There was a great deal on the May 10th Fillmore City Council agenda with the meeting continuing on until close to midnight. This was a joint meeting with the Council and the City Film Commission. The Film Commission started the meeting with a review of past years items and activities, then addressed their trade show participation and ended with the budget/revenue for fiscal year 2010/2012.

On the Councils agenda was the cost of the Fourth of July Fireworks Show, approval of a letter of opposition regarding AB438 (Libraries withdrawal), addressing the number of homes to be built to balance out the General Plan and Specific Plan, first reading of Ordinance No. 11-3290 Heritage Valley Parks Development, Resolution No. 11-3290 Abatement of weeds and rubbish, a claim for reimbursement for the damage to a Fillmore resident’s car by a City’s tree, review of the request for a dog park, review results of the Citizens Survey, Resolution No. 11-3291 declaring a State of Fiscal Emergency, Reimbursement Agreement with Fillmore Riverview and much more.

The City’s budget was once again up for discussion and had most of the Council on edge as they continued to face the challenges of a projected 2011/2012 General Fund deficit of approximately $1.9 million. The Towne Theatre has already been closed, saving $4,700 and $23,000 annually in 2012, perhaps just the beginning of what needs to be trimmed down or eliminated.

City Manager Yvonne Quiring presented a progress report on proposed efforts to close the budget gap. A meeting has been set for May 20th to discuss Santa Paula’s interest in providing police services to Fillmore. City Staff has provided 30% across-the-board cuts and prioritized the services the City provides to the public, but it appears to be inevitable that positions will need to be eliminated which could involve employee layoffs. Employees who qualify have been asked whether they are interested in a voluntary retirement. Five to six employees have shown an interest, but once this is done, the positions are to stay open permanently.

The City employees have all taken a 5.5% cut through furloughs and the unclassified employees will be asked to take another 13% decrease in compensation and benefits in fiscal year 2012, bringing the total reduction to 18.5% over the next two years. Quiring informed the Council that other local cities are asking for only 3% cuts, but those cities are not facing the magnitude of a 26% cut to their General Fund that Fillmore is dealing with.
Quiring asked the Council to adopt Resolution 11-3291 declaring a state of fiscal emergency; and directing the City Manager to take appropriate and lawful measures to achieve a balanced budget. There was some question as to the wording of the Resolution by the Council. Council Member Patti Walker explained that what the City Manager is asking for is “the latitude to meet this problem.” With Mayor Pro Tem Jamey Brooks adding “We are in a state of fiscal emergency.”

A meeting was scheduled for Wednesday, May 11, 2011 to discuss the City Pool which is running an annual deficit of approximately $143,000. A pool Open House is scheduled during the May Festival with items for sale to help raise revenue. Items include new goggles, swim suits and various food items such as trail mix and candy bars. A trust fund has been established to receive donations, but the 2012 fiscal year budget still proposes to close the pool during the winter months.

The results the Citizens Survey completed by 254 Fillmore residents and authorized by the City Council was presented by Quiring. The results showed the highest satisfaction of City services went to the Fire and Emergency Medical response time at 48.8%, Maintenance of public parks at 44.1% and Fire and Police protection both receiving 43.5%. Receiving the greatest dissatisfaction was the Towne Theatre at 29% unsatisfied.
When asked where people would not want cuts made, 74.4% went to Fire protection, and 72.8% chose Police protection. In support of service reductions the highest went to the Towne Theatre at 71.9%, City Administrative (Finance, City Manager/Attorney/Clerk) 68.5%, Community Development/Planning 56.2% and City Pool at 54%.
Almost 60% supported contracting out for services such as janitorial, building maintenance, inspections in order to save money. On the question of increasing our sales tax by a quarter of a cent for five years, 52.5% said they would not support that and 61.8% said they would not support an increase in the pool parcel tax from $15 to $30 per year. But when asked about raising recreation fees 59.6% said yes they would support it.

Citizen Gary Creagle addressed the Council stating, “We’re missing one factor we’re not asking. How did we get here? Where’d the money go?....Is there going to be an audit of where the money went?” Council Member Steve Conaway gave a short presentation on the overhead, showing the independent auditor’s results, exposing the budget’s problems and a paper trail of the finances. Quiring, in an attempt to answer his questions, presented part of the presentation from the April 12th Council Meeting which showed a loss for the last two years as expenditures outpaced revenue. She explained that revenue, from areas like building permits, which averaged 12-22 in previous years, were down to 8-9 houses last year along with lower tax revenues, higher health care costs, increase cost for police services and higher cost for pension added to the short fall the City is dealing with. Walker remarked, “Everyone is feeling this from our (drop in) home values to our business and jobs. It’s happening to everybody.” Conaway added, “We as a Council have some extremely difficult problems ahead of us….We, as a Council, have a responsibility to be in control of the City’s finances. If corrective action had been taken long ago, we’d be in better shape…we’re two years into this structural imbalance.” Conaway said the auditor’s findings are available at City Hall for the public to inspect.

