City of Ithaca Public Meetings, NY Common Council, 29 Sep 2021

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From YouTube: September 29, 2021 Special Common Council Meeting

Description

2022 Capital Project Budget Review, Discussion of a Council - City Manager Form of Government, and overview of the 2022 Redistricting Process.

A

Okay, we're good.

B

Great, thank you uh julie. Thank you. Everyone welcome to a special meeting of the common council or is this. Is this committee the hole it's functioning? Basically as a as a committee of the whole era on september 29th, a few items on the agenda will start with um just a review of the capital projects uh and then move into discussion on the city manager form of government proposal uh I'll begin uh with the capital project.

B

So I think everybody on council now knows our normal process, which is that uh every year I'll ask our department ads to submit requests, uh department, heads and community partners to submit requests for capital projects. Usually capital projects are large dollar amounts, things that are one-time expenditures and things for which we borrow money, uh usually for the last several years. At any rate, we've tried to uh spend about sorry. Let me back up so here's what happens in the process once those projects are submitted. We assemble our capital project review committee.

B

Capital project review committee is made up of uh myself. The uh director of planning, the superintendent of public works, uh the city controller uh and jennifer kuzner. Who is our extremely uh this last three months, extremely busy for her as she uh shepherds and steers? The entire process uh coordinates all the information gathering that's needed.

B

um Usually we target about four million dollars in uh spending. Usually we get about four times that amount in requests. The four million dollar number uh is around what we paid down in our capital every year. It's actually a little bit less than what we paid out in capital every year, so in order to keep moving in a positive direction in regards to our debt load, we try and stay at or under 4 million.

B

This year was different. The federal government passed the american rescue plan act, which sends quite a lot of money to municipalities all across the country. Our share is about 17 million dollars. Some of that 17 million can be spent on exactly the kind of things we spend capital projects on. So what you'll see is that, uh first, what I'll present to you are the capital projects that the committee is ready to recommend for funding.

B

That is, of course, just a recommendation. Beginning next week um our the common council will take up your budget deliberations. That's the point at which you'll be able to go through all of the requests. We'll send you a list of all the the funding requests.

B

We received you'll see what the capital projects committee recommended and you'll be able to ask departments directly in the event that there were some projects submitted by a department that weren't funded, they could submit over target requests or requests about the mayor's budget to directly to council, and then you can talk about that with them during their budget meeting steve. Have I missed anything before I dive in or uh julie anything about the process with julia or deb anything about the process.

C

No, I don't think so. I think that was a pretty good overview of of current conditions, yep, where okay.

B

D

No, I think we've got a bunch of old timers here. I think we're we're used to this, so I think we're good okay.

B

Cool well then uh I will oh julie. Would you am I able to share my screen to walk through the project requests.

B

ah Yes, thank you. Okay, can everyone see that.

E

B

Yeah, okay, great so um the following projects: I'm not going to walk you through all the projects that were requested again, you will see that there are about 60 plus projects that we're recommending here. So I want to just give you a quick, quick overview and ask if there's anything, you need clarification on immediately.

B

Please do stop me to ask, but for the deeper dives um we've got, you know six weeks ahead of us to get into it.

B

The first is actually a small one, but one that is sort of related to the overall position that we're in there is more federal money available right now than uh I can recall ever and we do want to put our particular dpw in a position to win that federal money and if the biparter bipartisan infrastructure framework ends up becoming law, as we hope that it will there's going to be even more money available.

B

So dpw's requested a project that will allow us to hire, grant writers and folks, I think we're going to do it on contract. Actually, that will contract with a company that will help us apply for grants, win those and then fulfill. All of the federal reporting requirements.

E

B

That will set up a bunch of the remaining ones. This is the grant writing consultant.

B

Next is a big batch of economic development projects. This is, of course, in the spirit of the american rescue plan, and I know in line with the priorities of a lot of us on council, which is how we get uh the private sector and the economy working for everybody post-pandemic.

B

So we were thrilled that the economic development community banded together and put together a series of requests that they submitted to both us and the county in priority order. They told us what they think would be most helpful for um our local economy. First, here is the retail mini grant program. uh Our committee's suggesting that 200 000 go to supporting small retailers. Local retailers could be, restaurants could be service. Hospitality could be agritourism.

B

These grants modeled after the dia's, very successful retail mini grant program, would take effect early next year.

B

Similarly, the workforce re-entry program would uh help provide direct financial assistance to employees who are seeking to re-enter the workforce, maybe because they were out during the pandemic, maybe because of changes in their life.

B

This 500 per employee would be matched 100 by the employer, and this could support up to 500 workers. uh For six months, so that total amount is 125, 000. we're also recommending a 50 000 grassroots crowdfunding initiative. uh This would support especially women and people of uh color-owned businesses, folks with modest means, and maybe not the same access to capital, but we want to see those businesses support it. We're recommending fifty thousand uh very similar is the reimagining inclusive solutions for entrepreneurs.

B

For folks who are fiscally underserved we're looking at micro, mid-size businesses. This would be in partnership with alternatives, as well as the small business development center.

B

A 12-week online training course would lead to loans between 5000 and twenty five billion, twenty thousand dollars for the five year term, so the total uh approved amount. There is 125 thousand small scale manufacturing.

B

You know we want to make things, but we know that large-scale manufacturing is is difficult both because of our geography and our, of course, our um concerns about pollution, the difficulty of exporting, but we see some success with small-scale manufacturing.

B

We want to beef that up so we're suggesting a hundred thousand dollars to boost uh retail and economic development along the route 13 corridor, we're suggesting an 800 000 project um on route, 13 centered around improvements at fifth street and buffalo.

B

Similarly, uh we know that route 13 is the gateway, it's a way in which a lot of people come into and out of the city, and we like they're, suggesting a gateway, signage project of fifty thousand dollars include kiosks, directional, signage informational, signage place, making artwork, etc.

B

And then uh there were several other requests that we in the committee didn't feel we were adequately able to sort be a priority, so we're proposing that we create a pot of funds, 150 000 that would be funneled through the ithaca area. Economic development, in conjunction with tom knight and our economic development department, to determine what of the remaining projects are the highest priority. They could apply for and receive that 150 000.

B

So that's economic development. Turning uh to in-house in city house, capital projects, uh engineering we're proposing to fund five million dollars for sorry five projects at two million dollars total the first would be the caspar casspark rank renovations phase. Two. This won't be new to anybody on this council. We would like to to finish this they've brought in a lot of outside funds. uh We've provided a ton of funding so far and we think for cass park to be fully enclosed to improve the hvac systems to make this a year-round facility.

B

It's time to commit 460 thousand dollars.

B

New sidewalk installations on oak ave and fall creek drive two parts of the city that don't have sidewalk but are seeing increasing numbers of people using that pedestrian network for a total of 795 000.

B

The dryden parking- these are all huge projects by the way, I'm saying them quickly. I don't want you to think, like god, he's kind of talking about this very casually uh again just reminded we will have time to to dive into each of these. The dryden road parking garage is in need of repair.

B

It was built 35 years ago and parking garages are. We know what parking garages are we're suggesting 750 000 for repair, particularly to the concrete slab and the the tension beams, a bridge maintenance program. So this is for a consultant and a contractor uh to continue doing the engineering and construction services so that we can maintain the two dozen bridges that we have inside the city of ithaca, suggesting for fifty thousand dollars brings the fire department. uh Two projects recommended for approval here: totaling 450 000 first, is the east hill fire station.

B

You know this body is, of course um deciding what is best to be done on east hill, but we think uh it would be best to allocate 150 000. uh So at least it's there, no matter which way we go, which decision we make on the east hill station.

B

And then renovation of the central, south and west health fire stations, uh all of those none, are as in bad condition as east hill, but all need repairs and maintenance and upkeep we're suggesting three hundred thousand for g one project. It's a big one, though there's another giac related one uh further down, which is the new gym.

B

uh I'm sure everybody's, seeing the construction happening at founders way, which is really really exciting. It's the immaculate conception school being transformed into a bunch of affordable housing that opened up an opportunity for giac to purchase uh the gym renovate it, and they have also raised a fair amount of outside funding. We'd like to help complete that project with 300 thousand dollars.

B

Human resources, how do we help our employees um do better in this time of great stress and and frankly, in real hardship working through the pandemic? First automation overdue. You know, automating our everything our employees need to do from um they're managing their benefits to taking time off even applying for jobs and promotions.

B

You wouldn't believe how much paper is processed through city hall and through hr. We believe with a hundred thousand dollars. We could automate many of those processes and improve our efficiency.

B

uh This is another big one. We believe it's time to do a compensation study for all city employees. We haven't done a full compensation study since 2011, so it's been about 10 years and it's been even longer for some of our units.

B

We've all seen the headlines, I'm sure you all know business owners that have struggled to attract and retain folks because of this new normal as people are trying to decide what is the right balance between work and life.

B

Part of that calculus, not the whole calculus, but part of that calculus is compensation and in order to make sure that we can attract and retain people, we've got to make sure that our compensation is competitive. So to do that, we're suggesting funding a fifty thousand dollar study.

