City Council Planning Session Wednesday Night

The Martinez City Council will have a special goals-setting meeting Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the Martinez Senior Center, 818 Green St. The meeting will revolve around plans and goals for the next two budget years, as officials try to keep basic services going with shrinking resources.

"I'm looking at it as a business planning session," said Mayor Rob Schroder. "We're going to focus on how to keep the wheels on the bus over the next couple of years. There won't be a lot of lofty goals. My No. 1 priority is to keep the core services of local government in place, how to hang on for the next couple of years."

Aside from basic services like police, planning and public works, Schroder said that the paving of Main Street and Shell Avenue will move forward, as will pursuit of the $3.1 million state loan for repair of the marina.

He added that negotiations with the public employee unions will begin soon.

"There will be some hard decisions there with respect to pensions and retiree medical benefits," he said. "We need to get a handle on that. We have a finite amount of resources and the last thing we want to do is to start laying people off."

City Manager Phil Vince said that a facilitator will be on hand to keep the discussion moving forward in a timely manner.

The meeting begins at 6 p.m. at the Martinez Senior Center, 818 Green St.