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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES-2011-11-15-2011City of Evanston SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL MEETING CITY OF EVANSTON, ILLINOIS LORRAINE H. MORTON CIVIC CENTER 2100 RIDGE AVENUE, EVANSTON 60201 COUNCIL CHAMBERS Tuesday, November 15, 2011 6:00 p.m. Roll Call: Alderman Holmes Alderman Fiske Alderman Tendam Alderman Braithwaite Alderman Grover Alderman Wynne Alderman Rainey Alderman Wilson Alderman Burrus Presiding: Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl The Mayor opened the Regular meeting of the City Council at 6:36 pm, after the Ro I Call was completed. Citizen Comment Michael Smith, 540 Forest Ave. spoke as the Chair of the Utility Commission. The Committee supports the raising of the water rates to 5% in 2012, for the Water and Sewer Capital Improvement Program These persons spoke on the budqet: Junad Rizki, 2284 Sheridan Road spoke of the mistakes staff made last year with the yard waste sticker that caused the GROOT fees to go up. He also believes the City is creating a hardship on the citizens. He also questioned the delinquent water bills that have no. been collected and wondered why. Alderman Rainey responded to Mr. Rizki's comments, as well as the City Manager responding to her comments. Virginia Mann, 3004 Normandy she thanked the Council for restoring the 4 Forestry positions and it is a top priority for the City. Mimi Peterson, 748 Wesley came to give her support to the Forestry Department and not supporting the merger into Streets and Sanitation because she feels it will) cause more disfunction. Mary H. Larson, 2010 Cleveland Street she stated she serves on the Evanston Health Advisory Council as she thanked the Health Department for their assistance in many areas within the community. Kevin O'Connor, 1227 Y2 Isabella stated there is no deficit in Evanston, just misplaced priorities. He also mentioned the Council's budget request as well. Leigh Skinner, 1123 Noyes she thanked the Council for restoring the Forestry positions and she thanked them for their organization. She also requests the saving of the secretary's position in Forestry as well. November 15, 2011 Fiscal Year 2012 Budqet Discussion and Consideration The Mayor called on the City Manager to present the FY 2012 Budget and open it for discussion. The City Manager directed everyone's attention to the handouts that were distributed earlier. City Manager Bobkiewicz then proceeded to fly through his proposals to the budget for the Fiscal year 2012. The Councils concerns: 1) The reason for the flip-flop of the Capital budget transfer of funds and the Crossing Guards issue. Mr. Bobkiewicz stated he did not consider it flip-flopping but his part of responsibility to help the Council find a solution that you can agree upon so as to allow us moving forward to obtain a balanced budget. 2) To remove the two contracts out of the Consultant fees ($30,000 and the $50,000) was suggested but it was denied. 3) The source of these two amounts. (answer was the Economic Development Fund) 4) To restore the Forestry secretary position and was seconded. A vote was taken the motion failed with a 5-4 not to restore. Aldermen Rainey, Wilson, Wynne and Fiske voted aye. 5) How many secretaries are in Parks and Forestry? (2 employees) a) What are they doing? They have different tasks with equal abilities. b) How many in the other departments? i) In Streets & Sanitation has no secretary. 6) To cut the amount in half to be $250,000 instead of $500,000.There was no second so the motion failed. 7) To reduce the amount of Parks & Recreations fee increases from $305,000 to $150,000 and it was seconded. The vote was taken and it was 8-1 to approve. Alderman Holmes voted nay. 8) Not to increase the furlough days and it was seconded. A vote was taken and the outcome was 4-5 and the motion failed. Aldermen .Grover, Rainey, Burrus, Fiske and Wilson. 9) To add $175,000 to the RETT and it was seconded and the vote was 4-5 to accept failed. Aldermen Burrus, Fiske, Braithwaite, Wynne and Wilson voted nay. 10) To increase the condo cart fee to $7.95 and it was seconded. The vote was 7-2 to approve. Aldermen Holmes and Rainey voted nay. 11) To begin collecting the increased refuse fees and Parking fees February 1, 2012 and it was seconded. The vote was 7-2 to approve with Aldermen Rainey and Fiske voting nay. 12) Raise the parking meter fines from $10-$12 dollars and it was seconded. A vote was taken and the motion failed 4-5 with Aldermen Tendam, Grover, Fiske, Wynne and Wilson voting nay. There was a fifteen minute recess, and then the Council returned. 