Neary-Sighted

How cool is this? I did not know we had wireless Internet access on the second floor of City Hall, and I am typing while the city manager is making his introductory remarks.

As you will see from the post below, this is the first of five nights where we'll be considering how to spend your money - the general budget of the City of Lakewood.

Lakewood has a number of separate funds, such as those that administer the sewers and street maintenance. The general fund, which has a lot of room for discretion, is proposed to be $38.15 million.

Tonight, City Manager Andrew Neiditz called the budget a "hold the line budget. The trending that we see is that we need to budget conservatively if we are going to sustain the efforts we are starting."

There are, for example, no new staff positions except for someone to help with Municipal Court security. The city would eliminate two community service officer positions, which is in line with what I wrote below. As I type this, the city manager, Andrew Neiditz, is saying, in city manager language, that he knows community service officers are important but in the light of all the city needs, we cannot afford them. So my post below seems to be essentially correct - the proposed budget is abandoning community policing in two large chunks of town. Andrew is also saying that if we don't try to serve all six neighborhoods - if we only serve four, but intensively - at least we will do well in preventing crime in those four areas.

It's an interesting point, and worth considering for 10 or 20 seconds, tops. But we need to be fair to all citizens. It will be interesting to see if the council agrees with what is, in the most negative way of putting it, neighborhood discrimination.

Who knows? The council might. I'm sorta wondering, if you read the papers, if some of the council members will pay any attention to public safety if they can talk about gambling instead.

One thing about the new budget I really like is that the city is adding someone to help administer the courts and help provide screening and security. Last year, the council heard some scary information that suggests our courts are at risk because there is only one officer on duty, and the officer can only be in one place at any given time. For about a year, I would bet the council members who pay attention have been a bit worried, as I have been, about what would happen if someone in the court did something bad. The new employee would also help supervise the work crew from the county jail, which is a great way of getting labor that is free except for the cost of that supervisor.

Another new cost the city will have to bear is $200,000 to provide intensive security for the new commuter parking garage on Pac Highway. Now, you might think we should have tried to get Sound Transit to pay for that cost. But I am glad we are paying for it because we get to control it. Frankly, Sound Transit has not exactly met all expectations. If they did to security what they did to rail access for Lakewood, no security officers would ever show up. So I am glad we are controlling security at the commuter station.
Just to elaborate - when I commuted to Seattle, I parked for awhile at the park and ride in Federal Way. It was pretty scary (and let me stress, I am talking about 1999) It is going to be important that we provide excellent security at the Lakewood parking garage.

Heck, someday we might even have a train, like you see in the Sound Transit art at right.

Wow. I can actually post during a council meeting. I think I will post this before the meeting ends ...
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