Special and Regular City Council Meetings February 18, 2020

0:23:44I'm I call our regular city council

0:23:46meeting to order the date today is February 18, 2020.

0:23:53My notes show that I'm going to lead the Pledge of Allegiance

0:23:58so please join me after I'll call you.

0:24:00Well, you we're any more calls not on here, though roll calls.

0:24:04No its own agenda.

0:24:06All right, fine go.

0:24:08Council member keen to present council member pardue okamoto.

0:24:11Present me your lineman here.

0:24:13Mayor pro tem fidelity here and council

0:24:15member Ableton is at st. OK.

0:24:18Now pledge of allegiance Allegiance

0:24:22to the flag of the United States of America

0:24:26and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God,

0:24:31indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

0:24:42At this point, I'm going to report out from our closed

0:24:46session, we gave direction to our labor negotiators

0:24:50their new staff communications seeing none council reports yes

0:25:03I attended a city hall event by the urban forest committee who

0:25:09had a speaker, Doctor John McBride who's

0:25:11a professor and an expert in wildfire mitigation

0:25:16and the group that was there wanted

0:25:18to ask and seek if we could have him give

0:25:21a presentation to city council.

0:25:23And I have asked that that happen.

0:25:26Also attended with all the other city council members.

0:25:30The police awards for our officer

0:25:32of the year, Ryan track and also branch last week,

0:25:36which was very nice event.

0:25:39And finally, I'm just reminding you that two weeks from today,

0:25:43we're going to try to vote.

0:25:44Everybody And if anyone has any concerns

0:25:48or needs more information about measure j which

0:25:50will help against congestion in Contra Costa

0:25:53County they should go to the website

0:25:55and seek more information about that.

0:25:57Thank you.

0:25:58Council member Tito thank you there.

0:26:03I had the pleasure of joining mayor of Lyman

0:26:06at the contrast the mayors conference.

0:26:09And I chair that I also found out

0:26:12that Mayor Lyman will be joining me on the executive committee

0:26:16of that.

0:26:17So again, thank you for joining me,

0:26:20and I look forward to working with you

0:26:22on the executive committee of the mayors conference as well.

0:26:25And we had El Serino resident steep price speak

0:26:31before the mayors conference.

0:26:32It was in Pittsburgh at their historic California theater

0:26:37and Steve price spoke on what he does for a living.

0:26:41And that is dealing with what he's done here in San Pablo

0:26:46avenue to create a more livable and walkable San Pablo

0:26:51avenue from either party okamoto I attended the association

0:26:58of Bay Area governments also known

0:27:00as a bad or representative and we

0:27:05had Senator Bill Bennett or bell assembly

0:27:10member Chu and Senator Wiener.

0:27:12Give us an update on what's going on in Sacramento

0:27:16in regards to housing some of the bills that are being passed

0:27:20in an attempt attempted to pass, which Senator

0:27:23winners bill bill did fail sb 50 or at least it's

0:27:29I believe on hold.

0:27:32So one of the big takeaways that I got from all three of them

0:27:37as it were they have a lot of it a lot of money

0:27:40from the governor this year.

0:27:42But one of the problems with that

0:27:43is that it's a one time allocation

0:27:46and there's no ongoing funding to address homelessness.

0:27:49And we really need to find some ongoing funding

0:27:52at the state level if we really want to do long term solutions.

0:27:56It's hard to build programs when you're getting one time funding

0:28:01and then our business item was that the governor did approve

0:28:07money to be spent for housing needs

0:28:12or at least our allocation regional housing

0:28:15need allocation that we do in all cities in the state.

0:28:19And they have a couple of new funding sources

0:28:26$125 million statewide 23.7 million will be going to a bag

0:28:34and the nine Bay Area counties will receive 25.5 million.

0:28:39In addition to that.

0:28:40And we will have grants that we can apply for

0:28:46and our city staff should be looking at the through a bag no

0:28:55for a calendar to apply for grant money that

0:28:59is still out there and our next bad meeting,

0:29:03we will be doing a plan.

0:29:04Bay Area 2015 I thought, great.

0:29:08Thank you.

0:29:10You guys have covered most of things

0:29:11I wanted to cover the Steve price our own resident speaking

0:29:15at the mayors conference and the elks club dinner

0:29:17to recognize our officer of the year.

0:29:20I will.

0:29:22I didn't have these last time, but I

0:29:23will remind people that about the census coming up the census

0:29:29is coming up.

0:29:30It's safe to participate in the census.

0:29:33We've got posters that I'm going to be asking for people

0:29:36to put up around town to remind people

0:29:40to participate in the census.

0:29:41As I said last time the sooner you participate.

0:29:45The sooner you will stop being harassed by the census takers

0:29:49than you'll even save them some effort.

0:29:52They won't have to come out to your residence to actually

0:29:57do part of the census taking.

0:29:58So it's important for all of us to be counted.

0:30:02Because it does mean as a council member

0:30:05party okamoto is talking about.

0:30:06It does mean, how money is allocated.

0:30:10So the more our town is counted and represented the more money

0:30:16we'll get in the long run.

0:30:19With that we'll move on to item three.

0:30:27And anyone wishing to speak at this time

0:30:29should be presenting a speaker card to the city clerk.

0:30:33Comments on non agenda and consent items

0:30:35will be heard first.

0:30:37All other comments will be heard at the time

0:30:39the items discussed remarks are typically

0:30:43limited to three minutes.

0:30:45I see that we have approximately 20 speakers today.

0:30:48So I am going to reduce it to two minutes

0:30:52so that we can get onto the other important parts

0:30:55of our meeting.

0:30:58The light system in front is green.

0:31:01You can go or.

0:31:03Yellow is one minute remaining and red.

0:31:06I will be asking you to stop.

0:31:09If you do have comments in writing, which some of you

0:31:11have turned in that's great.

0:31:13We do read the comments.

0:31:15So if you do feel that you did not get all of your comments

0:31:18in today please feel free to provide written record.

0:31:22We will get it now that the city clerk does distribute it to us,

0:31:26and we will be reading them in when we get those.

0:31:31And last item a B for B will be pulled.

0:31:38So if you are here to speak on that item you'll

0:31:43have an opportunity to speak, when we

0:31:45discuss that item under the consent calendar

0:31:48it independently would.

0:31:52Will the city clerk please call the first speakers.

0:31:56The first three speakers tonight our Cordell

0:31:58there followed by Michael Fisher and Al Miller.

0:32:04So good evening mayor Lyman a council

0:32:06I am cut out Handler city of Richmond resident

0:32:10and I'm what I just distributed was

0:32:12I'm a new show called The Waverly gallery it's wonderful.

0:32:16I guarantee it'll take your breath away

0:32:18once you see some artwork is wonderful,

0:32:21but if you get the youth rate is only $11.

0:32:23So please do check it out and then number two is this.

0:32:28I'm inviting all the council members to a 70s dance party

0:32:31over at the Legion high school on March 21 put it

0:32:34on your calendar from 6 to 10:30 at their high school

0:32:37and ticket prices are $30.

0:32:39So you can be boogie on down to like

0:32:42the Saturday Night Fever too.

0:32:44And then the last item, which is it's kind

0:32:48of roulette it's on the agenda.

0:32:49So you get the idea when it comes

0:32:51up later on in the agenda.

0:32:54And then also, if you recall a few months ago,

0:32:58I have came to this body to express a concern that I have

0:33:02I had mentioned about the costs of these commercial properties

0:33:06around Elsa Serino is it is staggering is

0:33:09like because I spoken to one of the business owners.

0:33:12And they say that know that they pay $15,000 a month.

0:33:15And I said, that's unacceptable if we want to attract

0:33:19businesses to come to Dorado, the price

0:33:22has got to be lower down.

0:33:23So when you go into the budget portion of the agenda later,

0:33:28you'll see what I mean.

0:33:29So with that Michael I'm giving it all to you.

0:33:32The next speaker is Michael Fisher followed by Al Miller

0:33:38mayor and members of the council my name's Michael Fisher

0:33:41and ASL Cerritos library commissioner.

0:33:44I speak for a vitally important library.

0:33:46Our busiest municipal building.

0:33:49I previously submitted two memos to the city council and staff.

0:33:54I hope to have them soon available on a website

0:33:58because the county guarantees keeping our library

0:34:01open only 35 hours a week.

0:34:04Therefore closed two days a week.

0:34:06Elsa rideau allocated over two years ago,

0:34:10less than 50 cents per resident per month

0:34:13to permit our library to be open 50 hours a week,

0:34:17seven days a week.

0:34:19Let's look at the results, a fully staffed library

0:34:23with great energy, creativity and attitude

0:34:27increased contributions to our Library

0:34:29Foundation over 48,000 additional village visits

0:34:36during the new hours.

0:34:37That's nearly twice the population of the city.

0:34:41Over 50% increase in cute computer

0:34:44logins narrowing the digital divide.

0:34:48The state librarian has shown that for every dollar invested

0:34:51in library the community receives from two

0:34:55to $10 in value period return our financial crisis means

0:35:00we have to postpone replacing our inadequate library

0:35:04building our library though, can still be there for us

0:35:08if we continue to provide adequate open hours.

0:35:12Otherwise, we are thoughtlessly squandering one

0:35:15of our most valuable resources.

0:35:18Thank you.

0:35:19Thank you.

0:35:20The next speaker is Al Miller followed

0:35:21by Gary past Lyman council member staff.

0:35:28Now Miller.

0:35:29I live in El Torito the L3 Library Foundation strongly

0:35:35supports the position submitted to you by the Austrian library

0:35:39commission or Michael Fisher and his email to you of February

0:35:4310th upon your approval and implementation

0:35:47of the additional hours resulting in a seven

0:35:50day per week operation remarkable changes have

0:35:55taken place at our library.

0:35:57You've heard from them from our library senior library

0:36:00community manager Heidi Goldstein

0:36:04and Michael the library commissioner.

0:36:08I like to emphasize a couple of them

0:36:11are library staff can now get 40 hours of work week per week

0:36:17at our library.

0:36:18They don't have to work part time in hours and part

0:36:21time in somebody else's.

0:36:23This has led to renewed energy and enthusiasm level.

0:36:27The greater chances for their professionalism

0:36:30to shine through and resulting in many more programs

0:36:34with more people attending.

0:36:38I think that I believe the increase in the library

0:36:41participation resulting from that is one of the reasons

0:36:45that County Library system established

0:36:4816 computer a laptop computer kiosk in our library.

0:36:53There was a little introduction problem

0:36:55going on with the equipment, but yet it's there.

0:36:58I also have a power tower capable of free

0:37:03charging for personal items like phones, tablets et cetera I

0:37:11realize that you're faced with very difficult decisions

0:37:14in your efforts to improve the financial condition

0:37:16of the city.

0:37:18But I strongly believe that cutting funds supporting

0:37:21a seven day per week library operation

0:37:24would send ripples of doubt about your commitment to build

0:37:28a new library in our city.

0:37:30These conclude, yes.

0:37:35Anyway, I know collectively you have worked so hard

0:37:38to get the new library going.

0:37:41I would hate to see the momentum lost.

0:37:43Thank you for your efforts and please keep the library open.

0:37:48Thank you.

0:37:48Thank you for your written comments.

0:37:50We'll make sure.

0:37:50Let's get the record the next speaker is Gary Prost followed

0:37:54by Dave Weinstein mayor council and Gary Prost

0:37:58resident of El Torito and a member

0:38:00of make El street or fire safe.

0:38:03Our group was wondering why else Rita has been turned down

0:38:07for fire risk mitigation grants when half the city is in a very

0:38:12high fire hazard severity zone.

0:38:15It occurred to us that in order for the state to take three

0:38:18to seriously when we apply for such grants

0:38:22it would help to show that the city is

0:38:24sincere about both balancing the budget and reducing fire risk.

0:38:30To further those goals and taking

0:38:32to heart, your request for input from residents

0:38:36regarding the budget.

0:38:38I began thinking about where you can start doing

0:38:40some trimming the industry.

0:38:43I used to be in when faced with budget shortfalls

0:38:46always cut travel and training budgets before considering

0:38:50cutting staff for example bearing

0:38:53that in mind, I found the 2019 2020 budget online

0:38:58and made a list of every line item for travel and training

0:39:02subscriptions and dues and field trips

0:39:06with the exception of police and fire departments.

0:39:09Although most line items were in a 1,000 to $5,000 range.

0:39:14I was surprised and quite excited to see that eliminating

0:39:18those line items for one year would save the city about

0:39:23$393,000 the spreadsheet with all those details

0:39:28been made available to you.

0:39:30So I would suggest this would be an easy place to start.

0:39:34Everyone would share in the pain.

0:39:36We could apply more toward fire risk mitigation

0:39:40despite our financial distress.

0:39:42And it would demonstrate our serious intentions

0:39:45to the state.

0:39:46Thank you.

0:39:47Great Thank you.

0:39:48The next speaker is Dave Weinstein

0:39:49followed by Dan Brenner.

0:39:52Hi, I'm Dave wise speaking as president of the Ellis

0:39:54real Historical Society.

0:39:56I'm going to briefly present our annual report.

0:40:00I think we're doing pretty good as a society really building

0:40:03on the value of history to add to the quality of life

0:40:07for people today.

0:40:08We're looking at important places in the city

0:40:11and providing input as consultants

0:40:13look at historic and cultural resources.

0:40:16We had several really well attended

0:40:18programs last year, including two on Creedence Clearwater.

0:40:22The band I got started right here.

0:40:24We're placing almost all of our programs online.

0:40:27So people can watch them if they can't make the meeting.

0:40:30We're also really increasing our social outreach.

0:40:33We have a really, really active Facebook page.

0:40:36Thanks largely to Chris Treadway who's

0:40:37been putting much content on it about the history

0:40:40and John Falconer.

0:40:41We're also increasing the quality size

0:40:44and length of our print publication

0:40:46the forge which goes to members.

0:40:49So I think we're really on a roll.

0:40:51And I'm looking forward to 2020.

0:40:53Thank you.

0:40:54The next speaker is Dan Brenner followed

0:40:56by Eddie north no doubt good evening

0:41:01Mr. mayor city council and staff.

0:41:03I'm Diane Brenner and Elsa Reed a resident.

0:41:06Usually I'd be using this opportunity

0:41:08to talk to you about the importance

0:41:09of underground utilities particularly

0:41:12along the major US escape routes from the eastern side of town.

0:41:16And I would encourage you to initiate a project with pepco.

0:41:19Sorry PG&E to use our CPC rule 28 credits to do the work,

0:41:26but I'm not going to talk about that tonight.

0:41:28Instead I want to advocate for something

0:41:30that might be easier than under grounding

0:41:33and which would have a huge beneficial impact

0:41:36on our wildfire risk.

0:41:37Specifically the removal of eucalyptus trees

0:41:40that are scattered around town.

0:41:42My personal nightmare is the eucalyptus

0:41:44plantation at camp palms.

0:41:46It's a line of trees probably a quarter mile long

0:41:48from the top of the original.

0:41:50The way, almost all the way down to Arlington.

0:41:52It's a perfect path to conduct a fire down there.

0:41:56I look out my kitchen window when

0:41:58I see those huge trees waving in the wind All day, every day.

0:42:02And from time to time.

0:42:03I hear the loud crack of a huge branch that

0:42:06just drops with no Warning.

0:42:08And now as a result of Dr. Joe McBride's

0:42:11presentation just last week in this very room,

0:42:14we also now know about the hazard of burning eucalyptus

0:42:18trees radiant heat they burn so much hotter than any other tree

0:42:23that the radiant heat can start a fire

0:42:26in a house that's nearby.

0:42:27And there are a lot of houses in El

0:42:29Serino that are close enough to those trees

0:42:31to be impacted like that.

0:42:33The fire department has been citing private property owners

0:42:36all over town for vegetation that

0:42:38doesn't meet code requirements.

0:42:40But somehow these trees are still

0:42:41OK that I think has to change.

0:42:44It's past time to modify the municipal code

0:42:47regarding vegetation.

0:42:48So that Elsa Ethos eucalyptus trees

0:42:50become a thing of the past.

0:42:52Thank you.

0:42:52Thank you.

0:42:53The next speaker is Eddie No doubt

0:42:54followed by Lauren in Brazil.

0:43:08Good evening mayor and council members.

0:43:10My name is Eddie No doubt.

0:43:11I'm a city employee chapter officer for SEU local 121

0:43:16and a city resident SEU 10 21 echoes

0:43:19and supports the comments sentiments and suggestions

0:43:22of the public and many of the council

0:43:24members in recent discussions of the budget

0:43:26and the city's current fiscal condition.

0:43:30We thank the members of the public city council and city

0:43:33management in their public statements

0:43:35that furloughs and layoffs should always be last resort.

0:43:39The city should exhaust all possible avenues

0:43:41before considering ending the livelihoods

0:43:44of its dedicated employees.

0:43:46We applaud efforts by council and city staff

0:43:50to bring in new businesses.

0:43:51And to encourage entrepreneurial development

0:43:53in the city creating a sustainable and diversified

0:43:57economy in the city will require that the city

0:43:59consider how to generate revenues

0:44:01and reduce expenditures.

0:44:03Thank you.

0:44:04Thank you.

0:44:05Next speakers line in Brazil followed by Jose Martinez.

0:44:08My name is Lauren in Brazil.

0:44:10I'm city staff with the environmental services

0:44:12division.

0:44:13I'm also the chapter president representing

0:44:15SEU tend to win council needs to step up and provide

0:44:20true oversight and leadership with regard to the budget

0:44:23and the city's priorities.

0:44:25That is what you have been elected to do.

0:44:27If you haven't studied how to dissect the buzzing budget

0:44:31or annual financial report educate yourself asked probing

0:44:35questions of staff equip yourself with the tools

0:44:37you need to truly understand the devil is always in the details.

0:44:42It is your obligation.

0:44:43And your right to ask for and be given all the information you

0:44:46need to make informed decisions.

0:44:50We agree the city needs to diversify its tax base seek out

0:44:54and encourage businesses to relocate to the city.

0:44:58Consider all possibilities related to cannabis

0:45:00sales and manufacturing.

0:45:03Seek out ideas and best practices for revenue

0:45:06generating ideas from other jurisdictions of similar size

0:45:09and populations and consider working

0:45:12with other jurisdictions to jointly

0:45:14provide services in order to provide economies of scale.

0:45:20We agree.

0:45:21Department managers need to look for ways to save money.

0:45:24Identify low hanging fruit and seek out and apply for grants.

0:45:29But even more importantly, we ask that council directly

0:45:32request and call for suggestions from SEU staff about how

0:45:37to generate revenue and reduce expenses show employees

0:45:42that you value their input seriously exploits

0:45:46at suggestions that are put forward

0:45:48provide a productive and useful avenue to obtain

0:45:53input from city staff.

0:45:55Thank you.

0:45:56Thank you.

0:45:56Next speaker has a Martinez followed by Fletcher oaks.

0:46:00Good evening Mr. mayor.

0:46:01Council members my name's Jose Martinez.

0:46:03I'm the head of the staff union representative

0:46:06assigned to Elsa freedom.

0:46:08Many of the East Bay cities and I'm a city resident

0:46:13live on Liberty Street.

0:46:15I wanted to say a couple of things like our union

0:46:18here in the city.

0:46:19Also, we do represents about 70 folks who

0:46:22are in their overwhelming majority already

0:46:25on reduced workweeks of 37 and 1/2 hours.

0:46:28I think that all but a small handful of our folks

0:46:31who prevent provide the bare bones staffing

0:46:34to the vital city services that that you

0:46:37provide to your residents.

0:46:39And so in our union.

0:46:41I also wanted to say something about SEU local 10 to 1.

0:46:43We've been we're currently devoting substantial resources,

0:46:48both staff resources and financial resources

0:46:51to first qualifying and then passing the schools

0:46:54and communities first act because we

0:46:57think there is a major problem.

0:46:58And we're very sensitive to the situation that this city is in.

0:47:02But certainly many other public agencies

0:47:06within Contra Costa County.

0:47:08The estimate of the amount of revenue

0:47:10that we could get from reassessing

0:47:13commercial real estate is in the near of 280 million bucks.

0:47:16And so I guess my comment here is really to underline what

0:47:20laurenti has said, which is that we hope that the city

0:47:23council will consider its employees

0:47:26and their union SEU local 10 to 1 as real partners

0:47:30like meaningful partners in their effort

0:47:32to help the city improve its fiscal situation,

0:47:36the short term and long term health of this city

0:47:40is very important to your employees.

0:47:42And it's important to our union.

