WEBVTT

00:00:00.322 --> 00:00:08.571
- Okay, everybody, it's 6.30 and we have a forum. I don't know if anybody's online yet of council members.

00:00:08.571 --> 00:00:16.505
- I know Dave Rollo said he was gonna be now. Okay, so this is a work session, so just say that you're

00:00:16.505 --> 00:00:24.440
- here. I'm here. I'm here. Okay, great, wow. I said that for the record, but the people are here now.

00:00:24.440 --> 00:00:27.582
- Okay, but Isaka, city council at large.

00:00:27.970 --> 00:00:36.601
- Go ahead, Courtney. Courtney, District 5, Bloomington City Council. Isabelle P. Mopsmith, District 1.

00:00:36.601 --> 00:00:44.894
- Hopi Stosberg, District 3. Sydney Zoellick, District 6. And we may be joined later by Dave Rallo.

00:00:45.186 --> 00:00:51.638
- District four. I don't think that any other colleagues are able to join today. Regrettably, the goal

00:00:51.638 --> 00:00:58.217
- of today's meeting is just to work through a handful of draft or budget amendments to think just think

00:00:58.217 --> 00:01:03.966
- about what we might want to advance. We may not want to advance what we can put together.

00:01:04.066 --> 00:01:10.451
- those type of things. And I know there may be others still working on other ideas. And so also

00:01:10.451 --> 00:01:17.440
- the controllers here, the controller plural is here, too, if you want to ask any questions. But it also

00:01:17.440 --> 00:01:24.295
- might be a good time also for us to think through questions that we might have as well for going into

00:01:24.295 --> 00:01:27.454
- the actual reading. Next week, just for public

00:01:27.714 --> 00:01:33.966
- purposes where today we're not voting on anything. This is just us having an open discussion. And we

00:01:33.966 --> 00:01:40.341
- don't at the moment intend to do public comment, but happy at any moment if anybody wants that to open

00:01:40.341 --> 00:01:46.530
- that up. And so we can do that. I asked earlier before we met, but I think the goal, I mean, sorry,

00:01:46.530 --> 00:01:52.720
- the way that most people want to do this is just go through the amendments as they're listed in the

00:01:52.720 --> 00:01:55.134
- packet. But unless anybody has another

00:01:55.234 --> 00:02:01.582
- idea of how to do this. Okay. And I just note as we do that as well that, you know, obviously the handful

00:02:01.582 --> 00:02:07.870
- of them have some obvious overlaps and we can, you know, sort of highlight those. But I think, you know,

00:02:07.870 --> 00:02:13.979
- there's multiple that look at that ED lit $600, $600,000 reduction, multiple that are looking at that

00:02:13.979 --> 00:02:19.968
- $2.5 million. Okay. So, I mean, obviously we may not have to spend too much time sort of, you know,

00:02:19.968 --> 00:02:25.118
- discussing those specifically, but okay. And let's sort of aim to do about, you know,

00:02:25.570 --> 00:02:32.769
- 10ish minutes per sort of set of things if that, or what do you think? I have no, I'm totally agnostic,

00:02:32.769 --> 00:02:34.846
- but just to set expectations.

00:02:34.978 --> 00:02:42.251
- I think some will naturally take longer than others. Okay, fantastic. At the 10-minute mark, if anyone,

00:02:42.251 --> 00:02:49.595
- we can flag and say, hey, do we need to continue having this conversation? After that, we can talk about

00:02:49.595 --> 00:02:56.798
- action items. Yeah, fantastic. Let's take at the end whatever actions we might want to take with them.

00:02:57.506 --> 00:03:05.204
- Okay, so I think Councilman Stasberg yours is first and again this one that appears a couple of times

00:03:05.204 --> 00:03:13.054
- but you want to talk a bit about it. Sure, it reduces the sanitation subsidy by $600,000 down from from

00:03:13.054 --> 00:03:17.054
- 1.6 million down to 1 million. And that is primarily

00:03:17.410 --> 00:03:24.379
- as a result of the fiscal committee got a presentation from sanitation. And basically, they have a rate

00:03:24.379 --> 00:03:31.146
- increase plan that includes a subsidy of only a million dollars next year. And so that rate increase

00:03:31.146 --> 00:03:37.847
- plan, of course, would have to get approved by all of council. But I mean, there's nothing stopping

00:03:37.847 --> 00:03:44.548
- us from reducing it now. And if that rate increase does not get approved, then we can reallocate it

00:03:44.548 --> 00:03:46.558
- later. But I would, you know,

00:03:46.690 --> 00:03:54.503
- This is the time to cut things if we cut things. Yeah, yeah, they're going to plan on bringing it anyway.

00:03:54.503 --> 00:04:02.242
- And the four fiscal committee members all thought that the plan that they had was a good place to start.

00:04:02.242 --> 00:04:09.982
- So yeah. And then Isabel has the same exact thing on hers. So questions, concerns, thoughts? Makes sense

00:04:09.982 --> 00:04:12.414
- to me. Thanks for working on it.

00:04:12.738 --> 00:04:19.783
- And I think in this particular case, it makes a lot of sense, too, to have that. I mean, I think that

00:04:19.783 --> 00:04:26.829
- we've made very clear that with a lot of things, we're very happy to receive another appropriation if

00:04:26.829 --> 00:04:33.736
- necessary. I think that that sort of flexible approach, you know, makes sense, too. So, yeah. Yeah,

00:04:33.736 --> 00:04:40.366
- I think it is kind of common sense. Great. Isabella, do you just want to co-sponsor this? Yeah.

00:04:40.366 --> 00:04:41.886
- And then... I made...

00:04:43.106 --> 00:04:54.091
- Just a textual amendment to item one, which I put in the document that Larry Allen has. OK. So we just

00:04:54.091 --> 00:05:05.183
- need to make sure that the language is right? Yeah. It's just putting it in a sentence. Exhibit D, DLGF

00:05:05.183 --> 00:05:12.222
- form 1 shall be amended to reduce the appropriation for fund. OK.

00:05:12.674 --> 00:05:22.782
- So will the three of us, you and I and Larry, will work on good final language? Yep. Great. Good stuff.

00:05:22.782 --> 00:05:33.182
- I think we're done with that one. Next. OK, so this budget line is what I believe was the same budget line

00:05:34.114 --> 00:05:42.864
- last year $575,000 for election operations and is now at $1.2 million. So I went ahead and reduced some

00:05:42.864 --> 00:05:51.950
- of that with just some flexibility for inflation and rising costs. Happy to reduce it by more if colleagues

00:05:51.950 --> 00:05:59.774
- are interested, but. Is that something that we have to do, like do we have a say in how much

00:05:59.906 --> 00:06:07.896
- We have say but but does the city isn't that set externally by like the county or something like that?

00:06:07.896 --> 00:06:16.196
- Like how does the how do we determine the 1.2 million? Jeff Jeff controller so actually that line includes

00:06:16.196 --> 00:06:24.574
- several several different things the what was added for the election was six hundred fifty thousand dollars

00:06:24.674 --> 00:06:31.987
- and the 2023 election costs were 471,000. So we felt that the 650,000 was realistic, but that said,

00:06:31.987 --> 00:06:39.666
- yes, you are required that the statute says council shall appropriate, but you don't have to do it right

00:06:39.666 --> 00:06:47.345
- now. You could, I mean, it's perfectly legitimate to cut it and then we will come back for an additional

00:06:47.345 --> 00:06:51.294
- appropriation. Now, just to understand that there are

00:06:51.682 --> 00:06:59.258
- you know, costs and for additional appropriations. But yeah, so basically it is an increase from $471,804

00:06:59.258 --> 00:07:06.692
- to $650,000. What else is in that line? I will have to, I would have to. I feel like I asked a question

00:07:06.692 --> 00:07:13.839
- about that and I'm looking for it. I'm sure that I asked a question about it. So it's in the public

00:07:13.839 --> 00:07:21.630
- works budget, which is a weird place to put the election, but that's apparently just where it's always been.

00:07:22.050 --> 00:07:31.310
- Oh, it's Brighton B-Town. I think they increased Brighton B-Town, and then put 650 in for the general

00:07:31.310 --> 00:07:41.025
- election. Because that's all the same line, right? The 12, 18, 20? Yes. That's the line that we're talking

00:07:41.025 --> 00:07:51.102
- about? Yeah. So per the questionnaire, the questions that we submitted that I'm pretty sure are public record.

00:07:51.618 --> 00:07:59.746
- Right now, I asked for a follow-up, please confirm the other services and charges line and the increase

00:07:59.746 --> 00:08:08.186
- of $1 million from 2026. So Brighton B-Town has $350,000 and the general election city portion is $650,000.

00:08:08.186 --> 00:08:16.158
- I don't know what's left of that though. $350,000 for Brighton B-Town? Yeah. But then there's another

00:08:16.158 --> 00:08:20.222
- $218,000 that's left. I don't know what that's for.

00:08:24.514 --> 00:08:31.304
- Can I ask about the, so I mean, we'll know the cost of the election presumably before the new year,

00:08:31.304 --> 00:08:38.229
- yes? No, it takes some time. It would generally be at the very end of the, it would be the end of 27.

00:08:38.229 --> 00:08:45.223
- Got it, got it, got it, got it. Oh yeah, of course, because it's for the municipal elections of, yeah,

00:08:45.223 --> 00:08:51.198
- it's not for this current midterm, yeah, yeah. Sorry. And yeah, that makes total sense.

00:08:54.754 --> 00:09:21.231
- The other $218,000 is the 2026 adopted budget. So the $350,000 is just the increase in Brighton-Betown.

00:09:21.231 --> 00:09:24.286
- I guess so.

00:09:25.314 --> 00:09:37.652
- Brighton B-Town moved from facilities to the public works. So just moved in location. You remember you

00:09:37.652 --> 00:09:40.766
- all voted on that. Right.

00:10:08.642 --> 00:10:20.898
- the 350K for Brighton B-Town compared with last year's funding for Brighton B-Town. It was in a different

00:10:20.898 --> 00:10:32.459
- division. Sorry, that's only tangentially relevant. I guess while Controller McKim is looking, I'll

00:10:32.459 --> 00:10:34.078
- say that I've

00:10:34.210 --> 00:10:42.539
- I've heard very good feedback about the bright beat-out crew, and I have no interest in messing with

00:10:42.539 --> 00:10:50.867
- that part of the budget. My understanding was that that line was specifically for election purposes.

00:10:50.867 --> 00:10:59.360
- That makes sense. But I will be reducing it to that 218 if we can't get a clear answer. About what the

00:10:59.360 --> 00:11:00.350
- 218 is for?

00:11:00.610 --> 00:11:11.455
- What I'm doing right now, and Jeff could probably find it faster, is I'm trying to find the second quarter,

00:11:11.455 --> 00:11:21.697
- year-to-date expenses, and see what came out of that second quarter. And I'm just taking a minute. So

00:11:21.697 --> 00:11:29.630
- that whole line is $650,000 for the election. There's $2,500 for the election.

00:11:29.890 --> 00:11:38.622
- State Board of Accounts that sanitation pays for auditing an asset management software support at $12,000.

00:11:38.622 --> 00:11:47.028
- Crisis cleanup response at $25,000. Gateway high traffic area beautification and maintenance expenses,

00:11:47.028 --> 00:11:55.189
- $90,000. High priority pedestrian network contracts, no removal, $50,000. Land surveys, title work,

00:11:55.189 --> 00:11:59.678
- appraisals, and small miscellaneous projects, $25,000.

00:11:59.778 --> 00:12:07.046
- And then, sorry, it's 16,000 for the State Board of Accounts annual sanitation utility fee audit.

00:12:07.046 --> 00:12:14.760
- So the $2,500 was an increase in what that fee is for a total of 870,500. So it's a number of different

00:12:14.760 --> 00:12:22.399
- things. A number of the things that you mentioned, Jeff, are Brighton B-Town, right? Yeah, but for the

00:12:22.399 --> 00:12:28.926
- details on that, yeah, we would have to ask Public Works. OK. Thank you. Can I move on?

00:12:29.634 --> 00:12:42.910
- Isma, you're next. Your first one, yeah. Okay, so the first one is to cut the $10,000 that was intended

00:12:42.910 --> 00:12:54.654
- for branding implementation. Happy to jump on as a co-sponsor. We've had that conversation.

00:12:59.522 --> 00:13:07.925
- that's similar, I think a bit more expensive within that same fund. But I mean, if depending on how

00:13:07.925 --> 00:13:16.495
- we all feel happy to also obviously support this one, if the more limited one is preferable. Okay, go

00:13:16.495 --> 00:13:25.150
- on to number two. Okay, this one is to eliminate the position of transportation demand manager in ESD.

00:13:30.402 --> 00:13:39.558
- Is that been vacant? Do you know? Not that long. No, a couple months. Yeah, it's just very recently.

