Thursday, October 29, 2009
Western State in the Spotlight
Western State Hospital is not only one of Lakewood's largest employers, but is certainly also one of its more interesting employers. I've said many times that the people who work at WSH are really doing God's work. So I wanted to share a couple recent news stories that illuminate some small slices of the diverse work there.
KPLU profile of a psychiatrist
Seattle Times story about drama therapy
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Army Features Lakes ... the High School
Besides all the video the Army has been putting on its 4-2 Stryker Brigade page, including footage of Lakewood, there's a great video out there about Lakes High. Kudos to our city staff for spotting it and creating this link.
Pssst ... You have to be 'on' Facebook to see the Stryker Brigade videos ... if you are, the link is here.
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Pssst ... You have to be 'on' Facebook to see the Stryker Brigade videos ... if you are, the link is here.
Monday, October 26, 2009
News Trib profile
I'm sure many folks have seen this, but if not, here's The News Tribune's profile of the Lakewood City Council races.
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Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Editorial Endorsements
The News Tribune has its list of endorsements out. Not all of you will agree with all of the contents, but it is a reminder to vote! The new city council is going to have a lot of important decisions, not to mention the future of Tillicum and Woodbrook, on our hands.
http://blog.thenewstribune.com/opinion/
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http://blog.thenewstribune.com/opinion/
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Budget update: the noncontroversial stuff (so far)
My loyal readers, both of you, will recall we've had some pretty raucous times in the last several autumns. This is the season when the city assembles its budget for the following year, where priorities are locked into place by cold hard cash. We've had a lot of dust-ups as too many priorities chased too little cash, and as reforms were either needed or caused controversy or both.
In that atmosphere I've posted budget surveys that were by the far the most popular things I ever did on the Internet. People love to weigh in on city spending.
This year, reflecting spending plans for 2010, is the dullest budget year I've seen of my six years on the council. By dull, I mean there's not a lot of public fuss. Most of what we are seeing this season is being perceived as tweaking.
I wish there was a bit more excitement. The crime rate is up in Lakewood, though that subject hasn't come up much in four budget hearings so far. Maybe in Lakewood it's assumed public protection is a high priority, and you all trust the council to factor that in. Certainly my priority was making sure police continued to have a lion's share of the budget. Lakewood's violent crime rate rose from 8.2 incidents per 1,000 citizens in 2007 to 9.2 in 2008. Lakewood thus moved from having the sixth highest violent crime rate in the state in 2007 to fourth in 2008. The bright spot was that property crime diminished 1 percent.
Prudent financial management means our budget is in good shape, so unlike a lot of public entities here in the recession we're not looking at laying off large numbers of the staff. As budget seasons go, this one is pretty placid.
So all that said, there are still some significant things going on. I'm going to touch on several quickly, and let you tell me if you want more.
- Community policing. I helped lead the charge over the last couple years to restore community-based policing. This year represents an evolution in our community policing system, proposed by City Manager Andrew Neiditz, which seems to make a lot of sense. We have six community service officers, one for each of six patrol districts. That will change to three community service officers and three code enforcement officers. The code officers will still serve as liaisons to city services for individual districts, but also have specialized training to deal with drug houses, car lots, and other issues we struggle with and which lead to a lot of the crime.
- Community Development Block Grants. I've been critical during the last couple budgets of how our city uses federal grants different than many other communities. I happen to know this because as a newspaper reporter in several other cities, I saw other cities spend their block grant money differently. Under a reorganization, community development block grants would be managed by the economic development department. This is great news, because the best use of these grants is to spend some money to "make money:" create opportunities for more jobs, better housing, etc... In practical terms, it's likely a lot of this money will be used in at least the next couple years for the Tillicum area which will be undergoing a lot of redevelopment.
- Merging. We don't make government bigger, we make it smaller. The city clerk's office will be merged into the city attorney's office.
