 Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. I'll be here. Please join me in the pleasant allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. Item 1-4, I would put for a motion to approve the minutes of the October 3 meeting. So moved. Second. Any discussions? Seeing none, all those in favor, second by the saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? Thank you. Public forum. We have one gentleman who wants to come to speak with us. Henry Nelson. We've got three minutes. All righty. Are we on? Hello, I'm Henry Nelson. I reside at 1926 Settleman Trail here in Sheboygan. I just wanted to take this opportunity to compliment the Common Council on their thoughtful input, the hard work that they've done towards the strategic plan. A five-year strategic plan is always a good thing. We try and do that in every organization, particularly like the mission statement, the vision statement, and the fact that you're going to be breaking down goals and objectives year by year for a five-year basis. I trust that all the involved stakeholders were involved. I'm sure they were. And as I say, a lot of thoughtful discussion must have gone into it. So at this point, that's all I wanted to do is just compliment you on all your hard work and hope it passes. Thank you very much. Thank you. Very nice. Anybody else that would like to speak to the Committee of the Council? Seeing none, we're going to go to Item 1-2, Resolution 144-16-17 by our older person, Donahue, Resolution Adopting the City of Sheboygan, 2017-2021 Strategic Plan. Presentation. Yes, we have presentation. We do have a PowerPoint presentation tonight. So please follow along. What is a strategic plan? It's a long-term vision which sets up goals and objectives in a systematic incremental manner. It really looks at what's going on today, where, in this case, the city wants to be, and what steps we're going to take to get there. All in all, it's a proactive effort instead of simply being reactive to what comes in or out day in or day out. Why do we need a strategic plan? We're looking for results. We're looking for a realistic, workable framework to build a foundation, again, for continual improvement of the city. For your department heads, it's an invaluable management tool. It assists us in organizing our resources and ultimately in our recommendations to you, whether it be a five-year cap improvement or annual operating budget. Strategic planning should be responsive to citizens' needs. A plan includes priorities that are important to those citizens. Strategic planning narrows the communication gap. As most of you who participated, not only in the retreat with your management team, those of you that may have participated in the community survey as individuals, maybe with your families, for those of you that participated in the open house, as well as have participated in some of the meetings like strategic fiscal planning. It's all about creating dialogue. The strategic plan, as you know, is not only goals, but also objectives. And last but not least, the city attempts to put together at least action plans for the first two years. So again, it's custom tailored for each individual department. Adaptability. Again, this is a plan. We know that things come up. We know that priorities that you may have in 12 months may be different than what we have talked about this past summer. So again, this is something that we need to continue to think about. And again, staff recognizes that this is something that is flexible based upon your needs as you are responding to citizens' concerns. Accountability. Clearly, we have limited resources. Really, one of the primary goals of the strategic plan is to recognize that with those restrictions, as far as fiscal inputs, our cash, our taxes, our user fees, that by having a plan, we're able to prioritize how best to use those dollars, those limited dollars. How did we get from here? How did we get here? Again, in the past, the city has had an informal strategic plan. It's been somewhat rudimentary in that it's been your five-year cap improvement plan. It's really been sort of your strategic plan. And again, I know there's been a lot of focus in the past on that first year, especially as the city gears up for the next annual budget. But that really should be an end to a means, and the means really is your strategic planning. That's your broader picture and sort of a subset or really an action is taking action on your five-year cap improvement planning process. There's sort of nuggets of the strategic planning that started almost two years ago, January 2015. City management team members met to revise the city's mission and vision statement as well as develop core values. We're going to talk a little bit later about those core values. Common Council adopted those mission and vision statements in March of 2015. The mission statement is up above. Again, you've probably read it many times. It's City of Sheboygan is dedicated to providing residents of the business community and visitors with physically responsible municipal services in an effective and responsive manner to meet the needs of our diverse community. The vision statement is the City of Sheboygan will be a family-oriented and prosperous community with a wide variety of housing, business, cultural, and recreational opportunities in a safe and attractive neighborhoods. Six core values, respect, accountability, teamwork, innovation, fiscal responsibility, and service. Again, this is what is asked of our employees as well as what's expected from elected officials. This past summer, we really kicked off efforts to begin developing a strategic plan as a more comprehensive effort. It started off in July with a community survey. Again, we had, I think, overall very positive comments from citizens. Again, I would have liked to have seen a higher participation rate. If we were to summarize the type of person that responded to that survey, it was a female homeowner who had lived in the city for more than 25 years. As I mentioned all in all, the citizen who responded to the survey, 74% said the quality of life in Sheboygan was good or excellent. The best thing residents like about the community is Lake Michigan. This survey results were used as part of a retreat that was held in August at Maywood. As part of that, we identified several priorities that ultimately would be used by staff to develop a draft for the strategic plan. The hope is that annually the community survey will be conducted in July. Most likely not a comprehensive survey like this past year. The second, third, and fourth year will probably be more of a condensed, more of a review of services and review of departments. But every, more than every five years, a comprehensive survey will be conducted. Upcoming the retreat, six strategic focus areas, quality of life, infrastructure and public facilities, economic development, neighborhood revitalization, governing and fiscal management, and communication. This document, I think you've all received copies of it. It was on our website. Again, my hats off to Department of Planning and Development. They've done a good job of laying this out. Again, this stuff can be kind of dry to read, but I think, again, based upon the format, I think it tracks very well and ultimately it's a fast read. In addition to these strategic goals, there are strategies that are identified as objectives. In addition to those objectives, we sort of, the plan gives staff, and hopefully you as a council, a head start in identifying specific action items for 2017 and 2018. So that's those, in essence, three elements, the goals, the objectives and the action items. Those are really the key elements of the strategic plan and ultimately that's what we're hoping for the Common Council to approve. The critical measures are really performance measurements or benchmark measurements, and that's a way for staff to be able to track. Hopefully for you, it's to hold us accountable that we are making progress in meeting some of those objectives or specific action items. My department itself, with the new budget analyst position that was approved, we'll be using that position to work with the management team and track and give updates at least twice a year. I want to go back a little bit to mention that we had approximately 50 people attend the open house that was held just a couple of weeks ago. We did ask for input through