The Daily Journal recapped the city budget meeting that reinjected a sense of reality into the dire situation

The city has an estimated $41.5 million budget for next year, but a special City Council budget study session last night focused also on the years to come. The council opted for conservative estimates of 2 percent growth, not because it expects that to be true but as the benchmark for projected spending. Any revenue growth over that mark will most likely go to rebuilding the reserves. However, the biggest challenge will be keeping employee costs within that 2 percent growth. Employee costs represent 76 percent of next year’s budget, city staff said.

I still don't get why money to resurface local streets has to filter through Washington, DC and Sacramento.  You KNOW that the skim off this money has to be tremendous:

The city expects $1.7 million from various federal and state sources to fund street resurfacing on a number of streets including: Arc Way, Balboa Avenue, Bernal Avenue, Bloomfield Road, Broadway, Clarice Lane, Cortez Avenue, Forest View Avenue, Frontera Way, Laguna Avenue, Lincoln Avenue, Martsen Road, Paloma Avenue, Rosedale Avenue, Sherman Avenue and Willow Avenue. This only takes a chunk out of the $13 million in projects backlogged for the 84 miles of streets maintained by the city.

At least it appears reality has set in overall.