HUNTINGTON BEACH : Group Selected to Suggest City Savings

City Council members this week appointed seven residents to a newly formed advisory committee that will propose ways to deal with the city’s widening budget deficit.

Each council member chose an appointee to the Budget Review Task Force.

They include Erik Lundquist, a certified public accountantand member of the city’s Fourth of July Parade Committee; John Fisher, an attorney and member of the activist group Save Our Parks; Dirk Voss, a city marine patrol officer who unsuccessfully ran for a City Council seat last year; Robert Mandic, a former Huntington Beach mayor and owner of a downtown auto-repair shop; Fred Speaker, owner of an auto-leasing and car-sales company; Phil Inglee, president and chief executive officer of Liberty National Bank, and Bob Detloff, a longtime resident who has been active in civic affairs and financial analysis.

Two more residents will be added to the committee before it holds its first meeting next month. The council will decide on those recommendations at its Sept. 3 meeting.

The task force, which the council agreed to establish at the request of City Administrator Michael T. Uberuaga, will be a key part of the city’s effort to shave between $3 million and $5 million before adopting the 1992-93 budget next July. Before approving the city’s current $100-million budget, council members slashed $2.9 million.

The group will study ways to cut spending, increase city revenues and make current operations more cost-efficient.

“We’re spending more money than we’re taking in. It’s as simple as that,” Uberuaga told council members at Monday’s meeting. “And with revenues looking rather soft, the shortfall could be perhaps $5 million. The task, then, is to come up with a balanced budget in July, 1992.”

The group is scheduled to make its initial budget recommendations to the council in December.