In the race for the three open seats on Lafayette's City Council, much of the debate boils down to one question: Has the current council managed the city budget well?
Yes, said incumbent Carl Anduri. The city is doing its best to meet residents' wishes with the limited money it has, he said.
Not so, said challenger Gabriel Froymovich. Council members have taken many of the right steps, he said, but haven't followed through to limit wasteful spending.
"We need someone who's actually going to do it," Froymovich said. "We need someone with a businessperson's eye" to take a look at the budget.
The two faced off at the taping of a televised candidate forum earlier this month moderated by Times Political Editor Lisa Vorderbrueggen. The other two candidates, incumbents Mike Anderson and Carol Federighi, were out of town and could not attend.
All three incumbents have endorsed one another.
Froymovich, 26, would be the youngest Lafayette City Council member ever, he wrote in a news release.
Most of the forum discussion focused on the city budget, which Anduri said is already lean.
"There just isn't waste," he said. The city only gets 6 cents for each dollar of property tax paid in the city, he said, so the city must be frugal.
There might be ways to operate some city functions more efficiently, he said. Finding any savings and new techniques should come from the finance review board, which the council formed this Advertisementyear.
That committee, made up of financial and business professionals not tied to city government, is due to make its report around December.
Froymovich said the creation of that committee was a good step, but that the council needs to be more vigilant with every decision to make sure it doesn't fritter away the city's money.
"It's obvious that there is a good bit of waste and a good bit of misplaced priorities," Froymovich said.
As one small example, he said the city sent two council members to a state conference when it could have sent one. Items like that might be only $1,000 or $2,000 each, but they can add up, Froymovich said. And the city needs to do everything it can, he said.
But Anduri countered that the conference is important. It is where city leaders form groups to lobby Sacramento on behalf of city interests, he said, citing an example of a former Lafayette mayor who banded with other officials and successfully lobbied for more state money.
Cutting that trip would be "penny-wise and pound-foolish," Anduri said.
Both candidates said the city needs to focus on fixing neighborhood streets. Anduri said the city is doing its best with the money it has, while Froymovich said it could do better.
But in the event there is not enough money in the budget to address the road problems, Froymovich said he would consider supporting a bond measure with oversight if the money was earmarked for roads.
Anduri said he would prefer a parcel tax so the city could fix the roads on a pay-as-you-go basis, rather than going into debt with a bond measure to complete the repairs.
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