Councilwoman Megan Pratt emailed me last week about a budget workshop that she chaired in June. Unfortunately much of the discussion got overshadowed by the mayor’s firing of the council’s executive.
“I found the budget workshop really positive,” wrote Pratt. “The general idea was to come up with a list of initiatives that the council would like to consider pursuing in this year’s budget. We have requested that the administration address these in particular during our budget workshops in July.”
Pratt followed up the budget workshop with an email to Finance Director Dick Barker, who attended the meeting, and City Administrator Colleen Castille. She said the she hoped that they would address the items in next week’s budget workshops– “since the council was generally excited, I thought, that we could be proactive on issues of concern.”
Here is her email:
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Megan Pratt <meganprattd9@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 6:37 AM
Subject: Budget workshop
To: Colleen Castille <ccastille@cityofpensacola.com>, Dick Barker Jr <RBarker@cityofpensacola.com>
I assume Dick is able to piece together the council’s conversation a couple of weeks ago. I had hoped to debrief with Lila and get you the notes, and I don’t know if she sent you anything.
Here is a rough summary of the things the council discussed. The general idea is to have these things included in the discussions during the budget workshops in July. What are some specific projects within these topics, what might be the costs, where could we get funding.
- bikes/sidewalks–including safe crossings, trees and lighting
- stormwater – potential funds of FEMA mitigation, increased stormwater fee.
- youth programs for teens
- resume SBE workshops or similar
- police on bikes downtown
- improved lighting
- surplus properties – how could more funds help sell
- parking structures – public private partnerships, incentive programs
Related, the council is interested in reviewing certain policies:
sidewalk, lighting, stormwater (what the fee can be used for). Also want to look at how to use LOST, FEMA, Restore for some of these priorities.
There was also a discussion of improvements to the budget process/schedule. Potentially creating a forum for input/citizen advisory group. Lila was going to pull up some information…. Additionally looking at the comp plan as a guide for the budget was an idea.
Finally, the council discussed the council budget. There was interest in a listing of what items are charged to council’s budget. Also a concern that the travel/training budget is exceeded regularly. An idea of having municode review the ordinances.
The council left that meeting really excited about how we would like to participate in our government, exploring ideas for improving our community. I hope that that meeting can be a model of how the council works in the future.