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09-10-2007 - Special CITY COUNCIL OF EDGEWATER SPECIAL MEETING SEPTEMBER 10, 2007 7:00 P.M. COMMUNITY CENTER MINUTES CALL TO ORDER Mayor Thomas called the Special Meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. in the Community Center. ROLL CALL Mayor Michael Thomas Present Councilwoman Debra Rogers Present Councilman Dennis Vincenzi Present Councilwoman Harriet Rhodes Present Councilwoman Judith Lichter Present City Manager Jon Williams Present City Clerk Susan Wadsworth Present City Attorney Carolyn Ansay Present INVOCATION, PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE There was a silent invocation and pledge of allegiance to the Flag. PUBLIC HEARINGS st 1. 1Reading, Ord No. 2007-O-15, adopting final millage rate of 5.3740 mills per $1,000 of assessed taxable value City Attorney Ansay read Ord. 2007-O-15 into the record. Finance Director Brett Tanner made a staff presentation. Councilwoman Rogers stated they had the budget meeting on Friday and their biggest concern has to do with the minimum requirement for the Charter reserve. They have not met that requirement in quite some time. That is first on her issue list. They need to meet that requirement. They talked about going between a 5.2 and a 5.37 millage rate, the difference being approximately $200,000. If they were to go to a 5.37 and $200,000 is not going to meet their Page 1 of 16 Council Special Meeting September 10, 2007 requirement. They need to do something now because next year it is going to be more drastic. There were three items mentioned in the newspaper. There is an agreement with FOP, there is the issue going on with the General Employee Pension Fund and then another area. She believes they need to discuss those three areas and that is where they need to get the money from. She doesn’t believe they need to increase anything in the Utilities or Enterprise Funds in order to do so. She feels they need to do this in-house and they need to hold fast at 5.2. She would love to go to a different level but at this point they are trying to come down from last year and next year it has to be lower. Rather than try to do it all next year when they are going to have other things mandated to them, they need to do as much as they can now. Councilman Vincenzi stated he is going to vote for the 5.2 millage rate, not for the 5.374. Only because it is a small amount of an increase, $200,000 and it isn’t going to make a bit of a difference. You either have to raise taxes quite a bit in order to make up the reserves they need and buy capital equipment and take care of other issues. He thinks raising it is something nobody on the Council wants to do. It would be a lot more than 5.374. Seeing it isn’t going to make that much of a difference, he is going to vote for 5.2 and continue to try to keep costs under control. Councilwoman Rhodes stated she would also vote for the 5.2 however she thinks $200,000 is not going to get them where they need to be but had they started $200,000 ten years ago towards a new City Hall, they would be well on their way. That is less money in the case of an emergency or any natural disaster. That is less money you have to borrow and less money you have to pay interest on. If that emergency happens and they do need to go to the line of credit, the taxpayers are going to pay for it but they are going to more pay for the $200,000 then they would have to pay now. She thinks it is in their best interest to have a 5.37 and she will vote for a 5.2 but she would like to see a little more wiggle room than they currently have. Councilwoman Lichter feels this vote may be one of the few that is unanimous this evening because she also will be voting for 5.20. However there is work to be done with that number. She feels some of that work can be accomplished. They have to really deal with and talk with Page 2 of 16 Council Special Meeting September 10, 2007 and coordinate with the Police Department that is not settled. No jobs are to be lost but there has to be a little more softball and not so much hardball. They also have to try very hard to do something about those senior members of the staff that are under a special pension and they are trying and this will account for some money going towards, at least for six months, they have to work on the pension to see if they can get it in line with other pensions. Most places when you retire, you retire. She knows that is not what was promised in the beginning but the anticipation and what has happened is people are retiring and staying on board because that is what was written could be done. It has to be looked at. She thinks when they look at two or three more factors they may see this money goes further than they thought. If they are going to budget for more, they are automatically going to spend more and they aren’t going to work as hard to solve some of their problems. She also suggested they pray that a hurricane doesn’t really hit us. So far they have been lucky this year. She