comment cards if people wanted, in addition to talking with you or management team members that were present, we had probably close to a dozen comments and I think Chad put together a summary of those just to quickly go through some of the bullets, more affordable housing options, continue to support the library, more diversity in our presentation of information, not just English but Spanish and Hmong, collaborate more with our nonprofits or foundations, update our way finding signs to be more inclusive, more promotion of the city's brand, review our parking meters in the downtown and recognize how it may affect downtown businesses, modify mass transportation to appeal to younger people and then there was comment about our, in essence our parking recreation effort, specifically tennis courts. How will the plan be used? Again, once adopted, we will begin to put into place already for 2017, many of the action items. It will be used again as additional source of information as staff begins already in another probably eight weeks on updating the five-year capital improvement plan. So it will be helpful for management team and as I mentioned, I will be reporting back to you twice a year on progress for the action items. And as I mentioned before, for budgeting purposes, this will be again a blueprint that the city will use, city staff will use recognizing that we do have limited resources. With that, I'd like to, through the chairman, open it up to any questions that you may have that maybe I can provide an answer. If not, we do have management team members here. Does anybody have any questions? I guess I have one. When you're looking at the plan, what's the overall effect as far as what's the plan going to cost our citizens? Is, you know, we want to increase the quality of our life, but at what cost? Is there a dollar figure? Is that ever going to come to us other than just at budget time? Yeah, I guess to answer your question, and so the most clearest way is there's zero costs associated with the strategic plan because it is simply a plan. You have many opportunities along the way to take action. You will be voting on it. So you still remain in control of the purse strings per se. And again, ultimately you do five-year cap improvement planning, but the rubber hits the road every year when you approve the budget and ultimately approve contracts. And again, with the largest ticket items, typically being your construction and your cap improvement projects. Thank you. Any other questions? I would just like to say, I would love to see more participation from the citizens. I think that's vital and anything we can do to keep increasing awareness of that. I think given our time frame, we did a good job this year, but hopefully we get more input. It's pretty valuable information. Seeing no other discussion, we need to adopt. We need a motion to send this to council. Or more. Thank you, Chair. Any motion to recommend this to council? Second. Any further discussion? I want to see it. Let's do an aye. We'll take a roll call vote. I guess we're required. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you very much. Item 22 is discussion for discussion and fire, she皮gon Fire Department master plan. Chief, Chase. Okay. One of the things that I saw this was on the agenda for public protection and safety and then thinking and trying to increase the amount of communication that we have amongst our alderman, and you get to see what's at public protection and safety because not everybody can make that meeting. that meeting. So I wanted to ask Chief to do it again. Thanks. Sure. All right. Thank you first of all for letting me speak on behalf of our department and myself. I was directed by city leadership and council leadership to come up with a plan for the Milwaukee Fire Department for the future of our department. And I have done so. I'm sorry. Did I say Milwaukee? I apologize. 33, 30 plus years I can't get it out of my hand. So I and I have done that and I try to keep it simple and I try to stick to the most important things. Everyone in the council has received two documents. One about maybe a month ago and I sent one out last week, I believe Friday. That new one I sent you. I did it for two reasons. Number one, to reinforce, you know, the documents that I'm going to be talking about tonight, but also number two, there were two changes to that second set of documents I sent to you. Those are the two reasons and I'll cover those changes as I go on. I call the proposal Fire 2020. It's a three year plan and a lot of people say, you know what? You need a longer. It should be 10 years, 15, 25 years, but we need a lot of things done sooner than later. So I came up with this three year plan, which I believe when January 1st of 2020 hits, hence the title Fire 2020, will be set up. Our department, in my opinion, based on my proposal, will be set up to go forward in the future, long term in the city of Sheboygan and the fire department. The three year plan, I'm not going to read all of this. I'm just going to hit the high points, but the three year plan impact is number one, it outlines a three year plan develops foundation for the department's future. Two, it ensures citizens of continued high level fire services. Three, it provides services to cover city expansion and growth. And four, it maximizes the efficiency, productivity and safety of current and future SFD members. We in the fire department here in Sheboygan have encountered some cuts just like everyone else. Our staffing has been reduced and we're being more efficient with what we have. But at the same time, we've added services such as the paramedic service and transport services. The net cost is lower today than it was in 2007 and our per capita costs are lower today than they were in 2007. Our ambulance service to date has raised over $8 million in revenue. And that's a conservative estimate. So I think we're doing fantastic. I don't know how we can do any better than we are now, but I need to look at the future. And I have to keep that same thing going into the future all the time for our citizens. And that's my goal. All right. Let's start with I have four areas. Number of stations, fire station location, response times and staffing. Number of stations. In my opinion, based on my research and the research of my staff, the best option now and into the future is to remain at five fire stations. There's a lot of talk about condensing from five to four, five to three. Since then, there's been other research. There's been studies done. There's documented scientific evidence, not my opinion, scientific evidence that with staying at five stations will reduce our response time and in the fire service for EMS and fire and any other emergency services, it's critical that our response time be kept to the minimum. That's our strength here and I keep saying that, but it's true. I can't get around that. The sooner we get somewhere, the better the results, the better the results, whether it's EMS or fire. So it's our opinion that we stay at five stations. Fire station location. People did their homework in the past. Excellent job. Our stations, in my opinion, are located very, very well. They're strategically placed. Even into the future, downtown areas exploding with building construction, residential. We're going to have more people in the city. We have a station right downtown. It's our busiest station. The paramedic unit that's down there is also our busiest paramedic unit. It's perfectly situated. Our response times in that area are just their minimum. They're minimal. So I know there was a plan to go to four stations we looked at and Appendix A talks about the number of stations and in that, it shows going from five to four and it shows two dark circles. Those are the existing stations and a firehouse in yellow right in between. That's in Appendix A. If you notice though, in that map, there are red areas. If we go to four stations, there's two areas in the city that are going to be adversely affected. Number one, downtown, where the most people are going to be and where the most activity is. Number two is a near south side. And in my opinion, as chief, I don't, that can't be tolerated. I need to try to make that the same all over the city. Everybody gets the best service, the quickest response times possible. Volcation, I already mentioned, I think our stations are situated very well. We have a station