B

Next ithaca, neighborhood housing services uh they've got a very, very uh big project.

E

B

They're, um a a community housing trust they're, currently developing six unit, units of affordable for sale, housing uh between founders way and the south plain street uh work. uh They requested much more than this, uh but we felt like at this time all we could support was a hundred thousand dollars, but a very worthy worthy project. Here the ithaca urban renewal agency is working with the continuum of care.

B

You might know the continuum of care is a coalition of service providers who work to end homelessness and to ease the discomforts and the indignities and really the the the tragedy of homelessness.

B

um They are incredibly good at what they do some 30 or 40 organizations in the continuum, but these last two years have really upended the housing scene and everything we thought we knew about who was homeless, where they were living and what it would take to serve them. So they've requested help for a study that would readjust their strategy and help tell us in tompkins county how we should be directing our resources to alleviate the problem of homelessness parking. Two projects. uh One is a vision, zero safety project.

B

You know crashes are the leading cause of injury in thompson's county. I'm not sure how many people were aware of that, and so, as we reimagine public safety right, if we actually want people to be safe from bodily harm, I believe the best thing we can do is look at the leading cause and that is uh vehicle accidents.

B

So this council adopted a vision, zero policy, but we haven't directed many funds directly for it. So in talking with with uh eric and aaron in our engineering department, we think a fifty thousand dollar start to look at hand. Signage traffic calming and other changes is appropriate in this coming year.

B

The other better parking units, the existing parker units in the I don't know. If everybody knows parker capital, p, parker, they're the remote technology in our garages, um they are in need of replacement due to hardware issues.

B

These will allow us to operate the parking garages and even charge when our attendants are not working by giving a video assistant. I don't know if anybody's used these but say it's if you're coming in here out at odd hours, you press it in a video attendant shows up and they help you get in or out of the garage.

B

Parks and forestry is one project for fifty thousand dollars, uh and that is our storm. Water, uh creek, bank, stabilization and repair program. Flooding is an increasing concern, as climate change uh is keeping us all on our toes. So we like to be able to uh shore up our creek banks, and we want to be able to study where they need repair and actually start putting brick and mortar into those creek banks planning uh two good-sized projects. One is for college town college time is going through it right now I mean there is.

B

There is a ton of construction, public and private uh all positive things. You know we're going to underground the utilities, there's a lot new housing and new retail being planned, uh but it's in really rough shape right now, especially the 400 block.

B

So uh we would like to to place 200 000 towards this, which is the busiest pedestrian area in the city and the source of really the highest property taxes uh in tompkins county, possibly the highest property taxes in in upstate new york, uh we'd like to put some funding into approving that stretch of of pedestrian amenities.

B

uh Here too, our planning and building department is working with furniture from the middle ages. Frankly, I mean nobody even knows where it came from or how we got it. It was passed on from generation to generation, and it's so far from from ergonomical uh that it is uh that, it's frankly at a uh risk to our long-term, our employees, long-term health. So we like to do a wholesale financial replacement.

B

In the police department uh we're recommending funding, 275 000 to replace a handful of vehicles, we want to stay on a good replacement schedule for these vehicles, because, uh if you don't, then the maintenance ends up costing more than than just buying new vehicles in the first place. So repairing these buying new vehicles and making sure they're road worthy uh is really important for this 24 7 agency.

B

Public information and technology julie's pit crew, we are proposing to fund seven projects all directly- I wouldn't say yeah, but mostly directly related to this new reality that we're living from an archive manager, migration uh and computer replacements at ninety five thousand dollars to enhance security. Licensing as cyber attacks and ransomware are uh a more present threat for municipalities for cyber security training, so that our employees are as secure as our software is those two combined 180 000 uh docusign software, so that employees working remotely are able to sign documents.

B

Not only I mean this is overdue. This is great for the pandemic, but will also help us get contracts turned around much faster. You know. Just signing a contract in city hall can sometimes take two or three weeks as we pass the paper around and then the opengov software, which is an extremely unifying capital project request.

B

I should say: julie's worked really hard to figure out what software could make the city work more efficiently and across departments and just about every department is extremely excited for the opportunity to work with opengl those projects combined are 115 000., the replacement of network switches. You know again needed part because we are just um we've got more folks using our wireless technology uh using it more intensely and where this is an example of it right now is is we are all together and soon?

B

Next is an external uh request. This is from reach medical. The reach project, you might know, stands for uh reaching. Well, they close the gaps in healthcare.

B

There are a lot of folks who don't have equitable access to healthcare and reach, since it started two, maybe three years ago, has emerged as an absolute titan and caring for that underserved community. So we're talking about folks who are housing, insecure people who are living on the street uh people with substance use disorders, people with chronic illnesses, but without health insurance reach has not only helped provide them with physical care and mental health care.

B

They've also done the kind of direct outreach to those communities that weren't wasn't pop possible in the city like covet testing covert vaccination, coveted screenings for people who are living on the street they've got a financial shortfall right now and we're suggesting that the city uh help them with a two hundred thousand dollar grant.

B

Sustainability, we're suggesting uh that, in order to advance the green new deal, uh three projects for a total of three hundred thousand dollars be approved. The first is the city, electric electrification, feasibility assessment.

B

uh We want to electrify sixteen hundred buildings uh and more than a thousand light duty, electric vehicles- um we're really really excited about this one and to do the the assessment uh it was requested. 160 000 uh we're pushing forward that entire request community choice aggregation.

B

This will allow our our operations to procure 100 renewable power on behalf of our residents or businesses and municipal accounts from an alternative supplier.

B

So I know stuff in the planning committee they've been discussing this for quite a while, but we're suggesting a hundred thousand dollars and then public ev charging infrastructure. So a green new deal for it to work. We have to convert at least half of the municipal fleet to electric vehicles by 2025 and by 2030. The dmv estimates that, as much of 60 of the vehicles in the city will be electric that's privately owned vehicles.

B

uh If that is going to happen, we need way way more charging infrastructure than we than we have now. So we're suggesting 40 000 to get us started with a total of eight charging points uh located in downtown ithaca.

B

Water and sewer 12 projects totaling three million dollars. This is the meadow street uh water and sewer design contract, six hundred thousand dollars um to help with the design and installation of a replacement for the buffalo street pump station.

B

The west avenue water main replacement, it's about 200 yeah, that's the breakdown, 275 thousand, thank you and then the oak avenue water main replacement. That's a 600 000 water main that needs to be replaced.

B

First street roof replacement. If you haven't seen the first street uh roof the the roof over on 510 first street, I don't suggest going to look at it. You might injure yourself, so it's it's well overdue that we insulate re-roof uh and rebuild the wall and seal the entire building. So we're suggesting five hundred thousand.

B

uh Again, on franklin street the electrical and window improvements: this is to help again the weather just move straight through that building, so a hundred thousand dollars is suggested there and 60 foot down a really really big one. Now um I suggest the council dig really deep into this with the superintendent of public works. This is uh overdue. It's time to get started. This is one where we're really really hoping that the bipartisan infrastructure bill passes, because this is, of course, where we get all of our water.

B

All of our clean drinking water they've served the city for 110 years in that time, sediments built up to the point where it's disabled emergency and operational components of the dam. So it is a high hazard dam. At this point, it's been rated unsound by the dec and uh 500 000 is just going to get us started.

B

uh This will, in the end, be a multi multi, multi million dollar repair, but it is time to start it right now: water and sewer vehicle replacement. This would replace three trucks for a total of 280 thousand dollars.

B

And then gravity main line stop and some valves a few valves throughout the city that that we know are no longer working as well as they showed. Some are just not working period uh to replace those valves, uh it'll cost 75 000.

B

um The cornell street tank site, so this has become an attractive nuisance. I think everybody's aware of both the you know, the greeting uh the there's, some bad behavior- that's happening out there and, of course it's a worry that if anybody gains access to that site, they may be able to contaminate the water supply, so we're suggesting uh some pretty heavy-duty security, fencing at the corneal street tank for the youth bureau. uh One project, a big one, 495 thousand dollar.

B

This is to basically replace the cass park pool. So I mean that the actual pool will stay in place, but you know in 49 years it's had the same uh gutter and surface um it's you know corroded over the years, there's going to be some images here that you can see um just how damaged I don't know if you can see that well, but just how damaged the lining is it's peeling away and we feel like not only is a health and safety issue.

B

It's a big enough issue that if we do not do this uh these repairs next year, we will not be able to reopen that pool. So it's a big expense for a pool at half a million dollars, but that pool is a center of community. It is so useful for families especially low to moderate income families- and you know once every 50 years is- is not that bad.

B

Sorry, a lot of pictures there, just in case you're, wondering so uh here, you'll, be able to see how the capital project requests break down by department, uh with the no surprise that the department of public works, all of our physical infrastructure is where the lion's share of the funding is proposed to go, that we're also proposing almost three million dollars in economic development type projects and a fair portion to the rest of the department.

B

Just at the bottom of this list, which I'll send out for everyone, council you'll be able to see in just two pages.