0:47:44And so our ask here today is that you.

0:47:47Welcome Welcome us to a table to have meaningful dialogue

0:47:52about cost savings.

0:47:53We want to be approached by the city.

0:47:55We want to have a meaningful engagement with the city.

0:47:58And we hope and expect that that will be your direction

0:48:01to the city staff.

0:48:02Thank you.

0:48:04Great Thank you.

0:48:04The next speaker is Fletcher oaks followed by Deborah long.

0:48:10Good evening Marin Lyman's city council members.

0:48:12Thank you for letting me speak this evening.

0:48:15My name is Fletcher oaks and I'm a time.

0:48:19Excuse me longtime resident of Richmond.

0:48:22I've lived in Richmond antics for 40 years.

0:48:25I've been using else radio facilities and businesses

0:48:29for those 40 years.

0:48:31I will hopefully continue for another few years at least.

0:48:35And as I do.

0:48:36So I make use of many of the cultural events

0:48:39and cultural services that are offered by the city.

0:48:42And I certainly very much appreciate them.

0:48:46And I specifically am thinking about and talking

0:48:48about the world one festival, the worldwide music

0:48:51of music festival is a resource that the city

0:48:56has offered and given to the whole regional area.

0:49:01I know people come all from all over the area

0:49:04to come to this festival because it's such a wonderful resource

0:49:08and I would encourage you to continue

0:49:10funding it as fully as possible and as much as necessary.

0:49:13And before I leave, I would also like

0:49:16to go on record as being really, really

0:49:18pleased with the al-Qaeda library

0:49:20and hope that it can continue seven day a week service

0:49:23because we need that in this area.

0:49:26And I lived just a block from the city line.

0:49:29And I am a Richmond kind of Elsa riedl resident

0:49:32with a post office box for 40 years in El Sarita.

0:49:37Thank you.

0:49:38The next speaker.

0:49:39Sabra lane followed by Paul icon mayor Lyman and city council.

0:49:49My name is Deborah long.

0:49:51I began teaching at El Serino altogether too many years ago

0:49:56and have been a teacher in this school district.

0:49:59A teacher is somewhere all my life.

0:50:03Right now I am I am volunteering as a writer coach

0:50:11at Korematsu middle school.

0:50:14And I would just like to address your issue of library hours

0:50:21I was.

0:50:22I have often noticed because this

0:50:26is a district where many of our students have chaotic lives.

0:50:31They live in small spaces with a lot of people,

0:50:36their parents are not always at home no working long hours

0:50:39at many jobs and most many of our students

0:50:43find it difficult to find that peace

0:50:45and quiet to study and to read and to talk

0:50:50with their colleagues that would give them

0:50:53an advantage of doing their schoolwork well and becoming

0:50:58citizens of our community.

0:51:01And I don't believe that by reducing the library hours

0:51:05that you have that you will be able to increase

0:51:10the opportunity for young students

0:51:15to be able to grow and to become good members of our community

0:51:19and of the country if they don't have just

0:51:24some peace during the course of their sometimes too noisy

0:51:30two active days.

0:51:32So please consider continuing the extended service

0:51:36of the library.

0:51:38So our children can have a place to study

0:51:41quietly before they go back to the lives

0:51:45that they lead all the time.

0:51:48Thank you.

0:51:48Thank you.

0:51:49The next speaker is Paul Duncan followed by Susan Duncan.

0:51:57Good evening.

0:51:58I'm Paul Duncan a resident of El Torito

0:52:01and co-founder of make El Serino fire safe

0:52:03a group of concerned neighbors who got together

0:52:05in the fall of 2013 to advocate for enhanced wildfire

0:52:10safety measures.

0:52:12Several members of the group are here

0:52:13tonight to elaborate on specific concerns we have regarding

0:52:17the city's budgetary crisis since

0:52:20significant immediate increases in income seem highly unlikely.

0:52:24Major cuts must be made.

0:52:26The city spends money on many different things.

0:52:29We are here tonight to urge city government

0:52:31to maintain and enhance public safety budget levels.

0:52:35The threat of wildfire is real.

0:52:37We've all seen neighborhoods and entire cities

0:52:40wiped out by wildfire.

0:52:42Escape is often impossible.

0:52:44And people die.

0:52:46Let's work together and use available funds efficiently

0:52:50in order to reduce the risk of a catastrophic wildfire

0:52:53destroying our beloved city our group has

0:52:58many experienced professionals.

0:53:00Many recently retired who have a history of solving problems,

0:53:04physical problems managerial power problems,

0:53:08financial problems.

0:53:09We are offering our help tonight in any way possible to get El

0:53:12Serino out of its current bind.

0:53:15We are now submitting a two page letter to the city council

0:53:18and city manager with specific questions

0:53:21regarding the budget along with some suggestions.

0:53:24We look forward to hearing from you with the answers.

0:53:28Thank you.

0:53:29Thank you.

0:53:30The next speaker is Susan Duncan followed by Marlene George.

0:53:43Good evening.

0:53:44I'm Susan Duncan and I've been also radio as the council

0:53:47and city staff continues with the process

0:53:50of formulating the budget and updating the strategic plan.

0:53:54We request that wildfire prevention and safety

0:53:57be made a top priority of both the budget

0:53:59and the strategic plan.

0:54:01It is imperative that wildfire prevention safety does not

0:54:05move down the list of priorities along with financial solvency

0:54:09and sustainability.

0:54:11Wildfire prevention and safety should be at the top

0:54:13of the priorities list.

0:54:15I remind you that if the unthinkable should occur

0:54:18that a wildfire driven by strong Diablo winds

0:54:21destroys most of ravel's Laredo.

0:54:23If there is a very real possibility

0:54:25of loss of life and homes homes not just in the hills.

0:54:29But throughout El Sarita as the fire and the preceding embers

0:54:33march down the hill.

0:54:35If this occurs much of El Torito revenues

0:54:37from both property and sales taxes would evaporate.

0:54:41There already is a housing shortage

0:54:43in El Torito and the East Bay.

0:54:45Think about how many people families will be without homes.

0:54:49Homeowners and renters alike making wildfire prevention

0:54:53and safety a top priority for El Serino

0:54:55would also show that El Serino is serious about this topic.

0:54:59This would put Elsa rito in a better position

0:55:01to receive grants for wildfire prevention.

0:55:04Thank you Fourier series consideration

0:55:06of making wildfire prevention and safety

0:55:09a top priority of the city.

0:55:11Thank you.

0:55:12The next speaker is my name George.

0:55:13Oh, by Nick Zambrano.

0:55:19Good evening.

0:55:19My name is Marlene George.

0:55:20A resident of l street on Ami here representing

0:55:24make l street o fire safe.

0:55:26I'm going to make reference to the letter that was just

0:55:29introduced to you and submitted by our group

0:55:33asking that public safety with a special designation

0:55:38for wildfire prevention and safety be a top priority.

0:55:41And we've looked at the current fiscal year

0:55:45budget and past budgets and we have some issues

0:55:48and some questions that are contained in that letter

0:55:50that we would like to have answered prior to the start

0:55:54of the budget hearings.

0:55:57I believe they will be in April.

0:55:59It appears that in the city management budget from 2015 16

0:56:04to the current year that one position was added to the city

0:56:07management staff when other staffing levels remained

0:56:09steady during this time.

0:56:12Could you please confirm if that's true or not.

0:56:14And justify the addition of the position

0:56:17on page 54 of the budget in the city management budget

0:56:21from fiscal year 15, 16 the budget was 1 million

0:56:28just under 1.4 million in the current fiscal year.

0:56:32It's 5 0 0.

0:56:33This is a significant increase.

0:56:36We'd like an explanation for this.

0:56:38We were informed at the Fab meeting

0:56:40that 400,000 was paid out in retirement.

0:56:43For the retired police chief and the previous CEO.

0:56:48And perhaps if that is true that some measures

0:56:52could put in place so that does not happen again.

0:56:56Also at the budget workshop we were informed that the city

0:56:59pays higher salaries than the median

0:57:02in order to attract the best and brightest.

0:57:04Yet the departments utilize many outside consultants.

0:57:08We'd like to know the number of consultants what they're used

0:57:10for and the amount total costs.

0:57:14Also, we would like an explanation for this.

0:57:17Parks and recreation budget is about 45.7 million.

0:57:21And through fees and services.

0:57:23It's funded at four 0.25 six.

0:57:26And it appears that approximately 1.4 million

0:57:28is funded through the general fund revenue.

0:57:31So we'd like to know that if we take the Parks and Rec

0:57:34down to the self-funded level police

0:57:36services would be impacted.

0:57:38Thank you very much.

0:57:39And we look forward to your responses.

0:57:41Thank you for the written letter.

0:57:44The next speaker is Nick Zambrano

0:57:45followed by Betty act exec.

0:57:51Good evening Mia Lyman.

0:57:52City Council members and city staff.

0:57:55I'm here tonight to talk about a possible new revenue resource

0:58:00according to the city manager's update dated January 23rd 2020.

0:58:05Do you also need a full service fire department conducted

0:58:073,643 service calls in 2019.

0:58:11This number reflects a record year of service calls

0:58:14and over a five year period there has been a 9% increase.

0:58:18This is just going to happen to increase more

0:58:21in this next fiscal year out of these 3,643 calls

0:58:251,200 or for emergency medical services and rescue's

0:58:29current department practice is not to charge residents

0:58:32for these services or to build medical insurance plants

0:58:36however other cities either charge a reasonable rate for US

0:58:39calls based on their ability to pay

0:58:41and or obtain reimbursement from medical insurance plans.

0:58:46I feel it is time that all sweet explores

0:58:49the possibility of obtaining reimbursement

0:58:52from medical insurance providers.

0:58:54Many also Utah residents already may be paying twice

0:58:57for these services through their health plans,

0:58:59such as Kaiser or Medicare and through their local property

0:59:02and sales taxes for those covered by Kaiser which many

0:59:05of us are Kaiser accepts direct billing

0:59:07from any licensed provider or reimburses their members who

0:59:10they are charged and they pay out of pocket direct billing

0:59:13for emergency medical services is considered

0:59:15standard wide practice for most, if not

0:59:17all medical insurance plans.

0:59:19It is standard consular and city staff

0:59:21explore these potential funding sources

0:59:23and in turn whether it is viable and how much

0:59:25it would supplemental budget.

0:59:27I look forward to having a discussion with you

0:59:29all in great.

0:59:31Thank you.

0:59:32Next speakers buddy kasich followed by their Veronika.

0:59:44Good evening.

0:59:45I'm buddy acquisition hunter gardens resident.

0:59:48You know we went to a meeting here recently that pit put

0:59:54notes on the wall and stuff.

0:59:56And the initial theme was tell us

0:59:59what you love about El Sarita.

1:00:01I thought that was smart.

1:00:02You know what I mean.

1:00:05And so I want to tell all of you that what I love really love

1:00:10about ls rito is all of you.

1:00:14And there.

1:00:16But there's one of us missing.

1:00:17I don't know why It never gets mentioned

1:00:19while you're out of step since you don't know the policy.

1:00:22Somebody is missing we're not supposed to meet.

1:00:24I don't know why.

1:00:25I miss Janet and I just want to say Janet we wish you the best.

1:00:30We want you back as soon as possible.

1:00:33She's one of my very favorite Janet ables and get.

1:00:37Come on back.

1:00:39Thank you.

1:00:41The next speaker is Virginia followed by Barbara Chen.

1:00:51Hello My name is Yufeng.

1:00:53A resident of a city you thought.

1:00:55I'm very interested in Voxel ology.

1:00:57This study of flags.

1:01:00I'm in the process of joining the not American

1:01:02excellent logical association.

1:01:04Again Narva the largest association

1:01:08of solar energy in the world Navarre

1:01:11has five rules of Xcel Energy.

1:01:14Two of it.

1:01:15The flag of a city, though, doesn't follow the first rule

1:01:21is no lettering or C is also written flags says

1:01:24the city of altitude on it.

1:01:26And the other one is b unique and ultra

1:01:30Rita's flag is the blue is the logo

1:01:34on a blue background like many other cities

1:01:36across the country.

1:01:38another rule that I would add is one method to assemble

1:01:44what a delta Rita's flag is to.

1:01:47So following these rules I've designed a new flag to consider

1:01:52that for all 32 very nice.

1:01:59Can you.

1:01:59Yeah, there you go.

1:02:00Turn around.

1:02:03Hold it still for a minute.

1:02:04So the camera can zoom in.

1:02:06Just hold it where you are.

1:02:10I know they heard me.

1:02:13All right.

1:02:14Well, we will get you a close up shot

1:02:15of that later in the meeting.

1:02:17The blue represents the bag to the left

1:02:20and the green represents the heels

1:02:22to the east in the middle.

1:02:25That up to nine pointed it representing

1:02:28speed junction and rust.

1:02:29The door at general communities that found I said

1:02:32ether though it at 9 points.

1:02:34Did I present that I did it though, was

1:02:36the ninth city of the county to be

1:02:38and God protected in between both of them

1:02:41is the dull thud of local velocity

1:02:43though under current flag and finally does a big

1:02:47all for all only having a flag.

1:02:50Good, good, good.

1:02:52The city's residents involved in these issues and safety issues

1:03:00and learning how to help solve them Brenda.

1:03:06Thank you very much.

1:03:09Paws the final speaker at this time

1:03:15is Barbara Chen get him weather yes.

1:03:20I'm probably channel an Illustrator

1:03:21for going on 32 years.

1:03:24I just want to give you a list of things I really

1:03:26want us to pay attention to.

1:03:27First of all, I want to be put on record that I support

1:03:30a full audit done by the state.

1:03:33I know that it takes time from all of the staff.

1:03:36However, given the commitment that the staff just indicated

1:03:40this evening that they would be willing to be involved

1:03:44in helping the city save money and figure

1:03:46out ways to generate revenue.

1:03:47I think a full stake audit would be to our benefit.

1:03:50And we wouldn't have to pay for it.

1:03:53I also want to advocate for saving the budgets for all

1:03:58of the community building events like the one world Earth Day,

1:04:02which brings together people not only from our own town.

1:04:04But from the entire region.

1:04:06It helps people learn from each other connect

1:04:08with each other grow together and get

1:04:11active and play and have fun, which is really important.

1:04:15Only if we eradicate that and the Earth Day event,

1:04:18which only costs us a few thousand dollars which we could

1:04:21probably raise sponsorships for will

1:04:24become a city of people that are just very isolated

1:04:27and no longer connected.

1:04:29I also want to support the budget for the library.

1:04:32I used to volunteer there.

1:04:33In fact, I'll be giving a free nature journaling workshop

1:04:36this spring it since they have expanded the hours,

1:04:40there has been more programming.

1:04:41The excitement and the activities that happen.

1:04:44There are amazing.

1:04:45And awesome.

1:04:46The staff morale has gone way up.

1:04:49And again, I think we ought to be

1:04:50able to find the money to keep funding the 50 hours a week.

1:04:59Scuse me.

1:05:00I also have a question.

1:05:01I want to know why our city never applied for the state

1:05:06grants that were given out to rebuild libraries like Hercules

1:05:12took advantage of that years ago.

1:05:14Why else rito.

1:05:16I hope somebody can provide an answer to that.

1:05:18And I hope we work on getting more grants.

1:05:20I know Melanie's working really hard on it,

1:05:23but you've got a lot of people in the city who

1:05:24are public citizens who are willing to help

1:05:29do the labor and research and bring things to you.

1:05:32And I want to thank you for your service.

1:05:33Thank you.

1:05:35That predict because at this time.

1:05:37Right let's see if I can figure out

1:05:39how to move to the next one.

1:05:40Here we go.

1:05:40So we're going to move to item 4, which we have.

1:05:45It says read the titles but then I

1:05:47have to go out to that and just see if I can read the titles.

1:05:53These we have item for a which is Women's History Month.

1:06:02We will pull item for B, which is Arbor week proclamation.

1:06:08We have item for c which is recognizing

1:06:13the 61st anniversary of the Tibetan national uprising

1:06:18and this or he is the crime prevention

1:06:25committee appointment.

1:06:27OK So this is where this system is not as easy to use.

1:06:34Item 4 I think this is e now, which

1:06:37is formation of a council's policy subcommittee

1:06:42and for f, which is the second reading and adoption

1:06:46of the ordinance amending the real property

1:06:47transfer tax collection process and next as 5.

1:06:52So that's not it.

1:06:52So I'm looking for a motion for and for c sub 4f.

1:06:58I'd like to pull E and F OK.

1:07:00So we're pulling for e for b for e and for f So

1:07:04I'm looking for a motion for or a C and D So

1:07:10moved and comment on a Women's History Month

1:07:15as the only woman sitting up here.

1:07:17I'll say I missed you too Janet great second

1:07:23that I'm so we have a motion to approve

1:07:27of items for a more C and 4d.

1:07:32All those in favor, say aye Aye I.

1:07:33I opposed extensions let the record show

1:07:36it passed unanimously world 4b.

1:07:41My understanding is we have a presentation.

1:07:43So if we could have a speaker or someone come to the podium

1:07:47that'd be great.

1:07:54Good evening city council mayor.

1:07:57Citizens residents.

1:08:00I'm introducing our Cal Fire urban forest

1:08:04regional urban Forester who is here

1:08:06tonight to present the city with an award Jimmy shot.

1:08:15Thank you.

1:08:16Thank you for having me here.

1:08:18My name is Jimmy shite.

1:08:18I'm the regional urban Forester for Cal fires urban community

1:08:21forestry program.

1:08:22I'd cover the berry counties as well as the North coast.

1:08:26It's 11 counties.

1:08:27And tonight I'm here to talk a little bit about the tree city

1:08:30USA program.

1:08:32It's a program that was started by the arbor Day Foundation

1:08:35back in 1976 and recognizes communities

1:08:38throughout the United States with a dedication towards

1:08:42managing their urban forests.

1:08:45There are four standards that any city needs to meet in order

1:08:49to become a tree city USA.

1:08:51And I'm glad to now present the city council

1:08:54with this award for the first time

1:08:56that Elsa rito is now adding to that list.

1:08:59Those four standards being that they

1:09:02must have either a board or some sort of manager in their city

1:09:07to oversee their trees.

1:09:09They have to have to have to spend $2 per capita

1:09:13in their annual budget on tree related matters.

1:09:16They have to have Ann Arbor Day, which the city

1:09:19is having on March 7th.

1:09:20So anybody should come out to that.

1:09:23They can make it.

1:09:24And the fourth piece, which I think

1:09:26is one of the more important pieces

1:09:28is that the community needs to have a tree ordinance.

1:09:31And for a lot of cities this can be a difficult undertaking.

1:09:35And I know over the last number of years Alfredo has undergone

1:09:39this process creating a really truly important piece of policy

1:09:47that really looks to oversee all of the decisions that

1:09:51are made as it relates to the urban forest here.

1:09:55It's a process that I was able to work with a city arborist

1:09:58and through their urban forest committee

1:10:00to really see this realized and that was really the last step

1:10:03and them being able to apply for this award,

1:10:07but more than that just being a policy really

1:10:10it exemplifies the greater principles of being a tree city

1:10:13USA.

1:10:14And what those benefits are as it relates to trees

1:10:17in any community in America.

1:10:19So anything from the many environmental benefits

1:10:22that most of us are familiar with to the economic boost

1:10:27that trees can provide businesses and homes alike

1:10:33to all of the social and aesthetic benefits

1:10:36that I think sometimes we may overlook

1:10:38but we can realize in our own ways

1:10:41there are plenty things that trees do.

1:10:43And it's important to recognize cities that

1:10:46care for those benefits that see those values and are

1:10:49able to start to see those long terms through important policy

1:10:52through the interactions of a committed city arborist

1:10:57and the committee members and the residents

1:11:00and all of you that are supporting this.

1:11:02So I know it's perhaps a little overdue

1:11:05given the status of those that have been involved

1:11:08in this moat in this movement.

1:11:10But on behalf of the National Association of state

1:11:13foresters the arbor Day Foundation

1:11:15and Cal fire's urban community forestry program.

1:11:18I want to congratulate the city of El Salvador

1:11:20on becoming a tree city USA for 2019

1:11:22and I hope to see them achieve this status every year

1:11:26moving forward.

1:11:27Thank you.

1:11:28All right, thank you.

1:11:30And we're going to take our take our quick action,

1:11:33then we'll come down for a photo.

1:11:34Can I get a motion to pass.

1:11:37Item 4 be designated march 7th through March 14 as Arbor week

1:11:42in El Serino.

