San Bruno aims for improvement

San Bruno has to balance its wants and needs for improving the city with the reality of its budget, including limitations to its revenue sources and a looming deficit, Mayor Rico Medina cautioned.

“We can sit up here and shoot for the stars — when the reality comes, we’ve got to balance the budget, we’ve got to pay staff,” he said. 

Discussion of how to turn the city’s development stagnation around is not new to the City Council. In early February, it approved a consultant firm to weigh potential options — including a ballot measure to raise height limits, removing parking minimums and reducing costs. 

The effort to continue analysis of development options will cost the city $2.8 million and could be completed by 2028. 

Councilmembers stressed they were asking staff to evaluate the efficiency and efficacy of the city’s street sweeping, particularly on the west side, where cars are not ticketed during sweeping periods and the process becomes less effective. 

“We need to look at how we’re implementing the needed street sweeping, especially in areas in the west side where we don’t do parking enforcement and where the street sweeping is, I’m sorry to say, not effective,” Councilmember Tom Hamilton said at the City Council meeting Feb. 10. 

Forcing individuals in those areas to move their cars or face a ticket would face significant pushback, City Manager Alex McIntrye said. An analysis of the program would cost half a million dollars, but further enforcement mechanisms could run the city far more. 

“The real hard swallow on this one is going to be the cost of signage, the cost of enforcement, disruption to people’s parking history in our city, and are we ready for that?” he said. 

Ultimately, councilmembers decided that the purpose of the goal is only to evaluate the existing system and see if any changes could make the process more workable and cost-effective, however, Councilmember Marty Medina did stress the intrinsic unfairness of only ticketing cars on one side of the city. 

“I wouldn’t be representing District 4 properly if I wouldn’t say to all of us here it’s clearly just not fair that one side of town gets tickets for not moving their cars,” he said. 

Senior center

Currently, the city has nearly finalized a design for remodeling its senior center to meet community needs and meet standards set by the Americans with Disabilities Act. It has roughly $650,000 earmarked for the project, with the potential for another $1 million from City Council. 

Interior redesigns will cost roughly $1.8 million, with add-ons like fixing the roof, exterior paint and redoing the landscaping bringing that price tag even higher. Councilmembers were in agreement that the city should fundraise from the project, potentially soliciting funds from the San Bruno Community Foundation. 

One resident, Joanna Dunn, spoke during public comment to advocate for the priority. 

“This is a great in that this is long overdue, as we all know,” she said. “It’s also to prepare us to face a rising aging population in the next five years.” 

Downtown

Upgrading the city’s downtown is another item on the city’s priority list and has long been a top desire for residents.

Completing all goals on the city’s 2019 downtown streetscape plan could cost up to $20 million, a price tag some councilmembers balked at. Rather than approaching items individually, it could be prudent for San Bruno to take a larger-picture approach, Councilmember Michael Salazar said.

“Maybe we need to have a more holistic picture of what it takes to program our downtown, improve our downtown and preserve it,” he said. 

The city should start with smaller-scale projects, like improving downtown lighting, renovating the paseos and upgrading the downtown monument sign, Marty Medina said. 

“We’ve been hearing about improving our downtown for probably decades since I have been here,” he said. “People want a nicer downtown. This council has made tremendous progress with the budget we have. … What’s the next step?” 

Staff will bring a presentation back to council on the cost of the options broached and an evaluation of what’s already been completed on the prior streetscape plan, McIntryre said. 

Traffic, crime

Traffic safety and general crime deterrence is another aim for the upcoming year. Councilmembers broached the idea of speed cameras, a thought that was quickly squashed when McIntyre informed the council they are not yet legal except in five specific counties across the state. 

Police Chief Matt Lethin will return to the council with a presentation on various mechanisms the police could deploy to curb speeding on city streets, and councilmembers were largely in agreement that the installation of increased lighting at crime hot spots could be a net benefit to San Bruno. 

“Lights do help,” Salazar said. “It may not be the ultimate answer, but I think in the spirit of what we’re trying to propose is looking at it outside of the box, and not trying to spend a ton on enforcement, because we can’t be everywhere all the time.” 

A final priority for the city will be a $2 million software overhaul for city technologies, and the priorities will be brought back for a final vote during San Bruno’s 2026-27 budget approval.