2008
As we all know, Morro Bay has been facing some
difficult challenges these last few years.
We are in the process of making the transition from a city dependent on
the power plant and our fishing industry to one primarily dependent on
tourism. With the help of the Chamber
of Commerce, the Ed Biaggini Business Forum and many other local groups and
individuals, that transition is happening.
We have many new events that have already been
tremendously successful…the Kite Festival and Avocado & Margarita Festival
are two examples… and other new ideas being worked on with enthusiasm and great
expectations, including our Shop Local campaign, the upcoming Morro Bay
Fundraiser Follies and a New Year’s Eve event that will be one of a kind.
In addition to the well-established Saturday market,
our downtown merchants are working on other events as well, including the
December holiday shopping night. The
Merchant’s Association has expanded their street fairs with many new vendors.
Our city structure has been making transitions as
well. We are in the process of a
complete analysis and reorganization, while at the same time looking for a new
city manager. Andrea Lueker, our
interim city manager, is doing an excellent job of keeping us on course.
The Council asked for better communication with staff, and
between Departments, and that has been addressed through weekly staff meetings
and Council updates. Staff has also instigated a notification system for
the Council when emergency situations arise.
Financially, we are
safely solvent, due to some one-time revenues and increased TOT.
Thanks to the support of
our community on the sales tax measure, we are purchasing a much-needed new
fire engine. We’ve completed
construction on the north Morro Bay fire station and are in the midst of
construction on our main station’s apparatus bay. When the Cloisters property sells, we will proceed with
construction of the administrative and residential portions of the station.
Our Fire Department
personnel continue to do an excellent job responding to an ever-increasing
number of calls, but they are still understaffed. As a potential solution, the Council has established an ad-hoc
committee to investigate the possibility of contracting with Cal Fire for our
fire services.
Following the example of our Friends of the Fire Department,
we now have Friends of the Police Department, who are working to support our
officers and staff. Despite reduced
numbers, our officers respond to the same number of calls and are doing such a
good job that our crime rate actually decreased by nearly 8% over the last
year.
The Recreation and Parks Department has their quarterly
publication, the TIDES, on the World Wide Web, listing all the classes and
programs offered.
This year, new playground equipment was installed at Del
Mar Park, much to the joy of the students at Del Mar Elementary, who helped
choose the designs. Those same students, who I had the pleasure of
lunching with today, launched a successful campaign to ban smoking on our
beaches and piers. They are now working
on a similar ban for our city parks.
The Recreation and
Parks and Harbor advisory boards are working together on improvements along
Coleman drive, including discussion of a long-term goal for a boat haul-out and
maintenance/repair yard.
Our Harbor
Department has been working with Morro Bay Beautiful on the Art Cans project,
and our waterfront access way continues to develop as lease sites are improved.
With the support of
Congresswoman Lois Capps, we were once again successful in procuring federal
funds for dredging, and Rick Algert’s job as Harbor Director has expanded into
becoming an effective advocate for our fishing industry, as well as serving
this year as Chair of the California Marine Affairs and Navigation
Conference. Through this, and the
efforts of our local fishermen and women, working along with environmental
groups, Morro Bay has become an example to other communities across the nation
of how to bring divergent groups together for positive results… for which we
should be very proud.
The nearly completed
Harbor Walk, funded primarily with Federal and State Transportation
Improvement Funds and two generous grants from the Coastal Conservancy, is a
beautiful and already well-used attraction for residents and visitors alike.
Our Public Services department
is working diligently to keep up with all the new projects underway, not the
least of which is the upgrade of our wastewater treatment plant, as well as
launching comprehensive maintenance projects for our sewers, wells, storm
drains, streets and trees. They have
their hands full.
The Planning and Building staff
has updated our Subdivision Ordinance, Building Codes, Development Impact Fees,
Parking Management Plan, upgraded 28 crosswalks to ADA standards, and are
currently working on adding a third trolley route, directional signage, and
developing Neighborhood Compatibility Standards. They also have their hands full!