B

The total list of approved requests and the top line is that, instead of the traditional 4-ish million, we're proposing about 10.3 million dollars worth of uh capital projects this year, with total reimbursable about two and a half million from different sources, uh steve is still working to sort of that 10.3 million. What will come from the arbor funds versus what will come from our borrowing?

B

But these are the projects that the capital project review committee feels comfortable with at this moment,.

B

Again, the complete budget is not yet ready. We're racing. um Steve is working really really really hard to have that budget ready by next wednesday, there's still a few big financial numbers that we don't even know yet, including our pension number from the state.

B

So it's still in development and everything's still in flux, but uh councils requested in the past that you get a head start on reviewing the capital projects, because so much money is involved. That's what we wanted to do this week.

B

Is there any quick questions? Yes, donna.

A

Yeah, could you clarify for me, I thought you heard you you say at the beginning. I thought I heard you say at the beginning that you're expecting about 17 million dollars in federal funds, but your total is 10 million. Is that so? What's the 7 million difference.

B

So uh part um the answer's got a few words. The first is that some of that 17 million dollars can be used for revenue replacement is what they call it, that is, to go directly into the city's ongoing operating costs and the federal government's correct assumption, which is that the pandemic hur our bottom line, their sales tax, possibly and property tax that we're missing out on and that there are um certain uh activity activities the city's had to do that have increased our expenses.

B

One that comes to mind is uh when we suspended parking revenue collection for a while during the pandemic, so some of that 7 million will be folded into the budget into the operating budget. Another consideration was that we don't have to use the full 17 million this year. I think we have, until the end of 2023, to assign all of those arpa funds and uh review committee thought it was wise to to hold back some of those funds and see if other projects arise.

B

Maybe emergency projects in the city, some of our partner agencies, might have suggestions, and lately we've been in communication with tompkins county to see. If we can collaborate on any projects together, so they've got some upper funds too, and we thought, if we have more time, maybe we could leverage our funds together to have a bigger impact.

A

B

Of course, and green.

F

Actually, I think, laura had her hand up before me. So, okay.

B

G

Well, I actually had the same question as donna, so I'm I'm fine for now. Okay,.

F

Thanks um so a couple of questions, uh celante um we've heard in the past about the police department and I'm surprised, given the condition of the building that there isn't anything uh proposed for um improvements there. Can you make a comment on that yeah.

B

There was actually one request, and we might, uh um we may still consider it. We were a bit late, getting some info on especially evidence storage facility that the police are interested in. So we may fold that into our final presentation next week, um but yeah there is continues to be uh we're we're stuck without knowing the right direction to go, which is, should we spend money fixing up this building, or should we prepare ourselves to invest in an entirely new facility?

B

The capital project committee wasn't sure yet which way to go. But one thing we do we do do is set aside a fair amount of money in the capital projects each year in our emergency repair fund, so that emergency repair fund can be used anywhere in the city.

B

When say, an hvac system goes down or an elevator system stops operating picking those two at random, though, that those are two that the police department is very familiar with, and we do want to use the arpa funds to have a larger than normal emergency repair fund for next year, so that, in the event of something going wrong in the ipd building, before we can tell, we can decide the new direction they can draw on the emergency repair function.

F

B

F

Related to that, so I see that there's also some uh police vehicles recommended are only those going to be electric vehicles chief or they have pretty good acceleration from what I understand.

B

They should all be electric. I believe.

H

So um in our plan I think we're looking to purchase. I think it's two additional electric fields. We have two that are getting delivered, they're hybrids and I think we're looking to purchase two more um when we replace some of these vehicles here. Part of the issue we run into is some contractual language and the rating of the vehicles for police use.

H

So there's a limited number of vehicles that fall into the category currently, but um you know we, we have ordered two that are um ready to be delivered at any time here that are hybrids and we, I think, you'll ever look. I purchased two more on this budget.

B

Yeah, I think we should make all of them electric we'll have to talk about it. Chief, okay, I'm looking at those I'm looking at those forwards. I think we'll meet our needs and be and be all electric, oh and jackson says in the chat that they've just approved a muffin uh for police use. I don't know about that.

H

I think luis is going to try to get us some uh teslas to t also so.

B

Yeah, I'm sure there wouldn't be any complaints um about tesla's from the union, but we'll check our price uh george and then donna.

I

Thanks savante, uh some of these are really I'm happy to see, particularly the ice rink.

I

I'm I'm a little confused about some of the sidewalk projects and the uh street um project for 800, and some thousand aren't are those things that we normally do through the sidewalk fund and through um state grants like like for the intersection. For example, um that's one question, and but my other question is with this opportunity: for all this extra money is fifty thousand dollars for um stream bank work and half a million for the for the dam. Is that enough?

I

50 000 seems like a really small amount for the issues we have on streams.

E

B

Those are good, those are good points, I'll, say, and so we should dig into them during the capital project, okay meeting and dpw, but I I will say on the sidewalks that, yes, we do have the sidewalk funds set up for those. um There is some precedent for when we want to do more work. We want to go above and beyond what the sidewalk fund can afford right.

B

Yeah, for example, exactly dr street yep and yeah the stream bank work uh could be all of these. Could most of these could be scaled upwards. The stream bank work. I I believe if memory serves- and you know I'm willing to be corrected by my course steve. um I think it will start with an analysis uh of those stream banks, so we can see where they need to be repaired and then that will give us a larger uh shopping list both for next year and for the bipartisan infrastructure bill. If that bill passes.

B

um Thank you. Yes, yes, uh donna.

A

uh Yeah I'm wondering if the committee toyed with the idea, since we have so much money. It's amazing. I wonder if you toyed with the idea of doing something big like fixing the bridge or fixing ipd or building a new city hall or building a bus depot um using a big chunk of the money. Instead of um allocating lots of little pots like you have. Did you weigh the pros and cons of those approaches.

B

um We did, and I think we could talk about it more for sure I I ended up of the opinion. I mean that the problem is that we're already so far behind and I'm I like swinging big. I think you know this about me. Everybody on council knows this about me. I I'm attracted to shiny objects and and um like building new things, but the list of requests that we got demonstrated just such a back, a deep backlog of repair and maintenance requests.

B

So even you know we encourage the department heads to think big and most of what we got was look. This is what we need to get back to where we were. This is what we would need. You know.

E

H

B

Right, the new gx gym the enclosure of the caspar rink, but the rest is this is how we repair the cass park pool um the ones you mentioned are are ones I I'm really interested in, and I think the size of the infrastructure bill is obviously smaller than all of arpa. But arpa was you know. Arpa did a whole bunch of things. I mean it's that money to individuals or some businesses. There was a lot happening in the urban funds, including, of course, the unemployment benefits. The infrastructure bill would be just for municipalities and states.

B

So uh I think- and we haven't seen the formulas, but I think if the infrastructure bill passes, it will lead to us having even more funds from the federal government than the 17 million dollars, and I think that's where we should be um thinking about those big new investments like we're replacing city hall, replacing ipd and uh crucially, the the 60-foot dam.

A

B

J

Thank you um before I ask my question. I really do appreciate the the care and attention that is looking at our infrastructure needs. um Decades of deferred maintenance have put us in a difficult situation, and it's really fortunate that we have the opportunity to address some of those uh now and 60-foot dam is definitely one of them. um So I have a question that that perhaps cannot be answered now, but I'd like to learn more about this. As we go forward go forward, you know. Obviously these are huge numbers. We've we've.

J

Never, as you mentioned, have dealt in in numbers like this in the past, um and I just want to clarify that um we have already seen you know. Our our debt limit is um uh is we're getting close to our limit. um Does taking on projects of this size have a negative impact in our credit rating, even though there are arpa funds uh on the other side of this, where there could there be some unintended consequences uh with regards to that, just considering what our normal operational debt load is.

B

Yeah yeah, that's a good question, so we will um dive into that and- and I appreciate deb's suggestion that so tonight I will send this full list to everybody on council. I already sent it to the department this afternoon um so I'll send it to all of you and council and then any questions you have. You can send them to deb and uh she'll, compile them in and we'll be able to answer them. In course,.

B

Or I don't know if steve you had an immediate response, that's a it's! A big question.

C

Yeah, obviously it is a big question, but just uh just real quick that you know if we have alternate funding sources other than borrowing those those will not impact our debt limit. So if we're able to fund through arpa or other sources uh other aid sources, those do not impact our debt limit.

C

J

A quick answer: well, that's a huge relief! Thank you so much. um I appreciate that that puts a whole new color on this than what we typically deal with. Yes,.

B

I I should say, though, that it it creates a liability of a different kind which is federal reporting um and, if you've ever seen, some of the reporting that comes with the use of federal funds filled out, I mean sometimes you got to hire people just to do that. So we've we're trying to think very carefully about um what we borrow for versus what we use the federal funds.

B

For you know the larger projects you want to use federal funds for that, because you get in economies of scale if we're using our funds for all the like fifty thousand dollar numbers, then you've gotta do a special report for each one of those to be owners.