- Human services, which had been managed from the city clerk's office, will be merged into the parks department, which will be called the Parks, Recreation and Community Services department. I personally oppose this because I think the parks department already has too much to do, but I suspect it will go through. No council members have questioned the idea, and there's certainly plenty to be said in favor of nesting human services within parks.
- In-house road care. We will remove four positions as part of the changes above, but then add two positions as we switch out some contracting with Pierce County for two new street workers in the city's Public Works department. This should save us $400,000 and lead to better service. Everyone thinks that contracting out can save money/ Lots of times it can. But Pierce County government is not beholden to the Lakewood council, and the council will likely choose to save money and hire staff managed by the city. This change is about accountability and good value for money.
- Another subject I've worried about in the past is court security. The new budget would hire a security person who can also supervise work crews. It's not a cost increase because we've been paying police overtime for the security.
The overall budget is $86.7 million, 6.17 percent lower than this year, 2009. That decrease is a bit deceiving because the budget was higher this year than it would normally have been because of the new police station.
So those are the highlights of changes so far. There's still some subjects the council is actively discussing. And there are other changes, such as road construction planned. You'll want to know the details. But this post has gone on long enough. My next budget post will be about more such proposals and talk about ways to weigh in. There's a lot more info about the budget at the city site.
Forward this post
In that atmosphere I've posted budget surveys that were by the far the most popular things I ever did on the Internet. People love to weigh in on city spending.
This year, reflecting spending plans for 2010, is the dullest budget year I've seen of my six years on the council. By dull, I mean there's not a lot of public fuss. Most of what we are seeing this season is being perceived as tweaking.
I wish there was a bit more excitement. The crime rate is up in Lakewood, though that subject hasn't come up much in four budget hearings so far. Maybe in Lakewood it's assumed public protection is a high priority, and you all trust the council to factor that in. Certainly my priority was making sure police continued to have a lion's share of the budget. Lakewood's violent crime rate rose from 8.2 incidents per 1,000 citizens in 2007 to 9.2 in 2008. Lakewood thus moved from having the sixth highest violent crime rate in the state in 2007 to fourth in 2008. The bright spot was that property crime diminished 1 percent.
Prudent financial management means our budget is in good shape, so unlike a lot of public entities here in the recession we're not looking at laying off large numbers of the staff. As budget seasons go, this one is pretty placid.
So all that said, there are still some significant things going on. I'm going to touch on several quickly, and let you tell me if you want more.
- Community policing. I helped lead the charge over the last couple years to restore community-based policing. This year represents an evolution in our community policing system, proposed by City Manager Andrew Neiditz, which seems to make a lot of sense. We have six community service officers, one for each of six patrol districts. That will change to three community service officers and three code enforcement officers. The code officers will still serve as liaisons to city services for individual districts, but also have specialized training to deal with drug houses, car lots, and other issues we struggle with and which lead to a lot of the crime.
- Community Development Block Grants. I've been critical during the last couple budgets of how our city uses federal grants different than many other communities. I happen to know this because as a newspaper reporter in several other cities, I saw other cities spend their block grant money differently. Under a reorganization, community development block grants would be managed by the economic development department. This is great news, because the best use of these grants is to spend some money to "make money:" create opportunities for more jobs, better housing, etc... In practical terms, it's likely a lot of this money will be used in at least the next couple years for the Tillicum area which will be undergoing a lot of redevelopment.
- Merging. We don't make government bigger, we make it smaller. The city clerk's office will be merged into the city attorney's office.
- Human services, which had been managed from the city clerk's office, will be merged into the parks department, which will be called the Parks, Recreation and Community Services department. I personally oppose this because I think the parks department already has too much to do, but I suspect it will go through. No council members have questioned the idea, and there's certainly plenty to be said in favor of nesting human services within parks.
