Politics & Government

Mayor's State of the City: Focusing on the Good News

Challenging times lie ahead, but Mayor Cindy Silva, in her State of the City speech Wednesday, chose a glass-half-full approach.

During a Walnut Creek Citizen's Institute presentation Wednesday night, City Manager Ken Nordhoff spoke of the "sluggish economy" and questioned whether the recession is over. "I don't feel or see signs of it being over."

He also spoke of the challenges facing Walnut Creek in the near and distant future For example, he noted the region's high unemployment rate of around 11 percent and showed data that suggests that the East Bay--and the rest of the nation, for that matter--are not likely to bring that percentage down significantly in the near future. 

Mayor Cindy Silva addressed some of those challenges and more in her State of the City speech early Wednesday. She mentioned sales tax revenue, which the city relies on to fund its services, and said it had taken a significant hit in the economic downturn.

Find out what's happening in Walnut Creekwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

But in her speech before Walnut Creek's Chamber of Commerce, Silva opted to focus on the positives. 

She mentioned recent signs of economic recovery in Walnut Creek, with new stores opening up, notably along Mt. Diablo Boulevard in downtown, and new developments in the pipeline, including Neiman Marcus, set to open in March 2012.

Find out what's happening in Walnut Creekwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Yes, developers are interested in building in Walnut Creek again, she explained, with several major multi-family housing projects proposed for downtown, including in the BART transit village plan.

The new Henry's Farmers Market, , would erase the "last area of urban blight in Walnut Creek," she said. Then there is the proposed 42,000-square-foot fitness center and chicken fast-food restaurant that would on North Main Street--Walnut Creek's "last industrial land," Silva said. 

As for the city's overall fiscal health? Yes, the city had to close a $20 million gap to close its 2010-12 budget, and it had to lay off the equivalent of more than 30 full-time positions. 

"As our assistant city manager said, we had to put our budget on a diet," Silva said.  She said the city couldn't have pushed through these changes without the help and cooperation of employees and the community. 

On the positive fiscal side, she said "we have a clean unqualified audit.  We have healthy reserves . . . And this is the part most people are surprised about: We have no general fund debt. In fact, we built the library with cash; we built city hall with cash." 

Silva--her speech structured as a Top 10 list of Walnut Creek's attributes--spoke of how we live is a "safe and secure" city, with the crime rate dropping nearly 11 percent in 2010 over 2009, and crime declining 9 percent over the past six years. 

Arts, culture and volunteerism are thriving, she said. "Arts are alive and well in Walnut Creek," Silva said, noting that the Lesher Center for the Arts, celebrating its 20th anniversary in October, hosted 830 performances and events in 2010 and sold 215,000 tickets. Thirty thousand people visited the city-owned public art space, the Bedford Gallery, in the Lesher Center in 2010, and 249,340 people had visited the new downtown library between July, when it opened, and the end of the year. 

On the recreation front, she said the city is going to have to figure out how to maintain the quality of its aquatics programs, which are well-regarded throughout the Bay Area and bring in about 400,000 people of all ages a year for classes and recreational and competitive swimming.

The problem is that the swimming pools at Heather Farm and Larkey Park are nearly a half-century-old and "crumbling." Replacing those pools or modernizing them is expected to cost $21 million under one plan the city is looking into. 

"That's our next major capital project," Silva said. One of the tasks of the newly appointed 15-member Blue Ribbon Task Force--assigned to make recommendations on how to maintain the city's long-term economic health--is to figure out how Walnut Creek will pay for these new pools. 

Silva saved her final praise for the people of Walnut Creek, for their civic engagement in the community and all the hours of volunteer time they put in to make the community a great place to live and work. 2011 is the Year of the Volunteer in Walnut Creek, and the city will host a special day in the spring to mark that distinction. 

"Walnut Creek is really all about the people," she said. 


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here