FRESNO DESK - Jeffrey M. Reid, Fresno city manager recently released his analyses of mayor Jim Patterson's goals and expenditure plan for the City in the fiscal year ending in 1999.
Reid emphasized that the City's budget will continue to focus on basic municipal responsibilities, for police officers, streets, sidewalks and beautification. he said '...We also provide the first significant increase in the number of fire fighters in several years.'
The City has, in the last year, allocated significant resources to neighborhood beautification. Reid said 'This year's program will complete
neighborhood enhancements to our downtown Lowell-Jefferson neighborhoods.
We will also expand the program into West Fresno and Southeast Fresno,
and include four "Sidewalks to Schools" projects as part of these neighborhood improvement projects'
A review of mayor Patterson's budget reveals that he will develop Fresno's first and only surface water treatment system and rehabilitate City sewer lines.
If City Hall is ever going to become a more open and accountable organization, it will happen because mayor Jim Patterson and city manager Jeff Reid are developing long needed systematic accounting tools, auditing protocols, and opening up the technology needed to measure growth towards the administrative vision of the City's mission and goals at the new millennium.
For example, the implementation of the new
Fresno City Hall Web presence can make it possible to provide citizens and taxpayers with accurate and direct information. However, readers will need the Shockwave plug-in to view all the bells and whistles on their page. Even with this limitation, it is a significant reinventing of local government that encourages City administrators use of 'entrepreneurial tools' to innovate operations and invigorate the City Hall workforce through public input.
Patterson, Reid and staff of the Budget and Management Studies Division, should be publicly praised for the courage and determination to complete the strategic planning for this brilliant vision of a Fresno that's a bright and shining City on a hill.