- In-house road care. We will remove four positions as part of the changes above, but then add two positions as we switch out some contracting with Pierce County for two new street workers in the city's Public Works department. This should save us $400,000 and lead to better service. Everyone thinks that contracting out can save money/ Lots of times it can. But Pierce County government is not beholden to the Lakewood council, and the council will likely choose to save money and hire staff managed by the city. This change is about accountability and good value for money.
- Another subject I've worried about in the past is court security. The new budget would hire a security person who can also supervise work crews. It's not a cost increase because we've been paying police overtime for the security.
The overall budget is $86.7 million, 6.17 percent lower than this year, 2009. That decrease is a bit deceiving because the budget was higher this year than it would normally have been because of the new police station.
So those are the highlights of changes so far. There's still some subjects the council is actively discussing. And there are other changes, such as road construction planned. You'll want to know the details. But this post has gone on long enough. My next budget post will be about more such proposals and talk about ways to weigh in. There's a lot more info about the budget at the city site.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Traffic Signal Problems
If you're like me, you've noticed strange things going on regarding traffic signals in areas where there has been repaving. Lakewood's been prepping for a much better traffic signaling system, but it sounds like we are in the dog days now. A number of people, including me, have shared personal reflections with the city about traffic issues we know about. (that's sort of a bureaucratic way of saying I can't figure out how to make a legal left turn from School Street to Gravelly Lake because the light don't turn green :)
This response that I was copied on warns us that problems may not go away soon:
Ms. Mitchell,
Thank you for your concern regarding traffic signal operations on Lakewood Drive.
Your observations regarding traffic signal operations at 100th Street / Lakewood Drive (and Bridgeport Way / Lakewood Drive) are accurate.
When the paving work was completed in the area, the underground traffic signal detection was destroyed. Therefore the traffic signals have to operate on timed operation. As such, because there is no way to “sense” the vehicles, each direction of traffic has to be allocated a little bit of time in order to make sure every direction is served. A full cycle of serving each direction is over one minute. During the day, the timing is not so noticeable since there is a lot of traffic in each direction. At night – you could be waiting for over one minute.
We are in the process of hiring a contractor and procuring equipment for installing “video” detection at these intersections. This should be completed within the next 6-8 weeks. The tremendous amount of roadway and utility work in the City has put us behind on projects. We appreciate your patience.
Ouch. Sounds like people will be doing a lot of waiting. If you have ever driven in downtown Tacoma at night, you know how this feels. Looks like we will be feeling it in Lakewood for awhile. You can anticipate council members will be asking more about this.
Update at 4 p.m. Once of my Facebook page correspondents asked some pointed questions that I also passed along to City Hall along with a general query about what's going on. Here's what our public works director, Don Wickstrom, had to say about the situation.
... let me first clarify exactly what (staff) was referring to when she said the underground traffic signal detection was destroyed. What she is referring to is the wire portion of detector system that is embedded in asphalt pavement. That wire is installed by saw-cutting a 1 inch or so deep groove in the pavement followed by laying in the wire and then capping the groove with hot tar.
As a result, anytime a road is overlaid where grinding along the curb line is required, such as we did (with the Gravelly Lake Drive project) or the pavement is so badly broken up that it all needs to be removed, as was the case with the Lakewood Dr (110th to Bridgeport Way) project, you can’t save the loops (embedded wire) as it's just not cost effective.
So yes, we did anticipate having to replace them. and yes. it would have been nice had we had the video sensors in place first; however, with all the construction projects we’re juggling this year (finishing the Police Facility--over $9,000,000 construction contract; completing Bridgeport Way improvement 59th to Steilacoom Blvd--over $2,500,000 construction contract, constructing Gravelly Lake Drive Nyanza to 100th --over $700,000 construction contract, completing Lakewood Drive 100th to Bridgeport--over $100,000 construction contract), constructing Woodbrook/Tillicum sewer, drainage and roads project--over $9,000,000 construction contract to name a few) some times things don’t work out as planned.
As such while were sorry about that we are asking for a little patience.