00:13:39.558 --> 00:13:49.167
- It was pretty recent. It was the director of public engagement that was a year. I thought the TDM manager

00:13:49.167 --> 00:13:58.414
- left earlier in the year. I think Isabel's right. Isabel's right. I totally support this. I have one,

00:13:58.414 --> 00:13:59.774
- and obviously,

00:13:59.874 --> 00:14:08.469
- I was just, I'm still working through lots of things. And if we have time, I can share, I'll share sort

00:14:08.469 --> 00:14:16.981
- of my thoughts on this, but I totally support cutting this position. I didn't see that it accomplished

00:14:16.981 --> 00:14:24.254
- much of anything when it was created. Since it was created, I mean, it was supposed to,

00:14:24.738 --> 00:14:33.376
- get more people to carpool or use the bus or bicycle to work. And we have no idea whether it did that.

00:14:33.376 --> 00:14:42.265
- It's also trying to regulate individual people's behavior, which is probably not the best use of taxpayer

00:14:42.265 --> 00:14:50.819
- money. And BT ridership is down, is it not? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, I don't think that that position ever

00:14:50.819 --> 00:14:54.174
- quite did what it was envisioned to do.

00:14:55.202 --> 00:15:05.690
- I'm hoping that as a corollary to this we can keep negotiating with ESD to use that about the same amount

00:15:05.690 --> 00:15:16.179
- of money to hire somebody to work on food security and other climate action plan items. I'm on the city's

00:15:16.179 --> 00:15:23.006
- climate action team and we've been reviewing the climate action plan

00:15:23.106 --> 00:15:31.359
- In the interest of an update that's going to be happening First part of next year or even starting late

00:15:31.359 --> 00:15:39.454
- this year and there are just so many things in there that There are a lot of things in there that are

00:15:39.454 --> 00:15:47.866
- pie in the sky But there are also a lot of things in there that we just don't have enough staff to tackle

00:15:47.866 --> 00:15:49.374
- them and so I know

00:15:50.562 --> 00:15:57.100
- Councilmember Barallo mentioned food systems coordinator. I think that's, we do need to pay more attention

00:15:57.100 --> 00:16:03.210
- to our food systems. I don't know if I would make an exclusive position for that, but I'm hoping to

00:16:03.210 --> 00:16:09.625
- continue negotiating with the administration on using these funds in a different way for sustainability.

00:16:09.625 --> 00:16:15.797
- And I think maybe the approach with some of these new positions too is for us to, via resolution, so

00:16:15.797 --> 00:16:20.318
- that we also can have a broader debate about what, because I think to me,

00:16:20.706 --> 00:16:28.936
- Another proposal would be that you that we allocate funds directly to food organization in town You

00:16:28.936 --> 00:16:37.166
- know that whether us adding a brand new person is the right, you know So I think that's a debate to

00:16:37.166 --> 00:16:45.396
- have but regardless side I support getting rid of this position Transportation a man manager person

00:16:45.396 --> 00:16:48.606
- that is supposed to do XYZ in terms of

00:16:48.706 --> 00:16:55.478
- alternative transportation. I think our planning department is doing really good with that kind of stuff

00:16:55.478 --> 00:17:02.185
- in terms of the outreach that they're doing and the projects that they've been working on. I think that

00:17:02.185 --> 00:17:08.634
- that is making as much difference as that TDM position was. Just note that Council Member Rallo has

00:17:08.634 --> 00:17:15.148
- also joined us. Okay, let's move on to your next one, Council Member Pujosman. I think it's just the

00:17:15.148 --> 00:17:17.470
- salary ordinance of the same, yeah?

00:17:19.458 --> 00:17:31.466
- So do you want to do number three? It looks like that one is also a sanitation one this year. I hope

00:17:31.466 --> 00:17:43.594
- he had some. Scrolling right along. Parking. OK, so I think I thought this was duplicated by somebody

00:17:43.594 --> 00:17:49.182
- somewhere also, but he saw it. So this is two.

00:17:51.234 --> 00:17:58.571
- to cut the placeholder budget allocation for implementing the parking study until we know exactly how

00:17:58.571 --> 00:18:05.764
- they're going to implement it, what they're going to buy, what the money will actually be used for.

00:18:05.764 --> 00:18:13.173
- Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Is that entire account, that $2.5 million, that's the only thing in the other capital

00:18:13.173 --> 00:18:21.086
- outlays? That's what they said, but it's OK. That's what I recall. Is that correct? Yeah, it's just for that.

00:18:21.410 --> 00:18:27.802
- Yes, for parking. For parking in the category four. Yes, that's it. Yeah. And I think, I mean, it's

00:18:27.802 --> 00:18:34.449
- sort of needless to say, but I feel like, you know, this may be, you know, recency bias, but, you know,

00:18:34.449 --> 00:18:41.033
- a handful of things that we implemented that then came back to be like, oh, city council approved this

00:18:41.033 --> 00:18:47.169
- thing, and we're like, wow, maybe wouldn't have approved that if we had been presented with it,

00:18:47.169 --> 00:18:49.278
- you know. And I also just think,

00:18:49.538 --> 00:18:57.522
- Culturally, I like the idea of, you know, let's co-create and force people to do that, so. Yep. Okay,

00:18:57.522 --> 00:19:05.585
- my last one is to reduce the amount of appropriation in the housing trust fund. I think, Isak, you may

00:19:05.585 --> 00:19:13.412
- have had a similar, more drastic fund, perhaps. I left them a million dollars, but I'm for anything

00:19:13.412 --> 00:19:19.518
- beyond that, because Anna Killian Hansen did say, you know, it's important to

00:19:19.810 --> 00:19:26.572
- Have some money available in case there's a quick turnaround needed. Yeah, totally. So that's why I

00:19:26.572 --> 00:19:33.538
- was like, OK, yeah, we'll leave you with a million dollars. But after that, we want to know, you know,

00:19:33.538 --> 00:19:40.368
- what did you use the million for? And why do you need to? I mean, a million, it feels like a lot to,

00:19:40.368 --> 00:19:47.198
- you know, I mean, my thinking, I think, is twofold here. Like, I am fully in support of us deploying

00:19:47.330 --> 00:19:52.700
- all of the funds, as much of the funds as are necessary to address the problem that the vast majority

00:19:52.700 --> 00:19:57.964
- of us say is the biggest thing that we're dealing with in the city, which is the Fort Williamson. I

00:19:57.964 --> 00:20:03.387
- think both historically how this was set up, it was, you know, a sort of, there's a lot of sort of pay

00:20:03.387 --> 00:20:08.651
- to play happening, you know, in some of the accounts. Obviously, we made some adjustments to pilots

00:20:08.651 --> 00:20:12.126
- and those type of things to in fact beef up this type of account.

00:20:12.290 --> 00:20:20.161
- Ideally making it a little bit more, you know, changing the incentives around doing some of those things.

00:20:20.161 --> 00:20:24.542
- But I still feel like, again, and this is, I've, you know,

00:20:24.706 --> 00:20:30.163
- I would like to surface the conversation of how really are we deploying this and are we deploying it

00:20:30.163 --> 00:20:35.673
- to the best of our ability? Because to me, it feels like we just are doing, okay, well, these are the

00:20:35.673 --> 00:20:41.184
- people who are in front of us and we have this much money, so let's spread it out amongst them. Could

00:20:41.184 --> 00:20:46.640
- we do something better? I don't know, but I think that's a conversation that we have to have. I just

00:20:46.640 --> 00:20:52.151
- think that as long as we continue this, just put some money here and we'll talk about this. Come back

00:20:52.151 --> 00:20:54.366
- to us after you spent a million dollars.

00:20:54.466 --> 00:20:59.619
- feels like we're just pushing the can down. Like, let's have the conversation now. And so that's my

00:20:59.619 --> 00:21:04.979
- approach to this thing. Let's hold it. And I mean, we could have this conversation today. We could have

00:21:04.979 --> 00:21:10.132
- this conversation next week or whatever. But I'm just like, I just really want us to, maybe we want

00:21:10.132 --> 00:21:15.285
- to think about putting more money in this fund in some approach. I just think there's a lot of ways

00:21:15.285 --> 00:21:20.541
- that we want to be thinking about this beyond just, there are some people who have applied, and let's

00:21:20.541 --> 00:21:22.654
- give them some money because we have it.

00:21:23.586 --> 00:21:31.803
- I see your point. And we could even have that conversation before January 1st. 100%. And then appropriate

00:21:31.803 --> 00:21:40.098
- it accordingly. I do think that Controller McKim does raise the point that it's like, I think the downside

00:21:40.098 --> 00:21:47.928
- of this approach is one time. And so luckily, we now are willing to discuss things on first reading.

00:21:47.928 --> 00:21:49.246
- Again, we can't.

00:21:49.506 --> 00:21:55.155
- necessarily as easily pass things right away but there's a time thing and there's a cost associated

00:21:55.155 --> 00:22:01.313
- both the time cost and you know noticing cost and things like that of so if we have a lot of these separated

00:22:01.313 --> 00:22:07.076
- ordinances of you know appropriation ordinances just something to keep in our minds but to me this is

00:22:07.076 --> 00:22:10.974
- a big one that you know really does move the needle. Well and I also

00:22:12.546 --> 00:22:18.687
- I have a few concerns about this. One of them is transparency related to these projects. A couple of

00:22:18.687 --> 00:22:24.766
- years ago, that first year that I was here, and I was trying to figure out how some of this housing

00:22:24.766 --> 00:22:30.846
- development money had been spent, and it took some work on behalf of staff to figure out how it had

00:22:30.846 --> 00:22:37.412
- been deployed in the first place, and it shouldn't take that much work, especially when we're supplementing

00:22:37.412 --> 00:22:39.358
- large projects with potentially

00:22:40.194 --> 00:22:48.642
- than a million dollars. And I think that making it go through council for all of it adds a

00:22:48.642 --> 00:22:57.926
- lot of transparency. I emailed Anna asking her, so last year we also did a housing development fund

00:22:57.926 --> 00:23:02.846
- allocation and she had talked about piloting lots of

00:23:03.042 --> 00:23:09.588
- programs about assistance, and I emailed asking the status of those and whether any of the $3 million

00:23:09.588 --> 00:23:13.310
- was going into those, and I've gotten no response at all.

00:23:13.602 --> 00:23:18.716
- And that was probably a week ago. So at this point, I'm kind of like, all right, like, I asked this

00:23:18.716 --> 00:23:23.931
- question a week ago. I'm not getting a response. I'll take it down to zero. And I'm sorry if they're,

00:23:23.931 --> 00:23:29.250
- you know, because I was very excited about those programs. And it's those kinds of smaller allocations,

00:23:29.250 --> 00:23:34.568
- I think, that, you know, those programs we're talking about that I don't want to oversee that are maybe

00:23:34.568 --> 00:23:37.278
- more private or personal because they had to do with

00:23:37.346 --> 00:23:43.926
- More individualized grant kind of stuff smaller amounts of grants for individual people as opposed to

00:23:43.926 --> 00:23:48.958
- developers that were developing larger projects. And so it's those, you know,

00:23:49.538 --> 00:23:56.290
- development projects that I think need to be aired, and not the smaller things. How would you all feel?

00:23:56.290 --> 00:24:03.041
- So should this amendment be introduced and passed, whether mine or Isabel's or Hopi's? I think you have

00:24:03.041 --> 00:24:09.728
- one as well. Oh yeah, we actually co-sponsored the one. I think that I co-sponsored yours, but I can't

00:24:09.728 --> 00:24:11.870
- remember for sure. Yes, you did.

00:24:12.514 --> 00:24:18.499
- of setting up an ad hoc committee for council members to actually work with HEN to rapidly actually

00:24:18.499 --> 00:24:24.545
- address this. So again, it doesn't become a thing like, you come back and then it just happens to be

00:24:24.545 --> 00:24:30.710
- the last thing on our agenda and we're all wanting to move away. So that actually becomes a thing that

00:24:30.710 --> 00:24:36.815
- we focus on and give work hours to that it's not like, hey, we're just cutting this, you go deal with

00:24:36.815 --> 00:24:42.142
- it and then later come back with the same request and we say yes or something like that.

