|
|
|
Uploaded: Thursday, May 27, 2010, 10:17 AM
Palo Alto eyes bond to fix aged infrastructure
New task force to review city's estimated $510 million infrastructure backlog, propose ways to close the gap
|
|
by Gennady Sheyner
Palo Alto Online Staff
Two engineers, three finance specialists, four local commissioners and six volunteers-at-large at large will soon tackle one of Palo Alto's most talked about and least understood problems -- an infrastructure backlog that city officials say has risen to more than half a billion dollars.
The mission of the new Infrastructure Blue Ribbon Task Force will be both broad and technical: to identify the most critical items on the city's long laundry list of crumbling roads and obsolete buildings and to possibly pave the way for a bond measure that would go to the voters as early as November 2011. The City Council will appoint the 15-member group in the next two months and will expect a report back in about a year.
What to do about the swelling infrastructure backlog has baffled city officials for years and has become a hotter topic now that Palo Alto is facing a string of budget deficits and program cuts. The city's proposed capital budget for 2011, which City Manager James Keene unveiled in April, estimates that the gap between how much the city needs to spend on infrastructure over the next 20 years and how much it plans to spend is currently about $510 million.
This "staggering estimate," Keene wrote in his budget transmittal letter, illustrates the severity of the city's structural budget challenges. Keene also mentioned in the letter that "potential options" for narrowing the gap "could include a bond measure."
The task force is expected to add some credibility to the bond-measure discussion. One of the group's first tasks will be to probe into the city's catalogue of obsolescence and figure out which items truly belong on the must-tackle list.
"If we do end up going to the public and looking for a bond, we want to be able to demonstrate to the public that we have vetted these projects and know that we are doing the best we can on getting the projects estimated," Councilwoman Karen Holman, who helped set the composition for the new group, said at the May 17 council meeting.
One question the committee will wrestle with is whether the long list of maintenance projects should be considered for a possible bond. The hodgepodge of projects described as "maintenance" account for $302 million in the backlog and include refurbishment of local streets, sidewalks, bridges, parks and some buildings.
The other $208 million includes a few big-ticket items such as a new Municipal Service Center ($93 million), the much discussed police headquarters (about $60 million); and an assortment of smaller projects (two fire stations, a new animal shelter and major improvements to Charleston and Arastradero road corridors).
Councilman Greg Schmid argued the city does a decent enough job maintaining its streets and said the maintenance projects should not be considered by the task force. Including routine maintenance on a bond measure could undermine the council's credibility when it asks the community to help finance more substantive items, Schmid said.
Schmid's council colleagues expressed some official "concern" about using bond money for routine maintenance but decided to let the task force hash the issue out. Greg Scharff called paying for routine maintenance through a bond a "bad business practice" but said a bond should be used for major renovations or refurbishments.
"Part of the whole purpose of the bond measure is to really get back on track where we start to fix everything, come up with a plan that works and maintain it properly," Scharff said.
The council's last attempt to pass a bond measure sailed through in November 2008, when more than two-thirds of Palo Alto voters approved a $76 million bond to rebuild three local libraries.
Keene warned the council that many of the city's older streets are in major disrepair and would not be fixed through the city's General Fund, which allocates about $10 million per year for infrastructure. The proposed budget allocates $3.8 million for street maintenance in fiscal year 2011, which begins July 1. This is far less than is needed to close an "unfunded backlog" in street repairs that the city estimated to be about $13.7 million between fiscal years 2008 and 2013.
"I personally think there is a need for major reinvestment in some of our streets in the city that I don't think are ever going to get fixed through our existing programs or routine maintenance," Keene said. "Especially when you have old concrete streets that need major reconstruction."
Given the technical and expansive nature of the task force's mission, the council decided that the group should include at least two members with financial backgrounds and three engineers or design specialists. The task force would also include four members of local commissions -- one each from the Planning and Transportation Commission, the Parks and Recreation Commission, the Historic Resources Board and the Utilities Advisory Commission. Each commission would select its own representative to participate in the task force.
