Community Budget Working Group presents San Jose Excels! recommendations to City representatives

The final report of the Community Budget Working Group was presented to officials from the City of San Jose today.

The seven-page document articulates the community's driving budget principle and 10 keys to assure excellence from the City's budget process. Each key includes specific recommendations that stemmed from multiple conversations with scores of community members and suggestions that were submitted through the Working Group's website, MyBudgetIdea.com.

"We're pleased to be able to provide the community's thoughts on how best to allocate the City's resources," said Working Group member Tamara Alvarado. "We heard repeatedly that the City's top budget concerns should be public safety, neighborhood services, the environment, a vibrant artistic and cultural life, and a government that is community-oriented and friendly. Today, we're able to present the ideas of some of the City's brightest minds on how to ensure that those concerns are met."

Representatives from the Mayor's office and several Councilmembers' offices were on hand to receive the report, which the Working Group intends to present to the entire City Council during an upcoming Council meeting.

The full document can be downloaded from the group's website, MyBudgetIdea.com.

The Community Budget Working Group was formed by a group of community leaders to ensure that a broad range of voices is heard by elected leaders as the City of San Jose discusses how to allocate increasingly scarce resources. Convened by Working Partnerships USA, the Working Group features a steering committee of representatives from a broad range of community organizations and constituencies. Participants include City commissioners, heads of ethnic Chambers of Commerce, religious leaders, environmentalists and neighborhood activists.

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City budget should ensure security, safety and superior services

San Jose's city budget should maintain and support security and public safety, provide superior services to neighborhoods, protect the environment and encourage a vibrant cultural life in a community-friendly, efficient way, the Community Budget Working Group believes.

The Working Group's meeting Saturday produced three informed and detailed discussions that will shape its report to the City Council: "Neighborhood Services and Safety," "Efficient and Open Government" and "Increasing Revenue and Strengthening the Tax Base." The subject areas and the topics within them were distilled from the Working Group's initial meeting in December by an independent financial analyst and targeted for greater scrutiny by the public.

Working Partnerships USA, which originally convened the group, expects to produce a final report to the City Council in a few weeks.

"The City's financial situation evolved over years," said Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, WPUSA's executive director. "We need to realize that it will also take time to solve these problems, and that it's better to take time to come up with the right solutions than the quickest ones."

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Community Budget Working Group Reconvenes Jan. 12

A financial analysis of more than 60 public suggestions for allocating the City's resources will be presented to the Community Budget Working Group when it reconvenes at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 12 at the Northside Community Center, 488 North 6th St.

The independent financial consulting firm Applied Development Economics, hired to assess the proposals, has been working on the budget ideas for more than a month since they were generated from a standing-room only crowd at the Working Group's first meeting, which was convened by Working Partnerships USA to ensure the full community has input in the City budget process.

A package of budget suggestions will be prepared for submission to the City Council following the Jan. 12 meeting. You can see some of the ideas presented at the Working Group's first meeting here.

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Important Announcements

First, the follow-up meeting around the budget ideas has been scheduled! It will be held on January 12th, 9:30 am. (Stay posted for the location.) At this meeting, the consultants will present their analysis of the ideas we've generated, and we'll prepare a package of suggestions to give to the City.

Second, by popular demand, Working Partnerships Policy Director and former City of San Jose Budget Director Bob Brownstein will present a workshop about the City Budget on January 7th at 7:00pm at Working Partnerships' offices, 2102 Almaden Road. Please respond to this email address if you're interested in attending.

Finally, the ideas we've generated so far have been posted at mybudgetidea.com/ideas.html. If reviewing them inspires another idea
for you, feel free to submit it to the site! We'll accept ideas through December 15th.

We hope to see you on the 12th!

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First Community Meeting is Big Success

Below is the press release from the Community Budget Working Group about today's meeting.

On Saturday, December 1st, the Community Budget Working Group held its first budget discussion, hosting over 100 San Jose residents in a discussion of how the City can best allocate its resources. Community members generated several dozen ideas that will be studied by a professional analysis firm and ultimately presented to the City. Councilmembers Pierluigi Oliverio and Kansen Chu attended the meeting, as did representatives of Mayor Chuck Reed and Councilmember Forrest Williams.

"It was very educational. I'm glad I was invited," said Myrtle Ferrande, one of the community members present. Other participants echoed her enthusiasm, and expressed appreciation for the opportunity for their voices to be heard.

"It was wonderful to see the public involved in a budget conversation," said Michelle Lew, Executive Director of Asian-Americans for Community Involvement, and member of the Working Group's Steering Committee. "Our fear was that without public input, the City's process would have been incomplete. We feel confident today that we've appealed to the best minds in our community and can help complete the picture."

