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Berkeley councilmembers’ multi-million dollar wish list of city services and physical improvements is likely to remain just that—a list of projects on paper. 

The council will hold a public hearing on the budget tonight (Tuesday) at which they will likely examine new budget proposals by Mayor Tom Bates, a list of social services that have been defunded whose funding Councilmember Kriss Worthington would like to see restored, and the lengthy councilmember wish list. 

The public hearing will be at the 7 p.m. meeting. The final budget vote is scheduled for June 26. 

In May, the city manager spelled out how he wants to spend the $9 million or so in limited funding available outside fixed personnel and ongoing project costs, and Friday evening the mayor added his priorities to the mix. 

Councilmembers over the last several months have been referring items to the city manager they want to see funded.  

Bates’ priorities include a number of consultants and studies to get specific work done: hiring a full-time consultant (rather than half-time, already funded) to plan rezoning for West Berkeley at $85,000; hiring a transportation planner for 18 months at $255,000; spending $50,000 to study what agencies are already doing in the area of youth employment; putting $50,000 toward studying the gaps in services for at-risk children ages 0-to-3; and spending $100,000 (augmenting the $100,000 already allocated) to fund a second year for the city’s greenhouse gas reduction position.  

Bates is also recommending $50,000 for a consultant to write ordinances for his Public Commons for Everyone Initiative. That will be a series of ordinances to rewrite some city laws to make them more enforceable, such as prohibitions against lying on the sidewalk and defecating in public, and modifying other laws, such as banning smoking in commercial areas. 

The mayor is recommending an expenditure of $376,800 to fund planning, referred to as engineering, for a number of projects: a Center Street plaza study; enhanced lighting on University Avenue between Sixth Street and San Pablo Avenue; San Pablo Avenue streetscape; Piedmont Avenue landscape rehabilitation and a planning exercise called a charrette for the Adeline corridor.  

Having this work done will facilitate the city getting state grant funding and getting developer fees for projects, according to Bates’ Chief of Staff Cisco DeVries. 

The mayor also wants to fund direct services: chronic disease/hypertension prevention at $100,000, a youth jobs program, beginning summer 2008 at $100,000 (in addition to the city manager’s allocation of $136,000 for 50 jobs for this year), two programs aimed at “ending chronic homelessness:” Options for Recovery—drug and alcohol treatment—at $100,000 and $59,000 to restore a number of cuts made by the city manager to various food and shelter programs for homeless people. 

(The mayor’s priorities are not part of the council agenda packet, but are available on his website at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/mayor/thebatesupdate.htm.) 

Worthington listed his budget priorities in a memo to the council contained in the June 19 council agenda packet. Most of the recommendations focus on funding direct services to homeless or disabled people. 

While Worthington said he has no specific disagreement with the mayor’s funding choices, he said he was disappointed that Bates did not prioritize restoring programs for the homeless that had been cut in the city manager’s budget. 

“It’s ironic that he’s cutting homeless services at all, when he’s saying they are an increasing priority,” Worthington said, noting the mayor’s budget was limited to just a few of the many programs whose budgets had been cut. 

Some of the programs Worthington identified for restoration of funding cuts that the mayor has not included in his budget are programs for the homeless: BOSS’ family shelter and transitional housing ($6,000); Lifelong Medical Care’s acupuncture detox clinic ($12,000); New Bridge Foundation’s drug rehabilitation program ($5,000); expanding Affordable Housing Associates’ housing acquisition and family-housing renovation ($15,000); and the Russell Street Supportive Housing for formerly homeless mentally ill persons ($32,500). 

Councilmember Linda Maio told the Daily Planet that she would look carefully at the program cuts. “I want to understand the impact of the cuts,” she said. 

Given the great influx in traffic along Rose, Cedar and Hopkins streets, one of Maio’s chief concerns is getting funding for traffic calming measures in that area. She had asked for $200,000 for the effort. Bates is proposing $200,000 for traffic calming, but Maio said the area targeted is not clear in the Bates memo. 

Councilmember Dona Spring said she is especially happy about the $25,000 the mayor is proposing to reduce city fees as an incentive to install solar panels. “That’s something real and concrete that we can do about greenhouse gases,” Spring said. 

She said she was happy the mayor’s budget “puts a priority on youth” with $100,000 proposed to fund youth jobs beginning in summer 2008.  

However, she noted, “I’m not so keen on a consultant [to study existing programs]; our city staff can do that.” 

She also questioned the proposed augmented expenditures on the greenhouse gas consultant. “I wonder why our regular staff can’t do that,” she said. She agreed that a transportation planner was needed, but said that allocating $225,000 for 18 months was excessive.  

Spring questioned the mayor’s proposal to spend more than $300,000 to fund the various planning/engineering projects in his proposal. “That money would go a long way toward restoring cuts in social services,” she said, noting that the projects listed had not come to the City Council. “Where did they come from?” she asked.  

Spring also pointed out that the Options drug and alcohol treatment program had asked for $200,000 rather than $100,000 to restore a counseling program that had suffered from the loss of a grant. 

Among the other unfunded referrals from the City Council are: 

• Seven thermal-imaging cameras for the fire department at $77,000 (from Councilmember Gordon Wozniak). 

• Crisis intervention training for police at $85,000 (from the Mental Health Commission). 

• Housing and services for disabled children in West Berkeley at $15,000 (from Spring and Councilmember Darryl Moore). 

• Malcolm X Neighborhood Arts Collaborative at $10,000 (from Councilmember Max Anderson). 

• Sweatshop-free ordinance implementation at $35,000 (from Worthington). 

• Girls’ Twilight Basketball at $45,000 (from Moore). 

• BOSS’ Ursula Sherman Village project at $280,000 (from Worthington).