Uhring To Feldman On City Budget: “I Think You Have Done A Hell Of A Job” – Pierson to Uhring: “You Are Spot On”
Written by 991KBU on February 4, 2021
Malibu’s city council … blasted into factions by the election of two so-called reform candidates.
It has been unable to pull off the first of the year budget review subcommittee meeting … until Tuesday.
One of the reform candidates … Steve Uhring … is on the Administrative and Finance Committee.
And when it met Tuesday … he started with this comment to the city manager Reva Feldman… and her assistant city manager … Lisa Soghur:
NEWSCART 73243 UHRING HELL OF A JOB
“I met with you and Lisa and went through the budget … and I don’t have a …
“I think you have done a hell of a job … based on the criteria you got from the city councikl last time … I think you’ve got us moving in the right direction.”
The only fault that Uhring could find … was with the city council … not the city manager.
Uhring says there needs to be more strategic planning … looking more than one year at a time.
NEWSCART 73242 UHRING PRIORITIES
“We want to be able to direct our budget resources to current residents’ high priority concerns.
“You Know there some things that we heard from the community that says ‘this is stuff that is driving us nuts.’
“So there has to be some component of our budget analysis that says we are going to attack some of those items.”
Malibu’s city manager …Reva Feldman … said she appreciated that.
And mayor Mikke Pierson … agreed.
NEWSCART 73241 PIERSON SPOT ON
“Honestly … I think you are spot on … and really our goal here is to look at this and come up with recommendations … lay out a potential plan … and then the city council makes those decisions.”
O-K … now trhat they are all on the same page … what about the budget?
Malibu cut its 31 million dollar budget last year … eliminating some services held dear by some residents … when the pandemic hit.
But Malibu has just received a settlement check from Southern California Edison … there was money in the bank.
Malibu’s budget relies mostly on property taxes … not like other cities like Santa Monica … where sales taxes are the gold mine.
City manager Reva Feldman says Malibu is better positioned than almost any other small city in California.
Assistant city manager Lisa Soghur says the city took the darkest possible outlook on financial projections … and the amount of tax and other money coming in is a peasant surprise.
NEWSCART 73240 SOGHUR
“We are happy to bring you this.
“We are cautiously optimistic.
“We ended last year in a much stringer position than we had anticipated … both at the time of the budget (makling) … but at the first quarter (of the budget year).”
At least on the Administration and Finance subcommittee standpoint … Malibu’s city government is functioning.
This was clearly the first city council meeting of any sort since new members were sworn in … where points of order … interruption and dissent were not the overwhelming accomplishment.
That said … there were only two city council members on the Zoom meeting.
