A community survey reaching out to a select group of registered voters is asking citizens for their input on prioritizing city services but it certainly has the earmarks of testing the waters for a possible tax hike measure.
City Manager Doug Dunford said the city has spent $20,000 with the political research firm of Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates (FM3) of Oakland to gauge residents’ “major concerns and how do we go about it and make it a better?”
“We’re trying to improve the city and make it a better place,” said Dunford when asked if the survey is a prelude to the putting forth of a tax measure. “The city is considering anything to help out.”
That “anything” could include placing a sales tax increase on a future ballot but Dunford could not be pinned down.
According to FM3’s website notes that the firm “began in 1981 as a political research firm conducting surveys for candidate and ballot measure campaigns” and has since “significantly broadened our focus and expanded our subject matter expertise. While our bread and butter is still political campaigns, we now help a diverse array of clients — including government agencies, nonprofits, businesses, and more — to better understand public opinion on all manner of topics. If you want to educate, influence, or better serve a specific population, we can help.”
The firm is reaching in the form of telephone surveys and emails “selectively sent to registered voters,” said Dunford.
He said the gist of the survey is to gauge the community’s feelings about quality of life issues in Ceres.
“So what are the big concerns of the city?” asked Dunford rhetorically. “Is it police? Is it parks? Is the city headed the right direction? How would you rate the quality of life in Ceres? Do you strongly approve or disapprove of the way city is conducting business? Then to do that we have to look at how do we fund this? Is it to add more houses? Bring in more (commercial) development?”
The survey asked the recipient to rate issues like crime, homelessness, traffic, condition of parks and more.
The city’s budget future appears bleak when one considers that the Ceres City Council just approved a budget that dips into reserves by $2 million to cover General Fund expenditures, dropping that rainy day fund level to below the minimum standards set by prior councils. Next year, the council won’t be able to do that and with expenditures expected to outstrip any meager revenue gains, the city will be scrambling next year to pare service levels – unless voters approve new taxes.
Dunford said that 81 percent of General Fund expenditures are on salaries “and most of that is police and fire.”
The city’s parks division is already bare bones with five employees looking after 14 parks, he noted.
In 2007, Ceres voters approved Measure H by a margin of 74.3 percent to raise sales taxes in Ceres by a half-cent. At the time the tax was sold as a way to fund up to six new police officers and six new firefighters, buy new protective equipment for officers, implement anti-gang and anti-drug programs for youth, and buy emergency rescue equipment. Since then, however, the city had to abandon plans to enact a Street Crimes Unit.
