In a common municipal
practice, the Petaluma City Council often meets in work sessions. The sessions are publicly scheduled like
regular meetings, but focus on a single topic, with sufficient time for the
Council to be updated in depth.
Few citizens
attend the work sessions. At the most
recent work session, the total attendance was the City Council, members of City
staff, a reporter, and me. Yes, I was
the only member of the general public in the council chambers. It was lonely in the back rows.
It’s a shame
that more folks don’t partake of the educational opportunities. Work sessions are far more informative than
regular meetings.
In recent
months, Petaluma has held work sessions on the budget for the new fiscal year, revised
stormwater management rules, and a street maintenance prognosis. The message from all three was that municipal
finances for Petaluma, and presumably for most cities, remain precarious.
From the
session on the city budget, it’s true that the deepest trough of the recession
is behind us. The city has the revenues
to begin replenishing reserve funds that had been reduced to seriously deficient
levels.
But the
respite is short-lived. As bills that
were deferred during the recession begin to come due, such as employee benefit
and retirement costs, municipal financial projections again plummet. Within a couple of years, new deficits are
predicted. It appears that deficits that
can only be avoided if new taxes are approved, probably at the November 2014
general election. The need for new taxes
was a recurring theme of the work sessions.
The
stormwater management work session addressed the updated and expanded federal
standards for discharges to natural waterways such at the Petaluma River. Expanded standards were likely needed. We’ve made great strides in waterway health
in our lifetimes, but more can still be done.
However, some
of the new regulations will be surprises to the general public. An example is a permitting system for charity
carwashes. It seems legitimate that carwashes,
with their mountain of suds flowing down gutters toward stormwater systems, are
a threat to a waterway, but few of us had probably considered that fact.
The problem for
the city is that costs of managing stormwater regulations, including carwash
permitting, are growing beyond what can be covered by property tax revenues. City staff suggested and the City Council will
consider a stormwater management fee, much like the water and wastewater fees that
residents already pay. This new fee would
require voter approval, so is another possibility for the November 2014 ballot.
The street
maintenance work session included the pothole issue that has long bedeviled
Petaluma, starting well before the recent economic travails. The short version is that the streets won’t
be getting better. (Petaluma Patch
covered the work session here.)
Pavement
Condition Index (PCI) is the standard method for monitoring pavement
conditions. PCIs range from 0 to 100,
with results under 50 indicating pavements that are poor or have failed. An average PCI of 85 is the goal for adequately-funded
cities.
The average
PCI for Petaluma streets is 45, at the upper end of the poor range. The tax increase under consideration by the
City Council would be a half-cent sales tax, of which one-quarter would be
dedicated to street maintenance. If the
sales tax is approved at the ballot box, City staff estimated that the average
street condition in Petaluma would be in the high 30s in five years.
That’s
right, even with the maximum funding that the City Council suspects the public
might approve, the condition of the Petaluma streets would continue to decline. No one would estimate how steep the decline might
be if the new sales tax were rejected.
City staff can’t
be blamed for the street conditions. Staff
has been aggressively researching and implementing new techniques for pavement
management, increasing the maintenance that can be done with the available
dollars. I won’t call the content or
presentation scintillating, but anyone interested in pavement maintenance would
do well to watch the video of the work session.
Against this
darkening fiscal picture, it’s reasonable to ask if our cities should be doing
something differently. There are likely
a number of areas in which alternative paradigms would help. Urbanism is firmly on the list. As a Smart Growth America study
established, urbanism is a less expensive land use to service and to
maintain.
However,
many decision-makers seem not to recognize the value of urbanism. Instead they argue for more drivable suburban
development to somehow balance the books, conveniently forgetting that it was
the drivable suburban decisions of their forbearers that put us into this
mess. The direction ignores the first
rule of holes; when you find yourself in a hole, quit digging.
It’s like
that old joke about a business losing money on every transaction, but making up
for it by doing lots of volume. Except
that no one is laughing.
Urbanism
can’t fully fix what’s wrong with municipal budgets over the next decade or
two. The effect it might make, however beneficial,
would be longer-term. In the shorter
term, it seems inevitable that new taxes will be required. As a financially-aware member of the
community, I’ll likely vote for those taxes.
But I’d feel better about my vote if I knew Petaluma and other cities
were making decisions, such as a swing toward urbanism, so as not to continue having
fiscal crises into the indefinite future.
As always,
your questions or comments will be appreciated.
Please comment below or email me.
And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)
Dave, I admit ignorance about these working sessions and their value, even — I dare say — interest. I think these meetings (and perhaps other city sessions) might be appealing to some folks with a little explanation, information and encouragement in advance. You are in a good position to instigate an Urban Chat Field Trip to such an event. I'll offer to treat you to a pre- or post-meeting beverage while getting your take on "what really happened at that meeting"!
ReplyDeleteBarry, work sessions are just boring enough that I'm hesitant to encourage a group outing. However, if you haven't set up yourself to get email notifications of City Council agendas, I suggest you do so. If you then see something interesting on an agenda, check with me about hanging out together in the back rows.
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