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q,A -Z3 LOCAL UPDATE The following are a few of the activities carried out by city officials and others under the 'LOCAL" banner (Leave Our Community Assets Local" –the coalition jointly sponsored by the League, the California State Association of Counties, and the California Special Districts Association. The coali- tion now includes more 540 members from through- out the state, including 28 companies, 151 individu- als and 362 organizations. affairs program on California issues that runs in major California media markets on Thursday evenings. The program's website (www.califomiaconnected.org) features the following text on the program: "Twentynine Palms,' produced by Marley Klaus with Tracey Leis and Randa Cardwell, April 3, 2003. Grassroots Activities • Senator Wes Chesbro and Assembly Member Patty Berg were guest speakers at the Redwood Empire Division's quarterly meeting last weekend in Arcata. Both spoke about candidly about the severity of the state budget deficit, and the challenge of getting legislators' seeming lack of interest in working on solutions. Senator Chesbro, a former city council camber from Arcata, was extremely pleased with the efforts of the League and the LOCAL Coalition on the budget, and was looking forward to seeing the budget recommenda- tions LOCAL is currently developing to help solve the fiscal crisis. The division meeting was the best attended that anyone could remember in recent history, with over 45 city attendees. - The City of Rancho Palos Verdes (R.P.V.) recently included a front page article entitled, "The Vehicle License Fee Promise" in the Spring quar- terly city newsletter mailed to all city residences. The article provided background and history on the VLF and detailed the potential impact on R.P.V.'s budget: "For our city, it would mean the loss of approximately $1.6 million annually, or about 12% of our General Fund budget. The resulting shortfall in revenues could mean reduction in public safety services and in roadway maintenance programs, our two largest budget items." R.P.V. Mayor Doug Stem followed up the article with a letter to state legislators that restated the city's support for reinstating the VLF to its original level. He enclosed a copy of the city news- letter for the legislators' review. Twentynine Palms City Manager Mike Swigart and staff from the Town of Yucca Valley were successful in including LOCAL talking points in a feature on the state budget crisis that ran this week on California Connected, the PBS public The city of Twentynine Palms and its sur- rounding area, known as the Morongo Basin, sits on the western edge of the Mojave Desert, tucked in between the Joshua Tree National Park and the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base, the largest live -fire military base in the world. These days while the majority of Marines from the base are in the Middle East fighting on the front lines in the current war with Iraq, the community is trying to keep its economy out of the red. It is facing a triple slam of a nationwide economic downturn, a record $35 billion state budget short- fall, and the revenue losses to local businesses when thousands of Marines and many of their families leave the community at once. Adding further to the economic impact is that Twentynine Palms and its neighbor town of Yucca Valley are relatively isolated communities with populations of less than 30,000. Each eco- nomic hit reverberates down to every resident, and there are few avenues — if any — to absorb the financial losses, such as alternative funding sources that are available in large cosmopolitan areas. In April the K -mart store in Yucca Valley will close. It is one of only two major retail outlets in the Morongo Basin. When it closes its door the commu- nity will have to absorb the loss of 100 jobs as well as the loss in sales tax revenue, the largest source of State revenue for Yucca Valley. The second hit has been the State's $35 billion budget shortfall that may be balanced, in part, on the backs of city and county coffers. Much of the State budget is locked into non - negotiable items, such as the 40% that is guaranteed through Propo- sition 98 to school districts. Other expenses that the State cannot cut include repaying bonds and Continued on Page 6 Visit the League's Official Web Site-- www.cacities.org PRIORITY FOCUS /PAGE 3