The four elements of the City Council’s Vision for 2019-2020 are:
1) Residents live in relative safety and comfort.
This means a long sustainable plan for police and fire departments. As well as improving the enforcement of code violations.
Council Member District 4, Greg Smith says, “police and fire are the largest portion of our budgets. And how much we put in there and how we can enable to add more police and staff when we need it.”
2) Infrastructure and Public Services rates sound, reliable and fiscally responsible
This means, creating an uninterrupted water supply and reviewing the city’s water drainage funding. As for roads, Smith says, “we’re not spending near as much money as we need to on residential streets.” He says, “we’re only spending 20 cents on the dollar of what we should be spending on those.”
3) Greater downtown (including North Beach), increased assets strengthened
Smith says this has a lot to do with vagrancy, and promoting the greater downtown for events.
4) new residents and businesses increase community prosperity
Smith says this has to do with existing codes for older structures, as well as improving the Parks and Recreation department and improving maintenance on all parks.
Council Member At-Large, Paulette M. Guajardo says she thinks there should be another element added to their visions.
“Updating and creating the master plans for the South Side and London areas. That is critical to growth, because that is where our growth is heading, towards those areas.” She says, “we don’t have master plans that are up to date.”
Guajardo believes that having updated master plans for drainage and water will help not only developers but the community.
She says she encourages the public to come out during public hearings at City Council meetings to voice their opinions on what can be improved throughout the city.
