Departments will count customers to determine if buisness is
slow
enough to close next year
Gilroy – City Hall may eventually take a holiday hiatus if business slows to a trickle this month between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
The city will be counting the number of people who walk through the doors between the holidays to see if it’s worth keeping the heat and lights on during one of the year’s least busy times.
“We’ll be counting how many people come in and pay their water bills or get their building permits to get an idea of this before we make any decision,” City Administrator Jay Baksa said. “It may be slow in certain areas. We want to get a feel for what that volume is. If one section of City Hall is busy and the other isn’t, you can’t shut down all of City Hall.”
The city’s administration and community services departments typically slow to a crawl during the holidays, though the building department continues to sign off on plans for developers and people renovating homes. The number of people showing up to pay bills or file business registration forms with the finance department dips in December, though the last week of the month is usually busier than the week before Christmas, according to City Purchasing Coordinator Inga Alonzo.
“We do have a bill due during that time – and that would be the water bill,” she said. “Typically on our due dates we have a high volume of people.”
While most other employees take the week off, Alonzo and others often use the time to catch up on paperwork. She had mixed feelings about the idea of shutting down City Hall.
“In the past I have thought, ‘Sure it would be nice,’ ” she said. “Who wouldn’t want to be at home during the holidays? If we did it great. If we didn’t do it, that’s fine too. I’m on the fence on that one.”
The city isn’t going to any great expense to conduct its research: Employees will keep written tallies of the number of customers who come in and the city will analyze the number of phone calls it receives.
If the volume is low enough, officials will begin exploring the possible cost savings of shutting down City Hall. And if the savings justify the move, the next step would involve negotiating the arrangement with the union representing City Hall’s roughly 170 public employees.
Firefighters and police would still have to work normal holiday schedules.
