The suggestions made during the City of Rochester’s Voice of the Citizen budget meetings aren’t really surprising. It’s also not clear how these relatively small adjustments would help the city close its $28 million gap.
City officials offered four opportunities — one in each quadrant — for the public to provide input on the upcoming budget. Mayor Tom Richards is supposed to present the 2013 to 2014 budget this Friday, May 17.
The biggest surprise is that the public — at least the ones who attended one of the meetings or filled out an online survey — support the closing of Durand Eastman beach. The move would save the city approximately $185,400 a year.
According to the report issued by the city, 53 percent of online survey takers approved of a 2 percent increase in the property tax levy. But people who attended the forum preferred generating more revenue through existing fees and fines, including issuing more parking tickets.
A 2 percent levy increase would raise approximately $3.2 million a year, and cause, on average, a $27 increase in your property tax bill.
Forum participants also supported cutting or reducing the Mounted Patrol, cutting money for public art, and deferring some capital projects.
In general, participants were opposed to cuts to libraries, rec centers, firefighters and fire companies.
The full report on the Voice of the Citizen budget meetings is below.
Voice of the CITIZEN 2013 Final Report
This article appears in May 15-21, 2013.
The City needs innovation and to recreate itself. It needs to work with the county to make downtown a hub for buisness and culture! Housing stock needs to be revamped. Houses need to be torn down but not to be replaced with cookie cutter hud homes… there needs to be architecture involved to define neighborhoods. You need to spend money inorder to make money! Investments need to be made aswell as commitments. Rochester needs to attract buisness and also ensure it can retain the buisness we have allready! Midtown was innovation that Rochester allowed to die! The Canal thru downtown was innovation that Rochester allowed to die! instead of looking ahead Rochester wallows in the muck and there is no hope or prosparity to be seen! We had big things come here once from Elvis to Metallica and such but now we are passed up! We depended too much on Kodak and Xerox and Baush and Lomb that we passed on up and comming companies! So we don’t need to just make the Budget we need to overfill the Budget with Money so that we can rebuild Rochester!!! We need street meat downtown be it vendor cart or food truck… we need name brand stores and resturants… we need buisness’s… we need diversity so that downtown becomes a work, eat, shop, be entertained, and live here epicenter… were it is 24/7 activity for all those who work from the people who work shift work to the lawyer who is up late reviewing a case and wants to unwind once he leaves his office… a down town where you can walk, skate, bike, and stop and see local art… stop and see people! then build around downtown neighborhoods that have a pulse that represent the best in urban living that is convienance to walking distance to things. Wegmans is great but it has killed the mom and pop markets in the villages in the burbs and Rochester has also suffered from the lack of diversity wegmans has created due to it’s convienance! Yes East Ave Wegmans yippi but what of the west side? Innovation to create Jobs… innovation to create security… innovation to bring Rochester to be known to be innovative!