I blogged this during the meeting. But it is not quite “live blogged”.
Alders from the Board of Estimates (Bruer, Verveer, Clear, Rhodes-Conway, Clausius, Sanborn) plus alders Schumacher, Webber, Gruber, Rummel, Palm. (I think that is it.)
The meeting started with testimony on the Public Market.
The amendments can be found here.
AMENDMENT #1
The Mayor fixes a bunch of missed reauthorizations in the budget. It’s over $9.2M. The amendment has no impact on the levy.
Passes without comment.
AMENDMENT #2
Ald. Sanborn wants a new ambulance this year instead of next year. The ambulance will cost us $205,000 and has a Levy Impact of 26,548. However, adding the staff in the operating budget would have a much, much bigger impact.
Mayor politely explained to Sanborn that even if we wanted the ambulance in place, they can’t hire and train fast enough to get the ambulance on line until 2010. Chief says could get it on-line half way through 2009 but we would be paying overtime and they still couldn’t do it until August 3rd. Even when purchase an ambulance it takes 6 months to get it in the door and a few more months to equip it. Sanborn places his own motion on file.
AMENDMENT #3
Ald. Rhodes-Conway wants to remove funding for Tasers. This would cut $35,000 and save $4,533 on the levy.
Police department is here to answer questions. They describe “the memo“. They make an argument that they need even more tasers than the 253 that they are programed for. They are saying 178 is what they need today. i.e. for a football game. The Chief and police department ended up supporting a deletion of funds for tasers in future years to re-evaluate the technology and pause to see what the effectiveness of the taser program is. The motion was amended to not purchase tasers in 2010, but purchase them in 2009. Passed unanimously.
AMENDMENT #4
Ald. Verveer wants to move up funding for State St. That would have us spending $120,000 in TIF funds in 2009 and $600,000 in 2010. These are TIF funds so there is no levy impact.
Alder Verveer says that this is to get the budget back in line with the 2008 Capital Budget. Mayor says that it was moved back to wait for TID cash, he says there will be cash in the TID in 2009, but if we spend it there won’t be any in 2010. The comptroller says to look at the cash flow statements at the end of the budget. They have since gotten better numbers and based on the later numbers, there will be more money than originally projected. So, even tho this district is negative, there is alot of growth going on, but we might still need to borrow in 2010. However, moving it up a year means we won’t have to borrow for it in 2009. (I hope that made sense.) Mayor continues to argue against funding in 2009. The engineers speak to the merits of moving forward. The Mayor is arguing that it will cost us $300,000 more, but acknowledges that our estimates might not be accurate and things could change so he supports a less agressive timeline. I smell a compromise happening. Comptroller is explaining that we need to look at if we have cash or have to borrow until much later. Mike suggests a compromise to add language that adopts Verveer’s amendment with the proviso that it will be spent only if there is cash. The amendment is tabled. temporarily.
They went back to this item after item #7, added language that says that they won’t borrow money for this project. Motion passed unanimously.
AMENDMENT #5
Ald. Sanborn wants to cut funding to make improvements to the Council Chambers. The City would pay $300,000 and the County would pay $300,000. This is a project we have been talking about doing since 2001 when I got on the Council. This would have a levy impact of $38,851.
Sanborn moved adoption. Claims that the plans are elaborate and that we don’t need to make the dias accessible for people with disabilities. And its ok if our mics don’t work. Alder Bruer explains that this will bring us into compliance with ADA. Bruer says this should have been done several years ago. He says there is no “frill” and it is a “bare bones” plan and that so many other communities have accessible facilities with modern day audio/visual equipment. Jeanne Hoffman, our facilities manager, says that Ald. Bruer is correct that this is about ADA, better audio/visual and energy efficient windows. Larry Nelson adds that the room is set up backwards and notes that the public can’t see the public presentations. The county is trying to make the room better for the general public. Ald. Sanborn is worried that we doing something too elaborate in building a permanent ramp instead of a temporary one. Jeanne says that the designs have not been finalized. Webber chimes in about a meeting that she was at where someone had to be lifted up to chair the meeting and says this is not only a legal, but a fairness issue. Also says it is important for the public to see the presentations. Clear asked where the numbers came from and it came from the County Board Office. Rhodes-Conway wants to make sure that we work closely with the County to make sure that the elaborate description by Sanborn doesn’t happen, but we do need the project to move forward for accessiblity reasons. Sanborn says that $600,000 is too much for our meeting space. Bruer says that we need to scrutinize this as it moves forward, but we do need to move forward. There was something about Pacers, Chevys and Cadillacs . . . but it all comes down to accessiblity and public access. Verveer says that the City-County Liaison Committee is not a good enough place to discuss this and Verveer would like to have a user’s group or CCOC group work on this project and that we shouldn’t let the County drive the process without our input. The item failed, Jed was only voice vote in support. Clear asked that “former Ald. Brandon’s button” be incorporated in the design.