1:11:43And the second move by a Puerto okamoto

1:11:45seconded by Keto all in favor place.

1:11:47I Great.

1:11:49Let's go down and get a photo.

1:11:51Well, the city manager, please join us.

1:11:59I neglected to introduce myself.

1:12:00My name's Steven pray I'm the environmental programs manager

1:12:03and city arborist and I'd like to invite

1:12:05everyone here as well as your friends

1:12:08and neighbors to the arbor.

1:12:12Sorry the tree city USA flag raising here

1:12:16at City Hall plaza on March 7th from the urban poor here right.

1:13:22That brings us to item 40 formation

1:13:24of cancel policy subcommittee.

1:13:27As I mentioned back in December when

1:13:30I took office one of the goals that I had for this year

1:13:34is to work on making our policies

1:13:39more streamlined and clean.

1:13:42And considering some of our policies.

1:13:45So that's what this subcommittee is intended to do.

1:13:48So council member Purdue okamoto.

1:13:51Yeah, I just want it to have more information

1:13:53about what you thought you would be working

1:13:54on before I voted on it.

1:13:56OK Yeah.

1:13:58One of them, for example, as I've said in many venues

1:14:03I think a council member, for example,

1:14:05is better becomes a better council member

1:14:07after they've served in the center seat.

1:14:09And so one of the things that I'll be working on

1:14:12is the rotation rules.

1:14:14There are other procedures for how items are introduced

1:14:19that I would like to have.

1:14:21We don't have a policy on how items are introduced right now.

1:14:24So that's one that I know that I would

1:14:26like to try and get some sort of semblance of how we do that.

1:14:31Is it true that it's organized.

1:14:35There are there's actually a set of procedures for our ethics.

1:14:41You know we're supposed to sign that the ethics statement.

1:14:43Every year, there's training to pull all these

1:14:48in together to make one basically binder

1:14:52or set of guidance for us.

1:14:56The current is one of the.

1:14:59There's decorum or our policy on how we act is from 1992.

1:15:06So that's one that I would like to try and update.

1:15:08So that's sort of the goal of these.

1:15:13There may be others.

1:15:14I know the city clerk has unearthed in the process

1:15:18of developing her role she unearthed

1:15:20a few that may be stale or we may not

1:15:25we may not be complying with them.

1:15:27And they may be time to take them out.

1:15:30So I don't know if I missed any.

1:15:33No, I would just say we've talked

1:15:34a little bit about travel policies

1:15:36in general rules of order and procedures.

1:15:38So just how canceled meetings are conducted things

1:15:41like the 10 30 meeting and time is actually written at 11:00

1:15:45I believe.

1:15:46So there's just an inconsistency because there's

1:15:48a lot of outdated information.

1:15:52I just wanted a little clarification on what

1:15:54was going to be discussed.

1:15:57And I'm fine with it.

1:15:58Otherwise, I'm there to support it.

1:16:01Right the second I got all those in favor, say aye Aye, aye.

1:16:05Aye Aye.

1:16:06Opposed abstentions let the record

1:16:08show it passed unanimously 4 0.

1:16:11And now on to item four F, which is the second reading

1:16:14and adoption of ordinance amending the real property

1:16:16transfer tax collection process.

1:16:19I'm assuming you pulled this so that your vote

1:16:20can be recorded right.

1:16:22Just to be recorded.

1:16:23Yep So can I get a motion to move

1:16:28this item on with that move.

1:16:32I can tell a second seconded by FDLE.

1:16:35All those in favor, say aye Aye I. I opposed no abstentions.

1:16:40Let the record show it passed 3, 2, 1.

1:16:45Right with that, we now will move on to item seven a

1:16:53which is transmittal of the comprehensive annual fist

1:16:57financial report for the year ending June 30 2019.

1:17:59Grieving mayor and council members Chris,

1:18:02I find instructive.

1:18:06I'm here to present the cash for and to seek your and ask

1:18:09that you receive and file it.

1:18:12The cafe is the comprehensive annual financial report

1:18:17for fiscal 2019 which was released about three weeks ago.

1:18:22Staff is pleased to report that the city received

1:18:25an unmodified opinion 420 19.

1:18:28I have a B brief PowerPoint presentation that

1:18:32as an addition for you here.

1:18:34And I'll hit the highlights and take questions on time.

1:18:38With this at the close of the fiscal year.

1:18:43The city's net position was 16.53 million dollars

1:18:48and the largest portion of the net position

1:18:50is in invested in capital assets,

1:18:52such as streets, sidewalks parks and city owned properties.

1:18:57And these investments amounted to 57.23 million

1:19:00and are used to provide services to the public PRA program

1:19:06revenues increased by 3.73 million

1:19:10and expenses in fiscal 19 increased

1:19:14by increased by eight million from the prior fiscal year.

1:19:20Moving on to the general fund.

1:19:22I have a slide here for the general fund,

1:19:35general fund revenues were 39.3 million

1:19:39with expenditures coming in at '40 0.2 million.

1:19:44Proceeds of land CEOs 800,000 other financing

1:19:47sources negative 96,000.

1:19:50And that led to a change in fund balance of heart

1:19:53and 44,000 in the fiscal year.

1:19:55The beginning fund balance was 87,000

1:19:58and the ending fund balance was a negative 56,000

1:20:02it also point out do that as part of the expenditures.

1:20:06The City Road of 722,000 of amounts

1:20:11owed to the general fund from way

1:20:14back in 2012 if not for which the fund balance would have

1:20:17been something close to positive 700,000 for the general fund

1:20:24expenditures.

1:20:26The nearly four million over the prior year at 40.2 million.

1:20:31The prior year expenditures with 36 and in fiscal 19 it

1:20:35was 40 million.

1:20:38This was partly due to overtime costs increased

1:20:41safety retirement plan costs, higher vehicle and equipment

1:20:44repair and maintenance costs and a number of other line items

1:20:49that increased in costs.

1:20:51And this increase resulted in an increase in the overall costs

1:20:54between fiscal 18 in fiscal 19 general fund revenues

1:21:01increased by approximately 800,000

1:21:03over the prior fiscal year.

1:21:05And despite this increase.

1:21:07We ended up with 144,000 in excess of expenditures

1:21:12over revenues, which drew a fine balance

1:21:14down to a negative $56,000 as presented

1:21:17on this PowerPoint slide.

1:21:23I just want to put this light up here because back in 2017

1:21:28the auditor had presented to us a list stuff long overdue loans

1:21:35and in 2019 we disposed of most of those.

1:21:39And this is what we've been left with at the end of 2019.

1:21:43So we will note that the city housing trust

1:21:44fund or the general fund 250,000 that

1:21:47was written off the capital projects fund

1:21:50or the general fund 950,000.

1:21:53And most of that was recovered 450 of that was written

1:21:56off the integrated waste management fund

1:21:59or with the general fund for it and 49,000 which has now been

1:22:03reduced to 317,000 and we expect to have

1:22:05that completely paid back in the current fiscal year.

1:22:09The MSE or the general fund 20,000 and that was completely

1:22:13pay back.

1:22:13So I'm happy to note that as present to be back in 2017

1:22:19there was 1.6 million that was owed the general fund

1:22:22in long term amounts due, which has now been reduced to 317,000

1:22:28in the current fiscal year.

1:22:32And again, the 722,000 I mentioned previously.

1:22:35But used to write off loans owed to the general fund

1:22:38from the city housing trust fund in the capital projects fund

1:22:43from the RDA.

1:22:47The next slide summarizes for USB fund balance

1:22:52over the last five years, going back to 2015

1:22:59and you will note that the fund balance.

1:23:06And 2015 was 1.4 million, which increased

1:23:09to 1.80 in 2016 and then suddenly dropped to 818,000.

1:23:14There was an adjustment back in 2017

1:23:17due to unscrewed costs that had to be accrued said,

1:23:21Drew the fund balance down.

1:23:23And then in 2019 like I mentioned previously, we

1:23:26had a time write off of 722,000 which dropped it further

1:23:30to negative 56,001 in this whole thing

1:23:33is that fund balance has been declining since I would say

1:23:36at 2015 and the general fund ratio between the fund balance

1:23:40as a proportion of the total expenditures

1:23:42has declined from 4.9 percent to a negative 0.14 percent

1:23:50to recite before you move on.

1:23:52The first two lines on this the nonspendable fund balance.

1:23:55And the unrestricted fund balance.

1:23:57Can you walk us through those a little more carefully.

1:24:01So back in 2015 we have had in 38,000 in unspent fund balance,

1:24:07which was pretty much in a fund transfers nothing

1:24:10more than that.

1:24:11That was pending at that time.

1:24:13But in 2015 the city began a payment plan on the DDR which

1:24:23is an idea related payment, which

1:24:25was about to the tune of $1.8 million

1:24:27that had to be paid back and that was paid back during 2016

1:24:32to 2018 the last payment of foreign and doesn't

1:24:35was paid back in 2018 and the city has litigated that.

1:24:40And it is in appeal and until such time that gets back to us.

1:24:45It's being treated as a nonspendable fund balance.

1:24:48It's amounts owed to the general fund.

1:24:50It's treated as a receivable.

1:24:52But it's still out there.

1:24:54It's not being treated as a part of mystic fund balances

1:24:57and how much of the 1.6 million in 2019

1:25:00represented by that claim 1.3 of the 1.6 million

1:25:05is represented by that claim in the balance 300,000

1:25:08is the amount owed the general fund from the IWM fund.

1:25:12So that's what constitutes the 1.6, which

1:25:14is the nonspendable fund balance, which

1:25:19nonspendable fund balance means we.

1:25:20We expect to get paid.

1:25:22But we don't have that cash on hand

1:25:23at the moment at this point in time.

1:25:25Yes OK, thank you.

1:25:27The unrestricted fund balance means

1:25:29what the total fund balance.

1:25:31And accounting entry and the unrestricted fund balance

1:25:33is just the balancing between the nonspendable

1:25:36and the accounting fund balance at that point in time.

1:25:39So in other words, we have a negative fund

1:25:40balance of 56,000 of nonspendable of $1.6 million.

1:25:44The balancing figure is treated as the unrestricted fund

1:25:47balance.

1:25:48So that's a mathematical calculation

1:25:50necessary to achieve the total fund balance.

1:25:53That is correct.

1:25:54And you'll note that the total of the unrestricted fund

1:25:56balance actually improved between 2018 2019

1:25:59by almost half a million dollars correct.

1:26:08I know there's been some interest in the pension

1:26:12costs and the unfunded liability and everything else that goes

1:26:16along with it at the last presentation at council

1:26:20on the 4th of February.

1:26:22Briefly touched on that.

1:26:23And so I thought I'd put that down as a slide

1:26:25here just to show you how pension costs have

1:26:27changed between 2015 and 2019.

1:26:29So these are audited pension costs pension expenses

1:26:33in each of these coffers.

1:26:35And you'll note that pension contributions have increased

1:26:38from $3.8 million in 2015 and have reached 6.9

1:26:43million $6.3 million in 2019.

1:26:46And these are expected to grow at the rate of half a million

1:26:48for the next three or four years.

1:26:51And before they start tapering off or over the next 30 years.

1:26:55So these are pension country required contributions,

1:26:58which includes an unfunded pension

1:27:02liability component as well.

1:27:04The required contribution includes both these

1:27:07to the just historical somebody's pension payments

1:27:10over the last five years and you've

1:27:16taken the time to pull this information out of each one

1:27:18of these captures you.

1:27:20I'm I know, I've seen this.

1:27:23But I'm trying to figure out where

1:27:24in the we're in the financial report

1:27:27is this number reported because I thought it also reports

1:27:31future expectations as well.

1:27:35But I'll get to that a few seconds.

1:27:36But in the fiscal report in the cafe itself.

1:27:39There are no cuts to the balance sheet notes to the cash.

1:27:41I think it's not 15.

1:27:44It specifies exactly how much was paid out as banks are gone.

1:27:47Great Thank you.

1:27:54So the npa.

1:27:55The net pension liability, which is something that's

1:27:59bandied about and this has changed from 39.3 million

1:28:07in 2015 and is currently trending 61.8 million in 2019.

1:28:13And these are based on actuarial estimates of future pension

1:28:17costs pension liabilities based on the sentences

1:28:20that we have in terms of employees age

1:28:23and entering into the plan.

1:28:24And so on.

1:28:25So the this is presented in the.

1:28:28Also in the notes.

1:28:29And these are estimates that are prepared by actuaries

1:28:34and it reflects the total on total net pension liability

1:28:40that the city faces or has faced in the last five years.

1:28:47And now you said this, but I want

1:28:48to make it clear this is based on our actual staff that have

1:28:54departed that are retired or have the potential to retire

1:28:58based on their salary when they retired

1:29:00in their current salary.

1:29:02Their age, gender, and all sorts of factors

1:29:05go into the actuarial calculation.

1:29:07Is that correct.

1:29:08That is correct.

1:29:09So that's why this changes as our population

1:29:13changes both retired and high.

1:29:17And one of the benefits of pepper.

1:29:19We're starting to see by that lack of decline

1:29:21is that why 2019 is level compared to 2018.

1:29:25Pepper being Public Employees Retirement act.

1:29:30I can't read what the second P is for.

1:29:32But look, it's just one additional piece

1:29:36that goes into this is the discount rate that they used

1:29:38to work this thing back and the discount rate is

1:29:41to do with time between 2016 rates

1:29:43that own 7.5 percent or both.

1:29:46So in 0.1 5 currently.

1:29:48And that 2 contributes to the higher pension liability

1:29:56on the next slide again, this is something

1:29:58that came up at the last presentation

1:30:01on the five year forecast.

1:30:04The question that was raised at that point

1:30:06was what would that allow baby looked like if the discount

1:30:09rate were to decline or decrease to by a full percentage point

1:30:14or increased by a full percentage point.

1:30:16And again, just to illustrate the fact

1:30:17that the current pension liability NPL

1:30:21is valued at 7.15 at a discount rate of 7.15 percent.

1:30:26And if that were to decline to 6.15 percent

1:30:29that liability moves up to $88 million.

1:30:32And if it improves due to improving

1:30:34returns on their investments.

1:30:36Great point 1 5% The liability declines to 440.6 million.

1:30:44The important consequent takeaway

1:30:46from this particular slide is that currently pension

1:30:50contribution is required contribution

1:30:53plus the unfunded liability contribution

1:30:56is about 7.2 million.

1:30:59The assumption here being that footprint 2020 is

1:31:03that the rate of return would be approximately 7%

1:31:07If that rate of return would decline

1:31:09substantially over the next year, year and a half.

1:31:13These numbers will be revised upwards obviously.

1:31:15And future contributions could be substantially more.

1:31:18As I pointed out at the presentation

1:31:19a couple of weeks ago.

1:31:21And if the rate of discount drops below 6%

1:31:25We could expect to see $10 to $12 million

1:31:28in annual pension contributions.

1:31:41So here's the other side of the pension liability,

1:31:44which is the other post employment benefits.

1:31:49Live it again.

1:31:50The city does not provide any form of

1:31:51or paid liability except for the fact

1:31:54that we do have a retiree pension

1:31:57program where the city does not contribute anything at all.

1:32:01The employees themselves pay for their own health care costs.

1:32:05But in terms of gas be 75 to the governmental accounting

1:32:08standards board's valuation of future liabilities.

1:32:12We are required to disclose how much that reliably would amount

1:32:16to if the city would pick up the whole tab for future employees

1:32:20retiring from the city.

1:32:21So these are estimates in the state of California.

1:32:25Nearly half the cities have almost

1:32:26no funding for any of these.

1:32:29A recent survey showed that approximately 54% of cities

1:32:31had zero funding for paid liabilities.

1:32:34It's not uncommon.

1:32:35It's unusual.

1:32:36It's just that it draws a lot of attention

1:32:38because it appears that there is this huge amount sitting out

1:32:41there waiting to be that need it needs to be funded

1:32:45and these waiting to happen somehow.

1:32:47And so that is something that has

1:32:49attracted a lot of attention.

1:32:51Both cities both on the state auditor's website

1:32:54as well as on city balance sheets according to this model.

1:33:00Cities appeared like you guys up 2019 is 2.9 million.

1:33:05That's a Gatsby.

1:33:06That's a government accounting board.

1:33:10Reporting requirement.

1:33:12But as you've stated this is not an actual liability as a result

1:33:17of the programs we run.

1:33:18But we are required to report it as a result

1:33:22of the government accounting board's standards board's

1:33:25rules.

1:33:26Correct that is correct.

1:33:28In fact, there are cities out there that do provide retiree

1:33:31pension health and in their cases,

1:33:34those all paid the of your liabilities.

1:33:36In our case, it's an imputed liability.

1:33:39And that's pretty much up to valuation.

1:33:40It got to be 75 and in no 10, which is where this is

1:33:45discussed there's a table that does

1:33:48show numbers going negative.

1:33:52And so on.

1:33:55Where was it.

1:33:58I'm on page page number 73, where it talks about deferred

1:34:07outflows or inflows.

1:34:08And it looks like we have a net inflow on revenue.

1:34:15I know, we don't have an obligation,

1:34:17but we do provide some sort of service

1:34:21because we're processing this money.

1:34:23So I'm assuming that we have some sort of reimbursement

1:34:26or some type of plan reimbursement

1:34:29as a result of this.

1:34:30And that's what this represents.

1:34:32Typically what happens is we pay for this thing and the employee

1:34:35reimburse us for that.

1:34:37And the difference between that to those two numbers

1:34:39is 80 foot inflows because we do have investment income

1:34:43that he's used to us being.

1:34:44Some of these expenses for us.

1:34:46So the net inflow in this case is

1:34:4827,710 which is an estimate of how much we think to continue

1:34:52to pay for the next five years.

1:34:54As a consequence of the employee reimbursement

1:34:56reimbursing us back a costs that we've already paid out,

1:35:00which is net income.

1:35:02I mean, it.

1:35:03We're having to report this as a liability.

1:35:05But in actuality, we get $27,000 in cash a year

1:35:09as a result of running this program for our retirement.

1:35:12That is correct.

1:35:13Retirees correct.

1:35:14And he is just an estimate forward looking estimate

1:35:16of what you think those net results would look

1:35:18like into the chart that's on the screen

1:35:20now the city's open liability is our reported requirement

1:35:26our reporting requirement.

1:35:27It is not necessarily a cash requirement.

1:35:30We don't we don't have this liability.

1:35:32We not we don't have any obligation to make

1:35:34this 3 million dollar payment.

1:35:36In reality, this is actually, as I

1:35:38just pointed out generate just a small amount

1:35:41on an annual basis.

1:35:42That is correct.

1:35:43And in fact, one of the requirements

1:35:44here is that the balance sheets disclose

1:35:48what these liabilities.

1:35:49And that's part of the reason they've gone out and valued

1:35:51that and put a price on it.

1:35:53You'll notice that on the balance sheet Citywide balance

1:35:56sheet, you have a liability for him

1:35:58and a liability for the pension liability as well.

1:36:00So these are requirements that come into force

1:36:02in the last couple of years, and we

1:36:05are disclosing our liability because the requirement

1:36:07on the balance sheet.

1:36:16I just thought I'd put this back again.

1:36:18This was presented to present at the town hall

1:36:23on the 1st of February.

1:36:26And this particular slide shows us based on what we currently

1:36:29know of this pension liability.

1:36:33Breaks it out by the different represented groups.

1:36:38And it shows us that the pension liability continues

1:36:40to accelerate or increase at the rate of about half a million

1:36:43in total between now and 2025 before it levels off

1:36:47and then over the next 30 years it gradually starts tapering

1:36:51off and eventually disappears.

1:36:55We currently as I said, be able to approximate guess $1 million

1:36:58on pension costs.

1:37:01And we expect to see that increase at the rate of half

1:37:03a million each year for the next three to four years

1:37:06before it levels off for a further five years

1:37:08and then starts moving down.

1:37:10So that's the nature of this graph,

1:37:12it breaks it out by the miscellaneous normal costs

1:37:15safety costs miscellaneous unfunded.

1:37:17And the safety unfunded components.

1:37:24Any questions on this one period.

1:37:34At this point no pause and take any further questions

1:37:36you might have on the calf or anything

1:37:38else connected with that.

1:37:41I'm going to start with Mr. King to mark thank you

1:37:46for your report regarding can you go back to that graph

1:37:51where you had not that one not that one night.

1:38:02That one looking at the city's net pension liability for 2018

1:38:11and 2019 it's about the same.

1:38:14Why is it the same.

1:38:16They are cheap.

1:38:20So that the net pension liability.

