 Thank you, okay, I didn't hear from a minute. I've thrown it in the mirror before, too. It's not in all our cars. So he can't get anything by you. Man. He sees Dale Carlson, I don't know. What the? All right, I will call this meeting to order. If we could call the roll please. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right the minutes from March 10th 2015 are presented I'd entertain a motion to approve second all right I have a motion and a second to approve any discussion all in favor aye opposed chair votes aye motion passes all right we're gonna move on that a public forum just keep in mind as with a common council meetings the public forum needs to be on agenda items only and we're gonna do a time limit of three minutes do I have anyone here for public forum mr. Peters if you could just state your name and your address please Jason Peters 1225 Kauffman Avenue start all right I'm gonna go as fast as I can cuz I thought I had five but a good evening my name is Jason Peters and I've been a resident of the city of Sheboygan for the last 16 years I read on Sunday that Alderman Bellinger would like people to come with solutions to the wheel tax and I applaud him for that I feel lately the morale of the citizens who live in Sheboygan is down and instead of just complaining we have a common council members who are offering to listen to the people they work for so tonight I bring you some solutions to the wheel tax number one sell the former Boston store property as soon as possible the taxpayers have already spent over $800,000 in buying and demolishing the former Boston store it is time to sell it and use that money to put towards our streets your summertime music festival was nice but at this time we cannot afford to keep this prime real estate as a free extra parcel for the Kohler Art Center if they want it they should buy it or put it up for sale to another private entity number two sell the money pit marina for a place that only has 268 bolt slips and in the last two years the taxpayers have spent over $500,000 in fixing the docks it is time to sell this if no private firm wants to take it over then it is obviously not making a decent profit then needs to be shut down number three eliminate the city administrative position which will save over $120,000 a year nothing personal to the current administrator but this position was made during the issues that came up with the former mayor either our current mayor has some sort of issues which I don't believe so in this case we do not need a city administrator administrator with city to size doing these three things will bring over $1.4 million to fixing the streets it's not enough to cover the entire 4 million but a better start than your wheel tax and it will give you enough time to maybe work with the county and looking at charging a county wide wheel tax for a amount a lot lower than $20 or how about a point two five percent or point one percent county sales tax Brown County had a point five percent tax I truly believe tourists should help pay for the streets that they use if you go to Blue Harbor during the summer 80 percent of that parking lot is full of Illinois plates they should help pay for the streets that they're damaging I understand the importance of tourism but I also understand the importance of representing the people who live in Sheboygan with the extension of the garbage tax and now this future wheel tax enough is enough and it's time to start cutting on your end less reverse the recent trend of having Sheboygan be a great place to visit and a terrible tax gulging place to live we have anybody else here for public forum already moving on to 2.1 it's an RC by 3 RC number 354-14 by 15 by committee the whole by all the person down here adopting an official mission and vision vision statement and core values and based on our agenda tonight I placed it under matters to be held so I didn't entertain a motion so move all right I have a motion and second to hold this over until our next meeting all in favor I any opposed chair votes I motion passes all right moving on to 3.1 general ordinance number 4-15-16 by all the person Berg June 1st 2015 and ordinance creating section 2-138 of the municipal code entitled remote attendance at meeting so as to permit and regulate participation and meetings by telephone video conference or other means now this document was referred to us from a prior all the person I'm not sure if we're going to be doing anything with it with it do I is there any discussion on this other man Hammond thank you mr. thank you mr. chair for discussion purposes only while I'm sitting in a seat so it's been that kind of a day anybody attended finance knows I for discussion I would move to approve right I have a motion and second to approve and under discussion I would like to get attorney Adams got your name right this time attorney Adams opinion and legal ramifications of this I know from reading the document that you if you're attend remotely you can't be part of the quorum but what are the other ramifications can they vote what about closed session so on and so forth this is the chair's discretion whether they allow for remote access because otherwise you could have an entire committee remotely I just want to get your feedback right well you wouldn't have a you can't have an entire committee appear remotely because and this is it's in our ordinance but it's also state statute that you don't count as part of the quorum if you're not there physically present so you wouldn't be able to just suddenly outsource you know council meetings and committee meetings to your homes as far as the the chair or the mayor's ability basically a member is entitled to participate and vote to the fullest extent possible but there are a couple of exceptions members not entitled to participate and vote on any matter that requires the visual assessment of a witness's demeanor that typically is you're going to be dealing with quasi-judicial hearings those kinds of things you would want people to be physically present the other is on any matter that requires the visual assessment of physical evidence