B

Okay, I'm not seeing any more uh immediate questions, though again there's a lot here to respond to so we'll pick up the conversation with the budget presentation next week and um if I call in sick next wednesday, it's because steve and I didn't get our homework done and the budget is not ready but hope to be able to be on track.

B

Okay uh for the next part, uh I I'll hand it over to deb molenhoff to walk us through the discussion on the city manager, form of government proposal.

D

Great thanks one, um just one quick wrap up just so everybody saw we sent, did donna send that around everyone are just departments julie. I can't remember, receive the the different nights that we have. The different groups scheduled.

A

I don't remember either, but we can certainly forward it to council if it didn't make it there.

C

Yeah, I think it was supposed to go to council and senior staff, so hopefully.

D

Let me just look at the email clicking.

F

Yeah we got that.

D

Okay, good good from donna, okay, I just wanted to make sure as we're sort of prepping for a month of being together in october, that you all saw the different departments that were slated for the different nights and then again just let us know steve if we have to swap nights around, we do our best guess at what will work, and then we end up occasionally having to move things around.

D

So just a reminder to everyone that that that's um our next, our next phase of this, so um switching gears we've seen this a couple times. We've had a few discussions about it and I think what I'm going to do is first give a lot of public. Thank you to the group. That's been working on this.

D

I've been a little um off kilter lately with everything that's been going on and with some of my additional responsibilities at tc3, so donna has really stepped up to help get a lot of this done in addition to ari and all of the other members of this working group. So just thank you to to them for really keeping this top of mind and moving it along and doing due diligence on all of these things.

D

So I think what makes the most sense is to if, um if don is willing, maybe talk through just some of the highlights of the memo and then ari can review the version of the legislation that was sent around and then I think we have essentially a couple of decisions we want to make tonight just make sure we have um all of the pieces edited and modified, and then this also has to be laid on the table.

D

So I think what we will end up having to do with this is, um and ari can help remind me of the timing of this as well. So once it's laid on the table, no more changes can be made to it right. So I think what we were hoping tonight is to use this as really a working meaning if we need to have any additional discussion or deliberation and make any um not only substantive but also minor. Adjustments to this.

D

We wanted to get this document essentially ready to be laid on the table with with the assumption that we wouldn't be making any more edits to it um after that happened. So I don't know if donna wants to go first or ari wants to go first, and um we can take it from there.

K

You're welcome to feel like tom.

A

um I I think that we've been over this in a couple committees already, so the general idea is that as the mayor's job is currently described in the code and the charter, it's not paid at a full-time rate and the mayor oversees the entire all the city departments and runs common council meetings and appoints uh volunteers to boards and chairs and commissions.

A

So it's too much work for one person, which is why the chief of staff position was created a few years ago, but even with the chief of staff position, the lines of authority are a little bit blurred, because the chief of staff has authority only as delegated by the mayor. So it's still not a clear line of authority.

A

So many many cities across the country around the world have a city manager who is a professional experience manager who is hired by the legislative body.

A

So that's what we advocate that we do change the charter such as that is what we would have and then we would continue to have an elected mayor who would continue to be sort of the political and ceremonial head of the city, who would run meetings? Appoint volunteers um speak to crowds in times of crisis and for celebrations and so on. So that's the general picture and then there's of course many many references to various roles of the mayor throughout the coding charter.

A

So that's where ari's office was very diligent about changing the wording every time it said the mayor does such and such we either kept it that way or changed to the city manager does such and such so that's outlined in the details um along the way we talked to mayors of other cities that have a city manager, city managers in their cities.

A

We talked to former mayors in ithaca, talked to people in the international council. What's it called international city management association, icma gathered a lot of information.

A

And we're very enthusiastic about our recommendation happy to take questions.

D

Great, I don't know if ari first wants to just sort of review the legislative process here, just to remind everybody and then comment on some of the adjustments you made from the few times. We've seen this to the version that's in front of everybody tonight, which is the one that ari emailed around, uh not the one in the packet.

K

There were a few updates, some that I did email around last night. um Thank you, dev um yeah, in terms of a reminder of the legislative process, um so you have before you both a local law and an ordinance.

K

um uh The local law amends the charter and also certain elements of the city code that have to be amended by local law as a function of legislative equivalency, because those elements of the code were previously amended by local law and the whole legislative package of both local law and ordinance.

K

If you choose to approve them, will then go on to a referendum on the ballot in november of next year november of 2022.

K

So that's over a year from now um with an effective date of january 1st of 2024, which is the um right after the mayor's current term ends, because obviously this uh would um greatly impact the way the uh mayor's office works um and um that that's the basic description of sort of where we're headed in terms of legislative um process uh to deb's point um a few minutes ago about uh needing to lay the local law on the table.

K

That's certainly right um and as a result, uh even if we finalize the local law tonight, um council won't be able to take a final vote on it at next week's council meeting, because that's not enough time for so-called aging of the local law um for new york state law between now and next week's council meeting.

K

But there could be a final vote on it later in october, at one of your um when councils, together at a budget meeting, which could also um uh be gaveled in and out as a special meeting of council to take a vote. If you like, um or at the november meeting, is another option um in terms of a specific um uh elements to point to deb. I think you were suggesting that I point to some specific elements now.

K

Is that right, yeah, okay, great um in terms of specific elements to point to um one, is just the um updates that I sent around last night.

K

um Probably the key element there to point to is that um when we last discussed the local law at city administration committee and then throughout some more recent discussions of the working group of council members and staff that have been working on this, there was um interest expressed in uh changing or clarifying the particular means by which the city attorney would be appointed and or removed by the city manager.

K

So that is now in the draft that I sent around last night, which boils down to the idea that the city manager would appoint the city attorney subject to the approval of council um and that the city amen that the city manager uh could um remove the city attorney um with or without cause, um which is true of the mayor's relationship with the city attorney right now as well, um uh and that um the city manager's removal of the city attorney would need to be on uh what I put in there. Though.

K

Obviously you should all. Let me know what it is you'd like in there. What I put in what I sent around last night was on that the city manager would need to give 45 days notice to the common council of the removal of the city attorney. um I suggested 45 days simply because it makes sure that you always hit some ensuing council meeting if council wants an opportunity to sit and discuss what's going on um uh and that council could um cut off that 45 days early um if they if they voted.

K

If what I wrote in there was, if two-thirds of the common council were to vote to um waive the remainder of that 45-day notice period, then the city attorney could be removed right upon that council vote and if not um the city attorney, the city attorney could be removed at the end of that 45-day notice period, unless the common council had voted to prevent the removal of the city attorney by a majority vote of counsel. So that's the heart of the changes that I sent around last night.

K

I'm obviously happy to tweak that, however um council would like, but that seemed like it reflected the um general gist of what council seemed to want at the last city administration committee meeting, combined with um uh the working groups discussions more recently, um so that is that piece, um uh another piece uh cynthia. I know you had asked at our previous meeting of how uh city court judge appointments would be impacted by this legislation. um So I wanted to share that answer. um While we're going through specific points.

K

um The answer, first of all, as I think we all know, um our city court judges are elected. We have two two city, court judges and they're both elected positions. At this point, one of them used to be appointed, but that uh changed uh eight or nine years ago. At this point, um so we have two elected positions. um Nonetheless, your question's, a good one, because um when there's a midterm vacancy on city court, um somebody has to appoint um a judge until one can be elected again.

K

uh So um if an elected judge uh resigns on midterm uh for various reasons, um then uh the the answer is that the uniform city court act, which is a new york state law, um governs the uh manner in which that vacancy on the city court must be filled, um and we can't pick on the local level how to do that for vacancy appointments.

K

Some of that sort um in a city that has a mayor, it is the mayor that is designated as the appointing authority for the um judge, who would be appointed until um a new elected judge can take office. um So um that is not something that I believe we need to address in our legislation on the city manager, because it's governed by by state law and whereas the uniform city court act allows lots of customization around the way judges are elected or appointed and who what the appointment process is.

K

It actually doesn't seem to have any customization from one municipality to the next around vacancy appointments. It has one process that says in our case what it does is the mayor roll a point, and it's actually not even subject to council approval. It's just the mayor of points for the vacancy, um so that's the answer to that question. um Unless you have any further, um let's see um other elements.

K

um The working group is uh briefly touched based on this topic, but I just wanted to make sure that all of council is aware that at this point the legislation of course says that common council will select the city manager. um It does not provide a particular appointment process for the city manager. It simply says the common council will select the city manager um and actually it then has a blank for a legislative section um cross-reference that um we should remove.

K

Assuming we go in the direction that I'm about to suggest, which is um on, I think, the third page of the local law. um So uh the point that I'm getting ahead here is that the working group has discussed a little bit and I most of us think that the best approach is to leave flexibility in that appointment process without having to bake it into the charter or code and simply say that the city manager will be selected by the common council, which of course, is true um and then go through a separate process.

K

Later on, um to establish in council rules of procedure, um a more specific um you know, interview process and how you'd form a committee of the common council to conduct interviews and the timing of all that and so on, um to actually select a city manager.