The Working Group will continue to solicit ideas and recommendations at its website through December 15th. A second meeting will be announced for January, at which the analyzed ideas and proposals will be discussed and released publicly.

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Announcing SJPresupuesto.com

We've added a Spanish language version of our website at SJPresupuesto.com.  There is a link to it from the main MyBudgetIdea.com website as well.

[ Continue reading Announcing SJPresupuesto.com ]

Mercury News Supports More Inclusive Budget Process

We welcome today's acknowledgments by the Mercury News ("Citizen input crucial to fix budget gap") that the answers to San Jose's city budget questions will come from all its people.

From the outset, this has been the Community Budget Working Group's approach to an intelligent and equitable city budget: Involve more San Joseans in the process. We are the people who built this great city -- the brains, builders and financial backers of its success. And we can figure out what we want city government to do and how to pay for it.

The Community Budget Working Group includes labor, business executives and chamber of commerce leaders, faith-based groups, environmental organizations and non-profits. Just as important, it is the only forum in the budget process urging you, the taxpayer, to weigh in with your concerns and your solutions. What do you want from city government, and how much do you value it?

Start by going to MyBudgetIdea.com and then come to the Working Group's first public meeting at 9:30 a.m., Saturday, Dec. 1 at the Martin Luther King Library downtown. Mayor Reed and the City Council have already said they're interested in what you say to us.

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Budget Coverage in the Mercury News

In this morning's Mercury News, reporter John Woolfolk examined broad public dissatisfaction in the City's existing budget proposals. You can read the article at: http://www.mercurynews.com/valley/ci_7503899

This doesn't come as a surprise to those of us who have come together to form the Community Budget Working Group. We came together explicitly because we were concerned about the limited range of voices that were invited to contribute ideas around the City budget.

But the Mercury News missed an exciting development. The community has come together to assure that those voices are heard. We have developed a process that can assure that, as much as possible, San Jose residents can feel confident in how the City is moving forward in the strongest possible way.

As we said in an invitation sent out to folks across the City last week, the City's budget is a complex and organic framework for our neighborhoods and businesses. It is vital that a broad range of voices be heard when considering how it should be developed.

Fortunately, it is not too late to do so. Please visit MyBudgetIdea.com and get involved. And spread the word.

Helen Chapman is the former Chair of the City of San Jose Parks and Recreation Commission.

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Working Group Introduced Before City Advisory Panel, Need For Broad Input Highlighted

San Jose's economic and social success stems from tapping a diverse group of people for innovative ideas. To that end, the Community Budget Working Group intends to bring a range of voices and ideas on the City budget to the forefront.

Last night, represented by Reymundo Espinoza, CEO of the Gardner Family Health Network, BAYMEC co-founder Wiggsy Sivertsen and myself, the Working Group invited the city committee working on budget issues to participate in the Working Group's Dec. 1 meeting at the Martin Luther King Library at which a wide range of budget ideas will be presented and discussed.

"San Jose has some of the smartest, most innovative people on the planet living within its borders," Reymundo said in his invitation to the Mayor's Budget Shortfall Advisory Group. "What better group to discuss the City budget than those innovators?"

We were among a small group of San Joseans who attended last night's meeting at City Hall where the city's own budget strategies were outlined. Without broad-based input like that which our Working Group will receive at our Dec. 1 public meeting and from our website at www.MyBudgetIdea.com - which we will present to city officials early next year - the City's budget analysis will be incomplete.

Please join the process by attending a meeting or submitting your thoughts at MyBudgetIdea.com.

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Announcing the Community Budget Working Group

Working Partnerships USA has long advocated for greater involvement of the public in the City's decision-making process. To that end, we are proud to help convene a group that is working to gather broad community input on how to allocate the City of San Jose's resources.

The new Community Budget Working Group, with a steering committee drawn from a wide range of San Joseans, will ensure that when the City Council gets down to budget work, it will have access to all the innovation, spirit and priorities our great community can provide. View the official announcement.

You can weigh in with your budget ideas at the new website MyBudgetIdea.com and at the Community Budget Working Group's two public meetings. The first of these meetings will be at the Martin Luther King Library at 9:30am, Saturday, Dec. 1. If you would like to attend, please e-mail us. The Group's recommendations will be advised and studied by Applied Development Economics, an independent economic analysis firm.

As the Working Group's efforts progress, we will use this blog to provide updates and information. We hope you will get involved.

[ Continue reading Announcing the Community Budget Working Group ]