Budget

The City Council adopted the Biennial Operating Budget. The vote was 7-0. Here’s the bottom line:

• The total operating budget for FY 2019/20 is $844.7 million. It’s a decrease of $14.8 million or two percent less than the FY 2018/19 Adopted Annual Operating Budget.  

• The FY 2020/21 operating budget of $846.5 million is an increase of $1.8 million or 0.2 percent above the proposed FY 2019/20 budget.

• Financial reserves are almost $300 million. This is the highest amount it’s been in over a decade.

Kudos to the City Staff and the City Council for a job well done with city finances.

Housing

The City Council approved the Catalina II Residential Development Project at 1433-1493 El Camino Real.

SCS Development will build a 39-unit residential development with seven live/work units on three contiguous parcels.  It’s a total of 1.7 acres. It’s on El Camino Real between Lincoln and Monroe. The vote was unanimous.

Golf

The City Council unanimously gave City Staff approval to negotiate an agreement with the City of Sunnyvale so Santa Clarans may be able to play golf in our neighboring city.  

The City Place project will replace the Santa Clara Golf and Tennis Club, so the City is trying to accommodate Mission City golfers, clubs and high school teams. Kudos to the City Council and City Staff for creative problem-solving.

Miscellaneous

At the end of the meeting, there were two interesting speeches:

• Mayor Lisa Gillmor talked about the State of the City events. She thanked her council colleagues who attended. But she also spent a long time thanking City Manager Deanna Santana and the City Staff. That was a nice touch since the staff put in a lot of work. She also said the Civil Grand Jury Report on Santa Clara’s weak response to public records act requests did not tell the full story. (We have experience with the staff on this and will write about this in the coming days.) Gillmor’s remarks are about eight minutes long.

• Police Chief Mike Sellers made an appearance to say he was retiring. He said no one should see any controversy in his actions and that he just felt it was the right time. Sellers looked the most relaxed he’s ever been at a council meeting over the last few years. And he’s been in front of the microphone for a lot of controversial things. Sellers’ remarks are about 2 minutes long.