The Hercules City Council inched closer to balancing its 2012-13 budget Tuesday night. With a June 30 deadline to adopt the budget approaching, the council held additional meetings this month to discuss the budget.
Tuesday, it considered ways to cut costs and raise revenues to bring the budget gap down from $1.5 million as of early June. Some of the measures the council discussed to close the gap included raising fees for city services, putting a tax on pot dispensaries and speeding up city-owned land sales.
The council is scheduled to meet again before the end of the month to adopt the budget. City Manager Steve Duran said he will meet with city employee unions to negotiate compensations between Tuesday and next week’s council meeting.
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the Council unanimously adopted a nepotism policy, while pushing back a decision to adopt a whistle-blower policy for further discussion at later a meeting. Both policies were vetted through the Legal Ad Hoc Committee, with resident Jennifer Ways chairing the committee.
CITY COUNCIL REPORTS AND RESOLUTIONS
1. Conduct Discussion And Consider Adoption Of A Whistle-blower Policy (Continued from June 12, 2012) -- Discussion pushed back to a later meeting.
2. Review And Consider Adoption Of A City Policy Prohibiting Nepotism And
Cronyism In Employment And Contracting (Continued from June 12, 2012) -- Approved 5-0.
7:40 p.m., CITY MANAGER REPORTS AND RESOLUTIONS
1. Adopt A Resolution Authorizing The Expenditure Of An Amount Not To Exceed
$357,727.00 To Fund Lighting And Landscaping Services City-Wide For Fiscal Year 2012/2013 And Awarding The Contract To D&H Landscaping With The Execution Of Said Contract Subject To Budget Approval (Continued from June 12, 2012) -- Approved 5-0
2. Receive Report And Conduct Discussion Regarding Proposed Planning Fee Revisions In 2012–13 Master Fee Schedule And Provide Direction To Staff -- Pushed back for action at a future meeting.
Comments on item 2:
-Brent Marin, Bayside residents are eager to come up with a parking plan "that would be fair to all the residents."
-Selina Williams, "Our city can use some aesthetic uplift...(our environment) can be enhanced with (public art)."
3. Receive Report And Conduct Discussion Regarding Proposed Fiscal Year 2012-13 Budgets And Proposed Additions, Deletions And Adjustments To The Master Fee Schedule --
7:20 p.m., CONSENT CALENDAR
1. Authorize City Hall Closure For The Week Of 4th Of July And Authorize the
Cancellation Of All August City Council Meetings (Continued from June 12, 2012)-- Approved 5-0 with an amendment to close for a shorter period of time.
2. Adopt A Resolution Approving A Cooperation Agreement Between The City Of
Hercules And The Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA) For The Use Of
Measure J Expenditures Related To The Intermodal Transit Center (ITC) Project And Authorizing The City Manager To Execute The Agreement And Any Ancillary
Documents Necessary To Implement The Agreement And The Intent Of This
Resolution, And To Take All Other Necessary Actions To Implement The Agreement (Continued from June 12, 2012), Approved 3-0
7:10 p.m., PUBLIC COMMENT (If your comments were missed or cut short, please add them under this article page).
Lori Chinn, “I commend the council and the staff for all the work they have done…this is a very difficult time…It’s not the ideal situation, but I support the sale of Parcel C…In any city, there are going to be disagreements and different points of view.”
Sarah Creeley, Please reconsider the DeNova decision. Wants a detailed EIR for the apartments planned to be developed on Parcel C.
Ken Morrison, A workshop about Parks and Rec will be held this Thursday at the Swim Center to raise funds for Parks and Rec…
Cindy Rasmussen, Parcel C, I’m fully aware how difficult all of decisions are for all or you…I really admire the effort your putting in…I think we’re faced with terrible, terrible choices…just like we have to balance our personal budgets at home, I think that the Parcel C decision is not what we all would have liked, but…we have to pay off our debt…given all of that, this decision was the best that it could be. I just want to say that I support the very difficult decision that you’ve made…
Art and culture are what makes places special. Public art is part of what distingishes the special places from the mediocre places. Look at Napa, Sonoma, Sausalito, pretty much everywhere, they have public art. Hercules, not so much. Ugly suburb. How are we supposed to attract "high end renters" to a community without art (art less!). All great cities/places are defined by the art and architecture. It's not just about shopping! There is no comparison between the waterfront deal where the developer owns the land and has extended millions of his own $$ for the project and been yanked around for 10 years. To say that the negotiation to remove the art fees for Anderson set a precedent for the others is ridiculous! That was not a PSA. To say that we can not afford a public art program that is paid for by development fees is ridiculous. BTW, $8mil is not a lot of money for art for an entire waterfront development. Having a public art program will bring employment to Hercules by bringing artists into our midst and the program administrators, paid for with the public art funds. The children could participate in mural projects with public art funds. Public spaces could be beautified.
