- Now calling to order our deliberation session, 6.30 on March 11th. Council Member Stossberg,
- take it away. Oh, do we have to call roll again? Okay, Claire, will you please call the roll? I'm here.
- I think they're right. Here. Are these working now? You have to keep talking and I'm here. Here. Here.
- Yep, I'm here. Here. If anybody's... My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is
- off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is
- off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is off.
- These microphones always make me a little crazy. Oh, I think it might be now and
- All right, so the purpose of this deliberation session is the development of 2027 shared budget priorities.
- And so what we're starting with is both the deliberation
- deliberation session that we had in December where we identified priorities and then that survey that
- I got sent out to you all in February. So thank you everybody for responding to that survey on time,
- which allowed me to compile results for fiscal committee meetings. So then at the fiscal committee meeting,
- we kind of reviewed the
- reviewed the outcomes, reviewed the things that kind of floated to the top and how we could sort those
- things out, talked it over with Controller McKim and Deputy Mayor Knapp, and one of the things that
- they said was it's not necessary to keep our priorities within buckets, and so then the top priorities
- draft that I put in the packet is not within buckets, but just as kind of
- So each category in terms of results, so I think that the full results are in Appendix A, I made sure
- that the top things all were somehow included in the top priority list. And there are different numbers
- of tops in each of the bucket categories.
- just because of how voting dribbled out. So it was this really kind of fun slash challenging thing for
- me to do after discussing with the fiscal committee how to make this data make sense in any way.
- And so, for example, under
- The high-performing government outcomes, the top three voted on were implementation of existing plans,
- maintaining city assets, and developing city plans where none currently exist. And so all three of those
- end up in one way or another under our top priorities. The one that I'll maybe point out is
- making homelessness brief or non-repeating, which came out as a top three in two different buckets.
- So that's kind of like consolidated, right? And then there are several things consolidated under there
- in terms of top priorities that all kind of connected in different ways with that bucket. So that,
- you know, so overall, like this, I'm just trying to explain, I guess, really badly this data that you
- got sent out, all of this information, because there was a lot of it, and how I kind of consolidated these top
- 13 priorities with help from fiscal committee. So like as fiscal committee chair, that was why this
- landed on my lap. But these are in no particular order.
- In fact, actually they are kind of in an order. They're in an order of how they were discussed. So the
- high performing government ones are first, and then I think it was housing and homelessness, and then
- it went on down in terms of making sure that each of the top things found a place in this list in terms
- of what everybody was individually prioritizing. But it is not in a ranked list.
- It is not this is definitely not me saying oh the number one council thing overall was implementing
- existing plans because that's not necessarily accurate. We also can't just go on the number of points
- any one of those things achieved because there were a different number of outcomes within each bucket.
- So it's like we could only vote for three things you know and there are.
- you know, five choices, well, then each one of those is gonna have more points than if there were 10
- choices. And so we can't, there's not really a good way to do this except by having a conversation about
- what people think, and so that is what we're supposed to do tonight. And so then things to keep in mind
- when considering this, and some of this was kind of said by Controller McKim and Deputy Mayor Knapp,
- you know, things to keep in mind, is this activity or outcome driven by local government?
- And if it's not, how can government support the activity is kind of the follow-up. Because if it's not
- driven by us, is there something that we want to do to support whoever is driving it? Is the outcome
- measurable? Is it something that we can actually measure? Is the funding allocation for that outcome
- measurable? Does the outcome require direct fiscal investment, staff time, or legislation?
- in terms of kind of figuring out what kind of priority it might be. And then also, is it a priority
- for 2027? And if it's not, and so I'll pull out the safe streets for all kind of concept because that
- was one of the top things, zero traffic fatalities or serious injuries by 2039. Technically, next year
- is 2027, not 2039, but of course we need to be working toward that goal. So it's not necessarily a,
- goal or priority for 2027, but how should that priority be reflected in the 2027 budget, right? When
- thinking about the multiple smaller type projects or initiatives that could move us toward that goal
- of zero traffic fatalities and serious injuries. And then the last question, is this outcome personally
- important to you? Which, because the whole point of this is to be able to submit a ranked letter
- to the administration saying these are our top however many priorities in the order that we want them
- to be in. And I would like us to largely agree with that order. And this is the hard part, right? Because
- a couple years ago when we did this, they were not in any particular order because we couldn't put them
- in any particular order. So I'm kind of hoping that maybe we can do better this year. So that was about
- the intro that I had.
- And so I guess this is the time for feedback. Who wants to throw out any kind of comment? And also comments
- in terms of things that I left out of this, including things like low-hanging fruit that you might go,
- hey, nobody voted for this thing, but it's this legislative piece, or it's this thing that maybe we
- should throw up there as something important. And that's appendix C, I think.
- things that I just kind of, the fiscal committee decided if it got no votes, then we were just gonna
- not worry about it when trying to consider how to order these things. Is that? Great. Councilmember,
- sorry. Do you imagine that we would prioritize in buckets or individual things? So could you imagine
- that it would be, you know, item 3A is
- priority one and item two C is priority two as a council or that we're saying like, you know, we care
- most about, for example, housing is like thing one and then these are top three within bucket one.
- I think my vision was to ignore buckets because it felt like there were so many of the outcomes that
- crossed bucket lines and part of that is because I think the nature of how we devise the outcomes and
- we're like all novices at outcomes and so it's like well what are outcomes actually and also the overall
- discussion like where does this outcome belong and so housing and homelessness is a good one because
- it literally was in I think it was public safety and in
- and in housing. And you could say it belongs in both of those things in different ways, but which bucket
- should we put it in the most? I don't know. Deputy Mayor Knapp didn't seem like it. She didn't think
- that it mattered. So I don't think we need to worry about the buckets. Council Member Flaherty. That's
- what we're sorry. Was your question a bit about what are the 13 top priorities, though, on pages four
- and five, and basically
- ranking those 13, as opposed to the six buckets of housing and homelessness, economic development,
- et cetera. Yeah, well I'm wondering whether there's some utility in us being able to say of the six
- buckets, this is our priority, this is how we, of those six things, these are all things we care about,
- but of those six, this is the one we care about most of the six first.
- Whether there's any utility in ranking those over ranking the 13 but I think that councilmember sasper
- makes a good good argument for it's just like here are the 13 things that you know that we really want
- to see in and the reasons we want to see them there and I think that we could Like I think we could
- start with the 13 and then depending on where our discussion goes and what y'all think about your priorities
- then I mean maybe it
- will say maybe things will float to the top that all do have to do with like housing, or do have to
- do with economic development, or do have to do with environment. And so maybe we could, maybe this is
- a both and. But we have to start in one or the other. So let's start with the 13. Yeah, I think that
- makes sense. Council Member Zulek, what's most important to you? Thank you.
- is most important to me is that making sure that all of our residents have their basic needs met. And
- so when we sort these, I think we should be thinking about which one of these things provides food,
- shelter, water, and safety towards people. And that is how I've been framing it, just so everyone is
- aware of what's going on in my mind. Can I ask the follow up question? So going back to the first things
- to keep in mind,
- Are those activities driven by local government? I think they can be. Other thoughts on how to rank?
- Councilmember Flaherty?
- like if we're gonna try to rank these 13 things, we probably need to have another survey that's like
- a literally like put them in order and like assign points and then average it across everybody. We want
- like an actual system that's reflective of a balanced, like I don't think we're gonna reach consensus
- just by like talking. So I think a survey to do that, if we're trying to rank these 13 things, which
- are admittedly of different kind and scope, you know, but if that's the exercise, I think that is,
- worthwhile to rank them. And I'll just, you know, I think we're kind of stumbling our way towards something
- and trying things, which is great. And at the same time, the planning infrastructure and policy
- infrastructure of the city is not currently suited, I don't think, to a strong outcome-based budgeting
- system. Most of what we have
- major substantive areas of city government that have no formal plans at all. Certainly not any legislatively
- adopted ones anyway, or that are reflective of both branches of the city government. So there's huge
- gaps on things like public safety. The plans we do have lack consistent frameworks for how they think
- about or name outcomes, if at all, how we measure for those outcomes. So like zero traffic fatalities
- and deaths by 2039,
- Great, that's a very clear, smart outcome, but the devil's in the details of implementation, and just
- by way of example, the Indiana Avenue project, which we funded through a GO bond, has a third concept
- design out that made, without question, objectively unsafe decisions relative to prior concepts. I'm
- just using it as an example here. There are trade-offs involved, so we funded it. That's supporting
- that outcome, but now it's being changed.