spoke of running into great trouble in the past with three hurricanes in one season. The worse scenario is they would have to borrow to cover some of that money. They did not get back what they anticipated from FEMA. She thinks she is voting for the 5.20 and she thinks the lesser is the better number. Mayor Thomas asked for a show of hands of who knew what the recommended State roll back was. Linda Small informed him 5.37. Mayor Thomas informed her it was 4.89 for this year. The City Council has the right, if they vote four to one or unanimous to go to the 5.2 which would give them a year to get to that 4.89. They are going to be mandated to go there next year. He also feels they need the wiggle room. He understands they need some capital items. He stated when he started the taxes were 6.45, which City Manager Williams confirmed. Last year it went to 5.7. This year they are going to 5.2 and next year it is going to be 4.89. You can see the downward trend. They are going in the right direction. They have struggled to keep City jobs. He spoke of not filling positions of people that have left. They need operating expenses where they can afford police cars and afford the mowers and stuff. They are trying to think ahead and provide in the right way. Page 3 of 16 Council Special Meeting September 10, 2007 The following citizens spoke: Ferd Heeb , 115 N. Riverside Drive, asked what the amount of the required reserve was. Councilwoman Rhodes informed him $1.9 million. Mr. Heeb asked how much was in there. Councilwoman Rhodes stated so far in this budget a little more than $400,000. Mr. Heeb then asked City Attorney Ansay if the Council could pass a budget that contradicts the Charter. The Charter says the City will maintain a reserve equal to 15% of its General Fund. The Charter is the City’s Bible. City Attorney Ansay stated the issue related to the Charter reserve limit has come up before and they have talked about it generally. She feels there is a major issue that has to be addressed by Council when you have a Charter requirement that says you have that reserve limit. They are also bound by the State law and the recently passed House Bill 1B that has certain requirements on the City. They could go above and beyond what they are doing tonight to try to more fully satisfy that requirement but she thinks obviously they have to comply with unanimous requirements and try to meet the intention of the legislation. She thinks there certainly is an issue and it has been raised before and it is a serious one that the City has in the Charter that needs to be a priority for the Council and the City in meeting in the future. In terms of it being a per say illegal budget on it’s face, it certainly is not meeting the intent of the Charter and if challenged she thinks there would be an issue there. She doesn’t know that there is a challenge out there now and she encouraged the Council to meet that goal as quickly as they can recognizing they have exposure. Mr. Heeb stated he wasn’t up there to create problems and he knew how hard they were working on the budget and how hard they were trying to reduce the millage rate. It concerns him anytime the Council ignores the Charter. This would be like approving a 60 condo on Riverside Drive where you have a Charter that says you can’t do that. It’s not his problem but he wanted the Council to be aware of it. City Manager Williams referred to Page 9 of the budget before them tonight regarding the year-to-date actuals. The expenditures that have been reported to date are a little over $9.8 million. For all practical purposes, he rounded it up to $10 million. If they calculate and do the Page 4 of 16 Council Special Meeting September 10, 2007 percentage they would be around $1.5 million. He went back to last year’s audited financial statements where they had cash reserves of about $950,000. For all practical purposes they would start at $950,000 and add this year’s projected revenues subtract the expenditures to come up with the estimated fund balance as it currently relates. He thinks the challenges they face are that they have budget to actual variances that will take place between now and the end of the fiscal year. We have a lot of unknowns. They are within about 20 days of closing that fiscal year. They don’t anticipate any major problems. They may be below Charter but they may finish out this year being in a very good position and be there going into next year. There are some gray areas they can’t predict at this point in time. Councilwoman Lichter asked City Attorney Ansay about what City Manager Williams has arranged with the bank in case of an emergency to borrow. She asked if that would act as a substitute and that is only to be borrowed if there is a disaster type thing. She asked if that would count in some ways as trying to meet, which they have been trying to do since 2004, that goal. City Attorney Ansay stated if the question is to meet what is the intent of the Charter, in other words to have a cushion there in the event