or exhibits again that's primarily going to be quasi-judicial hearings however to some extent that would be at you know there are occasionally circumstances where you may have to pass a document around it's not available and that could conceivably be a problem that would not allow a person to then participate or vote on those matters another issue to deal with is you have to have the proper equipment you know is it possible to do most likely it's going to be possible to do with the things like Skype the technology is is is pretty much there you also have to provide some notice when we know that somebody's going to appear remotely there has to be the meeting agenda has to indicate that so the generally you're going to have to provide some advanced notice this isn't one of these things where you call in 10 minutes before a meeting and say oh I don't think I'm going to be able to be there and generally that's what sub e talks about you're not able to participate in the meeting if the meeting notice failed to state that the person would appear by telephone or by conference the other thing is if the equipment breaks down you're out of luck you know you're not going to be able to appear even though you planned on it any follow-up questions good for now thank you your light was blinking there I think that particularly with all of the particular exceptions that are built into the ordinance that this is a good idea I think it moves the council proceedings including meetings in this chamber as well as committee meetings into the 21st century I think most of us who sit on you know work with other organizations participation remotely is sort of a given I do think there are enough protections here and I really like the idea that it well it's nice that I like a state statute but you know if you don't count it toward the quorum you need to identify that you're not going to participate in advance I actually did this I was I didn't participate in in a vote but I was way far away and I participated in a souring grievance meeting by a Skype phone and it really worked very well there was at no extra expense to the city there was a conference calling equipment that was available and I think that we could work on it pretty easily I think it should be the exception rather than anything that happens on a regular basis we should all try to be here as much as we can but when the important matters come up or when you know we're traveling and participating and want to continue to participate it takes a little getting used to but I think it's a really good idea and I think it's something that we should move forward with all right thank you Alderman Belanger thank you Chairman for Attorney Adams I'm just curious when was the last time that the state statute was amended to address the technology and if I may ask a follow-up to Chairman Carlson if he has any inkling of any revision to the statute moving forward in the next legislative session to you know bring the state statute even further up to date with technology that's available I don't know that question off the bat but I do know it's not I mean in the state Senate you can call in remotely and you can vote over the phone so I mean there is precedent for it at higher levels of government especially within the state the assembly cannot but the Senate can but I defer to the other question yeah as far as when the when the state statute was last changed I don't know that for sure but it's been a while if you look at the statute it seems to assume telephone participation but it was written at least with enough forethought that you can talk about video conferencing and that kind of thing most of the language for our ordinance frankly I looked at other communities that are doing this now and looked at their language to see what what they were doing and some of those are fairly recent even within the last year that they've passed those ordinances thank you all the men there feel you learn how to speak thank you chairman I just want to point out I think it's a great idea also this past year I was in training for work for six weeks where I couldn't be here and I think it would have been a great opportunity I would have loved to have been here except I was in Minnesota I just think it's a great idea to get into the technology thing if we can take advantage of it so thank you all right thank you I have any other comments from the floor I guess I would just add my editorial I think it's a great idea and as long as it's been mentioned already that it doesn't become the norm because we wouldn't have quorums but I think it'd be good especially there's a lot of us that do travel for work so mr. Hammond thank you mr. Chair I guess one follow-up I think it's a great idea and I all for technology as Dave knows anything we can do to bring us into the 21st century I'm all for I just think we need to make sure that we have the right protocols so who's ever chairing the meeting you know right now we hit a button and they know we want to talk when you're on a phone what do you do say hey mr. Mayor mr. Mayor right in the middle of somebody else's speech so we got to make sure we have the protocol set up to be able to deal with that so it doesn't you know get fairly chaotic we can certainly vote via our iPad as long or Chromebooks for those that are using those as long as you have a Wi-Fi connection you can log in and be able to vote it's just you know how do you continue on a committee meeting or the council meeting you know with the quorum and making sure everybody gets an opportunity to speak so that would be my only concern certainly going to support it but we need to make sure we have the protocols in place and if that means updating technology then we need to update the technology we have so thank you absolutely any mr. Ballinger thank you chairman my question you know it may just dance comments made me think about it and I'm not sure Attorney Adams if you know the answers or not would you envision the committees then being conducting their business on board docs and you know going in voting via the board docs and doing it that way then it to