budget

We had a valuable work session tonight-- generally brainstorming wish lists for the budget. We didn't get into the realities of costs, so it was nice to dream about what we might be able to do. At our next work session in September (two weeks from now), we'll start talking dollars and cents (and some actual sense?).
Our staff is doing great stuff already, which is a good thing. I brought up a couple items-- adding youth representatives to our boards and commissions, doing an energy audit in the city, re-examining our relationship with the Lighthouse Festival and perhaps funding more of a staff person for that rather than granting them the large amount we have in the past. There were other great items other councilmembers mentioned: improving parking enforcement, keeping up with cleaning our parks (especially the newly gorgeous Mukilteo Lighthouse Park), funding the purchase of land in Japanese Gulch.

Most years I've supported improvements related to our fire department, but big changes have been happening there recently and seem to be going well (adding six firefighters, moving towards a reserve program rather than a volunteer program-- semantics, I guess, funding the fire marshal position).

The real test is when we talk about revenue sources-- September 22nd!