gutter repair, improve medians to reduce cost to operate and maintain, proceed to make improvements to the Heritage Orchard to privatize maintenance at no cost to the City, pursue Foundation takeover of Hakone operation and maintenance, examine further privatization of some general engineering services, reconsider LLA-i' in light of Proposition 218, reduce Recreation Services and look at transition to service by others, transfer Volunteer Office to city manager, look at total cost recovery for Cultural Services, keep Warner Hutton House program if Youth Commission can raise the money needed, use Park Development Funds to turn Warnet Hutton House attic into study center, provide no general funding for Senior Programs for 1997-98 but reconsider this decision for 1998-99, write down Civic Center COPs to the extend possible considering other priority uses for unrestricted general fund reserve, focus on housing projects for HCDA and look at ways to streamline process and cut down on staff paper work required, look at CATV costs and the cost to broadcasting City Council meetings and also whether franchise fees have any restrictions on them because of the recent Cit~ Council ~inutos 4 Februa~ 20f 1997 change in federal law relating t telecommunications, retain the 3% contingency, do not cut the City Council or Commissions budgets, make cuts in the City Manager's budget~ cut the Finance budget and look at contracting out some services, avoid incurring any new litigation expense, reduce the costs for ~the City Clerk and for Personnel Services, find ways to reduce Central Services costs, reduce costs for Equipment Operations, Fixed Asset~ and Facility Maintenance, consider Capital Projects only on a projeci specific basis. 5. Other - None. 6. Adjournment ado to February 25th at 7 PM. At 10:00 PM the meeting was j urned Respectfully submitted,