My memo below will be discussed, next Wednesday, July 28 at 2pm at the Rules Committee which includes Mayor Reed, Vice-Mayor Judy Chirco, Councilmember Nancy Pyle and Councilmember Pete Constant. This is a public meeting.

Recommendation
Direct City Attorney to prepare legally binding ballot language for a ballot measure to be considered at the August 3, 2010 Council meeting for the November 2010 election allowing residents of San Jose to vote on changing the City charter by removing charter language regarding “minimum benefit” and “contributions/ cost sharing” in regards to pensions (Sections 1504 and 1505). Removing this language would allow the flexibility to negotiate a 2nd Tier pension for new employees whose hiring date is after January 1, 2011. This proposal would not change current legally vested benefits for existing employees. 

From time to time I have talked about outsourcing certain city services to save money—so the city can use the money saved on core services we provide to the community. When I first introduced a pilot program for outsourcing park maintenance at the Rose Garden Park in 2007, the council (except for Mayor Reed) shrugged off my idea.  Now, the topic of how to provide services to San Jose residents with limited revenue is being discussed. For example, the city was able to open some of the pools that were due to be closed because the city outsourced to private organizations which are less costly.

Hope your Fourth of July holiday was fantastic. On June 29, prior to the holiday the Council made the final vote for a balanced budget. More than 20 people spoke at the Council meeting and all but one advocated that the Council not outsource janitorial services but rather keep the janitorial staff employed, since they provide an incredibly valuable service. You would have thought janitorial was listed in the city charter by the speakers’ comments.

The final-final vote for the budget is tomorrow, to enact appropriations. Much work goes on behind the scenes with our budget office. Each time a change is made it is an arduous effort to balance the books and calculate the impact on the budget.

If there is a compensation cut in a private sector, it is simply a reduction off the top of base pay — that is easy to calculate. However, when we have unique requests from labor unions that require municipal code changes or legal interpretations of the city charter, it gets complicated.

The two city council meetings held last week regarding the budget and labor negotiations demonstrated the need to make all labor negotiations public. If you are interested, you can click on this link and see for yourself the drama and trauma that took place that still does not have closure. This week’s meeting, June 22, will hopefully close this chapter.

Monday: Medical Cannabis Outreach Meeting
The first outreach meeting regarding medical cannabis collectives was held Monday night at City Hall. Even though the meeting was held late in the process, it was well attended with over 150 people. There were two main groups present: residents and collective patients. Not one person spoke against compassionate use of medical marijuana in San Jose, however, both groups agreed that the locations should be away from schools, parks, daycare centers, etc. Last October, when I initially brought this issue to the Rules Committee, I advocated that we restrict where collectives can locate and include setbacks from locations like schools, etc.

It is the City of San Jose’s process that City Manager Debra Figone puts forth a budget proposal in May. Then, after that is released, councilmembers make their budget proposals to Mayor Chuck Reed.

When the Councilmembers make written suggestions of their “budget wants,” they also need to include what funding source within the city will be affected (some written suggestions from councilmembers are done in collaboration with labor unions).

Then, the Mayor takes into consideration the City Manager’s budget proposal and the Councilmember’s suggestions, and comes up with a final budget. 

Of course, a mayor could put together their own budget without this input, but it is customary that the mayor takes other perspectives into consideration. 

As you may know, I created a budget web survey which I shared with you on May 10. The survey was open to everyone and closed yesterday afternoon. More than 1,000 people participated with more than 400 written comments. Thank you for participating

The Good News: The City has a counter offer from seven out of 11 unions to take a temporary reduction in compensation (by paying more of their pension contribution temporarily on a pre-tax basis). The Not So Good News: The offer is equivalent to $14.6 million of the $118 million deficit, thus layoffs and service cuts are inevitable.

The “Not So Good News” reminds me of what Bob Brownstein said at the meeting I attended about the budget deficit hosted by the labor unions last month: “Layoffs are unavoidable since the deficit is so large.”

In 1993, city staff began looking at selling the Municipal Water system, which the City of San Jose currently owns. Municipal Water covers approximately 10 percent of the city serving portions of Council districts 2, 4 and 8. The main service provider, San Jose Water Company, a private company, provides approximately 80 percent of San Jose residents with water. The remaining 10 percent of water is provided to residents in District 2 by another private company, Great Oaks Water.

This year, the San Jose City Council is forced to make drastic cuts. Unfortunately, the city of San Jose has had a deficit for the last decade even before the Great Recession. In fact, even without the recession, San Jose’s financial obligations are significantly higher then revenues coming into the city.

As a result current elected officials are left with trade offs often having to pit necessary services against each other. This year the deficit is $118 million. This is more then the entire library, transportation, planning, code enforcement, information technology, city attorney and public works departments combined.

I hope your weekend was enjoyable. I wanted to let you know that I believe that you have a very difficult job and I wanted to say thank you for your nearly 30 years of service to San Jose.

Managing an organization of approximately 1,400 people, public or private, is a challenge. It is impossible to make everyone happy internally or externally all of the time, or even some of the time. Overseeing a Police Department is one of the most difficult and demanding jobs one could have because of the high level of public scrutiny. As I have heard you say many times at the police academy graduations; wearing the police uniform puts the officer in the spotlight and all eyes are on the police officer. Our police are judged by everything from their words to the tone of their voice to body language.

With the retirement of Assistant Chief Katz there is a void in the police department leadership ranks.

Last week I attended evening budget meetings in Districts 3 and 5. The center of our city (District 3) had a high turnout from residents who find great value in community centers. Particularly, the Gardner and Washington Community Centers. Both facilities provide a place to go and where residents can be positively impacted. Classmates and friends of mine from Willow Glen High grew up in the Gardner area, formerly known as “Barrio Horseshoe.” It was a problematic neighborhood with many gang issues.

Last Wednesday night, the Public Safety committee held a special meeting regarding our police officers. The city manager began by sharing the amount of effort and outreach that has transpired the last few months with city initiatives with regards to our police department.

For the last two years, certain individuals have been lambasting our police force with charges of racial profiling and excessive force. Our police force has more than 400,000 engagements a year with San Jose residents and 99.8 percent of those have no complaints

Last week, I attended budget meetings in council districts 9 and 10 as well as the labor unions’ budget meeting at the Tully library. The people that attended this meeting were mostly union members and city council staff. It was admitted at the meeting that significant layoffs were inevitable since the deficit is enormous.

Ideas were presented on what money-saving measures could be implemented and what new sources of revenue could be found to balance the $118 million budget gap. Ideas ranged from replacing natural lawns in parks with artificial turf (lower ongoing maintenance costs, but more costly upfront) to turning down the air conditioning at city hall during the summer.

Last week, the Council finally discussed my memo and voted to have staff come back with a draft ordinance for final review regarding medical cannabis. Currently, 14 states have legalized cannabis for medical purposes and 14 other states are considering legislation now. I attached a memo from the US attorney general saying that the federal government will recognize state laws regarding legalization of medical cannabis and additionally, I provided an 11-page document from State Attorney General Jerry Brown that provides guidelines to municipalities on implementing ordinances that regulate medical cannabis collectives/cooperatives.