Budget Time Again
The council recently completed preliminary review of the budget for 2008. The city manager brought council a budget that didn’t use any of our savings from other years, along with a list of items that had been omitted in order to balance things. After reviewing these omissions, the council felt many some were priorities that needed to be part of the budget, and asked staff to draft another budget including these items. The revised budget will mean we have to draw from the city’s savings balances, though there should still be plenty left to keep things running.
Some of the priorities added back by council included the following:
- Improving the quality of Tam O’Shanter Park and Rister Stadium by funding the paving of the reconstructed parking area.
- Enhancing Kelso’s streets by fully funding the 2008 overlay program. (Street conditions were the most frequently-mentioned concerns in the town hall meetings I attended last year.)
- Providing another youth recreation opportunity by funding the city’s matching portion of the skate park funding. (A pending grant application with the state would have to be approved in order for the project to go forward.)
- Adding staff to the planning and engineering departments in order to become more timely and responsive to development projects. Read more »
Election Day has come and gone, and the evening’s initial results suggest Mark Chester will be replaced on the Council by Dan Myers in 2008. In my experience, Mark has been a solid council member who approaches issues thoughtfully and objectively, and his departure will be a loss. However, Dan is an experienced councilman as well, and I’m optimistic that he’ll be able to fit in and continue the cooperative approach the council has taken to the work before us.