But the approval didn't come easy and many still question the way the meeting was set up as well as the council's decision. Having to deal with both the downtown plan and the final budget approval at one long meeting met with frustration and anger by the public and some members of the council.

The council approved the budget and all of the city staff's recommendations in a 4-3 vote with Mayor Julia Miller and council members Fred Fowler and John Howe dissenting.

The approved budget includes restoring city funding for sidewalk repairs. But property owners will be responsible for paying for sewer repairs, which could cost up to $3,000 per owner.

The budget also includes the removal of positions from each of the city's departments, including public works and public safety. According to city manager Robert LaSala, up to seven city employees will be laid off in the next fiscal year with more to be phased out over a three-year period.

But the layoffs didn't sit well with employees who waited until after midnight to voice their opinions.

Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, deputy executive officer with the South Bay Labor Council, asked council to consider spending more time negotiating with unions to come up with alternatives to layoffs. "Give the labor movement a chance to come back in three months with recommendations," Ellis-Lamkins said.

Despite discussions with city staff, there was no clarity as to who is getting laid off, she said. LaSala has not discussed the implementation of the layoffs with the council or the unions.

But in the meeting, LaSala said that within two months, at least two pink slips would be issued. "Every effort would be made to reduce layoffs through attrition," LaSala said.

Ben Holgate, a representative of the Service Employees International Union that represents part-time workers, told the council that even one layoff is one too many. "We don't think it's asking much to defer the layoffs and have some real open communication," Holgate said.

Council member Jack Walker said, "Working with the unions to minimize layoffs seems reasonable to me."

The council decided to defer layoffs so that city staff could work with the labor unions for three months to come up with alternative solutions. However, LaSala said that the deferment will cost the city $50,000.

In addition to layoffs, the approved budget calls for a reduction in city staff hours.

If work hours are reduced, citizens can expect a reduction in service levels, said council member Howe after the meeting.

Howe's major concern with the budget and the reason he opposed it, is the reduction in service levels, especially to the public safety department.

"After working with the council over the past few months on the budget, I have come to the conclusion that this budget does not reflect my or the city of Sunnyvale's values or best interest," Howe said. The reductions to public safety represent a life safety issue for Sunnyvale citizens, he said.

The budget removed several positions including two neighborhood resource officers, one vice/narcotics detective, a fire prevention officer and two traffic officers, and it included a reduction in hours in other departments within public safety.

Steve Fisk, president of the Public Safety Officers Association said the impact will be negative and long-term.

"The public safety department has been short staffed for ten years and in the past three years, the city has reduced the staffing in many special assignments in order to make sure there are enough officers available to respond to 911 emergencies," Fisk said.

"We have been operating short in several areas with the idea that we'd eventually get staffed back up. We try to make up for it so we wouldn't have a serious impact on community safety," Fisk said after the meeting.

With the current service level reductions, Fisk said the officers don't have the capacity to deal effectively with crimes like auto burglaries, identity theft, Internet crimes and drug offenses.

"We're going to see an increase in traffic accidents, an increased crime rate, more problems in schools and more fires," Fisk said.

The council had a chance to save the public safety positions with a proposal Council member Fowler submitted that would keep positions in the public safety, public works and parks and recreation departments.

As a way to keep funding for the positions, Fowler proposed removing several survey projects assessing issues like employee attitudes and customer satisfaction with city services, as well as reducing reserve funds. This did not go over well with four of the council members.

Almost all of the members of the public who spoke urged the council to adopt Fowler's proposal.

A show of hands in the audience displayed support for Fowler's proposal.

But council disagreed on the proposal. Council member Pat Vorreiter said she did not support the proposal in totality, though she agreed with some aspects. "Our staff are more familiar with what they can cut while still maintaining the services we're accustomed to. I'm inclined to rely on their judgement," Vorreiter said after the meeting.

Vice-mayor Tim Risch said the council relies on the fiscal uncertainties fund for unexpected projects that come up during the year. Reducing the fund to $75,000 would prevent the council from having that cushion. "[Fowler's] budget proposal would have set up anywhere from a $500,000 to $1 million a year potential deficit between revenues and expenditures. Historically council has spent over $500,000 a year in unplanned expenses for the last four years," Risch said.

But Fowler said the tradeoff would be worth it and the historical pattern of council spending rainy-day money should change because of the budget crisis. "It's important that the council control its spending so we can keep our police going," Fowler said.

Council member Howe agreed. "Our streets are going to be less safe and yet we can pay for people to go around and poll the citizens ad nauseum and pay for consultants for almost every department," Howe said.

Despite overwhelming support from the audience, Fowler's budget proposal failed, with Vice-mayor Risch and council members Walker, Vorreiter and Manuel Valerio voting against it.

After the failure of Fowler's proposal, Risch quickly proposed adopting the final 2003­2004 budget as city staff recommended and the motion passed.

Risch said after the meeting that the adopted budget is a culmination of three months of planning by council and staff. "The staff recommendations had been amended many times by council and was based upon all of the process and public input," Risch said.

Vorreiter agreed. "By the time we got to the final meeting, most of the hard work and analysis had already been done," she said.

Mayor Miller, who voted against the budget, said, "These cuts don't reflect the wants or needs of the community."

And some council members and citizens are still frustrated by a city council meeting that spanned more than eight hours and dealt with two major issues. Because the downtown plan was discussed at the same meeting, those who wished to speak to the budget had to wait until after midnight to address the council.

The downtown plan was originally scheduled to be discussed on June 10, but Vorreiter requested the change because she was out of town.

"The budget had to be adopted by July 1st but we could have had a special meeting," Miller said.

Miller, Fowler and Howe said they requested of the city manager that the items be broken up into two meetings. All were either informed that the agenda could not be changed or received no response. But John Pilger, city's communications officer said no formal request was made by anyone to have two meetings. "If the council as a body had made a request, we would have looked at the issue," said Pilger.

Howe said the two issues being at the same meeting is horrendous. "I think it was set up by city staff so we couldn't have public participation. Nobody's going to come out at 2 in the morning and speak," Howe said.

But Risch believes that the inclusion of the downtown plan in the same meeting didn't affect council's decision. "The budget was not about last night's meeting. It was about the entire process. The downtown plan was a two-year process and the budget was a three month process," Risch said.

At the meeting, council member Vorreiter said that technically the public hearings closed on June 3. But since the city staff released information about potential layoffs after June 3, if the public was not allowed to speak at the hearing, they wouldn't have been able to address the layoff issue or Fowler's proposal, said Howe.

Risch said, "The cuts are painful and required some tough decisions. But the final budget will ensure the fiscal integrity of the city," Risch said.