K

um So I wanted to flag that as a potential topic that council may want to weigh in on right now, um and I also wanted to flag. Let's see two other topics. um One is um the question of who will chair the board of public works. um As we all know, the mayor currently presides over board of public works meetings um and uh I don't believe I've heard a clear final answer um and I apologize that.

K

I I'm not sure I've prompted this question to all of council as explicitly as I should have in the past, but it would be useful to hear council's preferences around that topic and, lastly, simply to flag that this legislation does not currently specify the full-time or part-time nature of the mayor's role under the new system.

K

If it comes into effect- and I believe the working group's view is that the mayor would uh likely be halftime, um but that that's something that could be established as a function of job description and there's a beautiful job description that actually donna- um I did a wonderful job of putting together um in your packet tonight um and could be established in other ways other than I'm writing it into the legislation which again could leave more long-term flexibility if needed.

K

So I've been talking for a while I'll stop there, but I'm happy to answer any questions and and of course the local law and ordinance cover a vast array of pretty random subjects. All throughout the charter and code. I and I have not walked through all of them or I'm sure would you want me to right now, but um let me know if you have questions on them.

D

Right and I think what would make sense is if you have sort of grammar or punctuation or minor things like that, then go ahead and send them to let's say donna and ari and myself, and we can do those kinds of changes. So I guess what I want to spend the time on this evening is sort of any substantive issues, slash questions, and hopefully the working group can get some guidance on some of these topics and put the final version of it together for you for over the next couple weeks.

D

So who has questions or comments or thoughts ducks.

E

uh So in nonprofit agencies, where there's a boy that oversees like an executive director, the board performs a performance review of that director or the ore leader, and I'm curious if that would be part of our charge as well.

D

I think we were thinking that it would, but I think we also we're thinking it doesn't need to be in the legislation.

A

That's right, that's what we decided, but we certainly hope that future councils would develop a good system for doing an annual review of the city manager with clear guidelines and criteria.

C

D

D

Cynthia and then george.

D

George is first, oh sorry, go ahead. George.

I

Thanks cynthia, um I don't have a set opinion on this yet, but uh I'm curious because it's it's, it is a change that is significant.

I

I'm wondering what the working group, what the reasoning was behind changing the mayor's uh vote from just to break up a tie to a vote in every um in every vote.

I

What was the thinking behind that.

D

I can try to answer and then anyone else on the group can can weigh in. I think we were still concerned that, as we have a really we have a very engaged community. We value the fact that we have a mayor and we were trying to balance that we were taking a significant level of responsibility away from the mayor.

D

But if what we were looking at is moving the mayor over to more chief elected official role and then once we held up what we were doing against other models, we didn't really find many other models where that person and that plays that role in that structure didn't have a vote as an elected official.

D

So I think that was where we landed. Anyone else can correct me if I got that wrong.

A

No that's right. We wanted to separate the administrative and the political roles as they're currently described in the current charter and and that's right if the mayor's role becomes uh political and not administrative, then giving the mayor a vote on common council enhances that role.

D

So, were you going to add to that.

L

Yeah, I was just going to say the thing that kind of made this attractive to me was just thinking that this is the model that a lot of towns have outside of ithaca, where you have a supervisor, but the supervisor is actually like a member of the the board, so it has a vote in all matters, so it seemed like there was. There was a good model for that. That already exists. It seems like it functions pretty well and I just agree with everybody else's set.

L

I think what I liked about this, too, is that I kind of feel like it's giving the mayor more say in the decisions of the council, because you know frequently we're debating on things and voting on things and the mayor doesn't have a vote, so I think this would actually make the mayor more of a kind of functional like functionally voting. Member of the council.

I

So would it would it be fair to say that this? This would make the mayor a counselor at large because he represents the entire city yeah.

I

D

E

I

It george yeah yeah. That's it for that question that that's a good answer.

D

I

Well, I'll wait for cynthia can go ahead now.

D

Okay, cynthia, then graham and then we'll come back to you.

I

J

um Well, on that topic, would you this isn't my question, but would you describe this new system even with the mayor voting, a strong mayor or or a strong council system.

D

This is a manager, council form manager.

J

Council so weak mayor system, and of course it is, it is.

D

Still a hybrid, we still, of course, didn't follow a strict model. We had to give it a unique ithaca wrinkle, but it is, it does not meet any black and white definition of a form of government. We still have our own little spin on it, one of which is giving the mayor a vote and having a a mayor like like george, was just saying an at-large position, which.

J

Could also inform, um as we go through the redistricting process, um or would we um as we consider how many council representatives how many districts and so on, um adding that vote into the number we may not have 10 council members, we may have a different number right.

D

I think the mayor's idea behind having this group do this work this year and come and have us come to a decision. Is that so this was in place to tag basically we're doing like a relay race like when this is over. Then we're going to hand it off to the group. That's doing redistricting with a good sense of the direction that at least we were going so that this was really the phase. One of that conversation was to make this decision. Then redistricting could begin.

J

Okay, thank you. So my my comment actually was on a different topic, because I didn't know what george's question would be. um The question that ari had put out had to do with regards to the board of public works, and if the mayor should continue as chair of the board of public works, um you know I served on the board of public works for two and a half years.

J

I know many of us here have served as liaison to bpw um in thinking about, for example, the the sjc which you know also oversees um our infrastructure, I'm not sure how essential it is to have the mayor actually be the chair of the board of public works, but I'm assuming that the intention is the mayor would still be a member of the bpw a voting member.

J

um Currently we have a council liaison who is not a voting member, um and I don't know if we're looking at changing the board of public works to you know perhaps make the a council member a voting member of the bpw. If the idea was the mayor would not be the voting member.

J

um So I think is another way of saying. Perhaps this is a larger conversation about the overall makeup. I do think that there should be a voting elected official on the bpw um who could be the chair, but I think perhaps I'd be interested to hear what the mayor thinks, how important it is for the mayor to be the chair of the bpw.

B

A very good question and hard to answer directly without knowing um all of the future, I would say in its current iteration in its current form, I think it's very important for the mayor to vote chair and be a voting member of the board.

B

um I could imagine different iterations of the board, where it would be less important that the mayor chair it, but, as it's currently structured, I I think, uh having an elected official vote on that board is important because it's you know it's a third of the the city's budget and the board's got quite a lot of of power and authority in the code uh as it's currently structured.

B

You know uh the city manager form could change that, and, and there could be reforms to that board that could work in conjunction with or follow shortly after a city manager um government. So I think, as it's current as it's currently set up, I think it's important.

J

For the for the mayor to be chair, yeah yeah, I mean the the the bpw. um I like the fact that it does have non-city uh employees who are who are voting members of the bpw. I I often um you know, decisions like infrastructure decisions uh typically come with large capital items.

J

um Some elected officials are very reluctant to have associated with their term uh a capital project that uh can raise fees and raise costs and raise taxes, and so by having non-elected officials who perhaps are taking ideally taking a much longer view in terms of the long-term interest of the of the city in terms of infrastructure, has been of value to the power and and oversight of the bpw.

J

um So I definitely think it's important to maintain that. So I guess my question then becomes ari if we are not currently changing the makeup of the bpw. Is it important to change who is chairing the bpw.

K

Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think it's the right question and I think the answer is no.

K

I don't think it's important to change it right now um and I uh and I think your question feeds right into sort of my primary advice on the subject at the moment, which is that, if the question I posed about, whether um council wants the mayor to be sharing bbw or not um and does indeed give rise in a serious way for most of council to a much larger set of questions about what structure you want the bbw to take and um what authorities you wanted to have, which is a conversation as we all know that we started quite some while ago and and then put on pause.

K

um uh Then my advice is to treat that as a separate subject, which I think is what you're, I'm essentially suggesting as well cynthia um and and to take it up separately, probably at a later date, um without um uh trying to mix um a major restructuring of the ppw into the the already very major restructuring.

H

K

Is the city management legislation, so um my advice is that you sort of uh treat the question simply which which I hear your answer.

K

Cynthia to that simple to the simple version of the question is it sounds like you would leave the mayor as um the voting um chair of the bpw, which is simply enough, but my advice is that at this juncture for this package of legislation, council answer that simple question: do you want the mayor to um be the voting chair of the bbw, or uh do you not really want the mayor involved in dpw?

K

I would I would treat it almost as a binary question along those lines or something awfully close to that and um and then take up any more nuanced versions of that as a as a hard look at bbw specifically uh later on.

J

As the substitute to that being, is this a role that the city manager would take on instead of the mayor.

K

Could be yeah, I guess that's right, yep sure, I'm not I'm not sure that would be true, because the city manager isn't on any number of other boards, they'll, usually they're, not spending city money. The way bpw is so that's true. All right anyway,.

D

My question ari on that, though, would be, if you, if we leave it the way it is, and then we do a review of bpw down the road and in fact remove the mayor as the chair is, that trigger another referendum.

K

Likely so, okay.

D

Like how many referendums do we want to do this?

D

If we feel like we are going to tackle the bpw issue, I do feel that that is a separate conversation that we do not intertwine with this, but is there a way to put more generic language in this that doesn't bind the mayor to be the chair of bpw but allows for flexibility so that if we move, if there is a more comprehensive overhaul of bpw and how that works, then um can we leave this gray in such a way that it gives us a pathway either way we might want to go.