accommodate this yeah I don't know if we're ready to do that I would defer to it whether we're actually ready to do that with the committees I suppose that's one way to do it another way to do it you know is you just simply have you know if you've got teleconferencing Skype you should be able to at least give the high sign to the chair that you want to speak correct me if I'm wrong but the one of the ideas behind getting the Chromebooks was to eventually use them in committee meetings especially in a voting capacity I just think we haven't gotten there yet I think it just involves training the whoever's clerking the committee to teach them how to use the setup is that correct deferring to our IT director here pretty much a lot of our standing committees are already on board docs for as you see and posted for minutes you know for agendas and such that you know if they bring their Chromebooks or devices to the meetings we could vote it could be brought in but a lot of the times we don't because there's only a couple of gen items so it's quicker to do the manual method but it could be done and then if the few conference rooms that we do have if they're not already outfitted with speakerphone capacity and or video we could do that relatively on the cheap yes okay yes thank you right Mr. Heidemann thank you chairman not that I'm against technology or anything I don't have dinosaurs in my neighborhood but I guess if I was running for public office and I went to my neighbors I said you know what I'm not gonna be at that meeting I think in contact me I'll be out of town I don't show I think there's still those sink those individuals are a constituents and citizens of Sheboygan that want to see us at the meetings that's why we run I mean I didn't I didn't again technology is great I don't think it's and again I've missed my meetings do but I make every effort because I hold the public office to be at the meetings I'm supposed to be at and not having to make sure that it might not coincide with my schedule but I still want to represent my constituents I think it's more important for us to be there to see what's happening and and to show our constituents that we will attend the meetings physically attended me absolutely and I wouldn't disagree with you and that's why I mean it's been stated in numerous times that this wouldn't become the norm nor could it and obviously as you know once you're elected it's a two-year term here so things change sometimes such as Alderman Theo got a promotion and he had to leave for six weeks so I mean things happen it's not gonna be the norm and it shouldn't be I mean that's gonna be the expectation of this body and the leadership here to make sure that people are actually attending so I but thank you for your comments absolutely Alderman Hammond thank you again Mr. Chair I don't want to monopolize this conversation I certainly understand what all the person Heidemann saying but I think it gives us an opportunity to better represent our constituents because if you are traveling for six weeks or a week and you can't make a meeting you can dial in and you can still be engaged and be part of the conversation I guess one question Attorney Adams that I'm not sure we got it is calling and remotely is that have any effect on closed sessions given the fact that there's no way of guaranteeing the that there's not someone else around and the right privy of closed session I would say that the best practice would be to not have people participating and voting in closed sessions when when they're you know participating electronically they would have to disconnect at closed session thank you and this is a question for our IT director once again not to put you in the spot with the type of software that is used to call in usually there's an 800 number associated a pen and a password there's ways to know who's on the call and who's not and can you kick people off the call just I mean can you double check that someone's not sitting on during closed session just in case that is a concern for people there is software like WebEx or go to a meeting if you use something like that to join the meeting you can see who all the participants are so if somebody's not on there then the administrator of the meeting can disconnect them okay thank you any other discussion from the floor I would just say what if this does happen if you're on the phone just make sure it's on mute when you're not talking but I won't elaborate any other discussion from the floor all right I do have a motion and a second to approve all in favor we have to do your own committee so you would not have to it's just getting referred to council just trying to speed things up Alderman Hammond any opposed all right chair votes I motion passes all right 3.2 general ordinance number 12-15-16 by Alderperson Bellinger an ordinance amending various sections of chapter 2 of the city of Sheboyan Municipal Code to provide for the direct referral of communications resolutions and ordinances to committees and eliminate the requirement of a second reading except where otherwise required by law Alderman Bellinger thank you chairman I mean I ask Attorney Adams to chime in here too and further give some history and background of of the ordinance the way it is right now and the intent to go with direct referral when I first became an alderman I was just kind of curious why we needed to have two readings and why everything you know a lot of things most everything has to lay over for a second reading before it went directly to committee and I just thought that that was a state ordinance or that was the way things went but in looking into it further in talking with Attorney Adams that's not necessarily the case we don't have to do things that way and the only reason I want to look at this is to expedite things and not necessarily or not at all try to hide anything from the public that's that's not my intent in talking with Mr. Adams or Attorney Adams earlier today if there were direct referrals and alderman would submit a request and the city clerk would send it directly to the committee it wouldn't show up on the next