by Garth Meyer
“This is my favorite part of the year,” Redondo Beach Councilmember Paige Kaluderovic said with a chuckle Tuesday night, as budget season got underway with a first public hearing.
In preparation, Councilmen Scott Behrendt and Zein Obagi, Jr., have been meeting with each city department head – still to come are library and I.T. – and conferred on a spreadsheet of what they would like funded for the new fiscal year.
Police Chief Joe Hoffman also gave his requests to the council, as did Public Works Director Andy Winje and Community Services Director Marc Weiner,.
The night’s subject was the city’s operating budget. Next week is capital improvements and the week after, June 17, the hoped-for date to pass a full, new budget.
Every year in May, the season starts with a proposed budget from City Manager Mike Witzansky, which includes an array of “decision packages” for councilmembers to pick and choose from, deciding to fund all of, part of or none of.
“The budget is balanced, as proposed,” Witzansky noted at the June 2 meeting. “Very few new positions in the budget.”
Police Chief Hoffman told the council he would like to fund a new municipal services supervisor, and expand the department’s social media coordinator from part-time to full-time.
An existing job opening would not be filled to help cover this cost, he said.
Hoffman also talked about continued funding for the RBPD wellness program and crossing guards.
Council discussion followed: could the rising cost of crossing guards be lessened by enlisting students to perform the task at less dangerous intersections, as Mayor Light did in his youth and new City Councilman Chadwick Castle.
Something to consider for next year was the rough consensus.
Witzansky said a full-time social media coordinator would contribute to all city departments. The police wellness program, he said, in a competitive environment to hire officers, “has (gone from) a nice-to-have to critical-to-have.”
Public Works Director Winje asked for a fuel island rehabilitation and reorganization of three jobs.
“Believe it or not, irrigation control systems are becoming fairly complicated these days,” he said.
He also asked for an annual adjustment to tree-trimming expenses, which began a discussion.
“Trees are going to grow no matter what grid they’re on,” he said.
Councilman Obagi showed a picture of palm trees on Artesia Boulevard.
“Trees on Artesia do not look like the trees on the waterfront,” he said, calling for prioritizing trimming in economic corridors.
He and Behrendt’s spreadsheet also included $60,000 to update the “Redondo Beach/King Harbor” sign at PCH and Catalina, using the new city logo and lettering.
An initial $60,000 has already been allocated to paint the sign.
Community Development Director Weiner approached the podium next, laying out a continuation of his goal to improve the department’s community service.
He said he would like to keep his two in-house building plan-checkers and outsource 70 percent of the workload to consultants, up from 20 percent. This would cut plan-review time from 6-8 weeks (“In some cases, it can take a year”) to one to two weeks, “and minor ones in a couple days.”
Witzansky was asked to weigh in.
“This model will allow us to be more effective, on a day-to-day basis,” he said.
Public comment brought more matters to potentially fund.
The new head of the Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce, Mara Santos, asked the city for fee waivers to cover added costs for security barriers along its Super Bowl 5k/10k route. Residents of a block of North Prospect Avenue demanded that attention be paid to a median, which lost its noise/safety barrier after a Public Works vegetation trimming. Residents are not happy with what replaced it.
Councilman Obagi, Jr., responded with an apology, saying he was not aware of the issue, and the city would attend to it.
The council resumes budget discussions June 10.
By law, they have to pass a new budget by July 1. ER
The budget is not balanced. They pulled $3.5M out of reserves is how I heard it sitting in the meeting. I still can’t believe ALL THE MONEY on a Logo change. Street signs, business cards, buildings, cars, websites, stationery, forms, uniforms, BIG SIGNS, banners, etc. It’s like Suja from Hermosa was running the place. SPEND SPEND SPEND. How about we get back to basics and spend on GOTTA HAVE ITEMS and push back on NICE TO HAVE ITEMS – LIKE LOGOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Agreed on the “unnecessary” costs re: the city’s logo change…60k to repaint the big King Harbor sign at PCH/Catalina!?!? Did I miss a vote on changing the cities logo which should have included all the associated costs in doing so?
In fact, here’s from the transcript of the Council meeting -” being effectively uh covered by a $3.5 million transfer from our Calpers reserve fund to cover the lion share of that expenses” RB cannot TRANSFER their was to a balanced budget – they are running a deficit.
Is there a section that discusses the building permits? Would love to know what is Redondo Beach’s plan to update all the businesses site that needs an improvement.