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Palo Alto Online

A vote on bloat?

by Bill D'Agostino

The city's 508-page, $121 million budget has become a big player in this City Council election, drawing divisions between some challengers who think the city is bloated and incumbents who defend their decisions.

The majority of the six challengers argue the current City Council has not been a good steward of the city's finances, allowing the budget to escalate rapidly while failing to repair city infrastructure.

"Money has been wasted," candidate Harold "Skip" Justman said plainly.

Constant criticism of the bureaucracy's size over the years has placed three of the four incumbents in a tricky political position. They have to defend the budget they've recently approved, while also demonstrating that they are looking for ways to trim the organization's fat.

The city's general-fund budget has grown from $90.2 million in 1997-1998 to $121 million in 2003-2004. That pays for police and fire services, five libraries, numerous art and recreation options, and public works and planning departments, as well the programs' administrators (The City Council also oversees a $224 million utility operation.). The number of employees has also increased slightly during that time, from 1,076 positions in 1997-1998 to around 1,100 today.

In that period, the city has had to pay increasing salaries and benefits to predominantly unionized employees. It has also begun a few new programs including a new shuttle system, new youth camp classes, improvements to infrastructure, and numerous services sold to other cities.

Challenger LaDoris Cordell points out that Palo Alto spends a lot more per resident than the cities of Menlo Park and Mountain View. "If I go to Mountain View, we're not exactly in the ghetto," she said. "I have a problem with there being that large a budget."

Challenger Ronny Bar-Gadda asserts that the city has "become an entity that really ignores the interests of citizenry."

"This is not disparaging of the city," he said. "This is the normal growth of a bureaucracy."

When Bar-Gadda first came to Palo Alto in 1982 the city had a few hundred employees, he pointed out. "It operates less effectively now with 1,100 then it did back then."

The majority of the incumbents and the city's administrators, of course, don't agree there has been mismanagement. The reason the city spends more money than other cities, they argue, is because it has more well-loved services to manage than the other cities, such as five libraries, eight fire stations, two community theatres, an art center, a children's museum with a zoo and 4,000 acres of open space.

City Manager Frank Benest pointed out that the city has a AAA bond rating (the highest possible), healthy reserves, and recently won a prestigious award from the state for its effort to reduce the bottom line during the downturn. Despite dramatically failing revenues, the city maintained core services by cutting 40 positions through attrition, he added.

"There should have been a parade," Benest said.

Incumbents echo Benest's comments, at the same time trying to show their commitment to removing any bloat that might be in the budget.

Mayor Dena Mossar and Vice Mayor Bern Beecham, both seeking re-election, point out that they recently requested an audit of the city's largest department, the Community Services Department, to root out any staffing redundancies.

"There's always room for improvement, and it's our responsibility to find it," echoed Councilwoman Judy Kleinberg, who is also running for re-election.

Still, Mossar argues that the number of employees is not the essential issue. "What the public wants is its services and facilities," she said. "That's the bottom line, can you deliver services and facilities."

The challengers' assert that the council isn't listening to what resident's want. Adding to the challenger's arguments is the fact that major expansion or renovation projects have fallen by the wayside. Two recent ballot measures floated by the city -- one to expand and repair two of the city's libraries and one to improve the storm drains -- failed to get voter approval. And the city's police headquarters is woefully small and inadequate, with no plan to rectify actively proceeding.

When candidate John Fredrich smells stinky, raw sewage outside of Whole Foods grocery story, he blames the city.

"I think we have much more talent here than the quality of our product would indicate," he said of the way the city spends it money.

The emphasis on infrastructure is ironic, given that the sitting council - unlike past elected officials -- has made quite a strong financial commitment to this area, even during the recent downturn.

In 2003-2004, the city's is set to spend approximately $10.9 million to repair the city's assets. By contrast, only $5.8 was spent in 1997-1998, typical of the early and mid-1990s.

This year alone, the city's animal shelter will be renovated and expanded, the air conditioning at Cubberley Community Center will be replaced, sprinklers will be installed in the Junior Museum and Zoo, and the city will spend nearly $2 million maintaining streets and approximately $1.9 million repairing sidewalks.

Councilwoman Nancy Lytle -- the sole incumbent running for re-election who did not vote for the most recently approved budget -- argues that the order of these projects has been dictated by staff, not by the community's most pressing needs.

"If we're going to improve facilities, we should start with those the community places the highest priority on," such as libraries, she said.

At the same time, Lytle argues that the council's spending on infrastructure has been the greatest success during her term on the council.

"When I ran four years ago, you saw many more trees marked with a red spot than you ever saw trees planted," Lytle said. "Now when you drive around town, you actually see new trees being planted. That's very heartening."

Everyone running for council does agree the city's budget is not likely to improve in the future. The state's large deficit threatens to take away local funds, employee benefit costs are escalating, and the local economy doesn't seem to be turning around.

"In the past we've been able to rely on our innate wealth," Mossar said. "I think those days are gone."

E-mail Bill D'Agostino at bdagostino@paweekly.com Weekly editor Jay Thorwaldson contributed to this report.