The Goal Session is a very exciting workshop and, in my opinion, the best city meeting of the year. It is full of important ideas with reality checks about what can be done and – more importantly – not done. It also highlights that we have a fantastic city staff and the majority of our council members are also professional, do their homework and know their stuff. In fact some of them are >:XX goooooood!
The next important meeting – the City Budget Session – is at 6:00pm on February 27.
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Arts, affordable housing priorities for Burlingame (by Mark Abramson / Daily News)
Creating more affordable housing and additional parking, and establishing an arts commission to inject some more culture into Burlingame topped a list of priorities outlined in a special goal-setting workshop Saturday.
Such workshops are held annually to help the city identify priorities for the coming fiscal year. Council members invited residents to show up and weigh in; together, they came up with 10 goals. "It is essential; we've got to know this so we know what we are going to budget for," City Manager Jim Nantell said. In addition to the priorities identified last weekend, each city department has its own goals, Nantell said. Those will also be taken into account when the city's budget is created later this year.
Residents have told the city that building more affordable housing in Burlingame should be a focus, Vice Mayor Ann Keighran said. "I think public input is very important because (those people) live in this community," Keighran said. Keighran and Nantell pointed out that one obstacle to getting more affordable housing is that Burlingame, unlike other local cities, does not have redevelopment funds, which would help pay for below-market-rate housing.
Nantell said the city could encourage developers to build affordable housing by selling the airspace rights over city parking lots to allow residential construction over those lots. That would give Burlingame's firefighters and police officers an affordable place to live so they wouldn't have to commute from the East Bay or farther away, he said.
Parking for those residents could be created by building underground lots below the existing lots. Spaces also could be added by building garages over some of the city's existing lots, Nantell said. All of the city's lots are now only one level.
Another goal that Council Member Cathy Baylock said she backed was creating an arts commission, which could help add art to the city or attract performing artists. "I think that is important, especially the public art. It could be (adding) murals or a centennial memorial," Baylock said. "We have a very active artist community in Burlingame."
Other goals established included developing a 10-year strategy for funding Burlingame's most important projects and starting public education efforts about community development.
Whether all of the goals will be accomplished this coming year remains to be seen because the city is still working on meeting last year's goals. "We also have to be realistic about what we could accomplish," Keighran said. "I think it is better to have less and accomplish them."
– Written by Fiona
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