- in a way that is counter to the outcome. And so without good measurement and rigor in all of that, in
- a coherent framework, I think we're always just gonna be really hard pressed to really make something
- useful out of all this, which isn't to deter us. I think this is a good exercise. I think we are moving
- forward in some way. I don't think it's useless. I do think we are naming things that have value and
- will still give some shape
- to things, but I guess I'm trying to note that because I don't want it to be a surprise later. This
- list alone is just not how I'm going to be thinking about a budget vote and or engaging with
- the administration on budget. I think it matters, but there's more to it than that considerably. And
- at the same time, I think I've offered to take on for the committee, which I'm sitting on this year,
- and really still hope that we can move towards something like a more coherent framework
- for the city that might involve updating plans in a consistent way that has near and midterm and long-term
- outcomes and an appropriate number of lead and lag measures for those things. So we can actually start
- systematically measuring progress and having like a coherent framework with which to engage a topic
- like this. That's not gonna be fast, but I do think we should look to best practices and think about
- like what that actually looks like. And just, again, acknowledging that we're not there yet.
- there are some limits to what we can do here. Sorry. Well, that's OK. I have a follow-up question for
- you, too, or a follow-up thought, I guess, on that. Because that kind of, so if we put out a survey
- and then assign points and put things in order based on the survey, then how is that honestly any different
- than what we already kind of have? Because it would essentially be like averaging things. And so it's
- one of those, like, nobody would probably get their first choice.
- Like, is it different? It is more different than it has now. Right now, it's anyone's guess if any of
- these things mean more than anything else. But with a survey, we actually would know. Yes, it would
- be averages. It wouldn't be a mirror image of any individual's rank order, most likely. But I think
- some patterns would emerge, is my guess. And that still might be helpful, at least incrementally more
- helpful than the list as it stands now. So I don't think it's.
- Again, I don't think it's useless. I just think we have to acknowledge the limitations of this exercise
- for outcome-based budgeting. Okay. I'm not opposed to doing that. I kind of wish that I had done that
- in preparation for this meeting, but that idea never came up. So, Councilmember, sorry. I have a question.
- I want to query our thinking and just make sure that I've understood it correctly here as well.
- are the things that rose to the top from each of the buckets. But then that assumes that we, this is
- gonna sound like I'm relitigating the question I asked earlier, which I'm not, I'm just curious about
- something. Are we saying that there's not a possibility where there's a fourth thing in bucket A that's
- higher than
- my top thing in bucket three, right? And so I'm wondering about that a little bit as we start thinking
- about prioritizing. And then as a follow-on point here, it's that some of these things aren't necessarily,
- I feel very strongly, for example, about, we phrase it in some way,
- execute on the plans that we already have. Okay, I feel very strongly about that. There's a lot of downstream
- things that come from execute on the plans that we have, and that's kind of quite a different thing
- than reduce income inequality. They're different, so I'm also struggling a little bit with how we even
- compare the list of 13 to begin with.
- So I wonder, so I don't know what the, and so I guess the question. Just imagine managing all of this
- data when it came in. Exactly, like so, and thank you, thank you for that work. I think maybe the question,
- the question for us all is thinking about like, how can we continue to synthesize this in a way where
- we get to, so that things are like, you know, that we're comparing like for like. Well, and that, like,
- I don't know if we can ever really compare like for like.
- But that is why I mean at the end of this there's like the data from the whole thing and that is why
- you know if you and and I also want to say like I made sure that this was an accessible document and
- It makes it a little bit like gross Grosser like harder to like read compared to say like a spreadsheet
- where you can look more across a little bit easier but
- It's, I'm trying to find one by looking across. So under transportation and mobility outcomes, for example,
- our top had 12 points, which was network supporting travel, all travel modes for people of all ages
- and ability. Second one had 11 points, third one had 10 points, and then after that, it went right down
- to five. So it was this steep drop off. And so in transportation and mobility, I would have put the
- top three in that one. Whereas in environment, we had
- a 12, a 12, a six, a six, and a five. And so I think I put the top five in that one. And so that's where
- it absolutely is some measure of discretion. And that's why I put that full data in, is that very thing.
- And that's why, I mean, there's that example at the end of the list of 13 about public safety, about
- reducing crime. We all probably want to reduce crime,
- it's kind of an interesting outcome in terms of that survey. The public safety category was
- really interesting, actually, and if we looked more closely maybe at that public safety category, I
- think if we had discussed that one in the way that we discussed some of the other ones in December,
- some of those things, maybe they wouldn't have gone under public safety.
- housing and homelessness rose to the top in public safety and in housing. If we had been discussing
- both of those at the same time, we probably would have categorized that into one or the other. Then
- how would we have voted? It's one of those things where this was helpful. It gets us somewhere maybe,
- but it doesn't get us to an end point. If there is something like that,
- council members already just suggested, you know, something that's the number four, that's the trailing,
- but wait a minute, like I want to raise that up, or wait a minute, like, because here's another question,
- especially for those outcomes that were suggested through the survey by all of you, right? If, let me
- see if I can find one. If, let me get my window bigger.
- So if Council Member Zulek suggested that, sorry, I called you out because you were the first one, so
- you're the first result, that Bloomington residents have options other than uniformed police officers
- for nonviolent issues. One example is community resource officers are often dispersed to crash sites.
- So I think that I put that in as example, community resource officers, but you know,
- There's some other response related to that, right? And I think that that really overlaps with, let's
- see if I can find Council Member Piedmont-Smiths, which was mental health and addiction treatment services
- are increased to meet residents' needs. And those things could overlap in ways that if we were actually
- discussing them, they might have been combined into one thing. I have a thought.
- You know what we might think of doing for the next round of surveys is that instead of us, and this
- is building off of something that Council Member Rosenberger said two years ago, because it was a really
- good idea, give us, like if we all had 100 points,
- a thousand points, whatever, right? You have some large amount of points and you can distribute them
- however you want amongst all of these categories. Now we've already started to say some initial ranking
- amongst the buckets, all that type of stuff, but I think that might give you a little bit of a better
- sense of the, like I think we might get a little bit more space between things, right? And so that might be
- That might be the way to do it, right? Because at the end of the day, the variation right now is going
- to be very small, because we're talking about three, four, you know what I'm saying? So if you give
- us all 100 points, and then I can say, look, for me, whatever, wage, jobs, and GDP growth is 50 points.
- That's the most important thing. It's not, Dave. But if it was, if that's the most important thing,
- whatever, I say that's 50 points for me. It does sort of change maybe the way that we
- think about and compare things, you know? Also that, that, right? But it also helps us think a little
- bit about our approaches, you know, because I think just sort of, you know, my starting place is that
- we don't want to be spreading the peanut butter super thin amongst a lot of things, but maybe some of
- us actually feel that way, that it's more like, yeah, all of these things are good, let's do a little
- bit of each of them. I think it would be really helpful to start to see where, you know, if I could
- put all my, anyways, yeah, I've made my point, sorry.
- We don't get to turn it off. Other thoughts? Councilmember Zulek. I have a different line, if everyone's
- done with this. OK, thank you. This one is for Comptroller McKim. Sorry to tap you in here. Last year,
- I felt that a lot of the budget presentations were a little bit vaguer than they had been in previous
- years. And so I guess I'm wondering to what extent
- can it get as explicit as this amount of money is allocated to this? Obviously, there's only so much
- time allotted to each presenter. So I'm just wondering, what are the reporting mechanism options and
- how can we get as specific as possible in terms of money to goal? Well, I guess I'd like to hear a little
- bit more about in what way it was vague. Let me just back up for a second.
- I think as everybody knows, we will still, we still have to present and submit and pass a budget the
- way that you always have by fund and by department and by category. So that's gonna have to exist no
- matter what when we have to do that. What I think we are hoping to do is if we have some small list
- of kind of operationalized, operationalizable
- priorities from council, we can then work to sort of tag or associate expenditures with the, you know,
- that are still in there, in the same form that they always have been, but also tag them with the council
- priorities. So is that the specificity that you're looking for, specificity that is tied to this list
- of priorities that you're coming up with, or is it just more of a,
- a general, you didn't feel like you got an adequate narrative as to what was being requested, or just
- tell me a little bit more. Well, there are the four budget categories that we were very clear on, but
- I think it was hard for me to kind of decipher past that where things were going in terms of money,
- like very specific dollars, but I do think that would be very, very helpful in terms of adding
- on the, hey, this is what council said was a priority X. So thank you, that'd be very helpful. I agree
- with the general point, and I expressed it last year, that I appreciate the effort that went into trying
- something new and different with priority buckets in the presentations, but I ultimately found it much
- less useful than the way budgets have been presented previously, and including in Mayor Thompson's first
- year, which was largely a reflection of past practice at that time. So I think comparing the budget
- presentations for the last two years would, if you haven't done that already, controller McCann, that
- would be helpful to kind of see at least some degree of what we're talking about. It used to be that,
- I don't know if this is a good system, but the departments would kind of set goals and then report on
- them also. Again, I'm not sure that needs to be replicated, but there was more detail and more granularity
- in what was being presented to us kind of from like a
- programmatic or initiative or project dimension in past years relative to last year, which I think was
- still helpful. Yeah, so there's that. So that's just a comment to maybe share more another opinion and
- more context on what customer resilience shared. But I'm also curious just to hear more from you. We
- talked about it in the fiscal committee a bit. How are you finding this list?
