Several years of painful bankruptcy in San Bernardino are finally coming to an end and the optimism—albeit measured—is palpable on the pages of the San Bernardino Sun.
The coming year has the opportunity to be what no year in this city has been for a long time: normal.
Serious challenges remain in the year to come — and, city officials acknowledge, in the years after that — but some of the serious restraints the city has faced in recent years will be gone early in 2017.
That optimism is shared by the city’s leaders.
“The city is poised and setting the stage for quite a bit of continued growth and improvements for 2017,” said Mayor Carey Davis.
It’s not just San Bernardino’s exit from bankruptcy. In November, voters also decided to overhaul the city’s charter. That will give city officials “modern-day, real-life flexibility in making decisions that need to be made,” according to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Jury. “There was too much political power and not enough management under their charter, to be frank, compared to most cities in California.”
There’s more. As the Sun notes, the city finally caught up on its audits in October for the first time in six years and it’s saving boatloads by transferring its Fire Department to county control. It also has some potentially lucrative development projects in the pipeline.
“As you can see, there’s a full plate ahead of us in 2017,” said Mayor Davis. “I’m sure there will be some unexpected needs that will be in place with a stronger city hall, a city hall that is doing a much better job with our financial reporting, but I think that with the changes of 2016 we’ll have a strong front to show investors.”