Coachella State of the City Address

Steve Hernandez gave his first State of the City Address as Coachella mayor at Spotlight 29 Casino Wednesday.

He told a packed room he’s proud of the city’s economic growth and business expansion.

“This is a new era for Coachella. We’re really, really excited for the direction where the city is going. We have plans to build a new library, plans to build a new downtown Civic Center,” said Hernandez.

Hernandez said Measure U, a one percent sales tax hike approved by voters in November 2014, will support construction on the new library and helps pay for police, fire and other city services. However, as revenues rise so does the cost for public safety provided by the county.

“We’ve seen an increase in police of about eight to 10 percent,” said City Manager David Garcia.

The increase in cost forced the city to make cuts to emergency medical services.

“We reduced a small squad, which I think is two people … It wasn’t a fire truck or anything like that, it’s an ambulance service that the fire provides,” said Hernandez. “We did that early because what we want to ensure that we take care of what’s anticipated today and not wait until next year in a bigger budget predicament.”

City leaders said they’ve maintained full staff of police officers and city empolyees. The hope is new businesses will boost the Coachella economy.

“This has been a really good year for us. We’ve had a number of new businesses open. That’s been our challenge, our economy. We don’t have a lot of economic activity like our neighbors do, but that’s changing, changing dramtically,” said Garcia.