of the storm, she thought that was the intent of staff when they came before Council to get that line of credit put in place. In terms of whether that in and of itself would meet the plain language of the Charter requirement, she would say probably not. Councilwoman Rogers stated they just gave them a new budget tonight and they did a budget on Friday and that was what they used to make the decisions that they are in the process of making. The budget they gave them Friday had a column that showed the percentage of change difference. The new one does not but the new one, the numbers that are proposed for 2008 have drastically changed from what they were using and approving on Friday. City Manager Williams explained the drastic change is directly related to the remaining issues he brought forward on Friday. That would be the pension funding alone. The budget presented on Friday presented it at under funding. They went back and changed that from 24% to 48 ¼% and reflected that back into this budget. That is why they see the significant change. What that did was that forced the Page 5 of 16 Council Special Meeting September 10, 2007 Enterprise Funds out of balance. They would then go back and lower their transfers from the Enterprise Funds to get those funds back in balance in order to present them with a balanced budget tonight. Councilwoman Rogers commented on the City Manager’s budget going from $415,000 to $429,000. She also mentioned Leisure Services operations being $843,000 and now it is $893,000. City Manager Williams commented on having one employee in his department that is in the Defined Benefit Plan. In Leisure Services they would have more employees so the concentration of employees within each department and the allocation of expenditures accordingly is what they would see reflected there. Councilwoman Rogers stated and this would be based upon the FOP agreement that they put forth that has not yet been approved, with the 3% is in there, not the 8% that they wanted. City Manager Williams explained they went back and reflected what their discussions were in the Executive Session and pending the outcome of the first budget hearing, they will then re-approach the FOP and begin their final stages of negotiation and go forward from there. Councilwoman Rogers suggested the next time they give them this to give them that column that reflects the percentage change difference. City Manager Williams explained typically what they do is they go through the process and they get the workpapers from an internal perspective and then they start moving the document into it’s final stages so they can print and pass it out to the public and go forward from there. That is what they see without the percentages. Mayor Thomas informed Mr. Heeb it was a very heated discussion on Friday and Councilwoman Rhodes scolded them all for the same thing he did. They are trying to meet that. There are some unforeseens that could be a plus or minus. He feels they aren’t looking too bad. Mr. Heeb stated he understands the problem. His biggest concern is they are passing a budget that in his mind is illegal. That budget by the Charter mandates that there be sufficient revenues and excessive expenditures to maintain Page 6 of 16 Council Special Meeting September 10, 2007 the reserve. Mayor Thomas informed him he made his point clear a while ago. He was trying to explain that they did discuss that. Councilman Vincenzi stated the Council has passed a budget that doesn’t comply with the Charter for the last six or seven years in a row. Every time he asked Hooper whether they had enough reserves or what their level of reserves was he would give him a pretty good run around. The Council has done the same thing for the past five or six years and that doesn’t make it right. He doesn’t know what answer they should get. They just don’t have the money to do it right now. Carol Ann Stoughton , 2740 Evergreen Drive, stated Mr. Heeb is totally correct. They have not operated with the amount that is required according to the Charter for many years. All the smoke and clouds have never come out to tell the people. Four years ago she started asking questions. She found out what the debt was last year which is $48 million. She doesn’t know what the debt is today. She feels the people have not been told the truth. She feels the past City Manager didn’t tell the truth. She feels City Manager Williams should have told what their financial status was all along. It is just smoke and mirrors yet the people should be informed on a monthly basis in their water bills what is being spent, how much is there and what is in the reserve. All of a sudden they have $400,000 in there. She would like to know have they ever in the past six years met the Charter requirements. Councilman Vincenzi stated according to Ken Hooper they have. Ms. Stoughton stated he is not here though. Councilwoman Rhodes stated that is not true. Every single year she scolded Ken Hooper for not meeting the Charter requirements. Ms. Stoughton