As I’ve written about before the San Carlos School District is in dire straits due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As part of a joint discussion between members of the City Council and the School Board the District asked the City to consider a grant of $1.5 million. Personally I’m not sure if a grant or […]
Taking Counsel from Your Fears Read More »
This week I successfully lobbied my colleagues to direct our representatives on the “2+2” — the joint subcommittee of the Council and the School Board — to discuss ways of providing some financial support to the San Carlos School District. What form that will take, how much it will be, and whether we ultimately provide
Lending a Hand in a Time of Need Read More »
The city typically has two big financial events annually. The first, and the one that gets the most attention, is in the Spring when the budget is discussed and adopted. That’s where the Council decides, in some detail, how it intends to provide for public health and safety and maintain or improve the quality of
Another Banner Year Read More »
Some time ago my colleagues agreed to a suggestion I made about having staff put our banking services contract out for bid. While the then-current provider, Wells Fargo, had been providing services for enough years that it was good practice to re-bid the service, there was a more important reason to do so. At least
San Carlos Rewarding Monumentally Bad Behavior Read More »
At our November 13th meeting, staff presented the audited financial results for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2018. The Council ultimately ended up accepting staff’s recommendations as to how to allocate the surplus to various reserves. But the more interesting part of the story was in the size of the surplus: nearly $7,000,000, the
Giving Back to the Community Read More »
At last Monday’s Council meeting, a discussion requested by Matt Grocott, to consider changing how much council members are paid, took place. Although no specific dollar changes were proposed, all four of us (Bob Grassilli was out of town) agreed to bring such an item forward for action at a future meeting, although for different
Should the Council Get Up to a 145% Raise? Read More »
At tonight’s meeting, the Council voted to pre-fund future pension costs, to the tune of $7.5 million. Doing this might, if things work out as expected, reduce San Carlos’ future annual pension costs by about $500,000. Those costs are currently around $4.5 million per year, having risen from about $2.5 million annually a few years
Why I Oppose Pre-Funding Pensions Read More »
At tonight’s Council meeting, staff was given direction to begin the process of putting two tax measures on this November’s ballot. The first measure would increase San Carlos’ Transient Occupancy Tax — the tax everyone pays when they stay in a hotel — from 10% to 14%, probably over a period of a few years.
This ran in the San Mateo Daily Journal on Monday, April 2, 2018. What would you do with $38,000,000? It’s a question we’d probably all like to face. I can’t offer that princely sum to you as an individual…but it’s a very relevant question for every resident of San Carlos. Because that’s roughly how much
Time to Plan for the Future Read More »
This Monday, February 26th, the Council will be voting on whether or not to move forward with rebuilding the Holly/101 interchange. That sounds like a reasonable thing to do. Besides improving traffic flow and safety, it will also buy us a new pedestrian/bicycle crossing over the 101. In fact, when this project first started wending
Investing Millions in a Project No One Requested Read More »