- Is it gonna be useful at all? Will it give you the contours of something to start to come back to us
- in time to, you know, have something where there's a back and forth and we're iterating on it? Or is
- it just sort of like, we take this list, we're gonna do our best to interpret it, hope it goes well
- come August, you know, and we'll live with it? Or what? Well, I will say from a budgetary standpoint,
- the way they are written right now, it's very difficult for me to be able to work with them. I mean,
- I understand them as
- priorities for the community. I think that they're probably, they seem like, I think most residents
- would probably look at them and say, yeah, that's exactly what we want our council to do, what we want
- our city to do. And I kind of tried to make this point in the fiscal committee meeting, and Council
- Member Stossberg already reiterated it and included it in the notes at the top that we just need to kind of
- think through for each of these outcomes, what part of it is driven by local government and how do we
- measure both the outcome and how do we allocate or think about allocating funding for that particular
- outcome, whether it's contracting or staff time or legislation, which isn't really a budgetary concern.
- So I think at some point,
- this needs to move kind of to the next level. And at that point, I think I can probably do a better
- job of understanding how to map costs and budget allocations to those outcomes. You see what I'm saying?
- Council Member Varela. Well, first, I want to say how much I appreciate Council Member Stusberg's work on this.
- large effort, and it took a mathematician's probably mind to sort through the data. Just an old timer's
- perspective, there used to be, back in the day, extremely detailed budget presentations, going back
- to what Council Member Zulek talked about, and it gave us, not only us, but the public an overview of
- exactly what Citi was doing.
- the capital investments that were done, the programs that were offered, the services provided, all of
- those things were detailed in like 40 plus slide deck. I'm not asking for that, I'm not, but just to,
- if you go back 15 years, you'll see that, it was incredible. Maybe it was excessive, because it was
- an exhausting process. Now we have outcome-based budgeting, which is a great sort of directive for us.
- But I think that what this provides, I think, is a good rubric for you and the department directors
- to anticipate the questions that we will likely probe. I think it adds a good framework for, you know,
- like, for instance, high-performing government. For instances, I think one of the highest scores was,
- let me think,
- Maintain city assets, for instance. I gave it a rough Piedmont Smith. Actually, I think the first, it
- was the first. Anyway, it's no matter, implementation of existing plans. Got these plans sitting around
- the shelf. Some of them are very specific in terms of what they direct us to do. Again, maybe excessively
- so, but it would be nice to reference those and say, have we made, what's the CO2?
- output, you know, what have we done in terms of, is there any estimates in terms of local food providing
- local, you know, those sorts of things. I'm very heavy on maintenance, so I would probably, you know,
- this council member will probably be asking about street maintenance, you know, the fleet maintenance
- for the city, you know, the downtown is very important, I think,
- Economically, I wanna make sure that it's an inviting place where people feel safe and invited and active
- and businesses are happy, et cetera, et cetera. In any case, maybe I'm sort of going off course, but
- I think this provides a good sort of litmus for you all to know where we're coming from. If I'm not
- mistaken, you're not just gonna get
- It's not gonna be just like we're just throwing darts at a board. It's gonna be directed. So I find
- utility in that. So. Go ahead, yeah. You gave the example of maintained city assets. That's a particularly
- good example because that is something that is entirely under the control and responsibility of the city.
- And even though it's not necessarily easy to count the money that's spent on maintaining city assets,
- it's something that is definitely operationalizable. There are metrics that can be associated
- with maintaining city assets. So yeah, I think that's a particularly good example, even though the way
- that it's reflected here is very top level, maintain city assets. It's pretty easy to see how that can be
- taken into something that could be useful in budgeting and budget presentations. Thank you. Before you
- go, one of the things I want to point out from what Councilmember Rallo said about the implementing
- existing plans is if you recall from our December session, Isabel, Councilmember Piedmont-Smith came
- up with that original list of outcomes directly from all of our city plans. So in theory,
- there's at least some of these outcomes, like in terms of the actual specific language of some of them,
- that would also nest underneath the implementation of existing plans. And so it's hard to know, I mean,
- Council Member Asari, you said it, that that concept was really important to you, but is that something
- that should be at the top of a list,
- for budgeting for 2027 specifically, or should that be more like at the top of a philosophical kind
- of list, like it's really important to us that we use the plans that we have, but that that's
- not necessarily, you know, so then maybe in presentations we want to know, you know,
- climate action plan might be the CO2 levels and some of those details and what have we done to affect
- that and if there's a direct cost that can be associated with that. I just wanted to point that out
- as an interesting piece of number one as is listed on here. And then the second thing I want to say
- is going back to what Controller McKim said is
- going back to those things to keep in mind and maybe we should just go through, use our time to go through
- all the 13 and go well is implementing existing plans and activity driven by government. Is it measurable
- in terms of outcomes? Is the funding allocation measurable in terms of those things? And even if those
- things are important to us, if they can't pass those three things, maybe they need to go on a different
- piece of priority that is more of a philosophical priority as opposed to a budget priority.
- So are there thoughts on that idea, Councilmember Flaherty? Was there something that you wanted to say
- before that? Well, I think where I was headed is consistent with where you were just going, which is
- basically we can use some type of system to rank these things. We can talk through them. But how do
- we make it actionable in the absence of, again, a coherent actual systemic approach to this in government?
- Like, should we be talking through these? And like, are there any existing
- plans or metrics, like look, just pick one, right? It's like, okay, reduce systemic inequities,
- item B, engagement processes are inclusive and representative. Okay, I'm taking that to mean like public
- engagement on policy making, on services implementation. What are we doing on that front right now?
- Are we measuring anything at all? Do we have goals articulated somewhere about it to help guide it?
- And if not, is it reasonable to start measuring something?
- I don't know, asking for voluntary demographic and other data when people weigh in at design charades
- and meetings like this and actually start tracking things like that over time. I think with this probably
- uniform set of a few questions, is this addressed at all in existing policy documents or plans? Are
- we measuring anything related to it now? And if no to those things, can we do something meaningful to
- start measuring it now or at least try to give an indication of
- I don't know. It seems like we could settle on a limited set of questions that we probably apply to
- each of these that could try to move it in the direction of something actionable. Even if we can't accomplish
- it all tonight, we could workshop it, and then the committee could do more and also offer opportunities,
- if not in the deliberation session, at least asynchronously for feedback from noncommittee members,
- again, to try to move this towards something that's
- closer to actionable. Yeah. Yeah, and if maybe we can narrow down some of these based on these questions,
- especially from Controller McKim, and then use those in a follow-up survey. Is that what you were going
- to suggest? Yeah, I was going to build on all of this that the thing that I've been trying to wrap my
- head around, too, is let's call it cost to move index, right? So some of these things on this list,
- and I'm playing around with this in different ways,
- Developing new plans, waste reduction, strengthening food security networks are all things that we probably
- could make significant progress on with very little money, right? Whereas what you were just saying,
- the point about maintaining city assets is a big, could be a huge thing, right? But it also, okay, so
- that's sort of one thing. So I think it might be useful for us to sort of think about cost of move index
- so we know like what are our big bucket items to begin with and, you know,
- then we back to that mentality of like, do you fully fund this, do you, you know, whatever. Some of
- those then would have to be adjusted. I think then to your earlier point, Council Member Slasberg, is
- that I identified three things that I think could operate within that 13 that really are more like,
- I don't know, approaches or like operational priorities, and one of them overlaps, but implementing
- existing plans is like a philosophy, right? We're like, you know, we want things to come from existing plans.
- and that is already implemented in our philosophy here, right? Development of plans where none exist
- might also be kind of like an operational approach or a philosophy or something like that, and then
- maintaining city assets. So we might want sort of sub outcomes actually attached to those in some way,
- but yeah, so that's sort of what I'm trying to think about is that if we think about what is expensive
- to move versus cheap to move, I think it's helpful in terms of like, okay, well, what really is the
- priority of this list?
- Okay, do other people agree that those three are like philosophical? I'm not saying exclusively
- philosophical. I'm saying that there's an element of them, right? So if we say, if we say we want to
- make plans where no plans exist, there's
- there's an element of that which is, that is a fundable thing, right? But there's also an element of
- that which is saying, there's a particular approach which we want to develop which is saying, we want
- to be plan driven, and so implement our plans first, and if you don't have a plan to implement, then
- make a plan so we can implement it, right? So that's what I'm saying is that it is a fundable thing,
- so is maintaining assets, but we'd have to be a little bit more specific about what we mean by maintaining assets.
