City spending on downtown Eau Claire parking could be targeted to pay for initiatives such as discounted bus fares and getting the public more involved in city government, based on comments made during a budget work session.
While not making formal proposals to change the balanced budget prepared by City Manager Dale Peters, City Council members at Thursday evening’s session discussed what they might suggest when the budget goes to a vote later this month.
Council acting President Andrew Werthmann has suggested for a decade that Eau Claire should adopt participatory budgeting — a process in which a group of residents would help decide how to spend a piece of the city budget.
“I don’t know that we have the capacity to add a position at this point,” he said. “But I do think looking at some of the one-time expenses ... that we could potentially get $25,000 to $30,000 to have someone come in and help us set up this participatory budgeting program.”
Finding the money in the proposed balanced budget would mean taking it from another service or project. Werthmann indicated he’s looking toward downtown parking enforcement as a potential source but acknowledged it would face resistance from some on the council.
Councilman David Strobel nodded back at Werthmann and defended the city’s parking enforcement. Strobel, who owns a downtown insurance agency, said parking is an issue for businesses and downtown visitors, which has only become more pressing with the recent opening of the Pablo Center at the Confluence.
“It does affect a lot of people that are coming down there now. I would ask that we leave that one alone,” he said.
Werthmann wasn’t the only councilman to suggest taking money from downtown parking to pay for a new initiative.
Councilman Jeremy Gragert said he was poking around in the budget to see if there is funding available to lower bus fares for lower income residents. He didn’t find much wiggle room but did mention downtown parking as a potential source.
“Ultimately I don’t value parking as much as other people do,” Gragert said.
Earlier this year Gragert had advocated that the city consider half-price bus fare for low-income riders and free rides for minors.
Councilwoman Catherine Emmanuelle was critical about how quickly city staff have addressed issues raised by the council.
“We have some really pressing issues in our community where we seem to have a pretty slow response time,” she said, singling out affordable housing as one such concern.
Staff are aware of council’s ideas and initiatives, Peters said, but how quickly those get addressed depends on available resources.
“That’s on my list; those are things we’re going to get to,” Peters said.
Both Emmanuelle and Werthmann have expressed interest in creating a new city position or contracted service to improve community engagement and deal with recent topics raised by the council including neighborhood revitalization, dedicating parkland and affordable housing.
However, Peters has explained the revenue limits and requirements to provide municipal services that ultimately required him to propose a budget that maintains current staffing levels and the status quo.
Peters said the budget has “not everything that everybody would like,” but added that for initiatives sought by council “hopefully you’re seeing some progress in those areas, moving things forward, while also having a safe and functional community.”
This year’s budget process has taken longer than usual as council members — some of whom were elected seven months ago — have sought a more in-depth look at how the city creates its budget.
This fall over five budget work sessions, Peters has given the council more information on what departments have requested but the city won’t be able to fund due to budget constraints.
“Historically we haven’t shared quite as much as to what those needs are,” he said.
Council members have until Nov. 13 to get their proposals for budget amendments to city staff so they can be prepared for the budget adoption meeting.
Originally planned for Nov. 12 and 13, the city has pushed back its public hearing and vote on the 2019 budget by two weeks. Those meetings are now scheduled for Nov. 26 and 27.