13)Raise the RETT to $100,000 making it $1,725,000 and it was seconded. A vote was taken and it was 6-3 the motion passed. Aldermen Burrus, Wynne and Wilson voted nay. 14)To remove the additional fee from the condo collection and it was seconded. This motion can only be mentioned, but can only be dealt with at the very next meeting. So no action was taken. November 15, 2011 The City Manager then proceeded to present the CIP proposal. With much discussion the following concerns arose: 1) The proposal the Salt dome and its possible location and cost. 2) TIGER II grants if we receive them or not. 3) The Civic Center renovations (life safety, bathroom issues, fire pump project and miscellaneous other issues). The City Manager then stated he would put a budget together with an amount of $5,185,213 will be the number they will bond for. 4) The Library issue also came up and the concern is what the Manager did in talking to the Library on his own, and now everyone has gotten what they want. Ms. Dziedzic, Library Administrator came forward to discuss its actions, and she stated how the staff had been downsized about 20% before coming on board. Mr. Paul Gottschalk, Manager of Administrative Services talked about the budget process which took three phases: 1) It followed the City Manager's guide lines; 2) Working and developing the budget with two Library Board members; 3) Finally the Board's deliberation on the budget. Alderman Burrus asked if the Interim Director had looked into the organization of other libraries, for example the "Mighty Twig". City Manager, Bobkiewicz stated that is exactly what they are trying to accomplish in allowing the Library to discover new ways to support itself. Alderman Burrus stated she was confused about what the new employee would be doing as the outreach staff. It was explained to her that you can not know what the day to day schedule would be. City Manager stated there was $13,000,000 in reserves and he felt it was time to now do some one time expenditures for Capital Projects. Such as: 1) Streets; 2) Sidewalks; 3) Other infrastructure issues. He stated the last item he wanted to propose a one time disbursement of $1,150,000 which included transfer from special assessment accounts of $800,000 for CIP (alley improvements, street improvements, etc).The request was to have the areas mapped out before the next meeting. City Manager then proposed to transfer $250,000 from the Township from their over million dollar reserves. The questions was can we do this since we couldn't do it in our past attempts. Yes you can as the Township Trustees. Alderman Rainey stated the only way we can obtain funds or have some control over their budget is to decrease the Township Fund Levy of $100,000 and then use that $100,000 for the City. The City Manager then stated he has direction to prepare the necessary documents to proceed with the transfer of funds from the Township. He then asked to cancel the meeting on the 21 st and it was agreed. The Mayor then asked if anyone else had anything to present, and the City Clerk flipped his light on and made the following statement: He directed the Council's attention to the memo dated September 27th to City Manager Bobkiewicz. The memo was a request for additional personnel in the Clerk's Office in the amount of $32,540.94 for a part-timer of 27 hours/week. He then adjusted his request to increase the amount to $48,092.80 to include a second part-timer working only 13 hours/week. Alderman Burrus stated in her experience the request to too expensive. Alderman Grover spoke of the City Clerk's decision to take classes and studies to improve his abilities to better serve the community and the Council, but she felt there was no support for his request. She suggested using volunteers to assist in the Clerk's Office. The City Clerk explained that volunteers would not work for him, 3 November 15, 2011 because they are trained and then leave in a short time. He asked again for a motion to approve his request and there was none. He finally said "so no one wants to support it ok". The Mayor then asked Alderman Wilson for a motion to convene to Executive Session the meeting ended at 11:00 P.M. Submitted by, Rodney Greene, City Clerk To get the full impact of the presentation you can go online to the City's website, go to Government, click on minutes and agendas, click City Council, and finally click on Council Packet. L 1 4