00:24:42.434 --> 00:24:47.468
- I think that we would need to see what hand thinks about that because I'm not sure that they would want

00:24:47.468 --> 00:24:52.453
- to deal with an ad hoc committee. Sure. I mean, or do we want, you know, or, I mean, or attaching some

00:24:52.453 --> 00:24:57.486
- clarity of like, what we want is, you know, come back with this before we allocate, you know, so I just

00:24:57.486 --> 00:25:02.423
- think, I think some direction of some sort, whether we do that by resolution or we could have another

00:25:02.423 --> 00:25:07.360
- working group, I don't know, but we have to figure out some way so it doesn't, you know. I think it's

00:25:07.360 --> 00:25:09.054
- fair considering it's such a large

00:25:09.442 --> 00:25:16.982
- Yes. And again, critical, right? I think we are all the same opinion that we want this money spent and

00:25:16.982 --> 00:25:24.668
- more if necessary. But I just want to make sure that it's moving the needle, right? Yeah. And so I guess

00:25:24.668 --> 00:25:32.427
- there was that sort of resolution or ordinance that you passed a very long time ago after the, I hesitate

00:25:32.427 --> 00:25:33.598
- to say Bearcat,

00:25:33.730 --> 00:25:42.951
- that restricted the police from buying things over a certain dollar amount or something like that. It

00:25:42.951 --> 00:25:51.992
- wasn't just the police. As a matter of fact, I asked the administration a month ago, something, for

00:25:51.992 --> 00:26:01.304
- a list of all capital expenditures in any fund that are over $100,000 to be listed out as part of this

00:26:01.304 --> 00:26:02.750
- budget process.

00:26:03.042 --> 00:26:09.339
- And I'm looking at Jeff, because I hope he remembers this email. And I haven't gotten any response,

00:26:09.339 --> 00:26:15.636
- because we did pass an ordinance after the Bearcat was purchased that said, OK, you have to tell us

00:26:15.636 --> 00:26:22.122
- about capital expenses of $100,000 or more. Because what happened with the Bearcat is that it was just

00:26:22.122 --> 00:26:28.419
- in their capital budget, but they never mentioned it during the budget hearings. And as a matter of

00:26:28.419 --> 00:26:32.638
- fact, the money was supposed to go to something totally different.

00:26:32.930 --> 00:26:38.918
- Capital expense and they just use it for the bear cat and so we were taken by surprise and we want to

00:26:38.918 --> 00:26:44.906
- avoid that happening in the future so Sorry, it kind of what you said just through me on this tangent

00:26:44.906 --> 00:26:50.953
- that yes matter of fact I asked for that and I have not received it and so that could be something too

00:26:50.953 --> 00:26:56.940
- that could almost go along with this concept that like you know, yeah, we we could you know, allocate

00:26:56.940 --> 00:26:59.230
- this money, but then have some kind of

00:26:59.362 --> 00:27:05.310
- something attached to it saying anytime there's more than such and such a dollar amount.

00:27:05.410 --> 00:27:11.190
- that is going to go to one place, then you have to come back for a resolution of approval or something

00:27:11.190 --> 00:27:16.802
- like that. If it's a resolution, then it's only one task or one reading that's not as intense. What

00:27:16.802 --> 00:27:22.638
- I wouldn't want to happen is that you make the incentive to spread the peanut butter thin, where you're

00:27:22.638 --> 00:27:28.586
- just like, well, I'll just do a bunch of 50,000 here, here, here. I also think that this has to be paired

00:27:28.586 --> 00:27:34.198
- with some policy guidance where appropriate from us to say, well, these are the things that we want

00:27:34.198 --> 00:27:35.376
- this money spent on.

00:27:35.376 --> 00:27:41.835
- you know and then figuring out but to your point I think the mechanism of how we yeah how we oversee

00:27:41.835 --> 00:27:48.359
- that then is okay if it's over this maybe yeah right I think there's a similar threshold I'm not sure

00:27:48.359 --> 00:27:54.818
- what it is for the trigger of a request for proposal instead of a professional services contract but

00:27:54.818 --> 00:28:00.766
- I have never gotten a clear answer on what that dollar amount actually is are you asking now

00:28:02.594 --> 00:28:09.955
- I'll have to get you an answer to that, but I did want to answer the question about the capital items.

00:28:09.955 --> 00:28:17.317
- I'll have to go back and see to whom it was sent, but I did upon your email, Isabel, I did create that

00:28:17.317 --> 00:28:24.607
- document and I just shared it with Larry now. I'm sorry if I missed it. No, I may have created it and

00:28:24.607 --> 00:28:32.254
- not sent it. You can share that, but I definitely created it and it is right here and I see Larry's in it.

00:28:32.834 --> 00:28:40.285
- Thank you. For the Housing Development Fund, let's be clear also that it's not being regenerated every

00:28:40.285 --> 00:28:47.664
- year. We're getting hit or miss maybe, and as I think from what I hear from developers, the number of

00:28:47.664 --> 00:28:55.043
- student housing projects is probably slowing down. We're not likely to get big injections of money in

00:28:55.043 --> 00:29:00.830
- there, so we have to be very careful about and strategic about how to spend it.

00:29:01.474 --> 00:29:10.831
- That's what I suspect, yeah. So there is in the linked to the budget Q&A spreadsheet, there is, I think

00:29:10.831 --> 00:29:20.729
- it's linked in there. And I did put in the criteria, the ranking sheet that they use when they get proposals,

00:29:20.729 --> 00:29:30.176
- which looks pretty good to me. But they get proposals on a rolling basis, so how can they really compare

00:29:30.176 --> 00:29:31.166
- proposals?

00:29:31.746 --> 00:29:42.833
- Excellent. You guys happy to move on? Yes. Okay. So I think this is my first one is here. This is already

00:29:42.833 --> 00:29:53.502
- duplicated. So this is the parking meter fund. So we can move to the second one. Okay, the second one

00:29:53.502 --> 00:29:56.222
- I think I've talked about

00:29:56.418 --> 00:30:03.183
- at length already. But this was addressing the purchase of new software in the controller's office.

00:30:03.183 --> 00:30:10.084
- My reason for highlighting it was that in the budget proposal, it said multiple times that the reason

00:30:10.084 --> 00:30:17.187
- to do this is for outcome-based budgeting. And so in the questioning, I asked very clearly, are we going

00:30:17.187 --> 00:30:23.614
- to do a minimum viable product of outcome-based budgeting? And the answer was, no, not really.

00:30:23.746 --> 00:30:31.110
- So that to me is like, I'm like, okay, well, if this is for that, then we should remove it. Since I

00:30:31.110 --> 00:30:38.916
- think both the controller, Director Paycheck, as well as noted that this was actually about other things.

00:30:38.916 --> 00:30:46.280
- So, I mean, I'm happy to be convinced otherwise still. I mean, I think Director Paycheck, you know,

00:30:46.280 --> 00:30:51.582
- is always is very convincing. So, you know, about the sort of real need

00:30:52.418 --> 00:30:59.140
- I do, though, would like to highlight that it's not talked about in the proposal, right? Like, the proposal

00:30:59.140 --> 00:31:05.737
- says, outcome-based budgeting, we'll spend $600,000, and then next year we'll do outcome-based budgeting.

00:31:05.737 --> 00:31:12.459
- So I just felt like that's money we could spend elsewhere if we're not going to do outcome-based budgeting.

00:31:12.459 --> 00:31:18.683
- So that's it on that one. So I guess I would need more information to decide whether or not to vote

00:31:18.683 --> 00:31:21.982
- for this. Does the administration have any response?

00:31:22.082 --> 00:31:29.801
- So the administration is preparing a memo that will address each one of our take on each one of these

00:31:29.801 --> 00:31:37.596
- proposals. And both Rick and Shar and I have all written, provided substantial responses, particularly

00:31:37.596 --> 00:31:45.694
- on this one, because we all feel very strongly about this particular. That you need it for many, yes, yes.

00:31:45.986 --> 00:31:53.329
- both on the HR side, on the core financial side, and on the IT side. But yes, we will provide that,

00:31:53.329 --> 00:32:00.673
- Maria. Sure. Fantastic. Thank you. I kind of remember some of that from budget hearings, and so I'm

00:32:00.673 --> 00:32:08.310
- not in favor of this amendment. I think that that software upgrades sound pretty necessary. Apparently,

00:32:08.310 --> 00:32:11.614
- New World is old enough that it's not really

00:32:12.514 --> 00:32:19.489
- It's not performing for us in the way that we need it to perform. And it's not like the number of times

00:32:19.489 --> 00:32:26.463
- I've said something along the lines of, can we get X, Y, Z in terms of fiscal committee? And the answer

00:32:26.463 --> 00:32:33.237
- is like, yes, we can. I'm going to have to do that on a spreadsheet because I can't just print off a

00:32:33.237 --> 00:32:39.943
- report and make it easy. And so I think that it's. But then last year, we also had something in the

00:32:39.943 --> 00:32:41.150
- budget to update.

00:32:41.410 --> 00:32:48.466
- software systems, no? So there is budget to update HRIS, Human Resources Information System. But the

00:32:48.466 --> 00:32:55.732
- problem is, we can't just do that without, or if we do it, we'd be going kind of in the wrong direction

00:32:55.732 --> 00:33:02.928
- and in the wrong order when what we really need is something where we upgrade core financials and then

00:33:02.928 --> 00:33:10.334
- layer on the HRIS. Yep, yep, yep. Makes sense. Yeah, and I think that Jessica, former controller Jessica,

00:33:11.362 --> 00:33:18.552
- had some kind of add-on for New World that I think just didn't work out in the way that they wanted

00:33:18.552 --> 00:33:25.813
- it to work out because the underlying New World was just, and I'm right about that, right? Yeah. But

00:33:25.813 --> 00:33:33.003
- this is what I wanted to get at is we've already identified the software, how confident are we that

00:33:33.003 --> 00:33:36.670
- it's going to work, so on and so forth. Thank you.

00:33:36.802 --> 00:33:43.109
- So we still would need to go through a procurement process, a selection process, to purchase the,

00:33:43.109 --> 00:33:49.931
- you know, to select and purchase the software. But we would certainly want to include... Software, right?

00:33:49.931 --> 00:33:56.625
- We're actually talking about multiple systems. Well, not necessarily. It would be an ERP, an enterprise

00:33:56.625 --> 00:34:03.254
- resource planning software. For example, our New World system now, by Tyler Systems, incorporates core

00:34:03.254 --> 00:34:04.670
- financials and HR and

00:34:04.770 --> 00:34:14.628
- utility building. It just doesn't do any of them very well. And so chances are the new system that we

00:34:14.628 --> 00:34:25.260
- would move to, which could be an upgraded Tyler system, but it could be a different system, would incorporate

00:34:25.260 --> 00:34:32.702
- all those functions as well. All right. You all happy to move on? Yes. Okay.

00:34:35.138 --> 00:34:45.344
- My next one is cutting studies out of planning. I think last year we talked about wanting to do less

00:34:45.344 --> 00:34:55.550
- studying and more doing, particularly this. I mean, there is the 265,000 for a corridor and sub-area

00:34:55.550 --> 00:35:03.230
- study, and then just generally had 225 for additional studies and projects.

00:35:03.682 --> 00:35:09.442
- don't think we need to be doing studies unless we're going to be very clear on that we're going to be

00:35:09.442 --> 00:35:15.202
- implementing the studies or doing, like that there's some type of follow-on associated with it. Yeah,

00:35:15.202 --> 00:35:20.962
- we spend a lot of money on doing studies that then we don't do. Or by the time we do them, it's like,

00:35:20.962 --> 00:35:26.835
- I mean, you look at some things in like our, in some of our big plans that cost a lot of money and like

00:35:26.835 --> 00:35:31.070
- now we're getting to implement them. And it's like, yeah, this is not even

00:35:31.842 --> 00:35:37.315
- This isn't a relevant data anymore that we're acting on. And so I just think, philosophically, if you

00:35:37.315 --> 00:35:42.735
- really don't have an intention of doing the thing. But again, I get it. You'll be like, OK, well, we

00:35:42.735 --> 00:35:48.477
- won't know if we'll do the thing unless we do the study to tell us what. But I'm just like, we're spending

00:35:48.477 --> 00:35:54.057
- an awful lot of money of doing feasibility things. So that's my take on that one. I think it's a matter

00:35:54.057 --> 00:35:59.692
- of funding, right? You do the study so that you have it ready. When the funding opportunity comes along,

00:35:59.692 --> 00:36:00.926
- you're like, oh, yeah.

00:36:01.314 --> 00:36:08.248
- pull this off the shelf and do this. I mean, theoretically, I don't know if that's actually the way

00:36:08.248 --> 00:36:15.181
- things have been going because I know, I mean, they did the Indiana M. They did the walnut corridor

00:36:15.181 --> 00:36:22.184
- study three or four years ago. I don't know. Whatever happened to that? I don't know. So one thing I

00:36:22.184 --> 00:36:26.622
- remember asking about this last year and one of the things that

00:36:27.234 --> 00:36:34.292
- The response to me, basically, was that studies are different than plans, and so they can last longer

00:36:34.292 --> 00:36:41.212
- on the shelf. And so that's, I think, so if it's three, four, five years old, it's still relatively

00:36:41.212 --> 00:36:48.478
- relevant as opposed to detailed plans, which then are not relevant after one or two years. And so that's

00:36:48.478 --> 00:36:55.606
- where I would need a little bit more information about the studies and where they are in that, because

00:36:55.606 --> 00:36:56.990
- the other thing is,

00:36:57.218 --> 00:37:04.804
- I'm not sure if any of these studies are related to perspective MPO funding because there is MPO funding

00:37:04.804 --> 00:37:12.102
- out like 10 years and so we've got to like do certain studies before we can get that MPO funding and

00:37:12.102 --> 00:37:19.760
- so it like builds upon each other in this very like intricately coordinated way that it's kind of amazing

00:37:19.760 --> 00:37:26.046
- actually that the planners can keep all that straight to be honest. So I would need to

00:37:27.554 --> 00:37:37.039
- have a whole lot more detail about that before I was in support of this. One of these corridor studies

00:37:37.039 --> 00:37:44.958
- is for Kirkwood, right? Might be. I mean, I think so. It's supposed to be early 2027.

