The city of La Cañada Flintridge is holding town hall meetings and seeking community engagement through a survey regarding needs to maintaining local quality of life and supporting the core services and infrastructure that residents, businesses and visitors rely on every day.
“As part of planning to meet these demands, and potentially presenting options for additional revenue to support local services, the city is asking residents to give feedback on their priorities and help guide decision making,” reads the city’s website.
City Manager Daniel Jordan told the Outlook Valley Sun that the city periodically does broad community surveys and town halls, a recent one being the city’s waste haulers.
“The city is always seeking feedback,” said Jordan. “At the current time, we are at a crossroads with a mounting backlog of capital projects, such as the sound walls, and the need to maintain high levels of service. We continue to seek outside grants, but there remains many projects for which we have no sources of funds.”
Residents are being asked to rate the importance of a series of items in the survey, such as shortening 911 response times, keeping public areas safe and clean, repairing streets, sidewalks and potholes, and maintaining parks and playgrounds, to name a few.
The city also lists ways it is struggling and facing challenges, which includes rising costs and potential for budget deficits in coming years.
“The city has roughly $60 million in unfunded road maintenance and other capital improvement needs,” reads the city website. “For perspective, the annual general fund of the city is $19 million.”
Areas of concern also include the community center and how the building itself is 60 years old and in need of repairs.
“The city’s budget for the current fiscal year is $53.9 million,” reads the city website. “Nearly 65% of this is in dedicated funds, however, and so the budgeted ‘General Fund’ is $19 million. This General Fund is primary funder of many of the basic services of the city, including much of the Public Safety, Parks and Recreation, Public Works and other departments.”
The city has been able to control and reduce costs by expanding services without adding additional staff, seeking grant opportunities for capital replacement and projects, deferring maintenance and other capital improvements, and automating processes and expanding online options for many city processes.
“La Cañada Flintridge is one of the few cities in L.A. County that does not receive locally controlled funding from a voter-approved sales tax measure, beyond the standard local ‘Bradley Burns’ sales tax,” reads the city website. “More than 50 cities in L.A. County charge a higher rate, including neighboring communities such as Sierra Madre and South Pasadena.”
Overall, the city prides itself on being transparent with the community, said Jordan.
“The more our residents know about our available resources, and the more we know about our residents’ priorities, the better we’ll be able to make sound decisions together as we look to the future,” he said.
He continued to say that town halls and feedback from the community will be critical in shaping the city’s future budget processes.
“And while the City Council will soon be deliberating on whether to place a measure on the ballot, it is important to remember that our voters will have the final say on whether any such revenue measure is adopted,” said Jordan.
The survey is currently open for community members to take and provide feedback. Two town hall meetings will take place on Nov. 15, one at 12 p.m. and another at 7 p.m. at City Hall.
To learn more about the city and community services, visit cityoflcf.org/services/.
First published in the November 9 print issue of the Outlook Valley Sun.
