The City Council is starting the process of preparing the 2019-20 Budget. This is an important pro-cess to identify the needs of the community and prioritize projected tax revenues. One such need is the new Chapel Street Bridge. The project bid on February 22nd and construction will begin soon to connect Chapel Street in the downtown to the South Hills. The City is planning to fund construction of the new bridge using a combination of new growth impact fees and developer contributions. There is a color rendering of the bridge project at Town Hall for residents to see. Thanks again to the citizen committee who worked with the bridge design consultant, Bowen Collins Associates. It will be a great addition to the downtown area.

Revenues from sales tax distributions to the City have increased nearly 10% over the last year and room tax is up 86% for the same period last year. Nearly 40% of these taxes are paid by non-residents visiting the City. These positive increases help the City provide important public services to residents like expanded police and fire protection, without raising local property taxes. The new playground at Canyon View Park held a Grand Opening Celebration on February 13th providing a much-improved experience for youngsters visiting the park. The playground was funded using City RAP tax revenues (Recreation, Arts & Parks). Remember to support our local businesses whenever you can.

Building permit activity is down from last year, but building is still brisk in the area north of Harmons. Construction work on the new Ocotillo Springs and Arcadia Resort developments located on North Town Road continues. The Annual Parade of Homes featured a unit at Arcadia this year, hopefully you took advantage of the opportunity to walk through the home and see the pretty awesome water feature in the development. Work on the Rhone Subdivision in the downtown is also moving along providing large single family lots in the Santa Clara Valley. The community continues to grow at a manageable pace bringing new opportunities for families and local businesses.

The spring special events are in full swing. The True Grit Mountain Bike Endurance race is on Sat-urday, March 7th with mountain bikers competing in a grueling 100-mile race in the South Hills. The Red Mountain Run will take place on March 2nd in the Santa Clara River Reserve, along Gates Lane and spilling into Ivins. A new event, Shakespeare in the Park will kick off April 12th-15th in downtown Santa Clara. This promises to be an exciting and unique event for our community and will be held on the grass park across the street from Town Hall. Baseball tournaments will continue at Gubler Park and Little League tryouts get underway soon. Get outside this spring and enjoy the season.

Lastly, I want to give a special shout out to Representative Lowry Snow for his service and repre-sentation at the State Legislature. He does a great job serving our community and other citizens of the State. The job requires spending many days away from family and countless hours in committee meetings, studying proposed legislation, listening to the debate and considering the impacts on those he represents. Thanks, Representative Snow for your service and good work.

Until next month, be careful out there and stay safe Santa Clara.

Mayor Rock Rosenberg mayor@sccity.org