Hi there, public-policy nerds! Congratulations for surviving one full month of isolation, home-schooling, no pants, no makeup, and developing some serious Zoom-etiquette pet peeves!

We have a City Council meeting coming up tomorrow, April 21, and although there are four items on the agenda, this one will be dominated by the city budget. More on that bit of unpleasantness below.

But first the housekeeping:

Attendance at Council meetings for the foreseeable future is limited to necessary city personnel and members of the press. Members of the public are able to make their voices heard by filling out this form created by the City Clerk -- and check out this webpage to see the various deadlines to have comments read into the record during the meetings or included in Council members' reading materials.

As always, you can watch the meetings on CityTV cable channel 24 or stream them online.

To read the staff reports on any of the items listed below, go to the agenda, click on the item you're interested in, and find a link to the staff report over on the right side of the page.

City Council -- Tuesday, April 21

Tomorrow, City Council President Georgette Gómez will convene the meeting at 9 a.m. and call for any public comment on closed-session items, and then take the Council into closed session. Open session will begin again at 11 a.m.

As mentioned above, the big item on the agenda is Mayor Kevin Faulconer's presentation of the city budget for the fiscal year that starts on July 1, 2020. No action will be taken by the Council -- this is simply an opportunity for the Mayor to inaugurate the budget process from a high-level vantage point. You can peruse the budget here. 

The numbers aren't pretty:

$3.92 billion: The overall budget, which is 9.8 percent less than the budget adopted a year ago.

$254 million: The estimated budget loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic when the current fiscal year and the upcoming fiscal year are combined -- a number that might grow.

$176 million: The estimated combined lost revenue from transient-occupancy (overnight visitor stays) and sales taxes from the current and upcoming fiscal years.

$46 million: Proposed General Fund budget reductions across city departments -- in addition to $15 million in non-General Fund reductions.

$54 million: The amount of reserves the Mayor proposed to use to help balance the budget, in addition to $27 million left over from the current-year budget.

354: The number of city worker positions proposed for elimination (not all of these positions are currently filled).

$6.8 million: The estimated savings if libraries are closed on Sundays and Mondays.

$5.8 million: The estimated savings if arts-and-culture spending is cut in half.

$3.4 million: The estimated savings if park and rec center hours are reduced from 60 per week to 45.

The Mayor also proposes to restructure or reorganize certain city functions, including the creation of Cultural Affairs, Homeless Strategies, and Mobility departments, and the severing of the Storm Water and Transportation departments. You can read about those in the Citywide Budget Overview by clicking the budget link above.

Again, this is just the start of the conversation. In a process led by Barbara Bry, the City Council's Budget and Government Efficiency Committee chair, the Council will dive into the details, informed by expert analysis from Independent Budget Analyst Andrea Tevlin. Throughout this process, members of the public will have multiple opportunities to make their voices heard:

• Thursday, April 30: At 6 p.m., the City Council will convene as the Budget Review Committee and hold a public hearing on the full proposed budget.
• Monday, May 4, through Friday, May 8: From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., the Budget Review Committee (the full Council) will hold public hearings that dive deeper into the budgets of each City department. (Here is the schedule of which department budgets will be scrutinized each day.)
• Monday, May 11: At 6 p.m., the City Council will convene to listen to public input on the budget.

Oh, and there's more on tomorrow's agenda:

• Reorganization of the Roles and Responsibilities of the City Attorney’s Office: On March 4, four Council members -- Mark Kersey, Barbara Bry, Monica Montgomery, and Vivian Moreno -- submitted a a proposal to restructure the City Attorney's Office. Under the proposal, the City Attorney would continue to prosecute crimes, but legal advice and representation for the Mayor and City Council would be provided by a new office, whose chief would be a mayoral / Council appointee. On Tuesday, the four Council members will ask their five other colleagues to vote to place the idea on this November's ballot.
• Emergency Ordinance Suspending Environmental Review for Non-Development Projects and Interim Urgency Ordinance Limiting Posting Requirements: This proposal does three things:
  • Implements at the city level Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Executive Order N-32-20, which suspends the California Environmental Quality Act for any projects using Homeless Emergency Aid Program funds, Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention Program funds, or other funds appropriated as part of Senate Bill 89.
  • Temporarily amends the requirement to post a Notice of Right of Appeal an environmental determination on the City’s website and in a physical location (at the Development Services Department). This amendment would remove the physical-location requirement to further the physical-distancing directive and would be in effect for 45 days.
  • Allows any non-development City projects or actions that fall under the Emergency Project Statutory Exemption of the California Public Resources Code to move forward during the 10-day appeal period and any appeal hearings. 

• Business Improvement District Budgets: Every year, the City collects money from businesses that are members of business improvement districts (BIDs) across San Diego. These dollars then fund activities and improvements that benefit those businesses. As part of that process, state law requires the City to approve BID budget reports. These actions happen over two Council meetings. So, on Tuesday, the first half of this process will unfold.

OK, that's it for the April 21 meeting. Stay safe, y'all.

Here's the City's COVID-19 information page.

Here's an update on the status of City services.

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