- Is there anybody who would disagree with, say, a paragraph in a letter to the administration basically
- describing those three things as a philosophy and specifically calling out public safety as a place
- where there's not a plan that is a cohesive understanding of public safety? Council Member Rosenberger.
- Anything here? Is it on?
- I am having a harder time. I like this. I'm having a hard time seeing how maintained city assets fits
- in as a third. I see implement existing and develop plans where none exist as I think philosophies to
- be like, who are we to make our own priorities? We have the plans and priorities kind of thing. I guess
- maintain city assets to me, it falls more along the
- same lines as like make homelessness brief and rare and reduce systemic inequities. So I guess I don't,
- I think I'm not seeing the third connection as well. How do other, Council Member, sorry. I'm trying
- to still, I was thinking out loud as well, right? Because what had me put it in that list is because
- I agree with the statement that Council Member Aralo made that I'm like, that is a priority. Generally
- speaking that we do things like
- you know, there's a lot of things that fall under that banner, you know, whether from, to me, that includes
- sidewalks to like, you know, making sure that the doors are painted, right? And there's a lot of variability
- within that. And so when I started thinking about how I think about all of those different things that
- we want to maintain, they begged more questions to me. I was like, well,
- what do we want to maintain and how do we want to approach the prioritization of the maintenance. If
- we might say as a whole, as a funding category, it's like thing that we as a council really want,
- you know, maintain basic stuff, right? But then I just think that that would need more workshopping
- in the level of like a doing thing, but it may be something that guides all that we are saying, which
- is like bring stuff up to a certain standard or something like that is kind of what I'm trying to get
- my mind around. But again, I'm thinking out loud here.
- Okay, so what about, so I'm trying to think ahead to this actual document or letter, right, that we
- need to ultimately agree on. So if there is a paragraph that philosophically talks about the implementation
- of plans and developing plans where none exist, specifically mentioning public safety because that was
- called out and I mean we couldn't really find good outcomes around public safety, and then
- not including maintained city assets, but as Comptroller McKim said, that those are calculable, calculatable
- in terms of these questions to keep in mind. You can measure that investment, and to some degree, you
- can also measure that outcome in terms of number of potholes that get filled, and actually,
- between a pothole being reported as existing and when it got filled. So there's lots of measurability
- in some of these maintenance kinds of things. So can we agree on that piece of the letter right now?
- Is there anybody who disagrees on that piece of the letter? Okay, what's your addition? Well, I'm not
- attached to this, so I'll just put it out there.
- it could potentially be helpful for like the abiding by city plans, maintaining city assets, and creating
- plans if that could be an interesting structure for the presentations. And so that way each department
- could be like, hey, we have these plans. This is how we plan on achieving whatever out of these plans.
- This is how we plan on maintaining city assets. And if there are no plans, this is our plan to
- create one. I think that that would help me at least. I don't know about my colleagues, but I think
- that would be really helpful in wrapping our minds around what is doing what. I would argue that I think
- part of at least what we talked about to some degree during fiscal committee, like this whole list should
- present like that.
- you know, but that could also be something that gets put into a paragraph, I think, of this is how we
- wanna see budget presentations. Like we wanna know how the specific programs fit into this, because
- that's one of the things, I mean, we don't have specific programs in here, but there are specific programs
- that our city does, that our staff do, that would fall under here, right? And so it's going like, okay,
- we wanna know how, what planning engineering is doing this year,
- to meet that 2039 goal of zero injuries and fatalities, and so have that very, like, that's like my
- vision of that controller, and Kim, I don't know if that was what you were also thinking at all. I mean,
- that certainly makes sense. That wasn't necessarily what I was thinking, but I understand what you're
- saying. Okay, yeah. Councilmember, sorry. I liken just triangulating on this idea as thinking about
- those elements as like,
- tags, right, because going further with the maintaining, sorry. City assets. Yeah, maintaining city
- assets. There's an element of maintaining city assets that will contribute to reducing fatalities, right?
- And so do you see what I'm saying? And again, I'm stinking out loud, so I will not be upset if you disagree.
- But it gives this opportunity to sort of tag it as saying, we want to see this all the way through the budget.
- right? And then we also want to see how you're contributing to these 10 things that we've, you know,
- the 10 remaining things on the list as an example. So following that, going down to the zero traffic
- fatalities or serious injuries by 2039, is that also something that should be more in a paragraph of
- this is important to us and it's important that we make incremental progress in various ways? Tell us
- how you're going to make that progress in a very specific, like tell me how you're going to
- move us toward this in 2027 because this is very important. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I'm not sure
- I'm going to answer your question because I feel like it headed in a different direction a little bit.
- The word maintenance sort of implies status quo and keeping things the same, whereas most of what we're
- doing is actually trying to get better and transform and improve. And so I wonder if, like,
- I'm not wild about the frame maintaining city assets or elevating that to too high a level relative
- to other policy changes that aren't asset intensive exactly as one might traditionally think of those.
- Maybe like capital expenditures is like a better way to think about that, including both for like maintenance
- improvements, operations, projects. Back to your customer, sorry, your kind of cost to move index.
- It's like, yeah, you know,
- The transportation system is incredibly capital intensive. And that's both repaving streets, making
- improvements to streets, making curb ramps more accessible. It's a whole lot of stuff, right? So I would
- encourage us to move beyond maintenance a little bit. I'm just kind of also just workshopping, thinking
- that maybe capital investments is a better way to think about that. And then it helps also distinguish
- that from things like policy implementation that are really about resourcing it through staff time,
- but in ways that are consistent with
- the outcomes that we're prioritizing, that are in our city plans, and that's sometimes where, I gave
- an example earlier, but it also had a capital component, but I think we run into trouble sometimes with
- like, on the implementation side, it's not that it's actually like a lot of money, it's that we're not
- doing it. So yeah, I don't know, just some thoughts. So I guess, like once again, so I'm trying to format
- the next survey I'm gonna send you, but maintain city assets could still be
- like align in how would you prioritize this or how many points would you give this, but I would take
- out, implement existing plans and take out developed plans where none exist because I would put them
- in in a paragraph form as opposed to a ranked list. Because they would be this philosophical, it's really
- important to us that we implement our existing plans. And so that would be taken out of the ranked list.
- I guess that's what I'm trying to propose.
- I think that is right. I was going to ask what council members rather rough thought about that. What
- council member Flaherty said too about the maintained city assets because I was thinking that when council
- member Asari was saying it that maintained sounds like our whole purpose is to keep everything the way
- it is where we would maybe get a lot of points to repaving a road which like increases speeds which
- is you know like not necessarily good for bike ped people or potholes are the reverse
- bead bumps, you know, then what? That's not popular. Okay, so I am, I do like, because when I read Maintain
- City Assets, I didn't think so much about like repainting doors, but I did think about how we have a
- huge, you know, 50 year sewer replacement, right? And I think about those things that would like bankrupt
- the city if we are not planning
- Them fiscally every year to like make sure right we are replacing all those things So and like our plants
- and all that so I wanted to hear from YouTube that makes more sense with the capital Expenditures rather
- than maintain city assets Council member all You're running afoul of the nine-headed beast because we
- we all have different viewpoints, but I like the word maintenance and
- Entropy is real. I feel it every day. It's predictive. You should be able to tell at what pace roads
- degrade. And so I like maintenance as a word because it would, so take an example. And it could be very
- quantitative. Number of miles of roads paved per year. I can go to the map and I can see it. However,
- I don't know what that means in the context of
- I was told once long ago that it was a 20-year repaving schedule. Now, I don't know if that's appropriate
- or not. And I know some roads wear out earlier than others, et cetera. But in any case, you should be
- able to plot how many miles we paved this year, how many we did last year, how many we're going to do
- next year. And you've got a trajectory now. You can draw a line. And you can say, how many years will
- it take to repave all the roads?
- And that would be a good to know. And something I could tell constituents that we're going to get on
- this schedule. It's revolving. It's not like we're neglecting the roads. And by the way, the cost goes
- up. And so if we're going to maintain the trajectory, it's probably going to mean additional capital
- expenditures and budgeting for those because the cost of asphalt goes up or whatever. So I do like that part.
- Now, back to zero fatalities by ex-state, that's aspirational, and that involves a lot of moving parts.
- You know, you don't just order it like you do repaving a road. It involves a lot of things and is much
- more difficult to unpack. I'll let it go. Councilmember, sorry, and then I wanna keep on trying to move
- down the list. Yeah, totally. I think one of the things coming up here, and I really love what both
- of you just said,
- is two-fold. I don't think that it's a zero sum between the question of maintenance and improvement.