1:38:22The actuarial report is prepared once every few years.

1:38:27The last time the report was prepared was back in 2014

1:38:30and what they do is in arriving at the valuation

1:38:33for future years, the roll forward the previous year

1:38:35estimate and make some assumptions and adjustments

1:38:38and then come up with the new number of 2018.

1:38:41We had the report prepared once again afresh

1:38:45and that brought up a new number and that roll

1:38:46forward did not result in a significant increase.

1:38:49So that's just a single year old forward.

1:38:51Between 2018 in 2019 which is almost a flat NPL.

1:38:57So the key thing is the first estimate was back in 2014

1:39:01which was roll forward.

1:39:03Each of those years nothing was done.

1:39:05Assumptions were thrown at it.

1:39:07So the amount keeps increasing.

1:39:09Then we take a fresh assessment of the census when

1:39:12I say census I mean, the populace within the city that

1:39:15contributes to this.

1:39:17And based on that, they re assess the liability

1:39:22and it's just been one year.

1:39:23So if you roll this forward another year,

1:39:25it'll show up at 66 million potentially.

1:39:27OK And I just want to point out that these are

1:39:29some actual aerials are prepared by CalPERS

1:39:32and are provided to us.

1:39:33OK, thank you.

1:39:35Can you go back to the slide where it shows reserves

1:39:43and looking at that and looking at 2017 where we are 2.3 9

1:39:513 3 1 ratio down to 0.2 for the following year.

1:40:00Does that is that because of the temporary rebuilding

1:40:04we built two doors down there for the senior center.

1:40:10So given the size of our budget, which is currently

1:40:17about $40 million a single percentage amounts

1:40:21to about 400,000 $1,000.

1:40:23And you'll notice that it dropped from 2.39 by a couple

1:40:26of percentage points obviously.

1:40:28He passed out 400,000 more than it in fact.

1:40:32So part of that is the math that we funded completely

1:40:36approximately four and 50,000.

1:40:38But we've also been paying out around and 20,000

1:40:42each year as leasing costs.

1:40:44So we've put up money on that account as well.

1:40:47So these contribute to the decline in the overall costs.

1:40:50But I think the important thing takeaway from this

1:40:53is that we accrued expenses back in 2016

1:40:59of approximately $1.2 million, which seriously

1:41:01dinged a reserve ratio.

1:41:04And as we saw during that period But I might also point out

1:41:06to you that if we didn't have to write off the 722,000

1:41:10that you currently have written off plus the deferred

1:41:13revenue of 416,000 you're potentially

1:41:16looking at a fund balance of about 800,000

1:41:18at a minimum excluding the Mac, which is 2% of the whole thing.

1:41:22You could throw the Mac on top of that

1:41:24and everything else in additional and b

1:41:26should have ended up at 1.5 as if on balance 1.5 million.

1:41:30The Mac is the midtown activity center.

1:41:32That's right.

1:41:33Yeah OK.

1:41:36And then I remember when the independent auditor was here

1:41:40and I did ask you a question about the money coming in

1:41:45for measure v and you'd still get.

1:41:47Tell me how I remember this.

1:41:49Keep it in the bank.

1:41:52Did we keep this in the bank for the fiscal 2019.

1:41:57That is January through June of 2019.

1:42:00We brought in 1.1 million in an art piece of your property

1:42:06transfer taxes and the to a large extent

1:42:11it was left in the bank.

1:42:13But unfortunately, you probably see

1:42:14some of this in my next presentation on the MIT Media

1:42:17Budget Adjustment a significant part of it

1:42:20was used to fund safety overtime costs

1:42:25and sort of that extent that was pretty much used up there.

1:42:30And that is because we have fire season every month

1:42:34that they gear now.

1:42:36And that is not included.

1:42:38The last time.

1:42:38So that is true.

1:42:41And I would say you will find in my next presentation

1:42:43that we have not fully funded safety overtime costs

1:42:48over the last seven years.

1:42:51Firefighter overtime runs around a million dollars

1:42:54and the budget has always been somewhere around the 600,000

1:42:56limit and people always have to go back and spend down or pay

1:43:01off those amounts, which has been

1:43:02part of the reason for that.

1:43:04Thank you.

1:43:05Sure council member for New York one.

1:43:10If our contributions were not what they are now or not.

1:43:20I would say liability.

1:43:21Sorry about that liability.

1:43:24How would that change our general fund at all.

1:43:26Or is that just kind of out there.

1:43:32So the liability itself is not an expense.

1:43:34It's only an expense that impacts

1:43:35the general fund reserves.

1:43:37It goes on the balance sheet as a liability.

1:43:40So it's something that's payable but has not been paid out.

1:43:45But assuming that, for example, if there

1:43:47was a net pension liability.

1:43:48And you would have pay some of it down.

1:43:50That would be an expense and that would drive

1:43:51your telephone balance down.

1:43:54OK My main question was about the overhead liability.

1:44:00And I believe you that you went over that pretty reasonably

1:44:04I know that people at home were writing to me

1:44:07and confused about it.

1:44:08And it does still seem somewhat clear as mud.

1:44:12I think for most people.

1:44:13But I think we're going to be continuing this discussion

1:44:19with the next presentation and most of my questions

1:44:23will be asked then comes from the telling.

1:44:30Thank you.

1:44:31Yeah, a few of my questions have been touched on here as well.

1:44:35Mark how long have you you worked for the city of El Reno.

1:44:39Three years too long now is a 2016

1:44:4317 I would think I was I came in sometime

1:44:46towards the end of 2016.

1:44:49So I've gotten the impression over the last few weeks

1:44:52that this city.

1:44:54We really haven't done captures very much that have come

1:44:58to the city council to review.

1:44:59Is that true.

1:45:01Is there a reason if that is true.

1:45:04I can't speak for the time before my coming here.

1:45:08But at the time after since I moved here we've

1:45:12taken the capital to the Fab rebooted fully with the Fab

1:45:15and then take an emotion back from the Fab to city council

1:45:20and liking this case, for example,

1:45:22the Fab was presented the capital last Tuesday

1:45:25and they unanimously recommended that city

1:45:27council receive and file it.

1:45:29So we've done that kind of thing and made a note in it.

1:45:31Yeah I mean, the city manager's report,

1:45:34but it's not something that in the past

1:45:36has been a regular presentation to the city council.

1:45:40And I feel.

1:45:41Yeah, just league of cities have heard

1:45:43that it's a really critical juncture for the city council

1:45:46to learn this.

1:45:47I can tell you that I have many, many kafirs

1:45:50on my bookshelf at home.

1:45:52So I know that we've received them.

1:45:54But I believe it was probably a consent calendar item made

1:45:56by receiving is different than understanding

1:45:59and being able to ask questions about them.

1:46:01Oh so thank you for that.

1:46:04Also, you mentioned and in your analysis.

1:46:08With pleasure.

1:46:10You received the unmodified opinion

1:46:13and I'm assuming that basically means

1:46:15we followed all the rules.

1:46:17And that there's been no fraud and abuse in this period right.

1:46:20I mean, our citizens are residents

1:46:22need to know nothing illegal has happened

1:46:25and anything that we've done going for.

1:46:27Absolutely I mean, there's been no fraud

1:46:29no malfeasance no theft nothing along those lines.

1:46:37And I find it pretty much states that the financial statements

1:46:41reflect fairly and truly the financial status of the entity.

1:46:45That's probably what it is.

1:46:47And quite somewhat of a good direction

1:46:51our general revenues have increased

1:46:53because of property tax, sales tax,

1:46:55and real property transfer.

1:46:56Not by much, but they have increased.

1:47:00And in fact, I wanted to you.

1:47:01Did just touch on it.

1:47:02But we had there.

1:47:04But for two different kind of accounting calculations

1:47:07we would have had quite a good profit above.

1:47:12Right can you re-explain those again,

1:47:14one is involving the Home Depot and one was

1:47:17our city housing trust issue.

1:47:20Can you just briefly talk about that

1:47:22again had based on the calculation or how we account.

1:47:26This we could have not been in deficit.

1:47:29In fact, I'll take it one step further.

1:47:31Had we been consistent had we not

1:47:33been required to accrue these unapproved costs of B

1:47:38at all kinds of things back in 2016

1:47:41you would potentially add back $1.3 million

1:47:43to the fund balance right that right off the bat.

1:47:45But that's a separate issue altogether.

1:47:48That being said, we had amounts owed

1:47:52the general fund going way back to 2012 2013

1:47:55with the dissolution of the RDA.

1:47:58We have a general fund had helped pay for expenses

1:48:01on the capital projects side and on the city

1:48:03housing trust fund side.

1:48:06And those funds were there was no signs

1:48:08that we would get paid back.

1:48:09In fact, the capital project expense

1:48:13had been placed on their ops, which

1:48:14is to recognize obligations payment schedule that we

1:48:16submitted to the Department of Finance

1:48:19annually from 2013 onwards and they had denied us that.

1:48:23So we decided to finally take that off.

1:48:25We didn't write this thing off.

1:48:27So that's about 40 and 1,001 percent fund balance ratio

1:48:31right there.

1:48:33B the general fund was owed 250,000

1:48:36from the city housing trust fund again from way back when.

1:48:39And that too had to be written off because the city housing

1:48:41trust fund does not get funding all revenues

1:48:43from any other source.

1:48:44So there was no way that we could be that back.

1:48:47So combining both these $250,000 at the 477,000 on the capital

1:48:52projects side it works out to about 722,000

1:48:55that we wrote off, meaning you recognize that when

1:48:59I'm going to collect on that.

1:49:00And therefore, we took it off our books.

1:49:05So putting it back to this fund balance here

1:49:07would have taken off on balance back to around.

1:49:09So not a great How it goes into the positive.

1:49:12And you can have split.

1:49:14You had to pay that whole amount.

1:49:17So there was a little bit of going back and forth

1:49:19with the audit on this.

1:49:20And I think, in fact, I'll put it this way.

1:49:27He felt that since the monies were not coming back to us

1:49:30at any point in time in the future,

1:49:31you might as well be taken care of one

1:49:33chucked you could have pushed it.

1:49:36It's good to pay it off.

1:49:38But now we're seeing these figures,

1:49:39the way they are right.

1:49:42And these figures your report also says

1:49:47will improve once our integrated waste management

1:49:49funds kind of kick in.

1:49:52It will be getting more money.

1:49:54So council might recall that last increased rate increase

1:50:00rates and revenues and part of the reason for that

1:50:03was to be able to pay back the general fund.

1:50:05The amount that is owed the general fund.

1:50:06So that would be done during the course

1:50:08of the current fiscal year and the next one as well.

1:50:12And that doesn't take away from the Warning

1:50:14you have in here about a recession

1:50:15coming want to talk to.

1:50:19Yes couple more.

1:50:20I mean, I mean, we may be on the verge of being positive.

1:50:23But you know it's been what 10 years.

1:50:26I do.

1:50:27And this is the action that the council's

1:50:29going to have to start taking to deal with absolute

1:50:32how do we intend to jolt our reserve.

1:50:34OK macroeconomic shocks come from many directions and right

1:50:37now.

1:50:38It could be from anything that's happening outside the shores

1:50:40of this country.

1:50:42And we've seen a lot of it happen.

1:50:43And again, that we have a penis on both sides of this.

1:50:48There are those that feel that there will not

1:50:50be a recession in 2020 or 2021.

1:50:53And while there are those that feel

1:50:54that there may be a recession just around the corner.

1:50:56So it's again, up for grabs just two more questions.

1:51:01So the just to touch on that again, we're about $2.2 million

1:51:07that we increased in public safety,

1:51:09cost on the overtime issue.

1:51:12Do you want to elaborate a little bit on that.

1:51:15Something that I'll do that briefly.

1:51:18I think I laid extensively in the next presentation.

1:51:20OK It seems to have what's happened

1:51:22is public safety over time pretty much firewood time

1:51:26runs around 1.1, $1.2 million.

1:51:30The budget had provided for just 700,000.

1:51:33And so we had to prepare for the additional 500,000 and overtime

1:51:37costs, which was not budgeted for.

1:51:40So overall public safety overtime

1:51:42came in at 1.6 that is taking fire and PD together

1:51:46and the total budget for that was only 700,000.

1:51:50So that had to be provided for and that

1:51:52came out of our EDF IP duty.

1:51:55So without measure v we'd have been even more.

1:51:59It would have been extremely tight

1:52:02extremely tight on that point, even worse.

1:52:03So thank you.

1:52:04Thank you.

1:52:05Voters were voting for measure B last question

1:52:08is this is the third year of our relationship with our auditors.

1:52:13That's correct.

1:52:14So we can decide whether to stay or change

1:52:17or will we be changing and what I was going to ask you

1:52:20is what is our relationship.

1:52:22If, in fact, we have a stake audit and how will they

1:52:24assist or work with us on that.

1:52:28The auditor performs an accounting

1:52:32audit, which is an internal controls

1:52:35financial statement analysis.

1:52:37And so on and so forth.

1:52:38I suspect the state already is going

1:52:40to be more of a programmatic got it

1:52:41in terms of what are the programs

1:52:43that you are funding with what you have.

1:52:44And I they start doing well our auditors

1:52:47help us with the stake audit if, in fact, we are required to.

1:52:51Again at this point in time, the state

1:52:53is not being very clear as to what exactly they want from us.

1:52:56What exactly are they looking from us and how they expect

1:52:58us to provide that information.

1:53:00Nothing has been shared with us.

1:53:01So it's very difficult to come out and see exactly what they

1:53:04want at this point in time.

1:53:06But the cash for itself is a complete audited document

1:53:10in terms of financial information,

1:53:12and that's available.

1:53:13I was just concerned about our staff time

1:53:15and possibly our auditor can help

1:53:17us if there was a stake audit.

1:53:21I merged the two separate functions

1:53:23that we're talking about.

1:53:23I would think the external or demeaning but we

1:53:27an associate has done a financial audit

1:53:30purely financial not a systematic not a programmatic.

1:53:32We have not come back and opined about any of the other things

1:53:36that the state has indicated that they

1:53:37were interested in looking at things such as programs.

1:53:43For example, of public safety.

1:53:45And when will we know on the state on it again,

1:53:48will the staff know there's a.

1:53:50The hearing is before the joint legislative audit

1:53:52committee next week.

1:53:55And that's when the information about the scope of the audit

1:53:59will be released at least that's what the state

1:54:02auditor team has informed us.

1:54:05We have asked them actually for a documentation as far as what

1:54:11they provided to the committee and including the response

1:54:16that we provided to them and they

1:54:17informed me that that was confidential until the day

1:54:19of the hearing.

1:54:21So we will find out on the day of the hearing.

1:54:23Thank you.

1:54:28Can you.

1:54:28The net position changed by 9 and 1/2 million

1:54:31from 26 to 16 million roughly.

1:54:34Can you take a few moments to explain

1:54:37what that means and isn't it.

1:54:40It should be.

1:54:41Although the net position takes into consideration depreciation

1:54:44and all sorts of things.

1:54:47Our net position should be increasing

1:54:48year over year ideally.

1:54:50And so I was just curious if you had comments

1:54:52about our overall net position.

1:54:55Part of the reason for that junior net position.

1:54:57I mean, in this provision is essentially the difference

1:54:59between your assets and your liabilities,

1:55:01and you may recall that during the course of the fiscal year,

1:55:04we disposed of certain assets and properties, which

1:55:07liquid assets at that point in time.

1:55:09And we've also recorded additional liabilities

1:55:11in terms of pid and the net unfunded liability.

1:55:16So that increased the library side of the picture become

1:55:18the combined effect of that is to lower on net position

1:55:22in the net position in really simplistic terms

1:55:25the net position would be if the city

1:55:27had to sell all of our assets to pay off all of our liabilities.

1:55:30This is what would be left that is correct.

1:55:32So So we in theory, we have $16 million worth of assets.

1:55:36If we could liquidate them in some fashion.

1:55:39We have $16 million more than we have in liabilities.

1:55:43Drag on the long term, that is I see it's down about 18 million

1:55:49or yes about 18 million in again in the page 62

1:55:55of our financial report we're at 18 million 128,000

1:56:00is our long term debt.

1:56:01And at the end of what we're going to pay out

1:56:05this year is $1.1 million.

1:56:07So it will be just under 17 million after this current plan

1:56:11year.

1:56:14We refinanced that in 2017 shortly after you came in

1:56:18and most of that debt is in a fairly good rate of return.

1:56:23We replace some notes that were 5% or more.

1:56:26And it's now below 4.

1:56:28If I remember correctly.

1:56:28So back in 2017 BP financed city hall debt

1:56:34and station and station 72.

1:56:38Yes, that too.

1:56:39So the average rate of the average interest rate on that

1:56:43is about 3.6 percent.

1:56:44All right.

1:56:45It's under 4% And that is part of the reason

1:56:48we refinanced it back then.

1:56:50So in general, our long term debt is healthy.

1:56:54We're well below our ratio by policy.

1:56:57Correct Correct yes and we're not

1:57:01from an interest rate perspective,

1:57:03we're not overpaying on that long term debt.

1:57:06If interest rates continue to float downwards.

1:57:09I mean, there might come a point,

1:57:10it might makes any sense to go back

1:57:12and refight these things again.

1:57:14But I can't see that happening in the next two years.

1:57:17OK The council member fidelity talked about the audit finding

1:57:26that it's water systems seem to be in place.

1:57:32And I mean, to be clear, the systems

1:57:35we have checks and balances that are appropriate for the size

1:57:38company that we are in and looking

1:57:40for fraud and their audit it only

1:57:43looks at that to some degree.

1:57:45So there they're finding although very good

1:57:49is all based on the data they looked at

1:57:51and the level of analysis.

1:57:53They're doing compared to the size of our corporate size

1:57:56of our entity.

1:57:58I mean, the extent I. That's true because the active test

1:58:03each transaction that we have here clearly examples of all

1:58:05of the transactions we have.

1:58:07And they send out for confirmations

1:58:09from all those providers vendors and others.

1:58:11So that is the backup to this order is excellent.

1:58:15But as a result, it's not foolproof.

1:58:18But I wanted to find out from you.

1:58:21Do you systems we need to track are

1:58:25our accuracy to the validity of our transactions.

1:58:30There's no new software.

1:58:32There's not.

1:58:33I mean, I know we played replace this software

1:58:34like I want to say 14 years ago, we replaced the software.

1:58:40So I don't know if there's something new that we need

1:58:43to be doing is there new systems that we need to be putting

1:58:45in place to create greater security for our system

1:58:50and in the recent past.

1:58:53I think that because threat does come

1:58:54from the cybersecurity side of things.

1:58:56And we've had probes coming into our system with checks

1:59:05fraudulent check requests and deposits and transfers

1:59:08and so on to record each of those as they came along,

1:59:12we have put in new controls on the banking side of things.

1:59:17We have mechanics bank.

1:59:17We have something called positive pay

1:59:19and also every check that goes out

1:59:21now has to be reconfirm the very next

1:59:23day by somebody in accounting before it can be paid out.

1:59:26So that's a system that we did not have prior to.

1:59:30That's another way of making sure

1:59:32that at the end of the day, I mean,

1:59:33if you don't control issue collusion

1:59:35is something that you can never got against collusion.

1:59:38Everything else is the auditor has

1:59:42AI can't hear what note it is.

1:59:45But a going concern.

1:59:46His going concern statement repeated again.

1:59:48Do you want to take a minute to speak to what that means

1:59:51and in how we're addressing that going concern

1:59:55can be based on the fund balance.

1:59:58It can be based on liquidity and he's

2:00:00argued that due to the lack of fund balance

2:00:03our liquidity position is precarious

2:00:06and we pushed back saying that we make 40 million

2:00:08of revenue each year approximate to give or take.

2:00:11And if he had that on day one, we

2:00:13wouldn't need to take a trend you would use that up

2:00:15and paid off like you know on occasion

2:00:17having of your paycheck almost entirely on the first date.

2:00:21So we've gone back and forth on that.

2:00:23And I mean, it'll be the third year running that he's argued

2:00:29for the going concern concept.

2:00:32And I was at some point prior to getting this final.

2:00:40I think if we had restored fund balance he would

2:00:42have removed that completely.

2:00:44It's just that he is required to state that given the conditions

2:00:48that we currently have if he had gone back to a million

2:00:52in fund balance.

2:00:53For example, if he didn't have to write it.

2:00:55So $122,000 off, he could have pushed for and argued for.

2:00:59And he would have a bit.

2:01:00So it's not something that he has much latitude

2:01:03or when it comes to making that statement he has

2:01:05to state that given the status of our fund balance

2:01:09at this point.