far north. We have a station far south and we have a station on the west side for any expansion basically around the city, whatever we purchase or buy or acquire. So we're ready there. And we have a station downtown where we stand to gain the most population and it's the highest risk area for our city. Response times, number three. The faster the department arrives on, seeing the more positive the results. The third area response time is directly related to the first two, the number of stations and the fire stations locations. If we stay where we are, we will respond faster and better than if we went to four or three or whatever we can do. Response times, in Appendix C, I have a chart that talks about the two departments that are directly above us in population in the state and the two departments directly below us in population in the state. And there's a comparison chart for everything. There was a change I made to that chart. I added the bottom line which shows the command staff levels of all the departments. I originally had that in my original document and for to keep it simplistic and a stick to the topic, I had that removed. I had my administrative assistant remove it. But for this purpose, I wanted to add it back in to show you that discrepancy there. Staffing. This is the big one. Staffing. I believe that with the increase in building construction, population and the things going on in the city in the near and distant future that we need to increase our staffing levels in the city of Sheboygan fire. First and foremost, starting next year, January, first we're going to get the three people back that we were not allowed to hire in this year in 16. And that's going to help us tremendously. Right now we're starting every day at 21 instead of 22. So we're going to go back to 22. There'll be a reduction in overtime and we'll have more people in the field available to staff, our department. I'm also asking, there'll be no increase in the TO because we're just getting those positions that we're already budgeted for and already in the TO. We're just getting them back. I'm asking for one more battalion chief because I want to create a position for EMS and I want a dedicated person for inspections. The state of Wisconsin requires us to focus on inspections to make a minimum amount of inspections. They pay us, I think last year it was $103,000 for that purpose. And when I talk to them, they're always asking me, you know, who's in charge? And I'm in charge, ultimately, the buck stops here. But I have a deputy chief doing probably 40% of his workload and I have a battalion chief doing 60% of their workload just on building inspections and that whole program that's involved with that. And I want that dedicated to a person. So that's why I'm asking for that staffing TO increase in 17th. In 18, I'm asking for three more firefighters, another battalion chief, and I want to raise the daily minimums from 16th to 17th and that's big. That's huge. We'll have another person in the field every day minimum responding to alarms. The NFPA standard that we follow right now is based on a 2,000 square foot home with no basement, you know, a two-story, no exposures, the bare minimum. That's the bare minimum that we follow at the national standard addresses. And we are just at that. We're just at that. And we have high rises. We have apartment buildings. We have industrial. We have, you know, box stores. We have all these other things that require a lot more people. A high rise requires 42. I'm supposed, we're supposed to have 42 people at a high rise fire in eight minutes. That can't be done. Can't be done. We have things in place to get them there, but we won't get them there in eight minutes. But we're going to, we're doing the best we can with Mabus and with some mutual aid agreements that we have with other adjoining communities. So we're going to raise the daily minimum from 16 to 17 and at that point when I get that second chief, I'm going to put the battalion chief's back in shift on a 24-hour shift. So that'll be another full-time body all the time. No more acting on weekends. That person can be dedicated to the shifts and that'll increase accountability and it'll increase quality and it'll increase safety. Just like that by doing that. Then at 18, I'm asking for three more firefighters and I want to raise the daily minimums from 17 to 18. When I do this, Station 4 will operate with a minimum of three firefighters a day. Not two, but three. Minimum. And Station 5 on the south side will operate with a minimum of three firefighters a day, not two. I don't believe that two firefighters in an outlying station like four and five are enough personally. That's my personal opinion. So then there'll be maximum staffing of 18 and we'll go to 24 members working per day, which will be a lot better with vacations and sick leaves and extended leaves and things like that. So overall, it's the budget part of it. I believe that this plan addresses all of those issues and concerns now and into the future. And believe it or not, I believe that it's fiscally responsible also. I really do. I'm not asking for the world. We're not asking for the world. I'm trying to address the issues that we need addressed as soon as we can. Hence the three-year plan instead of a 10-year plan or a 15-year plan. But I believe that what I've proposed will take us far into the future for the city of Sheboygan. The main reason I'm here is to answer any questions that you might have. So if you have them, please ask me and I'll do the best that I can do to answer them for you. Thank you, Chief. Does anybody have any questions? Alderman Barnum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I noticed on your fire 2020 topics, four major topics were station number, station location, response time, staffing. One thing I think you should have also added to that, working in conjunction with the finance department, is enhancing the ambulance collections. That's a big one. That's a three million dollar business for the city. And we have not lived up to our expectations that we were relieved to believe eight years ago when we got into the ambulance service. The paramedics obviously are providing an excellent service. The problem was always spend collections. And I would like to see you make that part of your 2020 plan is to work on better ways to work with the patient mix that you have to maximize your collections. Another concern that I have, first of all, I think that you and your management team and Mr. Longman or members of the union are doing an outstanding job. There's no question. But you've been doing an excellent job, both management and the paramedics and the firefighters, with the staff that you have. I mean your community ratings were one of the highest in the survey and you're doing that with the staff that you have right now. Last year when the decision was made, I guess by Mr. Amodio, to not replace three of those people that were retiring, supposedly the sky was going to fall. Well, to my knowledge, it hasn't fallen. The sky hasn't fallen and you're still doing an excellent job with your current staffing. One of the suggestions I got from Mr. Longmiller's predecessor, former union president, Mr. Ensley, mentioned that and I think Mr. Longmiller and his report made an excellent suggestion that it is a problem with only two people showing up at the same time that you really need three there to go in and do the kind of stuff you have to do. Well, Mr. Ensley made the recommendation that I believe as the battalion chiefs, I think it was the battalion chiefs or the shift commanders, go out on a lot more calls than they were and he had some statistics last year that frankly, if they were two were quite shocking that too many times two people were only arriving on the scene and they had to wait for the second unit. So that's something, if you haven't implemented this year, I think you should also implement that I think the ultimate priority of the department is to see, to have as many people on the scene as you can and if there's some administrative duties that they can carry on with radios that when they're on the scene I think there should be going on more calls to get the three people there. With the battalion, with the with the new staff person, management person that you want to hire the first of the year, getting that hundred and it used to be 90,000 and now it's up to over 100,000 