Councilmember Todd Gloria addressed local residents’ concerns, including budget, water and transit at a community breakfast at The San Diego LGBT Community Center, last Friday.

“I wanted to bring up two things that are looming large over the city right now, the first one is the city’s budget…. The second is water,” Gloria said.

On the budget, Gloria spoke about a surplus, pension payments and the council budgeting process.

The city will end 2009 with a small surplus of about $2 million. But out of a $3 billion budget, “that doesn’t give a lot of wiggle room, but it’s important to note that we are living within our means,” the District 3 councilmember said.

Pension payments are also down for the year as result of a series of reforms implemented by the city.

“Its not because of any funny business. No one is cooking the books. It’s because the reforms that have been instituted are reducing the overall size of our debt,” Gloria said.

This year, the San Diego City Council decided to start its budgeting hearings in January. Usually, the council begins its budgeting process in May with a written report produced in June. Since the beginning of 2009, the council has been holding public hearings on the budget seeking the perspective and opinion of different constituencies.

“We’ve had a hearing for all our labor unions to come in and give us some money-saving ideas, the business community has come in and kind of given their thoughts, and, more importantly, we’ve gone out to the community and solicited people’s input,” Gloria said.

Currently, testimony gathered from the hearings is being compiled for the council’s budget report that will be sent to Mayor Sanders in mid April.

“Hopefully he will incorporate some of the savings that citizens have identified, and then we can close this $54 million budget gap with limited impact to you and the communities that we serve,” said Gloria.

Savings aside, the community is facing a number of potential financial impacts including library and recreation-center closures and reductions in police and firefighter personnel.

Pointing out how students and low-income residents depend on libraries for daily access to resources and information, Pat Washington, resident of Hillcrest, asked, “Can you stop the mayor from tapping those libraries?”

“I could not agree more with the point that you’re making. … You go to any of my libraries and there is a line before they open because so many people need them. They need them to access the Internet, because we still read books. … We also use them as meeting centers. They are town centers really in a lot of our neighborhoods. … If you close them, my constituents will not have access,” Gloria said. Councilmembers Sherri Lightner and Marti Emerald are in agreement with Gloria.

Last fall, when the city proposed to make some library closures, it “awakened a sleeping giant,” said Gloria. Since then, residents have been attending council hearings and speaking out in support of keeping the libraries open.

“Is not our intention to close the libraries in the new budget proposal but I wouldn’t call it a day either. I would still be out there articulating why park centers, recreation facilities and libraries are critical,” Gloria said.

The issue of water followed budget matters.

“The second issue I wanted to bring up with you is water. The fact is the number one issue that people are contacting my office about is water,” Gloria said.

Currently, San Diego is at a stage-one water emergency, requiring residents to save water voluntarily. The city has been promoting a campaign called the 20-Gallon Challenge to get residents and businesses to reduce their water use by 20 gallons per person, per day.

Last year, San Diego reduced its water usage by 10 percent; this year the city has only hit 5 percent conservation. That means San Diego might have to go to a stage-two water emergency, 20 percent mandatory water conservation.

“When is this going to happen? Probably at the beginning of this summer. It’s difficult. Everyone is going to get hurt. Everyone is going to have to make a reduction,” said Gloria.

Currently residents who have already been conserving could be “dinged” when stage two is implemented.

“We cannot ask people who have responded to the 20-Gallon Challenge with maybe a 10-gallon reduction and say ‘Thank you so much sir, now you need to conserve 20 percent off that.’ We need to have a way to make sure that we are taking in past conservation efforts before asking people to make their cuts,” Gloria said.

The council is trying to get Mayor Sanders to include such a stipulation in his overall proposal.

Gloria also touched on transit issues. The city is considering whether to cut transit routes and increase fairs. Gloria thinks it’s a bad idea.

“At this time in our economy, at a time when people are struggling more than ever, we should not be making transit harder to ride, we should make it easier to ride,” Gloria said.

“Last year we bought all these great new fufu buses that don’t have gas and don’t have emissions and all that crap and now they’re talking about cutting some of the bus routes. … What is happening?” asked Marian Williams, resident of East Village.

“I share that frustration. … It is much easier to get money for capital improvements than it is to actually get operations money,” Gloria said, adding that the council is working to reallocate funds to keep current routes in operation.