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The city of Livermore is working together with its community and staff and getting things done, Livermore Mayor John Marchand said at the State of the City and Town Hall address earlier this month.
During the address, the mayor dove into the city council’s progress on its 2017-2019 priorities, drafted with public input — priorities that included issues such as uplifting the downtown, ensuring financial stability and increasing affordable housing.
“This community comes really together, and there’s something for everybody,” he said to city staff and community members at the public event Sept. 6 in the Livermore Public Library and Civic Center.
Local economy
The Livermore economy has experienced an upward trend since the Great Recession, with a slight standstill in 2017, according to the mayor.
“The year 2017 was a major storm year, there was a lot of damage incurred,” Marchand said. “We’re having to do a lot of repairs, so there’s a lot of capital programs that we’re doing.”
However, the mayor noted that sales tax and property taxes continue to be the No. 1 source of revenue for the city’s economy. While these areas suffered during the recession, the mayor highlighted their optimistic state.
“The No. 1 tourist attraction in America is Disney World, the No. 2 is Disneyland,” Marchand said. “Somewhere between 3 and 10 is the Premium Outlets, with 8.5 million people. It’s stunning. That money stays here.”
The city budget also continues to prioritize public safety, according to Marchand, with fire and police currently claiming 47% of the budget. This is slightly less than previous years’ 51% budget allocation toward public safety.
“Because we are currently spending more on capital over the next couple of years, that’s (public safety budget) dropped just below 51%, but fire and police continue being the single largest item in the budget,” he said.
The mayor noted potential impacts on the city budget. According to him, if Proposition 6 passes, the city will lose $2.4 million. If Measure U, the local regulation of health care service costs, passes, the city will spend $1 million to create the necessary programs, and $2 million annually to sustain the programs.
Finally, the mayor highlighted an influx of businesses in Livermore, such as Kinetics, Joya pilates, Omni Fight Club, Livermore Fusion Eatery and The Press Artisan Cafe.
Downtown
“We listened to several thousand people, both online and in numerous public workshops. We got a lot of public input for this,” said Marchand, referring to the years-long process to uplift downtown Livermore. (His comments came before the council approved its downtown plan, which has since been targeted by a signature-gathering effort for a referendum.)
Public priorities for the downtown included increased parking, a boutique hotel, preservation of community character, open space and cultural facilities.
The mayor detailed progress in all of these areas. According to him, increased parking in the downtown is underway, with 500-600 more parking stalls in construction in the area.
In addition, a boutique hotel is planned on South Livermore Avenue. The hotel will have 133 rooms and a parking structure below the property, in an attempt to help mark Livermore as a wine tourism destination.
To serve the community’s open space desires, the city recently broke ground on Stockmen’s Park, a park in the downtown to honor both local veterans and the Stockmen legacy in Livermore. A new Science and Society Center, as well as a 150-seat Black Box Theater, will be adjacent to the park.
“This is really the community coming together,” he said. “We heard from the community what they wanted, and we’re incorporating those into the downtown.”
Housing
“Do you want your kids to be able to live in Livermore?” said Marchand, in describing a past conversation with a Livermore citizen skeptical of the city’s new housing. “If you don’t leave, and I don’t build more housing, where are your children going to live? There’s no place for them.”
The mayor stressed that the city is prioritizing the construction of more housing, and more affordable housing, for its current and future residents. He stated that there is an affordable housing fee for the construction of new homes in the area.
“If you’re going to live here, you’re going to want someone to serve you at the restaurants, you want someone to check your items out at Walmart or Home Depot,” he said. “We need to have service people live here, we want teachers to live here, we want our first responders to be able to live here.”
To this end, Livermore recently broke ground on a new affordable housing structure, Chestnut Square Senior Housing, that will provide 72 affordable senior units, 42 family units and 44 market rate townhomes.
He also noted that housing and homelessness is a regional issue, beyond just Livermore.
“We are doing a great deal,” Marchand said.
City Council Chambers
The city is transitioning to new, permanent city council facilities that will also contain an emergency operations center and a community meeting facility.
“With the fires and earthquakes happening all around California, we understand that we need to be prepared, our first responders need the training and the facilities to train in,” Marchand said. “They need the tools to be able to do their job, this is going to enable them to do that.”
The new city council chambers will be named after former Livermore Mayor John Shirley.
Quality of life
Mayor Marchand reported that the city of Livermore continues to boast a great quality of life, with city robust city programs and culture.
He highlighted the local Las Positas College, and its Innovation Tri-Valley program.
“We work with the education community to ensure that our graduates have the skills that they need to meet the needs of tomorrow’s workforce.” he said.
In addition, Livermore Valley Open Campus, a collaborative program with Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and Sandia Laboratory, allows the opportunity for people around the world to come together and create new and better innovations.
Marchand also made note of the local library services, such as a summer reading program and a “Library of Things,” allowing residents to rent resources such as telescopes and microscopes.
He also spoke on regional wins: Diablo Magazine named Bankhead Theater the Best of the East Bay for live theater productions. The East Bay Times awarded Livermore Shakespeare Festival for the best live theater production.
Livermore even boasted a national win: Yelp awarded Livermore-based restaurant, Petra, as one of the Top 100 Places to Eat in the US.
“It’s about quality of life here, we got a remarkable quality of life,” Marchand said. “People love this community, that’s why we’re here tonight.”
Editor’s note: Anumita Kaur is a freelance writer for the Pleasanton Weekly.
Editor’s note: Anumita Kaur is a freelance writer for the Pleasanton Weekly.
