Mayor Jerry Sanders delivered his State of the City address Jan. 12 — part city report card and part bucket list of projects he wishes to accomplish before leaving office next year. Sanders focused on moving forward on major developments, despite the financial crisis still gripping the city and nation.   “My commitment to this city and to finishing the job we started has never been stronger,” said Sanders.  “My last day in office will be as busy as my first.” One of Sanders’ goals is to eliminate the structural budget deficit through a combination of pension reforms, departmental budget cuts and managed competition of city services. Sanders said he and District 2 City Councilman Kevin Faulconer plan to introduce a 401(k)-type retirement plan for future city employees, including elected officials, similar to those of the private sector.  Acknowledging unsustainable pensions as a destabilizing force for municipalities and not practical in the modern economic environment, Sanders called the 2002 City Council vote to underfund the pension system a “a failure of character” and a “robbing of the public” that was founded on a conclusion that a day of reckoning would never come. Sanders also acknowledged that taxpayer anger sparked from the pension issue was a major contributor to the significant rejection of Proposition D on November’s ballot, a sales-tax increase to pay for city services. “(The voters) said no, and I listened to them,” said Sanders.  “It was a clarifying moment that will help us move forward.”   He also said that despite the defeat of Prop D, the city would still work on instituting the 10 reform conditions that had been tied to the tax increase had it been passed. Sanders acknowledged that despite consolidation of select city departments and a reduction of workforce, more cuts to city services — including public safety — will be inevitable, and that the city has the lowest level of city personnel per capita in four decades. He said more will be asked of employees and citizens. “I’m not running for mayor and I’m not clamoring for attention.  I’m thinking of the taxpayers,” said Sanders. Other speech highlights: • Accolades were given for city workers involved in recent storm-response efforts, including public safety services and water department employees who were instrumental in pumping more than 1 million gallons of water from “Lake Qualcomm” in time for the Poinsettia Bowl. • Construction workers broke ground in 2010 on a new central library in downtown’s East Village, a project three decades in the making.  A combination of funding from the state, the school district, redevelopment funds and private donors will be used for the project. • In the area of water-quality improvement, sewage spills along San Diego’s coast and waterways are down.  A decade ago, Sanders said, the city averaged one spill per day. Last year, however, San Diego had the fewest spills per mile of beach than any other major city in the U.S. • Despite the economy, San Diego continues to attract new business.  Sanders estimated that one technology startup company is launched every day in San Diego,  including specialties such as analytics and wireless health, “clean tech,” spacecraft components and organizations such as Synthetic Geonomics, a La Jolla-based company that is creating fuel from algae. • Sanders pledged to fight efforts by the state to dissolve redevelopment agencies in its next rounds of budget cuts.  Local redevelopment agencies like the Centre City Development Corp (CCDC) have been a catalyst for tremendous growth in downtown San Diego and throughout the region. Disbanding these could have tremendous negative consequences, stifling future development, Sanders said. • Convention Center expansion: Sanders said that before he leaves office he would like to see ground broken on the expansion of the downtown convention center — a project that will pump millions of dollars into the local economy, increase tax revenue and create thousands of jobs both construction and otherwise, as well as ensure San Diego will continue to play host to major conventions such as Comicon.