By Aaron Selverston The City of Palo Alto\u2019s longstanding backlog of utility work will get a badly needed shot in the arm if the new budget passes, but will come at the cost of some city programs, according to Mayor Yiaway Yeh.<\/p>\n In his monthly \u201cMessage from the Mayor,\u201d Yeh cited the success of City Council in creating a balanced budget since 2009, largely as a result of reforming employee compensation and benefits.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, he said, the City has increased the amount of money spent on infrastructure from the General Fund to $20 million per year and \u201cmaintained programs and services the community deeply values.\u201d<\/p>\n City Manager James Keene presented the proposed 2013 budget to council members at a retreat Monday. The new budget calls for \u201cdifficult program funding choices,\u201d including outsourcing the beloved Palo Alto Animal Services, while increasing spending on infrastructure.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite the Council\u2019s efforts over the past four years to budget more for infrastructure, it is not enough,\u201d said Yeh. \u201cThe City faces General Fund infrastructure needs of $300 million to catch up with deferrals over a generation and the new demands of our future. These cannot be ignored or postponed.\u201d<\/p>\n If money is not found to pay for these needs, city streets may literally begin falling apart, says Yeh. But the local economy does appear to be on the mend.<\/p>\n \u201cAs revenues begin to slowly rebound, infrastructure must be in the mix to ensure Palo Alto\u2019s physical assets such as streets and sidewalks, parks, trails, buildings, and emergency and public safety facilities remain safe and continue to provide value to the community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Yeh is encouraging residents to get involved in public meetings, however, because funding infrastructure is almost certainly going to come at the cost of other city services.<\/p>\n The complete proposed city budget is available here<\/a>, and information about meetings is available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Aaron Selverston Patch.com May 2, 2012 Read the original article at Patch.com The City of Palo Alto\u2019s longstanding backlog of utility work will get a badly needed shot in the arm if the new budget passes, but will come…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":548,"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nPatch.com
\nMay 2, 2012
\nRead the original article at Patch.com<\/a><\/p>\n