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This response that I was copied on warns us that problems may not go away soon:
Ms. Mitchell,
Thank you for your concern regarding traffic signal operations on Lakewood Drive.
Your observations regarding traffic signal operations at 100th Street / Lakewood Drive (and Bridgeport Way / Lakewood Drive) are accurate.
When the paving work was completed in the area, the underground traffic signal detection was destroyed. Therefore the traffic signals have to operate on timed operation. As such, because there is no way to “sense” the vehicles, each direction of traffic has to be allocated a little bit of time in order to make sure every direction is served. A full cycle of serving each direction is over one minute. During the day, the timing is not so noticeable since there is a lot of traffic in each direction. At night – you could be waiting for over one minute.
We are in the process of hiring a contractor and procuring equipment for installing “video” detection at these intersections. This should be completed within the next 6-8 weeks. The tremendous amount of roadway and utility work in the City has put us behind on projects. We appreciate your patience.
Ouch. Sounds like people will be doing a lot of waiting. If you have ever driven in downtown Tacoma at night, you know how this feels. Looks like we will be feeling it in Lakewood for awhile. You can anticipate council members will be asking more about this.
Update at 4 p.m. Once of my Facebook page correspondents asked some pointed questions that I also passed along to City Hall along with a general query about what's going on. Here's what our public works director, Don Wickstrom, had to say about the situation.
... let me first clarify exactly what (staff) was referring to when she said the underground traffic signal detection was destroyed. What she is referring to is the wire portion of detector system that is embedded in asphalt pavement. That wire is installed by saw-cutting a 1 inch or so deep groove in the pavement followed by laying in the wire and then capping the groove with hot tar.
As a result, anytime a road is overlaid where grinding along the curb line is required, such as we did (with the Gravelly Lake Drive project) or the pavement is so badly broken up that it all needs to be removed, as was the case with the Lakewood Dr (110th to Bridgeport Way) project, you can’t save the loops (embedded wire) as it's just not cost effective.
So yes, we did anticipate having to replace them. and yes. it would have been nice had we had the video sensors in place first; however, with all the construction projects we’re juggling this year (finishing the Police Facility--over $9,000,000 construction contract; completing Bridgeport Way improvement 59th to Steilacoom Blvd--over $2,500,000 construction contract, constructing Gravelly Lake Drive Nyanza to 100th --over $700,000 construction contract, completing Lakewood Drive 100th to Bridgeport--over $100,000 construction contract), constructing Woodbrook/Tillicum sewer, drainage and roads project--over $9,000,000 construction contract to name a few) some times things don’t work out as planned.
As such while were sorry about that we are asking for a little patience.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
A Link for the Election
All those signs around town remind us that there's a campaign under way. The News Tribune just put its election guide up, and Lakewood voters may well want to take a look.
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Friday, October 02, 2009
1st Take on the Lakewood City Budget for Next Year
My regular readers, both of you, know that my postings tend to pick up around budget time. The budget is hugely important because it creates priorities and pays, with your tax dollars, for city services.
Thanks to careful management, we're not looking at some of the train wrecks in Lakewood that you see in some other cities with their budgets. I'm not sure we're going to have the hyperactive excitement, some of which was stirred by me, that you've seen in past years, as we work on this budget for 2010.
That said, I'm also still making my way through the draft preliminary budget. Rather than keep you in suspense, I thought I would share our city manager's cover letter. It represents a lot of the highlights. I'd normally prefer to digest it and highlight it, but there's just not time and I want to get this to you soon.
Believe me, we will talk more. Questions and feedback welcome. What follows is text from our city manager, Andrew Neiditz. Look for more as we go through several Monday nights of budget hearings. Nothing is settled yet.
And now ... the cover letter:
I (Andrew Neiditz, Lakewood city manager) am pleased to submit a preliminary budget for 2010 that is consistent with the priorities set by the Council, creates further staffing efficiencies, and carefully balances the needs of the City and the capabilities of our financial position.