The committee would also include six "at large" members. The members would be selected by the City Council, which would form three three-member groups to conduct the interviews. Keene said the group would consider both the city's official backlog list and any other projects that should be on the list but aren't.
"Anything we're going to do is going to require going to the public in some fashion to raise money," Keene told the council. "We better have it right in every way -- in analysis, in selection and in what's actually on any sort of final list."Are you receiving Express, our free daily e-mail edition? See a sample and sign-up for Express.
|
|
| Comments
|
Posted by Miriam Palm, a resident of the Old Palo Alto neighborhood, on May 27, 2010 at 12:06 pm Infrastructure repairs and maintenance should be a part of our city budget every single year, and not require a huge bail-out in catch-up mode. This is an integral part of managing a city, a business, or a household. I encourage our city managers and elected officials to make this a higher priority as a routine and necessary expense.
|
|
Posted by common sense, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on May 27, 2010 at 1:04 pm I would support a bond that was paid for out of the general fund budget. This funding would be done by cutting:
- Some City Manager's office staff (do we really need 1 assistant city maanger, 2 assistant to the city manager, and a deputy city manager)?
- Make programs like the Children's theater self supporting ($1.3 million savings right there)
- Cut the management overhead so that the ratio of managers to workers is at most 1 manager/8 workers.
- Reduce the non-public safety fleet of cars
- Reform the pension benefit for new hires.
Plenty of money to pay for the infrastructure bond, without going to the voters.
Or maybe we should have a admendment to the charter mandating 10% of the general fund go towards infrasturcture projects.
|
|
Posted by Not again, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on May 27, 2010 at 1:12 pm More bonds. I just can't afford this any more. Why did we not vote this before going all out on outlandish libraries??
|
|
Posted by fireman, a resident of another community, on May 27, 2010 at 3:11 pm Welcome to Palo Alto, Put your hands in the air this is a stick up!
Tell Joe the joke as he walks the streets...
|
|
Posted by Finish San Antonio Road, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on May 27, 2010 at 3:28 pm A Blue Ribbon Task Force for infrastructure repairs is dumb. Everyone will lobby hard for repairs in their neighborhood so if a neighborhood is not represented on the Task Force it'll be out of luck.
It is the Staffs job to decide what needs to be done and where. Instead of passing it off onto a Blue Ribbon Task Force that will only argue over location of jobs.
The City should make the decisions, it's their job, quit passing the buck.
|
|
Posted by papatom, a resident of the Community Center neighborhood, on May 27, 2010 at 4:04 pm Who are the 6 volunteers, and what are their interests?
|
|
Posted by opus, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on May 27, 2010 at 4:15 pm yea! another blue ribbon committee added on top of the multiple ongoing blue ribbon committees for every major and minor project in palo alto. maybe instead of maintaining the city manager job, council should hire consultants to fill each blue ribbon committee deemed necessary to answer each and every financial or bureaucratic decision and provide direction to move the city forward. perhaps council can inform us how much this specilized team of professionals slated for the blue ribbon committe will cost and who will determine that committee members are qualified and will proceed with no biased opinions so as not to disqualify any decision or discredit their qualifications. how unfortunate for taxpayers that the top management job in the city was created and funded to make educated decisions on city matters and give direction to city council and now is being outsourced while still paying an annual salary for this top level position.
|
|
Posted by Neal, a resident of the Community Center neighborhood, on May 27, 2010 at 5:23 pm I would support an infrastructure bond, but only if the City gets its fiscal house in order first. Unfortunately, the odds of that happening is practically nil.
|
|
Posted by City Employee, a resident of another community, on May 27, 2010 at 5:34 pm As a 36 year employee that just retired, I remember that the infrastructure was in need of re-placing over 25 years ago.
We warned the city management time and time again about this fact, but they didn't take action. Same old Palo Alto.
The small city I live in has been saving for years and now they just built 3 new fire stations, a new city hall and a new huge library.
|
|
Posted by Bankruptcy is the ANSWER, a resident of the Charleston Meadows neighborhood, on May 27, 2010 at 5:58 pm This Task force is going to accomplish nothing !!!
