Like most businesses and families, the City’s budget took a beating from the pandemic shut-downs.  It will take discipline and tough decision making to maintain services and return those that were temporarily lost.  We did it before, in fact, pretty recently, after the “Great Recession”.  More taxes and fees are not the answer that people need right now. 

The very best strategy is to create the most clear and straightforward pathways to encourage private sector investment, while driving efficiencies within our government to the extent possible, and maintaining vital services.  Our reserve funds served their purpose during the downturn, but now we need to rebuild them.  This catastrophe was of an unprecedented magnitude, but the foundations we laid a few years back kept our city in stable financial condition.  We also need to be prepared for future events, so rigorous attention to our budget is mandatory.