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June is the month
every year that the City Council approves the City’s annual budget.
The budget expresses our vision, reflects input from community and the
City Council, sets priorities, and makes smart investments to deliver real
results to our residents. This
year’s budget focuses on creating strong neighborhoods, improving public
education, building affordable homes, and keeping San José safe. Here
are some of the key investments we’re making this year. Neighborhoods Strong
neighborhoods are the key to improving the quality of life of our residents. We continue to make great progress on our commitment to the
voters to deliver on 20 new or expanded branch libraries and nearly 100 park
improvements spread throughout the city. The
Council and I are keeping a close watch to ensure that all of these projects are
delivered on time and on budget. With this budget we confirmed our commitment to invest $170 million of Redevelopment funds in our neighborhoods. This is a dramatic shift in redevelopment priorities that used to be focused largely on the downtown. Some of the exciting improvements that were funded this year were: ·
New Teen Center Blackford,
new East Side Branch Library, new park in Washington neighborhood, and to design
a Community Center in Hoffman-Via Monte
Neighborhood. Our residents will
have new places to play, study, and gather. Graffiti is visual blight
in our neighborhood. Last year, we
cut graffiti from 70,000 tags down by 85%.
This fiscal year, we are going to remove our graffiti even faster so that
that the community will see tags in their neighborhoods for less than 24 hours. Street lights will be
added around neighborhood schools and parks like Dorsa Elementary in East San
José and New Galarza Elementary in Willow Glen so that students and parents
feel safer as they walk and play in their neighborhood school. All families deserve to
have a clean and safe place to live. We
are going after slumlords to ensure all families have a clean and safe home to
live in. Our residents will see a
cleaner community, feel safer, and will be proud to live in their neighborhood. Housing
Building
affordable housing continues to be a top priority as we plan for the future. The city is continuing an aggressive commitment to invest
$300 million to build 6000 affordable homes for San Jose families by 2004. We
make a strong commitment to extremely low-income (ELI) families by reserving 30%
of redevelopment funds for ELI housing to assist families who need help most
This means more families who work in our city will be able to afford to live
here. A program to inform renters
of their rights under our Rent Control ordinance to protect working families
from unfair rent increases and evictions will be established. Education
The
budget improves public education by working with schools to ensure our
children’s success. We are
doubling the funding for Future Teacher Scholarships and are continuing to help
teachers buy their first home so that our dedicated teachers will live in the
community where they work. Our
commitment to build Smart Start Centers also doubles in this budget to provide
preschool programs so our children are ready to learn when they start
kindergarten. Complete expansion of
Homework Centers will give every San José student a safe, quiet place to do
homework and get tutoring afterschool. Our
goal is to have parents see their child succeed in school and feel that their
child is getting a good education.
Transportation Traffic affects our residents every day. This budget works to improve traffic and move transit projects along so residents have other options other than getting into the car and driving to their destination. We are working to
bring BART to San Jose and extend Light Rail on time and on budget helping to
get more drivers off the road and on to transit.
. A $1 million investment is being made to speed construction
of clogged and crowded freeway interchanges so that if you have to drive, there
is traffic relief in sight. Because
we spend so much time in our vehicles and on the road, our streets need to be
safer for our residents who walk and bike around our city.
$5 million of this year’s budget is being pent on traffic calming so
our neighborhoods are safe to walk and bike through. Public
Safety Investments
in public safety will make our community safe and our residents feel secure in
their homes and neighborhoods. This
budget will establish an Internet Sexual Predator Program to train middle school
students and their parents on how to avoid becoming victims of sexual predators
over the Internet. We
continue to send a clear message that Domestic Violence will not be tolerated in
San José by increasing assistance and resources for domestic violence victims.
This includes funding for Domestic Violence counseling and more
investigators in our Police Department to solve Domestic Violence and Elder
Abuse crimes. This provides assistance to our residents who are
experiencing this type of abuse. On school
campuses, we will increase safety investments to make sure every child feels
safe. The budget provides resources
to continue expand to middle schools a pilot program for campus crisis
intervention with East Side Union High School District. As we approach the
fire season, fire prevention is on the minds of our residents.
This budget creates a Wildland Fire Program to prevent and fight hillside
fires in summer months so that we do not experience the adverse effects from
likely fires. Public outreach for
fire prevention and safety is key to ensuring that our residents are aware of
how prevent fires and protect their families and their homes.
We are adding more paramedics to fire engines so that when our residents
have emergencies we are able to provide crucial services to save more lives in
our community. These investments
will further our on going efforts to make neighborhoods a safe place for
families and children. These
are highlights from this year’s budget.
The 2001-2002 budget makes many
smart investments to improve the quality of life for the residents of
San José.
It focuses on concrete deliverables—things people can see and feel in
their neighborhoods. It’s a balanced budget that protects taxpayers’ dollars
and spends them wisely. You
can access the Mayor’s budget message in its entirety at: http://www.sjmayor.org/memos/bmessage.html
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