S.J. makes libraries, traffic safety priorities
Mayor Liccardo says San Jose seeing `light at the end of the tunnel'
SAN JOSE >> San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo has proposed a $5.3 billion budget that will extend the hours of 13 libraries to Sundays, offer $10,000 bonuses to police officers who come work for the city and provide myriad traffic safety measures.
The San Jose City Council agreed in March to spend money in fiscal 2023 for priorities such as fighting homelessness and blight, bolstering public safety and boosting the local economy. If approved by the council, the new budget will take effect July 1.
Liccardo said June 7 his budget incorporates individual council members' priorities.
It was Council members Dev Davis and Maya Esparza's idea, for example, to open 13 branch libraries in the city's less resourced neighborhoods on Sundays.
“We have heard clearly from many in our community that Sundays provide the most convenient time to use our libraries — fewer parents have work commitments, families have time together and students gather motivation with looming Monday deadlines,” Liccardo wrote in his budget message.
According to data from a 2007 pilot program when that last happened, Sundays drew the largest crowds to libraries. Opening the 13 branches an extra day is expected to cost $2.165 million.
Liccardo said that in response to Davis' request, he's also proposing to spend $150,000 on a pilot program giving $10,000 bonuses to entice sworn officers from other departments to join San Jose's police force.
Like many other police departments, San Jose's has struggled to attract officers in recent years. The council already has allocated money to hire 15 extra officers to mainly focus on neighborhood foot patrol, sexual assault investigations and domestic violence.
That would bring the total number of officers in the city to 1,168.
In a year that's on track to be one of the deadliest for traffic fatalities — 33 people have been killed to date — making San Jose's roads safer is also a theme in the mayor's June budget message.
Efforts in the Legislature to experiment with using cameras to capture license plates of speeding drivers have failed in recent years, leaving local jurisdictions with “limited options,” the mayor said.
In 2020, drivers running red lights accounted for 9% of serious-injury crashes or fatalities in San Jose. That prompted Liccardo and Davis to propose spending $733,000 for a red light camera experiment at the four intersections with the highest number of collisions where drivers blew through red lights.
If the red light camera pilot program is approved, the council would return in spring 2024 to decide whether to expand it.
A number of traffic safety improvements requested by various council members also made the cut in Liccardo's budget proposal, including installing traffic calming measures in the neighborhoods near downtown, making a crosswalk more visible on Kooser Road between Meridian Avenue and Blossom Hill Road and installing sideshow deterrents in District 10.
Liccardo said the city has come far from the pension battles and rising retirement costs that constricted it from spending on critical services for years.
In February, the city manager's budget office projected balanced budgets for the next five years, something Liccardo said hasn't happened in roughly 20 years.
“For the first time in two decades, we are now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel,” Liccardo said.
The mayor's message about the new budget was much rosier than the one delivered in March, when he warned a $27.7 million budget surplus could be erased if San Jose tried to maintain the extra services that federal COVID-19 relief dollars had been covering.
Despite the brighter outlook, though, more “belt tightening” may be needed in the following years, Liccardo warned.
“We know that recessions will come and go, but at the very least our wounds will no longer be self-inflicted,” he said, referring to the pension battles. “I think that's the big news about this budget because it's been a long steep climb to get here.”