Watching the City’s annual budget marathons is not unlike reading tea leaves to forecast the future.

According to the meeting “wrap-up,” which is a product of the City Manager’s Office, “… The two-year budget maintains core municipal services, enhances emergency preparedness, addresses emerging community needs, avoids any new tax proposal, layoffs and furloughs, maintains city staffing levels and competitive compensation, supports critical infrastructure needs, provides resources for civic advancement, and promotes sustainability, livability, education, human capital, economic development, mobility and fiscal stability.

“…At a joint meeting of the City Council, Redevelopment Agency, and Public Financing Authority (all three
of which are comprised of the Council members), staff presented a recommendation that the Council and Agency direct staff to prepare contracts to take advantage of immediate redevelopment funding
opportunities related to the construction of Palisades Garden Walk/Town Square/Freeway Capping, the
Pico Neighborhood Library, the Civic Auditorium Renovation, the Colorado Esplanade, the Civic Center
Joint Use Project, the Light Rail Station Agreement with Expo, Pier Improvements, Affordable Housing, and design service for Fire Station 1…Council and the Agency approved (all of the proposed projects)…the bodies also authorized an agreement with Expo or Metro to provide a stream of tax increment funding for basic elements of the Downtown, Memorial park, and Bergamot light rail stations. Additionally, the costs, documents and actions, including a resolution, associated with the purchase and sale of Earthquake Redevelopment Project Area Series 2011 Tax Allocation Bonds, modification of an agreement with Stradling, Yocca, Carlson, and Rauth, and an MOU with the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District (School District) to provide a stream of tax increment funding to the School District for implementation of Phase I of the Civic Center Joint Use Project (CCJUP) were authorized….”

The two-year 2011-13 $1.27 billion budget is balanced…for now anyway, and very busy, loaded with “improvements” to fire station one, the townscape, the schools, the Expo light rail route and station sites, the Civic Auditorium, the environment, the economy, “mobility,” etcetera. In addition, the freeway will be “capped,” the Pico Neighborhood will finally have a library of its own, the Civic Center will be treated to two new parks, and there will be more affordable housing and a new Samohi-Civic Center collaborative project.

According to City Manager Rod Gould, the City is primarily a “service” agency, so about70 percent of the General Fund in the new budget is devoted to “competitive” staff salaries, benefits and pensions.

The new construction budget, about $385 million over two years, is meant, in part, to foil Governor Jerry Brown’s plan, which may or may not materialize, to dissolve local redevelopment agencies and fold redevelopment funds back into the state treasury, by assigning existing funds to new projects.

Gould said the proposed budget is notable for “relatively flat spending,” cost-cutting, and support of business development, with “amenities” designed specifically to attract it. The Council is scheduled to
vote on the budget adoption on June 21.

An ever-enlarging number of residents has protested the quantity and size of proposed commercial developments this year, but the new budget – our first streamlined, two-year, billion-dollar-plus budget, like its predecessors – fails to address their legitimate complaints in a substantive way.

Residents don’t object to a healthy economy, they object to City Hall treating their town as merchandise.