stated they were never apprised of how much money was in the Charter. She feels that is a sad state of affairs. Dominic Capria , 606 Topside Circle, stated it was mentioned about hurricanes and that hey have a problem. The solution is not that big really. All they have to do is like they always do. Transfer money from the Stormwater Fund. They have done it before $1 million at a time. Page 7 of 16 Council Special Meeting September 10, 2007 Mr. Capria stated he wanted to talk about the budget. The Council has already made up their mind. They said so. They never even waited to hear what the public had to say. They made up their mind. That is obvious. Mr. Capria would like to see the Council check into, not the City Manager, the Council and come back with answers. He commented on increases in various departments with regard to Professional Services, Clothing, Travel & Per Diem, Freight Services, Printing & Binding, Operating Supplies, Promotional Activities, Educational Development, Overtime, and Other Charges and Obligations. He wants the Council to look into this and come back and give the citizens answers. Linda Small , 1629 Willow Oak Drive, stated she has given the Council a reference package so they would know what she was addressing this evening. She referred to an e-mail that was sent from Bill Lee at the Volusia Sheriff’s office to Police Chief John Taves on April 3, 2007 regarding law enforcement services. She commented on this not saying the VCSO would also be responsible for any liabilities as a result of lawsuits. She referred to the 2007 proposed Police budget for Operations. Even if they asked the VCSO to update their quote that would still give them from the projected police budget $1,819,217. She believes this surplus would cover the shortage for the Charter reserves. She is not saying that is what they need to do. She feels that is what they need to at least consider. Mayor Thomas asked for a show of hands of how many people thought the Sheriff’s Department could match the level of service they were now getting from our Police Department. Councilwoman Lichter commented on being in local politics for over fifty yeas. She knows the answer to that from experience. She sincerely believes in Home Rule and Home Rule means you have your own personality, you have your own Fire Department and your own Police Department but that it doesn’t mean that on occasion they don’t share a dispatcher with other cities. She believes everybody has thought about that kind of thing. She spoke about serving on a committee where they looked about combining fire. To a degree they do it but they still keep their own individuality. They keep Edgewater’s personality. She feels they need to find another way to fill the hole they call the deficit. She isn’t going to be told that she Page 8 of 16 Council Special Meeting September 10, 2007 hasn’t considered those things. She wouldn’t want to part with our Fire Department, our Police Department or our trash guys. Two thousand signatures were given to her that said they wanted our own Trash Department picking up the trash in this City. It has been considered by her. Councilman Vincenzi stated originally they told the City Manager to look into it because that is something they should do. When they talked about the level of service, they decided it wasn’t worth it. In order to get the level of service we get from our Police, he didn’t feel the estimate from the Sheriff’s office was accurate. The level of service we get from our Police is excellent and we want to keep it in town. Councilwoman Rhodes stated in the e-mail that Ms. Small read it also lists the staffing they would have for this City. She thought we had 38 sworn officers. Police Chief Taves informed her we have 32 sworn officers. Councilwoman Rhodes stated the way she counts it, there would be 12 officers. She then spoke of comparing apples to apples and having equal personnel and equal response times and having all their questions answered and then tell her what the cost would be. It also says that this is capped so it can only go up 5% every year but the contracts are for three years and it says at the end of three years any raises in personnel costs above 5% will be caught up. You could be hit with a big bill at the end of three years. There are too many variables where they could come back to the City and it could end up costing them a lot more than what it costs them right now. Until all the other questions are answered this is something she would not even consider. This does not satisfy her need for equal comparison. Mike Visconti , 316 Pine Breeze Drive, asked on his property taxes how much money per year he would be saving with this budget. Mayor Thomas didn’t think they could do that because of the appraisal. City Manager Williams stated they could if they knew his current appraised value. Mr. Visconti stated he got his notice for the proposed tax for 2008 and his savings is $27. If his savings is only $27 and they divide all the money up, whatever the savings