The fiscal constraints associated with a slowing economy have resulted in budget growth that is essentially flat: the proposed General Fund of $37.1 million is 5 % lower than 2009, due in part to the one-time transfer in 2009 of $2.55 million to the Police station project.
General Fund staffing is reduced overall by 4 FTE, over and above the 13 FTE reduction in 2009. The General Fund would have been further reduced by $480,000 if not for the Department of Justice police grant funds. The overall General Fund reserve, or ending fund balance, is $3.22 million, which is 9.5 % of operating expenses.
The proposed total City budget for 2010 is $86.7 million, which is 6.17 % lower than 2009.
The budget establishes a continued emphasis on economic development activities, including the administration of the OEA (Office of Economic Adjustment) grant of the U. S. Defense Department to study growth impacts associated with our two military bases.
Among the highlights of the 2010 preliminary budget are:
• Establishment of a Community Safety & Resources Team (CSRT) to support the six districts of the City, to include 3 code enforcement officers, 3 neighborhood community service officers (CSO’s), an assistant city attorney, and administrative support. This new initiative is a realignment of current code enforcement and neighborhood mobilization programs; this new interdisciplinary team will be based in City Hall, reporting to a Police lieutenant, and will have direct support from the city manager and the directors of the other operating departments. Its primary mission will be community outreach and mobilization, code enforcement, and emergency management. There will be no net increase in FTE staff positions, but a realignment of positions to increase resources and response capabilities.
• Merger of the City Clerk’s office into the Legal Department in order to increase efficiencies in contract administration, agenda management, public records requests, and other administrative support functions. This will involve a reduction of 2 FTE staff positions, and a reduction of $109,000.
• Transition of the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program into Economic Development in order to better reflect the priorities of the City Council for these funds.
• Transition of Human Services into a new department of Parks, Recreation & Community Services to create synergy between senior services, human services, and youth support programs.
• To increase court security and enhance jail alternative programs, a new court compliance officer position is proposed in the Municipal Court budget, to offset police overtime funding and court transport services previously contracted with Pierce County. This is a budget reduction of about $30,000.
• The addition of two streets maintenance tech positions in Public Works to offset more costly Pierce County contract hours; this is a budget savings of about $400,000 over contract costs.
• Implementation of the Tillicum Neighborhood Plan and Woodbrook Business Park Plan.
• Funding for the Tillicum/Woodbrook sewer extension project of $5.9 million for 2010.
• Funding for road improvements, including $5,320,000 for Pacific Highway/Ponders realignment (Gravelly Lake Drive to Bridgeport), $2,360,000 for Bridgeport Way reconstruction (Steilacoom Blvd to 83rd), and $1,440,000 safety improvements for Steilacoom Blvd (Farwest to 87th), federal funding of $500,000 for traffic signal synchronization, and $400,000 for the Lakewood Station Connection Study (pedestrian bridge project).----
Ok, Walter again: So there's a lot to be said on many of these subjects. One thing I will shout out is that I am thrilled at the changes proposed for the block grant program. I've been speaking out for years now that Lakewood has not been spending this money like a lot of other cities spend it. So I think these changes bode well.
Obviously more needs to be said. Thanks for reading this far :) More later.
Forward this post
Thanks to careful management, we're not looking at some of the train wrecks in Lakewood that you see in some other cities with their budgets. I'm not sure we're going to have the hyperactive excitement, some of which was stirred by me, that you've seen in past years, as we work on this budget for 2010.
That said, I'm also still making my way through the draft preliminary budget. Rather than keep you in suspense, I thought I would share our city manager's cover letter. It represents a lot of the highlights. I'd normally prefer to digest it and highlight it, but there's just not time and I want to get this to you soon.
Believe me, we will talk more. Questions and feedback welcome. What follows is text from our city manager, Andrew Neiditz. Look for more as we go through several Monday nights of budget hearings. Nothing is settled yet.