Morro Bay’s main
challenge remains increasing our revenue to be able to offer competitive
salaries to our staff in all departments.
We are incredibly fortunate in the quality of our employees, their
loyalty, their work ethics and their many contributions to our community, both
on and off the job. I am continually
grateful for our city employees.
It will be the
responsibility of the City Council, with the support of the Chamber of
Commerce, our businesses and organizations, to continue pushing for economic
development and community improvements, adding to the charm and attractiveness
of our town, and providing opportunities for all of us to achieve success for
our city, our businesses and our citizens.
Let’s all look
forward to a positive and prosperous 2008!
2007
This is my third state of the city
address. My first was when we were
pretty much at rock bottom, if you’ll pardon the expression. Last year, after some deep budget cuts, we were
hanging on.
This year, while our revenue still remains flat, we do have
some positive news. Thanks to the
support of our voters, Measure Q passed, allowing us the ability to finance
construction of our fire department, and begin to address our failing streets
and storm drains. To ensure that these
funds, estimated at between $6-750,000 per year, will be allocated according to
our residents preferences, the City Council has appointed a Citizens Oversight
Committee.
But the challenges remain.
With the power plant’s future in question, and our fishing industry struggling
valiantly to survive, tourism has become our primary revenue source. Our transient occupancy tax and sales tax
together provide 39% of our general fund revenue. Property tax provides only 23%.
Unfortunately, tourism is down, not just in Morro Bay, but in other
parts of the county as well.
City staff has already gone a year without any cost of
living raises, and we face the potential of having to hold that line for a
second year. While our employees
understand the situation, they have families and financial needs of their own,
and we have begun to lose some of them to better paying positions
elsewhere. So it becomes a very
difficult balancing act for the city to increase funds for promotion while still
maintaining the staff and services needed for our residents and visitors.
On the plus side, since our two town hall meetings and the
weekly business forums, there is much better communication between city
government and the business community.
One idea we might look at together is creating business district
associations, which are working in other cities in our county, and perhaps
providing match funding for promotion programs.
And we must include the entire community in working to
increase local revenue. Shop Local
First needs to become our Morro Bay mantra.
There is no reason for any of us to go outside our city limits for
products and services that are available in Morro Bay. In many cases, the price difference, if any,
is probably less than the mileage cost of a trip to San Luis Obispo. To let people know what is already available
here, we will be highlighting a different merchant or business at our second
Council meeting each month.
We also need to identify what we don’t have locally, and
work to attract those businesses...a 24-hour coffee shop, full selections of
men’s and women’s clothing, a shoe store, music CDs. We need to actively work to provide what’s missing in our retail
and service businesses.
The council has been listening to our business owners’
concerns. With the adoption of a
parking management plan this spring, we may be able to eliminate the in lieu
parking requirement and perhaps establish a parking assessment district that
would fairly distribute the cost of future parking needs, and hopefully make
our city more attractive to new businesses.
To sum up the task facing us in Morro Bay, we must promote
“community unity.” We must work
together to achieve the shared goal of increased revenue for our city. We must hold hands, not point fingers. We must be steadfast allies in supporting
each other and working together to provide for and promote Morro Bay.
We need to spread the word to every resident to Shop Local
First, support Morro Bay first. We have
so much to offer, and we need to appreciate it ourselves, as well as promote it
to others. Let’s all work together
towards a cooperative, productive 2007.
2006
Wow. It’s been a rough year for our little town.
The good
news is Ascot Suites is open again and our Transient Occupancy Tax is up. Duke ran the power plant more than last
year, so our gas surcharge fees should increase. The Chamber of Commerce, Helping Hands and other volunteer
organizations successfully adopted several City events, including the 4th
of July, the Lighted Boat Parade, and the Christmas tree lighting, and we are
very grateful for that.
The
Winter Bird Festival and Cruisin’ Morro Bay car show are consistent hits and
the Harbor Festival, while going though some adjustments, will flourish again.
We had
our first town hall meeting and opened communication with residents and
business people on several new issues important to them. We plan to continue this communication
process, specifically with another workshop focused on our business community.
