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Uploaded: Thursday, April 2, 2009, 4:04 PM
A bad year for goal-setting
Economy casts shadow over City Council's plans for 2009
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by Daniel DeBolt
Mountain View Voice Staff
For the first time in years, the City Council will not have an ambitious set of goals for the year, a direction made apparent in the council's annual goal-setting meeting Tuesday night.
Council members submitted ideas to create a list of 22 possible goals, but with the city facing a $6 million budget deficit, most were "philosophical and operational" in nature, said council member Mike Kasperzak. The list was quickly slashed in half as the council realized that most of its goals would be addressed as part of three "overarching" projects this year: the General Plan update, implementation of climate change initiatives and the city's budget process. Through a process of elimination, the council ended up with six goals that are likely to be considered further before adoption.
One goal that made the cut was almost a restatement of last year's top goal for positive activities for youth -- council member Ronit Bryant said she feared such programs would disappear during budget cuts this year. In one of several humorous exchanges Tuesday night, Bryant said Kevin Duggan, city manager, told her that "If you asked us what we can afford, all your favorite programs might disappear."
Amid laughter, Duggan clarified: "What I meant to say was everything we do is important to somebody; it was not a threat."
Bryant's goal to strengthen the city's volunteer program also gained support, along with her goal to "actualize" the city's environmental sustainability action plan, though it will only emphasize a plan the council has already adopted. (The council quietly approved the action plan on last week's consent calendar.)
Council members favored a "master plan" for youth services which could be part of the city's General Plan. Two other goals focused on Rengstorff Park and its surrounding neighborhood in terms of city services, pedestrian safety, teen use of the Community Center and park and neighborhood "infrastructure."
Several items made it onto what members jokingly referred to as "Kevin's bucket list" -- items the city manager has promised to work on, including increased coordination with NASA Ames in developing its 75-acre Research Park.
Goals for a teen center and community center at Rengtsorff Park were withdrawn from the list after city staff assured the council that work was underway to identify ways to raise the $50 million to rebuild the park's current Community Center, which will likely include a teen center.
A goal to determine a location and fundraising method for a large community park in the Whisman area fell off the priority list after a discussion about the difficulties of buying a piece of land large enough for a community park. Only two members supported it as a top goal: Kasperzak and Jac Siegel, who seemed optimistic about raising money to buy the land through a bond measure.Are you receiving Express, our free daily e-mail edition? See a sample and sign-up for Express.
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Posted by Citizen, a resident of the Shoreline West neighborhood, on Apr 2, 2009 at 5:31 pm Do we need an initiative to get the Council out of the pocket of housing developers? Web Link
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Posted by jps, a resident of the Shoreline West neighborhood, on Apr 2, 2009 at 10:55 pm Looking at the original recommendations -- Web Link -- two ideas are missing:
1. Contract with PG&E to arrange to purchase 100% wind power electricity over the long term. Wind is a direct mitigation of the floods of global warming in addition to being a renewable energy source because it extracts energy directly from the atmosphere. It is also the least expensive of the renewable sources, and already very competitive with coal. The more communities who set up their PG&E contracts to buy only wind power, the better. Anyone who thinks wind is a bad idea because it's intermittent hasn't read this: Web Link We should stop subsidizing coal, gas, and oil, and let people have less expensive-in-the-long-run electricity instead.
2. Purchase only new plug-in hybrid vehicles. The more communities who adopt these goals, the faster we will return to a sustainable and less flood-prone (i.e., a less expensive) future. As soon as gasoline starts going up again, it will be a lot less expensive.
The same can be said about the "public option" of universal health care coverage: If we don't have it, people end up with the partial coverage which prevents so much preventative care, resulting in expensive emergency room hospitalizations followed by long hospital stays instead of regular visits with early detection of problems. People in Canada live two years longer with their universal coverage, and they pay a lot less than we do for medical expenses.
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Posted by Daniel DeBolt, Mountain View Voice Staff Writer, on Apr 3, 2009 at 10:39 am
Daniel DeBolt is a member (registered user) of Mountain View Online Though they aren't plug -ins, the city is heavily investing in hybrids and the city still has several Ford Ranger and Toyota RAV4 electric vehicles.
Web Link
In response to the comments about the council being in the pocket of developers, I have to say it's quite the opposite. They've rejected several housing developments over the last few years, including proposals at 333 North Rengstorff, 450 North Whisman Road and 1984 El Camino Real. Developers have not contributed to recent city council campaigns.
More topically, what do people think the city's goals should actually be this year? Should the council be setting new goals when the city has to cut its budget this year(there is a $6 million deficit), revise its general plan and implement climate change initiatives?
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Posted by jps, a resident of the Shoreline West neighborhood, on Apr 4, 2009 at 9:22 am Dan, ordinary hybrids still get 100% of their energy from gasoline, so it's hard for engineers such as myself to understand why they are even mentioned in the context of sustainability. Plug-in hybrids are available to fleet purchasers now, from Ford, Daimler, and others.
Regarding real estate developers (not to be confused with software developers, which I wish were being given preferential treatment!) it is a legitimate question, and maybe you can share your insights: Why, in the midst of a very serious economic crisis brought about by plummeting housing prices related directly to the oversupply of housing already developed, why does the Council, Development Review Committee, and Environmental Planning Commission still approve so much new housing development? Do they have incentives for doing so? Does the city get more taxes from developments when they approve them, even if they aren't occupied? Is it because of the structure of government, that we have the Council, Committee, and Commission all chartered with some kind of expectations that they will approve developments? What causes the disconnect?
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Posted by dannielo, a resident of the Blossom Valley neighborhood, on Apr 8, 2009 at 10:18 am If you'd like a tool for setting your goals, you can use this web application:
Web Link
You can use it to manage your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use checklists, schedules and a calendar.
A Vision Wall (inspiring images attached to yor goals) is available too.
Works on mobile.
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Posted by eric, a resident of another community, on Apr 8, 2009 at 12:37 pm jps, why should the climate of the moment have an impact on when and if the city approves housing? Smart homebuilders will be using this downturn to prepare for the inevitable upswing. I'd suggest that planning descisions should NOT be based on the market of the moment, but what makes sense at a given site based on more concrete, measurable factors.
Unfortunately, traffic would be high on my list of said factors, and this council cares zero about it!
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