Live, Work & Play in Escondido

The citizens in this community want respect – for who they are and what they do, and likewise, I would like the residents of this community to respect the work of our city government.

I want to describe for you what our city does for us every day. Really, have you ever thought about what you want the city to do for you?

First, we are city of 142,000 residents. We are a full service city. We have our own police department, fire department (which will soon include 7 fire stations), a water treatment plant, and a wastewater treatment plant. We also operate nine parks, two lakes, a 3,000 acre open space preserve, a community center, a senior center, two libraries, a sports center, two swimming pools and two municipal golf courses.

We have 802 full time and 430 part time employees who provide all of our services. In addition to our employees, we outsource some services, such as median landscaping and that adds dozens more people doing the work of the city.

Everyone is familiar with traditional city jobs such as police officer and fire fighter. But today's modern city needs a lot of other people whose jobs weren't even imagined decades ago. These jobs are not only interesting but in some cases, unusual.

We have employees who maintain our water aqueduct. Did you know we have an aqueduct? They work in remote, mountainous locations that can only be reached on foot and often require equipment to be brought in by helicopter. We don’t have a helicopter.

We have public works employees who use specialized snaking cameras to explore the condition of underground water and sewer pipes.

There are Video Specialists who operate TV cameras for council meeting broadcasts and produce videos and public service announcements for our government TV Channel, Ch. 19.

We have employees who process and analyze evidence from crime scenes, although their jobs aren't nearly has glamorous as portrayed on CSI!

We have mechanics who are expected to be able to service everything from patrol cars and fire trucks to street sweepers and Command Vans.

We have Chemists, Recycling Specialists and Property Agents.

We have graphic artists, computer programmers, network administrators and web page designers.

We have Code Enforcement Officers and Graffiti removers.

We have recreation leaders and referees for all sorts of sports, officiating at everything from 4 year olds playing soccer to adult hockey leagues...and I'll leave it to you to decide which is the more daunting to do!

So how much does it cost to provide all of these services? Our General Fund budget is $85.6 million. 77% of that amount is spent on employees.

Think of the fires of last October. It was our 88 firefighters at the front line protecting our homes and preventing the loss of any lives. It was our 150 police officers helping us to evacuate and keep our neighborhoods safe while we were gone. It was the 40 employees who work for our water department scrambling to make sure the water system was balanced and flowing. It was our 92 public works folks that closed and reopened roads and assisted in many other ways. It was over 50 management and technical employees who staffed our Emergency Operations Center to fully support the actions out in the field.

With all the services we provide, every penny of our budget is spent. But where do we get those dollars to spend? From all of us, of course, but how?

A significant part of our revenue comes from the dollars we spend here in town. Those are sales tax dollars. One percent of all taxable sales collected by businesses goes to the city in which it is spent. For us that is about $33.3 million. (Just as an aside, our city is second in sales tax revenue of all the cities in the County, just behind San Diego.)

You may be surprised to know that of the property tax paid in Escondido, we only get about 10%, which totals about $11.6 million to the General Fund. The rest of your property tax payment goes to support County services and our schools. Additional revenue comes from a variety of other sources such as permits, licenses, fees, fines, and interest earnings.

Ongoing economic development will ensure a stable future revenue stream. We have been successful in enticing new businesses to the city to increase and diversify our revenue and to redevelop our central core. Lowe’s Home Improvement Store opened on Mission Avenue. Three new hotels are being planned that will bring more property tax, sales tax and transient occupancy tax revenue to us. A new Lexus dealer is beginning construction at Ninth Avenue and I-15. Target is considering a second store on East Valley Parkway. Westfield is planning a major expansion at North County Fair. D.R. Horton is rebuilding its Paramount Condominiums which were lost to a devastating fire while under construction last year.

Construction also is well underway on our new fire stations and our Police and Fire Administration building on Center City Parkway. Major street improvements on West Valley Parkway are nearing completion. We expect to break ground this year on our new Marriott to be located between City Hall and the Center for the Arts.

The new hospital is also underway (it is nearly 1 billion dollars), and will provide our community with state of the art health care. People choose where they live based on the quality of health care available.

So, despite the slowing economy, construction is occurring everywhere in Escondido and it is tangible proof that we are building for the future.

At the same time we are building for the future, we are also focusing on the present. We have proactively concentrated our resources on improving the image and appearance of our community. We have been enhancing the attractiveness of our gateways and corridors, dedicating significant resources to controlling graffiti, and conducting code enforcement sweeps throughout the community. These efforts not only benefit all of us now, but they also send a strong positive signal to potential new businesses about our civic pride and our desirability as a community in which to locate their operation.

I would like us to think about our community and understand the services we receive, how much they cost, and be able to determine are we getting good value for our dollar. There are about 142,000 of us in our city. If you do the math, our city government costs each of us about $603.00. The City provides the physical infrastructure and the maintenance of that infrastructure. I think we get a great return for our dollar. I am proud of our city.

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