July 8, 2009

Now that we on the Scottsdale City Council are starting our summer break I want to let all of you know about some things we accomplished over the last few weeks.

I discussed the city budget in my last two newsletters so I will not repeat all that I said then. But I would point out that, unlike the federal government, where they count a reduction in the rate of growth of the budget as a cut, in Scottsdale our city spending will actually decrease next fiscal year by at least $63M. This will allow us to keep our city budget balanced despite the decreases in city revenues caused by the economic downturn. We accomplished this without cutting core services (we did not close any libraries or take any police, fire or code enforcement officers off the streets) and without compromising the city's reserves and contingency funds. We kept those intact to deal with the even more devastating effects of the economic downturn which I fear are yet to come.

There is plenty more to do - I for one believe that there is still plenty of fat in our city budget that needs to be cut, and I will continue working to make that happen. But we did make good progress in paring the city budget down to a sustainable size. One note of caution - all of these measures were just barely approved, so not everyone on the Council is committed to making Scottsdale city government leaner.

One piece of good news is that the State Legislature did not pass Senate Bill 1035, which would have placed a total moratorium on impact fee collection by cities for three years. This would pilfered $30 million from the pockets of Scottsdale citizens and put it right into the pockets of homebuilders and developers. Thanks to all of you who answered my call to contact your legislators to oppose this bad bill.

One very good thing that we accomplished was the formation of a Downtown Task Force. I was not happy with the Downtown Plan Update and voted against it. But I am hopeful that this new Downtown Task Force (proposed by Councilman Nelssen) will have considerable influence with the City Council regarding the details of how the Downtown Plan Update will be implemented. I am particularly optimistic about this because of the caliber of the citizens who were appointed to serve on this task force. They are true stakeholders who are well-versed in the history and issues involved.

Another City Council accomplishment which has received little notice or attention is our formation and appointment of a Charter Review Task Force. This group is charged with making recommendations to the City Council for improving and updating the City Charter, and their efforts could have a far-reaching effect on Scottsdale's future. Any proposed changes in the City Charter would have to be put on the ballot by the City Council and approved by a vote of the citizens.

To fill the task forces each Council member was allotted one or two appointments, with the Mayor additionally appointing the chair. While some have criticized this process, I believe that it is actually more democratic than the method we use to appoint citizens to our standing boards and commissions (where each appointee has to receive at least four votes from the entire City Council) because it guarantees that minority viewpoints on the Council are represented on the task force. When all of the members of a board or commission are selected by a majority vote of the City Council then only the majority viewpoint will be represented on that board or commission.

Hopefully things will be quiet over the summer break, but in Scottsdale city government you can never take that for granted. I will keep you all posted.

As always, feel free to email or call me if you have any questions or need more information.