Redding Mayor Speaks To Realtors
LOCAL GOVERNMENT, REDDING LIFESTYLES, SHASTA COUNTY
March 12th, 2009
Rick Bosetti, Redding’s mayor, discussed the state of the city and some of the projects planned for the near future. Rick also fielded questions from the audience regarding a wide range of issues.
The stimulus package money recently authorized by President Obama will funnel nearly $4 million to Redding. Shasta County, Anderson and Shasta Lake will also receive a portion of the stimulus money. The city would like to focus the money on infrastructure for the Oasis Road development. The city is in danger of losing Costco and the $3 million plus in sales tax revenue it generates yearly if they decide to move out of the city. Costco would like to add a 16-pump gas station and significantly expand the store size.
Other interested tenants include Cinemark and Fred Meyer.Cinemark has plans to build a 16-screen theater complex. Fred Meyer has wanted to build a store here for some time. The Oasis Road developer has several options to pay for the construction of the expensive interchange improvements. Rick feels the time is right to begin this project because construction costs are about 30% lower today than just a few years ago.
Local home builders are also discussing several projects they would like to get underway to aid the construction industry. I assume builders would like to see some relief from high permit fees and/or a deferment of fees until the homes are sold. The city had a program in place last year similar to this but that program has expired.
Rick pointed to the weak economy for bringing budget issues to the forefront. As tax revenues decline, the city council is looking closely at their budget and some interesting things have occurred. The unions that represent city workers have rejected pay and benefit cuts in favor of layoffs. Rick mentioned that Chico city employees offered to take across the board pay cuts to maintain current job levels.
I asked who sits at the bargaining tableon behalf of Redding’s citizens. He said a city employee in the Human Resources Department has represented the city for more than 10 years. During that time period, retirement obligations for the city have ballooned from just under $4 million/year to more than $18 million today. He said the city council may want to consider hiring an outside representative to sit at the bargaining table on behalf of citizens. New GASB accounting regulations require the city to break out the cost of future retirement benefit obligations, presently projected to be about $100 million.
Other concerns on the horizon include the tab to Calpers for retirement benefits. Due to the recent steep declines in the stock market, and CalPers 6% return guarantee to government employee participants, the bill to fund retirement obligations could increase substantially, despite a recent smoothing formula used by Calpers to minimize large variances in year-to-year funding requirements. They won’t know exactly how much until Calpers sends the city a bill.
Rick made one final comment that left the audience stunned: when Rick took office as a city councilman he told staff not to invite him to any social functions, dinners, get togethers, etc and vise versa. He said he wants to represent and make decisions for the 90,000 city residents, not just the 900 city employees. If he was to get too friendly with city staff or employees, he’s afraid it would influence his vote on issues that come before him.
Thanks Rick!
530-224-6767 or 530-941-7492
BRAD GARBUTT
REALTOR/BROKER ASSOCIATE
REAL ESTATE PROFESSIONALS GMAC
QUARTER CENTURY LOCAL REAL ESTATE EXPERIENCE
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