"The fact that the community is with us speaks volumes for how we've come along," said Mayor Sandy James at the opening of the final budget meeting.

The presence of community members, from teens to representatives of large corporations, during many of the budget meetings brought both assistance and angst to the council's decisions about where to make cuts. And even until the final vote, some council members struggled with their decisions.

In some cases the city is raising residents' fees, including the fees for the sports center, senior center and teen center.

There will also be higher fees at the nature museum, the bingo room, for after-school programs and at the city's golf course. Increased fees should bring in a total revenue of $164,065, with the golf and sports center fees bringing in $50,000 each and the senior center fees bringing in some $30,000.

Festivals also took a hit, including the popular Shakespeare festival, which was allotted $15,000 from the city instead of its usual $25,000. The other festivals as a combined group will lose a total of $35,700 in funding.

"We will have to make up the difference," said Toby Leavitt, president of the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, which puts on the event. This year's planners have already begun contracting actors and setting up rehearsals and have only weeks before the festival is set to begin.

Leavitt said the organization will try to work with what extra funding it can raise for this year's program. but she said she is a bit worried about the amount of funding the city will allot next year.

The cuts also included some to the budgets of city departments.

The public works budget lost $100,000, and the Mary Avenue crosswalk project lost $91,000. However, the crosswalk will most likely go through because of grants that are being pursued.

Even the Sheriff's Department could not escape cutbacks. To free up $220,000, the council cut one of two school resource officer positions that the city contracts for through the Sheriff's Department, as well as eliminating the D.A.R.E. drug resistance education program that is currently serving Cupertino schools.

Youth programs took a number of cutbacks this year, and though some teens made an attempt to voice their opinions, they were not proportionately represented at council meetings.

At the council's June 6 meeting, many teens showed up to speak about cutbacks their programs faced. However, by 11 p.m. all but one lone teen had left for home to study for final exams.

When it was finally her turn to speak, the teen said she spoke for all of those who'd left, explaining that the city's teen center was a valuable resource that needed all the funding it could get.

In the end, despite other cuts that would affect teens, the council voted against cutting 250 teen center hours and voted to keep $10,000 for teen programs. They also voted to maintain the skate park at Creekside Park.

At a council meeting on June 17, another teen, Milan Sundaresan of Cupertino High School, shared her feelings about the importance of having two school resource officers. She told the council that what she learned at the "Teen Academy," a program given by the officers, had changed her life and had convinced one of her friends to stop abusing substances.

The academy was only one of the programs sponsored by the school resource officers.

"It's very rewarding to have this job," said Ryan Folder after the meeting on June 17. Folder is one of the Teen Academy officers. "I don't know how we would be able to operate if there were only one of us.," he said.

Officer Nancy Pritchard, who has conducted the D.A.R.E. program, said she will miss the opportunity to educate children about drug issues.

"Children are our future," she said. "They have to develop the instinct to say no to drugs."

The council voted against implementing the 911 fee, which would have charged every home and business in Cupertino a monthly fee of $1 per phone line. Although this would have cost large corporations, in some cases, thousands, it would have freed up about $300,000 for the city's coffers. Much of that would have gone toward public safety programs.

However, the council did make one large concession to public safety. It maintained the funding of $230,000 for a midnight patrol shift. Without this officer, the city of Cupertino would only have two police cars patrolling the streets from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m., which, according to Sgt. John Hirokawa, is the time crime is most frequent,.

Before the decision was made, Hirokawa informed the council of the importance of this position. He also spoke about the need for the school resource officers and the D.A.R.E. program.

Seniors were also hit by the new budget, too, as membership fees for the senior center will be raised to $15 for residents and $20 for nonresidents, with a $20 parking permit fee.

City Manager Dave Knapp and Administrative Services Director Carol Atwood proposed an original budget to the council, after which it was then amended several times.

Even in the final stages of revision, when the council was ready to vote on approving the budget, there was still some dissension. Council members Kris Wang and Patrick Kwok proposed that certain areas of the budget needed one more look through before being passed. However, that proposal was voted down.

Although members of the community were present at the final budget meeting, there was far less oral presentation than at previous meetings. Mayor James said this was probably due to the fact that people had been paying such close attention to the meetings and understood much of the reasoning and decisions behind budget items.

"We were dealing with an incredibly tight budget this year," said Knapp. "Unfortunately, cuts had to be made."