00:37:45.442 --> 00:37:51.678
- Yeah. So I would assume that it would be caught up in this. I would not want to cut that because I think

00:37:51.678 --> 00:37:57.677
- that... But what do you think? Do you feel like we're going to get an outcome that you can't already

00:37:57.677 --> 00:38:03.794
- guess? Like, what is it going to tell you that people can walk down the street while people drive down

00:38:03.794 --> 00:38:09.911
- the street? Like, what's the actual objective of studying something that has already been studied? How

00:38:09.911 --> 00:38:13.534
- to do it so that it's not a dead street and it's still safe.

00:38:13.634 --> 00:38:19.565
- But like, okay, but like scope out that study. You don't go like, generally, we're going to do like

00:38:19.565 --> 00:38:25.734
- a Kirkwood study that's going to tell us that that we want a shared street, even though I hope it would

00:38:25.734 --> 00:38:32.318
- tell us how to implement it. It might. Yeah, but that's my point. And again, again, recency bias, perhaps, but

00:38:32.610 --> 00:38:38.530
- look at, look at, hey, we're gonna do a survey of residents, and you make a lot of design choices about

00:38:38.530 --> 00:38:44.279
- how you're hiring people, what you're asking them to find out, how they then design that survey, and

00:38:44.279 --> 00:38:50.143
- then we then receive a word, this isn't useful information, okay, too bad, you paid for it, right? And

00:38:50.143 --> 00:38:55.949
- so I'm like, if you want to study, come and scope out the study and ask for the money for that study.

00:38:55.949 --> 00:39:00.446
- We shouldn't pre-fund studies for you to figure out what study you want to do.

00:39:02.370 --> 00:39:09.135
- I agree. I think that planning studies are different though. I mean, what you were just talking about

00:39:09.135 --> 00:39:15.834
- was surveys and planning studies are different. I don't think that we on council are in any position

00:39:15.834 --> 00:39:22.466
- to judge whether or not a planning study is valid because none of us are planners. That's fair. But

00:39:22.466 --> 00:39:27.838
- I think that the point of the Kirkwood example is we've already set very clearly

00:39:28.002 --> 00:39:35.852
- the administration has already said very clearly what their view is on this. And so I don't understand

00:39:35.852 --> 00:39:43.626
- what you're going to get out of a study beyond status quo. I agree. I think I'm one of the people who

00:39:43.626 --> 00:39:51.248
- says a lot, stop studying and start doing it. Isabel, I think, are we going to do some first names?

00:39:51.248 --> 00:39:56.126
- Yes. I think what you are talking about is a plan, not a study.

00:39:56.322 --> 00:40:03.824
- Like do it, design it, show how we're going to not have it dead. That's not a study. Like we know what

00:40:03.824 --> 00:40:11.180
- businesses think. Like we know what we have feedback from humans, right? Like we don't need to study

00:40:11.180 --> 00:40:18.536
- it. And it's also true that the study will probably be designed to just say. To fit the outcome that

00:40:18.536 --> 00:40:23.998
- we've already set. I made this list a while ago that I like about studies.

00:40:24.770 --> 00:40:34.260
- that they stall controversial decisions, they pacify those opposed, they defer accountability, maintain

00:40:34.260 --> 00:40:43.477
- status quo, and they add cost to more project financial, making them unfeasible financially. So I do

00:40:43.477 --> 00:40:50.686
- think sometimes studies are useful. I think Indiana Avenue got added into this

00:40:51.170 --> 00:40:57.159
- downtown corridor. It's not a corridor. It's five blocks of a street, but I think Indiana Avenue got

00:40:57.159 --> 00:41:03.089
- added into it. I mean, I haven't seen it, but it's like, we just studied it. We just had plans that

00:41:03.089 --> 00:41:09.315
- IU said they didn't like, and then it got trashed. We don't need to study that again. We have an awesome

00:41:09.315 --> 00:41:15.304
- plan sitting in the planning department right now. Like we've had Kirkwood open to people for years.

00:41:15.304 --> 00:41:19.870
- We have ideas, like it's not a new concept across the world. We should just,

00:41:20.226 --> 00:41:28.008
- My only hesitancy is like I think this money should not necessarily be cut but should be put to plants

00:41:28.008 --> 00:41:35.790
- About what exact studies it is that we're talking about cutting I mean as well throughout the Kirkwood

00:41:35.790 --> 00:41:42.590
- study is maybe that's wrapped up in there somewhere But I don't think that we really know

00:41:42.754 --> 00:41:49.169
- Right. That's my point. Come to us and ask for a specific study and we appropriate that money. Or a

00:41:49.169 --> 00:41:55.585
- set of them. If you have them planned out. But I don't get the same philosophy of the parking fund.

00:41:55.585 --> 00:42:02.128
- I don't get the purpose of pre-allocating money for you to then later go and figure out what you want

00:42:02.128 --> 00:42:07.902
- to study. If you have a clear sense of what you want to study, come and tell us that now.

00:42:09.282 --> 00:42:16.441
- Yeah, I mean, in general, that's not the purpose of a budget to allocate money to any projects of anyone's

00:42:16.441 --> 00:42:23.466
- choosing. That's not a budget. Yeah, you don't scope it out later. Yeah. I mean, I think clearer answers

00:42:23.466 --> 00:42:29.086
- on what these studies were for might have not led to this amendment. Yeah, exactly.

00:42:29.378 --> 00:42:35.182
- That's exactly my point. So again, I don't think I'm going to withdraw this one like some of the others

00:42:35.182 --> 00:42:39.646
- that I'll probably withdraw. And again, it's a conversation that has to be had.

00:42:39.810 --> 00:42:46.122
- I mean, you're all welcome to vote how you want to vote, obviously. We don't need to, you know.

00:42:46.122 --> 00:42:52.762
- Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. Here I go. OK, can I move on? OK, number, and you'll note

00:42:52.762 --> 00:42:59.797
- my things jump. So I'm missing number four. Number four has a bunch of positions that I'd like to address.

00:42:59.797 --> 00:43:06.503
- But let's go over the ones that are in the packet first. And if we have time at the end, I'm happy to

00:43:06.503 --> 00:43:09.790
- go over the positions that I've suggested we cut.

00:43:09.922 --> 00:43:16.446
- Number seven is the next one in the in the packet for me.

00:43:17.058 --> 00:43:24.932
- Most of this was just trying my best to identify some areas where we sort of historically overfunded,

00:43:24.932 --> 00:43:32.575
- so where we might have a little bit of wiggle room. You know, happy as appropriate to adjust that.

00:43:32.575 --> 00:43:41.066
- I mean, that's just if maybe I found it, I probably didn't. And a lot of them are, the amounts are relatively

00:43:41.066 --> 00:43:43.614
- small, but they add up to a lot.

00:43:43.682 --> 00:43:49.876
- Which again, maybe it's good to have that cushion room. I mean, that's that's up to you. But the one

00:43:49.876 --> 00:43:56.254
- thing that's separated here that maybe I should have I think I'll separate into a separate amendment is

00:43:57.506 --> 00:44:09.628
- money from the risk management account. So they proposed in the budget proposal and then in answers

00:44:09.628 --> 00:44:21.022
- to questions to add $274,500 or $250 to adding telemetry to the fleet. And it's unclear to me

00:44:21.122 --> 00:44:30.365
- that that is going to lead to future savings or anything that just sort of seems like we can do this.

00:44:30.365 --> 00:44:39.699
- Because I don't know. I don't understand the end goal of better observance of our fleet. So that's why

00:44:39.699 --> 00:44:49.758
- I proposed that. What is telemetry again? It's like seeing how fast people go, how slow people go, use of gas.

00:44:49.890 --> 00:44:56.515
- Things like that. Yeah, I mean, the purpose is to increase safety and reduce accidents. And I mean,

00:44:56.515 --> 00:45:03.273
- Margie will have to, and I know she'll provide a kind of a written response that'll give more detail.

00:45:03.273 --> 00:45:10.031
- But in broad, that's the purpose of the equipment, is to basically monitor the safety compliance with

00:45:10.031 --> 00:45:16.922
- city-owned vehicles that are being used in the conduct of city business to reduce performance. And that

00:45:16.922 --> 00:45:17.982
- costs $274,000?

00:45:18.626 --> 00:45:25.840
- That's my understanding, yeah. I mean, it's equipment in a large number of vehicles. Yeah, so the question

00:45:25.840 --> 00:45:32.650
- is, is that the outcome that you write for an outcome conversation? So may I move on? Yeah, and then

00:45:32.650 --> 00:45:39.931
- all the other ones are just sort of adjustments. And Dave, sorry, we haven't given you a chance to anything

00:45:39.931 --> 00:45:46.674
- that you've been wanting to add. So if I assume you would just pipe in when you wanted to, but just

00:45:46.674 --> 00:45:47.550
- in case not,

00:45:50.178 --> 00:45:57.962
- Yeah, thanks for the opportunity, but I'm just listening at this point. I appreciate it. OK, excellent.

00:45:57.962 --> 00:46:05.822
- Excellent. OK, if I move on. OK, so the first part of this amendment makes reductions because you looked

00:46:05.822 --> 00:46:13.681
- at their spending versus appropriation, and you felt the appropriation was too high. It has historically

00:46:13.681 --> 00:46:19.070
- been too high as well. It's been higher than what they needed. Correct.

00:46:19.426 --> 00:46:27.054
- Yeah. And again, like that, I think I'm happy to separate these out because I think these are, if we

00:46:27.054 --> 00:46:34.607
- found something, hooray. But I think there's a strong argument, like cutting whatever $5,000 from a

00:46:34.607 --> 00:46:42.462
- printing budget or something like that isn't monumental. But when you put it all together, it is a lot.

00:46:42.462 --> 00:46:46.238
- So just also seeing where we have flexible money.

00:46:46.466 --> 00:46:55.608
- Because again, I think this is more of an approach thing than anything. And controller, feel free to

00:46:55.608 --> 00:47:04.478
- tell me I'm wrong. And maybe this is why we need to spend $600,000 on better software, is that we

00:47:05.122 --> 00:47:11.942
- I don't think it's a good thing for us to say every year we budget blah, but then we actually spend

00:47:11.942 --> 00:47:18.967
- blah. So deficits don't really mean anything in the city. I think the more exact we can be, the better

00:47:18.967 --> 00:47:25.992
- in the long run. I will just say that I agree in some ways because there are some things that are kind

00:47:25.992 --> 00:47:29.470
- of spent on a regular basis and you have sort of a

00:47:29.602 --> 00:47:37.016
- and normal burn down rate, there are other things like repairs that may be needed or may not. But if

00:47:37.016 --> 00:47:44.503
- they're needed, they're really needed. That's a great point. So happy to adjust this one or whatever.

00:47:44.503 --> 00:47:52.064
- If it turns out that it's very insignificant, we can pull that back. A lot of these should all be from

00:47:52.064 --> 00:47:55.294
- the general fund. I'll just also say that I

00:47:55.746 --> 00:48:04.527
- agree with Jeff there and I think that it's really hard when budgeting things like this because we don't

00:48:04.527 --> 00:48:13.056
- want them to have to come back with little piddly things throughout the year. Putting in some cushion

00:48:13.056 --> 00:48:21.921
- allows for the unexpected increase in something, the unexpected without them having to panic about having

00:48:21.921 --> 00:48:25.182
- to get some legislation ASAP in there.

00:48:25.954 --> 00:48:36.164
- I don't know the temporary contractual employee for animal control. Why is it underspent historically?

00:48:36.164 --> 00:48:46.573
- Is it because they don't always have the person? So it's those sorts of things. I feel like all of these

00:48:46.573 --> 00:48:49.150
- need a little bit more of

00:48:49.410 --> 00:48:55.858
- Well, do they really need it? And then I feel like if we get into that too much, then we're second guessing

00:48:55.858 --> 00:49:01.888
- what staff already did. So that kind of makes me a little bit shy of this. I think that's great. And

00:49:01.888 --> 00:49:08.098
- if anything in this way, we don't have to spend too much time on this one. I think like we have to wear

00:49:08.098 --> 00:49:14.068
- it. But if anything, like this is also a sort of noticing activity, which is useful, which is just,

00:49:14.068 --> 00:49:16.158
- you know, again, like we have this

00:49:16.418 --> 00:49:23.365
- concept of not having any money. And it's like, well, yeah, there it is. Just like we're choosing to

00:49:23.365 --> 00:49:30.586
- put it in padding as an example. So it's just thought. And the memo will provide a lot of extra guidance

00:49:30.586 --> 00:49:37.602
- and information. Yeah, one helps. One helps. OK. The memo from the administration, the response memo.

