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Mayor Karla Brown delivered the annual State of the City speech last week at the Palm Event Center, where she went over Pleasanton’s various achievements from last year such as the implementation of a new comprehensive strategic plan as well as addressed upcoming financial challenges related to water and the city’s budget.
The Pleasanton Chamber of Commerce hosted the March 26 event as it does every year and had hundreds of city employees, sponsors and Pleasanton residents listen to Brown’s various updates both locally and regionally.
Brown kicked off her speech by talking about the ONE Pleasanton five-year strategic plan that the City Council approved last October. Among other goals, the citywide plan mainly aimed to replace the old two-year process for identifying and prioritizing public projects, programs and policy initiatives.
Some of the other goals defined in the strategic plan, Brown said, were to help better fund the city’s future, optimize the city government at an organizational level, invest more in the environment, better safeguard the city and help build a community “where everyone belongs”.
“ONE Pleasanton represents our commitment to safety, progress and a thriving community,” Brown said.
Another big-ticket item that the mayor touched on in her speech was housing.
One of the first main council decisions in 2023 was the adoption of the sixth Housing Element, which is where the city looked at zoning properties for housing developments in order to meet the state-mandated Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) of 5,965 new units — 2,758 of which are targeted toward lower-income households.
This is a process that takes place every eight years and Brown said it is designed to address fair housing for the needs of all Pleasanton residents and to keep making Pleasanton a desirable place for everyone to live.
She also said that the city is helping to meet the housing needs in other ways such as financially supporting first-time homebuyers through partnerships with regional nonprofits Echo Housing and the Bay Area Affordable Homeownership Alliance.
She also talked about how the city has contributed funds to Tri-Valley REACH, which helps create safe, affordable housing specifically for adults with developmental disabilities, so the nonprofit can create accessory dwelling units in Pleasanton.
Brown made sure to also not leave out other nonprofits that the city helped through various grant funding programs.
“I am so proud that the City Council approved more than $1.2 million to organizations including … Axis Community Health, CityServe of the Tri-Valley, Hively, Goodness Village, Open Heart Kitchen, and let’s not forget Sunflower Hill to name a few,” Brown said. “These nonprofits focus on activities that benefit the community’s most vulnerable.”
The last nonprofit that Brown highlighted was Tri-Valley Haven and how the city had joined with other neighboring cities to support the organization’s plans to rebuild its domestic violence shelter and increase its capacity to house people by 50%.
Staying on the topic of housing people, Brown mentioned the Pleasanton Police Department’s efforts to reduce homelessness and how the department created its award-winning alternate response unit, which was fully implemented last year.
The unit pairs police officers with licensed clinicians to respond to mental health crisis calls.
Brown said that in its first year of operation, the unit responded to more than 360 calls for service, which freed up police resources and helped reduce the number of emergency psychiatric holds by nearly 50%
She also said the unit helped place more than 50% of unhoused people in Pleasanton into permanent or long-term housing, which is why the League of California Cities awarded the city the Helen Putnam Award for Excellence back in September.
In regard to businesses in Pleasanton, Brown updated the room about the Economic Development Strategic Plan that the council approved back in August.
The plan aims to increase the city’s fiscal strength and help support local businesses by outlining key initiatives, priorities and benchmark goals over the course of the 2024-28 fiscal years to help attract more business development interest and ensure the businesses that are already in Pleasanton stay.
Additionally, Brown provided an update on the Johnson Drive Economic Development Zone project, which includes the recent opening of the two new SpringHill Suites and TownePlace Suites hotels on Johnson Drive.
Another major part of the project is the construction of Pleasanton’s first-ever Costco, which Brown said that while the city has dealt with weather and infrastructure challenges, construction has begun and the city is anticipating it will open later this year.
“While there have been delays for the installation of power and electric utilities, they are scheduled to open this year,” Brown said.
Another highlight Brown touched on was how the city will be sponsoring a concert on June 21 to celebrate the city turning 130 this year and how she is glad the Pleasanton Downtown Association continued to bring back its Concert in the Park series this summer. One major aspect of that was also how the city is in the design phase to build a brand new bandstand at the Lions Wayside Park.
Some of the other positive highlights Brown included in her speech were how Meadowlark Dairy was recently named one of the top 10 ice cream shops in the country; how the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department managed a wide array of emergencies from last January’s winter storms to rescuing a 1-month-old baby who was found unresponsive back in July; and how the city is continuing to optimize its organization by adopting a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Action Plan.
But it wasn’t until near the end of the speech that Brown began talking about some of the difficulties that the city had to face in 2023 and the challenges it will have to overcome in the future.
Brown talked about how the city had to implement water conservation measures and had to make emergency improvements to the water system in response to the ongoing PFAS issue that has been plaguing the city for the past few years.
PFAS, otherwise known as forever chemicals, were detected in the city’s groundwater supply several years ago and had forced the city to shut down three of its wells, which typically make up about 20% of the city’s water supply.
The emergency actions that the city took has allowed staff to begin work on the construction of two new groundwater wells that will be free of PFAS chemicals, which Brown said the city is in talks with the Zone 7 Water Agency to be a possible partner in that project.
“These are large projects and can take up to three or four years to complete, and at a hefty cost, estimated at $25 million,” Brown said. “I have personally worked with our state and federal legislators to secure supplemental grants for our new wells, but we will need more funding.”
Apart from funding those two new wells, Brown also talked about how the city is also facing financial challenges in the city’s budget and how staff will be looking at reducing expenses while increasing revenue.
She talked about how the city finalized its two-year budget last year and developed a 10-year infrastructure and facilities replacement plan, which will help the city save money in order to fund large capital purchases like an underground pipe replacement, a $1.2 million fire engine, new playground equipment and an updated police training facility.
But even with that balanced budget, Brown said that the city’s top three sources of funding — which are property, sales and hotel taxes — are not increasing while its expenses have continued to grow due to things like inflation, increased pension liability and labor agreements, and the need for infrastructure maintenance and replacement.
“Our city is facing tough decisions in the near future as costs continue to rise, and city revenues have not kept up,” Brown said. “Without significant revenue increases, we will not be able to address a severe and increasing budget deficit.”
She also said that the PFAS issues forcing the city to buy 100% of its water supply from Zone 7 hasn’t helped.
That, coupled with the need to modify, repair and replace old infrastructure in its water system, also forced the city to increase its water rates last year, which was one of the more contentious items the council had to discuss over the last half of 2023.
She added that even with the increase, which was supposed to help balance out the city’s water enterprise fund, securing a reliable water supply like the city is doing with the proposed two new wells will still require a lot more money.
As for the overall budget shortfalls the city is facing, Brown said that they are gathering community input on placing a half-cent sales tax increase measure on the Nov. 5 election ballot in order to address those shortfalls.
She said that the tax increase, which would be the first time the city has ever considered a local revenue measure, could provide about $10 million of additional funding to the city every year.
She pointed out that items like groceries, prescription medicine and medical devices — among other things — would be exempt from the sales tax.
“If a half-a-cent sales tax increase is approved by voters, a $100 purchase would increase by 50 cents,” Brown said. “Would you pay 50 cents to ensure the city is well maintained now and into the future? “
She said that while a decision hasn’t been made yet on actually placing the revenue measure on the ballot, the city wants to hear more from the community, which is why everyone at the event was given a card with a QR code to scan that led them to a survey regarding the sales tax measure.
Brown’s full 2024 State of the City address will be viewable every day for a month at via TV30 on cable television and streaming online. For the full viewing schedule, visit TV30’s website at tv30.org.