Candidates: Expanding Revenue, Cutting the Budget

Seven candidates. Three open city council seats.
With Election Day this Tuesday, we’re giving voters the opportunity to get to know their candidates for Glendora city council.

Editor’s Note: Patch sent a reader question to each of the seven candidates to answer. Six of the seven candidates submitted answers to this week’s Candidate Q&A. This is the last installment of the Candidate Q&A series.

Question: In this time of recession, cities are looking at their budgets in terms of revenue and expenditures. Name 1-2 areas that you believe the city has not yet tapped into or fully explored that would help generate revenue for the city and why. Also, name 1-2 areas you believe the city should look into to cut expenditures and why.

Joe Santoro
During the past three years the city has made serious cuts in staff and services. Now we must identify budget items that we can reduce and/or eliminate. However, it would be premature to suggest cuts without input from staff, council members and the community because they will be impacted by the changes.

I recommend the formation of an Economic Development Commission charged with bringing together members of our community to work with city staff to reach outside of our city for companies to relocate to Glendora - and inside to encourage and fully assist existing businesses in upgrading their property and businesses potential.

We need to streamline and modernize the current building permit process into a smoother and less resistant process while maintaining strict standards on the design and development of existing and future facilities.

We also need to encourage and solicit the relocation of workforce businesses, call centers, technology companies, etc. to support our current commercial districts, keep business in town to develop a vibrant daytime population that will be good for our business community and our tax base.

John Fields
Our city employees, at all levels and in all departments and divisions, are our best resources for how to improve the city’s operation. I’d suggest we survey or challenge all our city employees for specific ways to increase revenue and/or decrease expenditures. I’d offer them a financial incentive for ideas that were considered feasible and that were ultimately implemented. That incentive might be a one-time payment of 10 percent of the documented amount of either the increase in revenue or savings for an idea that has a one-time effect and perhaps 15 percent or more of the documented value of an idea that has an ongoing annual effect. We need to reward creativity and innovation.

I believe that individuals and/or groups using city-owned/city-maintained facilities and programs should pay their fair share. The concept that I’m a taxpayer and therefore I’m already paying for my use of these facilities and/or programs is just no longer fiscally feasible. Many of Glendora tax payers use very few, if any, of the city’s various facilities and programs throughout the city.

Erica Landmann-Johnsey
The city needs to actively search and work on recruiting unique small businesses and small chains to operate in Glendora -businesses that are not found in the neighboring communities. We are Glendora, we need to become a destination point for not only the Glendora residents, but also for the surrounding communities as well. We need to work on filling the vacant buildings throughout Glendora, rather than knocking them down.

Another concept would be to work on stream lining the process businesses need to go through with the planning department if they would like to make structural improvements, etc. to their place of business. The city needs to work with the businesses, not against them.

Some possible cuts to the city's expenditures would be to consider eliminating city employee car allowances, as well as reconsidering the practice of some of the city employees' pre-paid cell phones. The city needs to revisit all the contracts as well, in order to see which services could be done through the city and which services need to go out to bid again in order to get the best possible price for the service.

Judy Nelson
Sales and property taxes provide the majority of our income. In time, the Monrovia Nursery Housing project will increase property tax revenue. Also, sales tax revenues will increase as the economy recovers. We must focus on bringing new, viable businesses to Glendora, while assisting our existing businesses in their continued success. I believe an Economic Development Commission could help us prepare and execute a plan to achieve these goals.

Glendora will be renegotiating the sworn police officers' contracts in June. All aspects of their contract will be reviewed. The end result goal will be a cost savings to the city while remaining fair to our excellent police force.

I believe we should tap into the knowledge of our city's labor force for suggestions on where saving measures can be made within their specific fields of expertise.
I would like to see the formation of an independent commission, of citizen volunteers, with the knowledge and time to review our city budget, making recommendations on all aspects of the budget including reducing expenses for Glendora.

Cynthia Carrasco
We need to look outside Glendora's borders for positive revenue streams to ensure our future. If elected, I would encourage our city to think big and aggressively pursue available federal discretionary funds to aid our economic development agenda.

Agencies like the Economic Development Administration help communities foster innovation and promote entrepreneurship. Applying for these grants will require a lot of work, but I have confidence our team could meet this challenge because citizens favor proactive government. Earning not previously sought after grants could strengthen our city in areas such as: public works, short-term planning investments, economic partnerships, and technical assistance programs to help us make optimal decisions on Glendora's economic development issues.

To reduce costs, I would urge council to show solidarity with its citizens and not accept extra benefits (health, dental, vision coverage) as a member of council unless legislatively mandated by the state. This is a start. Every dollar counts and every saved dollar adds up. Vote for Cynthia Carrasco on March 8  so we as a city can thrive.  

Doug Tessitor
First, our budget problems involve the potential immediate loss of redevelopment funding and substantial increases in our pension funding obligations due to CALPERS assessments. This could potentially mean several Million dollars in costs to the city – immediately! These costs are imposed on us and are beyond our control.

Revenue cannot be increased rapidly enough to overcome that kind of cost increase.  In the short run that means our response can only be to cut programs and probably personnel. Which ones would have to be determined by some very careful analysis – with input from our citizens.

If those choices are too distasteful to our citizens, then the only rapid way to increase revenues is to have the people consider a temporary tax increase.

In the long term, economic recovery will increase our city’s revenues through our existing businesses and from new economic activity. The ways to accomplish new revenue streams are beyond the 175-word limit you have imposed. There are no magic bullets or quick fixes! Using reserves would be a shortsighted, temporary panacea.