2:01:10Thank you.

2:01:10Any other questions at this time.

2:01:13We normally go to public comment at this time.

2:01:16I don't have any record of public comment to anyone

2:01:22and won't have comments at this time.

2:01:24If not, we'll bring it back 2 counts for comments and do.

2:01:28And action the action is too.

2:01:41These is going to commit the action, which one of these

2:01:44is good or action.

2:01:48I believe is to receive and file receive and file

2:01:52does we need a motion on that.

2:01:55Any comments then at this time to go ahead.

2:02:00I just wanted to acknowledge that while there may be caveats

2:02:11as to why the auditor would have to say it's a growing concern.

2:02:16I think that, well, speaking for myself as a council remember,

2:02:22it's obviously a concern.

2:02:25And it's been a growing concern over the last couple of years.

2:02:29And I just want to acknowledge the fact

2:02:32that a lot of this information has been presented

2:02:37to me in the last few weeks.

2:02:38So I didn't have a lot of new questions

2:02:42because we have been looking at this.

2:02:45But I just wanted to recognize for the public that we are in

2:02:52and our next presentation will be discussing more what we are

2:02:56going to be doing about this.

2:02:58And so I just wanted to have that for the record

2:03:02that we have been listening hard hearing everybody.

2:03:08And we're going to work with you to do the best we can to make

2:03:12sure that we don't have cameras that

2:03:14look like this in the future.

2:03:18Yeah I'll build on that comment.

2:03:20The this is a audited financial report for the period

2:03:24ending June 30 2019.

2:03:27So this is a statement of our past

2:03:31and where we were at the beginning

2:03:33of the current fiscal year, we're in

2:03:36and it basically tells us that we are

2:03:40worse off than we anticipated.

2:03:42We were thinking that we'd be in a much more positive balance

2:03:47than we've actually turned out to be.

2:03:49So this is the background for a lot of our decisions coming up.

2:03:56And it is going to influence many of the actions

2:04:00we take going forward.

2:04:03With that, we will move on to item seven B, which

2:04:08is the 2019 2020 mid-year budget update, which is essentially

2:04:13a look at the next six months, the six months from July

2:04:171 2019 to December 31 2019.

2:04:56Gleaming holdings council members

2:04:58and see them going forward.

2:05:00But my next presentation here I am here

2:05:05to provide you an update on the media for fiscal 2019 2020

2:05:14and discuss amendments for your consideration.

2:05:23Typically staff looks at the first six months

2:05:27of the fiscal year, June, July through December

2:05:31and makes estimates of revenues and expenses

2:05:36for the second half of the fiscal year

2:05:39and proposes amendments and adjustments

2:05:42for accounting considerations.

2:05:43That's essentially what I'm doing here.

2:05:46The staff report is fairly detailed

2:05:49but I thought I'll summarize what's in the staff report

2:05:52through my PowerPoint presentation

2:05:54and make it a lot less wordy or quantitative.

2:05:59And so with that being said, I'm just

2:06:02going to jump into this presentation here

2:06:05and I'll outline the general fund revenue and the amendments

2:06:09that we seek on that line.

2:06:13I will also get into the expenditure amendment

2:06:16and fund balance discussions discussion

2:06:19of public safety costs and revenues fortify

2:06:23the city by general fund costs.

2:06:25And finally conclude with a quick discussion

2:06:29of special revenue fund amendments on this first slide.

2:06:38I have proposed revenue amendments to the general fund

2:06:45and this, I think, is a much more user friendly format

2:06:51than what's in the staff report because it outlines

2:06:53it in a line item format.

2:06:56We are seeking to lower property taxes by $300,000 from 10.7

2:07:04for $4 million.

2:07:05That was in the adopted budget probably because we've noticed

2:07:09that property taxes have been growing on average by about 500

2:07:13to 600 1,000 each year.

2:07:15But in the last fiscal year they have grown

2:07:18by just 5 and 1/2 percent.

2:07:22Until really Lloyd by 300,000 also seeking to lower sales

2:07:27taxes by 5,000 from 7.6 million to 7.1 million.

2:07:33And we see that on a spreadsheet in a few moments.

2:07:36And that's probably because we anticipated

2:07:40cannabis sales taxes.

2:07:42But that hasn't materialized.

2:07:44And so we are taking that down by half a million dollars

2:07:49we've looked at utility use it taxes franchise fees.

2:07:53And in terms of the trend that we've

2:07:54seen in the last couple of years,

2:07:56we've lowered those by $100,000 each.

2:07:59I'll noticed that our business licenses but tax

2:08:02has been moving up from 800,000 years ago

2:08:05to currently approximately 8 9.

2:08:08We expect that to move up 900,000 so they're moving that

2:08:11up by $100,000, and then, of course, the real property

2:08:14transfer tax was estimated at the time

2:08:17that people have the adopted budget.

2:08:20We estimate it to be around 850,000.

2:08:23But based on what we've seen through the January

2:08:26of this year.

2:08:27I think we'd make $2 million.

2:08:28Moving that up by the difference,

2:08:30which is 1.15 million.

2:08:34The total tax change here is $250,000.

2:08:40On the other revenue side.

2:08:42Moving to a graph in a few seconds.

2:08:44But the reimbursement that we get

2:08:47from Kensington for fire services

2:08:50has been trending closer to $3 million.

2:08:53The budget itself headed at 2.72 0.8 million.

2:08:57So we've increased that by having 50,000 public police

2:09:02department citations and fines.

2:09:04Can you didn't say the Kensington item again.

2:09:06I didn't understand that.

2:09:08So Kensington reimburses the city for fire services

2:09:12that we provide.

2:09:13And in the past, it's been around 2.72 0.8.

2:09:16But gradually moving up and in the last fiscal year,

2:09:19it exceeded $3 million.

2:09:21So the adopted budget had 2.85 approximately

2:09:25as the budgeted amount.

2:09:27And we are bringing that up to match last year's

2:09:29revenues up $3 million by increasing

2:09:32540000 because of the increase.

2:09:35OK exactly.

2:09:36Keep in mind that Kensington reimbursed us

2:09:39a third of our costs typically.

2:09:41And so now over time wartime fire

2:09:42department overtime moves up.

2:09:44That too is reimbursed to the tune of a third of that.

2:09:46So that too has been going up.

2:09:50The SRO reimbursement from the Unified

2:09:53School District by contract was decreased

2:09:56from January, 2003 100,000.

2:09:58So that decline is also reflected on that first slide

2:10:02as the 50,000 take down.

2:10:04So the net effect of this whole thing

2:10:07is an increase in revenues of 300,000 based on all

2:10:10these changes that have been summarized on that slide

2:10:16into the graph on this one.

2:10:19Here's a graph of fire department revenues

2:10:22over the last six, seven years budgeted revenues

2:10:28was it actual revenues.

2:10:30The blue lines represent the budget.

2:10:33And the orange line represents the actual revenues

2:10:38and you'll notice that the actual revenues have

2:10:40been a little over the budgeted revenues

2:10:42over the last seven ideas.

2:10:45And that gives us grounds to want to move the Kensington

2:10:48component of it, which is the significant part

2:10:51of that up to 3 million dollars when we seek

2:10:54to modify revenues by 150,000.

2:10:57And it's an upward trend.

2:10:58Fire department revenues have been moving up over time,

2:11:01over the last seven years.

2:11:03And this is just a summary of what's been going on.

2:11:09Before you go on.

2:11:10Can you go back to the previous slide.

2:11:14So there's more detail in the other revenue

2:11:17here than in the table.

2:11:19So I just want to make sure that if people

2:11:20are following at home.

2:11:22They can understand the Kensington fire reimbursement

2:11:26and the school resource officer reimbursement

2:11:29are both intergovernmental reimbursements.

2:11:33And so it only says 100 in our table.

2:11:36And that's because of the offset of these two.

2:11:39So that's I just want to make sure that other people that

2:11:42might be following this at home or through their detailed

2:11:46Gafford their detailed agenda report

2:11:49understand that the intergovernmental revenue

2:11:51at 100 is the nation of Kensington

2:11:56fire and school resource officers

2:11:58representing your high notes.

2:11:59Correct OK.

2:12:00Thanks again, like I said, I was trying

2:12:03to provide a slightly different slant on things as opposed

2:12:06to what's in the staff report, which is great.

2:12:11Thank you.

2:12:15This slide summarizes the police department's side of things

2:12:20as well.

2:12:21And I've reduced citations in fines

2:12:26by 50,000 because looking at the general trend in revenues

2:12:30on that line item from BD we've seen

2:12:33a slight decline over time.

2:12:37Going back to 2012 we the blue line here is the budget.

2:12:41The blue bars on the budgets and the actual revenues

2:12:44have been a little below budget and now trending downwards.

2:12:48So we reduced the police department

2:12:51revenue citations and fines line item by $50,000

2:12:54to reflect that.

2:12:55And that's also partly due to staffing

2:12:57because they have been staff vacancies

2:12:59and that's one of the ways that the collect fines

2:13:02and parking revenues and they've not been

2:13:04able to enforce some of that.

2:13:05One of the questions that we frequently are asked us

2:13:08if the fines and parking fines and speeding ticket fines

2:13:12offset the cost of an officer as you are demonstrating you know,

2:13:17with the revenue we get off of fines

2:13:20is not necessarily representative of what it costs

2:13:24to put a officer in the field to monitor

2:13:29traffic to monitor parking.

2:13:31So it's those fines and fees.

2:13:36Those fines and tickets is more about having officers

2:13:40be visible and in the neighborhood

2:13:42than it is to generate revenue.

2:13:44That is true.

2:13:51So going back to this slide, which is the revenue section

2:13:55of the staff report that we're modifying the proposed budget

2:14:00changes column as you know, this shows 300,000

2:14:03reduction in property taxes.

2:14:05500,000 in sales taxes may increase of 1.15 million

2:14:10in real property transfer taxes your duties

2:14:13are being decreased by 100,000.

2:14:15So our franchise fees again, looking back

2:14:17over the last couple of years of trend.

2:14:19We feel that it's sort of a to drop those business license

2:14:23taxes have been trending, not put up nine 9,000.

2:14:28So we expect that to move up to about 950

2:14:30by the end of this fiscal year.

2:14:31So we moved it up by $100,000, and Mark

2:14:33can I ask you on that question.

2:14:36Is that a result maybe of our rent registry effort.

2:14:43It's I mean, we're seeking I'd obviously.

2:14:46That was part of the debt.

2:14:48But I think more importantly, we've used new software

2:14:53on this, which keeps track of me to the database

2:14:56it accesses databases.

2:14:57The landlords are part of the business license.

2:15:00And that's bringing something as well.

2:15:02But this goes back to the last couple of years,

2:15:06he went before the registry itself.

2:15:09We've seen an increase in that increase was happening anyway.

2:15:12Yes, we've seen that happen with the new software

2:15:14that we've used.

2:15:15Thank you fines and forfeitures we adopted both 50,000.

2:15:21That's the line that I just mentioned.

2:15:23And the intergovernmental revenue

2:15:25is the net effect of the Kensington 150,000

2:15:28and the reduction in the other line

2:15:32that we had for SRS burrows giving us a net increase

2:15:38of 300,000 on the revenue.

2:15:39So that's the breakdown that's in your staff report

2:15:41SRO stands for student school resource officers

2:15:45and things the city previously had to SRO

2:15:49was reimbursed at 350,000% of the contract

2:15:51adopted to 200,000.

2:15:54It probably won't cover the full cost of what we need to do,

2:16:01then I come back to what I alluded to previously.

2:16:04Fire department overtime costs as you

2:16:07can see going back to 2012.

2:16:09Actual fire department overtime has tended

2:16:11to be closer to a million.

2:16:14But the budget, the blue bars have hardly

2:16:16provided for that in the past.

2:16:18And I made an effort back in 2018

2:16:20to try and meet that need by bumping up

2:16:23the budget to about a million.

2:16:24But funding has been tight.

2:16:27And so in the current fiscal year.

2:16:29We have a budget of 900,000 and we are seeking to increase that

2:16:33to $1.2 million that the current fiscal year does not

2:16:38show on this chart, you just see the last fiscal year 319 390

2:16:42and we provided 700,000.

2:16:44And we made 1.3 million in overtime costs.

2:16:48Actual all time cost there was significant difference

2:16:50like that.

2:16:52The trend has always been upwards

2:16:54partly driven by the cost of retirement rates as well.

2:17:03This does not include all or years or time.

2:17:06Just direct your time.

2:17:07All right.

2:17:07Oh, yes autonomy reboots separate for us.

2:17:10I'm not doing that in here.

2:17:11These exclusive.

2:17:12Oh, yes.

2:17:13Which is office of emergency services.

2:17:16What time from the governor's office.

2:17:18So the overtime.

2:17:19So you have a way of differentiating the overtime.

2:17:23That is caused by.

2:17:25Oh, yes.

2:17:26Or is this just the.

2:17:28Oh, yes.

2:17:29When you say, oh, yes is not included in here.

2:17:32You are saying that you have a way

2:17:35of breaking out the reimbursements for overtime

2:17:38from.

2:17:39Oh, yes.

2:17:39And therefore not including it in this.

2:17:43We track actual oh yes overtime.

2:17:46I mean, that's a separate line item in the budget itself.

2:17:49But the overtime costs by oh yes overtime is captured

2:17:53as the part of this got it.

2:17:55So eat the fire chief has stated that when

2:18:01an officer when a firefighter is away from the city they get.

2:18:07We get reimbursed 150 percent of their time.

2:18:10So even if they're only getting paid straight time

2:18:13we're reimbursed for overtime that's

2:18:17used to backfill them here.

2:18:20We don't track that overtime that you use

2:18:23to backfill in this line item.

2:18:25That is correct because this isn't what

2:18:27this isn't a revenue line item.

2:18:29This is an expense line item.

2:18:31And oh yes as a revenue line item.

2:18:34The reason we have overtime is for vacant positions

2:18:41that firefighters are vacant as a result of training family

2:18:45leave injury.

2:18:48We had a office.

2:18:50We had a firefighter out for almost

2:18:53four months due to worker's Comp basically had an illness leave.

2:19:00So there are different types of leaves that do

2:19:03do require overtime and this is that's what this is

2:19:06capturing that and the fact that we have

2:19:10three firefighter vacancies.

2:19:12So that is a part of the overtime be decided to fill

2:19:16those vacancies with overtime.

2:19:19And on top of that.

2:19:20Do you have the training or what time the medical overtime

2:19:22and everything else that goes along with that.

2:19:23Would you the normal or times.

2:19:24For example, we estimated firefighter vacancies

2:19:28to be approximately $635,000 in salary savings, which we would

2:19:35die if you do have the normal overtime

2:19:39such as medical training or something else

2:19:42that's over and above the 600.

2:19:47But our state auditor criticized our overtime policy right.

2:19:52I'm not sure because he's always the with one of the issues they

2:19:55thought we needed to deal with where they was hire people

2:20:00or keep spending over time.

2:20:03I think that was one of their bullet points.

2:20:06I don't have one of the bullet points for justice.

2:20:09I think Joe might be there.

2:20:12They were criticizing the analysis and the fact

2:20:19that we wouldn't they wanted us to do an analysis a better

2:20:25analysis of the salary savings versus the overtime

2:20:28costs, which we actually are internally doing.

2:20:31And we had let them know that we are doing that.

2:20:34And moving forward with that.

2:20:36And as we have discussed previously

2:20:39you know how we differentiate these costs versus oh yes,

2:20:43costs and what the state auditor was looking for was making sure

2:20:47that we are indeed doing that critical analysis of what all

2:20:51of those costs versus salary savings in keeping

2:20:55those vacancies open.

2:21:04So back to be reductions.

2:21:09And so back when it presented the five year forecast.

2:21:14I had pointed out too that I was tentatively

2:21:18considering 500,000 introductions with 300,000

2:21:22over time.

2:21:23And here's the breakdown of what we eventually ended up with.

2:21:26We have had a tenant in 1000 reductions in total.

2:21:30And an increase of 539,000 in costs with a net gain

2:21:35in expenditures of 262,000.

2:21:38The reductions that we've taken over the last six

2:21:43I would say not six months, three months

2:21:46have been outlined here from city technical services

2:21:49through pension costs through fire department deferral

2:21:52of equipment replacement I.t. department deferral

2:21:55of upgrades BD deferred purchases

2:21:59vacancies in police police department

2:22:02property and services.

2:22:03Savings recreation department supplies.

2:22:07These reductions have amounted to a total

2:22:10of $800,000 approximately.

2:22:13And staff is proposing to put back

2:22:16200,000 of this in due fire overtime, which currently is

2:22:20in the budget at 900,000 so this would move it up

2:22:22to the council approved the veto abatement program

2:22:27for 103,000 that's in there.

2:22:29The fire department needs upgrades to their computers

2:22:32system and communication equipment 11,100 1,000

2:22:36is for library extend hours at council

2:22:38approved a couple of years ago and offered

2:22:40legal services in h.r.

2:22:42These are the increases, we are seeking

2:22:45and the reductions we made give us a net of 262,000 in the five

2:22:51year forecast that I presented to a couple of weeks ago,

2:22:53we had a net of 200,000.

2:22:55The difference between the 300,000

2:22:57no time increase and the 500,000 introduction.

2:23:03I know I noticed that we used the word demise in your report

2:23:10tonight.

2:23:11Are you willing to give us a little background

2:23:14on how that essentially out.

2:23:19I'm assuming it's an employee was lost demise meaning either

2:23:24they left or they died and as a result of that, the pension

2:23:28costs.

2:23:29I'm looking specifically at the pension costs changed

2:23:32so me provided approximately half

2:23:34and 25,000 in pension costs to pensioners

2:23:37who elected to be on the city pension plan back in 1980.

2:23:41So when do we switch to calipers and be lifted.

2:23:45Just two former employees one of whom passed three last year

2:23:49and Patrick Reeve a former police chief

2:23:52is the only one left on that program

2:23:54and he's the one that draws approximately 85,000

2:23:59pension saving that I show.

2:24:02Here is the difference between the 125,085 1,000

2:24:05that actually happened in the last year.

2:24:07Great Thank you.

2:24:08I did it for my own information.

2:24:11What's the I.t.

2:24:13upgrades for fire is something innovative

2:24:19that's going to help us fight fires here

2:24:21that we should all know about.

2:24:22No, it's computer systems related server related

2:24:26equipment that has to be replaced in the fire department

2:24:29needs to be upgraded and these are typical computer systems.

2:24:34Nothing to do with the fire equipment.

2:24:38And if I can just make a comment here.

2:24:40I mean, I'm I know there's a lot of discussion about when

2:24:44we do our cuts and how we rearrange

2:24:46things not to touch safety.

2:24:49There's a lot of safety things in here

2:24:51as far as delaying cuts.

2:24:55And I want to applaud the fire and police department

2:24:58for finding those because I think there's low hanging

2:25:01fruit in every department.

2:25:02And I'll be happy to see all the other departments that

2:25:05come to us in the weeks and months

2:25:07to come here about what we can do.

2:25:09I just want to make sure that these vehicles

2:25:11that we need in deferred purchases are prudent.

2:25:16That scrutiny has happened.

2:25:20I'm assuming it's a tough call.

2:25:24It's been a tough call and the fire chief

2:25:26and the police chief have both offered to defer purchases

2:25:29of vehicles and equipment that they

2:25:31planned to have done this year.

2:25:34And as you know they can make do for another year

2:25:37while we get through this period right right.

2:25:39Thank you.

2:25:41I have a question about the library.

2:25:43Why is it extended hours just now.

2:25:47I thought that that was already accounted

2:25:48for a couple of years, we've been doing this

2:25:51for a couple of years, it was extended from 40 hours

2:25:53to 50 hours and on Sunday afternoons and so on.

2:25:56But it was not provided for in the budget.

2:26:00It has not been budgeted and we typically paid it

2:26:05from excess revenues like in the last couple of years,

2:26:08we'd be paid for it.

2:26:11But this.

2:26:11It's been so tight that we've had to now pull it call it

2:26:14out and have it separately funded it

2:26:16had not been funded in the budget itself,

2:26:18the budget of OK.

2:26:20Where was it.

2:26:21Where did.

2:26:22Where with it.

2:26:23It was funded for the first year that

2:26:25counts who wanted it funded.

2:26:26But not in subsequent years.

2:26:28It was not listed anywhere for us to see.

2:26:33And it's funded out of the council budget.

2:26:35So the last payment of 400,000 was made last year,

2:26:40and it's funded children in the county

2:26:42budget an actual expense.