- I think that we maybe want to split those and actually have both of those as sort of things that we
- highlight and feature in our budget. One of the things I really like to two-finger or whatever,
- you know, double, say yes to, that Councilmember Rosenberger said was, you know, that there are some
- investments that we need to make in the infrastructure in this city.
- that if we don't make those investments and are going to bankrupt us as an example, or they're going
- to become increasingly more expensive to maintain if we don't maintain them now, and that both is a
- guiding element to how we're approaching the budget as sort of like the top level, like this is something,
- so I'm submitting to us that that may be our number one priority, because it's the one very clear thing
- that's coming out of the conversation,
- I don't think that that's contrary to the idea that on top of that, there's a certain amount of things
- that we want to make sure that you're doing.
- which goes hand in hand with two plans that we already have. You know, there's a certain amount
- of maintenance that we want to see, but we also want some real capital investment, right? And so I think
- that you could sort of say that as the philosophy towards whatever we want to call this thing, you know,
- maintaining and improving our infrastructure or something like that, and that there's a paragraph associated
- with that, but then that they're also, I think, maybe our next conversation, and something you might
- want to put on the survey, is like, what type of things do we actually want to see here? I think Councilman Rallo
- brought up some things, certain X percentage of roads paved. I finally got the joke about the reverse
- speed bumps, less speed bumps. So I just think that there's a lot there that's really clear that we're
- really getting on the same page about. Okay. Thank you. So I will try to, when compiling this letter,
- document or whatever, try to finesse that, maintain city assets, potentially breaking it into two things,
- a maintenance and an improvement, or combine them into one and put that on the survey and see how that
- goes. So let's try to move down this list in the context of these questions that Controller McKim gave us.
- So making homelessness brief, rare, and non-repeating, which rose to the top in two different categories,
- and those things underneath it were just other things that rose to the top, or actually got any votes
- at all in some cases that I felt like, well, that really connects in some ways with homelessness.
- And that's the other thing is there were probably a whole other slew of things that we could have put
- under there that also connect to homelessness. So this is another opportunity to be like, hey, put this
- other thing under there too. But the first question is, is making homelessness brief, rare, and non-repeating
- driven by local government? Yes. Is it a measurable outcome? Yes. And is the funding allocation for
- that outcome measurable? Yes.
- That's harder to know. Controller McKim, what do you think about the answers to those three questions?
- I definitely need to have a lot more guidance on that because I would not have necessarily answered
- yes to all those questions. I can tell you, just a highlight of this, I spent all day today with heading
- home, the mayor, people from county council, et cetera.
- talking about some new thing that Heading Home wants to do around homelessness. And it was a very clear
- input-output type of design where you could say we need so many houses, we're going to spend this much
- money on, and that's how we're going to get to functional zero. So people are thinking in those ways,
- and the question becomes, what is the city willing to put
- to make that happen, right? So yeah, I think that is a total thing where you can measure what, now there
- are things that are outside of our control within that realm, but absolutely, it's something that we
- can fund and see outcomes for. So are all of these subcategories then also accurate in terms of like,
- because I guess I'm thinking about number one, is this activity outcome driven by local government?
- And I would not necessarily answer yes to that in this very definitive way.
- Like it, because it does depend on how much money we as government invest or have to invest. But that's,
- and I think that's the key point that, yeah. Yeah, and then if we invest that in this, what are we not
- spending money on? Correct, correct. Control McKim. Yeah, and I guess, so you have five separate kind
- of subtopics under make,
- make homelessness brief, rare, and non-repeating. And I guess to what degree are you addressing just
- that top level number four versus the five bullets under that? You know, I think the answers to those
- questions probably differ for each of those five sub-bullets, like job and wage growth.
- I'm sorry, but there's not that much. Right, yeah, and so that's where like the way that it's like they're
- nested. It's like if this seems like the top level goal and job and wage growth could contribute to
- making homelessness brief, rare, and non-repeating. Increasing coordination of services could help with
- that overall goal. So it's, they're like sub,
- there are more specific outcomes that we could invest in, and that became another, you know, it's those
- nested outcomes, because in theory, we could nest everything under one big outcome. And it really makes
- the mind go like this. I have an important note, just like collective memory note. One of the big discussions
- that we've had over the last year and a half, particularly last year in fiscal committee, is that when
- it gets down to
- How are we going to make homelessness very brief? We chose not to say that we're gonna get into the
- nitty-gritty as a council, all nine of us saying, okay, but we want this, and we don't want this, and
- we don't, at least at this stage, that we're saying, this is what we want you to come and tell us, people
- who are in all of the departments, this is what we're telling you is the priority, so you tell us how
- you're gonna do it, at least at that stage. Now, I think it's useful for us to have the conversation,
- because it's useful for us, I mean, we all have
- areas of expertise where we say, actually, you know, here's some very specific things I'd like to see
- in the budget, but we wanted to make sure that the sort of, what do you call it, the agency of deciding
- how we operationalize that rests with the departments, right? So I think that that helps a little bit
- here, that we don't need to decide, you know, amongst the sub things, all of the things that we want to see.
- the decision will happen at the council meeting. We could then say, I don't like that one, actually.
- I'd like to rather fund this one twice or something like that. Yeah, and so I want to make clear that
- the sub things are things that people voted on. Sometimes they were maybe voted heavily on or had lots
- of points, but I went, this is really a subcategory under this larger thing. Council Member Rosenberger.
- We were just looking for where
- is the vote for job and wage growth? Or did you combine multiple? I know, I know she was saying there
- maybe in other places that, because I was like, is that an economic development? I think it's an economic
- development. And that's where like in, I tried to really lead y'all through my thinking process, but
- then I put it in the packet
- kind of in reverse of the thinking process. So under economic development outcomes, we had wages, jobs,
- and GDP are outpacing population growth as having six points. And then there was also attract employers
- that provide living wage jobs that had four points. And I feel like there was another one too.
- Per capita, oh no, that's not right. There was a tracked 24 to 44 workforce, which was two points, which
- is kind of related to that too. And then there was economic inequality is reduced, which also could
- be wage and job growth. So it wasn't that exact phrase, wage and job growth, but that phrase I thought
- kind of summarized some of the other pieces. Thanks, yeah.
- Other thoughts about housing and homelessness Councilmember Barallo You can hear me When you query council
- Several members said yes, this is government responsibility and you you have some quibble with that and
- No, definitely local government does have a role in reducing homelessness. Yeah, no, my concern was
- just the very high level of the outcome of some of the, particularly with the five sub-bullets. So it
- was actually, my issue was more with the five sub-bullets. Well, let's take a couple, job and wage growth.
- I mean, we get target tax abatements that are specific to companies that are
- raising the wage floor, right? We raise the wage floor of employee salaries in the city, which is a
- minor number of employed people in the city. In terms of mental health and addiction treatment, that's
- probably more county related, but we could have an interlocal.
- You know, I would hope that the new jail would have those services provided because I think that's essential,
- but that's the county, you know, probably. But we're in agreement generally that we have an impact.
- It's just to a greater or lesser degree. And maybe how to categorize it. So in this follow-up survey
- of ranking, should I just
- leave it as make homeless as brief, rare, and non-repeating, and drop all of the sub bullets. I like
- the sub bullets. I mean, it adds a detail that. Well, I think the sub bullets are like how to potentially
- get there. I feel like I'm off again.
- And so I think the question goes back to what Councilmember Sari was pointing out. It's like, do we
- just want to tell the administration, we care about this thing, figure out a way to spend money in a
- way that's going to impact the thing, or do we want to say, we want to impact this thing in this very
- specific way? Yes. I find it helpful.
- I find that those are helpful. They're not exclusive to other means of getting that. And I certainly
- don't want to put parameters that these are the only way in which it can happen. So maybe on the survey
- that I follow up, leave it as make homelessness briefer and non-repeating, but then put these into the
- letter underneath there in ways like this. For example, this is, yeah. Great.
- Any other feedback on number four? I just want to chime in on that, that what you're saying is, I mean,
- I think because we all did the work and you did the work to say these were bullets that got hit on a
- lot, I do think it's useful to include them because it is what we said, like increase affordable housing
- options and early intervention.
- So I think it is good to be like, here are some things that we're thinking about, but the list is not
- exhaustive. Is that right? Great. Yeah. Consumers, sorry. Again, two fingering the same thing. It's
- like you say, I think we have sort of two outputs here. You're going to create another survey for us
- to maybe a little bit to help prioritize. Great. But there's the other side, which is the actual format
- of the letter or whatever resolution or whatever we want to send forth.
- And I think you're already writing some of it, like now. It makes a lot of sense. We say, our priority
- is make homelessness rare, brief, and non-repeating. This is where it ranks within our priorities. And
- here are all of the many ways that we've liked of ways to do it, but we are recognizing that it's not
- the exhaustive list. I mean, right? I mean, I think that's things that we are willing already to fund.