is, in his estimation he would rather see the City keep his part of the $27 and have the City use the money where it is more usable instead of losing jobs or cutting services. If they did this, the City would benefit by $800,000. He Page 9 of 16 Council Special Meeting September 10, 2007 would like to see the City have $800,000 in one hand then all the citizens have $3, $20 or $47. Councilwoman Lichter stated the bill isn’t finished. That is a suggested. The County may even change and the City’s is going to change a little bit. It’s not quite firmed up yet. Mr. Visconti feels it is not feasible to save that much money. He has been in the City for almost 14 years and he has seen the City grow. He congratulated all of the City Councils and Mayors in the past for the job they have done in Edgewater. Jeanne DelNigro , 3130 Tamarind Drive, stated we have the greatest Police Department and the greatest Fire Department. They cannot replace any of them. If they go out of this City and take in Volusia County Sheriff’s, they will not get the service they need. She asked if they were more interested in saving money or lives. Councilwoman Lichter stated they haven’t even suggested it. Ms. DelNigro stated well it was brought up. Councilwoman Lichter stated not by them. Tamara Coone , 472 Palmetto Street, stated the cities are in the business to sell water & sewer to pay for police & fire. They cannot get rid of the police or fire. They have to have them in-house. What they have to get rid of is some of the capital improvements they want such as City Hall. They don’t have the money. The reason the City thinks the roll back rate is so important is because that is what they are mandated. What is so important is the assessed values. Because the assessed values have increased and the City thinks they can increase the roll back rate to what they are mandated, it is just wrong. They have more money because of the increased assessed values and should be able to reduce the millage rate, keep the fire and stop wasting their money. Jim Sylvester , 2209 Orange Tree Drive, feels the answer to the budget problems is to expand the tax base by welcoming small business and industry into our City. We have hundreds of acres of land that is zoned for commercial use, for business use that is sitting, growing in weeds. They need to actively go out and bring small businesses and small industrial operations into this City. That will expand the tax base and solve all the problems. Page 10 of 16 Council Special Meeting September 10, 2007 Richard Burgess , 2724 Juniper Drive, stated they want to make sure that people like him and others who were affected where their 2004 taxes were $1,200 and for 2008 they are looking at $2,800. He has a small piece of property that has been in his family for fifty years. In 2004 the taxes were 600 unimproved. It is going to be $3,000. He got no pay increase. He also agreed that businesses have to come in and that is the greatest thing. He brought a small business here from Virginia. He collected $1 million the past three years from attorneys all over the country and spend it in Edgewater with six employees. He would like to triple the size of his business. He would like to see more information and small industrial oriented businesses get here and he is going to make the Economic Development Board miserable because he is going to ask to join to see what they can do about that. Mayor Thomas asked if anybody wanted to address his comments about his taxes going from $600 to $3,000 and what percentage the City is getting. He thought Mr. Visconti would know. Mr. Visconti informed him at that time, it was 74% went to the county and 26% came to Edgewater. He didn’t think it was fair. He thinks what they should do is all the Mayors should get together and at least get half of that money instead of going through the County. Half of it should stay in Edgewater. Due to there being no further comments, Mayor Thomas closed the public hearing and entertained a motion. Councilwoman Lichter moved to approve setting a millage rate of 5.20, second by Councilman Vincenzi . The MOTION CARRIED 5-0 . st 2. 1 Reading, Ord. No. 2007-O-16, adopting final budget for fiscal year 2007/2008 City Attorney Ansay read Ord. 2007-O-16 into the record. Finance Director Brett Tanner made a staff presentation. There were no Council comments at this time. Mayor Thomas asked for citizen comments. The following citizens spoke: Page 11 of 16 Council Special Meeting September 10, 2007 Chris Balmer , 148 William Street, stated he was confused how the budget is still in order if they just went lower than what was proposed at 5.37. Councilwoman Rogers stated they changed the budget to work with the 5.20. Mr. Balmer asked if the budget they had in front of them this whole time was based on 5.20. Councilman Vincenzi stated they told them last Friday to design it around 5.20 but he wanted 5.37. Bill Glasser , 1703 Needle Palm Drive, stated as he walks around beautiful Edgewater he notices a lot of folks have