Problem is with PENSION PLANS.
Here is my suggestion ...
STOP THIS NONSENSE of transferring money from Utilities to General Fund. File for bankruptcy - ERASE THE PENSION PLANS ....
Start OVER...
(This is the only sane thing to do)
|
|
Posted by Lee Thé, a resident of the Charleston Gardens neighborhood, on May 27, 2010 at 6:43 pm This is how you boil a frog. A frog will jump out of a pot of boiling water. So you put him in a pot of warm water, then raise the temperature incrementally.
Thus you get taxpayers to consider each element of a city's budget in isolation. After all, each element looks worthy. Schools! Library! Police! Fire! All wonderful, deserving of our support.
Families get into the red the same way. Rarely does just one thing break the bank. It's all of them put together. Because at the end of the day they're paid for out of the same pot: our income (plus, if we really screw up, our assets).
So how about a referendum on the budget as a whole? Well, cities don't like that. It smacks of having to live within Proposition 13's severe constraints.
And bonds and parcel taxes work. Palo Altans have voted for both, over and over. So despite all the naysayers on this comment thread, odds are such a bond will pass.
And the pension time bomb, and the need to share fire department services with neighboring cities and/or the county, and the idea of living up to the spirit of Prop. 13 instead of constantly trying to evade it, can all be put off another year.
Maybe.
|
|
Posted by palo alto mom, a resident of the Embarcadero Oaks/Leland neighborhood, on May 27, 2010 at 7:46 pm To pass any bond, the City will have to demonstrate:
Common Sense
Fiscal Responsibility
Even something as simple as the order of street related repairs does not happen. Rip a street up once, replace everything that need replacing/repair. Repave the street. PA method is rip it up once for every utility, never really repair the street.
|
|
Posted by Anon, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on May 27, 2010 at 11:38 pm The only sensible thing to do about *maintenance* is pay as you go. The big ticket projects (e.g. new police station) should be viewed separately. But, as City Employee pointed out -- you can actually save as you go, too, and build a firehouse or library without a bond issue.
City Employee - where do you live now? Perhaps Palo Alto could learn something from its budget process.
|
|
Posted by CHinCider, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on May 28, 2010 at 11:16 am To 'Palo Alto Mom' -
You might want to check your facts before you make inaccuarate statements. The coordinated approach to street repairs is exactly what the City DOES do, and has for the past 4 years or so. Check out the work completed in the SOFA area, the work underway in the College Terrace area, and the work beginning in the Crescent Park area. All have the comprehensive utility work done first and the paving subsequently over a period of two years or so. Ironically enough, some residents then complain that the work is to concentrated, intense, and intrusive.
It would be nice if those who criticize at least know what they are talking about, but I guess that's too much to hope for........
|
|
Posted by Amused, a resident of another community, on May 28, 2010 at 11:23 am You have a 9-member city council, that at one o-clock in the morning, derails recommendations provided them by expert residents that worked on your projects for years, now they want citizens to figure out how to solve your problems and then pay for it?
What have your representatives been doing with all the money that's come in over the years?
Council supports more remodeling on the first floor of City Hall and topping it off, they want YOU to pay for your own sidewalk repairs, while city staff micromanages how to do it.
Palo Alto is amusing. I watch it because we almost moved there. I keep telling you to move to Los Altos Hills, where it's sane. Palo Alto is no longer the community it once was.
Civic Engagement was your council's 'Top Priority' for two years, yet none of them (including your new highly paid City Manager) ever knew what it was. Do you not find that troubling?
|
|
Posted by Toady, a resident of the Old Palo Alto neighborhood, on May 28, 2010 at 2:57 pm It's the old California political approach to punt decisions to someone else so they don't have to make hard decisions so they can continue to get the votes and donations to their campaigns.
Californians are such tools.
|
|
|
| |
Best Website
First Place
2009-2011
|
Send this story
Print this story