you mentioned with the fire inspections, you've been doing that you've been doing that with your management team that you already have and this person that you want to hire is going to be all in about $125,000 according to your information here. So I guess what I guess the point I wanted to make is the hundred and three or four thousand that we're getting is kind of free and clear now we're going to take we're going to hire a new person, a new management person and that's going to take all of that hundred and three or four thousand plus another 21,000 if my math is correct so my concern is where is all this money going to come from you know you got to wrap with we only have so many dollars is you know are we going to rob Peter to pay Paul as we add all these people over the years and it's several hundred thousand dollars that we're going to be adding to the to the fire department budget so I guess those are my those are my concerns. Would you I mean I can't if you'd like I can speak to you afterwards if you want me to or if you want me to address those one at a time or I can do whatever you would like. I guess the rest of the council should probably hear your answers. I believe that this is fiscally responsible I believe that it takes us into the future you're right and it's amazing the things that we do with what the staff that we have can't be equal anywhere and I you know and I we talk on you know I don't care where you go or who I talk to or whatever no matter where I'm at and I talk about I'm because I'm always looking for ideas too I'm out there looking for you know consolidations you know shared this doing that how what do you do how do you do it but every single department is very unique in and in and to itself we're all unique you know we're the only full paid department in a whole county we're surrounded by 24 volunteer departments with Lake Michigan on our east that affects us tremendously and prevents us from doing a lot of the things that other people like the suburbs in Milwaukee that are surrounded by full paid departments can do we can't do that here um we are doing what we what you said and we are we're just but we're just making it the staff the firefighters they're dedicated you know they do what they need to do they take on other responsibilities but that can only go on for so long um I was and I I talk to people I say this the same analogy I feel like the little Dutch boy I feel like I got a big dam in front of me with a bunch of water on the other side and these little holes keep popping open and I keep sticking my fingers in them and in my toes and I got I got things all over but eventually it's going to break we're doing everything we can to do to provide the best service we can but I know as a manager with my experience and my education that that can't go on forever we need more people especially in command I need more people I'm just telling you I just I know that that's a fact and I can prove it and it's a financial benefit and it's a safety benefit for the citizens my department everyone now and way into the future it it is it is so I believe that these things are needed and I believe that it's worth the you know the money the other change I had if you look on that spreadsheet for appendix D three firefighters I had 300,000 that's not accurate a new firefighter is 72 five or something with benefits so I corrected those figures for three back to I believe it's 218,000 not 300,000 so there's a change there also all right so you know it we are it's I don't know how it got done in 2017 we had more staff than we have now and we added the ambulance service and made we have higher requirements and higher standards for all of the firefighters especially paramedic for we have almost 40 people in our department now that are paramedics you know how unbelievable that is you know the kind of service and equality that the citizens get just from that alone we took that on and then we got we're cut now by we're below what we were at before we added those people and we're borrowing from Peter to pay Paul that's what's happening and I want to fix that I want to change that but I want to do it fiscally responsibly I do and maybe some people don't think that that's the case but NFPA standard says we're supposed to have four in every ring I'd have to double the budget I have to go to 16 million dollars to get that to happen I'm not asking for that I'm asking for you know a little compromise I'm asking for some additional staff to get our daily minimums up so that we have more people on the scene and we can cover and take care of more things sooner than later and I'm not dooming gloom there isn't anything we can't do fire department can do anything we've proven it time and time again day and day out every year there and the reason nothing's happened is because of the staff that we have and the leadership I have and because of the people that work for us that's what's going on so that's just my again that's my personal opinion can I back it up with scientific evidence I can somewhat you know with runs we've we submitted three years worth of runs every single run was analyzed all together as to the areas as to the response times as to the number of people that were there one unit two units that was all done and I have scientific proof that says if we go from five to four stations or less response times of suffer that's why we're doing and Wally Ensley he's a driver he's retired he doesn't live in the city and he wrote he gave you that letter and I answered there were 15 inaccuracies in that letter and I addressed every one of them why they were wrong and where that he was either using incorrect statistics or he was talking about something that he knew at a driver's level but he doesn't know what the chief's level or the assistance level or the deputy's level or the battalion chief's level or the captain's level or the lieutenant's level he's a driver you know if I put him up in an admin for on a 40 hour week and gave him you know my deputy chief's job he'd go nuts he'd quit giving five minutes he'd be done that's my personal opinion I'm sorry but it is so I I can't even entertain that thank you chief uh Aldrin Halshu thank you I have a number of points I want to make surprise right first of all we have to take in consideration how we are rebuilding the city and we're going to need more firefighters and I believe more police department to make sure that our public safety is met so to think that we can run the same budget we've been running on for seven years moving forward we're stifling ourselves and I don't think we're being fair to our residents that's the first point I want to make I think that at the time we are now that we have they're doing a fabulous job but they're overworked we have people doing jobs of other people that how did they get a clear clear site into the exact jobs they're supposed to be doing our EMS etc I think I personally am offended that those three firefighters that we fought so hard for were never appointed when they should have been so I'm still a little salty about that um and another point in that on the south side that I represent my constituents we have a fire station that has two fire minutes we also have two chemical companies and a power plant and a railroad track that cuts between us so I think the more firefighters we have the more safety we have in our city and to think otherwise I think is convoluted I have two questions one did our city not have a study done when we took the ambulance service on before we took the MS didn't we have I can't remember if we had a study done on our fire department in our ambulance service I couldn't remember so I'd like to know if we did or not and then my other question is when we're talking about the collection for the ambulance fees I guess I think that's a finance issue and not a fire department issue the fire department is there to provide public safety and protection they're not there to be built collectors I would think that should go to the fire or the finance department to handle that that particular element of the ambulance and that's all I have to say on pressure what I have to say has little to do with what the chief said but a lot to do with what the chief said when you're on the receiving end of having firefighters come because your house is on fire which I had and when you're on the receiving end of having a medical emergency in your house and