- I think it's a great way of putting it. OK. Are we ready to move on to number five? Great. Increase
- housing diversity within neighborhoods.
- And then underneath that, increased predictability for permanent approvals, increased range of affordable
- housing options, including those with universal design and or environmentally sustainable. And so is
- this outcome or activity driven by local government? Yes. Is it measurable? What, increasing diversity
- of housing? Yeah. Yes. And is the funding allocation for the outcome measurable?
- partially. I feel like I need to follow up with this with number four. The things to keep in mind, number
- four is, does this outcome require direct fiscal investment, staff time, or legislation? And this is
- where I feel like number five, in terms of government role in that, would involve legislation. For example?
- For example? Yeah.
- So this, in terms of the letter, is that this requires staff time legislation for a code change. I have
- it on my cheapish, cheapish to move category. Yeah. But I struggled with it. Councilmember Flaherty.
- Where do existing plans factor into it? I had sort of asked the question, I guess we go through these,
- are we going to request from the administration that they
- share information on this framework, and are we asking them to say what in our city, I don't know. I
- feel like we're a little divorced right now from specific things that are called for in documents that
- I think relative to this exercise are, I don't know, a little bit, went through certainly a much more
- robust process as far as community input, legislative adoption, et cetera.
- So I think there's synergies. We're just not talking about that piece right now. And I'll return to
- the fact that the devil's in the details on all this. I think increased housing diversity within
- neighborhoods. The mayor probably says she's doing that. I disagree. The devil's in the details of what
- policies. There's policies called for in our plans that we're not implementing. So how do we, those
- are measurable.
- they're legislatively adopted, they're in existing plans. How do we make sense of that in the context
- of these priorities? To be honest, I would take this one out of my priority list for 2027 because it's
- legislative, it's cheap, and I think that we should do it in 2026. I would just take that out. That's
- my personal thing is that we could do that this year despite
- staffing challenges. So that's just my position, kind of in that, because that to some degree is up
- to us as a body to figure out ways to do that. And I know that the Mayor's Administration is trying
- to do some different things with permitting already, which we don't have any control over, is that permitting
- piece. But I'll try a little bit. Just because it's legislative doesn't mean it's exclusively our purview.
- We have staff experts in urban planning, for instance. Most legislation comes to the administration.
- And just as a pragmatic matter, it is true that when the administration weighs in heavily on a legislative
- item they did not develop, they're able to affect it to a meaningful degree. And so yes, we can pass
- legislation over their opposition. It doesn't happen often.
- I think we'd be naive to say, because it's legislative, we don't need to put it in a set of priorities
- and get the mayor's buy-in because it's just our job. It just doesn't work like that in practice. Well,
- that's not exactly what I meant, but it's more like we could do that this year. Yes, we could make progress
- later this month. And I mean, some of that is what Director Hiddle was talking about at our meeting
- last week, too. So in some ways, that might be happening this year already. Councilmember Daley? Yeah,
- but I mean, that's exactly what I was just going to say was what Councilmember Flaherty said, is that
- We can legislate. That opens pathways to it. But that doesn't mean anything is going to happen. That's
- the first step. But we need more to happen beyond just us legislating. So I would leave it on here.
- But that's just my vote. Council member, sorry. I think another element of this, agree with both of
- those statements. Another element of this, though, is like staff time, which is a part where we have
- to say justify.
- you know, it sounds meaner than maybe it is, but it's like justify that you need X amount of people
- in X office, because this is the thing we're moving towards. Why is said thing not moving forward, right?
- And it's like, if you're not going to align with our priorities, then we won't fund your activities,
- right? I mean, it's like, it's one way that we could approach such a conversation. So I think it is
- very important, even with things like this, that, you know, many ways could be very cheap to put on,
- to push forward, that we hold the administration to account.
- tell us how you are going to do this this year. And I also, I mean, we had conversations at our very
- first budget meeting around this, you know, and Councilmember Flaherty and I've talked about this on
- the dais, where it's like, I asked a question about, hey, are we going to see some changes towards form-based
- code and whatever, and they're like, yeah, that's what we'll do next year. And so we need to do these
- things this year. And then next year was like, no, we're not gonna do that anytime soon, right? So,
- you know, having a clear conversation
- like that I think is really important that we keep those priorities even if they're cheap.
- Okay. Councilmember Rosenberger. One tiny thing, I didn't, the word affordable was difficult for me
- to sort of understand an increased range of affordable housing options. I mean, did we mean housing
- options or do we mean affordable as in AMI percentages or did we mean different options, different, you know,
- home prices. I take it to mean increased range of housing options. So that particular outcome. Oh, now
- I'm going to have to open up the December thing. That's the first one on my spreadsheet, which means
- that it is one of the ones that came from a plan.
- that Isabel would have marked in the December meeting. And I don't have that particular packet pulled
- up. So that's where you could track that from if you weren't sure about how to interpret that.
- and I actually had a conversation about one of the other ones, and it wasn't that one when we were preparing
- for this, because she had comments. Yeah, and some of these outcomes, whether they came from plans or
- whether they came from individuals suggesting them, they're easily interpretable in different ways.
- But yeah, and that's Gorge 7.
- actually with increased predictability and decreased time for permanent approval, so that's interesting.
- All right, so what I'm hearing so far is that I'm keeping the top level things on the survey and then
- putting the lower level things into the examples. Okay, so we're good on number five then.
- Number six, reduce systemic inequities. Is it an outcome or activity driven by local government?
- Number six, reduce systemic inequities. I will also say that we played with this one a little bit because
- we had these other lower level
- lower level things, the ABC about reducing income inequality, making sure engagement processes are inclusive
- and representative, reducing race and class disparities in our various systems, and those three things
- all received high scores, and this was one of the things Councilmember Piedmont-Smith, as another member
- of the fiscal committee, thought that those should be grouped together differently as opposed to grouping
- them underneath
- other things to pull out and have a whole systematic inequity as sort of category. So I think we're
- still answering the question, is this an activity or outcome driven by local government? Often, yes.
- Most systems are subject to some degree of inequity. It's sort of like the water we swim in.
- We can't control all those systems, but the government interacts with and perpetuates and creates many
- systems. So it's such a broad statement, reduce systemic inequities. But yes, of course, many of the
- things the government does and engages in have systemic inequities that we could work on addressing.
- And having probably some framework, expertise, goals on doing that.
- in our various systems would be helpful. I don't know, in utilities and other services, it's
- not a particularly equitable system when everybody pays the exact same amount. We can't do,
- I don't think, we don't expect the IURC would approve income tiered rates, but something I've contemplated
- is could you do a bill discount that's funded not through the rate base,
- But from the general fund, like when we had a million dollars that we were using for paying off medical
- debt for a limited number of folks in the wake of the LIT increase, that was like part of the like,
- okay, let's focus some on like economic inequities. You could make that go a lot farther if you were
- saying everybody below a certain income threshold who gets city of Bloomington utilities is going to
- get $300 a year off on their bills, you know, part-time or monthly. Like that addresses like a,
- an energy insecurity issue in a fairly broad-based way. Just like, I'm spitballing. Just like an example
- of a thing like people's ability to afford basic needs, basic utilities varies, so it's not an equitable
- system, it's full of inequities. We have limitations in what we can do about that, but there are creative
- ways to do something about it.
- It's just to illustrate that these inequities are everywhere, of course. The transportation system is
- deeply inequitable. And that's part of what our other goals are about. So just sort of saying, yes,
- it's government. For sure. I think the opposite word should be instead of reducing income inequality,
- which is a total order to address income inequality. Because you can address income inequality by, say,
- providing a transportation that obviates need for a car. And rather than
- you know, the idea that we could cut everyone a check or something of a certain, you know, even though
- that's a possibility, too, that we could maybe have some tiered services or something in terms of income.
- But addressing it would be a better word, I think, because reducing it is. I don't mind reduce at the
- high level. I'm fine with address for the sub-bullet. And to me, we have talked about
- operationalizing equity and systematic approaches to equity and equity frameworks like over the last
- couple of budget cycles. We haven't made progress. I know there's been some sort of like preemptive
- Trump compliance kind of stuff thrown about. Again, we've articulated a few examples here. So kind of
- like a procedural equity element of like engagement processes, right? We're talking about income specifically
- and we're talking about the public safety system specifically.
- and particular types of disparities there. But the inequities are much farther reaching than that. There's
- safety inequities in the transportation system. There's on and on. And again, where my mind kind of
- goes on this as far as measurable and outcome, can we measure the funding and all that, it's like we
- don't have a coherent system to try to reduce systemic inequities right now. And if that's the broad
- top line goal here,
- we would have to take steps toward doing that. I think they are measurable. I think you could talk about
- a budget impact. So I guess, yeah, I favor that a little more. I mean, I support the sub-billets too.
