Hacienda, Business Development and Broken Fire Trucks, on Former Councilman's Mind

Former Deputy Mayor Rob Marlowe has been keeping track of New Port Richey’s budget discussions this year and wanted to share his thoughts.  Read them below and at his blog directly, and refer to his GEEKNOTE blog for your weekly dose of tech advice or bits from Marlowe’s brain.

"I'm enjoying my time off City Council.  I've been able to spend some quality time working on some projects for my business.  Weather permitting, I've also been able to get out several Tuesday evenings after work and go bicycling with friends.  If the weather will cooperate a little more, I'll spend more evenings on the trail.  I've also had the option of simply kicking off my shoes at the end of a hard day and vegging out in front of the TV.  Being off council though doesn't mean I haven't been watching.

The best part of being off council is not having to deal with the budget season this summer.  Susan Dillinger, Doug Haag, and the various department heads managed to craft a budget proposal that kept city services intact, avoided an increase in a millage rate, and avoided costing anyone their jobs.  After last year, that is quite an accomplishment.

The council adopted the so called "roll back rate" for TRIM purposes and that was the correct move.  They can still adopt the staff proposal with no increase in the millage rate, but they haven't boxed themselves into a budgetary corner too early in the process.

Council still has some tough choices to make.  There are the invariable department requests for funding capital projects.  Early in my time on council, the library board would come year after year with requests for a new multi-million dollar library.  We didn't build a new library and the current council shouldn't get stampeded this year either.

This year, it looks like the fire department wants to replace several $400,000 trucks and would love to build a new fire station.  In a world of unlimited resources, that would be all well and good.  From everything I've heard though, the city's finances still aren't back to pre-Great Recession levels.  Fixing fire trucks is generally less expensive than buying new ones and we've already got two fire stations for a city of only 14,000 souls.  The council should look long and hard at the economics before biting on funding these pet projects.

I've heard rumors that other departments are also pitching their pet projects and ways to spend more money directly to council members.  The council members would be well advised to keep a lid on extra expenses.  I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that council will decide that all of these plans and proposals will wait until the city is out of the financial woods.

If council finds extra money in the budget, what should it do?  I humbly suggest that spending it on projects that are likely to increase revenues in the short term would be prudent.  Three projects come immediately to mind:

1. Get at least the downstairs of the Hacienda open and rented out.  The restaurant would be a solid tenant for the city, the kiosk would be a great place for the canoe/kayak rentals and boat tours that have been proposed, and moving the Chamber of Commerce into the building would free up the existing Chamber building for a more appropriate use, such as a bait and tackle shop.  The rental income, particularly from the restaurant, the boat tours, and the canoe/kayak outfitter will help offset some of the needed renovations.
2. Finish cleaning up the old post office and get the business incubator open.  I suggested back in April that June 1st would be a doable ribbon cutting date.  While the outside cleanup has proceeded, the inside still needs a few thousand dollars worth of work before it can be pitched to prospective tenants.  We've frittered away the better part of the summer.
3. Establish a formal process of recruiting businesses to fill the empty storefronts downtown and focus on that.  We have two business development organizations based in New Port Richey (Greater New Port Richey Main Street and the West Pasco Chamber of Commerce).  Perhaps we should enlist them in helping get this done.  Once the storefronts are filled up, the tax appraiser has already said that the property values will go up.  A full downtown by Christmas would result in better prospects for the 2014-2015 budget that will be discussed this time next year.