businesses in garages or in a shed behind their houses. He sees a lot of no name trucks doing business in Edgewater. He asked how they know if these folks are licensed to do business in Edgewater if they don’t have any identification on their vehicle. He commented on how it was done in West Virginia. Mr. Glasser presented City Manager Williams with a piece of paper. He stated the first item was from last year’s budget outlined in green. He was wondering what that line item was. On the next page, it is a list of all the impact fees the City got for last year. He asked if they collect a sidewalk impact fee and if they do, why doesn’t it show up on the list. If they do, how much money is in that fund? City Manager Williams agreed to do some research and get back to Mr. Glasser. Mayor Thomas informed him since it was brought up in the public, they would answer it at the next meeting. Mr. Glasser asked if there were any thoughts. Councilwoman Lichter stated certain home businesses are allowed and certain ones are not. She agreed some people may have businesses in their garages. Mr. Glasser stated his question was do they have their City license and if they are contributing. Councilwoman Lichter felt they were illegally doing it. Mr. Glasser thought so too. He mentioned Joe the taxpayer underwriting some of these businesses. Matthew Negedly , 540 Coral Trace Blvd, stated build trust or go home. What is interesting is a proposed balanced Page 12 of 16 Council Special Meeting September 10, 2007 budget is being voted on right now and the Fire Chief doesn’t know if the City Manager’s proposals for cuts in his departments is included or not. He thinks they are trying to balance the budget on the backs of the firefighters. In May he wrote a letter to Council and City Manager Williams responded asking him to come to the June th 9 meeting. He wrote “my goal for that day is to find out exactly what the citizens of this community are willing to pay for in terms of level of services.” The overwhelming message that day was don’t cut public safety. The Council agreed and let them know they too did not want cuts in public safety. He feels a little betrayed because there are cost cutting measures potentially the Fire Chief doesn’t even know in the Fire Department that will reduce their level of service in the Fire Department and they don’t even know and it is on the table he thinks. There is only so much pie he understands and it is all about how many slices they are going to cut and how big are the slices. That is why they elected them to make tough decisions. They have asked for this position to make tough decisions. He is asking them to keep essential services. The Charter doesn’t say the City shall exist to be an employer of ex-number of employees. It says we will provide these municipal services. Our City currently falls short of the national standard in response deployment models for the Fire Department. They aren’t going toward the national standards, they are going away from the national standard. The proposal is that they won’t backfill firefighters who are on military leave, vacation, injury leave, whatever. They will down the number of firefighters on their fire trucks with this proposal. That is disappointing. They ask him to wire his house according to that standard. They buy the fire trucks according to that standard, the air packs, the gear but they aren’t following the standards on the wiring in this room or the th response model for firefighters. On July 5, his parents home burned in the City of Edgewater. The brave men and women of the Edgewater Fire Department responded and contained it to the garage. This proposal will make Edgewater Fire Department an exterior firefighting department. They are taking men and women off of these rigs. It’s a shame. If this proposal was in affect, on th July 5 the story of his parent’s house could be very different. They aren’t proposing to take men off of the garbage trucks, why fire trucks? Build trust or go home. Page 13 of 16 Council Special Meeting September 10, 2007 Councilwoman Lichter stated she was called by someone connected with the Fire Department and she asked City Manager Williams what Mr. Negedly was stating and she didn’t believe it was quite all the facts. Every detail has not been worked out. The way he explained it to her was that where there is normally three on a vehicle if one is sick or has to be absent the third won’t be put on at that moment but the third is in reserve and the moment that signal starts the third will be put on so three will attend. She thinks the detail might have to be worked out. It isn’t a given yet. There is no way that what he is going to propose or what they would approve in the end could jeopardize anyone’s house. He has to plan to try to put a little plug in for a half hour and save a little money. Every department is going to have to save a little money. They certainly aren’t getting rid of firemen or cutting that. Maybe City Manager Williams could explain it or maybe City Manager