The city of Fresno held its first day of budget hearings, receiving presentations from several departments.

Mayor Jerry Dyer presented the budget, a shade under $2 billion, with the general fund — the pot of money the city council directly controls — at $504 million. Despite a $47 million initial deficit, Dyer offered a balanced budget with cuts spread throughout the city.

Even so, the city is adding 68 employees.

During the Information Services presentation, City Manager Georgeanne White made an interesting revelation about cybersecurity.

“We are getting hit every single day, hundreds of times a day. There are attacks on our environment,” White said. “(The technology department has) uncovered international threats, unknown international threats that have been fed to the FBI, that have then been fed to international security agencies. And we have stopped attacks by foreign governments on other national governments. It’s amazing.”

White praised IS director Byron Horn and his staff for catching most threats.

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Trolley Folly?

The new FresnoHOP service, trolleys carrying passengers from Campus Pointe at Fresno State to the Tower District and Brewery District, is under General Services. The budget for the Thursday through Saturday service is $790,000.

Exact ridership figures are not available yet for the service that started last fall. Spending and use of supervisors caught the attention of councilmember Miguel Arias.

He wanted to know why the trolley needed two supervisors for three drivers. Department head Brian Barr answered “redundancy” and vacation relief. One supervisor is full-time, and one is part-time because the work load is more than 40 hours.

Arias complained the trolley was too late and too slow. Transport time, Arias said, was two hours, and often 30 minutes late. Even the bus is faster, Arias said.

Barr said it should take 55 minutes travelling point-to-point.

White justified the trolley, with the goal of converting those living near Fresno State to future downtown residents.

$60,000 For Fixing Seats

The city plans to spend $60,000 “to reupholster vinyl seats and repaint the seat arms in the City Hall council chambers.”

White clarified to GV Wire that means the fixes are for hundreds of seats in the audience.

Barr said the city last fixed the seats in 2015. All departments that use the chambers will be billed for the repairs.

That prompted Arias to request data on conditions of the seats at the Tower Theatre and the Veterans Memorial Auditorium.

The finance, budget, and airport departments also presented Monday. Tuesday, the City Council will hear from capital projects, economic development, planning, public works, transportation and the animal center. The hearing starts at 9 am.

Parra Leaving Fresno for Clovis

Briana Parra is planning to leave Fresno to become the city clerk for Clovis.

The Clovis City Council will consider her appointment at Monday night’s meeting.

Parra, who has worked in the office since 2017, is the assistant city clerk. She served as the interim clerk after the city council fired Yvonne Spencer. Later, the city hired  hired current clerk Todd Stermer.

“Ms. Parra’s experience, education, and commitment to the profession makes her a valuable addition to the City’s leadership team and an ideal match for the role of City Clerk,” Clovis staff said in a council report.

The city clerk handles distributing the agenda, archiving several city documents, and managing public documents and meeting videos on the city’s website. The clerk also handles municipal election issues, such as receiving filings for those who want to run for local office and posting fundraising data on the city website.

The city clerk additionally helps run all city meetings and oversees the document depot — everything from financial disclosure records to planning department reports.