City, School Officials Deliver State of the City Address

A lot changed within the City of Dixon in 2011; but some things stayed the same from the previous year.

Take for example the economic outlook of the city. City of Dixon Economic Development director Mark Heckey said it’s akin to the cult movie classic “Groundhog Day,” starring Bill Murray.

In the movie, Bill Murray’s character is stuck repeating Groundhog Day with comical effect. It isn’t until he falls in love that the cycle breaks. Much like the film, the City of Dixon is also stuck on a repeat from last year Heckey told a group of Dixon residents at this year’s State of the City Address held at the Dixon Senior Center Thursday morning.

The Dixon Chamber of Commerce's Governmental Affairs Committee hosts the event each year to give citizens a look at the accomplishments achieved in the previous year as well as a glimpse of what's ahead.

“Not that that has anything to do with the economy but as we hear, as we look at our project list, we look at things that we are talking about it’s very similar to last year,” he said. “It’s kind of like the economy is stuck in Groundhog's Day.”

Heckey said that while single-family home values are down, multi-family projects in the city are on an upswing and pointed to Heritage Commons, the senior housing project in Dixon as a recent example of this. The region has seen a 23 percent increase in non-residential commercial projects, he said.

Sales tax within the city also saw an increase, up nine percent from last year; the unemployment rate in Dixon is at 8.5 percent, which is lower than the regional figure of 10.5 percent, Heckey said.

“We are not anywhere near replacing all the jobs that were lost in 2008-2009, but there has been a significant sustained trend in job creation for over a year and that’s encouraging,” he said.

Heckey mentioned that Altec Industries is set to bring 50 or more jobs to Dixon when its building on the 1400 block of North First Street opens, and that many local employers do not anticipate layoffs this year. The loss of redevelopment funds means a $4 million hit to the city as many projects including the Core Area Drainage Project, ADA compliancy and roadway repairs, first-time homebuyers program and many other human services, construction and infrastructure projects will be placed on hold.

As far as crime goes in Dixon, Police Chief Jon Cox said that the city is enjoying a rare decease in the crime rate from the previous year. It’s a trend that Chief Cox said he is vigilant of.

“There’s a lot happening that’s really hard to explain,” he said. “When I came to Dixon in 2009 within the first year we had a pretty significant reduction in crime which I take no credit for. I think part of it is good timing … good luck. A big part of it is good police work. Generally crime has been down the last couple of years even though the economic challenges are there.”

In 2009, the city saw a 30 percent reduction in part one crimes (which are the most serious of crimes including homicide, rape, burglary and larceny). In 2010 the city enjoyed another decrease of 12 percent in part one crimes. In 2011, the city saw yet a 26 percent decrease in the crime rate.

“What concerns me as a police chief is when you have a reduction in crime, at some point in time you are going to have that pendulum swing back to a more consistent rate that crime has been.”

One of the biggest concerns that Cox said he has is Realignment, the restructuring plan that aims to reduce state prison populations by returning low-level offenders to the communities in which they committed crimes.

“All this falls on us as local law enforcement, especially the county that’s going to be a major absorption for them,” Cox said. “The state was paying about $100 a day to keep somebody incarcerated. They are funding the county about $25 a day for the same person in custody.”

The influx of fresh inmates to the county could result in a wave of offenders being released to Solano County communities to make room for the new arrivals. Much like the city’s police department, the Dixon Fire Department has also seen a reduction of calls Dixon Fire Chief Aaron McAlister said.

“Two thousand eleven was another very productive year in the fire department, 1,748 emergencies, which is down slightly from the year before,” he said.

The city’s fire department made several key equipment acquisitions last year including a breathing apparatus (funded by a $140,000 FEMA grant), the replacement of all handheld and vehicle radios, new repeaters to expand radio coverage, and about $80,000 worth of extrication equipment through an Office of Traffic Safety grant.

The Dixon Fire Department has made strides in informing the public on emergency and preparedness information with the use of the city’s web site and the recent launching of its Facebook page, McAlister said.

The department launched two important initiatives last year -- one of which is a collaboration between the cities of Dixon, Vacaville, Fairfield and some in Yolo County to help achieve multi-agency training without the use of overtime dollars, McAlister said. The City of Dixon is also providing administrative fire services to the City of Winters, which provides fire admin expertise to Winters, and provides valuable training and experience for Dixon Fire administrators.

The fire department hopes to update the city’s emergency plan and continue to apply for grant funding in 2012.

Brian Dolan, Dixon Unified School District’s interim superintendent, said the district faced three major challenges last year including fiscal and culture challenges and student achievement.

“We’ve not really been a healthy organization in three areas, one is fiscal,” he said. “Fiscally, we started our own problems with inadequate management back in 2006-2007 and it all kind of exploded on us in 2008.  So we were cutting budget and dealing with financial ruin before the state decided to also financially ruin every other school district in California.”

Since then, Dolan said that the district is now extremely well managed, to the point of building up a reserve to weather what the state throws at the school district. Dolan said that three initiatives are being considered at the state level, the one that’s most likely to succeed will give money that's already owed to DUSD.

The district is probably looking at $1.3 million in midyear cuts next year, Dolan said. Another challenging area for the district last year was its culture.

“If you attended a board meeting or other function of the district you saw that we were at great odds with each other,” he said. “The lack of collaboration, the lack of respect, really created a toxic environment. I am happy to say we have really turned a 180 in that area. I’m inviting people to come and see how we are doing business this year. We are working as a team now.”

Finally, Dolan said that student achievement, based on California State Standard testing, has been a great challenge for the district.

“Only half of our kids are making it now and that’s not OK,” Dolan said.

But at the same time, Dolan said, “Those test scores are one indicator (of student success) and in a lot of ways an artificial one.”

Dolan said Dixon schools have great students and staff and that he sees successes happening every day within the district.

“What we need to see is that our children are growing, that we are responding as an organization to ensure that our kids are making the program,” Dolan said. We have to get smart about some of the things we are doing.”

Mayor Jack Batchelor pointed out many exciting developments within the city, including the recent hiring of its new city manager, Jim Lindley, as well as the development of the Northeast Quadrant well.

“The City of Dixon was award a $3 million grant, engineering work is ahead of schedule and it is my hope that we will begin the building process very shortly,” he said.

The city is in the process of reducing its expenditures by installing solar panels at City Hall, the Aquatic Center, and the city’s police and fire departments. Dixon is working diligently to reduce its chloride and salt reductions in its wastewater, Batchelor said.

He said that part of his duty, as mayor is to keep Dixon competitive on a regional level and said that he feels he’s been successful by acquiring funding for the pedestrian grade separation at B Street. Batchelor said that he would continue to obtain funding for the Parkway Boulevard Overcrossing project; both projects are part of a rail plan to bring a Capitol Corridor train stop to Downtown Dixon.