One Year In: A Progress Check-In

Not everything is solved, but the direction and priorities matter.

When I ran for City Council, I was clear about what I wanted to focus on. Not slogans or quick fixes, but a set of priorities I believed the City needed to confront honestly: fiscal reality, pension discipline, long-term planning, lawful process, water security, and a civic culture grounded in respect and good faith.

One year into my first term, I want to check in with you on how those commitments have shown up in practice.

Nothing moves forward without a quorum, and none of what follows would have been possible without collaboration among Council colleagues, City staff, and steady leadership from our mayor. What follows is not a list of personal accomplishments, but an accounting of progress and the work still ahead.

Fiscal Honesty and Structural Reality

A central theme of my campaign was the need to confront the City’s structural budget challenges directly rather than relying on short-term patches. That concern has been shared by Council colleagues and our mayor and has shaped much of our work this year.

As a result, the Council adopted the City’s two-year budget for fiscal years 2025 through 2027 and closed an immediate gap through approximately $2 million in spending reductions. It is important to be clear about what those reductions were and were not. They were temporary stabilization measures to prevent the City from exhausting available funds by the end of 2026, based on projected deficit spending of roughly $3.5 million per year. They were not permanent efficiency gains, but steps to buy time while longer-term solutions are evaluated.

City operations are under real strain as a result. Reduced headcount and constrained resources affect service delivery even as staff continue to perform under difficult conditions. To slow the rate of financial drawdown while longer-term solutions are evaluated, I agendized a hiring and spending freeze. That step received unanimous support from my Council colleagues and helped create space for more durable planning. However, this freeze was not intended to be permanent.

This year also included foundational work to improve fiscal clarity. The Council approved a modernization study, a classification and compensation study, and reviewed administrative cost allocations within the water and wastewater enterprise. That review returned $213,000 annually to the General Fund so utility ratepayers are no longer subsidizing costs that do not belong there.

It is also important to distinguish between operating funds and restricted funds¹. While the City holds significant balances for infrastructure and capital projects, those funds are legally restricted and cannot be used to support ongoing General Fund services. Reserves provide time and stability, but they are not a substitute for aligning recurring revenues with recurring expenses.

Pension Discipline and Long-Term Planning

Another commitment I made during the campaign was to bring greater discipline and transparency to pension obligations. Pension costs compound over time, and without careful attention, they crowd out other priorities.

For every future dollar spent on employee compensation, roughly 28 cents represent additional pension costs that will be paid² in future dollars. Because new obligations are added as payroll grows, unfunded liabilities can continue to rise even when required payments are made. The practical objective is not to eliminate obligations overnight, but to slow the curve³ so existing payments begin to reduce liabilities rather than simply reduce the yearly unfunded liability increase.

As Council liaison to the Finance Committee, I am working closely with staff, our mayor, and committee members to establish a shared, defensible financial baseline using nationally recognized Government Finance Officers Association standards. Aligning on common definitions is essential to moving beyond competing narratives and toward real choices.

Viewed through that framework, the pressure is clear. Over the past five years, General Fund revenues grew by roughly 24 percent, while salaries and benefits grew by about 34 percent and now consume just over half of all General Fund revenues*. Any local economic downturn would further widen that gap.

Closing it will require a combination of approaches, including evaluating sustainable revenue options, reassessing service levels where appropriate, and continuing to modernize how the City is organized and delivers services.

Process, Governance, and Civic Culture

During the campaign, I also emphasized the importance of lawful process, transparency, and respectful governance. This year reflected a shared commitment by the Council to that approach. How decisions are made matters, particularly when the stakes are high.

Long-discussed issues have finally moved into formal processes. The Council initiated the LAFCO process to expand the City’s Sphere of Influence (SOI) and evaluate potential annexation. That step does not predetermine outcomes, but it creates a framework for informed decision-making where none previously existed.

Similarly, the Council has approached the Adams Street property through careful compliance with the State’s Surplus Land Act. Compliance does not dictate a specific project. It preserves options, reduces risk, and ensures future decisions are grounded in law and analysis rather than urgency or assumption.

This Council also operates differently in how it conducts its business. Over the past year, seventeen items have been pulled from the consent calendar for fuller discussion. That reflects a shared willingness to slow down, ask harder questions, and fully understand implications before approving actions. While this approach sometimes takes more time, the outcomes are more durable and defensible.

Healthy disagreement is part of that process. Personal toxicity is not. When discourse shifts from policy debate to personal attack, it discourages capable residents from serving and distracts from necessary work. We all share responsibility for the tone of our civic life, and setting boundaries against toxic behavior is part of sustaining a healthy local government.

Looking Ahead

This first year was not about quick fixes. It was about building shared understanding, confronting hard tradeoffs honestly, and putting the City on firmer footing for the decisions that lie ahead.

The most consequential near-term issue is clear. Absent changes, General Fund reserves are projected to be depleted, and by 2027 the City will need to identify additional, sustainable revenue sources to avoid reductions or eliminations of yet-to-be-determined City services. These are foreseeable outcomes if current trends continue.

The decisions made over the next year will therefore echo well beyond the next budget cycle. They will shape service levels, fiscal resilience, and the City’s capacity for decades to come. That reality is why the due diligence undertaken this year was so imperative. Establishing a shared financial baseline, correcting cost allocations, strengthening governance through citizen committees, and grounding decisions in lawful process were prerequisites for informed, generational decision-making rather than reactive choices.

In parallel with fiscal work, the Council continues to address longer-term priorities that affect the City’s resilience. That includes responsibly pursuing boundary expansion through the LAFCO process and advancing long-term water security and infrastructure planning. Vice Mayor Deasy, as Council liaison to the Water and Wastewater Committee, is working closely with staff and committee members on water quality, system reliability, and long-term supply planning, which remains one of the City’s most critical challenges.

I am deeply grateful to my Council colleagues for their seriousness and independence, to City staff for their professionalism under pressure, and especially to our mayor, whose steady leadership has helped guide the Council through complex and sometimes difficult conversations.

St. Helena has extraordinary strengths. Civic pride, engaged residents, and remarkable natural and community assets remain very much intact. Hard budget discussions and policy choices do not diminish those strengths. They reflect a community taking its future seriously.

I believe deeply in this town and in the people who call it home. If we continue to engage with humility, seriousness, and respect, our future will reflect the best of what already exists here. As we head toward 2026, I remain optimistic about what St. Helena can achieve together.

¹Every fund cited by Mark Smithers in a December 9, 2025, letter to the Star is legally restricted to capital or utility purposes; only the General Fund and its reserves can support ongoing city services.

²If we are looking at present dollars, it would amount to roughly 7 cents per employee dollar.   

³the finance committee currently estimates this additional annual payment at $700k per year in perpetuity.

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