00:49:37.602 --> 00:49:43.998
- But I agree. But also, to your point, I understand there's some really, really wide padding.

00:49:44.738 --> 00:49:56.469
- So it might be helpful to narrow it down just for deficit. My next one is very similar to Sydney's,

00:49:56.469 --> 00:50:02.686
- but just a little bit more expansive. That was mine.

00:50:03.074 --> 00:50:12.402
- This is what, yours? Ours. Oh, yours. I don't see which one. Yeah. And I thought we're cutting the branding.

00:50:12.402 --> 00:50:21.131
- Yeah, so cutting the branding. But then there was also some funds for, it was like cabinet leadership

00:50:21.131 --> 00:50:30.287
- development or something like that, which, I mean, you know, lean times. So, I mean, identifying a handful

00:50:30.287 --> 00:50:31.742
- of those things.

00:50:32.482 --> 00:50:40.288
- I'm happy to go with a simpler one if that's what you all prefer. I think that one we'll see, we'll

00:50:40.288 --> 00:50:48.094
- get better information and can better judge that. Okay, my next one, this longer one, this one just

00:50:48.094 --> 00:50:55.198
- reduces travel, at least attempts to reduce travel by 25% across the board. On what basis?

00:50:56.802 --> 00:51:04.073
- No, just to say it looked like if we're gonna, I mean, for starters, the mayor's travel budget went

00:51:04.073 --> 00:51:11.635
- up significantly when it came into office. The clerk's travel budget is high. I think it was just like,

00:51:11.635 --> 00:51:19.124
- you know, and if petrol's going up, so on and so forth, I just think that maybe we should consider why

00:51:19.124 --> 00:51:24.286
- we're traveling, be a bit more, just be a bit more judicious about it.

00:51:28.866 --> 00:51:35.492
- use the clerk's office as an example, but point out that sometimes the travel is tied into requirements

00:51:35.492 --> 00:51:41.927
- for certain positions. So the clerk's office, they're actually required to attain certifications. So

00:51:41.927 --> 00:51:48.426
- they have to go to certain places to get those certification points that are required for their jobs.

00:51:48.426 --> 00:51:55.243
- And those things can cost per person up to, I think, the highest one is about $2,000 per person, including

00:51:55.243 --> 00:51:58.238
- the registration cost, hotel cost, and travel.

00:51:58.402 --> 00:52:05.484
- city did not have to pay for mine for the last four years because the clerks like paid for it because

00:52:05.484 --> 00:52:12.427
- I volunteered my time so that I could offset the city's cost but there are four other people in the

00:52:12.427 --> 00:52:19.371
- office and that will not pay for them to actually maintain their required education costs and there

00:52:19.371 --> 00:52:25.342
- are limitations on what qualifies and what doesn't otherwise I'd have them all taking

00:52:25.602 --> 00:52:31.913
- Yeah, and I think that's like the, you know, it is. It's a modest reduction. It's not like a lot of

00:52:31.913 --> 00:52:38.350
- money, so it's one I'm not particularly glad to, but, you know, again, all of this adds up a lot when

00:52:38.350 --> 00:52:44.976
- you put them together, so. Strikas? Not all these come from the General Fund either, so, you know. Yeah,

00:52:44.976 --> 00:52:51.476
- the ones from the Parking Meter Fund stood out to me, like, why are we funding travel from the Parking

00:52:51.476 --> 00:52:55.326
- Meter Fund? Good question. I'd like to know more about that.

00:52:56.162 --> 00:53:04.343
- For the city council, for our department, I'd like to know how much of our travel funding has been used.

00:53:04.343 --> 00:53:12.446
- I think very few council members use it, but I have. And I think the conferences I've gone to have been

00:53:12.446 --> 00:53:20.237
- quite beneficial. So if I, and I, almost every conference I've paid for something myself because it

00:53:20.237 --> 00:53:21.406
- wasn't enough.

00:53:21.538 --> 00:53:30.513
- I also think that our travel budget for council has not substantially increased in a long time. I have

00:53:30.513 --> 00:53:39.401
- just a general concern with just across the board cuts without individual consideration for anything,

00:53:39.401 --> 00:53:48.638
- and I can appreciate wanting to do that. It seems like you're not targeting anything, but I think that it

00:53:49.058 --> 00:53:57.053
- It matters, the individual things matter, not just in this, but in anything. And I did, I mean, I do

00:53:57.053 --> 00:54:05.049
- think that the clerk's travel and education funding is kind of outpaced based on the number of staff

00:54:05.049 --> 00:54:13.519
- that they have. And there is a split out of that actually in the clerk's memo with travel and registration

00:54:13.519 --> 00:54:16.606
- to the various things and that travel,

00:54:17.218 --> 00:54:24.258
- expectation budget that got laid out there is still less than that 25%. But like $1,000. Like there's

00:54:24.258 --> 00:54:31.436
- still like $1,000 cushion in there based on. Yeah, no, that's fine. Your memo says that the travel that

00:54:31.436 --> 00:54:38.407
- you added up added up to 6,200 in the memo that you gave us. That's assuming only one person goes to

00:54:38.407 --> 00:54:45.378
- all of those laid out, but we're actually expecting a couple of people. That was, by the way, if you

00:54:45.378 --> 00:54:46.206
- really want

00:54:46.626 --> 00:54:56.610
- money map, you should go to that office. Either way, I don't think this one moves the needle all that

00:54:56.610 --> 00:55:06.692
- much. I think it's fine. I think that it is a point that what is that travel for and the holding times

00:55:06.692 --> 00:55:16.382
- thing and how should we be considering that. On the other hand, conferences are really meaningful.

00:55:16.770 --> 00:55:30.288
- Sure. So it's hard to... Okay, I'm going to move on if that's okay. So number 13 from me, this is more

00:55:30.288 --> 00:55:34.750
- of a need more information thing.

00:55:35.234 --> 00:55:42.113
- And I guess I'll get this in the memo. And so I'm not prepared to make an argument for or against this,

00:55:42.113 --> 00:55:48.727
- just simply that it was unclear to me in the presentation, very clearly, what are we licensing, who

00:55:48.727 --> 00:55:55.342
- are the users, utilization, renewals? What is actually being procured with a fairly large amount of

00:55:55.342 --> 00:56:02.750
- money? And so I just wanted to get a sense of what we're spending money on, if we already know or not. So yeah.

00:56:03.874 --> 00:56:12.452
- Why did I reduce it specifically by 90,000 though, actually? Yeah, we couldn't identify that number

00:56:12.452 --> 00:56:21.460
- either, specifically. I'm going to have to go back and look at my notes and figure out why, why. Because

00:56:21.460 --> 00:56:30.638
- this one was not arbitrary, but I'm forgetting now why. I don't know. I do not know why 90,000 was reduced

00:56:30.638 --> 00:56:31.582
- from this.

00:56:32.130 --> 00:56:39.857
- I know the general reason, but I don't know why 90,000 and not 120,000 or something like that, so I'll

00:56:39.857 --> 00:56:47.585
- come back with more information on that one. So no use talking about that one at the moment. Okay, the

00:56:47.585 --> 00:56:56.062
- next one I'm not going to introduce, so if that's okay with you all, I have no interest in introducing that one.

00:56:56.162 --> 00:57:02.984
- initial as we were thinking thinking out loud about things and we can only think in writing so I proposed

00:57:02.984 --> 00:57:09.742
- it in writing but we got the answers last week from director paycheck about that one we're talking about

00:57:09.742 --> 00:57:16.564
- the gasoline and fuel no the next one was the uh the additional the additional um cost of um uh insurance

00:57:16.564 --> 00:57:23.128
- yeah because in the questions the reason i put this one together was because in the questions the way

00:57:23.128 --> 00:57:24.158
- we the way that

00:57:24.290 --> 00:57:29.872
- I think you had framed, or one of the two of us had asked the question, it was framed as though that

00:57:29.872 --> 00:57:35.399
- was a mistake. It was like, oh, we think it might be this, but we found out it's actually this. And

00:57:35.399 --> 00:57:41.092
- then I thought that was just a carryover. And so I was like, OK, well, let's cut that. But then as was

00:57:41.092 --> 00:57:47.006
- described, that was on purpose to cover the cost for employees. But I don't think that's reasonable. Yeah.

00:57:48.898 --> 00:57:55.683
- Number 15, this one I know, Councilor Morrell is not going to like this one, but this was a similar

00:57:55.683 --> 00:58:02.604
- just, I mean, you know, the gasoline increases were quite, quite high and seems like even higher than

00:58:02.604 --> 00:58:09.389
- what we saw for BT. And so, so just pulling, pulling back some of that. But, you know, I think that

00:58:09.389 --> 00:58:16.378
- there's, I think there's a strong argument to keep it, keep it high because we might have a whole fuel

00:58:16.378 --> 00:58:18.142
- recession in a day or so.

00:58:18.690 --> 00:58:28.730
- There's a whole lot of uncertainty right now. We may even come to you for an additional appropriation.

00:58:28.730 --> 00:58:38.478
- Exactly. I'm unlikely to introduce this one either. All right. We're almost done, everybody. Sorry.

00:58:38.478 --> 00:58:39.550
- Number 16.

00:58:39.714 --> 00:58:47.765
- This one is reducing special legal services by 350,000, because I don't think that we're going to continue

00:58:47.765 --> 00:58:55.891
- to try to annex people or sue people or whatever. So sort of thought we don't need to have so much increase

00:58:55.891 --> 00:59:03.791
- in that general service money. And it has been over a year since I've asked Councilor Rice for an update

00:59:03.791 --> 00:59:07.102
- on the annexation lawsuit. Yes. Well, yeah.

00:59:08.098 --> 00:59:16.585
- Just generally, I think we should maybe stop suing people. What was the appropriation last year? What

00:59:16.585 --> 00:59:24.906
- I've said it to. 350,000? Yeah. Should we perhaps reduce it further? I'd be happy to. We reduced it

00:59:24.906 --> 00:59:33.726
- last year from their original proposal to, and yeah. I do think that sometimes we do need outside counsel

00:59:33.726 --> 00:59:37.470
- for bond stuff and for some other stuff, so.

00:59:39.234 --> 00:59:46.195
- And Corporation Counsel Rice is working on a response to this as well. So she'll provide some additional

00:59:46.195 --> 00:59:52.891
- information. If there's anything else you would like to know in that response, please let's voice it

00:59:52.891 --> 00:59:59.853
- and make sure she can get you the information she needs. Is she working on updating us on the annexation

00:59:59.853 --> 01:00:06.814
- lawsuit? Yeah, we would like some updates on the various legal procedures, including the beacon lawsuit.

01:00:08.258 --> 01:00:15.158
- exactly how much money we've spent on all of them. Yeah, how much have we spent? Including the eminent

01:00:15.158 --> 01:00:21.923
- domain lawsuit that we just lost. Yes. What? There's an eminent domain lawsuit? Well, there was, and

01:00:21.923 --> 01:00:28.756
- we lost it. Same. I don't even know about that. It's on our local resource, B-square bulletins. She's

01:00:28.756 --> 01:00:35.454
- referring to the showers must lawsuit where the city department asserted or attempted to assert the

01:00:35.454 --> 01:00:37.598
- user's condemnation, I believe.

01:00:37.794 --> 01:00:48.494
- To get the tenants out? 17, I'm not going to introduce. It was exploring the idea of lowering the cola.

01:00:48.494 --> 01:00:58.783
- One, don't think it moves the needle, but two, also like, you know, like why make people sad for no

01:00:58.783 --> 01:01:02.590
- reason. Number 18. Hold on, hold on.

01:01:02.882 --> 01:01:16.356
- And again, for whoever's listening, because we all can't talk, so if you want to throw an idea out there,

01:01:16.356 --> 01:01:29.576
- here's the idea. All right. Number 18. Number 18 does... So this one is another padding thing that it's

01:01:29.576 --> 01:01:30.974
- like we...