having firefighters come both times under three minutes my husband was in a diabetic I don't even know what you'd call it but he was totally out of it unconscious never seen anything like it before I thought the man was going to die it wasn't for the firefighters they're the ones who brought him back three minutes they were there I want to know that when my house is burning or if I have a medical emergency and I can taste the smoke in my house I want to know that we have men like this to come and handle the situation and not two that have to wait for a third but a third that comes with the rig that's all I have to say I just want to say very quickly chief romas thank you for putting this together I think this is something that we would look forward to every year to reviewing and much as we're doing with strategic planning just to kind of you know where we at we haven't had that but I think that this is a big deal and it's comprehensive and between this and what the union has provided it really helps and serving a public protection I really appreciate that just want to say thank you any other questions well this is it's only on for discussion and it's a master plan um Alderman Steele is this something that's going to go back to go back is he's going to present that in a resolution form or is there something that are again we hear about plans that we have incentives we and we're trying to accomplish things in the city of Sheboygan um what happens with this plan next it was currently just for discussion it was a plan for discussion it was not a resolution that needed to be voted on so unless it comes as a resolution there's nothing we want to do Alderman Herman I just want to reiterate and concur with Alderman Trester I've thought about this for quite a long time um I concur with Chief Ruhamas's plan I want my apartments my fellow tenants apartments my friends family members homes to be as safe as possible and this plan will ensure that that happens um I don't think we can ever put a price on human life um I think that we need to keep our fire department as strong as possible into the future and this will do that long after Chief Ruhamas as departed this is going to protect us a 10 12 15 years down the road I think it's a sensible plan and I support this 100 percent um it's it's not a perfect plan but there is no such thing as perfect plan but it has to be done we have to ask ourselves what do we want do we want our fire department to remain up here or do we want it to go down a few notches nationally we want it to stay where it is it's always been outstanding I mean my family has served in the fire department uh two family uh two family members two relatives Michael Herb served for over 30 years my cousin Jeff served for a long time so I have the utmost respect and admiration for the fire department and it's always been important to me to keep it where it's at even before I joined the council I was always keeping track of how the fire department was being looked at by the council and being taken care of and I want this plan to pass and I thank Chief Ruhamas for this thank you is there any other discussion any other questions to the Chief again that's what I that's why I had public protection is safe um I would think that it would have to come back to the council in resolution form Alderman Born uh where I was going to ask Alderman Bellinger where his uh proposal is to have the outside study I know there was a number of proposals where is that in the pipeline right now um currently that what I know I'm working with uh the purchasing director and uh he's going to be getting some back Alderman Bellinger um as far as I know there's going to be a committee the whole meeting on the 21st is that correct and there will be um an individual here from Fitch and Associates who um management um has deemed the uh preferred vendor the consultant that they would like to have provide this study they're going to or this individual is going to come here present uh what he has and answer any questions and um you know that will be at that point in time there would be a vote whether the council wants to once they hear all the information ask all their questions get them answered to you know their satisfaction um then there would be a vote to either proceed and and move forward and fund the study or not thank you um Alderman Warren uh well procedurally I think it would be a good idea to have that gentleman come in and then based on that whether we go ahead with that survey or not uh I would also like to hear a rebuttal from the union as on this 2020 plan to see if they're if they're in support of it because I I thought that first their first thing was very well done but I'd like to get their opinion so somewhere along the line I'd maybe like to give Mr Longwell or a chance to talk about this 2020 plan what what he envisions it if if if if his people agree with it but I think before I would feel comfortable on voting on the union plan the cheese plan I would like to have hear what that consultant has to say and then at that time decide which way we're going to go thank you and that will be coming on 21st Alderman Donio I think uh you know chief I thank you for your plan we waited a very long time for it and I appreciate the information that you provided I think appendix D was probably the most salient document for us to look at I also appreciated the comparison with other somewhat similarly situated municipalities which indicates to me that we're actually doing really quite well as we position ourselves in terms of staffing and station location and so forth I don't think we can hold adopt this plan with all of its staffing contingencies through 2020 outside of any regular budget process so I don't think that a resolution to approve this entire plan makes a great deal of sense at this point I am personally glad that we have added back in three firefighters and a battalion chief I think that really gets us back in a much more friendly neighborhood in terms of staffing and so forth I think we need to look long and hard at whether and to what extent and how need driven it would be to simply increase all of these positions as I look at the the municipality comparisons and of course we've got apples to oranges here so it's a little hard to say um it really looks like none of these departments really complies with the national fire protection safety standards completely and I think probably in part that's because that would be a very very very expensive proposition particularly in municipalities where firefighting is fighting fires addressing fires thankfully is becoming a smaller and smaller part of the percentage of what our firefighters do so I think we need to be proactive we need to look at this in more detail because there's so much money involved and because as several alders have spoken the safety of our citizens is so important I really think having a more comprehensive look that will allow us to balance the comprehensive proposal that the union gave us with you know with another again in-depth kind of study would be helpful I'm still thinking I think the case for five fire stations is probably pretty compelling on the other hand there may be a possibility of relocating of relocating in an even more important way given where population density is going to be and so forth I just I think we need some guidance on that beyond this this four page or three page document so again I I do think the chief I think all of our intentions here in this room are really good we're all looking for safety and a beneficial use of taxpayers dollars kind of balancing that out and I think many of it that of us in this room have been in that position where there's probably no nobody in the world that you've ever been happier to see than that ambulance or fire truck coming up to your house I think all of us have probably had some one experience like that or another or know somebody who has and those are powerful experiences there and they're certainly a part of what we think about but we have sort of a greater a greater responsibility I think to to look at a at a fuller picture so I think and I think we can do that I think this is all I think this is all within within our purview and I think we can that we can move forward to apply to just adopt the chief's plan the full sale I can't support it at this point and I do think we need to take another look at it so with that I do think