REPORT TO COUNCIL
SUBJECT
Title
Discussion of a Proposed Community Engagement Process Related to the City's Unfunded Capital Needs and Potential Revenue Strategies for Consideration on the November 2024 Ballot
Report
COUNCIL PILLAR
Enhance Community Engagement and Transparency
Deliver and Enhance High Quality, Efficient Services and Infrastructure
BACKGROUND
The City of Santa Clara has a very limited Capital Improvement Program (CIP). The most recently adopted CIP (2022-23 & 2023-24) consists only of $9.9 million for capital projects citywide - $6.7 million for new projects and $3.2 million for projects previously approved for funding in the out years of the last CIP. These modest sources are sufficient to fund only some of the most critical needs; there remains $571.4 million of unfunded projects identified over the next five years. In addition, the aging of the City's infrastructure has become a significant challenge affecting service delivery and the City's ability to respond to community priorities.
Within this framework, the City Council has expressed interest in exploring the feasibility of placing revenue measures on the November 2024 ballot. To that end, on July 18, 2023, the City Council appropriated funding to hire a consultant to assist the City with a community engagement and education effort to identify community priorities and viable funding mechanisms. (RTC 23-913). A Request for Qualifications process was conducted and Tulchin Research, together with their partner Team Civx, was selected to perform this work.
At the February 6, 2024 City Council meeting, staff provided an overview of the elections process timeline for the November ballot and indicated that future updates would be provided on community engagement efforts, as well as the results of voter research in the coming months.
The purpose of this report is to provide the City Council with a high-level overview of the community engagement efforts that will be conducted in the coming ...
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