City finds funds for SMPD’s mounted patrol
Despite having to make some of the severest budget cuts in more than a decade, the city council still managed to hand out millions in funding to community groups.
City council members voted unanimously on Tuesday to adopt next year’s $387.3 million budget, which contains more than $20 million in deferred capital improvements and at least a 2.5 percent reduction in spending across every city department.
The city had to undergo some serious belt-tightening to make up for a nearly $9 million loss in sales tax revenue because of the declining economy. Santa Monica officials also are preparing for further reductions in state funding when California adjusts its budget next November.
However, the city council was able to help out a half-dozen community causes with money from its “discretionary fund,” a pool of money left to the city council to divvy out for special one-time community causes.
The vast majority of the council’s $1.7 million went to the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified school district. The city council awarded $1.5 million to the school district to help off-set an extreme reduction in financial aid from the state.
Council members also invested $200,000 in an overseas advertising campaign aimed at drumming up Santa Monica’s tourism and an additional $50,000 to operate a newly created visitor’s bureau located in the Santa Monica Place Mall.
The Convention and Visitor’s Bureau had asked for $250,000 for the advertising campaign and $150,000 for its visitor’s booth, but bureau executive director Misti Kerns said her agency could make due with what the council has given it.
“In Santa Monica, our boat is floated by tourists,” said Councilman Robert Holbrook. “They spend a lot of money in this city and it’s very important that we have a healthy tourist industry.
“It’s kind of like gardening — if we don’t take care of it now it won’t be here in the spring,” he added.
In Santa Monica, tourism is a $500 million business that helps support many of the local mom and pop stores. When the current recession and the fallout from Sept. 11 dried up the Santa Monica’s year-round tourism trade, the city lost millions in anticipated tax revenue from sales and hotel rooms.
Councilman Richard Bloom said he viewed giving extra funding to the bureau as an investment in the city’s economy and a way to protect it from future economic hardships.
“We need to invigorate the economy here, and we need to do it quickly,” he said.
The council also found $75,000 to help save the Santa Monica Playhouse, which is trying to raise $500,000 to buy its downtown theater. If the group can’t raise the necessary amount of money by the end of the year, theater officials say they will have to leave the city.
Not including the city council’s money, the theater has raised $80,000 from its supporters. If the group cannot come up with enough money to purchase the theater, the money would be returned to the city.
“We are very excited, but we still have a lot of work left ahead of us,” said Chris DeCarlo, the theater’s artistic director. “But at least now we have our local lead funder, and that’s going to go a long way toward helping us raise enough money.”
Additionally, the city council gave $22,400 in matching funds to the Santa Monica Historical Society for its ambitious project to catalogue the articles and photographs from the defunct Outlook newspaper.
And after a crowd-pleasing speech from June Lockhart, who is known for her roles as Timmy’s mother in the television series “Lassie” and for her role as the mother in “Lost in Space,” the city found $33,000 to continue funding the Santa Monica Police Department’s mounted horse patrol.
“Keep the beautifully mounted police horses,” Lockhart said. “They are literally worth their weight in gold.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 20, 2002. Read the original PDF.