- I think they're important areas where we've identified specific, but I just wanted to name, there's
- extend farther than the sub-billets too. Okay. So council member Flaherty just made an argument for,
- is this driven by local government with like, yeah, we can affect certain parts of it. Does anybody
- want to make
- different argument. Councilmember Rosenberger. It's not different. It's not different. I just though
- wanted to say we're talking about what can kind of be measured. Well I'm not to the measured yet. Do
- we want to go to the measured? If we all tend to be like yeah
- Council Member Flaherty made a good argument, so then we can go on to question number two is the outcome
- measurement. I mean, I can weigh on that still, that I think it is a good argument, and I mean, I think
- in terms of equity and inequity in our city, we don't have a, the city doesn't operate with a definition
- of equity, I think. I mean, we, so it's like, there's a long way to go on this one, so I think starting
- would be good.
- Right, like some cities, I think, have great examples of departments and definitions and what that means
- and what can be triggered if it's not getting implemented and things. And so I think that would be great.
- And just something that we've talked about potentially starting to measure is who is engaging publicly
- and who isn't, which is then something to look at to be like, hey, you know, mostly white people are
- speaking at our meetings. And so I guess I just thought about something to measure
- I know other cities do ask people to fill out some demographics and public comment. Okay, great. So
- that addresses the question, is it measurable? So yes, driven by local government to some extent, it
- can be measurable. Certain things can be measurable. Is the funding allocation for that outcome measurable?
- Yes. Okay, great. Can I say one more brief thing on that?
- is that I recently found out through my day job about an organization called Viva DEI. If you go to vivadei.org,
- it's sort of a resource that was set up specifically in the context and the wake of a lot of the sort
- of current federal administration's attacks on the idea of equity and inclusion or the importance of
- diversity and thinking about how we govern or how we do anything. So anyway.
- Lots of cities are still making progress on these issues and I think there's a, yeah, I would encourage
- my colleagues to check it out because I think it can speak to this particular context for this goal.
- Okay. Next, number seven, vibrant and resilient economy. Is it, is the activity or outcome driven by
- local government?
- I think it's very similarly to the homelessness conversation. I think to a large extent, yes. Yes. Is
- everybody good with that yes answer? Is the outcome measurable? So I'll tell you where I struggled here,
- because generally this is a priority for me. But the words vibrant and resilient are words that could
- mean lots of things to lots of people.
- Yeah, so I think we need to operationalize that one a little bit, change that one a bit. So do you think
- that that title, vibrant and resilient economy needs to be adjusted, or do you think that the examples
- underneath it need to be potentially expanded?
- Because there's probably other things that could fit underneath vibrant, resilient economy. And I mean,
- number eight is create vibrant third places, neighborhood hubs, activating vacant spaces. Public spaces
- are high quality, engaging and active. Those things in some ways could combine together. One is more
- talking about social stuff, I think, and one is more talking about economic stuff, which is like social
- community kind of building, which is not necessarily economic. Certainly, you can have a very vibrant
- community that has no money.
- But I'm like, you don't need money to make community. But there's similarities there. So that was a
- question to Council Member Sari for this minute. Do we need to workshop the top level or the bottom?
- Well, actually, I really, this is something Council Member Rosenberger just said that I really agree
- with. I think the issue with the framing currently is that it might lead to a reinforcing of the thing
- that we got last year in our budget, which is,
- Yeah, everything is this, and so you could talk about anything as vibrant and happy economy or whatever
- we said. I do think some of the things under it, wage growth, jobs, increased number of employees living
- and working in Bloomington. I mean, all of those things are the type of things that I'd like to see
- us investing in. But I think we need to workshop this a little bit.
- I mean, it does come directly from one of our plans, but I think we need to workshop a little bit how
- it's framed so that doesn't, you know, it could go in a lot of directions. Okay. Council Member Arano.
- I think the word was operationalized. I think I understand. I mean, number of local, locally owned businesses
- would be a good measure as opposed to businesses that, you know, where profits go somewhere to shareholders far away.
- I think GDP is increasingly a bad measure for economic well-being. I think that you could have one-tenth
- the population profiting very well and 90% doing very poorly and have a positive GDP. So I think we
- need to look into other measures of well-being for the community. And one would be, to what extent do
- we recirculate wealth in the community?
- and that would probably require a consultant or something, but I'd like to see how many dollars recirculate
- as opposed to just exit the community. So. Okay. Income leakage is very important to the economic development
- circles. Okay. So what I hear is you agree with it as a concept, but the title, vibrant and resilient
- economy needs to shift.
- And I'm not actually sure without looking, and I honestly don't want to take the time right now to do
- it because we're kind of running out of time, how much I subcategorized other things under that or whether
- vibrant and resilient economy was one of those things that got the most votes. And if it was, it probably
- comes directly from a plan. So if it did, then I can look back at that December meeting and figure out
- the source with Councilmember Piedmont-Smith and see if there's a way to make that clearer. So if y'all kind of,
- give me grace to do that for the follow-up survey. I suddenly have a whole lot of work to do with a
- follow-up survey. I'll get there. Okay, so create vibrant third places slash neighborhood hubs, is that
- driven by government? Yes. Yes. Okay. Closing Kirkwood as an example. Yeah, is it measurable? Is the
- outcome measurable?
- That was a question I had. What metrics would we be asking to see out of third space? Well, we could
- do attendance at various things like we do for certain Kirkwood events. We could also do the amount
- of events that happen throughout the year, the distribution of events. I know we have a lot on Kirkwood,
- but if we wanted to expand that
- expand the third spaces past Kirkwood, like do we have events going on on the west side, on the east
- side, like simultaneously so that all of our residents can thrive? I think those are all measurable.
- I would also say that a measure of that could be businesses that would move in to different areas to
- create those neighborhood hubs would be something else that was potentially measurable.
- Is this on? Yeah. If we look at our zoning maps, we need to make sure neighborhoods all have areas zoned
- that can be hubs. I think that's the neighborhood hub part of it for me. Yeah. Yeah. All right. And
- is the funding allocation for that outcome measurable? Yeah. OK. Great. Number nine, Bloomington residents
- have options other than uniformed police officers for nonviolent issues.
- Is it driven by government? Is it a measurable outcome? And is the funding allocation measurable? Great.
- Number 10, zero traffic fatalities or serious injuries by 2039. We've already talked about this a little
- bit. And I also put down, just in my notes when we were talking about it before, this question, is this
- also more philosophical? Like Council Member Asari was saying, because is this
- Because it connects to city plans, it's technically a part of the transportation plan. So should this
- just get moved into that paragraph related to implementing the plans that we have and call it out as
- a very specific piece that we want to know and we want to invest in steps?
- I think that question actually helps clarify how the other two operate that we've suggested as sort
- of guiding principles different than this one, because this one is a clear, we have a whole plan for
- this, and us putting this as a priority in our budget is us telling the office of the mayor and the
- city's broader administration to come and tell us, what are you doing this year in funding to move this
- forward? I mean, I think it's super straightforward.
- We want that, we wanna make sure that it stays a priority, and so on and so forth. So does it belong
- in the top level paragraph of implementing? No, it belongs in the survey. I think the part of the top
- level is already covered by do our plans, so the part of the, at the under level is, yeah. Here's one
- that we're calling out. All right, does anybody have any opposing, Council Member Flaherty? I was gonna
- move on to one of the sub bullets, is that okay?
- Just that I'd like to perhaps have a deliberation session next month. I could even lead it on pedestrian
- network being cleared quickly and effectively after snowfall. This is a persistent challenge. Obviously
- existing policy landscape is inadequate. So it's, and this isn't really, I mean it's definitely recovered,
- sorry, it's covered kind of conceptually in the Safe Streets for All action plan.
- but it will entail changes that are probably different and more specific, including funding, all measurable
- for sure, including the outcomes, the impact, that is different than what's in the plan. So that's another
- reason that this, in favor of this sort of being specifically called out. So you want me to pull out
- that? No, no, no, I'm just saying,
- Number item 10 here. Oh should be specifically called out because okay in the List of yeah, okay. Yeah,
- and and that's another like that particular 110 a I think was one of the top however many under
- transportation and I stuck it underneath the zero traffic fatalities or serious injuries because
- You know, it is such a safety impact. And of course, it's other things too. You know, going back to
- Council Member Zulek and what she said in the beginning in terms of her priorities, in terms of making
- sure our residents are able to access the things that they need, that they have the stuff that they
- need. And if you're dependent on the pedestrian network in order to get those things that you need,
- then that really breaks down. So okay, so we're good on that. Strengthen food security networks. Is
- it driven by government?
- entirely, but partially. And by local government specifically? Yes. There are actions we can take to
- improve this, yes. Okay. Might fall under equity, other things like that. I mean, similar to
- other conversations, but there are actions we can take, and food security is something we've all said
- we care about a lot. Okay. By food, yep. Yep. Is the outcome measurable? Yes.