Williams and Fire Chief Barlow haven’t worked out the particulars yet and Mr. Negedly is jumping the gun. She wasn’t sure. Gigi Bennington , 121 Virginia Street, stated she has participated in quite a few budgets and what she didn’t understand about this is how they could pass a balanced budget when they have questions that aren’t answered such as the Fire Department, whether the Fund Balance Reserve is going to meet the Charter. She feels this whole process that they have gone through has been shoved on them so fast and there are so many things hanging over their heads that may or may not take place in the balance and that is what they are being asked to pass judgment on. If she was on the Council she wouldn’t vote for it. She asked if they had ever heard of vicarious liability. That means anything they vote on can come back and they can be sued individually for their votes. If they get the City in trouble for a vote that they take recommended by staff and somebody decides to go after the City they can be named individually. She wouldn’t put herself in the position that they are in right now based on what she has been hearing about this budget. Melanie Wagner , 1614 Orange Tree Drive, stated Mr. Negedly’s comments are right on. She is a local firefighter. Not in the City but she does live here. She expects the Fire Department to be able to provide the same level of service she works for. To only put two people on the apparatus is going backward. She commented on there Page 14 of 16 Council Special Meeting September 10, 2007 being questions the people need to know. When they commit to an exterior fire attack because they only have two people on that apparatus and it says two in two out, that means two people inside and two people outside. They don’t have two out. They are already getting people from New Smyrna because the standard is fourteen people on that scene in eight minutes. They don’t have fourteen people. To reduce the level, she can’t even imagine the liability they will come under when it comes down to something happening to the people that try to protect you and the State comes in to investigate and they didn’t meet the national standard. Councilman Vincenzi stated there are other things to consider besides just the fact that the City Manager decided it might be a good idea to cut the personnel on a truck. What Ms. Wagner was quoting was not law, it’s a recommendation. It is a suggestion that maximizes safety for the firefighter and optimizes the opportunity for good service and good response but no business in the world automatically calls someone in for overtime when personnel call in sick or take vacation. That is wrong. If the Fire Department is operating under that assumption then something is wrong. Either the overtime has to be cut out, the personnel have to be reduced or they have to hire more people. Overtime is not the answer. Overtime means you are getting paid time and a half for services that someone else would normally be getting paid straight time for. That is costing the taxpayers a lot of money. There are a lot of solutions to this problem and they are talking about one potential one. He got a call from a firefighter in town that seemed very cooperative, very open-minded and very receptive to sitting down and talking to the City Manager and City Council about various solutions. That is what they need. They don’t need people telling them how they are going to be risking people’s lives. They know the potential liabilities and they are looking for a solution. If you can’t offer solutions and can only offer criticism, he really doesn’t want to hear from them. Debby Harrison , stated she is not a firefighter in this City but she has used 911 calls twice before and when you call 911 it is a disaster. It may be small but it is a disaster. She presented examples of unforeseen things that can happen in a disaster. She is concerned that there is a budget here. This stuff is coming down. She asked what are they doing to educate the people out there of what Page 15 of 16 Council Special Meeting September 10, 2007 their decisions are and how it will truly affect the public. She questioned how many people knew what ALS is and what would happen if they don’t have it. There is a lot of stuff that people are not aware of. She understands they should become educated but there should be more education done to inform the people of what all these consequences of all the decisions are for their safety. She is concerned of her safety, her children’s safety and everybody’s safety in this City. Mayor Thomas closed the public hearing and entertained a motion. Councilwoman Lichter moved to approve Ord. 2007-O-16, adopting the final budget, second by Councilman Vincenzi . The MOTION CARRIED 5-0 . ADJOURNMENT Mayor Thomas entertained a motion to adjourn the Special Meeting. Councilwoman Rhodes moved to adjourn the Special Meeting. The meeting adjourned at 8:05 p.m. Minutes submitted by: Lisa Bloomer Page 16 of 16 Council Special Meeting September 10, 2007