City Council Gives Support To $550,000 In Cuts

The Suisun City Council largely supported roughly $550,000 in cuts to the city budget Tuesday, all part of a “bridging” strategy designed to get the city to a point when a new Walmart Supercenter will potentially inject $1.25 million in tax receipts into city coffers in 2013.

City Manager Suzanne Bragdon has said the budget as proposed will cut in places residents probably won’t notice, including holding open vacant positions in the city, mowing city lawns every other week — instead of every week — and getting rid of things like the police K-9 dog, special K-9 vehicle and moving the city’s recreation catalogue online instead of mailing it out in hard copy.

The proposed budget will be analyzed in more detail on June 21, when the City Council will hold a public hearing and address the question of whether the city should impose a hiring freeze and re-examine city membership costs. Mayor Pete Sanchez got support to do just that Tuesday.

But Sanchez was also skeptical of the city’s bridging strategy.

“Our bridge, however, might be a bridge to financial disaster,” he said, referencing using the city’s reserves to pay for ongoing city costs. The city will maintain an emergency reserve of 23-25 percent.

Councilman Sam Derting said he appreciated staff’s hard work developing the strategy.

“Considering that other cities have had to file for bankruptcy, I think our staff has done a very good job,” he said.

City Finance Manager Mark Joseph, also a city councilman in American Canyon, where a Walmart Supercenter turned city finances around there, told the Suisun City Council that Walmart would do much the same to Suisun City.

Still, if Walmart doesn’t mitigate its environmental impacts at Walters Road and Highway 12 and get a green light to locate in town, Assistant City Manager Ron Anderson said the city would have to reach “a new normal.”

Besides Walmart, the other elephant in the room was the specter of Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to shut down redevelopment agencies across the state. The city’s budget proposal assumes redevelopment will stay intact.