01:01:31.746 --> 01:01:39.572
- I don't, is this the appropriate way to do it? Probably not. I mean, it's like, you know, yeah, this

01:01:39.572 --> 01:01:47.553
- is not the way to do it. So I'm trying to figure out a way to- I'm still scrolling just to get through

01:01:47.553 --> 01:01:55.612
- it. Yeah, yeah. It just applies a 1% vacancy hold back of money, which is also somewhat negated by what

01:01:55.612 --> 01:02:00.958
- I'm going to propose an amendment for. But it's just like, you know,

01:02:01.058 --> 01:02:06.994
- We say every year that we have all this money left over because there's vacancies. So you could hold

01:02:06.994 --> 01:02:13.106
- back 1% and use those funds for something else. Again, of course, it's not because you want to allocate

01:02:13.106 --> 01:02:19.276
- the money so you can actually have the positions. But again, it's just about, is there a way? I'm trying

01:02:19.276 --> 01:02:25.212
- to explore out loud. I'm trying to explore out loud if there's a way to be more precise about how we

01:02:25.212 --> 01:02:29.502
- budget. That's it, right? So I don't know if this is the right approach.

01:02:29.730 --> 01:02:38.799
- A flop. But I don't think, yeah. I think that what we're doing when we allocate for positions and assume

01:02:38.799 --> 01:02:47.954
- positions is that we're saying, yes, we want a person to be doing this thing. And we want that to happen.

01:02:47.954 --> 01:02:56.677
- And if it doesn't happen, then that money just reverts back to the general fund. So it's not like we

01:02:56.677 --> 01:02:59.614
- lose anything, per se, except for

01:02:59.714 --> 01:03:06.607
- whatever work product it is that we really wanted that person to do, but we still are saying at the

01:03:06.607 --> 01:03:13.844
- high level, we want this work product from this position. That's what I think the TDM cut does. It says,

01:03:13.844 --> 01:03:21.012
- this position never delivered the work product that we actually wanted this position to create. Instead

01:03:21.012 --> 01:03:26.526
- of allocating this money toward this position, let's do something else with it.

01:03:26.786 --> 01:03:33.745
- Right now, I just don't think that a vacancy factor makes a substantial difference. And if we're- I

01:03:33.745 --> 01:03:40.704
- think one way, though, you could think about it is something like, so my argument has been that you

01:03:40.704 --> 01:03:47.942
- only deficit spend when you have a real investment to do. And there's lots of ideas that we've floated,

01:03:47.942 --> 01:03:55.806
- lots of things that have been brought up that would be some type of an investment in something vibrant downtown.

01:03:56.194 --> 01:04:01.627
- walkways, whatever. And so one way you could think about this is that, you know, that's an amount of

01:04:01.627 --> 01:04:07.168
- money we should feel fairly comfortable, you know, allocating in additional appropriation and have the

01:04:07.168 --> 01:04:12.762
- sense that like actually, you know, this is this is not really tied up in our budget, roughly speaking,

01:04:12.762 --> 01:04:18.195
- you know, but it's an arbitrary like approximation, right. So, but yeah, I agree with you. I don't I

01:04:18.195 --> 01:04:23.198
- don't think as an amendment, it's it's particularly useful. So I want to introduce that one.

01:04:26.402 --> 01:04:33.594
- That's everything that's in the packet. I have one other thing that I'm happy to talk about, but only

01:04:33.594 --> 01:04:40.998
- if you guys are interested. And I've talked enough at this point, I feel like, for the whole week. Well,

01:04:40.998 --> 01:04:48.120
- I mean, what we're supposed to do here is talk about the ideas and thoughts we have about next week.

01:04:48.120 --> 01:04:55.806
- So if anybody else has any other amendment ideas that didn't make it into the packet, I think we should talk

01:05:02.274 --> 01:05:11.037
- What is your idea? A lot of people are still ruminating. Okay, from Fred, and you know, I don't know.

01:05:11.037 --> 01:05:20.058
- I think that we should also remove the legal risk administrative assistant job in legal and risk. That's

01:05:20.058 --> 01:05:28.649
- a grade four position. Roughly $79,000 fully landed. It is vacant. What position is that? It is the

01:05:28.649 --> 01:05:31.742
- legal stroke risk. She has started.

01:05:32.002 --> 01:05:40.893
- Yeah, she just started. That does not make it. OK. Now, I might still hold the same view. I don't like

01:05:40.893 --> 01:05:49.784
- attaching it to a person's name, but I don't like it. It's this legal risk system. It had been vacant,

01:05:49.784 --> 01:05:58.417
- but it is not. I think the first advertisement failed, and they had to go through the process again

01:05:58.417 --> 01:06:01.438
- to find someone. So it took a lot.

01:06:02.562 --> 01:06:15.064
- I think that we should... Well, on what basis would you cut that line? I think that we are over-investing

01:06:15.064 --> 01:06:26.859
- in risk management in the city. On what basis do you make that judgment? Well, one, I think that we

01:06:26.859 --> 01:06:28.510
- are fairly...

01:06:30.178 --> 01:06:37.089
- And I think that we are, when you think about things like, so risk is also managing these questions

01:06:37.089 --> 01:06:44.414
- of, for example, a free FOIA request, yes. And I don't see that having another person makes FOIA requests

01:06:44.414 --> 01:06:51.324
- go faster. I think it actually makes them go slower. For example. Do those go through risk? Do they

01:06:51.324 --> 01:06:55.678
- go through risk? Or do they go through? They go through legal.

01:06:55.842 --> 01:07:04.149
- They do go through legal. Is legal not the risk people don't work in legal? Legal is over risk, but

01:07:04.149 --> 01:07:12.455
- the risk people are not necessarily working on. I can't say definitively that I think that we don't

01:07:12.455 --> 01:07:18.270
- spend too much money on risk, but I think that there's a lot of risk.

01:07:18.882 --> 01:07:25.472
- And I think that there's a lot of risk because we manage a whole lot of public space as a city. And

01:07:25.472 --> 01:07:32.392
- so there's like constant risk associated with the spaces that we manage because there are a lot of them.

01:07:32.392 --> 01:07:38.718
- And then we also manage a lot of people as employees in terms of their safety. But then we also

01:07:39.010 --> 01:07:46.496
- those people that we're managing are also interacting with the public. And that's a whole nother risk

01:07:46.496 --> 01:07:54.130
- sector in terms of those person to person interactions and how that sometimes might go. So I'm not sure

01:07:54.130 --> 01:07:57.726
- that having a department of three which includes

01:07:58.018 --> 01:08:06.511
- an assistant is necessarily over spending and risk. Yes. I should say something that I should have said

01:08:06.511 --> 01:08:14.677
- something at the beginning. So my approach to all of the vacancies and positions that I'm proposing

01:08:14.677 --> 01:08:22.843
- otherwise to. First is that, I mean, we could start with this question of just, is our budget model

01:08:22.843 --> 01:08:25.374
- sustainable when over the last

01:08:25.474 --> 01:08:32.716
- so many years we've increased what we're spending on on positions by you know 20 plus million dollars

01:08:32.716 --> 01:08:39.887
- and that was before we put the six million dollars and last year which is all I support the goals of

01:08:39.887 --> 01:08:46.987
- doing all that and then we did spend that whole thing I remember all that great but in the long run

01:08:46.987 --> 01:08:54.158
- the proportion of our budget that is that is positions has increased over the last several years and

01:08:54.158 --> 01:08:55.294
- the question is

01:08:55.394 --> 01:09:03.182
- Like, at what point, if we do not expect to see increases in revenue, does that become unsustainable?

01:09:03.182 --> 01:09:10.818
- And so I think that one approach could be that we said something like, you know, the mayor needs to

01:09:10.818 --> 01:09:18.453
- find a million dollars of cuts or something like that. In positions, you tell us which ones, right,

01:09:18.453 --> 01:09:20.286
- is one way of doing it.

01:09:20.578 --> 01:09:26.148
- My approach was saying, okay, let's identify first all of the, I'm sort of like, essentially I have

01:09:26.148 --> 01:09:31.718
- a hiring freeze of vacancies for now. Outside of, you know, I think there's a handful of them that,

01:09:31.718 --> 01:09:36.898
- you know, like you have a grants, like a grants. No, purchasing manager. Purchasing manager,

01:09:36.898 --> 01:09:42.691
- which is like, it's like critical, right? Like, you know, so there's like a handful of things that make

01:09:42.691 --> 01:09:43.582
- a lot of sense.

01:09:43.650 --> 01:09:48.313
- but for us to just continue in the path dependency of like, well, this position is there, let's fill

01:09:48.313 --> 01:09:53.254
- it, and let's just figure out what happens next. I think that, so that's sort of my philosophical approach

01:09:53.254 --> 01:09:57.871
- here. Now there's another set of things which will be more controversial, but I think that in terms

01:09:57.871 --> 01:10:02.719
- of, so I sort of looked at the vast majority of vacant positions, but this position is no longer vacant.

01:10:02.719 --> 01:10:07.429
- So, you know, and saying, okay, like, let's actually talk about what is the real outcome, and is this

01:10:07.429 --> 01:10:12.138
- a critical position, or is this just sort of like, somebody's gonna have to do a little bit more work

01:10:12.138 --> 01:10:13.616
- if this position doesn't exist?

01:10:13.616 --> 01:10:21.974
- So that was my thinking about vacancy specifically, but this one now not being a vacancy moves to a

01:10:21.974 --> 01:10:23.646
- different category.

01:10:23.842 --> 01:10:31.932
- But I do still think that it may make sense for us to ask that there be a significant exploration of

01:10:31.932 --> 01:10:40.101
- how we might have a reduction in force and or some statement that says if you actually think that our

01:10:40.101 --> 01:10:47.390
- revenue is going to go up in the next couple of years and make this more sustainable, then

01:10:47.906 --> 01:10:54.284
- You know, great, but I think every indication has said that we're going in the opposite direction. And

01:10:54.284 --> 01:11:00.477
- let's go in the way, and, and, and, so. I think on the other side of that, where we have personnel,

01:11:00.477 --> 01:11:06.856
- we also have equipment that we're paying insurance on. So I think it would be perhaps helpful, if it's

01:11:06.856 --> 01:11:13.048
- possible, I know it's a very quick turnaround time, to get a full list of all the equipment that we

01:11:13.048 --> 01:11:16.702
- have, what we're paying insurance on, and how we're using.

01:11:16.962 --> 01:11:24.646
- every single piece of medical equipment. Sure. I think this is a great point. This is a great point.

01:11:24.646 --> 01:11:32.255
- So we don't see this amendment, right? This is the one you still have. Yeah, we're not done with it

01:11:32.255 --> 01:11:40.015
- yet. We're not done with it yet. So are there other positions? Yes. The public engagement director in

01:11:40.015 --> 01:11:45.950
- the mayor's office, I think, is worth getting rid of. I think that the second

01:11:46.114 --> 01:11:54.566
- uh, comms position in the mayor's office is worth getting examining. Are these, they're not vacant though?

01:11:54.566 --> 01:12:02.860
- They're not. This one is not vacant. The first one is vacant. The public engagement director. The public

01:12:02.860 --> 01:12:10.996
- engagement is vacant. The, the second comms position is not vacant. I'm happy to give my reasoning for

01:12:10.996 --> 01:12:12.734
- why. Please do. Well,

01:12:13.154 --> 01:12:19.210
- Main reasoning is if you look at the questions that I asked, I said, what would happen if this position

01:12:19.210 --> 01:12:25.150
- doesn't exist? And the answer was that somebody else will have to do a little bit more work. And when

01:12:25.150 --> 01:12:31.206
- I look at how we're doing comms in the city, we've decentralized a lot of comms. And then there is some

01:12:31.206 --> 01:12:37.088
- central capacity for comms in the mayor's office that the very branding report that we just received

01:12:37.088 --> 01:12:41.630
- said very clearly that most of our comms are focused on the mayor themselves.

01:12:41.826 --> 01:12:50.652
- And I think that it doesn't really make a lot of sense to spend, I guess it's like $200,000 fully-lended

01:12:50.652 --> 01:12:59.393
- to do political comms for the mirror. When you have a bunch of comms capabilities, I think that we have

01:12:59.393 --> 01:13:06.622
- to be really then clearer about what are the outcomes that we're getting from sort of

01:13:06.914 --> 01:13:15.873
- our comms capabilities and where do those best sit? I think that's a hard conversation to have, but

01:13:15.873 --> 01:13:25.011
- I think it's a conversation that we have to have. I get it, I won't be invited to the dinner party or

01:13:25.011 --> 01:13:34.059
- whatever, but I think that's a conversation that is much needed. I also think that we have plenty of

01:13:34.059 --> 01:13:36.030
- recent examples where

01:13:36.162 --> 01:13:42.785
- they say that the main outcome of comms is, so my question was, okay, why don't we just let all of the

01:13:42.785 --> 01:13:49.280
- departments do comms, right? Because everybody has access, they all send out press releases as well,

01:13:49.280 --> 01:13:55.968
- so why not just have those departments do it? And the main argument is that you need this for critical,

01:13:55.968 --> 01:14:02.591
- what do you call it, like crisis communication? And exhibit A is we just had a boil water thing happen

01:14:02.591 --> 01:14:06.128
- all across the city that didn't go out until midnight,

01:14:06.128 --> 01:14:12.029
- My understanding is that we found out about that at five. I don't know, sort of feels like that's a

01:14:12.029 --> 01:14:18.167
- crisis. And so if centralizing that slows that down, it's a conversation we should be having about does

01:14:18.167 --> 01:14:24.422
- it make more sense to put this somewhere else? Should this be in another office? Should this be in public

01:14:24.422 --> 01:14:30.737
- work? Should this be in something like that? So to that end, as to force that conversation, I also propose

01:14:30.737 --> 01:14:34.750
- that we only fund the communications director for half of the year.