There was some good news coming from the Film Commission. The Commission informed everyone that Fillmore is now known as a film friendly town because the merchants and others are so easy to work with. Last year’s revenue doubled from the year before, bringing in $40,150 in film permits, $5,000 in Rental Fees, $34,050 in Police Service Fee revenue and $19,757 in Fire Service Fee revenue. After the operating cost for those services is deducted the City realized $53,424 in revenue. The Commission went on to explain their main thrust was communication with the merchants with a goal of helping them obtain compensation from those filming. They also thanked Patrick Maynard for producing and presenting a slide show to the merchants that was very helpful.
There was also a discussion of the palm trees on Central Avenue which are a hindrance to many location scouts because the scouts are looking for ‘any town, USA’ and palms are found mostly in California and Florida. The Commission reported that many filming opportunities are lost due to the Palm trees and asked if the Council would support replacing them if the funds could be found to accomplish it.

The Council responded by informing the Commission that Chevron has offered to donate $48,000 worth of trees to the City and perhaps some of those could be used to replace the Palms on Central. This replacement would not include any of the palm trees in front of Fillmore High School or those that extend down Central Avenue, just those in the main business area where filming is done. The businesses on Central Avenue have also shown interest in having different trees allowing customers some shade to sit under on hot summer days. It was suggested that the palm trees could be either sold if there’s a market for them or moved to another location in town.

Dave Wilkenson, owner of Fillmore Western Railroad, wanted to thank the City Council for promoting the train and presented an idea for a California Honey Harvest Festival done in conjunction with Bennett Honey Farms. Wilkenson informed the Council that Fillmore accounts for 2% of all the honey produced in the United States and he has found there is a great interest in it. Brooks asked where the trains would take the passengers and was told the train would stop at the honey farm. The festival would take place the latter part of June which is honey harvest season and visitors could watch as it was harvested. Wilkenson also added that many of the companies that use honey in their products have shown an interest in being vendors at the event.

The Two Rivers Dog Park was again on the agenda. The Fillmore Parks and Recreation and the Council have designated a piece of land at Two Rivers Park for the dog park with promoters asking citizens, clubs and organizations to help by donating money, time or supplies. Bids to build the park have ranged from $101,460 to $44,420 with Donna Miller stating that volunteers could bring the costs down by about 50% and the cost for a bare minimum park would be around $17,000.

City Staff acknowledges that a dog park would be beneficial to the community and provide a safer, more contained area for dog owners to let pets run freely, but the Council is also cognizant of the City’s severe financial constraints and limited staff resources to pursue a large or complex project and would like a low cost park operated by community volunteers.

All Dog Park donations are tax deductible and checks can be dropped off at 250 Central (City Hall). For more information log onto www.tworiversdogpark.com or contact Donna Miller@ (805) 727-0524.

Fillmore Fire Chief Rigo Landeros announces that on May 13th at 1:15pm the City of Fillmore Fire Department and the Ventura County Sheriffs Dept. will be presenting a nationally recognized program to stop underage alcohol consumption and driving. The program entitled “Every 15 Minutes” is a two-day program that involves over 500 junior and seniors at Fillmore High School. It is a three part program starting with “Living Dead” where 15 students are removed from their classes the first four hours of school. They then have their faces painted white and wear black shirts to represent alcohol related deaths. These students will then not be allowed to speak to anyone for the rest of the school day.

The second part of the program is a mock vehicle crash. At 1:15pm all junior and seniors will be escorted to the intersection of Shiells Drive and Second St. where they will view a real time simulation of a vehicle accident resulting from alcohol consumption. Local media and the general public are invited to attend this part of the program. Both Fire Chief Landeros and Police Chief Monica McGrath will be on hand throughout Friday to answer any questions.

The third part of the program is on Monday May 16th where those same students will be instructed to watch a recap of Friday’s drunken driving accident and will be required to write an essay as part of an English assignment.

This program was made possible thanks to Noontime Rotary, Fillmore High School, Fillmore Unified School District, American Medical Response, City of Fillmore Fire Dept., the Ventura County Sheriffs Dept. and Air Unit, and the Ventura County Medical Examiner’s Office.