the chief for for having put this information together for us what I think I'd like to do is then if we're meeting on the 21st hold this for the 21st and invite chase to that meeting as well to discuss an answer on why we consider whether or not they're going to spend the $60,000 for the other survey and to maybe have the union input as Alderman Bourne had said on on the chief's plan but then we can ask questions of the chief of the union and these new people that are doing their study well I don't think that really is relevant because they they're just doing the study they aren't fire department so I'm going to make a motion to hold this to the 21st sure can be discussed again well there's there's no action we have to take on this at all but I'd like to have it re-brought on the 21st then I can put that on a note and I'll make sure that it's done okay thank you all our interest are done all over one one of the things that I learned from being a council member is that each one of us are gifted in our own special ways we're each on a committee and each committee on this council is asked to do a certain job none of us can be at every count every committee meeting and we have to assume maybe assumes not the right word but we have to trust and have faith in the individual committees that when they come up with a report or recommendation that we have to believe that the people at the top know what they're doing a whole lot better than we do and I guess the chief has been a fire chief for a long time he's been connected with the fire department for a long time and I'm sure that there isn't any one of us in this room that knows more about firefighting than our chief and I think if he feels that this report that he gave us is his best then I don't feel we need to spend $60,000 on another report that is going to use the same now I've lost the word the union has special qualifications and you have to have certain standards and the union report has those standards the report was given to us the chief is using those standards with the report he's given us and I just don't see why we need to spend an extra $60,000 using the same standards to get more information I think if we can trust the man at the top to do his job to do it well and to do it in a way that's safe for the city of Sheboygan then why is he our fire chief thank you alderman born chief I was wondering the cities that you use for the comparison here I'm wondering if it would be possible to get some data on Manitowoc and the reason I'm asking that I'd be interested to see what their square miles I don't think they have as many people as Sheboygan but also it would be a like city as far as they got the lake on the east just like we do and it would give us maybe a little I think it would give us a you know some interesting information not to say that your other cities don't but Manitowoc is kind of like us because it's got the lake right they're much smaller than us their area is bigger and their square mileage is bigger they have fewer runs and they're just a smaller community and they have an ambulance they have an ambulance service too right they do yes if you could kind of fill in the blanks on Manitowoc I'd appreciate it sure can do any other questions just I'm sorry I'm going to respond to alderman trezor the idea and and coming to committee meetings and having committee the whole to examine ideas that's what's most important for alderman to do and and if we decide that all of a sudden we're going to you know he did a phenomenal job of putting this presentation together the plan look good but I think we we just can't stop there we need and I guess and I'm not saying I'm going to vote in favor of having an analysis in the department or not but I'm not I want to I want to see that presentation I want to have that information given to me so that I can make a very good decision and that's the responsibility of an alderman so there's not anything that's going to be decided it's just something that we need to more we need more information to help us make a better decision that's where I go from that alderman teal thank you chairman um since chase is here if he does have any comments about the proposal could we open the floor to him to since he's here tonight to at least hear what he has to say if you have any I don't know if you do neither I don't mind yeah thank you thanks chase on the spot I don't really have any uh prepared statement on the chief's plan uh to Alderperson Bourne's suggestion that maybe the local could put something together and give us give everyone our two cents I'd be more than happy to do that in a prepared fashion especially on the 21st um but I hate to just jump in and you know a lot of what he said especially when it comes to adding those manpower is things that we've even commented in our study that was done by the uh international so sort of what this chief said was in the end game no matter how you get there at some point we need to look at for the community for the entire for our infrastructure increasing the staffing in certain areas of the city so that the north side the far south side which were the two recommendations we originally made so that people on the far south side and people on the far north side are getting a truck company with three people right away because without that third person we cannot make entry to perform lifesaving rescues or begin firefighting interior firefighting to prevent damage to the homes and uh life safety and when we think about homes and we talk about our houses and we look at our families but we also have to go above and beyond that as we look at this community because as we build this community with um more jobs that are coming in new uh businesses we need to have the firefighters there to protect these businesses without when a business sustains major damage sometimes that business isn't as likely to maybe rebuild they may move on they may go somewhere else so we need to have firefighting efforts that can go out there take care of the businesses focus on maintaining the safety for our residents across the board and real quickly just uh if you don't mind just because alderman born had asked the chief of question when you think about two rivers in that comparison or uh manatee walk remember manatee walk is you know 38 000 people it's a smaller community yes they run the ambulance service they are also bordered by a full-time fire department in the two rivers fire department they have a full-time fire department right across the river that does mutual aid and responds who also runs a full-time ambulance service so you have a full-time fire department balancing off another full-time fire department when you try to compare the two cities so that's something i'm sure he could put together for you but when i heard you say that just off the top of my head that's the first thing i thought of when i think of two rivers in manatee walk two communities that are feeding off that are full-time municipal firefighters okay thank you so Alderman Schnerer do you have something for uh just i guess more or less to give you guys some direction if you're up to me i mean we have a report from the chief we have a report from the union you guys can comb through that and find your similar recommendations and the points that were maybe you have differences of opinion or contradictions right yeah i mean i've told the chief i have a lot of different ideas and some thought processes that are different but when you look at the actual study that we did you know brass tax is that the nfpa is the nfpa and when you look at the distance um like um all the president donnie who talks about with the uh the firehouses where they're located mileage is the same gis is the same that's all anybody who does their studies correctly their gis studies and their population and taking the three thousand or the three years worth of almost 15 000 runs that were inputed into those computers if they come out any differently there's something weird going on um but yes i absolutely i have no problem sitting down and going through our document working with the chief on his long-range plan to come up with the best thing that we can present to you of as the locals always said we've also tried to work with the community i think talking to our hr department we've always trying to do our best to be physically uh physically responsible and provide the best plans to our management