More budget cut casualties
By Matt Artz
Friday, May 22nd, 2009 at 10:09 am in budget, Uncategorized.
Fremont will no longer provide street tree maintenance. It’ll be up to property owners once the City Council passes a new law.
Less recruitment of retailers
Less maintenance at Central Park
No temporary skate park
No more scholarships for 139 low-income families to participated in the summer playground program
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May 22nd, 2009 at 5:25 pm
This is excellent news for me – I have my trees professionally pruned and, if the City guys come around when I’m not here to chase them off, they mess up the job that I just paid to have done. Nice guys, but they prune for utility, not esthetics.
I assume that PG&E will continue to prune around their lines as necessary, or are they feeling the budget pinch as well?
I don’t get why the City would cut Economic Development (which is what I assume you’re referring to by “less recruitment of retailers”); I was under the impression that their purpose was to bring revenue into the city.
May 25th, 2009 at 7:39 am
So why did City Manager Fred Diaz get a raise last year?
May 25th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Anon101 asks – “So why did City Manager Fred Diaz get a raise last year?”
I think that the only answer can be that -
1. Those charged with evaluating his salary must have felt that information presented and reviewed by them supported that Diaz’ skill set in the open market commanded increased compensation – AND
2. His performance as a City Manager met or exceeded the expectations of his management (Council ?) – AND
3. The City’s budget could reasonably afford the increase in compensation. – AND
4. There was no economically advantageous alternative to retaining Diaz in this capacity.
Seems like, if these conditions are met – you give the dude a raise and hope that he stays.
May 25th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Bbox231: in this case, are you serious?
May 26th, 2009 at 4:35 am
But let’s dump 13 Million into a police station that was built after the quake in 1989 and it is not quake ready????
This should be on a ballot for us to vote on. This is one more way we throw money out an open window in this city.
There are plenty of empty buildings in Fremont they buy instead of sinking 13 million into this money pit!!
May 26th, 2009 at 9:22 am
B, I think I get where you’re coming from.
My first thought is that the people who are charged with evaluating Freddy’s salary are not the people who are paying him. He is paid by the residents of the town that he works for, and we have no say in what he’s pulling down. The people who set his salary are the people we elected, and given their track record so far, their time will come.
Yes, if the conditions you cite are met, he would get his raise. Show of hands how many think he’s done a bang-up job?
May 26th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Who’s up for starting a community garden at Lake Elizabeth?
May 26th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
F.L. – you get it.
anon – I am indeed serious about believing that my characterization is a reasonable facsimile of the process used to make the decision about City Managers’ pay.
Your response of seeming incredulousness when positioned alongside my personal guess of what went into this decision emphasizes one potentially significant decouple between constituency and City leaders – assuming, of course, that my guess is anywhere close to accurate…I’m sure I am completely off the mark and you have nothing to be concerned about.
May 26th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Bbox, were you wearing a smoking jacket and thinking in a British accent when writing that?
May 26th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
And one of the most plausible answers is:
Fred was cashing in his chips for having kept the Warm Springs alternative site for the A’s stadium a secret until after the election – so as to make sure that his old police chief from Tracey got re-elected – and also to hedge his bets just in case the election didn’t turn out as planned.
But what do I know?
May 27th, 2009 at 8:05 am
In the title of this entry, it should be “casualties”
May 27th, 2009 at 9:30 am
B’s comment about “one potentially significant decouple between constituency and City leaders” made me think about an upcoming community meeting.
In case anybody’s interested, Anu Natarajan, our Vice Mayor, will be at a meet-and-greet hosted by Fremont Citizen’s Network on June 11 from 6-8 p.m., location TBD based on the number of RSVP’s received. If you can’t attend, you can still submit your questions for Anu via the FCN website http://community.fremontcitizensnetwork.org/
The announcement says that “This Forum is meant to provide a positive atmosphere of engagement”, so I hope everyone will play nice together and not use this opportunity to do otherwise. It is FCN’s hope that this be the first of a series of meetings with local leaders, so please don’t give them a reason not to continue to meet with residents. It is possible to disagree without being disagreeable.
See y’all there?
May 28th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
I would luv to go to this and will consider the prospect but this is so odd…I dont think anyone disagrees disagreeably..Has anyone shown up at a City Council meeting to throw stones or to threaten ?? I dont think so – - – - this sensitivity by the Council is largely a reflection of their own insecurity… I think these people just can’t substantiate their decisions and actions with reasonable rationalization and thinking because there isn’t any – - – -
Example – thinking that runs along the lines of something like – - “..let’s put a ballpark in a geography that will cause insurmountable traffic and parking problems for the most significant retailers in the proposed geography…” – but then let’s characterize those who point out these obvious flaws as “disagreeable”, or “a mob”.
My sense is that Anu and Bob and Bob and Bill just can’t handle scrutiny or criticism (however constructive) -
“Thin skinned” comes to mind.
May 29th, 2009 at 9:08 am
As one of the organizers of FCN, I request you to come to this public meeting.
While we can go to the city council and use our allocated 2 minutes to ask questions and raise concerns, and get no answers (most of the time), think of the FCN forum as a way for the people to invite and bring the officials out of their enclave and to meet the people who have real issues that they need to hear. Whether we get answers/responses to the questions we ask, only time will tell.
Over time I have seen a lot of interesting questions asked by all of you in this particular blog. Why not come to the meeting and ask her some burning questions in your mind and see what answers you get? I do understand that not everyone can make it to the meeting, so if you have a question that needs to be asked and you cannot be there, please email fremontcitizensnetwork@gmail.com with your name so we can ask them and get a response. We will attempt to transcribe all the questions and responses and publish them on the FCN site after the meeting.
The meeting details are found here:
http://community.fremontcitizensnetwork.org/events/fcn-forum-open-public-meeting
Matt, I hope you can come, it would be great to have you there.
May 29th, 2009 at 11:37 am
B, I’m sure that, since you are a reasonable person, you would never disagree disagreeably but, unfortunately, there are people who do – some of the posters to this site come immediately to mind. I was trying to say that, in my opinion and not in any way speaking on behalf of FCN, I hope that we can all just get together and have a reasonable discussion about the state of affairs here in town.
By “disagreeable”, I had in mind the type of behavior that you might see on the Springer show. Yes, that should go without saying, but there are certain issues about which people have very strong feelings and, while these issues should be discussed, I do not feel that they need to be discussed in a confrontational way. I hope that clarifies my statement a bit. If you feel differently, let’s talk about it. I hope you can make it on the 11th.
May 29th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
The FCN meeting sounds like a great positive step. I was wondering though, will there be a time limit on those speaking / asking questions? Given the multitude of areas of interest, the meeting could run a bit long. (Not that that is a bad thing in itself.)