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Sunnyvale residents faced with potential cuts to crucial services such as public safety, parks and recreation, library funding and others can have a say the next two months at a series of four council meetings designed to gather community input on priority services.
Before the meetings, city department heads will rank each of more than 200 city services according to cost and number of people served. Their rankings will include mandatory services such as public notices for meetings and nonessentials like the city's newsletter, The Harbinger.
During the first round of all-day-Saturday meetings—March 13 and 20—the council will gather these staff rankings and open up the discussion to the public.
At the second round of meetings—April 10 and 17—the council will take the information from the first two meetings and apply that to a preliminary budget prepared by the city staff. The public is invited to speak at these meetings as well.
With all the input, the council will solidify a vision for Sunnyvale, taking into account necessary services, and begin allocating funds and making cuts, using that vision as a guide.
Communications Officer John Pilger said the public's input is vital to the success of the meetings, because a tight budget forecast means potential program cuts, which will directly reduce the services Sunnyvale provides.
"This really affects quality-of-life issues, because we're talking about the services we can provide," Pilger said. "These are all issues that people can relate to, because they hit close to home."
By speaking up, residents can make sure they are heard and their needs are met to the best of the budget's ability.
"In everything the council does, they are the elected representatives of the citizens of the city, and they rely on the ongoing input of the people to know what they want or need," Pilger said. "This will give people the opportunity to comment not only on what [the council] is doing, but they'll have the opportunity to talk about what [the city] is not doing and should be doing.
All meetings are being held on Saturdays, starting at 8:30 a.m. The March 13 meeting will focus on the departments of public works, parks and recreation, finance, human resources and the office of the city manager. All meetings will be broadcast and rebroadcast on KSUN18. For a full schedule of all broadcasts, visit www.sunnyvale.ca.gov.
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