Neighborhood street paving and public safety accounted for nearly half of the $6.1 million in Measure G funds spent by the City during the 2016-17 fiscal year, according to the Annual Community Report released this earlier this month. An additional $1.3 million in unspent funds remains assigned to capital improvement projects until completed.
Measure G, also referred to as the Local Revenue Measure, was initially approved by City voters in 2006, then extended for another eight years in the 2014 election. The measure established a one-half percent sales tax, which would be used to protect and maintain essential community services and facilities such as open space preservation, bike lanes and sidewalks, public safety, neighborhood street paving and code enforcement, flood protection and senior programs.
Spending priorities laid out in the measure help guide the Citizen’s Revenue Enhancement Oversight Committee, which makes recommendations to the Council about how the money should be spent.
The redesigned and newly built Sinsheimer Park Playground, which opened to the public in late 2017, was funded with Local Revenue Measure Funds. The $1.1 million project took 11 months to build and replaces the original 1970 playground. The new park features an ADA- accessible space with a large multi-slide, zipline, grassy sledding hill, climbing wall, picnic benches and tables, new walkways, trees, water fountains and water bottle filling stations.
Last year, 25 percent of the $6.1 million was directed toward neighborhood street paving, which included the addition of buffered and green bike lanes on Los Osos Valley Road, Madonna Road, Longview Lane, and Johnson Street. The next biggest expenditure (23 percent) was directed toward public safety, which included funding for downtown police officers. Other targets for the money included:
- Flood protection (18 percent)
- Bicycle and pedestrian improvements (14 percent)
- Open space preservation, including adding 154 acres of open space with the acquisition of Waddell Ranch in 2017 (10 percent)
- Code enforcement (4 percent)
- Parks and recreation/senior programs and facilities (3 percent)
- Traffic congestion relief/safety improvements (3 percent)
A report in brief was included in all March city utility bills and the full report is available online at www.slocity.org/budget.