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Saturday, Nov. 29, 2008

New city manager on job Monday

Foreclosures, Wal-Mart: There are plenty of issues for incoming boss to tackle.

City Manager John Bramble will take his seat alongside the City Council on Monday, beginning his command of Merced at a time of unprecedented challenges.

The 62-year-old has said he's up for the job and signed a five-year contract at a $171,653 annual salary.

His first meeting will be relatively benign with no controversial items slated. The city, however, will show one of its warts with a 5:30 p.m. presentation by the gang task force.

Bramble replaces Jim Marshall, who retired from the city's top post in January after nearly 17 years. He continued to work until the council chose a successor in October.

Bramble comes with a long and varied resume filled with government work in Colorado and California. He spent the past 12 years in Brighton, Colo., a city of 34,000 with about a 40 percent Latino population.

He'll immediately put his experience to work.

Besides the day-to-day business of the city and remaining nonpolitical in a partisan atmosphere, he'll be faced with the effects of the ongoing foreclosure crisis, the simmering controversy surrounding the proposed Wal-Mart distribution center and the downward spiral of the local economy.

Merced County has a foreclosure rate of about 12 percent and real estate agents are expecting another surge of homes to return to the bank come January. Martin Feldstein, a Harvard University professor and former chief economic adviser to Ronald Reagan, predicted last week that the economy and home prices will likely get worse.

As home values keep going down, more people will decide it's not worth paying off an expensive mortgage, causing more foreclosures and driving prices lower. No one quite knows when the house market will hit bottom.

Law enforcement expects the empty homes scattered across the area to become magnets for drugs and vandalism.

In the coming months, city number crunchers will start piecing together the 2008-2009 budget, which will be leaner than the previous. It relied on the city's savings account and job freezes to bridge funding gaps.

It's still undecided how the state will settle its shortfall that will grow to $28 billion by May 2010. In past years, the state's raided city piggy banks.

The economy's plummet gives more ammunition to leaders and residents supporting Wal-Mart's plans for a distribution center. The controversial project was proposed in 2005 when the city's economy was doing fairly well.

Now, with three major retailers -- Circuit City, Linens N Things and Mervyn's -- having closeout sales, the prospect of creating jobs will weigh even more heavily in the debate.

The project's draft environmental review is tentatively set for a January release, setting off the first public comment period. After input is collected, the report is amended to address the concerns and re-released for public hearings and then approval or rejection by the council.

Merced's also watching one of the pillars of its economy -- County Bank -- begin to show cracks and weakness.

The publicly traded company headquartered downtown acknowledged that its ability to survive the economic downturn is an "ongoing concern," and has applied for up to $46 million in federal bailout money to help its bottom line. Selling itself to another bank is an option on the table, though the company's declined to say whether there's been interest.

Bank managers are waiting to learn whether they'll get the infusion and has been trying to raise money elsewhere for some time.

For the challenges, the city still has some forward momentum. UC Merced will continue growing, bringing in students, faculty and, someday, more industry.

Mercy Medical Center Merced's towering hospital along G Street will open May 2010. And the one upside to the housing market's crash is that locals can once again afford to buy a home.

That includes Bramble, who will begin learning on Monday night what living in Merced is all about.

Reporter Scott Jason can be reached at (209) 385-2453 or sjason@mercedsun-star.com.