K

Yeah, it's a great question. I mean it's a little bit of a complex one, because I think my my baseline answer is that a number of the potential approaches to a more substantial overhaul of bpw were counsel to want to go down that road would in themselves trigger a referendum and therefore I don't think there's an easy way to just like flip this one switch and leave it gray around the mayor and then let the rest of the bbw examination process move forward without a referendum.

K

um That said, if I it's a to the extent that we all may agree that that any substantial changes to bbw be undertaken in a separate legislative process from this one, um I will say that there's really nothing to prevent.

K

I'm not sure we want to do this, but there's nothing to prevent council from taking up that parallel legislation around changes to the bbw, which might in turn require a referendum which could end up on the same ballot in november of next year. I'm not sure, that's a great idea to give voters quite that many things to have to weigh in on all at once.

K

On the same ballot, so I'm not really urging that, but I do want to note that that's an option if you're going down that route, it might also be simpler to just wait and see where the city manager um uh legislation goes and then take up bbw a year or two from now.

D

Yeah and I think the the sort of docket will be full if there, if there's also a redistricting process, that's happening as well. I don't know that you want to have too many things like that happening all simultaneously, so I.

K

D

I feel like they're just kind of going to follow the other. Then I I think what I'm hearing then is: let's leave it as the mayor chairs bpw and let that be a separate bpw process move along if it moves along at a later date. Okay sounds good.

D

E

D

I had graham a long time ago. Do you remember what your question was.

F

I I think I do I'll make up another one thanks, deb, actually so just to confirm. um So this sounds like it would be an 11 member council so um for legislation to pass it would be six votes. Is that correct our either so that wouldn't change.

K

uh Right, it requires a majority, and sex is a majority, so yeah, that's right. Yep.

F

Okay um and now to my other question, um so obviously I I think I understand. Obviously this is subject to referendum um and I know we've talked about a lot, but I haven't seen a lot of public input on this, so I guess my question is in this process of laying the law on the table and whatever um is there a public um hearing on this at this stage? Or can you tell me how we're going to get public input on this? You know earlier on before the referendum. I guess that's that's my question.

D

We've it's been on several agendas, we've talked about it. I did two interviews with the ithaca voice early on we posted information.

D

I mean I'm not sure part of the issue is we started talking about it when we moved to remote meetings, and I think somehow people are just not as it's funny, because one population feels disconnected in what's been going on and another population of the community is excited because they feel like it's a lot easier for them to see and and participate.

D

So I'm not sure how to solve that problem, or I'm not sure why we would treat this particular piece differently than anything else. We've kind of been working on in this in this kind of weird new, where zoom then in person, then then then, back to zoom, I'm happy to do whatever is suggested.

D

Think when we initially also talked about this is that in this instance the public will have the ultimate ability to weigh in because they actually get a vote on this. You know on referendum, so our work will really be uh if we pass it and it ends up on referendum.

D

Then there's a whole public information campaign where, hopefully, you won't be able to escape learning about it, because we're going to do our best to educate everybody on what is this that's on the ballot and what does it mean and we'll do public forums and information and there'll be a whole public information campaign associated with this, which honestly we're only going to put energy into if we know that it passes, counsel and and is going to move forward on to referendum?

D

C

Anything else you think.

D

We can do is, is fine.

F

D

Deb, do I hear you, volunteering.

F

To come back next fall and address questions on this.

D

Yes, no. I've already said that some of us that are rolling off are gonna are gonna. Continue on this project. We're gonna have to have a big campaign, so yeah for sure.

F

Okay, now I I think that's gonna be important, um just in terms of, as you say, getting the public to understand the process. So thank you. Yeah.

D

What else uh george and then cynthia.

D

You're, muted george.

I

Say that there you go, um I brought this up before and I realized that we don't want to have too many moving parts in a situation where there's already a ton of moving parts, and I may be uh the only person who is thinking this way. um But one thing I would like to see is um the boards and committees um chosen with more input from counsel.

I

I think, there's a danger in selecting boards just by one individual who may or may not um fill that board with uh like-minded individuals.

I

I think the boards are stronger when they have um different points of view, and so I would- and another weakness in my argument is that I haven't really come up with how to do that, but I I think we should consider a way for council to be more involved in in choosing the members of boards.

D

Right so we did talk about this at city administration, and I think we had would agree. We agree with you. What we just disagreed on is. This is not how we get to that place like. I don't know that there is any way in this particular legislation or referendum that we add in what you're talking about what we do envision moving forward is building out a comprehensive support staff for when a city manager is put into place. I think right now we have extremely limited capacity between the city clerk and the still somewhat part-time.

D

Well, I guess we put annie back, but that process could be designed significantly better than it is, and we had kind of grand visions for what that process could look like when we redid the commissions. It just comes down to staff not having a decent amount of time to vet rolling applications to do a comprehensive recruitment to set up interview processes for people that are chairing. So I think what is exciting to me is um assuming that rob.

D

Cantomo is elected, we're already kind of pre-designing a plan for how we can work on that issue. With regard to the commissions- and I think, if we do a good job on commission recruitment, then it's going to help us do a better job on recruitment for all of the other vacancies for volunteers that we have across the city. I wholeheartedly agree with you that we we across the board, need to do a better job with that, but I don't know that that's connected to this um legislation.

D

I don't know if there's anything that we could put in this ordinance or law that would get at your concern and don't know that they're related specifically.

I

But are you talking about just commissions or are you talking about I'm.

D

Talking about every vacancy that we have across the city, it doesn't make sense to design a process for filling vacancies that only is related to a small subset of the city. If we come up with a recruitment plan, a marketing plan, an engagement plan, and then we have- I mean- we've talked about interviewing for chairs. We've talked about a volunteer training program. We've talked we've even toyed with the concept of stipends for people in certain roles like that, there's a whole piece that could get at what you're talking about.

D

I don't think it's as simple as right somewhere in a law. That council should be more involved in something, and you can always now without changing anything insert yourself as much as you want into the process by recruiting and sending emails and making recommendations and and.

F

D

The the mayor with who you know, people that you think should be considered for these roles so.

G

And and deb, if I could I'll just add and ultimately george, I believe we have retained with council the final approval of anyone being nominated to a board or committee or commission. That's true.

D

uh Who did did I have cynthia again george? Was that it.

I

Yep, that's it.

J

Thanks uh deb, um you know I first, if I haven't said so already. I really want to express my deep appreciation for the committee. This is a tremendous amount of work um very, very thoughtfully done. I really appreciate the the memo and the outline and the considerations that you've put forward- and I just you know, want to recognize all that you've done to to bring this forward.

J

So thank you, um I'm trying to think thoughtfully about the questions that ari had put out for us that he'd like to get clarity on tonight um and if I recall ari, one of your questions was if the mayor should be a part-time position or a full-time position.

J

um I know had commented on this last time and- and perhaps my comment perhaps is more on sort of the general experience that I have had um and recognizing that um like for all of us, this is supposed to be a part-time position, um so, theoretically we're working under 20 hours a week uh on this, um for there are some periods that that's fine. um But, of course, as we do this, we are on boards and committees. We are on working groups.

J

A lot of I don't know about you guys, but now I'm on like three committees that are meeting every week, um so you know recognizing that part and parcel for for this commitment are all of these. Other commitments that are are not otherwise compensated beyond what we receive as our stipend, and I can only imagine that, if I'm going to this- and I don't have to you- know- attend ribbon cuttings and dinners and annual meetings and so on.

J

I can only imagine that the time commitment that the political figurehead of the mayor has to fill um so you know, of course, with you know a background in business. The first thing you learn is the more hours you work if you're getting the same salary, your your value per hour is going down, um and I'm going against my self-interest in the position I currently have. This is a roundabout way of saying um you know. Are we I?

J

I fully understand that we imagine these positions to be part-time positions, um but the expectation that we put on council members to participate and be involved in active in in all of these groups that the and just you know the requirement that we put on mayors to show up at all of these things.

J

um How realistic is that, as a 20 hour per week, position can that person actually have another 20 hour a week, job or a full-time job and adequately do what we expect our council members and our mayor to do um so.

J

If the intent is that the mayor is a part-time position, you know if the intent is council should be a part-time position, then I think we should be having a realignment of expectations of what we really actually want. Our council members to do what we really want our mayors to do and say: okay, you know we expect this person to sit on x, number of committees.

J

These committees meet x number times a week, 20 hours, that's it so that they can have other income to sustain themselves and uh and be realistically and predictably be able to take on another position. So um when we talk when, when are you mentioning, it seems like the consensus is to keep the mayors of part time.

J

um I would just ask through this process: can we dial back that expectation and make sure that that part-time position is 20 hours a week?

J

You know it should I think, for all of us that that is something that we should talk about, um because the the level of stress and the amount of workload that we are taking on being asked to take on um is only increasing and- um and I think we all need to recognize the quality of life for ourselves.