01:14:34.914 --> 01:14:42.977
- so that that conversation has to be had before it proves that outcomes are justified by what we're spending

01:14:42.977 --> 01:14:50.741
- on it. I agree. I think that when you have the comms position in the mayor's office, it turns political

01:14:50.741 --> 01:14:57.758
- in a way that it doesn't necessarily need to be. And so now a lot of things become PR issues.

01:14:57.858 --> 01:15:04.378
- when it should be about, how is the government supposed to work? Or how do I get to the event that's

01:15:04.378 --> 01:15:08.574
- happening? And the amount of comms that are, the event happened.

01:15:08.642 --> 01:15:14.361
- Wasn't it awesome that somebody was there? And I could go on and on about so many examples of that,

01:15:14.361 --> 01:15:20.079
- where I've been wanting to go to a bank, can't figure out what's going on. And I think that there's

01:15:20.079 --> 01:15:25.970
- a clear standard. We also know that there's been a lot of times where the press have asked for things,

01:15:25.970 --> 01:15:31.688
- or they've chosen to give only certain press outlets certain information, or where they take a long

01:15:31.688 --> 01:15:37.464
- time to get the press information before things happen. All of those type of questions, I think, are

01:15:37.464 --> 01:15:38.608
- critical to the way

01:15:38.608 --> 01:15:45.192
- functioning not only of our democracy, but of our city government. And I think it's anathema to a lot

01:15:45.192 --> 01:15:51.969
- of the things that we say are high priorities, like transparency and accessible government and all those

01:15:51.969 --> 01:15:58.747
- other things. So put in a spotlight on that. I would also like to see better communication with council.

01:15:58.747 --> 01:16:05.331
- Internal comms are lacking. Well, to that end, I also propose that we examine the legislative affairs

01:16:05.331 --> 01:16:06.686
- specialist position.

01:16:10.498 --> 01:16:18.288
- Again, I don't have friends. Then I think similarly, Parks has a Community Relations Manager. I think

01:16:18.288 --> 01:16:25.924
- there's a question there, and then there's a Health and Wellness Coordinator. I think those two are

01:16:25.924 --> 01:16:33.790
- vacant. Are they filled? I think the Health and Wellness Coordinator got filled. This is why I'm still

01:16:33.790 --> 01:16:39.518
- working on this one because I wasn't clear on what's vacant or what's not.

01:16:43.682 --> 01:16:50.733
- I think it's good to entertain all of those. I just did a little Googling about where two cities house

01:16:50.733 --> 01:16:57.989
- communications, and it's kind of a mixed bag mess. I think, again, it's worth us being clear about what's

01:16:57.989 --> 01:17:05.177
- going on and what's the direction going forward. What was the other thing in parks besides the community

01:17:05.177 --> 01:17:12.638
- relations manager? So the community relations manager, which I think is vacant. Community relations manager?

01:17:16.034 --> 01:17:28.173
- You mean the community events coordinator? Let me pull it up. Give me a second. Community relations.

01:17:28.173 --> 01:17:40.553
- What was it called? Oh, community relations manager. Yes. That's the actual title? That is filled. Oh,

01:17:40.553 --> 01:17:43.678
- that's a filled position?

01:17:44.066 --> 01:17:50.748
- says it's filled in our 2027 budget thing. Okay. I might be wrong. So again, like this was wasn't ready.

01:17:50.748 --> 01:17:57.494
- In the original budget, the health and wellness coordinator was open and the program facility coordinator

01:17:57.494 --> 01:18:03.985
- on community events was open. Okay. So I think that both of those might be filled now. Okay. So yeah.

01:18:03.985 --> 01:18:10.859
- So all of this, this is just me speaking in this context. When we have some clarity on those, I'll finalize

01:18:10.859 --> 01:18:13.086
- that obviously before the meeting.

01:18:13.666 --> 01:18:21.264
- Yeah, I don't mind thinking about some kind of hiring freeze if we're really looking at cutting some

01:18:21.264 --> 01:18:28.862
- expenses that is non-essential. I mean, that's just a code phrase, right? And how do we define that?

01:18:28.862 --> 01:18:36.460
- That would be something we would need to discuss, I guess. I appreciate the work you've done on this

01:18:36.460 --> 01:18:43.230
- part. And then the very last thing. I have one more thing, I guess, kind of on that note.

01:18:43.362 --> 01:18:55.017
- that I hesitate to cut positions before we actually have to in terms of the big financial picture. Yes,

01:18:55.017 --> 01:19:02.974
- we're going to maybe really have to slice next year or the year after.

01:19:03.074 --> 01:19:09.629
- in terms of 2028, 2029, but do we really need to do that to our staff in 2027? I think that any time

01:19:09.629 --> 01:19:16.379
- we talk about doing that, you want to know what people are going to start doing, they're going to start

01:19:16.379 --> 01:19:23.128
- leaving before we actually want them to, and then we're going to struggle as a community. So I'm really

01:19:23.128 --> 01:19:29.748
- nervous about cutting any positions or de-prioritizing our staff in any way. I think that's a totally

01:19:29.748 --> 01:19:30.462
- fair and I

01:19:30.562 --> 01:19:39.501
- You know, it might sound like I'm of two minds. I share that approach as well, which is also why thinking

01:19:39.501 --> 01:19:48.103
- about, OK, let's think about vacant positions for sure. But then I also do think that we can consider

01:19:48.103 --> 01:19:56.030
- if we are not happy with particular policy directions, outcomes associated with current jobs,

01:19:56.290 --> 01:20:03.645
- that we need to figure out some way of having that conversation. And it's like, how else do you have

01:20:03.645 --> 01:20:11.582
- that conversation of like, look, you know, everything that you're doing right now is outside of how we feel.

01:20:11.778 --> 01:20:17.338
- you know, taking, you know, and again, this is not any knock on a particular person. It's, I think,

01:20:17.338 --> 01:20:22.899
- of the structure of the job itself, you know, and I feel like we have been bringing these things up

01:20:22.899 --> 01:20:29.182
- for, you know, the three years that I've been on council, but then it's like, oh yeah, we're gonna address that.

01:20:29.346 --> 01:20:34.814
- We've all known that the transportation demand manager was not a meaningful position for years.

01:20:34.814 --> 01:20:40.566
- But yet, every year we just kept doing it because we had a person in the position. So at some point,

01:20:40.566 --> 01:20:46.262
- we could have deployed that same capital, even the same person, in another way. But we have to have

01:20:46.262 --> 01:20:52.128
- that uncomfortable conversation of, wait, is this working the way that we want it to? And not, is this

01:20:52.128 --> 01:20:56.286
- person good? That's not the question. We have the most incredible people

01:20:56.450 --> 01:21:05.575
- But I think often deployed in ways that maybe could be done differently. We can't change job descriptions.

01:21:05.575 --> 01:21:14.188
- Sometimes it could be easier. And I think some of the... But it's outside of our scope. So our scope

01:21:14.188 --> 01:21:20.158
- is whether you fund something. Right. Like TDM, that was a big thing.

01:21:20.450 --> 01:21:28.964
- last term that it wasn't put in a proper department. Transportation demand management is planning and

01:21:28.964 --> 01:21:37.562
- transportation, right? And it was never created to be an effective job, I would say. That was correct,

01:21:37.562 --> 01:21:46.077
- right? It never was used the way TDM should be used. But I mean, something we've talked about too is,

01:21:46.077 --> 01:21:48.414
- like that one specifically,

01:21:48.994 --> 01:21:57.168
- our city would benefit from having TDM. But it's going to happen under this administration. You have

01:21:57.168 --> 01:22:05.505
- to be interested in managing your transportation in a way that might not be super appealing to people,

01:22:05.505 --> 01:22:14.974
- I would say. So that's hard. I think, too, some of the positions you're talking about in the administration's office

01:22:16.418 --> 01:22:24.986
- It's coming from that branding study that says this is mayoral promotion and doesn't make sense necessarily.

01:22:24.986 --> 01:22:32.926
- And then community members feedback, I think, too, just saying that's not how they maybe imagined an

01:22:32.926 --> 01:22:41.336
- Instagram or Facebook. The idea that social media is a pretty quick way to get information out of anything

01:22:41.336 --> 01:22:44.638
- going on. It's not exactly how it's used.

01:22:44.898 --> 01:22:59.262
- but we can't change that job description, right? What were the other, were you done? The last thing,

01:22:59.262 --> 01:23:13.342
- and then I will stop talking for the rest of the time. So I think in a similar vein, the, I think,

01:23:14.658 --> 01:23:24.651
- that our economic and sustainable development department as a whole has become, I think has been built,

01:23:24.651 --> 01:23:34.453
- grown in a way that isn't optimal, I think. I think there's lots of those functions that should maybe

01:23:34.453 --> 01:23:44.158
- happen elsewhere, should happen outside of the city, should happen in other departments in the city.

01:23:44.322 --> 01:23:53.310
- And I think talking to stakeholders in economic development that the sentiment is that we would get

01:23:53.310 --> 01:24:02.478
- a lot more out of our economic development activities if you went back to the pre-ESD structure where

01:24:02.478 --> 01:24:12.184
- you have a point person for economic development in the mayor's office who's fully empowered to be economic

01:24:12.184 --> 01:24:13.982
- development person.

01:24:14.402 --> 01:24:21.622
- and that you redistributed some of those functions to other places, like sustainability should probably

01:24:21.622 --> 01:24:28.703
- be in parks or something like that, or in planning and transportation. And that you actually then put

01:24:28.703 --> 01:24:36.269
- money into the community to run some of these things. And I'll give an example, like the overhead associated

01:24:36.269 --> 01:24:40.990
- with us administering our arts program is large and growing, right?

01:24:41.378 --> 01:24:50.779
- And I'm like, we should be funding it and funding it more, but we are creating a bureaucratic system

01:24:50.779 --> 01:25:00.366
- that's not serving the community the way that the intended recipients totally intend while raising the

01:25:00.366 --> 01:25:06.974
- overhead cost of that. And so in other words, we've created a position

01:25:07.202 --> 01:25:15.451
- that then has created a process that necessitates the position existing. And so I think that we should

01:25:15.451 --> 01:25:23.459
- address that question. And again, one of the ways that you can address that is by you fund that for

01:25:23.459 --> 01:25:31.548
- half of the year so that it forces us to have that conversation. Fund what for half of the year? All

01:25:31.548 --> 01:25:33.310
- of the ESD positions.

01:25:35.138 --> 01:25:43.646
- know that I love the idea of funding anything for just half the year, because half the year ends in

01:25:43.646 --> 01:25:52.324
- July, and we go on recess somewhere in June. And I think that that almost doesn't give enough time to

01:25:52.324 --> 01:26:01.002
- properly prepare for that. I just think that that would be hard, especially because of how the budget

01:26:01.002 --> 01:26:05.086
- calendar works in terms of what staff has to do

01:26:05.282 --> 01:26:15.118
- between March and June, March and July. I don't know how practical it is. I feel like it's more practical

01:26:15.118 --> 01:26:23.934
- to put it on notice and say, hey, this time next year, we want an entirely different proposal.

01:26:24.194 --> 01:26:30.636
- But what's the teeth for that, right? That's true. That's true. That's true. What is the teeth for that?

01:26:30.636 --> 01:26:36.832
- This is where I totally agree. That is my preferred approach, but that's the approach I've taken for

01:26:36.832 --> 01:26:37.630
- three years.

01:26:37.730 --> 01:26:42.768
- Right? Where I'm like, look, these are some things we should change. And it was like, yeah, yeah, we

01:26:42.768 --> 01:26:47.856
- should change those things. Yeah, we all agree. Yeah, change. I'm not saying us. I'm saying, like, we

01:26:47.856 --> 01:26:52.894
- can talk to stakeholders. And then come back next year. And it's like, ah, well, this isn't the year

01:26:52.894 --> 01:26:57.982
- to do it. Let's do it next year. Like, if we fund it for, say, nine months instead, then that gets us

01:26:57.982 --> 01:26:59.678
- through that budget season of OK.

