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Care for La Jolla’s parks and open spaces, as well as those across San Diego City Council District 1, took center stage at Councilman Joe LaCava’s budget town hall May 12.
The online meeting was intended to collect feedback on Mayor Todd Gloria’s $1.73 billion draft budget. It was one of two scheduled town halls; the second was held the morning of May 15.
Requests for rangers, maintenance of existing facilities and capital improvement projects in shoreline parks were raised in hopes that they will be funded in the 2021-22 fiscal year that starts July 1. There are more than 42,000 acres of park assets in San Diego, including almost 27,000 acres of open space and aquatic areas, according to the draft budget. The plan proposes a reduction of just over $69,000 for the Parks & Recreation Department.
Community leaders lobby against police cuts as San Diego grapples with worsening deficit [The San Diego Union-Tribune]
Residents and community leaders from across San Diego lobbied city officials Wednesday not to cut Police Department funding, despite new projections showing the city’s budget deficit is worse than expected.
The new projections show the tourism-reliant city is facing an $85.4 million deficit during the current fiscal year that ends June 30. That’s on top of a $154 million deficit projected for the new fiscal year.
Mayor Todd Gloria says he is exploring possible mid-year emergency budget cuts to close the $85.4 million gap. But he said he is not proposing cuts immediately, primarily because the city may receive significant federal and state COVID-19 relief money.
SAN DIEGO
San Diego may soon merge city efforts focused on enforcement of wage laws, worker safety rules, sick-day requirements and guidelines for selecting city contractors.
The goal would be streamlining those efforts, now handled by several different city agencies, and combining them under a new Office of Labor Standards Enforcement.
Five of the City Council’s nine members endorsed creating the new agency in budget request memos submitted this month. Those memos will help determine the proposed budget Mayor Todd Gloria is scheduled to unveil in April.
Programs that would fall under the Office of Labor Standards Enforcement would likely include minimum wage, living wage, prevailing wage, earned sick days, labor compliance and equal opportunity contracting.