LAGUNA BEACH : City Council Adopts Slimmer Budget

Rejecting proposals to eliminate a playground program and slash their own salaries, the City Council on Tuesday adopted a lean, but not particularly mean, 1993-94 budget.

In approving the $32-million spending plan, council members acknowledged the numbers they were working with could change, depending upon how much city property tax revenue is usurped by the state.

While the new budget assumes $800,000 in spending cuts, many residents may barely feel the pinch. The exceptions are that parking tickets will cost $2 more, resident parking permits will cost an additional $5 each year and trash rates will rise by $1.17 per month.

In the scramble to find money to help balance the budget, the city will also extend by two hours the times during which parking meters are monitored each day. With its 4-1 vote, the council also agreed to freeze management salaries in City Hall, thereby saving the city $44,000 per year.

Councilman Wayne Peterson voted against the budget, saying it should have contained more spending cuts. “I don’t really think we were addressing the real life issues,” he said.

Councilwoman Kathleen Blackburn posed two of the more unpopular suggestions Tuesday, neither of which passed--eliminating an after-school playground program that costs the city $18,800 annually and slashing council members’ and city commissioners’ salaries by half.

“These are all the unpopular choices, there’s no two ways about it,” she said.

But Mayor Lida Lenney said “no way” to axing the after-school program, and Councilman Robert Gentry said it wouldn’t help the city much to cut the salaries of council members and planning commissioners, who earn $300 and $60 per month, respectively.

Besides the spending cuts, the new budget calls for transferring about $1 million to buy open space and create parking areas into the general fund to help keep the city afloat.