J

Our colleagues, as well as those that we oversee in our government and in our community.

K

Thank you, cynthia council moves forward in discussing this. um I I would obviously have a very interesting discussion. I do just want to make sure that we all recognize that the way the legislation is drafted right now it doesn't lock in an answer to this question one way or another, um and that and it leaves that open to be um to be addressed in you know a job description and other elements um later in the process.

K

It may be, I shouldn't say, a job description, but but nonetheless to be addressed in compensation levels and other expectations that are set other than via this referendum. um So I just want to make sure that council has that in mind. As we talked about this right now,.

J

Okay, I apologize. I I thought that was one of the questions that you were asked earlier today. So.

K

No, it is a topic that I touched on and I.

J

Think what I said at the time.

E

And I think your.

K

Comments are useful, so I'm not I'm mentioning them at all, um uh but um but I think what I said earlier today was that um this is not addressed in the legislation currently that we're assuming it would be addressed administratively or legislatively in a manner that doesn't I'm in itself have to go to referendum later um and uh and that the current assumption of the working group is half time at this. At this point,.

D

But I see a number of hands and I also want to just clarify as well. I don't think we are looking for a definitive statement that says how many hours or defining what is full time. What is part time, I think we are trying to move away from the the sentiment as as we are vastly overhauling what we are asking one person to do, and by moving some of the basically by professionalizing some of the tasks that currently are on the mayor's plate.

D

We know for certain that, if city manager is is now a full-time professional position, then do we need to say something.

D

What you said about council is exactly what we want people to to feel about the mayor. I think, and a lot of those of us in these positions and people who came before us and people who will come after us have vastly different capacity and what they can do in this role.

D

And I don't know if we want to go down the road of trying to put a very prescribed formula in place for someone who is an elected official, that just the very nature of the job is being available to the needs of whatever is going on at the time. And I don't know how you quantify that in in any way.

D

So I think what we were asking for is making it very clear that we are counting the mayor on the side of someone who's elected, that does what is needed and that we weren't codifying anything that the mayor was a full-time position. I think that's the the sentiment of the group, but I'm going to go to ceph and then donna and then george your hand is still up. Was that.

I

Oh, I just I replaced it again.

D

Okay, so I'm going to go, sef, donna, george and pardon me my computer's dying. I got to plug it in so.

L

Yeah, I was just gonna say on the whole part-time verse, full-time question. I think, even if we were to establish that the positions are part-time, you still are gonna have people who are willing to devote full-time to it.

L

They're going to be people in that position, whether they're retired people or people who have the means- um and I think that I think it's a really tough thing to govern because of that, because, ultimately it's up to the individual and how much they're willing to devote to this I mean I've, seen people who devote as much as 40 hours to working on council and I've seen people myself included, who typically devote about 15 hours a week. um So I think it's kind of all over the map.

L

That said, I do think it's really important, even if it's not codified. I think I think it's important to sort of establish a norm that these are positions both the mayor and council, that someone can do while balancing other responsibilities in the community, whether it's a job or whether it's family obligations, just because I think that's more inclusive and I think we'll find more people who are willing to run for these positions.

L

If, if that's the sense right, but this isn't something that's going to be completely overwhelming and that you're still able to do it on top of a job or you know taking raising your kids, and I also think we should do that because we're not prepared, I think, to offer the level of salaries that we should. If these were actually full-time positions. And I think it's only fair that you know we pay people a fair amount.

D

Donna and then george.

A

Yeah, I fully expect the mayor's job to be uh no more than half time, if managed well under the new uh system, and I think it would be a terrific job for somebody who is committed to the community- and this have said- has other interests.

A

There are lots of highly qualified, highly educated people who want a half-time job and um and ari, just hired some terrific experienced attorneys in his office to work half time. So I think I think that's an opening. That's um I used to want to work half time and I couldn't I had to work full-time.

A

So I think that uh having uh high-level, interesting half-time or part-time jobs is a real need in the employment market, and I think this would appeal to that kind of person.

D

I

Yeah, I I respectfully disagree with my friend donna, because I I think it's better to just leave it open, and uh I agree with what deb and um seth said to be the the representative representative of the entire city. I I think, is going to take for the most part more than 20 hours a week and some weeks it's going to take more than others, and I think we should leave us leave that open and and um not try to limit it to 20 hours a week. That's not very much time.

I

D

So I'm not hearing any strong consensus around changing, what's currently in the legislation which doesn't have any sort of strict definition for full or part time. I'm hearing people are comfortable, leaving it as it is.

D

Okay, um I am going to try to be super conscious of our time. This evening we had a marathon meeting last wednesday and we are about to spend a heck of a lot of time together in october.

D

So I think um I would like to try to bring us to a close by eight o'clock tonight, if that's possible.

D

um So I think what we need to hear from everybody at this point is: are there changes um that we need to make to the to this legislative language that the latest version that was mailed mailed around by ari? That we feel we need to have discussion on.

D

Okay, then, I guess the so just to be very clear: the way that the city attorney situation is written in the legislation you're all comfortable with that.

D

J

Okay, I haven't had a chance to read it, but I agree with the way that ari has described it. Okay, yes,.

K

I'm sorry that that only made it around last night, okay,.

E

K

uh And in terms of the process going forward, it's been extremely helpful. I'm getting councils um weigh in on the substantive issues this evening, um and I think I obviously, in conjunction with the working group, um will then uh go ahead and prepare a um potentially final version.

K

That reflects somewhat what I've heard from you this evening and send it back around to council before it gets laid on the table so that you can respond, and let me know if you have any further concerns or or tweaks that you want and then hopefully that will be an adequate process for getting us to the point that we can lay a version on the table, um though, if for some reason, council feels that it's necessary to have another meeting where you actually um get to vote on any specific issues um to amend prior to I'm laying on the table, that's also an option, if necessary,.

D

So ari procedurally, do we need to vote on anything this evening, or is it better for us to just like, let's say pick this, the october ca meeting for us to do a vote, and then it gets laid on the table? Is there enough time for the november meeting, or we can pick literally any number of the meetings we have in october to add it on? If we need to do a formal vote on it, I I want to also just be conscious that we did send this around kind of late.

D

I want to give people enough opportunity to do any additional edits, small or sure semi-large.

K

So the answer is that the october ca meeting is too close to the november council meeting to be able to um make any changes at october ca and then lay it on the table and then take a final vote at november council. um uh So we would want to do that um before then. If the the goal.

D

Can we pick then, like first order of business on the 13th, which is our first budget meeting.

K

Yeah that would work fine in terms of laying on the table in terms of aging requirements. Absolutely does.

D

That give everyone enough time to review and make any additional suggestions. If we say by the 13th.

F

Yeah, I think that's a good idea.

K

Okay, and so what I think I'm hearing is that is that council's procedural goal here. Is that uh we'll take your feedback tonight, turn it back into another version and you'll have another committee level meeting where you'll look at that version and vote it out of committee to council and then take a final council vote at november council? Is that the process you'd like as opposed to going straight to november council, was an email exchange which is essentially the alternative, but but that's fine up the other way.

D

I'm sensitive to what graham said earlier, which is: has the public had enough sort of awareness that this is happening? I'm fine once again going you know tonight was a discussion.

D

We bring it to committee level, we vote and then that moves on in november it'll just give people that might want to comment on this additional opportunities to comment. That's all sure is that, okay with everyone, okay, cynthia.

J

um Just because I haven't read this since I attended the ca meeting back when um ari appreciate your your email, where you discussed deleting amendments 90-67-90-68.

J

And I couldn't figure out what it is that was changed. Do you mind briefly describing what that is.

K

Sure no problem.

D

With the residency requirement.

K

Yeah, it's super brief. It's and the bottom line is that um uh in january of this year um you may recall, um though, easily not, because we've had so much going on.

F

But you may recall the common.

K

Council eliminated residency requirements for senior staff in january of this year, um and those residency requirements were mistakenly included in earlier drafts of this legislation um and amended to speak about the city manager instead of the mayor playing a role in them, but obviously that's irrelevant because they no longer exist as a requirement. So um it's simply been taken out of this draft. That's all that happened there.

D

And then just so, you know at the committee level we did have a very, albeit brief, discussion that a we talked about. Well, we remember when we rescinded that we did talk about. Did we want to somehow have a further conversation on incentivizing living in the city or what are? Are there other ways to get at a residency requirement? And we also talked about if there was a job where we might want a residency requirement?

D

We are thinking that this one might be the one and that shelly agreed that, as obviously this group would have to work on a job description. There's going to need to be some additional discussion about the position if it if it passes referendum and that shelley agreed that those discussions could occur at a later date and it didn't need to be written into this particular version of the legislation.

K

And also would not require a referendum, so so exactly right.

J

Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that it's helpful.

K

Sure, speaking of things requiring a referendum deb, um I I know you said you want to wrap up by. Do you want um me to do a brief, like five minute um uh or even less description on the redistricting process?.

D

Oh yeah, yes, I have that on my list to to just do a quick conversation about after we were done with this, so, okay, okay, yeah.

