Candidate for
Member, City Council; City of Millbrae

1. Create new revenue for the City through new commercial development, NOT new taxes.

Over the past several years, beginning about 1996, cities on the Peninsula began reaping the benefits of the fast-growing economy by developing lands in their town to provide a revenue boost to their general fund. Brisbane developed new hotels and office buildings, and new upscale townhouses; South San Francisco turned the "Industrial City" into the biotech office capital of the Bay Area; San Bruno built new hotels, and is presently developing the former base site into new housing, hotels, and conference center; Burlingame developed new hotels, and turned Burlingame Avenue into a retail destination second only to Stanford Shopping Center in its upscale appeal; San Mateo built Bridgepoint Shopping Center, new office complexes, hundreds of new housing units, a Downtown multi-screen theater, two new multi-level parking garages; even East Palo Alto turned an old school site into a big box shopping mecca.

During that time Millbrae neglected its commercial sites, banked more than $8 million in redevelopment funds, and with it did only the storefront improvement program in 3 blocks of Downtown and gave a facelift to the Downtown streets, infrastructure,and planters. We now have 15 vacancies on El Camino Real, some of which have been empty for more than a decade, and bare dirt where we should have revenue-producing development. We are suffering for that neglect now.

An example of how new development can bring new revenues to Millbrae: the Glenborough-Pauls Development on the old Kings Bowl site finally broke ground after two years of trying to obtain financing for the project. It would not "pencil out" because of all the exactions required by the City. When completed, it will be 105 luxury townhouse units, and some commercial uses on the El Camino frontage. This complex will bring in around $800,000 in new property tax revenue when it is completed, and new transfer tax revenue when the units are sold. This new revenue could make a tremendous difference to Millbrae's budget. If the project could have been started when it was initially approved, that revenue would be in the city's coffers now.

What can we do? First, we can use some of the Redevelopment funds to hire an economic development expert to bring new development to Millbrae. Second, we can lower our developer fees (the City's own consultant said the City's development fees are out of line with other Peninsula cities), and come up with creative ideas for financing those development fees over time so developers can make their project "pencil out" in order to get construction financing approved. Third, we can stop making developers jump through unrealistic and impractical hoops when trying to get a project approved, as happened with the recent Wilson Plaza Complex proposal.

As a land use attorney, I will bring a more enlightened approach to making our vacant and underutilized commercial property productive for our City, but keeping to the character of our town as a bedroom community.

2. Hire top-quality City Management to move the City forward.

At present the City of Millbrae has no permanent City Manager, has no permanent Police Chief, has a single person trying to do the job of both Director of Finance and Director of Public Works, has a shared Director of Park and Recreation. Leadership and long-term commitment are missing from City Hall. The focus on every staff report is how to cut more services, cut more staff, cut more programs.

We need top-quality management who will make a long-term commitment to improving our City, building our city staff organization into a cohesive and effective coalition of hard-working people providing full service to the people of Millbrae.

With a degree in Human Resources, the lack of spirit in our employees because they are demoralized I find very troubling. The lack of direction, and the feeling that there is no future in working for our city, and the impression that no one at the top cares about our city workers, are all concerns our city workers have expressed to me. We are losing good employees, and we are not hiring replacements. Staff at every level are working harder and longer with less hope of relief because all that comes from the top is bad news about the budget, and no good ideas for improving the situation.

It is particularly troubling that the City has more than $23.7 million dollars "in the bank", but the Acting City Administrator says the City is broke. We need to take a closer look at the allocation of those funds, and make wiser use of our resources.

We need a more creative approach to solving financial problems than to cut personnel, to demand unpaid leave of our city workers, and to try to foist off whole departments on other cities.

We need a strong City Manager who can devise a plan for long-term growth and short-term financial and personnel management that makes sense.

We need leadership on the City Council that will demand of our top staff that they come up with the short-term and the long-term plans to bring Millbrae out of the economic doldrums. We cannot afford to wait and see what might happen--we have to make our future happen as other cities on the Peninsula have done all around us.

3. Provide full-service public safety to the people of Millbrae without a new parcel tax.

The City staff has recommended that the City Council close Firestation 38, the station at Crestview Drive, and lay off 5 firefighters to save $500,000. In the same report, the staff comments that this would drop response times to unacceptable levels to meet public safety standards in our agreement with our neighboring fire departments, leading to fines and a possible increase in everyone's insurance rates, not to mention greater risk to the health and safety of everyone in Millbrae.

Further, because of the lack of commitment of the City to a Millbrae Police Department, many of our officers have left to find work with cities that are not trying to get rid of a police department, as our city has attempted to do in its "merger" talks. Consequently, our 27-person sworn police force is down 8 people. This means that patrol shifts are now down to two people to cover the whole city. Merger is not the answer for two reasons: a) no other city wants to take on a "broke" city's problem, rather that city wants to make money off the city that is asking for its services; b) our police force is one of the lowest paid in the County, second only to Half Moon Bay, and behind East Palo Alto and all other cities; therefore to merge with another department our forces would have to receive a commensurate increase in pay so that the same people doing the same work side by side would be paid equal wages; if our work force were all stepped up in wages there would be no financial savings to the City from the merger.

What is the answer? The other candidates are talking about a Parcel Tax to be placed on the March ballot. I believe this is a bad idea. It is a bad idea because it is extremely unrealistic to expect the voters to pass a Parcel Tax when the State will be asking for a tax increase of some kind, probably a sales tax, and the Mosquito Abatement District will be asking for a benefit assessment on the same ballot, and the Measure A supporters will have an extension of the Measure A sales tax on the November ballot. And don't forget the $23.7 million the City has in the bank--how do you explain you are "broke" with that kind of money?

The answer I suggest is two-fold. For the long-term see my answer to number 1 above. Further, we must change the fundamental structure of our RDA, which diverts about $2,000,000 per year from the general fund, by amending our Redevelopment Plan to change the distribution of "tax increment" revenues. In this way the RDA will stop getting fat, and the general fund will stop starving for needed revenues. These are revenues that are being generated now, but which are being allocated to the RDA instead of the general fund.

For the short-term, we have sufficient revenues, that if used more wisely for public safety services as the first priority of the City, will be sufficient for balancing the budget without cutting firefighters, without closing a firestation, without losing our long-term police officers to other cities, and without losing our 911 dispatch center (also recommended by City staff).

For the short-term, balance the budget with the new tax revenues from the Glenborough-Pauls development, discussed above. Add to that the $144,000 overpayment refund of ERAF property taxes and the $585,000 the city generated from the sale of city-owned land on El Camino Real. Further, add the Franchise Fee that South San Francisco Scavenger Company pays to the City for recycling education (about $202,000 this year and about $254,000 next year). In the 04-05 year, transfer from the $8.2 million in Rdevelopment funds, the sum of $900,000 of general fund money that was loaned to the Redevelopment fund in 1988. Combining these actions will provide for a surplus in this year and the next, rather than the projected deficit.

These are concrete actions the City Council can take to balance the budget, provide full public safety staffing, and do it WITHOUT a new Parcel Tax.