Council Debates Proposed Cuts to Public Safety

Around 12 police officers and firefighters sat intently at the Watsonville City Council Chambers on Tuesday night, as they listened to city officials discuss salary concessions and the fate of some public safety positions. Just last week, seven Watsonville police officers and four firefighters were handed .

The proposal to lay off public safety workers is what Marc Pimentel, the city's administrative services director, calls an undesirable but needed solution in managing the city's $1.93 million budget deficit.

“I don’t want to sugarcoat it; it’s a big deal,” Pimentel said. “We don’t have a solution aside from layoffs.”

Pimentel presented a lengthy presentation during the budget hearing, detailing Watsonville’s budget deficit, and took a look at 2011-12 budget projections, all of which would keep the city in the red unless dramatic cuts were made in ways of public services.

Pimentel explained that the city’s general fund was short by a projected $1.93 million, with $1.4 million of that coming from police and fire increases. He also pointed to increases in non-safety pensions, fuel costs and an estimated loss from state budget actions as the reasoning for the remainder of the deficit.

The proposed budget for 2011-12 included a 45 percent reduction in funding of police officers and another 16 percent reduction in fire operation costs, and while those present at the meeting expected an outpouring of emotions from the police officers and firefighters in attendance, the exact opposite occurred. Silence.

Not one Watsonville police officer or firefighter rose to the lectern when the floor was open for public comment, and they have yet to comment publicly on the matter.

The silence appeared to be a shocker for council members, who began defending positions of public safety, despite the potential cost such layoffs could save.

“I’m sorry there are no public comments here tonight,” said Councilman Lowell Hurst. "The public really doesn’t want to see a reduction in public service on the street."

Councilwoman Nancy Bilicich went so far as to discuss cutting positions in her own backyard in favor of saving those of public safety.

“I think things can be worked out so there aren’t reductions in police and fire,” Biliccich said. “I’ve heard about reductions at the upper echelon of management.”

See a breakdown of the proposed cuts here.

Councilman Emilio Martinez argued that police officers have continued to take cuts, year after year, and he asked fellow council members to look at the city’s unfriendly business model as an explanation of plummeting city funds.

“We don’t have a lot of business flocking here and we should ask ourselves why," said Martinez, who has been critical of salaries in the city manager's office and other city spending he views as discretionary. "We have a lot of problems, but we're laying them on public service, the fire department. We can’t be paying $38,000 to upper management for car allowances, [because] when it comes to negotiations, we have to deal fairly.”

Despite the council’s support for public safety, Councilman Oscar Rios argued that Watsonville can’t look at itself as an independent city in terms of the budget and that public safety operations of neighboring cities have taken cuts. He said Watsonville may need to follow those cities in order to do what’s best for the county as a whole.

“Santa Cruz isn’t getting jobs; Capitola isn’t getting jobs. We’re not isolated—we’re part of this entire chain that’s taking place in the economy,” Rios said. “What I don’t want to fall into is that it seems like if we could only change the internal, the head of this body, then we’d get jobs, we’d get better service out there. I’m trying to understand the question that we have to demand from our staff to produce, when they are producing—we have to be careful to where we say the fault is.”

No final decisions were made. The council will revisit budget issues at its June 7 meeting.