Latest Email Message
A Message from DAS
June 2009
This Time 'Round:
* We Balanced The Budget!
* Mail in Your Sierra Club Ballot ASAP
* Sci-Fi to Save The Ventura Library System
* Synthetic Sea - Free, TONIGHT!
I Know No One Will Believe It, but We Balanced the Budget!
Since the Jesusita Fire, I have been concentrating on dealing with our approx. 8% budget deficit. This includes finding the areas we can cut the Santa Barbara City's budget without cutting essential services like patrol officers, firefighters, and programs that keep our youth out of trouble, as well as making sure that various entities are contributing their share of revenue. My work has been matched by political courage from my colleagues on the City Council, co-operation from employee unions in order to achieve cost savings through concessions and alternative ideas, and tremendous effort from the management and budget staff to present multiple options.
At a budget work session last Tuesday, we came up with a plan for a balanced budget for the next fiscal year that begins July 1. It is fully balanced for this year without any involuntary layoffs -- layoffs that would have reduced many important services. To do this we did have to eliminate many open positions, delay vehicle replacements, axe travel and training, reduce our own City Council budget, and shift some expenses onto more secure funds in the City. We have even carved out nearly $1.7 million in contingency funds in case our COPS grant to pay for police officers fails or the state raids the City for gas tax or General Fund money.
Mail In Your Sierra Club Ballot ASAP
Have you made a donation to Sierra Club in the last year? Do you live in SB or Ventura County? If so, you are likely a member of the Sierra Club Los Padres Chapter and have received a ballot in the mail for the new Executive Committee election. Please vote for up to three candidates and mail in your ballot early this week! To learn more, go to http://lospadres.sierraclub.org/newsletter/2009-03_Jun_Jul.pdf and turn to Page 6 of the Condor Call.
Sci-Fi to Save the Ventura Library System!
Join the San Buenaventura Friends of the Ventura Library in welcoming science fiction legend Ray Bradbury to Ventura to kick-off the Wright Library Author Series. Admission is only $25 and $15 for children and seniors. The event will include a short documentary film, a rare film written by Mr. Bradbury, and a Q&A with Mr. Bradbury. The event takes place 2-5:30pm, Saturday June 20, at the Ventura college Theatre on the 4700 block of Loma Vista Road.
Synthetic Sea: Results of People Using Single-use Bags and Plastic
Join the City of SB's Creeks Division and County Project Clean Water for "Synthetic Sea", a FREE Community Forum TONIGHT, Monday, June 15th from 6:30 - 8pm at the Cabrillo Pavilion Arts Center, 1118 E. Cabrillo Blvd.
Last summer, Dr. Marcus Eriksen sailed from Long Beach to Hawaii on a raft made of 15,000 plastic bottles! Now he's on his way to Santa Barbara along with Anna Cummins on a 2,000 mile bicycle JUNKride from Vancouver to Tijuana to raise awareness about plastic pollution rapidly increasing in the North Pacific Ocean.
On a quest to end the age of disposable plastics, Eriksen and Cummins will present wrenching photographs from a decade of research at sea, and share their observations of the North Pacific Gyre, a swirling vortex of ocean currents twice the size of the United States, in which vast quanitites of plastic are rapidly accumulating. Learn how to get involved locally with organizations including SB Channelkeeper, Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ocean Futures Society, Surfrider Foundation, Art From Scrap, and Healing Oceans Together.
View the event flyer here: http://www.santabarbaraca.gov/NR/rdonlyres/39AEB8F8-01D4-4C6C-AB15-67417F178824/0/ForumFlyer.pdf
Have A Great Summer!
Das Williams
June 2009
This Time 'Round:
* We Balanced The Budget!
* Mail in Your Sierra Club Ballot ASAP
* Sci-Fi to Save The Ventura Library System
* Synthetic Sea - Free, TONIGHT!
I Know No One Will Believe It, but We Balanced the Budget!
Since the Jesusita Fire, I have been concentrating on dealing with our approx. 8% budget deficit. This includes finding the areas we can cut the Santa Barbara City's budget without cutting essential services like patrol officers, firefighters, and programs that keep our youth out of trouble, as well as making sure that various entities are contributing their share of revenue. My work has been matched by political courage from my colleagues on the City Council, co-operation from employee unions in order to achieve cost savings through concessions and alternative ideas, and tremendous effort from the management and budget staff to present multiple options.
At a budget work session last Tuesday, we came up with a plan for a balanced budget for the next fiscal year that begins July 1. It is fully balanced for this year without any involuntary layoffs -- layoffs that would have reduced many important services. To do this we did have to eliminate many open positions, delay vehicle replacements, axe travel and training, reduce our own City Council budget, and shift some expenses onto more secure funds in the City. We have even carved out nearly $1.7 million in contingency funds in case our COPS grant to pay for police officers fails or the state raids the City for gas tax or General Fund money.
Mail In Your Sierra Club Ballot ASAP
Have you made a donation to Sierra Club in the last year? Do you live in SB or Ventura County? If so, you are likely a member of the Sierra Club Los Padres Chapter and have received a ballot in the mail for the new Executive Committee election. Please vote for up to three candidates and mail in your ballot early this week! To learn more, go to http://lospadres.sierraclub.org/newsletter/2009-03_Jun_Jul.pdf and turn to Page 6 of the Condor Call.
Sci-Fi to Save the Ventura Library System!
Join the San Buenaventura Friends of the Ventura Library in welcoming science fiction legend Ray Bradbury to Ventura to kick-off the Wright Library Author Series. Admission is only $25 and $15 for children and seniors. The event will include a short documentary film, a rare film written by Mr. Bradbury, and a Q&A with Mr. Bradbury. The event takes place 2-5:30pm, Saturday June 20, at the Ventura college Theatre on the 4700 block of Loma Vista Road.
Synthetic Sea: Results of People Using Single-use Bags and Plastic
Join the City of SB's Creeks Division and County Project Clean Water for "Synthetic Sea", a FREE Community Forum TONIGHT, Monday, June 15th from 6:30 - 8pm at the Cabrillo Pavilion Arts Center, 1118 E. Cabrillo Blvd.
Last summer, Dr. Marcus Eriksen sailed from Long Beach to Hawaii on a raft made of 15,000 plastic bottles! Now he's on his way to Santa Barbara along with Anna Cummins on a 2,000 mile bicycle JUNKride from Vancouver to Tijuana to raise awareness about plastic pollution rapidly increasing in the North Pacific Ocean.
On a quest to end the age of disposable plastics, Eriksen and Cummins will present wrenching photographs from a decade of research at sea, and share their observations of the North Pacific Gyre, a swirling vortex of ocean currents twice the size of the United States, in which vast quanitites of plastic are rapidly accumulating. Learn how to get involved locally with organizations including SB Channelkeeper, Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ocean Futures Society, Surfrider Foundation, Art From Scrap, and Healing Oceans Together.
View the event flyer here: http://www.santabarbaraca.gov/NR/rdonlyres/39AEB8F8-01D4-4C6C-AB15-67417F178824/0/ForumFlyer.pdf
Have A Great Summer!
Das Williams
Labels: budget, libraries, pollution, Sierra Club
posted by Malcolm
at
6/15/2009
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