Saratoga News

City's commissions define service priorities

By Sarah Lombardo

The Saratoga Parks and Recreation Department wasn't playing games at the city's town hall meeting on the budget last week. With rumors that many think the Recreation Department should be on the chopping block, the commission presented its case, as did all the city's commissions, before the City Council on Feb. 3. The budget discussion was continued to a town hall meeting on Feb. 20.

In an emphatic presentation, commission chairwoman Kathy Weiner refuted claims that the department is not a necessity.

"We believe strongly that the Parks and Recreation for this community should not in any way be considered optional, nice to have or whatever," Weiner said. "We believe they are basic, necessary services for the community. They're cost-recovery programs and those that are self-funding should not be considered for cuts. We believe the youth and teens are a dependent segment of the population and should be considered as such."

Weiner cited the results of a task force last year that showed youth was considered many residents' highest priority. Weiner also cautioned the city against following in the same path as other cities: "We have looked at other cities that have eliminated or dismantled their recreation departments, and to date, all of those are now looking at ways to bring their recreation departments back into their cities because it was such a crucial item within their cities."

The Parks and Recreation Commission's presentation followed on the heels of recent news that the city's Finance Advisory Committee suggested eliminating the Recreation Department. Although the FAC's original budget scenario was created late last year in anticipation of Measure L's failure at the polls, each commission and department within the city was asked last month to prioritize services, suggest cuts and report back to the city. The City Council ultimately has the task of deciding where to make cuts to accommodate the more than $1 million hole in the budget the measure's failure will cause. Measure L was a vote on Saratoga's utility-users tax, a 3.5 percent tax on residents' utility bills. The tax was defeated by a narrow margin of 77 votes.

The commissions were asked to divide services into "essential," "preferred" and "nice to have" categories and to provide reasons for their decisions.

FAC Chairman Richard Van Hoesen pointed out that the committee's recommendations were based on the City Council's determination of priorities a few years ago.

"We as a group really felt that the prioritization of city services really is one of the most important functions of the City Council," Van Hoesen said. "We were comfortable with the prioritization that was done [two years ago] by the City Council that categorized services into required and optional." But Van Hoesen said the FAC thought the new categories were much more realistic.

In its presentation, the FAC ranked public safety, street maintenance, development regulation and infrastructure maintenance as essential because they are services required by federal or state law. Capital projects were placed in the preferred category. But in an apparent move to soften its original budget scenario presented at a town hall meeting in January, the FAC declined to make any other determinations in its report, saying only that "optional services" should be determined by the City Council.

In a telephone interview, one FAC member said the committee was surprised at the negative reaction to their first set of recommendations, in which they suggested scrapping the Recreation Department, and had decided to let the council decide where to cut services.

The Library Commission listed its parking lot and building, Book-Go-Round, trailer storage for Friends of the Library, and staff support as essential; landscaping ranked as preferred and a commission budget, which commissioners said was generally $52, was deemed only nice to have.

The Public Safety Commission ranked basic patrol, traffic law enforcement, a school resource officer, police service contract administration and city commissions as essential; city codes enforcement and animal control for shelter and dead animal retrieval were deemed preferred; and city support to the sheriff's department, such as responding to traffic matters and abandoned vehicles, was ranked nice to have. Also in the "nice to have" category: crossing guards and crossing guard contract administration, senior programs, youth programs, design reviews, street maintenance, Hakone Gardens and capital projects, excluding the city's Technology Plan.

Perhaps the most surprising of the presentations was made by the Planning Commission, which suggested the city take a hard look at whether the commission needed to exist at all, ranking itself only as "preferred." Other preferred services named by the Planning Commission included staff reports as they are now prepared, the design review process, keeping current park maintenance levels and police patrolling levels. With regard to commissions, the FAC, Parks and Recreation Commission and the Library Commission ranked as preferred; the Heritage Preservation and Public Safety commissions were deemed only nice to have. The commission also decided that full-cost recovery for applications and for street maintenance were essential.

The Youth Commission deemed the Warner Hutton House essential and offered to continue fundraising efforts to fund 100 percent of the cost of the center.