Why is San Ramon facing budget cuts for essential services? Let’s dive deep and understand

By Chirag Kathrani-

(Chirag Kathrani is the city of San Ramon’s mayoral candidate. The views expressed in this article are his own)

I was recently asked by a San Ramon resident: What would happen if I won or somebody else did? It did make me think. The woman who asked this question wanted to convince her husband who says that every candidate makes promises but once elected, they don’t do what they say.

Very few people realize that the power of their votes is much higher in council, city, measure, and local elections. What gets built around in the city, directly affects them. It is very much visible when we analyze our neighboring cities — Dublin and Danville. Both were similar in size around 2010. By 2020 Dublin was the fastest-growing city, with a 58% increase in population. Danville has still got the same population. Who we elect does have a lot more say in what goes where. If elected as mayor, I would have a say in what projects need to be prioritized and even one against vote has a huge impact.

City ~2010 ~2023
Danville (Pop) ~42K ~43K
Dublin (Pop) ~46K ~69K

Do we have diverse voices in the council?

If we look at the pattern of the city council in the last couple of years, we can see a pattern of items on the agenda being unanimously approved. The process is almost missing dissent.

(Recordings of all meetings can be accessed at this URL: http://sanramonca.iqm2.com/citizens/default.aspx)

The absence of dissent is even more evident when we watch the videos of the meetings that are available on the city website.

City Council Meeting of June 23, 2024 (Townhall for 1% sales tax increase)

While discussing Measure N, the city council members’ priorities also are evident in the following small video scripts, where during discussions the council members can be seen saying that if they don’t put a 10-year clause this contra Costa Tax Payers Association will not allow it to pass. June 25 2024 City Council meeting at https://mediahttp.iqm2.com/SanRamonCA/2564_480.mp4

In the video go to time 2:05. Vice Mayor Scott Perkins says the 10-year sunset clause was added just to ensure that the Contra Costa Tax Payers Association does not oppose the motion.

Yes For Measure N Committee funding:

Funding for Measure N also shows the deep connection to $134K being raised in a short span by the committee formed – Yes for Measure N.

Source : https://www.southtechhosting.com/sanramoncity/campaigndocswebretrieval

This is on top of city’s spending – $412K – for a company called Clifford Moss. Contracts are attached for reference.

$100K to EMC for research of Measure N.

Latest newsletter before election:

https://cdnsm5-hosted.civiclive.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_10826046/File/Newsletters/SR%20FALL%20’24-NL-WEBSITE.pdf

After reading this newsletter, the key question is why we got here and why this council should not be given more voice.

The City of San Ramon is implementing significant cuts across various departments due to budget shortfalls, yet this is being used as leverage to push residents toward supporting Measure N, which proposes a 1% sales tax increase. This tactic can be seen as coercive, as it frames the decision as a choice between essential service cuts and passing the tax measure.

Key features of budget cuts include:

  1. Public Safety: Staffing cuts in the Police Department, leaving five sworn officer positions and four administrative roles unfilled. These cuts directly affect vital services like investigations, traffic management, and community resources, raising concerns about public safety ​(SR FALL ’24-NL-WEBSITE).
  2. Parks and Community Services: Multiple community services and events have been scaled back or eliminated, including the reduction of library hours by 10 per week, elimination of middle school teen programs, and cancellation of popular events like the Holiday Tree Lighting and Party in the Park ​(SR FALL ’24-NL-WEBSITE).
  3. Public Works: Landscape maintenance will be reduced by 25–50%, leading to less frequent mowing and a more natural, potentially neglected appearance of parks ​(SR FALL ’24-NL-WEBSITE).
  4. Information Technology & Administrative Services: Deferred upgrades to both the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and the Finance Division software, which would have improved resident interaction and internal efficiency ​(SR FALL ’24-NL-WEBSITE).
  5. Public Facilities Maintenance: Reductions in janitorial services for public spaces will result in visibly less clean facilities ​(SR FALL ’24-NL-WEBSITE).

By presenting these deep cuts to essential services and infrastructure, the city creates a sense of urgency, suggesting that without the tax increase, the quality of life in San Ramon will suffer. This “blackmail” tactic pressures residents into supporting Measure N to avoid further degradation of services, positioning the measure as the only viable solution to restore and maintain service levels. However, this approach may limit residents’ ability to make a fully informed and unbiased decision.

How did we get here?

Here are some expenditures I have seen where I would have a different opinion, especially when we are in such a deficit that we must compromise public safety.

  • Page 210 of this FY20-21 budget has a Capital Improvement Project. The city allocated $29.7 million over 5 years for “Citywide Intelligent Transportation System Upgrade” (row 17). And just four years later, we do not have enough dollars to clean our toilets or keep fountains running. Could this project have been done for less? Did the residents understand and buy into the huge cost? Have the residents seen the value of this expense and do they value it over clean toilets? budget20-21.pdf (civiclive.com)
  • Row 23 shows a $16.8 million cost over 5 years of adding a third lane to a short section of Crow Canyon. The construction caused major traffic jams and accidents and took two painful years to complete. At best this will shave driving time by 5-10 seconds. Was it a good use of our tax dollars? Ironically, the proposed sales tax is trying to raise $16 million too.
  • Row 13 shows $3.3M for “City Hall Reconfiguration”. What is this and how many residents benefitted from this?
  • Row 5 shows $21.7M for the Iron Horse bridge. Could this not have waited, if the city finances were in such bad shape?
  • Row 56-57 have the Olympic Pool costs. A combined $6.5 million 5-year cost. The cost is equivalent of 20,000 passes for 5 years at Concord Waterpark.

What should change?

One avenue of revenue increase I recommend is to consider increasing developer fees, our city is charging way less than Pleasanton.

https://www.danvillesanramon.com/blogs/2023/05/04/developer-fees-increase-cost-of-housing/

In San Ramon, for a 2,000-square-foot new home, developer fees were about $78,000, while in Pleasanton the fees were $160,000 for a 3,000-square-foot new home. I believe there is still significant room for increase and we can do in what we are charging as developer fees.

The next area I want to focus on is having a complete review of entire city operations by freezing any additional project approvals until we get the budget in balance. I strongly recommend that we look into restructuring the city departments as it happens in the corporate world.

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