2:26:47You know I. Mayor, thank you.

2:26:50Regarding the library extended hours

2:26:55every other city has the same problem.

2:26:58So I've talked to different mayors in the different cities

2:27:04and all of us would like to speak to our supervisors

2:27:09and ask why can't the county pay for this instead of cities.

2:27:13So I'll be asking John gioia and I'll be reaching out

2:27:18to the president of the board Candice Anderson

2:27:22and I'll get an answer for everybody

2:27:24because we need to make sure that if the county can do this.

2:27:30We need their help.

2:27:31And we'll look into that.

2:27:36Any other questions.

2:27:38Are you you're not done yet.

2:27:39Are you.

2:27:42So you're getting close though.

2:27:44I get almost at least a summary of what

2:27:46do you see in your staff report of all the previous reductions

2:27:50an increase in expenses.

2:27:52The net changes.

2:27:53262,000 I had broken it down on your staff report,

2:27:57but the previous slide lists slightly differently.

2:27:59So do you have a different picture.

2:28:01Things but what this does for us is

2:28:03it leaves us with a fund balance estimated

2:28:05fund balance of 544,000 months.

2:28:09These changes are made.

2:28:10Which leaves you with fund balance ratio of 1.3 percent.

2:28:15Well, that's the goal of these again,

2:28:24we shot of historical public safety costs.

2:28:28The red line is fire.

2:28:29The blue is BD and from train travel through 2019.

2:28:35Back then it was 18 million off the total of general fund

2:28:39budget it was for public safety and currently

2:28:42for the last fiscal year, it was 24 million dollars just so

2:28:44in over the last seven years.

2:28:46It has grown from 18 in total to 24 million.

2:28:50Combined PD and FBI of the $40 million budget.

2:28:5560% of that goes to public safety costs

2:29:02have thrown the city wide general fund expenditures

2:29:06on top of the previous graph.

2:29:09One of the things that probably jumps out at me at this point,

2:29:12looking at this is that the from 2015 onwards,

2:29:15the city wide costs have grown at a slightly

2:29:19faster pace than the public safety costs have.

2:29:24So the two lines at the bottom.

2:29:25Well, on the previous slide and on top of that,

2:29:29this is everything all the entire city general fund

2:29:32cost structure put together.

2:29:34That's the green line at the top.

2:29:36And so you've seen that grown from grow from $27.8 million

2:29:40back in 2012 to approximately 40 million dollars by the end

2:29:44of fiscal year slightly faster rate of growth from 2016

2:29:49through 2019.

2:29:51And this appears to be.

2:29:52I mean, it's a combination of benefits cap hers.

2:29:57I mean, what are some of the things that are causing

2:30:00that slope to be so steep.

2:30:05This is everything which is personnel costs staffing costs

2:30:08on personnel costs, and so on, which include scalpels

2:30:10and the whole looks recognizing that calculus has been moving

2:30:14up much faster in the last three to four

2:30:16years than in the prior years.

2:30:18So that has a significant impact on this.

2:30:22But again, the green line is something

2:30:25that we are looking at in our long term financial forecast

2:30:28as you know.

2:30:29And that's the one that we're trying to reduce by $2 million

2:30:31over the upcoming budget cycle.

2:30:34So that's the plan.

2:30:36If I remember correctly.

2:30:38Was it 2014 or 2015 when calipers

2:30:41changed their discount rate.

2:30:44Last I would say it was 2016 26 2016.

2:30:49Yeah, right.

2:30:49Thank you.

2:30:55And the final set of slides for the special revenue funds

2:30:59from public works.

2:31:01We are seeking to out and 5,000 for capital projects

2:31:06and the other projects have already been approved

2:31:10by council in previous actions.

2:31:13And that is essentially a summary of what's being

2:31:17done over the last six months.

2:31:26And the final slide on special revenue fund.

2:31:28Once again, the 205,000 is reflected back.

2:31:32There's $100,000 request for the cops fund that public safety.

2:31:37But that the police department uses

2:31:38to fund up pay for frontline equipment that they purchase.

2:31:43They've been buying up in the past, so many years.

2:31:45So that's the appropriation for that $100,000

2:31:48for a total of half entity.

2:31:49They typically get 130.40 dollars

2:31:52each year from the state.

2:31:55But that pretty clip on.

2:31:59I have a question.

2:32:01God Thank you, America.

2:32:03Looking at the last slide over here

2:32:05and looking at sb one road repair is at for San Pablo

2:32:10avenue it does include San Pablo avenue m pretty sure

2:32:17that complete street projects could have been

2:32:28mayor council members event or the city's

2:32:31public works director.

2:32:33Sb one line includes many items that includes operations that

2:32:38get funds are traffic signal and street length maintenance

2:32:42contract, but it also includes costs for various projects

2:32:46like San Pablo avenue.

2:32:48It's providing about a small amount

2:32:51of the total funding for San Pablo avenue improvements.

2:32:54Most of the funding for San Pablo avenue improvement

2:32:57is coming from developer impact fees, as well as grants

2:33:01and about 7 million that we've got in 2016 and our programs

2:33:06for the next two years.

2:33:07And we're working on developing the design for that project.

2:33:11Thank you.

2:33:13Any other questions.

2:33:15All right.

2:33:17Yeah, I just want to say I really liked your analysis

2:33:23document because it really allowed us to visualize

2:33:27projects and costs.

2:33:29And you know things much more money coming in leaving.

2:33:33And I think it's a good tool going

2:33:34forward to the next in our strategy

2:33:37going forward in the next budget.

2:33:40I did want to mention on the sales tax item

2:33:45and council member Keith Quinn had mentioned this

2:33:48about the cannabis dispensary.

2:33:52I didn't do a little research over the last week or so.

2:33:55And I know there's a lot of headache in the cannabis

2:33:59industry these days.

2:34:00But there's a lot of reasons that people that are supposed

2:34:04to be going into our dispensary have

2:34:06said they've delayed that they would like

2:34:08to come and talk to counsel.

2:34:09And I think they're going to be talking

2:34:11to staff about having a meeting and presenting

2:34:14to us why it's delayed.

2:34:16What are the roadblocks to coming in and allowing us

2:34:18to have another revenue source.

2:34:20So I just wanted to say that's happening.

2:34:22And if they can't do it.

2:34:23I agree with the council.

2:34:25We think we ought to get someone else that

2:34:28venue is designated for that.

2:34:30Let's start seeking a change in that.

2:34:33So that's all I had on it.

2:34:36I'm glad here on this slide.

2:34:37The real property transfer tax in increased from 950 to two

2:34:43million 850 or 850 to two million

2:34:45seems very just overly worried that you're

2:34:50being too optimistic on that.

2:34:51So on the whole year we're $600,000.

2:34:57The combination of the changes in revenue changes expenses

2:35:01changes our overall is intended to increase

2:35:03our overall position by 600,000.

2:35:06So we go from negative $50,000 to positive 550,000.

2:35:12But I know we're going to get around 2 million.

2:35:18But just curious why we didn't project something larger.

2:35:21And if you could speak to this large increase

2:35:24on this one line item.

2:35:26So as of January the 16 are PTT revenues

2:35:31have been around 1.4 million.

2:35:35Well, the current fiscal year and

2:35:37for the previous fiscal year for the six months

2:35:39before any 19 rebuilding 1.1.

2:35:42So based on that 1.1.

2:35:44I would expect that we'd at least make two million

2:35:46by the end of June this year.

2:35:48OK All right.

2:35:49Yeah, just.

2:35:50It's such a large increase that could concerning obviously.

2:35:55Any other questions.

2:35:58Again, I am going to use my new software to see that there are

2:36:02no public speakers on this item and anybody here

2:36:05would like to speak on this item seeing none.

2:36:09I'll bring it back to the diocese.

2:36:11We do we do have an action on this one

2:36:14we do have a resolution to authorize the changes

2:36:18that our finance director just walked through.

2:36:22Any comments or any motions I'd like to move this

2:36:30and I'd like to say our debt to the library.

2:36:36I think we all got investment to our city to keep that going.

2:36:39So I'm really glad to see that here,

2:36:41and I'd like to move a resolution.

2:36:44I have some comments still.

2:36:46Can I move.

2:36:47Yeah Sorry.

2:36:48I just wanted to.

2:36:51I feel like my comments haven't been

2:36:52able to really fit into any of the places very well.

2:36:58So I'm just going to go ahead and let some of them out.

2:37:03It's all budgetary related.

2:37:06So I just wanted to have my moment on the mic.

2:37:11I wanted to talk about just things that feedback I've been

2:37:15getting from people via emails and questions that I have

2:37:22or at least feedback I want to give to the city staff as well.

2:37:27We're moving towards preparing the next budget

2:37:32and what to keep in mind.

2:37:34I wanted to share with you some of my thoughts.

2:37:37So the police and fire are the bulk of what we

2:37:41pay the residents of El Serino.

2:37:44I've heard over and over again, saying

2:37:45that this is their priority.

2:37:48And while it is their priority it does not mean that we cannot

2:37:51look for better efficiencies like we have in this

2:37:57presentation and should continue to do continue to scrutinize

2:38:01closely how the overtime is coming about and how all

2:38:07of our dollars are being spent.

2:38:09I'd like to see a better presentation on exactly how

2:38:13this overtime was created and spent so that the public knows

2:38:18exactly where those dollars went because it was well,

2:38:23I can see now from the chart that was given that this seems

2:38:27to be kind of cyclical and has happened several times

2:38:30over the last several years.

2:38:31I think people just in this kind of frenzy of uncertainty

2:38:36would like to know a better explanation and not just kind

2:38:40of assume that this big number that we've seen just kind

2:38:43of floats away without any real accountability next week

2:38:50as we move forward any expenditures that we can

2:38:56eliminate that do not impact our residents will be my first

2:39:01and foremost.

2:39:02And when I say impact.

2:39:03I know, there's always going to be

2:39:05some sort of impact from decreasing any program

2:39:10or person or whatever it is.

2:39:13But what comes to mind for me specifically is the library.

2:39:17I mean, that was something that was

2:39:18thrown out there real quickly about something

2:39:20that we could cut.

2:39:22I think something that is so highly

2:39:23utilized like the library should not be touch.

2:39:27I think we should ask the county for money.

2:39:29But this is something that the people

2:39:34would also Serino utilize.

2:39:36So frequently and even though there

2:39:39may be some internal struggle or struggle between us

2:39:42and the county as to who should pay for it at the end

2:39:45of the day, people and also rito are going to have

2:39:48a bad reflection upon us.

2:39:50The city council, the city leadership

2:39:53for reversing those hours and we've

2:39:55been working for literally decades on trying

2:39:59to replace that library.

2:40:01And one of the big complaints when we failed by such

2:40:04a small percentage last time is you don't even have

2:40:07the library open full time.

2:40:09So even though we're in this bad position right now,

2:40:14I really want to continue with the idea, at least in our minds

2:40:18that we are going to rebuild that library

2:40:21and that we will move forward with a fully staffed library

2:40:25until we are able to do so.

2:40:27And I think that hopefully maybe there is a miracle out there

2:40:31and we'll be able to build the library

2:40:32sooner as opposed to later.

2:40:36I think we need some better comparisons

2:40:39on the salaries in the city.

2:40:43I received a lot of complaints about what certain people

2:40:46in the city are making.

2:40:48I don't know if all of those numbers are accurate.

2:40:51But I think that that's something

2:40:53that the city council hasn't been

2:40:55really given good data on that.

2:40:58I don't think we've had presentations on that

2:41:00here in the public.

2:41:01And if it's a public concern.

2:41:03I think we should address it so that we can make sure

2:41:06that the money that we're spending of the public's is

2:41:10accounted for very closely.

2:41:15One of the things that also has come up

2:41:17is the 37.5 hour workweek which I feel like we did get a better

2:41:21explanation of in a previous meeting

2:41:24and how there are some longer days

2:41:26and then some shorter days.

2:41:28And personally, I believe the shorter

2:41:32workweek is potentially more productive

2:41:36if you're not overstressed.

2:41:38I know that in the Bay Area having that

2:41:40one extra day can make all the difference

2:41:42to get errands done and doctor's appointments

2:41:44and all sorts of things.

2:41:46I don't think working an hour and a half extra will

2:41:52make that big of a difference.

2:41:54But that being said, I think that when

2:41:57doing salary comparisons that we should

2:42:00be taking that into account.

2:42:03And if you're looking at median it should be median minus that

2:42:06those couple of hours.

2:42:10I'm strongly in support of keeping our senior center

2:42:14and senior activities.

2:42:15And I know that when we're looking one

2:42:18of the items that came to me today

2:42:20is parks and recreation and the 1.4 million.

2:42:24That is not funded and is funded by the general reserve.

2:42:29And what comes to my mind.

2:42:31I don't know the exact numbers off the top of my head

2:42:32is the senior center.

2:42:34It's not something that we charge for yet,

2:42:37it is such a community asset.

2:42:40And I know there's many other recreation activities where

2:42:44maybe we can bump up the fees we'll take

2:42:47a look at all of those things.

2:42:51There is also discussion on eliminating

2:42:55commissions and committees.

2:42:59Initially I'm opposed to that.

2:43:01But I would like to see what the cost of each committee

2:43:04is actually for the city before just

2:43:08throwing out there that we would just completely eliminate it.

2:43:10I would like to know what the costs are.

2:43:13For example.

2:43:15Is there salaried staff staffing that you

2:43:18know it's no extra cost in terms of like it's part

2:43:20of their salary to be at the meeting versus someone

2:43:23whose hourly may be doing time and a half

2:43:26to staff the meetings.

2:43:29Those are things I'd like to know more about.

2:43:34And finally, I'd like to say that if cuts have to be made.

2:43:38I don't want to see the cuts going

2:43:39to our lowest paid employees.

2:43:42I want us to really start cutting and considering

2:43:47if we have to cut from the very top

2:43:49and from our very highest salaried employees.

2:43:53And I'd like to partner with labor.

2:43:57And then I appreciate the labor representatives

2:44:01coming in today.

2:44:03We've heard a lot from our constituents.

2:44:06And yes, we should hear hear also from our workers on ideas

2:44:10of how to come together.

2:44:13And hopefully keep jobs.

2:44:15But if not, you know what's everybody's ideas.

2:44:18What's everybody's ideas for getting through this period

2:44:21of time and making everything the best for all the people

2:44:25that live here and also rito because at the end of the day,

2:44:28I feel like my biggest priority is to keep the services keep

2:44:34the things about Elsa credo that people like about Elsa Prieto

2:44:39and work out our budget problems to the best of our ability.

2:44:43And I know that another thing that came by our desk up here

2:44:49today is traveling and training and yes, there probably

2:44:56will be a lot of cuts in that.

2:44:57And I would just like to mention that we've

2:44:59already at least council members have

2:45:01started cutting back on things.

2:45:03I know we've been invited to a safety

2:45:06symposium for fire danger.

2:45:08I still wanted to go.

2:45:10And I looked at it.

2:45:12And I sent it to the city manager and I was like,

2:45:14is someone going to this.

2:45:15Because even though I really like to go.

2:45:18It's in San Diego there's flight there's a hotel,

2:45:21there's food there's you know all of the cost

2:45:23of the symposium itself.

2:45:26But fortunately our fire chief is going.

2:45:28So I think we have to do things like that making

2:45:30smart decisions where maybe we don't cut things out entirely,

2:45:34but we only send one representative

2:45:36and sending the best representative possible

2:45:38for those sorts of activities.

2:45:43I know this is just the beginning of some discussions

2:45:48that we will have over the next several weeks.

2:45:51I am listening.

2:45:53I know we don't always talk about every subject

2:45:56but when we're up here, but I just

2:45:58wanted to know that I hear you.

2:46:00And then I'm trying the best to relate what you're saying back

2:46:04to the city management and hopefully we can work all

2:46:08of these things out together.

2:46:12Thank you for those comments.

2:46:14And certainly, we are.

2:46:17I did not come prepared tonight to give direction to staff

2:46:20on how to establish the budget.

2:46:22So although that's part of what you were doing.

2:46:27We aren't necessarily going to reach consensus on that.

2:46:29So you may need to repeat yourself when we actually

2:46:33have that as the agenda item.

2:46:35We will have this as an agenda item in the near future

2:46:39where we are giving very clear direction to staff.

2:46:43And it will be a reflection of this plan

2:46:46and other tasks that are on it can

2:46:51cause my working day you look like you

2:46:52have some comments on this.

2:46:54Thank you mayor.

2:46:55I also echo what you said Mayor and know that this is

2:46:59just a start of a conversation.

2:47:03We have no instructions that tell

2:47:06people what to cut right now.

2:47:08But I look forward.

2:47:09I've been listening.

2:47:10And I read every single one of your emails.

2:47:14And I get your phone calls and said, go.

2:47:17We are listening to everyone.

2:47:19And I know many people here that have sent me emails lately

2:47:24and I hear you.

2:47:25So we know what is important for this city

2:47:29and for our residents.

2:47:30And we are a city that's many seniors.

2:47:33I want to make sure that our seniors keep being active.

2:47:37And I hope we will continue to work on making sure that when

2:47:44it comes to programs that we will cut the necessary ones

2:47:50that are needed.

2:47:53But all departments are good.

2:47:54I feel this is not just you know here and there.

2:48:00This is between two million and $4 million in cuts.

2:48:03And so whatever our auditor says we will follow their lead.

2:48:08So we'll work.

2:48:11We will continue to talk about this.

2:48:13And I look forward in working with my colleagues

2:48:16here to make sure we do what's right for this city.

2:48:21Thank you, Mary.

2:48:21Yeah, I mean, I'll build on the comments the general comments.

2:48:24I mean, I appreciate what staff has done.

2:48:27Coming up with one time costs for this fiscal year

2:48:30that represent about a $600,000 in savings.

2:48:36So I appreciate that there's a slide in here

2:48:39that you presented that definitely lists

2:48:42all the things in as council members pointed out

2:48:45includes police and fire.

2:48:47So I really appreciate the rolling of the sleeves up

2:48:50and getting that work done.

2:48:54But we are facing a need for a meticulous process

2:49:00to achieve a structural change, we

2:49:04need to look at the underlying structure that got us here

2:49:09and figure out how to change it.

2:49:11And that is going to be something

2:49:12we're going to be focused on over the next month

2:49:15as we go through this strategic plan and additional meetings

2:49:20here and we'll hear so it again.

2:49:26But thank you for your comments.

2:49:27Council member Purdue okamoto.

2:49:29And you probably will need to make them again,

2:49:31as we get to an agenda item where we specifically are

2:49:34giving that kind of guidance.

2:49:37But I understand we all as a customer,

2:49:40we keep touch that we are all getting the emails we are all

2:49:43reading them, and most of them are being passed on to staff

2:49:47so that they can get your insight into what type of cuts.

2:49:52We should be looking at.

2:49:54I can make just because and then you can make the motion.

2:49:56Those statements got a little bigger than I had made.

2:49:58I appreciate it.

2:49:59I just want to build on because none of us

2:50:03seek election to make our cities less good

2:50:06and to take away services.

2:50:08And that's where we've been assigned to do now.

2:50:10And that's not an easy task.

2:50:12It's not a matter of, if we're going to cut,

2:50:16but what do we cut.

2:50:17And I'm very pleased with the discussion today.

2:50:20And I agree with Rochelle pardue okamoto

2:50:23that generally across the board, cutting

2:50:26is better than taking away critical services

2:50:29that make our city unique.

2:50:31And I actually look forward to maybe a state audit.

2:50:35Let's do it.

2:50:36Let's figure out what went wrong, let's learn our lessons.

2:50:39Let's straight not move forward and go in that direction.

2:50:43I've always said when I was working.

2:50:45I'm as your campaign that my highest

2:50:46priorities were reserves and fire protection

2:50:51and that they remain that.

2:50:53So it's not any news.

2:50:57But I'm also pleased about the transparency.

2:51:00This city has given to the residents

2:51:02that we have in El Torito.

2:51:04And I just want to also say that it's important.

2:51:06Some of you have heard that transparency come to our city

2:51:10council members as well.

2:51:12The more information we get, the more

2:51:14we can serve our city and the better choices

2:51:16that we can make.

2:51:17So if we're ready to make this malaise, if you make.

2:51:20Yes, I would like to move a resolution of the city council

2:51:24to the city of El Torito amending the spending authority

2:51:27by fund for the city of El Torito for fiscal year

2:51:292019 20 second that move by FDLE seconded by Keto

2:51:34all in favor, please say, aye.