um to help get the most guys on the rigs and uh that will move the department in a forward direction as this community grows so and that's all i want to see is as a department and this whole community is continuing to grow is move forward so thank you any other questions okay any any other uh okay yeah i'm just trying to you know make it easy for you guys and i mean so we have two different groups examining this right you have a chief in the union looking at this you're gonna have a lot of similarities you guys know the city you know the job you know the tasks and you're gonna have probably pretty similar recommendations on a lot of the things but i guess just for me or for the ppns you know you're gonna want to solidify and on the things you contradict is give a recommendation as a whole i would be happy i don't want to step on the chief's toes you know he's the administrative leader of this of our department uh the union you know i i'm not there to submit a plan per se but i'd be more than happy to always work with the chief and give a i've always have given him our input but you're right there's a lot in our two plans that i'd be more than happy to sit down and comb through it and even come back with another uh thought process from us to give to you to all of you to think about and that maybe he and i can uh tinker with like you said uh take those two two points together a lot of what is in his plan really came right out of the i fs plan right thank you any other questions ottoman sholshu i'm sorry so then on the 21st we're going to hear from the union and we're gonna and the chief and you're gonna work together to give us one plan is that possible or you can't i'll do whatever you guys want well i'm going to make it better the union and the chief the department had sit down work together put your heads together and bring it to us that would be on the 21st along ottoman belger thank you i just have a a concern with with alderman dining's previous point um shouldn't this be a budgetary thing i mean when you're talking about you know long-term planning adding roughly six hundred thousand or five hundred whatever it is i mean it's a significant budget impact you know is it going to be a document that we would adopt and you know or does this need to go what is the correct form that they should come back as far as you know moving forward with something like this you know rather than having them do all this work and put something together and come find out that it should you know be in a budgetary process or some other format i'm just wondering what the correct format should be or process they should take to move forward you know you're absolutely correct there's going to be huge you know fiscal impacts um similar to i guess the strategic plan it you know the plan that the fire chief presented is in fact just a plan it will be used by him of in his presentation of the 2018 budget uh in 19 uh going forward uh the public protection and safety you know will take that under consideration in light of the plan if the council should approve it but uh you know a group like this can be the whole and ultimately you acting in your role as a common council you know will have to prioritize this as it relates to all other you know city operations uh everyone in this room is aware that we do have expenditure restraint program which in the past has been a driving force simply because if we go over we lose roughly $700,000 so that's something that you know will will have to be thrown into the mix because if if the chief is successful in getting his additional people that really means we have to probably subtract three or four staff existing staff simply because the budget is that tight so again my sense is you know should the council approve this his plan it is you know as we heard earlier tonight strategic plan is just a plan his is ultimately a plan as well and ultimately the council will will make the budgetary decisions as as best as they can any other questions all of them don't you and I just like to reiterate that I mean I think we need to be very careful that we're not coming into a meeting on the 21st which is an odd configuration when we are giving and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it but we are privileging we're essentially equating worker and management parts of the fire department and we are consciously transforming or transferring rather certain planning pieces to to the firefighters and I appreciate all their whole shoes a desire that they work together and I think that's an excellent plan but I think we need to be I think we just need to be very careful here about how we proceed and and so I I appreciate the city administrators reminder to all of us that we cannot be planning for specific budgetary commitments three years into the future on the basis of just a couple of meetings so I think we really need to look at that in more detail and obviously we'll have the opportunity to talk about this on the 21st but I think having more information is going to be more helpful to us than having less information so I just that's just a cautionary piece that I'm I'm feeling here that we're not plowing ahead and adopting this plan as as our budgetary roadmap thank you I guess I just want to refer to our five-year strategic plan on page four where it says teamwork I'd like to see that the union and the chief can sit down together they both have their different ideas come up with one one thing that might be beneficial to us and I don't know what hiring another company to take a look at this is any different I mean is that not a budgetary problem that we're spending $60,000 with them to take a look at it and we're going to be making a vote on what they might say so I just don't I don't think it's any different and and I'm looking forward to hearing what our firefighters as a group are thinking about what we can do moving forward more so than a company that isn't a firefighting group at all they're just they just look at different things thank you hold on I guess you know I don't like spending $50,000 or $60,000 whatever it's going to cost but at the end of the day after we hear this guy's presentation and if we decide to go ahead with it a $60,000 expenditure may may in the long run save us a couple hundred thousand dollars on better ways to do things in that department and I would think next year Darrell with your priority based budgeting what you were saying before that if we add if we add three firefighters and another management person what are the other four people in with the with your expenditure restraint what are where are the other four people going to come from in city government that we possibly have to lay off to do that so with your priority based budgeting next year I hope that gives us some answers and and I mean that's very important I mean if we're going to have to lay off four people to do what we want to do in the fire department then you know we've got to we've got to be very careful there too thank you arm whole shoe um this is really doesn't have anything to do with the fire department but I remember sitting in fiscal planning and we were talking about we have these budgetary restriction restraints we were going to talk about the other side of that if we didn't have those budgetary restraints and we've never talked about it we were I was told Alderman Donahue told me that we were we would take we would be taking a good look at that and I don't remember there being one conversation about it yet so as we look at budgetary restrictions I'm not saying we should do that but it certainly would be nice to have the um the topic entertained I'd like to hear what would happen if we didn't go with that budgetary restriction program and we did go I'd like to know what those choices are instead of um maybe maybe we need to look at that too budget the budget restrictions keeps us in the same place year after year after year after year after year because we have to be within those restraints I want to know what can we do when we don't need those restraints I know that there's money given by the state that's 700,000 but are there other ideas I don't know I'd like to know so I don't know where that comes in but I'd really like to know and and and as I was told to me that we would entertain discussions and we've yet to do that thank you uh Alderman Donahue our entire budget process has been about looking at those alternatives