LAKEPORT >> The Lakeport City Council held a special meeting Friday to define the city’s goals for the next fiscal year.
After several presentations from various department heads, council members and City Manager Margaret Silveira came to the consensus that improving public safety, enhancing infrastructure and increasing community outreach should be the top priorities of the 2016-2017 fiscal year.
To those involved, the best way to improve public safety is to retain and recruit more Lakeport Police officers. However, due to salary structure the LPD has been unable to fill all of the 12 positions allocated to force, leaving seven officers to patrol the streets and work a balanced load of overtime.
“They are the most efficient police force with limited staff,” Siliveira said, praising their efforts.
According to Chief Brad Rasmussen, the city just made conditional offers to two applicants and will be sending them to the police academy soon. But that’s not enough for him as he is actively looking for experienced candidates as well.
The coalition found that public safety can also be increased with infrastructure improvements to sidewalks and city streets. Some improvements are already underway. Public Works Director Mark Brannigan pointed to construction on Bevins Street, which is scheduled to start in the 2016-2017 fiscal year.
Silviera, on the other hand, was focused on creating more sidewalks in the city. To do so would require the city to create policy and to work with homeowners who currently do not have a public walking space fronting their property. According to Community Development Director Kevin Ingram, owners have to pay for the sidewalk, discouraging them from fully improving their properties.
“This is holding back our housing stock,” Ingram said.
The biggest problem the city faces for this issue, infrastructure, and officer retention is finding the funding. According to Finance Director Dan Buffalo, help isn’t coming from the state, especially as it faces a huge transportation budget gap of $6 billion annually for the next ten years.
“We have no resources coming from Sacramento,” Buffalo said. “It’s more of a take than a give.”
One way to get around that, Silviera recommended, is with local tax initiatives but doing so anywhere in Lake County as Proposition 218 votes have had acute failure rates in recent years.
Councilman Kenneth Parlet firmly believed that increased community outreach and stressing the city’s situation will improve the chances for success.
“They need to see what we see,” Parlet said. “We need to sell them on all the good things we are doing so they are on our side.”
The first step, he added, was to create easily-digested informational literature such as “frequently asked questions” and “did you know?” sheets to educate citizens on city operations and costs.
Other items were discussed at meeting such as the finishing of the Lakefront Strategic Plan, Soda Bay Road annexation, and medical marijuana regulation.
Mayor Marc Spillman was absent for the second half of the meeting when the council members were surveyed about their priorities. They used different colored stickers to determine importance; red indicated a high priority.
