Streit suggests giving money to Chamber, recreation dept.

By Kara Chalmers

City Council members took no action on the draft budget for fiscal years 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 at their meeting May 17, but councilman Nick Streit took the opportunity to make some suggestions.

He said that increasing the city's yearly payment of $3,400 to the Chamber of Commerce for visitor services to $10,000, as the Chamber has requested, could benefit the city.

The city pays the Chamber this amount every year, since there is no other tourist office in Saratoga. But there has been no formal contract between the city and the Chamber since 1997. The $3,400 is currently included in the section of the budget labeled "general government," according to Mary Jo Walker, the city's director of administrative services.

Streit said the Chamber could help the city by being a link between the economic coordinator the city plans to hire and the city's businesses. The draft budget includes a first-time allocation in its section called "community services" of $100,000 per year that would partly be used to hire an economic coordinator to focus on recruiting and retaining retail businesses in Saratoga.

Interim City Manager Bill Norton said that if the city enters into an agreement with the Chamber, performance criteria should be part of the agreement. Criteria could include new businesses, an increase in business license tax revenue or an increase in sales tax revenue, he said.

"I think if we give them additional money, we should have performance criteria," Norton said in a later interview. "Otherwise, there's no way to know whether we're using our money wisely."

Councilman Evan Baker asked that the matter of the contract with the Chamber and the increase in funds be placed on an agenda for a future meeting when all council members are present. Councilwoman Ann Waltonsmith and Mayor Stan Bogosian were absent on May 17. According to Norton, the budget will be changed to include $10,000, but that sum will not be spent until the council approves a new agreement with the Chamber at a future meeting.

Streit also brought up Congress Springs Park's renovations and how to fund the rising cost of the project. The city's Parks and Recreation Commission had allocated $600,000 from the over $2 million Park Development Fund, for the park renovation. It looks as if that amount won't come close to covering the total. Acting public works director, John Cherbone, estimates that the whole project will now cost closer to $1.2 million.

Streit said that in talks with the Parks and Recreation Commissioners, they agreed to transfer PDF money for the community center to cover the Congress Springs Park project. Since the city is now looking at a large-scale project entailing the community center, senior center and the whole civic center area, the $1.3 million that the commission allocated for the community center would not be enough. Walker said she would change the budget to indicate that the total funding for Congress Springs Park's renovation will come from the PDF.

Lastly, Streit raised the issue of the city's Recreation Department offering some programs that, while fun, were not bringing in revenue. He said he wanted to allocate money in the budget so that the department could again offer the hikes and tours that it used to.

Joan Pisani, the director of recreation, said that the recreation department used to offer a heritage bike tour in conjunction with the Heritage Preservation Commission, where people would tour heritage homes and Madronia Cemetery on bicycles.

"Those are things we'd never consider doing now," Pisani said.

The council will address this issue at a future meeting as well, according to Norton.

The draft budget provides for many capital improvement projects, including the Quito Road bridge replacement, park development projects, Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road enhancement and the library's expansion.

While no amount was budgeted for more playfields, a gym or a civic center area remodel, which are all projects that the city would like to pursue over the long-term, about $280,000 is allocated for short-term fixes for the community and senior centers.

On June 21, there will be a public hearing on the budget. By then, staff will have updated the draft to incorporate any changes and the council will most likely adopt the budget.

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