Scott Smith's Stockton City Hall blog

“A week or two”

Scott Smith — Thu, 24 May 2012 18:34:40 +0000

This is the deadline Councilman Dale Fritchen gave himself at last night’s town hall meeting for laying out his plans to balance Stockton’s budget without laying off any police officers. His rationale is that the council over the last three years has trimmed $90M, so the city can tough out another year of hard decisions.

Others in leadership say, no, the city is already deficient. Rather than cutting, the city needs to address the structure of finances. That’s presumably the conversation happening right now in confidential mediation and will be finally dealt with if the city ends up in bankruptcy court. They’re looking for a substantial fix, rather then eking out another year.

Fritchen has irritated others on the council for taking such a hard line against mediation and anything bankruptcy related. That’s mostly because he’s said he’s going to present his alternatives, yet he hasn’t yet done it and the clock is ticking. According to his website, Fritchen has no town hall meetings scheduled.

A Vallejo BK story

Scott Smith — Thu, 24 May 2012 04:32:34 +0000

This one from the Washington Post is worth reading. It’s slant is that bankruptcy – while rough on Vallejo – helped the city blossom. The city became innovative and even adopted a tax with the hitch that citizens could have a say in how it’s spent.

And then there were two

Scott Smith — Fri, 18 May 2012 00:41:23 +0000

Former Stockton Police Chief Blair Ulring is one of two finalists vying for the position of police chief in Flagstaff, Az. So says this brief in the azdailysun.com.

State of the City speech

Scott Smith — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:14:35 +0000

The Record will be live streaming Mayor Ann Johnston’s speech today at 12:30 p.m. Go to recordnet.com and click on the link – Live: Stockton State of the City 2012.

Meat of the article

Scott Smith — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:24:48 +0000

Bob Deis did not like the header to this story: Stockton City Council’s secret budgeting begins. He commented on it during Tuesday’s council meeting.

We’re not secretly budgeting. It’s important that when you go through this budget document, there’s $521 million of proposed appropriations with all funds.

Because we’re going through the 506 process, all but five percent of it, or $26 million, is our anticipated general fund deficit. All but five percent of it is identified in great detail in the budget. The balance, the $26 million, hasn’t been determined yet, because we’re in a confidential AB506 process. We’re complying with state law to be confidential.

If there’s a deal, that will be vetted publicly, and your council would have to publicly discuss it, collect input and ultimately make a decision. There’ no budgeting done in secret.

City budget online

Scott Smith — Tue, 15 May 2012 23:58:14 +0000

Stockton’s proposed 2012-13 budget is now public at the city’s website. It’s 312 pages.

AB 506 reading

Scott Smith — Tue, 15 May 2012 23:27:53 +0000

Just in case you can’t get enough, here’s an executive summary of the AB 506 process. It points out, among many things, that this mediation process has a 60-day time limit, and the clock starts ticking on the day that a neutral evaluator is selected.

The city announced that it and the interested parties had selected Ralph Mabey on March 27, putting the two-month finish line on May 27, which is the Sunday of the Memorial Day weekend.

At that point, if they haven’t reached a deal or talks haven’t totally broken down and everybody agrees to it, they can extend it another 30 days, which puts them at the end of June – crunch time – because July 1 is D-day for having the city’s budget adopted.

Ulring

Scott Smith — Fri, 11 May 2012 18:08:22 +0000

Former Stockton Police Chief Blair Ulring is among five finalists considered to become Flagstaff’s next police chief, according to this story on azdailysun.com. Before leaving his post in Stockton, he made it clear that he was too young – he’s now 52 – to end his career, so this comes as little surprise.

Not clearly erroneous

Scott Smith — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:24:58 +0000

Mayor Ann Johnston and the city await the signature of San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Lesley Holland denying Ralph White’s attempt to have Johnston removed from the race for mayor over term limits.

Holland ruled from the bench and attorney Manuela Albuquerque fashioned this order putting it all down in writing. It paraphrases the judge’s ruling, which said in part that the mayor stays on the ballot because the city’s interpretation of the city charter section 606 is “not clearly erroneous.”

We’ll see where this goes next. White didn’t like this ruling and said that this fight is far from done.

State audit reveals problems in Hercules

Scott Smith — Thu, 10 May 2012 18:47:24 +0000

Controller John Chiang found lots of problems in the accounting of Hercules. His audit team is now at work in Stockton.

At a recent town hall meeting, Stockton City Manager Bob Deis said that he doesn’t believe Chiang’s group will unearth anything new. His team and a third party has pulled out all of the skeletons, Deis said. Certainly, Chiang won’t find $24 million needed to cover next year’s budget deficit.