we can look at what we would do without 700,000 dollars um we spent a considerable period of time looking at the budget proposals made by each department the thorough and considered opinions of the management of each of those departments those are the kinds of things that we look at in terms of a budget and we have done that and will continue to do it somehow our communication wasn't as good as it could have been this time but you know we can continue to work on that but expenditure restraint was enacted by the current state government our our current governor and legislature to make sure that municipalities live on an extremely tight budget and so we can increase we don't have to I mean we don't have to participate in expenditure restraints but then we need to find 700,000 dollars that we can take away from our budget and we still can't increase the tax rate the levy rate except for net new construction so we are in a very tight position and we can dream all we want and I think that's good but we have talked about these things and and I think if we're really going to go down to a zero based kind of consideration in other words we're going to act we're going to consider the budget as if we don't have expenditure restraints we're going to look at the budget as if we don't have limits on what we can't to the extent that we can increase the tax levy I think we can do those things but then I think we need to come down to earth and say what is it that we're going to stop doing and and we can certainly have those discussions priority based budgeting is a very good way to do that the county has done it what they have found is that the things that they have been doing are by and large of extremely high priority and I think by and large the things that we do we feel are extremely high priority so so we have had those discussions we can contextualize it or put it in a in a context that is more more of a what if kind of scenario so what if we didn't have expenditure restraints we didn't have restrictions on on on the tax levy rate but you know it seems to me that we sort of have done that and that we all are basically on the same page that what we do is all the things that we do provide are our high priorities so you know we we could do that I mean you know we certainly can I'm just unless we're really willing to shake up you know what it is I mean we can just get rid of city parks we can save some about a hundred grand we don't have to have parks we don't have to maintain the beaches you know we don't have to we don't have to do leaf pickup we don't have to plant new trees you know there are all sorts of things that we can do so thank you very much again and I like to hear the discussion that more than anybody probably but if we've got another if you're going to ask something or have a question of the chief and the plan that was before us that's what that's the issue that's before us so if there's any other questions to the chief or chase or any other comments about the chief's plan seeing none we're going to go to item two three the discussion on procedure for submitting documents to the common council and I put this on here because I went and I talked to the city attorney and one of the things that that that I found and it seemed to happen more and more at committee level that there are documents coming to committee with one signature and basically you're it's either one person's one idea or it's coming from Darrell or it's coming from staff and what I would like to do is I'd like to have more than one person sign on that document now the attorney has not gone back to me whether that is legal or not okay so once I find that out but what I would like you would encourage you to do to give me some ideas of what you would think as Alderman would be proper in getting documents back to your committees or to the common council as a whole because I think far too often there's maybe just one person's idea or a situation where the rest of the committee members don't get enough information while it's coming to their committees because they haven't seen the document ahead of time and I guess I'm trying to increase some information. Alderman Donahue. I think for resolutions that are generated by Alders the more signatures that a resolution or proposed ordinance has the better because it shows that there's more support for it I think the vast majority of what we get is staff driven and because of the somewhat arcane rules that this council follows and Alder has to sign on to something so I mean I the documents by and large that all of us need with board docs now are totally available to us before a meeting and I don't think having two Alder signatures on a resolution about for example the stop loss carrier that the city is going to is going to employ for the next year is something that needs two signatures so from a practical perspective I think Alder generated resolutions the more signatures the better otherwise are we going to slow things down even more we have this person you know something comes in and then you know we get to look at it at a council meeting and all those attachments are there then it gets referred to a committee and we can refer review all the attachments there then it gets referred back I mean it's just a we kind of stumble on our procedure I think we should be trying to streamline rather than complicate mayor thank you very much mr chairman we discussed this briefly at the staff meeting this morning in city attorney Charles Adams said that normally when a document is is drafted his office takes care of that and what they'll do is they'll call what they feel is the appropriate person but based on the committee structure and ask them if they can use their name to submit this and I mean I see it all we're going to have to do then is call two people to get that same permission so I mean he can certainly do that and and he's involved with drafting all the documents and he makes sure that they're done appropriately before they go to the city clerk's office I can I understand the everyday normal operation from staff I'm talking about any additional item that we brought to the common council or to the committee because it's that person's idea and there wasn't anybody else in that committee to the bottom of that idea but yet that idea came to a committee with that one person's signature on it and I can remember having a conversation with attorney Adams and he said you know so if you come up with an idea make sure somebody else goes along with that idea sure sure well I can give you I can give you for instance an idea that came to salary agreements that didn't have anybody else's signature on it that wasn't my idea but again what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to increase the amount of communication between committee members and having more people involved in their city government than just one just the chairman of that committee or just that one single alderman okay that's if you if you've got some suggestions to me please email me I'd appreciate that I'm open to any any type of comments or suggestions but I'm going to be working on something to come to the common council alderman Warren thank you mr chairman one suggestion I would make is that rather than just the chairman of a committee's name being on the document it would take one more phone call by whoever to get the vice chairman of the committee on that you know I know I know sometimes being vice chairman of the finance committee I'm not privity really what's going on and it would be nice to have some advanced notifications sometime of what's coming down the pike and one thing I've noticed on certain committees one that I'm on is public works once in a while we'll get a phantom agenda item for discussion and there's really no document with it it would be nice it would be nice in advance if that would come through on a document that it goes through council and it gets referred to that committee so that the public whoever else wants to see what's on the agenda that these phantom things just don't show up on the agenda without going through the council first okay thank you any other questions okay there's no document or anything with that so I would entertain well you know our next committee of home meeting will be December 21st okay so put that on your calendars I'll entertain a motion to adjourn thank you all those in favor say aye those opposed thank you very much