Encinitas should consider hiring two other deputies to apply traffic, and has put an additional one million dollars to street reappelling and improvements in rain -sided drainage, the members of the municipal council said last week when they were starting to debate what could go in the budget of the coming year.
After several months of budgetary workshops and public hearings, the Council should vote on the expense plan proposed by the City on June 11, and the new financial year will begin on July 1.
During the first of the city’s budget meetings – a special workshop session on Wednesday – Mayor Bruce Ehlers, who was elected in November, said that he had several high priority items that should be added to the spending plan. Ehlers said that “the basic infrastructure is up there” on its list, in particular the improvements of storm drains and road asphalt.
The city generally puts aside $ 250,000 per year for improvements in storm drainage pipes, but it would like to “get ahead of the curve” and put aside $ 1 million each year for the next five years, adding that if the city was doing it, it could have its whole system revised at the end of the five -year period.
Ehlers also said that he wanted to add an additional one million dollars in the budget of the coming year for street reappeiving and $ 5 million to help solve Leucadia rainwater flooding. And, he said, he would like to double the new proposal for city staff in terms of traffic application. Instead of adding a new deputy for traffic application, the city should pay two, he said.
Encinitas contracts with the County sheriff’s office to provide city police services. A city staff report indicates that adding a traffic traffic to the contract would cost $ 450,000 in the first year. This price includes the cost of the deputy vehicle.
The Wednesday workshop was the first of the two that the Council will welcome before the city employees officially reveal the proposed budget of the city in mid-May. A second workshop is scheduled for April 23, and council members will have to make difficult choices during this event on projects will actually receive money, said city employees.
Current estimates are that there could be around 8.5 million dollars in additional money available during the coming financial year for additional projects. This estimate includes $ 6.5 million which will probably be left from the current year. Revenues from the General Fund – The fund covering the expenses of the daily city – should be $ 113.2 million in the coming year, while expenses are estimated at $ 105 million, an increase of 3.6% compared to the current year.
The member of the Council Joy Lyndes did not attend the session on Wednesday – she is on family medical leave for two months – but the three other members of the council declared that they could support the new expenditure ideas of the mayor.
The member of the Luke Shaffer council said that he was firmly in favor of “obtaining our infrastructure set”, while the member of the Council Marco San Antonio said that the improvement of Leucadia drainage problems was a good goal.
Shaffer and the member of the Jim O’Hara council, both said they wanted to put money aside for design work on several future construction projects, including a pedestrian path along Vulcan avenue. If this design work is finished, projects would be “shovel ready” when new grant opportunities are available, Shaffer noted.
The List of O’Hara funding wishes also included money for improvements at Boulevard Encinitas, including the overhaul of traffic lights, so you don’t need people like the one who lives at a mile of Moonlight Beach about 30 minutes to get to the beach when there is a lot of vehicle traffic on the road.
“We have to solve this problem,” he said.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