K

Oh, you tell me when you're ready, I don't know if there's more on this or not.

D

I'm just giving everybody their last opportunity to to say if we need to say anything more about this nope again. Several people have echoed this, but thank you to this working group. That's been doing this. This is a this has been an issue for the city for decades and um I finally feel, like we've, come to a good place with it, and um everybody has done just a really great job, and I can't I know that we're we are. We are moving something forward that has been very well vetted and and worked on.

D

So thank you to everyone um and yeah. As as ary mentioned, we thought there's been a couple of emails flying around back and forth about redistricting, so I think we just wanted to give council. While we were all here together, a brief update on, what's going on with that and then kind of get some sense of how a pathway forward for that. What that would look like so ari go ahead.

K

Oh yeah, thank you um great.

K

So, um as you know, um uh every decade the united states government conducts a census and that census uh tells us new things about where uh people live and in what um population numbers, um including uh giving us information on the um balance of um residents in uh the city's uh five awards uh and um what the uh supreme court um peace law on um uh um redistricting tells us, um as, as you know, as applying the equal protection clause of the united states constitution um is that uh when the populations of um various wards in our case of the city uh gets out of whack by more than 10 percent, um that that is uh the legal trigger to say, they're we're not we're not adequately uh creating a one-person.

K

One-Vote situation is sort of what it boils down to um and as a result that we should rebalance our populations in our awards to get them I'm within ten percent of each other. I mean that the way to do that, of course, is to um redraw the lines of the words it's redistricting. So um uh that is the process um that uh council um should uh have a look at this year.

K

um The traditional process that um I know the city undertook um a decade ago last time uh was to appoint a redistricting commission, which seems like the right approach now as well. um I believe last uh go around that was appointed by mayor peterson. um I believe julie had looked back at her old records and had found that mayor peterson appointed one representative to that redistricting commission from each of the five awards. I'm not elected right. These are just appointed.

K

You know, volunteer members of the community who are appointed um to a redistricting commission um and that the commission then um worked with the city's gis team. That has a lot of data on um geography, as well as the census results and proposed one or more options for redistricting.

K

So that's the basic initial step I think going forward, uh but but I do want to um briefly um remind council and any public listening who may be interested of the sort of legal ramifications of the two basic paths forward um once that redistricting committee um provides a report to council um and those two paths are that you know, council will then need to take a vote on what it wants to do.

K

Guess we'll have to have a discussion and ultimately take a vote on what it wants to do with redistricting, and there are two basic paths: one path is merely adjust the lines to get the um balance of populations within the wards um uh sufficiently balanced, that it complies with the equal protection clause and that we are effectively um giving each person a similar weight to their vote as others um and that's great.

K

If we go down that road, if we do, um I think julie, and I would recommend that council target a vote in uh you know, summer of next year, summer of 2022 um to uh uh rebalance um the awards, though, that is not a hard legal deadline in and of itself. um The functional reality is that um you want it. uh You want the new wards determined well before you reach um a primary season in spring of 2023.

K

That would lead into fall, 2023, council elections, um so that's path, number one and it does not involve a referendum. It's the key thing to say about that um path. Number two, uh and this is the other thing that I want everyone to have in mind up front here. Path.

K

Number two is a path where um council uh could end up concluding that it wants to make more substantial changes, like you know, uh take the city from five wards down to four wards and perhaps thus from uh ten members of council down to eight members of council, um or that it wants to um end up only having one older person from each ward. So you know go down to maybe stay with five wards, but only five members of council as well things like that.

K

um If council were to go down any of those roads, um it would trigger a referendum, uh and uh there is indeed a hard legal deadline for uh making those sorts of determinations. If you want to go down that road, that deadline is that the city clerk would need to have filed um with the board of elections.

K

The local law that common council had already passed by no later than august 1st of 2022 august 1st of next year, um would be the filing deadline with the board of elections to um uh get that um question on to the november 2022 ballot, so that it could be answered in time for the local law to be filed with secretary of state and the uh new wards and new structure of council to take effect before spring 2023 primary season.

K

And so that's what I want you all to have in mind is that there are these two paths. One says: let's just adjust our ward boundaries a little bit to get the population balances right that won't trigger a referendum. It therefore doesn't have nearly as hard a deadline, though julie's. My recommendation is that council take action on that by sometime in the summer of next year um and path.

K

Number two is one where you make more substantial changes to the um structure of common council um and the representation on it, um in which case it will trigger a referendum uh and will have a hard deadline um of that august first filing which, by the way, I didn't say it, but I should say effectively what that means. Is that the final opportunity for council to take a final vote on a local law that does restructure the common council rather than merely adjust ward lines, um would be the july common council meeting.

K

That would be pretty much the drop dead date for an absolute final vote um by council on such a law. So um if you work your way back and think about when you might want a redistricting committee to be reporting to council, it would seem like you know. Maybe I don't know march of 2022 if I were going to pick a month out of thin air, but that's for others to decide not me, but that's just some thoughts.

D

Okay, I don't know if the mayor is back to running the meeting, but yeah.

B

I can keep.

D

Running it, if you need me to.

B

No no well, my my initial reactions and- and I do think this is something that council should, but we.

I

Do have a little.

B

Bit of time, so we should dive deeper. My initial reactions are based on you know the population growth we've seen in the city and how things have worked so far. I don't see a compelling reason to go beyond just adjusting the district ward lines to rebalance the population, but I do think we should talk with the county to me.

B

The most persuasive reason to to change from the five ward and two count the person per award system would be if we could somehow fit once again with the the county legislative districts, but I suspect that they are going to move back to five representatives inside the city uh down from four for this last decade, which would mean that that we could line up those lines again.

B

So I I I think we should continue this discussion, but my inclination is to go with the non-referendum approach, which would be just to redraw the lines and keep five.

B

Words uh at any rate, uh so that I'm sorry cynthia, do you see your hand.

J

Thank you. um Where are we in the appointment of city representatives to their redistricting committee,.

B

E

Not we've not yet.

B

J

And I I do believe I saw an appeal going out for uh volunteers. When are you hoping to get that by and make those uh recommendations.

B

Let me get a timeline for you. We've been, it's been all budget all the time for the last four or four weeks. uh So let me get that for you um in the next couple weeks, thanks.

C

B

Well, thank you. It looks like we made it with with two minutes to spare. um Would anyone like to move to a journey.

J

Donna had a question. Sorry, oh.

B

F

A

Yeah, so what doesn't require a referendum is keeping five words um even remember when you say tweaking the lines, I'm not sure what that means. So, if we keep, if we keep five words and move the lines any which way we want that doesn't require referendum.

K

If you keep five awards and two representatives per ward yeah and merely adjust the lines for population purposes, that clearly won't uh require a referendum. I do hear you implicitly asking an interesting question. I think what you're asking me is well what if we change the wards much more than just adjusting the lines so as to coincide with the county um map.

K

If that's the way it turns out, um that might also have five in the city um which uh and still keep ten members on council with two from each, but it's really quite different wards and you're. I think you're implicitly asking whether that prompts a referendum, and I need to get back to you with an answer on that question, because it's an interesting legal question that I don't know the answer to at the moment.

B

Yeah, I I could imagine well I won't play I won't play lawyer, but uh I could. I could imagine that if say there was a like a really gerrymandered map that created a bunch of weird shapes or um we pizza, pied, the city. You know if we had five wards, all the shape of a wedge and split the second ward, into these tiny little slivers in the center of of these other five wards. That seems to me like a substantial change and could trigger a referendum, but I wouldn't propose doing that so.

J

Confusion um then what is the basis for triggering a referendum? I I it makes sense to me if we're keeping five wards and keeping ten representatives that would not trigger it, but why would jiggering it to in a in this unusual way, suddenly trigger a referendum.

K

um Again, I'm not really positive, whether it would or not. So I mean, if you're interested in the source of law. The answer is: it's municipal home rule law, section 23 in new york, state law and municipal home rule um talks about um where is it.

K

I think it's probably.

K

It's probably section e, that's abolishing an elective office or changing the method of nominating electing or removing an elective officer. um uh Oh no, I'm sorry, there's also, um no, no, no, that one's different.

K

um So uh again, the the bottom line is um there's uh some not terribly clear case law that arises from municipal home rule law, section 23 that actually defines what triggers a referendum in the setting and not- and I know that that case law is clear- that when you're merely adjusting ward boundaries to account for population changes and nothing more, that that does not trigger a referendum.

K

And I also know that it's clear that if you change the number of wards um or the number of uh council elder persons um uh to serve on council, that that is a change that definitely will trigger a referendum. And I hear an interesting. I hear don asking an interesting intermediate question, which is what, if you actually change the map, a lot but still have five awards and ten members to cancel. And I need to look at the case a lot and give you a direct answer to that.

J

Thank you thanks sure.

B

Okay, thanks everybody. We went from from two minutes early to two minutes late, uh so would anyone like to move to adjourn uh moved by ducks and second by graham all those in favor that'll carry unanimous life so appreciate it? We'll see everybody wednesday night, if not sooner,.

F

Thanks everybody good night.