SLO Journal Article

By Mayor Dave Romero

 

There is a mixed message this month, the usual good news about what’s happening in SLOTOWN followed by a concern about our future.

 

Since my August article, Costco has opened and is attracting great numbers of shoppers from all over the county, the Court Street Centre stores are opened, and the 192 Space Public Parking Structure near City Hall is nearing final completion. The Margarita Specific Plan and the Airport Area Specific Plan were finally adopted after more than 10 years of study, thus allowing annexation and development to City standards. The seismic retrofit program is moving along very well without major disruptions in downtown, with numerous completions and many new businesses opening up. With 1000 housing units in City Development Review, partially supported by $600,000 in Housing Grants, we’re well on our way to putting a serious dent in our housing shortage.

 

With all this good news in our own piece of Paradise, how could there possibly be storm clouds?

It doesn’t show much yet, but primarily due to State takeaways over the past 15 years, the City has had to severely curtail many of the programs that make our City such a wonderful place to live. Our street maintenance program, flood protection and traffic congestion relief programs have been reduced to almost nothing. In recent years, the City has eliminated 25 positions. We now have exactly the same number of employees supported by the General Fund as we did in 1991, despite greatly increased needs and responsibilities. As a result, there are now reduced levels of service in almost every City department including police, fire, planning, building, administration, finance, public works and parks. Our City no longer provides the high level of service we once did.

 

We can no longer depend on the State or Federal Governments to continue with funding they have historically provided (and often mandated). Our City, and all other California cities, will have to rely more and more on our own resources.

 

The City Council has embarked on a many months long program to inform our residents of the problem. We are seeking citizen input as to which city functions are most important to them. The overwhelming feedback is that our residents don’t want to reduce ANY of our past services, and in fact, would like to see improvements in certain areas.  Since the city “belt” is already tight, improvements can only be made if additional revenue is available to our city.

 

I believe the fairest and least painful way to increase revenue is by means of an additional sales tax, approximately half of which is paid by shoppers from outside our city. Presently, our sales tax is at the lowest level allowed by the State – 7 ¼ %. If we increase the rate to 7 ¾%, our rate will still be equal or lower than the rate paid by 85% of the California population.

 

In August 2006, the City Council will decide whether or not to place a sales tax measure on the November 2006 ballot. If we do, our voters could then decide whether we continue our downward slide with lower levels of service, or alternatively be willing to increase our local tax to return city services to historic levels and again become the “Best City in California”.

 

Either way, being Mayor of San Luis Obispo is still a great job. It is just a lot more fun if we can meet our community’s pressing needs, and perhaps even achieve our highest hopes.