AMENDMENT #6
Ald. Sanborn wants to remove funding for the Renewable Energy Project. This is $100,000 with a levy impact of $12,950.
Sanborn says solar panels are inefficient and this is an area where the City should not be a leader and that the technology is changing. Ald. Rhodes-Conway asked questions about the MG&E program. The electicity sold back to MG&E is twice what it was and with the Focus on Energy rebates, there is about a 10 year payback, it’s a little longer. It’s even faster payback if you have a commercial site and can get the tax benefits. This is renewable energy funding and photovoltaic is just one option. Solar/thermal is not being used at some fire stations. Jed asks questions about the wording, Jeanne says that there should be more expansive language used. It failed, I’m not sure even Jed voted for it. It was a voice vote.
AMENDMENT #7
Ald. Rhodes-Conway wants to cut the remodel of the Human Resources office. (Mostly because they essentially admitted that they can fix the problem with the office with a sign!) It saves us $25,000 and has a Levy Impact of $3,238.
Rhodes-Conway says we should try the cheap fix before we do the expensive one. Move the desks or filing cabinets before we remodel the office. Ms. Hoffman was back answering questions. There is a report that the Madison Police Department put together in regard to the security of their office. Some of the things in the report have been accomplished. Mostly, this needs to be done for security and it has alot of public contact. Jeanne says that the reception area needs to look professional and less dated. Rhodes-Conway asked about Police Department assessments of safety of offices. Larry Nelson says the Engineering and Treasurer’s offices are not ADA compliant. Motion passed. There was one no vote – I think it was Clear. (There is a reason to call roll call.)
AMENDMENT #8
Alds. Rhodes-Conway and Webber want to cut funding for the S & M roads. These are county roads. It’s cuts several projects for a total of $3,023,000 and has a Levy Impact of $115,259.
“Fix it first” is the reason for this amendment. Rhodes-Conway wants us to apply it to our projects. We should be doing resurfacing and reconstruction should be done first. She’s not as convinced that we need to be looking at expansion. No one can tell her how much it costs to maintain a lane mile. We need to know how much this costs the city over all. The second reason for the amendment she doesn’t feel like we have done an appropriate assessment of need. Because of the global needs, are single occupancy vehicles what we will be dealing with in the future.
Ald. Webber passed around a letter from an engineer that says that this is being over-built and that we could fix it for 1/5th of the price. She argues we should at the very least put off this project. There is less development going on, we don’t know how gas prices will impact our traffic future and vehicles miles traveled are going down and there is no county funding for these county roads. She also wants us to look at the traffic projections. Robbie says the total project costs are going to be $52M for the corridor and $20M for the intersection. Ald. Webber also suggests that we look at The Natural Step principles and do some backcasting instead of forecasting. Robbie also said the neighbors are not in support, there are 8 homes being removed and the people being there the longest are the ones that will have to move.
Ald. Sanborn urged them to vote no. He says it is desperately needed. He said that no one objected to those plans. (I wasn’t at the table, but I would have pointed out that yes, we discussed this at length with this intersection!) He says this programs should have been done years ago. He also lobbed a few bombs that if we wanted to hold the county accountable for the roads, we also need to hold them accountable for the human services needs because that is their responsibilities then made a libertarian arguement about backcasting and The Natural Step and us telling people what to do.
Alder Clear thinks that we should separate the projects. Larry Nelson and Brad Murphy showed us the plans that we have approved and how little we have actually developed. (I moved so I could see the presentation – esentially, Brad had maps that showed that very little of what was planned is currently built or being built.) (Ok – I also went to the table to have Brad provide us with the information about how we discussed the roads and their capacity at length during the planning process.) Larry also told us that he does have numbers of what the city taxpayer pays for the roads – he came up with the number 17%, but I was unclear what that meant. Is that 17% of the tax bill or 17% of the project is paid for by local taxes . . . I’ll have to follow up. He said he’d send us the numbers.
Ald. Clear says that there are 25 – 30 years of growth and that we would be irresponsible if we didn’t build these roads. And, don’t forget about Research Park II. (My comment: Maybe the UW should chip in?) He’s sympathetic to the concerns about county funding. He says there is nothing we can do to get them to pay for their roads.
Mayor appreciates what Alds. Rhodes-Conway and Webber have to say, but Research Park II is biggest economic generator and we forced them to build denser and so we will have more traffic. Mark Bugher would have been here but had a family crisis, he would have said that the City has to build raods for the additional density. Mayor also said that we can’t give up on the county paying their share. He then said that all road expansions are not bad. Hwy 12 was bad, but here we already have plans and we have to support them, so we should support this.
