Mayor delivers State of the City Address

Mayor Ehrenkranz delivered the State of the City Address during the December City Council meeting and provided a summarization of the work the City Council and staff have been doing over the past year.

“While many cities put on an annual State of the City event, in recent years mayors of Canyon Lake have simply given a State of the City update at a City Council meeting or in an article published in The Friday Flyer. I am pleased to announce that starting next year, the City will begin hosting an annual State of the City event. In fact, next year being the 30th anniversary of Canyon Lake’s cityhood, we plan to incorporate the State of the City event into a 30th Anniversary Gala to be held in December of 2020.

“2019 has been a year of change and of tremendous progress for the City of Canyon Lake. The new year began with two new members having recently joined the City Council. Jeremy Smith and Kasey Castillo have been fantastic additions to the Council. They have thrown themselves into their new roles, bringing enthusiasm and fresh ideas to the city.

“One of the most important decisions any City Council makes is the selection of a city manager. While the Council’s job is to set policy and to determine the vision and goals of the city, the city manager is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the city. Having the right city manager in place is critical to the successful implementation of the policies, vision and goals set by the Council.

“In January, a search for a new manager began. The search was headed by an Ad Hoc Committee consisting of Mayor Larry Greene and Councilman Jeremy Smith. After an exhaustive search, 34 applicants were considered, two rounds of interviews were held and ultimately Chris Mann was chosen as our new city manager.

“Another significant change at the beginning of the year was the transition of the staffing in our Building Department. The city has historically contracted for Building Department services, including counter technician, plan check, inspections and building official services.

“Over the past few years, the city had contracted with Charles Abbott Associates to provide these services. Always looking to find ways to better serve the public, the city entered into an agreement with Interwest Consulting Group in December of last year.

“Transitioning the staffing of an entire department proved to be a significant undertaking which required adjustments by the city, by Interwest and by the public; however, now a year into the new contract, I think it’s safe to say that our relationship with Interwest has helped the city to provide a more professional level of service in the Building Department. We are doing a better job keeping the community safe by ensuring that the State Building Codes are adhered to.

“Aside from the city manager, the city attorney is the only other position hired directly by the City Council. Early in the year, the City Council directed the city manager to negotiate a new contract with Cole Huber, the law firm which had provided City Attorney Services to the city for many years. The new deal that was negotiated not only resulted in significant cost savings for the city, but it called for a change in city attorneys from Betsy Martyn to Steven Graham.

“The City Council and staff have been very pleased with the work Steven Graham has been doing over the past few months. His willingness to be creative, his outside-of-the-box thinking and his ability to work well with all parties have already proven to be of tremendous benefit to the city.

“In the spring, a vacancy in the building directly to the south of the main City Hall building provided an opportunity to expand into much needed additional office space. Our space in the existing City Hall building was cramped. We literally did not have room to add a single intern. Our Enforcement Department worked out of a room the size of a large closet that could not even accommodate landline phone service. We had no place that could adequately accommodate important meetings.

“The city quickly jumped on the opportunity to occupy the new office space. Securing a lease agreement in April, we moved our administrative functions to the new space, allowing the Enforcement Department and office specialists to expand into the existing space.

“Today, Enforcement, Business Licenses, Building Department and Planning Department services are provided in the main City Hall building. The offices of the city manager, administrative services manager, city clerk, Finance and our WRCOG Fellow are housed in the new administration offices. The new office space also has a conference room and two work stations for interns.

“Finally having adequate office and meeting space has increased morale as well as productivity. It has contributed significantly to the rapid rate at which the Council and staff have been able to meet stated goals.

“With two newly elected councilmembers, a new city manager and a new city attorney, the City Council held a goals setting workshop in May in order to identify priorities for the remainder of 2019. Significant progress has been made this year toward most of these goals. This process of setting goals for the year will be repeated in January of 2020, and every January thereafter.

“One of the main goals established by the City Council was to build positive regional relationships. Along those lines, another goal was specifically to enhance the city’s relationship with the POA. We’ve come a long way in accomplishing these goals.

“When it comes to the finances, the City of Canyon Lake runs a very lean operation. With a full-time staff of only five, the city saves a tremendous amount of money by utilizing part-time employees and by contracting for many of the municipal functions that most cities provide in-house.

