Here’s a summary: the Mayor projects $180 million annual deficit; an independent agency projects $200 million. Councilman DeMaio projects an additional $120 million deficit to pay for retiree healthcare, and even more to pay for required deferred maintenance, that makes the actual annual deficit more like $365 million. Unfortunately, this will allow the city to merely tread water and not pay off any debts. The situation will continue to worsen. DeMaio also believes the main problem is retiree obligations. The city will not be able to fix this problem by raising taxes or cutting services. The retiree obligations need to be renegotiated. DeMaio believes he can do this. Stay tuned.
HBA holds annual board meeting, one election down…one to go
The Hillcrest Business Associaiton held their annual meeting Tuesday evening. Glenn Younger, owner, Grah Safe & Lock was appointed as the HBA’s respresentative at the Community Plan Update. Property owner, Ron Baranov was selected alternate. Michael Wright, owner of City Deli and Steve Moore of Column One were affirmed as members of the Hillcrest Committee, a joint committee with the Uptown Partnership which is chaired by Nick Moede, owner of Rich’s and Numbers.
en business owners (Robert Grinchuk, The Wine Lover; Cindy Lehman, California Bank & Trust; Sean Cute, The Ruby Room; Nick Moede, Rich’s; Amy Capano, Cathedral; Ann Garwood, Ad Ink Advertising Agency; and Dalour Younan, Hillcrest Shell) ran for open seats. 45 votes were needed with 47, Cindy Lehman was the only candidate elected. Oddly, no other candidate received enough votes to be seated. The board failed to ratify the results of the election. The organization was also scheduled to elect officers, but because of the unusual outcome of the board election, that agenda item was postponed. Executive Director Benjamin Nicholls will be consulting counsel for direction. Stay tuned.
