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Safety Cuts In Lake Elsinore

Written by admin on June 10, 2010

Pressured by the Lake Elsinore City Council to make a $12,000 budget cut, the city’s Public Safety Advisory Commission did that and a little bit more Wednesday with the help of a fellow agency.

The commissioners voted 4-0, with Nicole Dailey absent, to save the city a total of $12,600 through the following measures:

– Going without legal representation at their meetings and reducing reliance on the city attorney’s help, an estimated savings of $6,000.

– Cutting their proposed $6,000 operational budget in half.

– Saving $3,600 after representatives of the Citizens Corps Council agreed to sacrifice having a legal adviser at their meetings.

The commissioners stressed that they had always been willing to do their part in the citywide fiscal bloodletting to counter a $3.8 million shortfall, and that they felt they had been wrongly portrayed in council budget sessions as being unwilling to sacrifice.

“The last 10 days I thought that the commission has come under attack, although so unfairly, by the City Council,” Chairman Mike Norkin said.

Commissioner Renee Cummings said, “I get a little nerve-wracked when this commission gets treated like the red-headed stepchild.”

The angst stemmed from an initial proposal, broached at a council budget workshop in late May, to save $12,000 by limiting the commission to meetings once every three months rather than monthly.