LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport City Council had a chance to review city staff's progress on goals and the budget process at a special Tuesday night meeting.
The council's hourlong workshop, held on the 125th anniversary of the city's incorporation, also included approval of a Type-48 liquor license that Buckhorn Club owner Logan Weiper requested as a result of his move to a new location at 150 N. Main St..
The council unanimously approved the license at the suggestion of Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen.
Rasmussen said the council was required to give its approval on the license by the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control because the agency considered the downtown Lakeport area to have a high concentration of similar licenses.
Weiper said his goal was to offer a clean, comfortable new venue for the bar.
Mayor Tom Engstrom, a retired Lakeport Police chief, said he didn't consider Lakeport to have a high concentration of the licenses. In the city of Guadalupe, where he also had been chief of police, he said there had been 27 liquor licenses within a two-block area. Rasmussen agreed with Engstrom that the city didn’t have a high concentration of the licenses.
The main part of the meeting was a budget workshop led by Finance Director Dan Buffalo.
“We're feverishly working on the budget for next fiscal year,” said Buffalo, and staff wanted to bring council in on the process.
Buffalo's presentation focused on three things – a new component to the budget covering capital improvement projects, as well as citywide goals the council had developed during a February strategic planning session and the council's own budget. He said staff wanted the council's feedback on the work so far.
Staff began doing the groundwork for budget planning in February, but March was the real starting point, Buffalo explained. Staff received workbooks in April, with Buffalo explaining, “May is really when the rubber hits the road.”
The city's first official capital improvement project budget folds into the city's operation budget, Buffalo explained. It's meant to give the city a five-year snapshot of capital projects; the goal is to eventually have such budgets with 10- and 20-year overviews.
The capital improvement project budget identifies 84 projects at a total of $15.9 million, Buffalo said.
In addition to $3.9 million in water projects and $4.2 million in sewer projects – which the city has received some federal funding to help cover – and $800,000 in dock replacements, projects range between $1,500 and $2.2 million, with average costs around $30,000. He said 61 of the projects were under $100,000. Not all are financially feasible for the city.
Among the proposed purchases are vehicles, which Utilities and Public Works Director Mark Brannigan said will include used vehicles when possible, although in some instances state air quality requirements are difficult to meet unless new vehicles are purchased.
The project list also included purchases like new water meters, which will be funded through the recently approved US Department of Agricultural Rural Development funds.
Councilman Marc Spillman questioned the need to purchase the meters. City Manager Margaret Silveira said the meters definitely were needed.
Brannigan said staff was proposing the purchase of electronic meters that can be read simply by driving by them. Spillman questioned what Brannigan acknowledged was a 70-percent higher expense for the electronic meters over manual meters.
However, Brannigan said it the extra cost would save significant amounts of labor. He said staff spends 80 hours a month reading meters.
Councilman Kenny Parlet penciled out the annual hours spent on meter reading, estimating between 9,600 and 10,000 hours. “Seems to me it's almost like a no-brainer,” he said, with the ability to recoup the meters' expense by being able to have staff focus on maintenance and other work.
Brannigan said the staff hours could be reduced to eight per month with the new meters.
Because the meters were approved in the project list submitted to the USDA, Silveira said she didn't think the city could change its projects, but she said she would check into it.
The status of city goals
The meeting then turned to citywide goals, which Buffalo said council and staff members worked on together in February.
They arrived at five general citywide goals, and as departments are developing their budgets, they are instructed to tailor their budgets to focus on those goals, he said.
Silveira went over the goals with the council.
The first goal is maintaining strong council and staff relations, and encouraging leadership development. That includes developing a succession plan for executive management members, promoting and fostering leadership development throughout all management ranks, continuing to promote and invest in training programs for staff, and maintaining the highest possible standards for the recruitment, selection and retention of staff.
Goal No. 2 is to strengthen community and regional involvement, which involves enhancing promotion and readership of the community newsletter, enhancing marketing outreach, strengthening the relationship with the county and regional groups toward the promotion of engaging in regional projects that benefit the community as a whole.
The city's third goal is to establish and promote effective public outreach efforts. The city's action items for that goal are developing social media presence and promoting civic engagement, assembling a master list of community development partners and engaging those entities on specific objectives, increasing community outreach through community policing and crime reduction initiatives, and completing development of marijuana ordinance through increased community involvement.
Fourth on the city's goals list is enhancing activities and programs to support local and regional economic development. That includes promoting, marketing and branding the city; looking for alternatives to replace the economic development efforts of the former redevelopment agency; revisiting the storefront ordinance; focusing resources and attention to improving the physical appearance of Main Street; refocusing efforts on event promotion and the development of recreation sites.
The last of the five goals is focusing efforts on infrastructure improvements, including ensuring a safe and sustainable Lakeport; developing and implementing a capital improvement program; capitalizing on efficiencies provided through technology, including updating software and the city’s Web site; and increasing focus on developing the lakefront and improving the quality of the Lake during the summer months.
Silveira asked the council members if the goals still were relevant to them, and if they believed the implementation was working.
“They all sounded so foreign when we talked about them three months ago,” but the staff already is working on them, said Engstrom.
Parlet said it was the kind of list he would like to keep on a card in his wallet or posted on a wall at work. The rest of the council agreed that they liked the list.
City staff also briefly went over the council's own $91,000 budget for the year, with Silveira explaining that they have spent about $50,000 so far.
The council's budget includes salaries and benefits, special projects, special legal counsel, travel and training and fireworks. It also covers the Lakeport Planning Commission, primarily the stipend and payroll taxes.
The city's July 4 fireworks display is budgeted at $16,500, the same as last year, said Silveira.
“It brings a lot of people to town,” said Engstrom, who added that last year was a great show.
The award of the fireworks contract will be on the next council agenda, said City Clerk Janel Chapman.
Because the Lake County Chamber of Commerce is no longer doing a campaign letter to raise funds for the event, it was suggested that the city do more outreach to local businesses to help defray the costs.
Silveira told the council that in June there will be two meetings focusing on the final budget.
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