2:51:36Aye Aye.

2:51:37Opposed abstentions.

2:51:38Let the record show it passed 4 0.

2:51:42That brings us to item 7c discussion

2:51:45of city events a discussion and possible direction

2:51:48to staff regarding city events.

2:51:51And it looks like the city manager is presenting

2:51:55on this bank here under my.

2:51:59I do not have a PowerPoint presentation.

2:52:03So this agenda item is brought back to you

2:52:07based on our last city council meeting

2:52:09where the city council directed staff

2:52:13to do a study of city events.

2:52:18One of the possible reductions that was brought to the city

2:52:21council as we had our study session at the last city

2:52:25council meeting to discuss possible reductions

2:52:28was city events particularly the July 4

2:52:32world one festival, which is our largest and most expensive

2:52:36event.

2:52:39So after that meeting I all staff got together.

2:52:43And I asked for information on all of the various events

2:52:49including staff time overtime costs expenses

2:52:53and then any revenues that resulted

2:52:56from any of these events.

2:52:58And so the table in your agenda bill

2:53:01is the top seven multi departmental events

2:53:05and their costs in 2019.

2:53:10The total cost of all of these events.

2:53:13And again, this is just art, essentially our top seven.

2:53:16This doesn't include a whole host of different workshops

2:53:20or green team cleanups or anything

2:53:23like that, which all, of course do have some sort of cost

2:53:27to them.

2:53:28But we were sort of looking for was I think it was based

2:53:31on a comment from council member party okamoto

2:53:34about looking at all of the other city events

2:53:37in relation to what they might cost in comparison to July 4th.

2:53:44So we again decided to, for the sake of clarity

2:53:48and brevity to narrow it down to the multi departmental events.

2:53:52So those are events that obviously,

2:53:55as the name implies go use more than one department

2:54:00to put on this event.

2:54:02So these seven events, which is the 4th of July world one

2:54:06festival National Night out Martin Luther King Day parade

2:54:10and rally Earth Day tri city safety day bike to work day

2:54:15and loving day totaled $107,559 in net city costs of all

2:54:22of those only two 4th of July and Earth Day

2:54:28create any revenue earth days modest revenue of almost $700.

2:54:33But the 4th of July creates about $76,000 in revenue.

2:54:37This includes vendor fees sponsorships

2:54:41day of sales et cetera.

2:54:45So focusing on 4th of July world 1 currently

2:54:48it's a two day event.

2:54:51The net cost to the city is about $60,000

2:54:53just under $60,000.59 1,729.

2:54:59And all of the others of the other seven put

2:55:03together was 47,830 in costs.

2:55:06So it's by far our largest event.

2:55:09It's our certainly our signature community

2:55:10event as has been discussed multiple times, even tonight.

2:55:15But also with feedback that we've been provided

2:55:18by the public the city council could still

2:55:22direct us to move forward with not with canceling

2:55:26any of these or all of these events

2:55:28should they direct us to do so.

2:55:31However, one of the things that, again, we have been hearing is

2:55:35is there a way, perhaps to condense some of these events.

2:55:40And so what we believe and I've worked in Chris Jones is here,

2:55:44and he can answer even more specific questions with respect

2:55:48to the recreation department who takes the lead in producing

2:55:51July 4th is that we believe that we can reduce the net cost

2:55:55of the event this year.

2:55:58We propose that this could be accomplished by condensing

2:56:01the event to just one day concentrating

2:56:04on July 4th to reduce the hours from an hour an opening

2:56:08to an hour on closing reducing some of the Day event expenses

2:56:12by reviewing staffing and trying to achieve some efficiencies

2:56:15there and maybe even increase day of event revenue maybe

2:56:20we increase some vendor fees and evaluate opportunities

2:56:24for more cost recovery.

2:56:26And then one of the things that struck us

2:56:28as we were doing this analysis is

2:56:31that we could also up our sponsorship game big time.

2:56:35Currently, we receive about $6,000.65 $100

2:56:39in sponsorship revenues.

2:56:41And that's.

2:56:43We could certainly work with trying

2:56:46to work with more businesses trying to increase sponsors.

2:56:51Perhaps there are people in the audience or people

2:56:54who are listening who might be willing to provide us

2:56:56with some sponsorship opera entities

2:56:58or leads for sponsorship opportunities.

2:57:01We actually do have a donation page on our website.

2:57:04But it's sort of buried in there.

2:57:05We could move that to the top of the page.

2:57:08Things like that to try to increase our revenues

2:57:11and increase our scope particularly

2:57:12with donations and sponsors.

2:57:15So we believe that we could decrease that significantly,

2:57:19particularly the costs that occur in this fiscal year

2:57:23because the staffing costs obviously, of July 4th

2:57:25being in our next fiscal year.

2:57:29So the staffing of day of and overtime costs

2:57:31would move forward in the next fiscal year.

2:57:34So looking at this fiscal year.

2:57:36What we could decrease at this point,

2:57:39we believe that we could work towards over time,

2:57:43considering that July 4th is coming up,

2:57:45and we really wanted to, we need to start

2:57:47planning now looking forward next year after the event.

2:57:51We can do a much better deeper dive

2:57:53into creating more efficiencies and trying

2:57:56to with a goal of maybe even making at a cost neutral event

2:58:00we did again receive feedback and on February 12th we had

2:58:04a strategic plan open house here at City Hall

2:58:07was attended by about 50 people.

2:58:10And we actually asked the question of excuse me asking

2:58:15participants to rank by value what they felt

2:58:18was the most valuable of all of these city events.

2:58:22And we actually listed about 12 to 14 other events but by far

2:58:264th of July world one was the most

2:58:28highest valued at followed by national and out

2:58:32and Martin Luther King.

2:58:34So that actually reflects I think what we had all

2:58:37been thinking as far as the feedback that we were receiving

2:58:42and we know that we would receive.

2:58:43And particularly with respect to this being again,

2:58:47our signature community event.

2:58:49And so at this point, if you have any specific questions,

2:58:53again, Chris is here.

2:58:54And I don't know if Corey is up various Corey Mason, who also

2:58:58does our productions for world one is here

2:59:01as well that can at answer specific questions.

2:59:04But again, at this point, we would

2:59:06seek direction from the council as to their desires

2:59:10for moving forward.

2:59:12Thank you.

2:59:14There's a couple of terms in this table.

2:59:17I'm looking at the table that's on page numbers on the one

2:59:23hand, I'm getting an 89.

2:59:26If you have a hard copy.

2:59:27It's page 29 if you're only electric version

2:59:30there's no page numbers.

2:59:32But I believe it's the second page

2:59:33of the agenda bill the table.

2:59:35It's here.

2:59:36Can you go through like revenue like what generates

2:59:40revenue non staff expenses.

2:59:42What is non staff expenses and staffing

2:59:44costs of you to just give us a sense

2:59:46of what those categories are.

2:59:48Sure So as I referred earlier only to events

2:59:51create any revenue of any significance

2:59:54would be 4th of July.

2:59:56And again, that's vendor fees that's sponsorships

3:00:00and day of costing.

3:00:03So when you buy a burger when you buy a drink

3:00:05or something like that pay you for buying

3:00:08tickets for the rides.

3:00:09So that all includes the revenues

3:00:11that we collect from that day.

3:00:13Do we get a percentage of the sale food sales

3:00:15in the food court.

3:00:19Mr. Jones you get.

3:00:22I mean, it's so I know it's.

3:00:24We sell food we sell tickets to the right,

3:00:28you know do we get AS do we.

3:00:30The vendors there they're selling hats

3:00:32and other things do we get a percentage

3:00:33of those of their sales or just their booth fee for the booth.

3:00:38It's just their booth fee and the food

3:00:41is that's true in the food trucks as well just there.

3:00:43That's true for the food trucks as well.

3:00:45But we're pretty.

3:00:46We feel that we're pretty in terms of the food we're pretty

3:00:49comparable to nearby events on how we sell our hamburgers

3:00:56for the food that the city sells is comparable you thinking

3:01:00or the booth fees for in terms of the food truck

3:01:03or the food booths some.

3:01:04So right.

3:01:05Yeah Yeah.

3:01:06Well, if they're paying for you know

3:01:09being a booth at another event that this

3:01:11is approximately what they would pay for it to us as well.

3:01:14Yeah, but we do.

3:01:15I mean, we do feel there is some room there.

3:01:17But to layer on like a percentage of their profits

3:01:20when they might not make any that day you know.

3:01:24Yeah, I just wanted to see what would constitute the revenue

3:01:28and non staff expenses staff expenses

3:01:31would be those types of pay vendors particularly for 4th

3:01:35of July.

3:01:36The booths all of the people that do the rides paying

3:01:42for the rides those types of all of the non city

3:01:45staff expenses that we pay in order to put

3:01:49that event on the performers.

3:01:51The renting the stage all of that stuff staffing costs.

3:01:55And I will give a caveat to the staffing costs.

3:01:58This generally reflects mostly the day.

3:02:01I will say that one of the things that we have tried

3:02:04to quantify and from time to time,

3:02:06it's difficult, particularly with 4th of July

3:02:08because it's done within the recreation

3:02:10department and their staff would be some of the planning

3:02:13costs, which is done while a city worker comes to work

3:02:17and is on duty.

3:02:19So they don't necessarily parcel out their day

3:02:22by saying, OK, I worked exactly one hour on 4th of July

3:02:25and coat it toward a project code.

3:02:28I mean, we could try to get that technical in the future years.

3:02:31However, what that doesn't reflect

3:02:34is the opportunity cost of not of that city worker

3:02:38not working on something else while they're doing planning.

3:02:41So that is not necessarily reflected here.

3:02:43And so I just but I do want to acknowledge that the recreation

3:02:47department especially spends a lot of time doing all

3:02:50of this planning, making the calls getting the orders,

3:02:54all of that stuff that is not necessarily

3:02:57always reflected in these days of staffing

3:03:00costs, which is great.

3:03:04We do have seven speakers.

3:03:05I don't know if anybody has questions

3:03:06first for Karen or Chris or any other staff members.

3:03:09But I have a question.

3:03:11Go ahead.

3:03:12Did you happen to look at what the 3rd of July

3:03:15costs versus the 4th of July so the 3rd of July

3:03:24is a relatively inexpensive day in the past,

3:03:30the art and culture commission has sponsored

3:03:32the entertainment and the.

3:03:36The rest area the infrastructure is

3:03:39already there for the fourth.

3:03:41And essentially the third is, I started because you know

3:03:45you set up the stage and the production equipment

3:03:48and you want to do a soundcheck.

3:03:50And so Corey's idea was, well, we might we might as well

3:03:52try to make an event out of it.

3:03:54So the idea of saving money by eliminating the 3rd of July

3:03:58would be to take or to use funds from the art and culture

3:04:04commission and apply it towards the fourth that

3:04:06would be the real cost savings.

3:04:10Is there a potential for the art and culture commission

3:04:13to double what they provide.

3:04:16Yes, I know Corey and he'll probably mention

3:04:19it when he comes up here.

3:04:20Clinton has made a request to the art and culture commission.

3:04:24And so you know we're hopeful that they could

3:04:28increase their support as one of the increased sponsorships

3:04:32this year.

3:04:34OK And then I was really glad that you did this cost analysis

3:04:40because in my mind, I was thinking

3:04:42that it was costing us so much money just purely

3:04:45and staff over time.

3:04:47And now that I see that the big cost

3:04:48is actually nonstop expensive.

3:04:50So I was also wondering if we could really just

3:04:53look at and more specifically, what

3:04:58those things are if those things can be cut back

3:05:01to keep things functioning.

3:05:04Yeah, we're going to look at a range of options.

3:05:07But I think what Mayor Lyman mentioned at the last meeting

3:05:11is really true.

3:05:12You know this event has been going on for several years.

3:05:15It's huge there's all kinds of things going on it would almost

3:05:20be better to cancel it rather than having such a scaled back

3:05:22version and then I'd like these thousands of people

3:05:25show up at sort of Vista park you know with nothing to do.

3:05:29So we're really taking a hard look at everything

3:05:34that we can reduce without really affecting

3:05:37the overall feel of the event, but to give you

3:05:45an idea of the non-stop costs.

3:05:47I mean, it's everything.

3:05:50It's everything from the port a parties

3:05:51to the right to the security that we

3:05:56have to have in the park because we've set up.

3:05:58It's the stage.

3:05:59It's a production equipment.

3:06:01It's the performers it is we have to hire help with

3:06:10to set up the event itself.

3:06:12And to keep it clean throughout the day.

3:06:16So it's a number of those things.

3:06:20But yes staffing is expensive.

3:06:22But it's certainly the fact that everyone there

3:06:27unless their A manager is on time and a half

3:06:29because it's a holiday a federal holiday is what adds to that.

3:06:33You know a couple similar similar.

3:06:38And then.

3:06:39Yeah, thank you.

3:06:40I'm really, really pleased that staff is reimagined

3:06:43July 4th because the city is proud of that event

3:06:47and needs that.

3:06:48And I think with cutting back and finding some bigger

3:06:52sponsors, which I would like to help

3:06:53on in any way I could is great.

3:06:56I know Corey and I worked on the July 3 effort

3:07:00when I was on the arts commission

3:07:01as the leaves on the show.

3:07:02I was a commissioner on there and my view

3:07:06is, if I'm not mistaken, there's a they

3:07:09have a fund with about 60 grand in it that I'm hoping someone.

3:07:15This is the time.

3:07:16And this would be if there's no other big art

3:07:17project, which I don't think there is on their lives,

3:07:20on out.

3:07:21Let's try to seek additional beefing up from the arts

3:07:24commission to the July 4th this year

3:07:26and make sure that we fund it this year

3:07:28and regroup in the next year.

3:07:32So let's do what we can to research that.

3:07:36I'll be going back to the arts commission

3:07:37and let them know that we've had this discussion

3:07:39if they haven't heard already.

3:07:42A quick question to Karen is I don't see any of the committee

3:07:49appreciation days on here.

3:07:51Are those for future discussion.

3:07:53Yes those are four featured exceptional kids.

3:07:55We just wanted to include Citywide events that

3:07:58were completely open to the public

3:08:00and also on the National Night out.

3:08:03Was there any discussion about I know being in people's yards

3:08:06and houses as part of the goal, but having something

3:08:09at our community center.

3:08:11So we could cut out on overtime of police and fire going out.

3:08:15And people who care about this could come to our we actually

3:08:19have talked about that.

3:08:20And we even tried it a couple of times having an event

3:08:23at the community center.

3:08:25And I think that all of us sort of and I mean, all of us

3:08:28by staff, and even previous city councils

3:08:30felt that again, the entire point of National Night

3:08:33out is to for neighbors to get to know their neighbors.

3:08:36And while it's great if we have one central event that actually

3:08:40would probably cost us.

3:08:42And that would give an increase in costs because then

3:08:44we would be sponsoring it.

3:08:45We would be providing whatever the food, the room whatever.

3:08:48Whereas if people have it in their homes.

3:08:51Then we can know depending on what staff go to what homes

3:08:55the ones who are on duty or the ones who are going out

3:08:58that actually helps us reduce any city city borne expense

3:09:02but more along the lines of the idea

3:09:04is that you're creating a block party.

3:09:07And so that neighbors are learning each other's houses

3:09:10and it's just this year, cutting that you know prioritizing

3:09:13and then last question is on Earth Day.

3:09:14What is the revenue that comes in from day.

3:09:17Good question because you know also I

3:09:21give up birthdays for sorry though that's a big deal.

3:09:24This is to give up who we are as well.

3:09:27Yes Is it from the baked potatoes.

3:09:31Donations from the public.

3:09:34The local cities.

3:09:36OK then lunches and expense.

3:09:38This event is actually funded from our special funds both lad

3:09:45of which is the light lighting and landscaping

3:09:47assessment district and our integrated

3:09:49waste management fund.

3:09:51So it doesn't come out of our general fund.

3:09:53A little bit of staff time.

3:09:54But the expenses in terms of tools and lunch

3:09:58are out of the other special funds

3:09:59and the overtime costs are about $1,800

3:10:03for a five crew for about eight hours.

3:10:06Stop for a pretty good.

3:10:11Councillor thank you mayor.

3:10:13Karen, I have a question for you.

3:10:16Regarding stamping costs for 4th of July

3:10:20you mentioned folks are getting double time on this

3:10:23is that correct.

3:10:24It's holiday time.

3:10:25Yes holiday time.

3:10:26We're going to have to include our union

3:10:30staff with police and fire.

3:10:32Yes, they all Good.

3:10:34Double time.

3:10:35OK Is does that.

3:10:36The 27 989 altogether.

3:10:39Yes OK.

3:10:40Thank you.

3:10:42I have a good follow up question to that.

3:10:45So there is definitely police and fire

3:10:48that need to be involved for the safety of the event,

3:10:52but every year we have these booths that

3:10:54are staffed by police and fire.

3:10:59Are they all necessary in terms of the safety of the event

3:11:02or are they just they're kind of you

3:11:04know promoting doing the things that they've done.

3:11:07Is there a possibility to cut back the number of staff

3:11:10for those booths or to not have the boots at all.

3:11:13That just have actually circulating police officers

3:11:16or firefighters ready to go.

3:11:19And it's both.

3:11:19You're absolutely right.

3:11:20But that is one of the things that we

3:11:22are going to take a look at is who is staffing the booths.

3:11:25Who is going to be there.

3:11:26And what that is absolutely one of the efficiencies

3:11:29that we would like to achieve.

3:11:31We'll be talking about that amongst ourselves

3:11:33if this council directs us to move forward.

3:11:35All right.

3:11:36Because I think that if we shouldn't be paying police

3:11:40officers double time to be getting dunked in a tank

3:11:44and have the mayor or volunteer to do that all day.

3:11:49Maybe we'll get just as many or more exact

3:11:52not paying the chief double time to go in the done thing.

3:11:55Oh good.

3:11:55Yeah Yeah.

3:11:58OK Any other questions.

3:12:02OK see I. We do have speakers on this one probably about seven.

3:12:06It is my guess.

3:12:07So we'll move to public comment at this time.

3:12:11If you would like to call.

3:12:12We'll do three minutes here for speakers.

3:12:16Corey Mason followed by Al Miller

3:12:17and Nick them marana everybody.

3:12:27Mayor council.

3:12:28Thank you, Deborah sue and I are here

3:12:31with a number of our family volunteers

3:12:34stalwart for those who I haven't met residents of Janelle street

3:12:40a resident for 20 years had been at the high school

3:12:42for 23 or so.

3:12:45And we recently relocated to Panola I'm sorry,

3:12:48but market forces you know.

3:12:50So we thank you everyone for a very thoughtful study.

3:12:56We're keenly aware of the challenge in front of us

3:13:00and we're committed to do our part working very

3:13:03closely with Chris and RAC.

3:13:05We will absolutely give our best do our best to meet the need.

3:13:10The challenge to innovate fundraise reinvigorate.

3:13:16That's the time for resilience and creativity

3:13:19to meet with the immediate need.

3:13:24The economy.

3:13:26Fundraising and long term sustainability.

3:13:28I'm sorry about the laryngitis I've had it for months.

3:13:30It's all good.

3:13:31A lot of talking at school.

3:13:33So we will do everything we can.

3:13:36And we're available regularly daily to collaborate

3:13:42and we'll do everything we can to preserve our hometown magnet

3:13:47event, which truly does draw extended elsewhere to families

3:13:51folks are calling their relations from all

3:13:53over the country folks are coming back.

3:13:55They're sad if they miss one that

3:13:57touches our hearts of course.

3:13:59I mean, we know we've got a job to do

3:14:01and indeed from around the nation around the world.

3:14:03So I hope it's shining a very bright light for us all.

3:14:08You know red, white, and blue, red golden green

3:14:12and all the flavors and the colors

3:14:13and the textures in-between.

3:14:15So we'll do so.

3:14:16And we'll do it with a sharp pencil and open hearts

3:14:18and open minds open possibilities.

3:14:20Thank you, Mr Mason before you step down.

3:14:23You still have some time.

3:14:24But the opportunities for sponsoring this event you

3:14:31know that the focus of the world one on music

3:14:35is certainly an addition.

3:14:37I think it's who I am.

3:14:37But 16 or 17 years, we've been doing music maybe.

3:14:41Yeah 20 something 20 22 this year.

3:14:44That really makes it is a focal point of the hour

3:14:49of this signature event.

3:14:51Is there in your mind a way to get

3:14:56the stage sponsor get some sort of way for it

3:15:00to be much more noticed.