- is the funding allocation for the outcome measurable? Yes. Air quality is maintained at a high level
- and carbon emissions are reduced, driven by local government. Measurable outcome out of funding allocation.
- Can I just ask, are we talking about
- air quality and carbon emissions reduced by the city fleet, or are you just talking overall? I think
- it's overall. That's actually one of those outcomes that is in our climate action plan. So it's overall
- that we want those reductions. And so I think that's one of those things, in terms of actually doing
- it, we can mostly affect what the city itself is doing, because we can't force other people
- to transition, but we can give incentives to people to transition. So there's all those grants through
- the Sustainable and Economic Development Department around adopting other alternatives. There's a whole
- range of policies. Again, a whole plan for it. You have city operations and community-wide, and the
- degree of control varies just like all of these, right? Yeah. Yeah.
- We can control some of it and can't control some of it, of course, because it's not like we live in
- a bubble with only our air quality. We get that nice wildfire smoke sometimes coming from lots of other
- places. So all right, we're good with that. Leave it in there. Waste reduction. Is it affected by government?
- Yes. Is the outcome measurable? Yes. Is the funding allocation measurable?
- What should we do about this crime is reduced? Little note down here. Does anybody want me to go ahead
- and put that into the survey? Council Member Zulek.
- Well, a lot of these sub points, and for anyone who is looking, it is on the same page, on page five
- at the very bottom, crime is reduced. A lot of them are already covered in different categories, so
- I wonder if we could, I think, actually all of them are covered in other categories. I would say that
- crime is reduced is a very broad category, and I think that they fit better in other
- categories if my colleagues agree with me. Agreed. So leave it off because it's covered in other places.
- Yeah. Okay. Council member Rallo. And it also fits into the development of plans where none exist, notably
- public safety, which is, I mean, I think the two primary things that could evolve from is number one,
- there was a CAPS report, which I think is
- is mostly anecdotal, but I think useful. And then there was the Novak report in 2018 for 21st century
- policing, and I think it evolved from that, that gives some information too. But clearly, we need a
- kind of a comprehensive approach to public safety. Agreed. And reducing crime is an outcome of that.
- Here's another kind of question I have around that.
- to make that kind of a 2027 budget priority and this will be like the last thing and then we're going
- to go to public comment. Do we have an expectation in 2027 that it would be a plan that would be developed
- with say a consultant and all of those pieces or would it be something that is developed more in-house through
- a cooperative process between council, administration, police department, community input, CAPS commission,
- all of those things. Because that's a good thing to kind of understand and clarify because I guess that
- kind of, I feel like plans that are done by consultants are usually like, they're like,
- This is a horrible way to say it. They're like, plan plans. Whereas when you do that in-house thing,
- it's more like just a first-level plan that maybe isn't as comprehensive, but at least might get to
- some of what we want to do. I guess I'm just trying to figure out how to write it up and what kind of
- expectation we would have for 2027.
- I guess we'll have a time before we send out the letter of resolution or whatever we sent. But one thing
- that we might want to think about are other sort of guiding principles, right? And last year this came
- up through our budget conversation where we were actually like, and Councilmember Rosenberger said it
- as well, was this idea of like
- less planning, more doing, as one was saying. So I think it would be useful for us to have
- further conversations about that, like how do you wanna guide the question of whether or not and how
- often and how much we engage with consultants as an example, particularly in a restrained resources
- time that if we already have lots of plans and that's sort of principle one or two for us,
- Do we want to put a restriction on and here are the places where we want you to engage with consultants
- and in what ways. Maybe we should consider having a future deliberative session just about this concept
- of a public safety plan and a shared understanding
- I think we all agree on the public safety plan. I was just saying generally, just because you mentioned
- that idea of do we want to get consulted. I do think that's a broader conversation we should have. It
- doesn't have to be a long one, but just a conversation that we have at some point about structuring
- how we as a council would like to see both
- consultants engaged with and then followed through with I think is sort of it's in between those two
- things of the making plans where they don't exist and following through with our plans because since
- I've been on council we have paid for consultants where I haven't seen the results yet you know the
- branding exercise for the city updating permitting like we had all these things somebody to come and
- tell us how to
- tell people about recycling. It was like $300,000. Then these things are just, oh, we did them, and
- then we're on stage 17 of deciding about Indiana Avenue and Kirkwood. It was not fair to say that. I
- don't remember. Councilmember Rallo, did you have something that you wanted to add to that? I know.
- I concur. Okay.
- I did have something to add at the end. I've got two things. The first one is, I like Council Member
- Stossberg, your question that I think could transfer into budget questions for the administration, that
- these are our priorities, but if it isn't a priority or if it's something the administration is like,
- nah, you know.
- year number five, is this the priority for 2027? If not, how should the priority be reflected in 2027?
- I like that, just so like everything gets addressed in some way. I mean, I know we're not at our final
- stages yet, but council member Zulek, I think said like a couple questions that maybe we want answered
- in the budget slides, right? And I think that would be really good too, that like, if not now,
- what kind of prep is there and what is it gonna look like in the next year or something. And then number
- two, just a little bit about the plans. The famous comedian Michelle Wolf likes to say, I've got plans
- on plans on waffles. So, I didn't quite hear you. I've got plans on plans on waffles. It's just nonsense
- sometimes, it's funny.
- So much nonsense, and on that note, Councilmember Asari, President Asari, do you want to take the meeting
- back to go to public comment, or do you want?
- Council Member Zulek, one last comment. Okay, final round of comments. You all have one minute. Well,
- do we want to have public comment first and then final round of comments? Okay, yeah. Let's do public
- comment first and then we can all have a sort of closing comment and then we'll wrap up the meeting.
- So, public comment. Mr. M.G., we'd love to hear from you. Anybody else who'd like to...
- Anybody else, whether you're online or in council chambers, if you'd like to make public comment, same
- rules as normal, three minutes. If you'd like to state your name, that would be wonderful. Are there
- folks online? Yes, there are, but I have a question. Okay, so we'll start here with Mr. Emgy.
- Thank you, Mr. President. Christopher Emgy from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, a 904 membership
- organization, 80% of those local.
- I'm just looking at my notes and we talked a lot about assets and how I sort of saw what are those assets.
- Some of them are very transportation based with the sidewalks, the Indiana projects have been brought
- up. Others are more economic development. I often talk about baseball fields. Frank Southern, we just
- had a pneumonia spill. Those are things that sort of bring in sort of tourists and have an economic vitality.
- That also includes the arts. We have the Waldron and the Buskirk. And then there's more community ones,
- such as the Banneker Center and Alice and Jukebox. So it's very hard to sort of put all of those into
- one umbrella or the term bucket, which I don't like. When we talked about homeless, I think one of the
- things that if the council was sort of centered on is what can we do, what can we fund that can save
- money down the road? These are investments. It's the ounce of prevention.
- So what can we do to maybe save money on businesses for cleanup costs coming from needles and other
- trash? So we've got to look at it with that lens in mind. And then a little bit on the social service
- end. We didn't mention it, I don't think, tonight, but the Jack Hopkins. That's very social service.
- You mentioned in conversations about getting more focused there, maybe increasing that funding and getting
- some very social service, maybe less projects and maybe a little bit bigger from one of our providers
- that sort of looks into that. Cost to move. I liked Council Members Asari on that. What is that going
- to cost? I mean, a lot of these things that I think the council claims it can draw, it doesn't really
- have quite the resources to start really handing out the type of checks, especially in this economic
- environment, SB,
- one that I think that would allow for that. So we've got to make sure we're sort of investing that money
- wisely in the city. And then also looking at in the opposite, what can we cut? What assets do we not
- need? So it's something to look at there. And then we talked about plans. I'll leave you with what I
- scribbled. Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. And I think that sums up
- tonight. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you so much.
- Is there anyone online who would like to make a comment? Yes, we have two hands around. Fantastic. First
- person, you'll be unmuted, and you have three minutes. Hello, this is Kevin Keough. Hey, Kevin.
- Good evening. For the past several months, my public comments have focused on the symptom of our cities
- late publication of the annual comprehensive financial report, the ACFR, along with questions about
- when it's due and are there any consequences to late publications of the ACFR. Today, I'm here to address
- the underlying condition. I'm moving beyond the topic of simple timeliness to the critical legal requirements
- of the single audit report and our contractual bond covenants, also the need to strengthen our local
- government's administrative processes and much needed improvement with internal controls.
- In my recent email inquiries to the State Board of Accounts and responses from Beth Kelly, the Deputy
- State Examiner of the State of Indiana Board of Public Accounts, she was unequivocal. The September
- 30th deadline is not a suggestion. It is a federal regulation mandate under the uniform guidance. This
- deadline exists to ensure