Gonna be a very, very long night.
We start the evening with a closed session regarding ongoing labor negotiations with two units, the Sunnyvale Managers Association (SMA) and SEIU 521 (largely part-time workers). This is followed by a study session to give a progress report on the plans for replacing the Water Pollution Control Plant. As this is the largest municipal project in the history of Sunnyvale, it should be interesting.
There are good awards to win, and there are bad awards to win. And then there are those awards that are just downright weird.
Somehow, Movato has compiled a list of the snobbiest mid-sized cities in America, and Sunnyvale is ranked #8 in their nationwide poll. Movato’s somewhat dubious methodology compared such factors as median home price, median household income, frequency of college degrees, and presence of private schools, performing arts, art galleries, country clubs, and (absence of) fast food restaurants, based on 2010 US Census data and business listings. In assembling its list, Movato notes that Sunnyvale scores high because of its highest median home prices of all cities, fourth highest household income, and fifth highest percentage of college graduates.
I’d deign to respond to Movato’s characterization about Sunnyvale, but it’s beneath me, so I just can’t be bothered to comment. Besides, it’s martini hour.
Big news, everyone. We will be holding the ceremony to mark the grand opening of Sunnyvale’s new Seven Seas park on Saturday, July 12th at 10:00 a.m. Seven Seas is a six-acre park located on Morse Avenue off of Weddell, north of Highway 101 in the Morse Park neighborhood. Its amenities include a half basketball court, children’s play area, tennis court, picnic area, water play area, dog run, and the new art installation “Under the Umbrella”.
This is a wonderful addition to Sunnyvale’s parks in a neighborhood that has long been under-served by existing park space, and it’s a project that has been in the works for many years. I snapped some photos of the work in progress as we get close to completion.
I hope you can make it to the grand opening of Seven Seas!
Interesting and important night. We start the evening with two closed sessions involving discussion of an ongoing lawsuit and the City Attorney’s semi-annual performance review.
The public meeting starts with no less than three special orders. The first is the swearing-in of the new boardmembers and commissioners. The second is a fun one. Sunnyvale student Swapnil Garg recently won the 2014 Raytheon MATHOCOUNTS National Competition, both as winner of the individual contest and as a member of the winning team. We’ll be recognizing his accomplishment. The third recognizes Arbor Day.
The consent calendar is relatively light – a tract map and two contract modifications. One involves our temporary planning staff contract, which is proposed to be extended for another year. The other involves traffic signal maintenance.
We’re coming up on our annual review of utility rate increases, and I wanted to call out what’s being proposed and why it’s being proposed. For FY 2014-15, the proposed rate increases are
Staff projects that for the typical household, which previously paid $121.10/month on average for all three bills combined, will now pay $128.88/month, or a $7.78 more per month, an overall 6.4% increase. This is obviously larger than usual, so it bears some discussion. The causes are obvious in some cases, not so much in others.
All three of these fees are part of what we call “enterprise funds”, and they have no effect on the General Fund or other city services. We create “enterprise funds” whenever a service needs to operate like an isolated, standalone business. So for solid waste, we have what’s effectively its own budget, and we run the services as a non-profit, and whatever it costs, that’s what we charge. Ditto water and wastewater. We don’t supplement the enterprise funds with tax money or other revenue, and we don’t take any utility revenue out to do other stuff.
Continue reading
Follow