Even mentioning the police department in this context is again, ridiculous! There is no impact (except maybe positive changes in the environment which in turn has been shown to create much public benefit) on the funding or resources for the police department. We should not remove this important element from our city planning.
The council wants to research installing a LED advertising sign and at the same time consider eliminating fees for art. If all we create is more suburban drab, fewer people will want to live here. Why bother stopping by?
So, maybe one day, I will be able to hopefully take the Ferry home from my place of employment in the Big City and walk from the (ITC) to my front door. I will walk down empty sidewalks and look at drab beige apartment buildings. continued below
Once home, I will then sit down at the dinner table with my wife and eat Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes’ with Knoor’s Brown gravy and wash it all down with Red Cool-Aide. We will sadly look at each other and ask, 'what happened' to Hercules? It was such a nice place when we moved here in 2006. Remember what the Bayside, Baywood and Promenade neighborhoods looked like when they were new and the promise that Hercules held? coninued below
On the Cannabis tax, I recently found out that we do indeed have a dispensary in Hercules, located in a medical building. The products they distribute/sale are in forms that are fully intended to be, medicinal. Since a medicine is not taxed, I don't know why that is on the list for revenue generation/taxation, unless they have something else in mind, in which case you would have to legalize Cannabis in all of its forms FIRST, including the "non-medicinal" forms. Carrying that fantasy forward (I have no idea who recommended it), once that happens Hercules can make millions of dollars by supporting a new industry. Just think how many green houses on the unsold parcels and the abandoned properties (that the city can claim by imminent domain) can be built, employing local people, to grow, harvest and sale product produced right here, with their own brand, HERCULES! For all the libertarians out there, please do not get your hopes up.
I agree a little art in Hercules would be really nice I'd much prefer it to a giant LED sign.
What a fantastic idea! Let's put up some green houses and get the City back in the GREEN! Could you just imagine if the City could actually do that. They would be totally out of debt in a month.
I'd love to meet you. Meatloaf, coming from someone who means well, would be great.
Hercules Patch Kent Von Aspern 9:37 am on Tuesday, June 19, 2012 "Now if we could just get [Glenn Abraham] to stop flinging his feces all around the Patch..." My goal is the opposite. My goal is to make the Hercules Patch into a valuable forum, in which the community can express their opinions and desires, and in which information can be shared, so as to compensate for the embargo on information coming out of the city manager's office. Because of the opacity of the council and city hall, we need this forum; but, this forum cannot be useful if it cannot be trusted. The articles written by the Patch journalists are generally accurate and of good quality. The problem is with the comments posted in response to the articles. The posting of opinions poses no problem. Even the posting of opinions based on false facts can be rendered harmless: "The new council is doing the best they can" can be, with a generous adjustment...downward...for the abilities of the councilmen, made truish. The problem comes when people post factual information, and that information is false.
One Patch poster, who goes by the tag of "Carol", has said she is "afraid of" me. Another, Kent von Aspern, has called me a bully. If Carol is frightened that I will expose the falseness of her information, then she should be, so long as she fails to do the requisite factchecking prior to posting. So, too, is it appropriate for Kent von Aspern to feel bullied if he continues to post facts without prior factchecking. All they need do is to check the accuracy of their comments prior to posting. I do. We all should. And if they won't do it, I'll do it for them. Personal invective, feces-flinging, is also a drag on the Patch, because it turns readers away. The taunters are there..."the sky is falling, the sky is falling!!!!!!!!! why are you not there?????? you have so much to say!"...but I can't do much about that. I can, though, do something about misinformation and disinformation, about people who seem to remember things which never happened.
On a personal note: everybody is welcome on this distribution list, whether they agree with me or not; but, I do not want to send these emails to people who do not wish to receive them. My intent is to be informative, not intrusive. Maybe informative + a bit persuasive. Three people have asked...two of them very politely...to be removed from the list. Please let me know if you do not wish to continue receiving these emails. I had expected this to be an occasional thing, but I've been writing more than I had expected. For those who are reading this in the Patch, but who are not on the distribution list, and wish to be: please phone me at 510.245.1924, and leave your email address. Thank you.
Thanks Taint and Annie R.