The not
so good news is that our financial situation remains difficult, to say the
least. While we managed to retain most
of our full-time employees, we used some of our reserve funds to do it. While we finally reached a lease agreement
with Duke Energy, the cash payments only partially replenished our reserves.
While the
Office of Emergency Services pledged funds to rebuild our fire department
engine bay, the City’s cost portion increased and the entire station
desperately needs replacement. The
Council has directed some of the Duke monies
towards purchasing modular units to house our firefighters, but we also need to
renovate and staff the North Morro Bay station, and need additional funding to
do so.
While we
continue to do street repairs, our budget cuts have slowed down the schedule,
and lack of funding for this maintenance has left many city roadways in
deplorable condition.
Over the past
12 years, the State has taken $7 million from Morro Bay to address its own
budget crisis. The November ballot this
year will contain between 12 and 24 initiatives, many of them revenue related. And the State legislature is considering
bills that circumvent the promises made to local government by Prop 1A.
As stated
by Dan Walters, syndicated columnist for the Sacramento
Bee: “State government is and will
be dysfunctional in the foreseeable future.
You as cities and counties MUST be more self-reliant. You are on your own. Don’t rely on the State. Ad hoc regionalism is needed…as a means for
local survival.”
This
crisis situation is the reason that every city in our county is considering a
local funding measure for the November ballot.
We are evaluating a half-cent sales tax increase, which would bring us
equivalent to other California cities.
Our current sales tax rate is the lowest in the state. This increase would add only 5 cents on a
$10 purchase, but it could add $700,000 or more to our city’s annual revenue,
much of that paid by our tourists.
Our
telephone survey of 400 residents indicated their recognition of our budget
crisis, and their support for this finance measure, specifically to address the
needs of public safety, streets and other infrastructure. Any measure placed on the ballot will
include strong accountability procedures, such as annual audits and citizen
oversight to ensure that the funds are not misappropriated by this or future
councils.
We have
not yet ridden out the stormy seas of our budget crisis, and we need a united
local effort to gain financial stability for Morro Bay. Your City Council is united in this effort,
and we are counting on all of you to help us achieve this goal.
2005
State of
the City 2005…well, asking is the glass half full or half empty, our city glass
certainly looks pretty empty. What with
Duke not running, the State Park and Ascot Suites closed for over a year, our fire
engines in tents, and our budget situation looking like layoffs are inevitable,
it’s a pretty dire picture.
We’re not
alone…cities from San Diego to San Luis Obispo to San Francisco are all
suffering similar problems, and with a much stronger income base than our
little beach town.
San Luis
Obispo is looking at increasing their sales tax, and I think that’s something
we should seriously consider, too. It
would put us even with the counties around us, so I doubt it will discourage
our tourist visitors. Will it be an
additional burden on our residents?
Yes, but the question to ask ourselves is do we want our streets paved
and our infrastructure maintained and sufficient fire and police staffing to
ensure our safety when the need arises?
Perhaps those benefits outweigh paying a few extra pennies on a
purchase.
Is our
glass really half empty? Negotiations
are proceeding again with Duke. The
State Park is due to reopen in 6 weeks or so.
Ascot Suites is being repaired.
The Office of Emergency Services funds for rebuilding the fire engine
bay are available. When escrow closes
on Flippo’s, we’ll put over a million dollars back into our general fund
reserves, and our city staff and Council are working hard to find solutions to
our budget situation.
But what
makes our community glass more than half full is the people who live and work
here. Even though we all are concerned
with the challenges we face, I believe everyone of us is grateful to be living
here. When you can see the morning sun
light up the Rock, walk around town to do all your errands, have lunch on the
waterfront, gazing at the bay, encounter friends everywhere you go, watch one
beautiful sunset after another, it makes our problems seem not so
insurmountable if we all work together to solve them.
So I’m
raising my glass to all of us and to our City.
It’s not half full…it’s overflowing with all the good things that we
share living here in Morro Bay. Cheers.