Ald. Rhodes-Conway said she didn’t think it would pass, but she made her point. She would like to see a better conversation about the scale of the projects that we do and that we should get better information on the actual costs when we do neighborhood plans. Failed, with only Rhodes-Conway in support.
AMENDMENT #9
Sanborn wants to cut funding for Central Park. It would save $250,000 and have a Levy Impact of $32,376.
Ald. Sanborn says that we should maintain the parks we have and that this project should be done through private fundraising.
Mark Olinger explained in response to questions from Ald. Rhodes-Conway that this money is for ped and bicycle improvements and this is the matching money that is required for the federal funds we are getting from Tammy Baldwin. This is an 80%/20% match, meaning we only pay 20% and the private sector will pay for part of the 20%.
Ald. Rummel says MG&E donated $45,000 and the land is owned by Center for Resilient Cities (formerly Urban Land).
Failed, Jed was the only one in support.
AMENDMENT #10
Mayor Dave is adding money to the budget for funding for a project manager for the Capitol Gateway (E Washington Ave.) It would cost $50,000 but has not levy impact because it would be paid for with TIF funds.
He didn’t want to fund this in his operating budget, but they do have TIF money so it could be funded here instead, probably a contract position. The Comptroller pointed out that if you look at pg 156 there is a cash balance available, so there will be no borrowing. Bruer argued that this was a good use of funds. Passed unanimously.
AMENDMENT #11
Ald. Sanborn is cutting funding for the Municipal Art Fund. It would save $112,000 and save $14,505 on the levy.
Ald. Sanborn says that art should be privately funded. He thinks private foundations should pay for it. Staff says some of these projects have been on the list since 2003. Art helps keep the value of neighborhoods and as an economic development tool. Plus, they only spend $8,000 a year to maintain what they have. They recently spend $2,500 and the neighborhood raised $40,000 to save a piece of art. $9,000 is temporary public art and it is part of the public art plan that we adopted to help cultivate a creative class. She also talked about how the art piece for Allied Drive will be a major neighborhood identifier. Also, Verveer pointed out that much of it is reauthorizations. Also, they pointed out that most other communities have a percentage of money set aside for art, but we only set aside $30,000. Ald. Clausius asked about some art in his district. Staff pointed out that this money is only seed money to signal to other funders that the City is interested. Ald. Bruer, while arguing against this money in the past, is now in support. Alder Gruber and Verveer agree, art adds so much to our community and that they are doing so much with so little. Ald. Sanborn followed up by saying that we shouldn’t be taxing people for this. Motion failed, with only Sanborn voting in support (I think).
AMENDMENT #12
Alds. Clear, Rummel and Verveer are adding funding for the Public Market. It would be $250,000 with a Levy Impact of $32,376.
Ald. Clear moved adoption. Alder Rummelexplained that this project is dead without this funding. Basically, they would have to start all over. Ald. Rummel says this isn’t a new project, its something we have been working on. She wants to have some of those discussions that people asked about earlier in the meeting, but without this money, we won’t have the opportunity to have those discussions.
Ald. Rhodes-Conway spoke in favor of moving forward. This has potential for economic development and youth programming. However, her support is conditioned on a better public discussion about the project, including the bigger picture of the Government East Parking Ramp, the Brayton Lot, and the Municipal Building (and I’d add the Library).
Ald. Clear says he loves the idea of the public market and that in Seattle it is an economic development engine, but he is willing to let go of it. He says he’s having a hard time making the economic development argument for it. He’s not convinced that it can be successful here.
Alder Gruber spoke against. He likes the idea not the location and wants a report.
Alder Clausius also ready to let it go and is upset about the location.
The Mayor supports the project but thinks there is too much on our plate and that we are being spread too thin. He used to think we should plant a thousand seeds and see what blooms, but now he thinks that we need to guard our resources more in these tough economic times. He says this is not the time to advance another project. It will be too hard on the philanthropic community. However, he wants to move forward eventually.
Ald. Rummel says that the competition for the money isn’t with the library and Overture, but its with the Feds. If you vote it down now, its done. If you don’t want to have the conversation. We have already invested in this. We are one of the main partners.
Mayor doesn’t accept Ald. Rummel’s premise and he thinks it will be back. He isn’t concerned about loss of momentum and thinks it will still move foward.
The motion failed 3-3 with the Mayor voting against. I believe it was Verveer, Bruer and Rhodes-Conway vs Clear, Clausius, Sanborn.
AMENDMENT #13
Ald. Verveer is adding money to the Capital Budget in 2010 and 2011 for improvements to the Senior Center. There is no impact on the levy.
Alder Verveer explained why the project is so important to the 25 year old facility. Since there was no future projects mention, he wanted it in there as a placeholder. Passed unanimously on a voice vote.
They adopted as amended without discussion and adjourned at 8:05.
