Houston tightens its belt

HOUSTON — Houston City Council agreed Monday to cut a police support position to half time and trim the city’s training budget in order to balance the city’s $1.1 million budget for fiscal year 2011.

“It wasn’t as painful as we had anticipated, but it’s still hard when you’re talking about people’s jobs in such a tough economy,” Mayor Virgie Thompson said Thursday. “I lost a lot of sleep thinking about this budget.”

At first glance, it looked like the city was about $100,000 in the hole, but city treasurer Carolyn Grabowski was able to work her magic to narrow the gap, Councilman Paul Stout said.

About $8,000 was saved by converting a full-time police department office position into a part-time job and $4,000 was taken out of the fire department’s training and building maintenance fund and the administration’s training budget.

Another $1,300 was saved by eliminating two newsletters that would have been sent to voters, for a total savings of about $13,000, Grabowski said.

To reduce the sting on the fire department, however, the council voted 6-1 to remove the remainder of the $47,835 the department owed the city for a rescue truck, lifting a $42,000 burden off its shoulders.

Grabowski said her position has always been that it was illogical to impose a loan on a city department to pay for the purchase of an asset such as the rescue unit.

“I’m glad this council agreed,” she said. “The fire department does not have its own bank account. It was a matter of moving money from one city account to another city account.”

Stout was the lone vote against the amendment. He felt there should have been more public notice and discussion on it.

“The rescue truck item came up at the last minute at our meeting,” Stout said. “It was controversial at the time it was purchased and important to a lot of people that the fire department pay that back to the land account. The public should have had an opportunity to comment on it.”

One bright spot, however, is a possible $30,000 that could be coming to the city from the 4 percent sales tax collected from fireworks stands on the Parks Highway.

Although the city won’t know the exact amount until papers are filed toward the end of next month, Robert Hall, owner of Gorilla Fireworks at Mile 52, said New Year’s Eve business was up about 35 percent this year over past years.

“The weather was warm, it was on a Friday and there was increased traffic from Anchorage and the Valley because of the lifts on restrictions,” Hall said. “So we got very lucky.”

Houston normally receives about $20,000 each year from the sales tax on the fireworks stands alone, Grabowski estimated. This past year, the sales tax on the stands was increased from 2 percent to 4 percent, so that boosted the city’s coffers even more.

Other business

In other council business Monday, former mayor and longtime councilwoman Rosemary Burnett was appointed to fill a seat on the Houston Planning and Zoning Commission vacated by Christopher DeHart, and log home builder Dennis Illies was appointed to fill on the same commission vacated by J.M. Deneven.

Burnett, who served on city council for nine years and filled in as mayor when Roger Purcell stepped down last year, had lost her council seat to Stout during last October’s election.

She said Monday she was a little surprised the vote to appoint her was unanimous, but she’s happy to be back serving the city in some capacity.

“I’m still a citizen of Houston and I care about my city and there are things that need to be talked about and done, some of which I started working on when I was on the council or mayor,” said Burnett, who also used to own the Houston Lodge. “We’re getting the highway resurfaced because of my persistence. I was really proud of that.”

Burnett said she’d also like to see more zoning restrictions to prevent mobile homes from resettling in places that might not be the most desirable to others.

“Trailer parks in Anchorage closed down and now people are moving raggedy trailers in here. They plop it down on a lot and call it home,” she said. “We also need to hire a regular code compliance guy to make sure people are building the proper way.”

Illies, a former realtor who has owned Alaska Dream Log Homes since 2003, said he has never been involved in government before, but wanted to find a way to serve the community.

He used to own Valley Country Store and he’s also a retired journey lineman and a Vietnam veteran.

“I just wanted to see if I could help,” Illies said. “I don’t really have any opinions on anything yet. I need to get my feet wet and see what it’s all about. I’ll just try to make the best judgments I can.”

Contact K.T. McKee at kate.mckee@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.