Downtown, parks in focus for San Bruno

The Posy Park project received a $200,000 grant spearheaded by Supervisor Dave Pine from Measure K, funds from a county half-cent sales tax. It’s important the city acts now to implement the funding, which expires at the end of this year, councilmembers said. 

“It would be wasteful [and] disrespectful of Supervisor Pine’s Measure K funds — which are everybody's funds — to not be utilized and go back. They are not transferable,” Mayor Rico Medina said. 

The Centennial Plaza project will feature informal play areas, plantings, seating areas and a stone plaza as well as festoon lighting, and a trellis over the planned stage. The $1.4 million budget was unanimously approved by the City Council, and construction is aimed for completion by early December. 

Sod has been put down at Florida Avenue Park, previously an abandoned lot, but further development would make it a fully activated public park, Councilmember Tom Hamilton said. 

City beautification projects could include planters, irrigation systems, pennants, banners and signage and McIntrye said that city staff would bring back contracts to the City Council for approval, The city has also requested a special grant from the San Bruno Community Foundation to offset city costs. 

Several attending the meeting, however, including San Bruno resident Eleni Katout, advocated for the city to move forward with a climate action plan. Katout said that spending money on employee compensation and classification studies would be ill-advised, considering her belief that retention issues were caused by larger leadership issues within the city. 

“I’d like to suggest that our money is spent elsewhere, possibly on developing a climate initiative,” she said. “In the past, our excuse for not implementing one was because of the San Bruno fire, and while that was terrible and it did take our city some time to recover from it, I think now would be a good time to focus on a climate initiative.” 

City Manager Alex McIntyre pushed back against criticism of further study on the city’s employee retention and compensation, saying that it was a valuable and necessary step in keeping valuable employees. 

“We’re a critical part of getting the job done,” he said. “If we’re going to do the work of the downtown, if we’re going to do the work to protect the city, if we’re going to do the work to put out fires and save people, you need good employees.” 

Hamilton also advocated for the value of the compensation and classification study — “none of these things are going to happen without our city staff,” he said — but said that the climate plan was high on his list of goals as well. 

Matt Jones, who was previously employed by San Bruno as a contracted planner, also raised concerns about the future of the climate plan. Little progress had been made since his tenure with the city, he said. 

“It’s unfortunate because the Bay Area’s kind of been the leader on climate, there’s tons of cities that are moving forward with their second round of climate action planning,” he said. “It’s really disappointing the city’s not prioritizing climate, because we’re seeing increased risk of wildfires and we really need to lead in that area.” 

Councilmembers also remain committed to addressing the ongoing conversation around San Bruno CityNet, in-city cable and internet for residents. The city would need to upgrade its wiring from coaxial to fiber optic service to remain competitive, a costly process. 

“Regardless of what we’re going to do, we have to do it,” Hamilton said. “We can't stay in the position we are right now, where we're just continually losing money year after year … it’s time to move forward with that.” 

Rebecca Molano, owner of San Bruno’s One Love Cafe, said that she hoped the budget would exemplify a commitment to positive change and growth in the city. 

“I think it’s been said repeatedly that San Bruno is just behind. We’re behind in development, we’re behind in the way that we operate, and I think that hopefully now we're starting to catch up,” she said. 

San Bruno’s budget principles include cost recovery and revenue, addressing unfunded liabilities, one-time revenue and salary savings while maintaining core servicing, reviewing city services and ensuring clear communication through the budget document. 

The city will approve a final 2024-25 budget by June and will also push for evaluation of its 10-year-old transit corridor plan. 

holly@smdailyjournal.com

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