And now ... the cover letter:
I (Andrew Neiditz, Lakewood city manager) am pleased to submit a preliminary budget for 2010 that is consistent with the priorities set by the Council, creates further staffing efficiencies, and carefully balances the needs of the City and the capabilities of our financial position.
The fiscal constraints associated with a slowing economy have resulted in budget growth that is essentially flat: the proposed General Fund of $37.1 million is 5 % lower than 2009, due in part to the one-time transfer in 2009 of $2.55 million to the Police station project.
General Fund staffing is reduced overall by 4 FTE, over and above the 13 FTE reduction in 2009. The General Fund would have been further reduced by $480,000 if not for the Department of Justice police grant funds. The overall General Fund reserve, or ending fund balance, is $3.22 million, which is 9.5 % of operating expenses.
The proposed total City budget for 2010 is $86.7 million, which is 6.17 % lower than 2009.
The budget establishes a continued emphasis on economic development activities, including the administration of the OEA (Office of Economic Adjustment) grant of the U. S. Defense Department to study growth impacts associated with our two military bases.
Among the highlights of the 2010 preliminary budget are:
• Establishment of a Community Safety & Resources Team (CSRT) to support the six districts of the City, to include 3 code enforcement officers, 3 neighborhood community service officers (CSO’s), an assistant city attorney, and administrative support. This new initiative is a realignment of current code enforcement and neighborhood mobilization programs; this new interdisciplinary team will be based in City Hall, reporting to a Police lieutenant, and will have direct support from the city manager and the directors of the other operating departments. Its primary mission will be community outreach and mobilization, code enforcement, and emergency management. There will be no net increase in FTE staff positions, but a realignment of positions to increase resources and response capabilities.
• Merger of the City Clerk’s office into the Legal Department in order to increase efficiencies in contract administration, agenda management, public records requests, and other administrative support functions. This will involve a reduction of 2 FTE staff positions, and a reduction of $109,000.
• Transition of the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program into Economic Development in order to better reflect the priorities of the City Council for these funds.
• Transition of Human Services into a new department of Parks, Recreation & Community Services to create synergy between senior services, human services, and youth support programs.
• To increase court security and enhance jail alternative programs, a new court compliance officer position is proposed in the Municipal Court budget, to offset police overtime funding and court transport services previously contracted with Pierce County. This is a budget reduction of about $30,000.
• The addition of two streets maintenance tech positions in Public Works to offset more costly Pierce County contract hours; this is a budget savings of about $400,000 over contract costs.
• Implementation of the Tillicum Neighborhood Plan and Woodbrook Business Park Plan.
• Funding for the Tillicum/Woodbrook sewer extension project of $5.9 million for 2010.
• Funding for road improvements, including $5,320,000 for Pacific Highway/Ponders realignment (Gravelly Lake Drive to Bridgeport), $2,360,000 for Bridgeport Way reconstruction (Steilacoom Blvd to 83rd), and $1,440,000 safety improvements for Steilacoom Blvd (Farwest to 87th), federal funding of $500,000 for traffic signal synchronization, and $400,000 for the Lakewood Station Connection Study (pedestrian bridge project).----
Ok, Walter again: So there's a lot to be said on many of these subjects. One thing I will shout out is that I am thrilled at the changes proposed for the block grant program. I've been speaking out for years now that Lakewood has not been spending this money like a lot of other cities spend it. So I think these changes bode well.
Obviously more needs to be said. Thanks for reading this far :) More later.
Supporting the Troops and Their Families
How about everyone in Lakewood buy and wear one of these pins? As you may know, Lakewood has an official and special relationship with the 4-2 Stryker Brigade from Fort Lewis. The Dragoon Raiders Soldier and Family Fund is selling pins to help support soldiers, spouses and children during deployment. These are available by mail order, though I'm betting some businesspeople in Lakewood will volunteer to sell them as this program grows. This is a great way to show support for our troops and their families.
Click here for the link to order these pins.
