At the upcoming Aug. 7 City Council meeting, the discussion will focus on how to prioritize city spending IF revenues increase. So, in the example below, if revenues increase by $10 million—either by revenue growth or tax increase—this is how I think it should be spent by percentage.

I predict going forward that groups sponsoring ballot initiatives will be a constant part of the political landscape in San Jose, similar to the outside funding of planning department ordinances by third parties to move forward on regulations. The minimum wage initiative recently gathered and submitted the required signatures last week, and action will be taken at the May 22 City Council meeting. A library initiative is also in the process of gathering signatures for a November election.

A citizens signature drive is underway to secure a certain percentage of the budget for our libraries. This would replace the library parcel tax set to expire in 2014. If enough signatures are collected, the measure could be placed on the ballot in November. Last month, I proposed examining and collecting data for setting a certain percentage of the budget—higher than today’s percentage—for the police department. Perhaps we could combine the ideas and set a percentage of the budget for police and libraries.

Just when things seem to be going better for Mayor Chuck Reed, with a solid council vote on his pension reform ballot measure and his first-ever projected budget surplus, his predecessors have to go and steal his thunder. Instead of waiting for Reed to follow through on his plan to open four new libraries that closed the day construction stopped, former mayor Susan Hammer and council members Frank Fiscalini and Trixie Johnson trotted out their own plans to save libraries—show-offs.

Chuck Reed released his 2012-13 budget plan Friday, and for the first time in his six years as mayor he finally has the opposite of a budget shortfall. City staff says there is a $10 million surplus for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1, and with that money the mayor said in a statement that he wants to open four libraries and a community center, allocate $2 million to gang prevention programs, and invest in street repairs.

Recently, a SJI columnist who also is a city councilmember suggested that libraries should be staffed with volunteers to avoid closure and increase hours of operation. I applaud this outside the box type of thinking, but why stop at libraries?

Due to flat tax revenues and escalating pension costs, the city of San Jose has been forced to cut library hours year after year as well as make million dollar sacrifices in all other city departments. Even with all of the eliminations, San Jose continues to have a budget deficit. We need to re-examine the current delivery model for San Jose libraries and seriously consider how we can incorporate volunteers to fully maximize the hours of operation at all of our libraries.

A poll in the Merc asks readers to vote on which proposed budget cuts they would least like to see. The options include cutting back on the police and fire departments, closing community centers and pools, or cutting funding for Christmas in the Park. It also includes reducing the days that local libraries operate to just three per week.

The latter would be tragic. How many people realize that the San Jose Public Library system ranks Number 1 among the ten biggest cities in the United States—even higher than such famous systems as the New York Public Library.

Last week, at the city council meeting, I removed an item from the consent calendar on the agenda for discussion. As you may remember from my blog about San Jose’s million-dollar golf nets, consent calendar items do not have individual discussion, but rather are voted on all at the same time. If one wants to discuss a consent item, you have to “remove” it for discussion.

The item I removed was asking $993,876 for the library to spend over the course of seven years on an online tutoring service for kids.