City of Perris

Since the advent of the current City Manager in December 2000, the Mayor, City Manager, and most City Council members appear to be motivated to restore financial integrity to the city, to ameliorate its infrastructure, and to plan for future growth. Although some City Council members continue to engage in divisive behavior and, on occasion, circumvent the office of the City Manager, the City Manager’s positive leadership appears to place the city on the threshold of achieving some of its goals.

On November 3, 1988, the City of Perris entered into an agreement for city engineering services. The provisions of this agreement provided the city with a City Engineer whose monthly duties are to attend one Planning Commission meeting, two City Council meetings, and to provide engineering services to the city. The agreement states that the City Engineer is to be paid a monthly retainer fee of $500 for his services. In addition, this agreement allows the Perris City Engineer to collect engineering fees directly from developers doing business with the city. The city paid $113,000. in engineering fees (not including engineering fees collected by the City Engineer) for fiscal 1999 and budgeted $101,000. in engineering fees for fiscal 2000.

In 1999, the Perris Mayoral office was established as an elected two-year position. A two-year term for this office does not appear to be conducive to the city’s political stability.

A City Attorney for the City of Perris was recently appointed by the City Council. The procedure used for appointing the City Attorney was unusual, in that the city failed to properly solicit additional attorney applicants. The city paid $412,313. for legal services in 1999 and budgeted $400,000. for fiscal

The interim, part-time, City Finance Director for the City of Perris is contracted to provide approximately 18 hours of finance services per week.

Eariler Perris City Councils had established Citizen Advisory Commissions, however, the current Council has not formed nor utilized Citizen Advisory Commissions. 2

In 1996, the city put in the general fund 1.5 million dollars that it borrowed from the water and sewer funds. In 1999, the Council created the Perris Public Utility Authority (Authority) to purchase the Water and Sewer System from the city. The city sold the System to the Authority on December 29, 1999, for 4.5 million dollars. The city then used the 1.5 million dollar debt (incurred in 1996) as a down payment, thereby creating a 3 million dollar debt for the Authority. The 4.5 million dollar sale price is now in question. An appraisal of the system has been requested.

For several years, the Water and Sewer System has incurred operating and maintenence problems. Approximately 30-40% of the system is currently in need of repair. Another 30% of the system can survive an additional five to ten years. It has been estimated that it will require an additional $3,000,000. to bring the system up to reasonable standards.

The City of Perris is in need of an effective graffiti eradication and control program. Prior efforts have been expensive and ineffective.

Deployment of fire protective services has not been planned and developed in correlation with residential and business expansion. The National Fire Protective Agency has established a fire response standard of approximately five minutes. Some areas of Perris have a response time of 15 minutes.