City Manager Rad Bartlam's
Weekly Update
Thursday, January 26, 2012

Enterprise Zone expansion: The county’s Employment & Economic Development Department is preparing another application to expand the San Joaquin County Enterprise Zone. We will be requesting to add the neighborhood shopping center at the northwest corner of Harney Lane and Hutchins Street, the commercial parcel at the northeast corner of Harney Lane and Stockton Street. We also will be looking for some small infill locations around Lodi Memorial Hospital if they qualify for inclusion.

CalPERS: The pension fund’s returns for calendar year 2011 was 1.1 percent. The good news is it outperformed the U.S. stock market. The bad news is it means CalPERS will need to generate big returns in the first six months of 2012 for it to reach its 7.75 percent assumed return for the fiscal year, after a poor first six months.

Value of sports tourism: The Swim Club hosted the 2012 Sierra Nevada All-Star meet at Tokay High last weekend, which provided a boost to our local businesses. All three teams (180 people) stayed Saturday night at the Holiday Inn Express, lunch meals were purchased at Panera Bread for two days by Sierra Nevada All-Stars, two lunch meals were purchased at Subway by San Diego Imperial, and Central California purchased lunches (unknown location). Dinner was from DeVinci's for all the teams on Saturday night.

Crime in 2011: Part One crime was up 25.5 percent in 2011 compared to 2010. Part One crimes include homicide, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny and vehicle theft. The total of 3,244 was a sharp increase from 2,584 in 2010, but still lower than 3,801 in 2008 and 3,694 in 2007. Most of the increase was due to property crimes and assaults. We believe gang activity is driving the assaults, while many of the property crimes are due to metal thefts and the early release of parolees from the State prison system, according to our police chief. Our officers are beginning to identify parolees in the community to focus on those who may be most inclined to commit crimes. We will need to boost our efforts to educate the public on crime prevention.

Online payments: Our online payment system is providing significant time and cost savings for the Finance Division. In 2011, customers made 43,174 online payments totaling $12,161,209.

Sales tax: Our sales tax revenue for the third quarter of 2011 was 3.5 percent higher than the same quarter the previous year, according to HdL, our sales tax consultant. Costco was an outstanding contributor to the City’s tax base, and higher fuel prices also resulted in more sales tax. With the Lodi Energy Center approaching start-up, tax receipts from that project are winding down. HdL projected declining sales tax in Fiscal Year 2012/13, but with additional information we provided, it may project those figures higher. The loss of our auto dealers in recent years has left a hole in our revenue stream. San Joaquin County overall had a 13.1 percent increase in new and used auto sales (11.3 percent statewide), but ours were up 3.5 percent. New car sales actually declined 6.3 percent from the third quarter of 2010. HdL said that was largely due to inventory issues at Japanese manufacturers due to fallout from the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Cell phones: Our new cell phone policy is proving to be an effective cost-saver. Our annual savings may exceed $40,000. While many charges are fixed, such as data transmission for police and fire vehicles and major electric utility customers, the voice/text/web portion of our bills, even including stipends for employees, is nearly half of what it was in 2010.

Interim named: Effective Feb. 8, Jeff Hood will become the interim Parks, Recreation & Cultural Services director, replacing the departing Jim Rodems. We are looking forward to a seamless transition so that we can continue our many programs and projects without interruption.

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