City to vote on state funding

City officials expect to participate Wednesday in a vote in

Sacramento on ways to preserve local property tax revenue.

“An initiative has qualified for the November ballot, but now the

governor has started to work with the cities and counties fashioning

a compromise,” said City Manager Ken Frank.

The initiative would require the state to submit reductions in

property tax revenue to cities and counties to a vote of the people.

In the past, the state has reduced the revenues when it faces a

budget crisis, as it does now.

Gov. Schwarzenegger is expected to offer to put the initiative on

the ballot in two years, in return for state use of the funds to

recover from its present financial crisis.

“Nobody wants to tangle with the governor,” Frank said.

The governor’s plan would bulk up the state revenues by some $1.3

billion a year. Actual amounts are being discussed.

“That would cost the city about $1 million a year, but it’s better

than a sustained loss,” Frank said.

The city will be represented by Councilwoman Elizabeth Pearson.

Police Captain Paul Workman accompanied Pearson and Frank to

Sacramento.

-- Barbara Diamond

Council denies funds for Dayworker Center

The City Council voted 3 to 2 Tuesday to deny bridge funding to

carry the Dayworker Center through the fiscal year.

“If a nonprofit has to depend on the city for operating costs, it

needs to write an obituary,” Councilman Wayne Baglin said.

The Crosscultural Council, which organized the Dayworker Center on

Laguna Canyon Road, had requested $8,000 from the city.

Baglin, Councilwoman Elizabeth Pearson and Mayor Cheryl Kinsman

voted against taking the $8,000 out of the city’s $3.3 million

general fund reserve.

The fiscal year ends June 30.

Any dip into the reserve requires four votes.

The council voted 4 to 1 at the April 20 meeting to appropriate

$15,000 from the fund to supplement an existing budget to hire

consultants to help the city retain needed medical services.

City Manager Ken Frank said the council has in the past, albeit

infrequently, found creative ways around the four-vote requirement to

dip into the reserve.

“You could take it from something else,” he said.

The Crosscultural Council applied to the city in the 2003-04

budget for a $34,000 community assistance grant for its projects. It

was given $24,000, $20,000 of which went to operating the day worker

center.

Contractors and homeowners also contribute to the center’s

operating costs of about $4,200 a month.

“We made a decision at the budget hearing that we would help,”

said Councilman Steven Dicterow. “I am very disappointed.

“This is a solution to a neighborhood problem and a direct benefit

to the city. It is different than other nonprofit organizations --

more like an outreach program.”

Before the center was put into the canyon, dayworkers gathered on

street corners, heavily concentrated in North Laguna. Residents

complained bitterly and police were routinely called to patrol the

area.

Police response to residents’ complaints cost a lot more than the

city’s grants to sustain the dayworker center, Councilwoman Toni

Iseman said.

“This is a moral threshold,” Iseman said.

-- Barbara Diamond

Parking fees to rise Downtown this summer

Parking fees are set to go up this summer at two Downtown parking

lots.

The City Council approved a $1 increase in daily parking rates at

the lumberyard and city employee parking lots, raising the cost of

parking to $9. Both lots are located along the intersection of Laguna

Canyon Road and Forest Avenue. The higher rate would be in effect

during the summer, from the last weekend in June to Labor Day.

The council set the 2005 summer rate to $10. In April, the daily

rate at the Act V lot rose to $7. Council members said it should cost

more to park near Downtown and the beach.

“The closer you’re in, the higher the rate should be,”

Councilwoman Elizabeth Pearson said.

Councilwoman Toni Iseman said she wanted the council to return to

the Act V lot.

“I think a lower price would make the parking that much more

attractive,” she said.

City backs tide pool protection plan

The City Council unanimously approved a resolution on Tuesday

calling for the full implementation of the Marine Life Protection

Act.

The resolution calls for the state to implement the act as soon as

possible. The act, passed by the state legislature in 1999, called

for the Department of Fish and Game to set aside areas along the

coast as marine life preserves and a deadline was eventually set for

April 1, 2005. However, the state announced last January that the

work to put the law in effect would go on hold indefinitely.

The chairman of Laguna’s chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, Rick

Wilson, said the group worked with Councilman Wayne Baglin to draft

the resolution, which does not change existing local laws.