Illustration by Christine Hipp

Roads without potholes, running water, safe parks and sidewalks, streetlights that turn on and toilets that flush — they’re all things that some residents of Santa Cruz might take for granted. They require constant attention and money to keep them all working properly, and much of that responsibility falls upon the city of Santa Cruz’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP).

The CIP is a yearly budget that includes projects and expenditures that fall outside of the city’s day-to-day operations, such as paying out salaries, and generally consists of repairs and improvements to the city of Santa Cruz, as well as large-scale infrastructure projects.

“Every once in a while, we need to build a new facility, repair a road, or maybe they need four new garbage trucks because their old ones are wearing down, so when anything big like that happens, those are capital projects,” Santa Cruz finance director Marc Pimentel said. “The vast majority of our projects are something that the public is looking for and either expects or wants.”

The report detailing the proposed CIP expenditures for fiscal year (FY) 2013–14 and possible projects for FY 2014–2015 were presented to the City Council on April 24, and they will have the chance to make changes to it until July 10, when the plan is approved and work will begin on the many projects contained within it.

“A lot of them aren’t very sexy projects, but they’re important,” Santa Cruz city manager Martín Bernal said. “It’s ultimately our attempt to maintain and improve our infrastructure.”

Currently, the CIP budget for next year is $20.1 million, about 12 percent of Santa Cruz’s overall annual budget of $160 million. While much of the money comes from the Santa Cruz general fund, it is also supplemented by state and federal grants.

Pimentel said that although the most pressing items on the agenda will be taken care of by next year’s CIP, many of the projects that people would like to see will have to wait until the city’s finances have recovered from the recent recession. According to the CIP report, “The City faces an ongoing challenge to meet its capital needs with limited resources.”

“When you’re looking at a project list, you look at what can be put off a year and what do we have to do now,” Pimentel said. “So coming out of recession, most of the projects are the bare minimum of what needs to be done. It’s not what we should do — it’s what we have to do.”

Pimentel said the recession has meant that many “community space” projects, such as new parks or public art installations, have had to be postponed until the city’s revenues return to pre-recession levels. Chris Schneiter, an engineer with the Public Works Office, said that the city’s streets have been hit especially hard in recent years due to the lack of funds.

Still, in addition to the bare-minimum repairs that Santa Cruz needs to continue functioning smoothly, the 2013–15 CIP does contain a few new projects that have the potential for long-lasting impacts on residents.

One that has sparked community interest is the proposed creation of an estimated $115 million desalination plant in Santa Cruz, which some locals have strongly opposed due to the project’s potential environmental impact. Next year’s CIP budget includes funds that will go toward preliminary studies of the project, which when completed will allow the city council to reach a final decision on whether or not to go forward with the plant.

Also on the agenda for next year is the construction of the Arana Gulch Master Plan, which will create a paved bike path connecting the end of Broadway at Frederick Street with the beginning of Brommer, and would also include several unpaved trails as well as grazing areas for cattle. The paved portion of the path would consist of an eight-foot wide porous concrete walkway and would also include a 300-foot stressed-ribbon bridge spanning the Hagemann Gulch.

Other projects covered in next year’s budget include the continuation of the city’s efforts to replace all street and stoplights with LED lights, which use less energy and also last much longer than the incandescent bulbs currently in place. The CIP also contains plans to install several solar panels behind City Hall.

“It’s great for saving energy and meeting our climate goals,” Schneiter said of these projects.

Despite these new developments, the vast majority of the projects contained in the CIP will consist of much-needed repairs and upgrades to existing infrastructure, ensuring that the services residents depend on continue to function smoothly. Pimentel said this is the way Santa Cruz has kept itself going since it first became a city.

“I think we’re approaching 150 years soon,” Pimentel said. “There’s always been a capital component. It may not have been so formal 146 years ago, but definitely that was the case in some way, shape or form.”

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

Last Tuesday, the Santa Cruz City Council proposed its Capital Improvement Program (CIP), which would fund a laundry list of projects for the fiscal years 2011-2013. Although the majority of the projects are slated to begin in 2011, some may begin before December.

Serving as the city’s outline for major expenditures, the CIP addresses many of the city’s pressing needs by covering a wide range of projects, everything from repaving broken roads to replacing outdated fire engines, and beyond.

With the overview alone at 76 pages and a price tag of nearly $260 million, the CIP has room for little more than the projects that are deemed absolutely necessary.

The CIP is, in essence, a collection of highly expensive needs (such as new fire engines) that cannot be paid for with city money and will be funded instead by outside money — most of it from grants and federal stimulus.

Unsurprisingly, several proposed projects didn’t make the cut. One unfunded but very popular project that has received a lot of attention from the public is the King Street Bicycle Boulevard project.

“It’s clearly frustrating and disappointing for citizens to see that we’re not just not building the boulevard, but we’re not even studying the street right now,” said City Councilmember Katherine Beiers. “What we need to do is work with the neighborhood to begin making this possible. I want to do that.”

The project, which proposed turning the street into a boulevard for bicycles only, was supported by local residents. Presently, many Santa Cruz drivers choose to turn onto King Street when the often used Mission Street becomes too traffic-choked.

While many wonder why projects similar to the King Street Bicycle Boulevard project have been left unfunded, Vice Mayor Ryan Coonerty said it is difficult for those outside the City Council to comprehend the mechanics behind the city’s funding.

“It’s sort of complicated,” Vice Mayor Ryan Coonerty said. “A big part of the CIP is paid for out of enterprise funds, grants and stimulus money, which are restricted [to specific kinds of expenditures].”

Having the city fund a CIP project entirely with money from the general fund is out of the question, as Santa Cruz currently faces a budget deficit of about 4 million dollars.

“The four votes needed to dip into the general funds just don’t exist,” Beiers said. “To include one project [into the CIP] means that the City Council has to look at scenarios to choose what other project(s) get cut.”

In previous years, when the city had a budget surplus, the city of Santa Cruz was able to dole out money from the general fund to handle the otherwise unfunded projects. Now, however, any project not propped up almost entirely by stimulus money gets tabled.

Even with federal and state aid, however, funds cannot always be appropriated towards the unfunded projects. The Gas Tax Fund, for instance, comes through California’s Gasoline Tax, and may only be used for transportation expenditures, such as road paving.

Mayor Mike Rotkin believes an expanded tax base might help alleviate the dependence on government stimulus aid, but remains skeptical that the Santa Cruz citizenry would vote to pass such measures.

“The people are not quick to approve of just any measure to support the tax base,” Rotkin said. “You are just not going to find something that might be profitable for most cities, like a steel mill, here. It’s just not Santa Cruz.”

Rotkin added that the high expectations of local voters for social programs, coupled with their steadfastness against several of the city’s proposals to increase the city’s tax revenue have left the City Council with little choice about what to do with the CIP’s unfunded projects.

“In some areas, like water pipeline infrastructure, we’re doing alright. There are some areas, however, where we’re falling way behind on improving the city.”

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Official copies of the CIP are available at the Santa Cruz City Council’s website.