01:26:59.746 --> 01:27:06.113
- how are you rethinking it next year? The six months, I guess, is the thing. I don't love six months

01:27:06.113 --> 01:27:12.735
- because of how that falls. I'm totally open to play. I'm also open with us as a council. I'm not trying

01:27:12.735 --> 01:27:19.102
- to force my will here or anything. I'm just trying to like, hey, there's some conversations that we

01:27:19.102 --> 01:27:25.342
- have to have and I think there's other conversations that we should have too. I only have so much

01:27:25.826 --> 01:27:32.186
- energy to fight them all. But like, but I think that that's a way of starting, starting this process.

01:27:32.186 --> 01:27:38.484
- It's like, look, like, you know, I think this has been a fairly clear direction that a lot of people

01:27:38.484 --> 01:27:45.156
- said, that's been echoed in a lot of different ways that, you know, and like, how do we how do we actually

01:27:45.156 --> 01:27:51.828
- have that conversation? Like, you know, and so this is available to us. I mean, you're on several economic

01:27:51.828 --> 01:27:53.886
- development related commissions.

01:27:54.178 --> 01:28:02.178
- I am not, so this is the first time hearing of the city is not the best entity to handle these things.

01:28:02.178 --> 01:28:10.177
- So I would need a whole lot more information before I cut anything in ESD. I mean, you heard me at the

01:28:10.177 --> 01:28:18.487
- budget hearings. I think it is a department that's cobbled together by three, you know, with three totally

01:28:18.487 --> 01:28:22.526
- different kind of goals in mind. So I do think that

01:28:22.722 --> 01:28:31.449
- it should be reorganized. I just don't have enough information to say, oh, well, the chamber should

01:28:31.449 --> 01:28:40.525
- be doing this or some other arts organization should be doing this or farming out these pieces. I mean,

01:28:40.525 --> 01:28:48.990
- when the assistant director for sustainability position was created, Andy, Dave and I were like,

01:28:49.474 --> 01:28:59.553
- That should be its own department. That should not be an ESD. It made no sense to us. We took it because

01:28:59.553 --> 01:29:09.631
- that was all we got under that mayor. So I definitely think I would like a workshop to try to understand

01:29:09.631 --> 01:29:17.406
- more from the ED perspective. And I have worked with sustainability perspective.

01:29:18.882 --> 01:29:25.923
- But I don't know if between now and next Wednesday, or of course, we don't have to vote next Wednesday.

01:29:25.923 --> 01:29:32.760
- But that's also why my approach here is saying you say it's nine months, whatever it is, six months,

01:29:32.760 --> 01:29:40.004
- to force us to have that conversation. But if you were an employee in ESD and you heard it was six months,

01:29:40.004 --> 01:29:46.910
- wouldn't you start looking for another job? Yeah, so then how else do you have that conversation? The

01:29:46.910 --> 01:29:48.670
- hard part is we shouldn't

01:29:49.602 --> 01:29:55.425
- be in this position that we have to threaten? I would say there's a threat. I see it as a, like...

01:29:55.425 --> 01:30:01.483
- I mean, it should be easier to have this conversation, is what I'm saying. We shouldn't have to say...

01:30:01.483 --> 01:30:07.423
- And if we fully adopted outcome-based budgeting, that conversation would have been part of it. We're

01:30:07.423 --> 01:30:13.364
- going to try to make you talk to us by saying we're not funding these in nine months. Like, that is,

01:30:13.364 --> 01:30:19.422
- like, an insanely weird thing. But it's like, this is where we are. At no fault of our own. I think...

01:30:19.618 --> 01:30:26.810
- I think it's neat to have curiosity around. I am more interested in maybe a path that is, and I don't

01:30:26.810 --> 01:30:34.073
- know how we do this with the budget, dispersing the positions into maybe departments where they should

01:30:34.073 --> 01:30:41.124
- be. Or like you were saying, ED used to be in the mayor's office. We've talked a lot about having a

01:30:41.124 --> 01:30:45.566
- climate director, cabinet level position, and never gotten it.

01:30:45.890 --> 01:30:54.180
- There's some time here. We can't create those positions, but it's a neat time when council is a little

01:30:54.180 --> 01:31:02.068
- more willing to talk about it, I think, at least amongst yourselves. Can we create positions? No.

01:31:02.068 --> 01:31:10.198
- We can't? I don't think so. We can't? No. Looking at Larry. I think that one thing that we also need

01:31:10.198 --> 01:31:14.142
- to remember when we think about new departments,

01:31:14.274 --> 01:31:20.517
- you know, department heads end up being appointed by the mayor. And that's a different thing than being

01:31:20.517 --> 01:31:26.521
- hired. And there's different job protections when you're hired, as opposed to when you're appointed

01:31:26.521 --> 01:31:32.584
- by the mayor. And then there's different reporting, different, you know? And really, the mayor could

01:31:32.584 --> 01:31:38.647
- appoint anybody, you know? And this is, once again, not personal at all. Like, I'm not talking about

01:31:38.647 --> 01:31:43.870
- our current mayor. I'm just saying, in theory, that structure, like, the mayor doesn't

01:31:44.034 --> 01:31:52.033
- the mayor does not have to appoint somebody who's actually qualified. They can appoint whoever they

01:31:52.033 --> 01:32:00.272
- want. That makes me very wary of saying, let's make a whole department that is sustainability. Because

01:32:00.272 --> 01:32:08.591
- then it's like, well, are we going to always be guaranteed that we're going to have a mayor who's going

01:32:08.591 --> 01:32:13.150
- to appoint somebody who's definitely qualified for that?

01:32:13.762 --> 01:32:20.641
- kind of position. Well, we don't know that about Annie. Yeah. That's true, but I'm just saying that

01:32:20.641 --> 01:32:27.588
- I think that we should be. And the oral appointment is firing that position either way. So it's like

01:32:27.588 --> 01:32:34.604
- you can have, I mean, I've always also thought that I wouldn't stick on that. Well, we can take it as

01:32:34.604 --> 01:32:41.689
- a good signal. Yeah, you can. Is it on here? No. No, you can, I think you can just. It's for the wall?

01:32:41.689 --> 01:32:43.134
- That's for the wall.

01:32:43.298 --> 01:32:49.882
- Yeah. I don't know. Just maybe, where do I? They're OK, but no, there's not. No, I think you just click

01:32:49.882 --> 01:32:55.390
- OK. I think it's just time. Yeah, I think it's just time. We can take it as a sign to.

01:32:55.522 --> 01:33:01.626
- Finish. I don't think we should do that. No, can you just pause for a moment? Because I don't know how

01:33:01.626 --> 01:33:07.788
- to get into this. Everyone, if we lose you online, it was. I think you lost them. We already lost them.

01:33:07.788 --> 01:33:13.833
- No, no, no. They're still there. I did that twice. I think last time this has happened, they've said,

01:33:13.833 --> 01:33:19.818
- OK. We don't know what will happen. Literally type in, OK? Well, that's what we thought was going to

01:33:19.818 --> 01:33:23.966
- happen. We're still online. We're still online. You can still see it.

01:33:24.226 --> 01:33:35.134
- Yeah, it's just, there we go. Oh, OK. Well, that was much to do about that thing. Thank you. Did you

01:33:35.134 --> 01:33:46.042
- try turning it off and turning it on? It was just so dramatic. Anyways, OK, so what are our actions,

01:33:46.042 --> 01:33:54.142
- friends, moving? What is the actions? Well, I, for one, need to see these.

01:33:54.466 --> 01:34:01.073
- And that's just about this. All of the things. Yes. About all of the things. Oh, all of the things?

01:34:01.073 --> 01:34:08.077
- Yes. I don't got anything else about all of the things. Are there any other amendments that we're working

01:34:08.077 --> 01:34:15.015
- on to flag? Did I miss the Housing Development Fund? Where is that? Yeah, we talked about that in depth.

01:34:15.015 --> 01:34:19.838
- Okay. We can go back to that. No, I'm fine. I've talked about it enough.

01:34:22.530 --> 01:34:30.184
- Can I make a process comment? Yes, please. Just so everybody understands that if you do decide to make

01:34:30.184 --> 01:34:37.838
- cuts, say, in the budget adoption meeting next Wednesday, you would then have to continue that meeting

01:34:37.838 --> 01:34:45.417
- to a future date and have another one to actually adopt the budget. Because if you make any cuts that

01:34:45.417 --> 01:34:52.254
- are more than, just say, one or two lines, we would need time to be able to enter them into

01:34:52.386 --> 01:34:57.291
- into the new world system, do the calculations, enter them into Gateway, produce a new form for which

01:34:57.291 --> 01:34:58.590
- is what you're actually...

01:34:58.722 --> 01:35:05.634
- Good, you know if you were just say just cutting the sanitation in the parking, right? We can probably

01:35:05.634 --> 01:35:12.613
- do that on the fly With a 15-minute recess, but if it's anything, especially like positions. Yeah, it's

01:35:12.613 --> 01:35:19.727
- anything more complicated Right. It's exactly it would take us some time. So just you want to be thinking

01:35:19.727 --> 01:35:22.814
- about a date to continue And do we need Larry

01:35:23.522 --> 01:35:30.550
- Larry, do we need a special session to be in a regular session on the agenda for budget? You can add

01:35:30.550 --> 01:35:38.135
- the agenda to a regular session. I mean, the special sessions are just what's out of the ordinary scheduling

01:35:38.135 --> 01:35:44.606
- for you. And you can schedule a special session at any time. And our drop dead date is when?

01:35:45.282 --> 01:35:53.219
- October 31st, you have to pass it by November. Exactly. So I think the takeaway, though, is that if

01:35:53.219 --> 01:36:01.235
- you do have any other amendments, I think reasonably, we cannot really introduce them without having

01:36:01.235 --> 01:36:09.251
- to schedule a whole new meeting. Basically, there would be an off-cycle meeting and stuff like that.

01:36:09.251 --> 01:36:13.854
- Does that make sense? Is the 14th enough time, so a week?

01:36:13.986 --> 01:36:20.639
- from the 7th to the 14th? You mean from our perspective? Yes. Yes, so I mean, if now I know you're going

01:36:20.639 --> 01:36:26.975
- to be gone, your daughter's getting married. Well, yes, the short answer is yes. We're not going to

01:36:26.975 --> 01:36:33.502
- be delayed. We do need a few days, but a week. We can make a week. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, but

01:36:33.502 --> 01:36:39.901
- the point is we should not, you know, it would not make sense to bring an amendment on the 14th when

01:36:39.901 --> 01:36:43.006
- we continue. Right, right. Do not do that. Yeah.

01:36:45.026 --> 01:36:51.684
- We have a meeting on the 14th, and then what's the next meeting after that? We have a deliberation session

01:36:51.684 --> 01:36:58.217
- on the 21st. OK, so we could. But that doesn't seem reasonable. We already made a lot of plans for that.

01:36:58.217 --> 01:37:04.999
- A lot of plans. You could always schedule a special session just before it if you felt reasonably satisfied,

01:37:04.999 --> 01:37:10.910
- ready to pass it in a relatively quick amount of time, and allow for the deliberation session.

01:37:11.394 --> 01:37:18.669
- And this doesn't change, so if we make an amendment to the budget, it doesn't change. You don't even

01:37:18.669 --> 01:37:26.160
- have to re-notice the budget or anything. No, no. We notice. What we would do is, again, we would enter

01:37:26.160 --> 01:37:32.931
- as long as we reduce. We can only reduce. But we can reduce in a gay way and then produce the

01:37:32.931 --> 01:37:39.774
- new documentation. Cool. If we really had to, the 28th is open. I would prefer not to do that.

01:37:39.874 --> 01:37:46.438
- Then if somebody gets in a car accident, you don't have to go around. Exactly. Exactly. There'll be

01:37:46.438 --> 01:37:53.002
- a lot of car crashes. All of them are together. Well, look around. There's only six of us. Not just

01:37:53.002 --> 01:37:59.369
- looking at Wednesday nights, but... Yeah, well, exactly. But I just think as a matter of course,

01:37:59.369 --> 01:38:06.590
- of course, you are elected people who do what you will with that power. But I'm just saying as a matter of...

01:38:06.754 --> 01:38:14.499
- general decorum or something. Let's aim to not try to have wild amendments between this next meeting

01:38:14.499 --> 01:38:22.168
- and what will come thereafter. So we should hopefully be able to deal with all of these in between.

01:38:22.168 --> 01:38:30.296
- But it might happen. And that's probably better. We did more time than ever, I think, for more tinkering.

01:38:30.296 --> 01:38:34.974
- I won't be at any of them. We'll miss you. We will miss you.

01:38:35.490 --> 01:38:42.122
- So you don't take as long as you want? All right. Any other interactions, y'all, or any other things

01:38:42.122 --> 01:38:48.360
- for the good of the order that you'd like to say? Would anybody like to have a public comment?

01:38:48.360 --> 01:38:55.518
- Anything else? All right. If nothing, anything else go to the good of the order? Nope. Thank you. Adjourned.