3:15:03Yeah, I we've been puzzled by this over time years

3:15:06ago without sounding too poetic, but I think market realities

3:15:12with the advent of the internet and the continual development

3:15:18of mega events around the Bay ram

3:15:20it is the fourth largest metro in the country

3:15:24larger box store potential sponsors

3:15:29look for scaled up events.

3:15:30And they look for the kind of scaling that's on the internet.

3:15:33So we happen to be a city nested in a marketplace

3:15:38of 7 million people.

3:15:39And there's just a lot of place for those marketing dollars

3:15:41to go.

3:15:42So we had better luck.

3:15:44And more sponsorship in terms of numeric sponsors and dollar

3:15:47sponsors probably 10 to 15 years ago than we do now.

3:15:52And that's a puzzle we have yet to resolve that.

3:15:56So I have a feeling it's going to be direct appeal knocking

3:16:00on doors.

3:16:02I've got up at 4 AM this morning.

3:16:05And I thought of a short list of dawgs

3:16:09that I needed to reach out to again.

3:16:12Santana milagro Mickey R Rex I'm not reaching

3:16:18so far down the street.

3:16:19But including our own chamber of commerce with its 100 members.

3:16:23We just have to be really circumspect and persistent.

3:16:27Great Thank you.

3:16:28Thank you.

3:16:30Speak please.

3:16:31Speakers Al Miller followed by Nick Zambrano.

3:16:35Hello again.

3:16:37I understand why you're looking at events,

3:16:41especially this one, which is the most expensive event.

3:16:45But I ask you to look at it from a slightly different view.

3:16:50It seems to me that it is also the largest, most expensive

3:16:55investment that the city makes annually in the quality of life

3:17:02that the citizens of El Torito and our neighbors

3:17:05have come to love and come to expect.

3:17:08When you look at all of the committees

3:17:12commissions et cetera, that have booths at this place.

3:17:16The Library Foundation, the friends of the library

3:17:18Historical Society political clubs they're all out there.

3:17:24This is the one chance where people can come and see them.

3:17:28And these individual groups, we can sell

3:17:31ourselves to the community.

3:17:33And as you remember, the number of little green stickers

3:17:37you see walking and people wearing walking around there

3:17:42you know there's a lot of people that come by our booth.

3:17:45So unfortunately, this is all unquantifiable

3:17:51but it's an important part of the web

3:17:55that results in Elsa rito being Elsa Serino

3:17:59and it seems to me that if it's in the future

3:18:05or it becomes a necessity to modify it major way

3:18:11that this year's not the year to do that it takes it seemed

3:18:16to me to set it up so that it can be run

3:18:19continually and in a more efficient

3:18:22and more cost effective way.

3:18:24You need to work on it longer than you have from now

3:18:28until the time you're making the commit not you,

3:18:31but the staff are making the commitments

3:18:34to celebrate the fourth.

3:18:37I think the opportunity for sponsorships

3:18:42is a good one and major sponsorships.

3:18:47I can't see the list that you people do.

3:18:50If you look at the most sales tax.

3:18:53The next most sales tax.

3:18:55The maximum most sales tax.

3:18:57Well, how about Honda of El Serino sponsoring the world one

3:19:03stage of the whole world one musical festival.

3:19:08They sell a lot of handlers around here.

3:19:10And you see people from all over the region with Honda of El

3:19:14Serino on their bumper sticker.

3:19:16So it seems to me that I'm not a very good

3:19:19salesman I could not do that.

3:19:21But that there are people in the city that can do that.

3:19:24And if we can identify him and get

3:19:26them to work on it that that would be a great opportunity.

3:19:30Consider increasing.

3:19:32It's just a little bit.

3:19:34But I don't know how many of the people that

3:19:36come are the organizations that come regularly

3:19:40would stop if you doubled our booth rate, for example.

3:19:44I mean, why thank you.

3:19:45Thank you.

3:19:47The next speaker Nick Zambrano followed by Marlene Jorge

3:19:54good evening.

3:19:54Next time around.

3:19:55Florida resident.

3:19:56Well, I have a different take on this subject

3:20:00don't get me wrong.

3:20:00I like a good party, especially 4th of July.

3:20:04But I'm here tonight to express my concern

3:20:05about the costs of holding the 4th of July event this year.

3:20:10Do the current budget crisis.

3:20:11I'm suggesting that the council spend event this year.

3:20:15And I do.

3:20:15So because I believe we must use all our financial resources

3:20:19to supplement our reserve accounts

3:20:21increase our emergency fund.

3:20:23And we allocate monies to pay for essential services

3:20:25such as public safety overtimes passivity

3:20:28to fire prevention and safety of vegetation management.

3:20:31And of course, a fire hazard abatement program.

3:20:34I know that this is a very difficult

3:20:36decision to make for everybody.

3:20:38And I think that the council has to make

3:20:42these difficult and bold decisions in order

3:20:45to reduce the budget deficit and to forward a path

3:20:48toward financial solvency.

3:20:52Speaking for myself here today.

3:20:53But I believe there's other committee members that you know

3:20:56are depending on all of you to make

3:20:58these hard choices no matter how difficult and how painful.

3:21:01And I think that suspending it for one year

3:21:03is an extreme sacrifice that all residents have to make.

3:21:08Thank you.

3:21:10Our next speaker is Marlene George.

3:21:11Oh, by Kimberly search Marlene George.

3:21:20Alfredo I hate to be Scrooge and tell you to cancel Christmas.

3:21:28But I don't think we can afford.

3:21:30If we're going to have a try to cut 2 to 4 million

3:21:34from our budget.

3:21:35That's a lot of money and $60,000 is a lot of money.

3:21:41And I understand that it's a very popular event

3:21:45and it brings.

3:21:46It's a cohesive event that brings the community together.

3:21:50But if you look at all of the events

3:21:52that the city staff provided the cost of them.

3:21:56That's about $100,000.

3:21:58We could save the senior center.

3:22:00And I agree with one of the council members

3:22:03that we should not cut the senior center because we don't

3:22:06provide that many services to seniors

3:22:08and I think we should try to preserve

3:22:11that as much as possible.

3:22:13The state is also, I believe gone on record saying

3:22:16that they are questioning whether we

3:22:18should be a full service city.

3:22:21So I think that we need to demonstrate fiscal constraint

3:22:24at this point.

3:22:27And I don't know much more to say.

3:22:30But I think that it's time to put this money in the bank

3:22:34and this is the first difficult decision you're

3:22:37making about the budget cuts.

3:22:40And I think that if it's going to cost 60,000

3:22:43you can reduce the cost to nothing.

3:22:45Then I say go for it.

3:22:46But I don't think we can afford it.

3:22:48Thank you.

3:22:49Next speakers Kimberly Kimberly third,

3:22:52followed by Howard County.

3:22:54Thank you for your service.

3:22:55Can both church.

3:22:57It's kind of difficult to come up against that when there's

3:22:59so many vital things that need money

3:23:02and we experience it everywhere.

3:23:05When I moved here to the East Bay 17 years ago,

3:23:08I discovered the world one festival

3:23:09looking for something to do on 4th of July,

3:23:11and it blew my mind.

3:23:13And it's what led me to eventually move to El Serino.

3:23:17So I'm proudly a resident now and have been volunteering

3:23:21for the past few years.

3:23:23And it takes of course, all the money that it does.

3:23:27But also all of the volunteers and I

3:23:29think we have the potential to increase both the income

3:23:33and the volunteers and the fear is always that once funding

3:23:37diminishes for these types of things,

3:23:39particularly in the arts that it's a slippery slope

3:23:43to them disappearing.

3:23:44And we also see that in the world at large.

3:23:49So as much as funding is needed everywhere.

3:23:53I think it seems clear that you all understand

3:23:56the vitality of this being far more than a music

3:24:00event and entertainment.

3:24:02But the value to the community in building cohesiveness

3:24:06for people to be available to support all of these things

3:24:10that we're talking about happens at this event.

3:24:13It is so much more than entertainment.

3:24:16I mean, that is just the icing on this cake

3:24:20of beautiful diversity that's represented there.

3:24:25And when I came to the festival for the first time,

3:24:28I thought, wow.

3:24:30Elsa rito has got something really special going on that.

3:24:34I have never experienced anywhere else aside

3:24:36from getting to see the diversity of the community

3:24:39out and together and meeting each other.

3:24:42It's where I've met.

3:24:44I've met more of my neighbors at this event

3:24:46than just am I going about town and in and night out.

3:24:50I mean, I love that event as well.

3:24:52But this is where I've really met the bulk of people.

3:24:54This is where I've learned about what's

3:24:56happening in the community.

3:24:57This is where I've learned about the businesses that are

3:25:00happening in this community.

3:25:01And I just can't express the value to this of this

3:25:05for myself and all of us.

3:25:08Thank you.

3:25:08Thank you.

3:25:09Next speakers Hattie Gowdy followed by Judith Frank.

3:25:16Good evening mayor and council members.

3:25:17My name is how did Gowdy and I live in Austria.

3:25:20So I actually support maintaining the events.

3:25:28I think it is not as husband stated

3:25:31a really huge and significant investment

3:25:33for the quality of the event.

3:25:35It is.

3:25:35And for them meaning it is to build community.

3:25:41And I support finding efficiencies

3:25:44exploring more co-sponsor ship.

3:25:47But we should be clear that scaling something

3:25:52back and then asking for a sponsorship

3:25:54is not an effective strategy.

3:25:56It's like we have a sort of a marquee event you

3:26:00want to keep it the way it is.

3:26:02If you ask for support to keep it that way.

3:26:05And even make it bigger and more grand.

3:26:07You don't ask for support to make something less.

3:26:11And I think we need to keep Elsa rito having really

3:26:17high quality events like this.

3:26:20So yes, we need to cut the budget

3:26:25and yes, little things do add up.

3:26:27But this because of timing and the fact that we're planning

3:26:31for something that's going to happen in the next fiscal year

3:26:34has been singled out first and it's

3:26:36kind of being targeted as you know,

3:26:39we want to see the council show they're serious

3:26:41and cut the budget.

3:26:43We need to tackle this budget holistically we're not going

3:26:45to get it 50, $60,000 here and there

3:26:50just without a careful study.

3:26:55This has to be part of a whole process

3:26:58to really understand all these expenses you know is brought up

3:27:04earlier tonight that you know there's $400,000 of you

3:27:08know travel and training some of that's prior very valuable.

3:27:12But that's twice the amount of money

3:27:14that we're talking about for events and the library.

3:27:17And so all of these things need to be thought

3:27:19of together not in isolation.

3:27:22And I think the value that these events provide

3:27:25and the modest cost.

3:27:27This is not the right place to be looking for savings.

3:27:30Thank you.

3:27:30Thank you.

3:27:31Because Judith Frank followed by an Afghan Ascii

3:27:40good evening mayor.

3:27:41And good evening city council.

3:27:45I want to express my appreciation to you

3:27:47for the seriousness with which you

3:27:49are approaching this fiscal crisis

3:27:51that we're having this evening.

3:27:53I'm very impressed with the way you're handling this.

3:27:56And there have been some excellent savings

3:27:59ideas presented this evening.

3:28:02So it's been a great start tonight in my view,

3:28:07I do remember that at the last city council meeting mayor,

3:28:09you did ask for a list of $2 million

3:28:12in proposed cuts or possible cuts

3:28:15and it seemed to me that this falls

3:28:18quite short of it of what's been presented tonight.

3:28:20So I do hope that the staff members

3:28:24are going to be continuing their work and meet that $2 million

3:28:29request that you assigned to them last week.

3:28:35And I think that's probably the last thing

3:28:38I need to say but thank you very much for the way you've

3:28:40handled the meeting tonight.

3:28:42And I do hope you get that list filling out the $2 million.

3:28:46Great Thank you.

3:28:47And just to be clear on the $2 million.

3:28:50It's not a dialogue.

3:28:51So you can sit down on the $2 million.

3:28:54It was that that was a request for the next fiscal year budget

3:28:58so that that wasn't necessarily further what we're dealing

3:29:01with on our previous agenda item,

3:29:02which was the mid-year budget.

3:29:04And in this topic was not intended

3:29:07to be the beginning of that $2 million

3:29:10budget that's that 2 million is more towards what council

3:29:14member party work model was speaking about in her comments

3:29:18on the last item is some guidance

3:29:20to staff to come back with programmatic changes

3:29:25so we can achieve a new structure structural.

3:29:28So next speaker please.

3:29:30And our final speaker on this item

3:29:31is and I'm an to Ascii good evening here Lyman council

3:29:39members, staff neighbors I'm an open house here live in street

3:29:45do I have for over 20 years.

3:29:48I am not a policy.

3:29:49I'm not an economics wonk by any chance.

3:29:53And I am very impressed with what you've done

3:29:56and the unenviable task that you all have to do,

3:30:00whether this is Mike.

3:30:02Council member federally said none of you

3:30:04sought election to be involved in this kind of thing.

3:30:06And here.

3:30:07It's thrown in your lap.

3:30:08So I do.

3:30:09I do have a great deal of admiration for what you've

3:30:13yoked yourselves to briefly.

3:30:16I certainly support the world one festival and my approach

3:30:21is we keep talking about what the city is spending.

3:30:25But what about what the city is given.

3:30:29When you have events like world one

3:30:30and Earth Day and the treasure trail

3:30:33trackers volunteers and green teams

3:30:36working on the city period has anyone

3:30:40calculated what those volunteers have done their work hours.

3:30:44How much trash has been picked up

3:30:46how much litter has been disposed of how much

3:30:49fire prevention has taken place.

3:30:52If you had to pay or subcontract that work.

3:30:56What would it cost but people like me.

3:31:01We do it gladly.

3:31:03We would do more of it.

3:31:04We want to be part of this city.

3:31:06So I want somehow.

3:31:09Even if you can't quantify that involvement

3:31:13to recognize that it is a benefit to the city,

3:31:17not just to cost to have a supervisor there.

3:31:22And for some reason, this song just came into my mind.

3:31:25And I think it's apropos.

3:31:27It's the bread and roses.

3:31:30We do need the bread.

3:31:32A fire department police department

3:31:34and those very vital services.

3:31:37But we need the roses too.

3:31:40We need the community and the roses.

3:31:46We just need those two.

3:31:47All right.

3:31:48Thank you.

3:31:49That concludes our speakers.

3:31:51Thank you.

3:31:52We'll bring it back now to counsel for counsel comments

3:31:56and consider direction to staff and council member.

3:32:01Do you want to go first.

3:32:03Sure But thank you mayor.

3:32:05I'm looking at the other things that we can cut and more

3:32:10of them as loving day might like to cut

3:32:13that bike to work day twice.

3:32:15City day.

3:32:18I would like to keep the 4th of July.

3:32:22That is part of who we are.

3:32:24Else to Rita.

3:32:25So I'd like to keep that in.

3:32:27And all of us will work together to make

3:32:29sure we get corporate sponsors and sponsorship

3:32:35from everyone in our city and surrounding areas.

3:32:38I'd like to keep our National Night out

3:32:41and keep MLK but the other ones I think

3:32:45we can do without this year.

3:32:48This is serious.

3:32:49We have to cut $2 million.

3:32:53I want to make sure that people know here.

3:32:57How difficult it is that we need to do this.

3:33:00And as our mark said earlier, we need to keep this in the bank

3:33:06and we cannot overspend and go in and do these

3:33:11feel good things all the time.

3:33:13We don't have money to do it anymore.

3:33:15And I'm serious about this.

3:33:17I said this back in 2018 2019.

3:33:20I'm saying it today in 2020 that we can't do this anymore.

3:33:25And I hope that we do this state audit and the auditors

3:33:30will tell us what to do.

3:33:31But I hope we look at things in a way

3:33:36where we're not hurting our residents.

3:33:39So while we overspent and it's our fault and the city

3:33:43and it's time that we fix it.

3:33:45And I look forward to working with all of you

3:33:47to get it fixed.

3:33:48Thank you.

3:33:49Thank you.

3:33:50Council member Paula Ackerman I mildly agree with councilman

3:33:58canto that I would.

3:34:00I would say just to his suggestions.

3:34:05I believe that the events that he listed to stop.

3:34:10I would.

3:34:11I would phrase it differently.

3:34:12I would say that those vents be put on hold.

3:34:16I don't want them to disappear forever.

3:34:19But this year.

3:34:22We do need to make some cuts and we need to make little cuts.

3:34:28And in nips and tucks from everywhere.

3:34:32And so when we're looking I'm looking at this

3:34:35as this is our advance budget.

3:34:38But I agree with what.

3:34:41So many people have said tonight about the July 4th world

3:34:44one I feel like it is our crown jewel in terms

3:34:47of events It is amazing.

3:34:51It is one of a kind.

3:34:53I have never seen anything else like it.

3:34:57I do have to disclose I think I'm going to miss it.

3:35:00This year for the first time in several years.

3:35:02But I'm going to fight for it anyway.

3:35:06It's just it's just something that I

3:35:09want people to experience if they've

3:35:11never experienced before.

3:35:13I think it's something that makes

3:35:14Elsa Brito so unbelievably unique and fantastic.

3:35:19And so I can't just with any way of getting around

3:35:24it cut something that I feel is so

3:35:27vital to the city's identity.

3:35:32That being said, I the efficiencies that I'd

3:35:35like to see put forth as I mentioned earlier,

3:35:39particularly in regards to double time for paying folks

3:35:44that are working that aren't absolutely

3:35:46necessary for the public safety or for the essential function

3:35:50of the event.

3:35:52I am really interested in the arts and culture commission

3:35:55hopefully being able to rev up their amount of sponsorship

3:36:01from what I've heard tonight.

3:36:02It doesn't sound like canceling the third part of it

3:36:06will really be much of a cost savings.

3:36:10If the stage and all the equipment is up as long as

3:36:13it's not outlandish with staffing costs.

3:36:16I'd say we just keep it.

3:36:17It's there.

3:36:20And I think it's still a good use of time and space

3:36:25National night out.

3:36:30It's something also that I feel like in terms of identity,

3:36:33in terms of meeting your neighbors

3:36:36and really getting to know them.

3:36:38I organized my street for several years

3:36:41before I started this job and then

3:36:44it got to be too much to be out and organizing an event.

3:36:48My husband was doing by himself with two kids.

3:36:51So we haven't had one for a couple years.

3:36:53But I know eventually I'll get back

3:36:56to being the block organizer and we'll do it again.

3:37:00It was such a great way.

3:37:01I feel so much better about knowing all of my neighbors

3:37:04now that I've done that.

3:37:07And then MLK just the history around MLK

3:37:12and how El Serino did not recognize MLK

3:37:15and how they had to march on city hall

3:37:18to get us to recognize it.

3:37:20And that marches continued.

3:37:23An annual event.

3:37:25I know that the organizers of the event

3:37:27are open to working with us to bring costs down

3:37:31for that as well Earth Day.

3:37:35I'm a little on the fence.

3:37:39I'd like to hear what the other council

3:37:41members have to say about that.

3:37:42I agree with council member FDLE in that it also, I

3:37:48think is a big part of our identity in terms

3:37:50of the climate justice that we are trying

3:37:55to work on within the city.

3:37:58But I believe that definitely the bottom three

3:38:00could be put on hold for now whatsoever FDLE.

3:38:06Actually before you go, can you please

3:38:07extend the meeting to 10:45.

3:38:10I move that we extend the meeting to 10:45 second.

3:38:14All those in favor, say aye Aye I. I opposed.

3:38:18So yes briefly.

3:38:20I think this city council is resolved to make serious cuts.

3:38:25And I think we can be resolved to have roses here.

3:38:29And also, you as well.

3:38:31And with the July 4th festival.

3:38:34I'm very happy about being creative

3:38:38in ways that get major sponsors that cut on costs

3:38:43and using the arts commission if we

3:38:45can to help supplant the cost of that and with those savings.

3:38:49I'm supportive of the next three events

3:38:54and hopefully we can use the money that we save from July

3:38:574th and getting sponsors to use to these other

3:39:01important Telstra radio events.

3:39:03Thank you.

3:39:06Well, maybe I'm going to be the wet blanket

3:39:09tonight with regards to the 4th of July world one.

3:39:13I definitely think that the event

3:39:15scaling is is impractical to some degree on that.

3:39:18So whether it's July 3 July 4th I understand the use

3:39:25of the arts culture money.

3:39:26But the art culture money is one time money it comes in

3:39:29from developers and you can't rely

3:39:32on that for an ongoing thing.

3:39:35So if We're going to if it sounds like we're going to go

3:39:40forward with the 4th of July for me,