Vallejo council delays budget approval to accommodate $1.6M for police, downtown, marina projects

VALLEJO – The Vallejo City Council delayed its vote on Tuesday to approve the 2023-24 budget until the June 27 meeting to find a way to pay for $1.6 million in projects that did not get funded in the final revisions of the budget proposal.

The outstanding projects include full funding of the initial development plan for the rebuilding of the police station on Amador Street, a handful of downtown improvement projects and dredging the marina. Over the next two weeks the council and staff will search for a way to cover the $1.6 million in unfunded projects and consider a reduction in Mare Island’s special tax before the fiscal year deadline on June 30.  

“Sooner or later you are going to have to make some calls and there are going to be enough people around who are not going to be happy no matter what those calls are going to be,” Mayor Robert McConnell said at Tuesday’s budget meeting.

At this point in the budget process the council and staff have limited options for funding the outstanding items as well as managing a revenue decrease required for Mare Island tax relief.  

Councilmember Peter Bregenzer pointed out that the proposed budget provides only $700,000 for a development plan for rebuilding the police station at Amador street which is less than half of the funding necessary to complete the required design before moving forward with financing and other aspects of the project.

“I feel that this project is critical for our community,” Bregenzer said. “I feel it’s critical for public safety, I feel it’s critical for recruitment and I feel it’s critical for employee safety in that building. So I think we need to talk about ways of funding that additional $900,000 to get that 35% design over the goal line this year.”

Bregenzer said that he would consider using Measure P funds – a seven-eighths-cent sales tax increase passed by voters in November – to fund the police station because he believes that rebuilding the department could fall under the public safety uses described in the measure.

Councilmember Rozzana Verder-Aliga said that she is willing to consider dipping into reserves to fund the police station plan and to provide partial funding for downtown projects. The Vallejo Naval Museum and the Empress Theatre are both in need of supportive funding, she said. The organization Vallejo Main Street also submitted a proposal for $145,000 to produce quarterly events downtown.

“The fund balance is for urgent needs,” Verder-Aliga said. “And I think that all the requests are urgent.”

The council asked staff to prepare some alternative budget numbers for the June 27 meeting that include making use of reserve funds to cover the outstanding projects. But with local governments facing increasing budget deficits, dipping into reserves now could leave the city in a precarious position in the future.

Councimembers Bregenzer and Charles Palmares said that they have scheduled a meeting with city staff on June 22 to discuss the possibility of including Mare Island tax relief in the proposed budget before the vote on June 27. At last week's meeting, the council had asked staff to schedule further discussion of the Mare Island Community Finance Districts in September.

The council did approve several resolutions related to the proposed budget, including  an increase in marina fees and charges.

A resident of the marina who was identified only as Kim L. expressed frustration that the city plans to raise the fees without dredging the entrance where a sandbar has collected, blocking the passage of larger boats with hulls that extend deeper into the water.

“I cannot sell the boat because it cannot leave the Marina. It is landlocked, “ Kim L. said. “It has too much draft to get past the berm. So I am stuck paying the rent or surrendering the boat to the city and saying, ‘demolish my 50 ft boat because it cannot move.’”

The city did approve a sedimentation study that appeared on the consent calendar at last night’s meeting. But the study will only identify options for modifying the dock or the damaged sea wall to change the sedimentation pattern, not dredging the existing sediment.

McConnell said that if the sandbar at the Marina entrance is preventing larger boats from exiting the marina, the city could be exposed to liability for failing to provide services and breaching the berth rental contract.

“If we have boats that are basically imprisoned out there then I think we have a serious problem, McConnell said. “I think this needs to go up on priority now.”

Public works director Melissa Tigbao noted that the city had looked into the cost of a small dredging project just to remove the sandbar at the entrance to the marina and the estimate was $500,000.  

At the close of the meeting Councilmember Christina Arriola asked that the application period for the Measure P Oversight Committee and the Police Oversight and Accountability Commission be extended.City Manager Mike Malone confirmed that the deadlines would be extended.  

During public comment, Andrea Sorce, President of the Surveillance Advisory Board said there needs to be more outreach and education about the police commission.

Sorce, who is also a co-founder of the Solano County ACLU, said that the ACLU believes that the lack of applicants is due to a lack of clarity on exactly what the commission is going to entail. “It’s different from any of the other commissions that we have had,” she said. “It’s going to require commissioners to go through intensive training to review cases that might trigger them or expose them to vicarious trauma.”