“Perhaps the biggest challenge facing the city is the skyrocketing costs of public safety. Fire and police services provided by the city through our contracts with Riverside County have increased drastically over the past few years.

“Since 2014, the amount the county has required the city to budget for providing fire protection and emergency medical services has risen approximately 79 percent. During the same period of time, the amount the county has required the city to budget for providing police protection has risen approximately 41 percent.

“Between police and fire, the city’s public safety budget has increased by over $1.5 million over the past five years and has now grown to $4.2 million this fiscal year.

“Remaining fiscally conservative, the city spends just $1.6 million General Fund dollars on everything else that we do; however, public safety now consumes 81 percent of all General Fund revenues and the County Executive Office has signaled that additional significant increases can be expected in the near future.

“City revenues, while also growing, have not been able to keep pace with sharply rising public safety costs. Despite healthy revenue from sources such as property tax and the utility users tax, the drastic increases in public safety costs have thrown the city’s budget into a structural deficit. If not corrected, the city’s budget deficit of nearly $670,000 will quickly eat away at our General Fund reserves, estimated at slightly over $4 million.

“All of that being said, we were very fortunate to catch a break in the last fiscal year, which ended on June 30. The amount the city was actually billed by the county for police and fire services ended up coming in significantly lower than the numbers that were given to us at the beginning of the fiscal year.

“While this is not unusual, the degree to which it occurred was definitely an anomaly. So much so, that instead of running a deficit of more than $558,000 we ended up with a surplus of more than $227,000.

“While this is fantastic, and comes at a good time for us, it is certainly not something we can count on every year moving forward. We are told that it was largely due to how the county handled overtime, which is something the city has no control over.

“We have requested that the county attempt to be more accurate with the budgets they give us for these contracts. Based on the billing we’ve received so far, it looks like we will likely end up much closer to the budget projections this fiscal year.

“In fact, last week we received our quarterly invoice from the county for fire protection and emergency medical services and it was quite possibly the largest single bill the city has ever received—$502,964. That’s over a half-million dollars for three months of service.

“Barring any drastic unexpected savings, we expect to be running a deficit in the General Fund of over $668,000.

“As the current budget situation is not sustainable, it is critical that we act swiftly to address the situation. It is imperative that the city’s soon-to-be-implemented EMS Subscription Program is successful at offsetting some of these costs. We must continue to evaluate alternatives for providing police and fire services, such as forming our own city fire department, joining with other cities to provide services regionally through a joint powers agreement, or contracting with a neighboring city for services.

“Long-term, economic development will play a key role in the city’s financial well-being, and in our ability to provide the high-level of quality services people expect without overburdening residents with excessive taxes and fees.

“While the City Council will meet next month to set goals for 2020, we can safely anticipate that the following will be among our top priorities for the coming year:

Transition to our new IT Services provider, saving the city money each month and enhancing service levels.

Move forward with Laserfiche in order to digitize documents and to allow for better public access.

Migrate the city’s physical servers to the cloud.

Enhance public engagement – complete new website, engage a social media strategy, regularly submit Friday Flyer articles, communicate with residents directly through email and text messages, employ new technologies that track public sentiment on various issues of importance.

Continue to streamline processes and simplify community access to local government services – e.g. online business license applications/renewals; public documents more easily accessible through the city’s website.

Move forward with implementing the EMS Subscription Program and with finding ways to provide quality public safety services at a cost that is sustainable.

Continue with economic development initiatives as the long-term solution to realizing economic prosperity and providing high-quality municipal services without overburdening residents with high taxes and fees.

“In conclusion, 2019 was a year of change and tremendous progress. Budget challenges remain; solutions are actively being sought and implemented. The budget goal is to be out of a structural deficit by Fiscal Year 2021/2022. Economic development goals will take time, but the city is positioning itself for future success.

“The city’s relationships with the POA, EVMWD, the county and other cities in the region are the best they’ve been in recent memory. City operations are becoming more professional, modernized and streamlined.

“The City Council and staff strongly believe that the city is now headed in the right direction. Taking everything into consideration, Canyon Lake remains one of the best places to live in Southern California—the State of the City is strong.”