agenda for the Common Council but in talking with Attorney Adams he thought that there should be some type of report that would be generated by the city clerk that would show the items that were direct referred so the public would have notice and know what's in committee right now before it comes back out of committee and certainly anything that comes out of any standing committee is going to be back on the on the agenda too so the intent is to speed things up a little bit sometimes this body moves at a glacial pace and I would like to just see things move a little quicker at sometimes and that's the intent and I would ask Attorney Adams to kind of chime in and give a little background history and in what you were able to find out when you look further into the ordinance. Sure there are a few things that must be dealt with in the traditional way and those are in subsection B on page the second page of the ordinance there and it has to do with primarily levying taxes appropriating money budgetary type things those are the things that you suspend the rules for now occasionally but those things do require first and a second reading and so you wouldn't be able to do that but with everything else under the this change you would be able to do that. Some of the background is I to when Solomon Bellinger approached me about this I thought you can't do that but then doing some taking a look at it talking to some other people around the state it turns out there really is other than those specific matters there isn't a provision that requires us to do it that way. A lot of the changes here are we wrote our ordinance sort of under the assumption that you would always have a first and a second reading what it appears that many communities are doing is doing their first and second readings at the same meeting which in essence really is hiding things from from the public because they're not going to committees and that would not be a good practice most likely so this at least gets you to the committee before it comes back to council. The positive to that obviously is the time the negative to that though is of course you as alderman are going to have to make sure to be checking committee agendas if they're just in case there's an issue that might be of interest to you I don't know how many of you do that all of the time but you would need to do that the members of the public would need to do that to know when matters are going to be on a committee agenda whereas now there's a little bit of forewarning by the fact that it goes on the council agenda first and in essence you know you just kind of have to whether that is less important than than the efficiency that you gain by not necessarily having to have everything at committee and then what alderman bellinger was talking about is most matters that would go to committee would likely get reported out at the very next meeting they're going to be on the council agenda but because there is some provision in our ordinances for things like if a chairman decides to hold something in committee indefinitely and there's some provisions for taking things out of committee for notice purposes it would likely be a good practice for those matters that remain in committee that get directly referred and remain in committee to be noted at some in some kind of a report on you know on a council agenda or in some way how that would exactly happen is not set forth in the ordinance but it's something that we could work on with the city clerk thank you all right alderman born I talked to alderman bellinger about this earlier today and I just got a couple things I have to clear up and that would be the question I opposed to alderman bellinger was for example we have a council meeting coming up next Monday a week from tonight and if I had a document that I a resolution that I wanted to do and refer it to public works right now I would send it to sue Richards and sue Richards will put it on the agenda and it would go to the public works committee then on the next Tuesday that procedure is still going to is still going to be maintained correct it would still be maintained unless you wanted it to go directly to public works but now it would be too late today for example if you had a document that wanted to go to public works there tomorrow it's too late because you have to do it 72 hours in advance so it would then it would just get referred to council just like it already happens so not every matter is going to get directly referred so in other words what you're saying then somebody could an alderman could bring a document to the clerk's attention 72 hours before the public works committee and that that could be on the agenda of public works without their being with that without it ever being on the council agenda right under this ordinance it could get put on the public works agenda without it ever having been on the council agenda first you would need to do it at least 72 hours in advance the other thing that you have an issue with of course is that then committee agendas some committees get their agendas done more quickly than others but you're probably going to have to wait at least until that time to know whether a matter is going to get put on the agenda if you do the committee agenda week in advance 72 hours isn't going to get it on the agenda and then it doesn't help lots of lights alderman bidders thank you Mr. Chair I I've seen this firsthand referring documents through the clerk's office figuring it doesn't have money involved it doesn't have any of the larger heady issues but it ends up going through common counsel it's on our consent agenda that maybe anybody looked at it probably not and then another week passes before it makes it to our in this case public works committee I am totally in favor of it as long as there's that set of rules about a did it cost money does it require an ordinance giving the city clerk the latitude to send these documents where they're appropriate without that extra step that just drags the time line out thank you right Mr. Mayor I'd just like to ask Attorney Adams you know many times you know the committee chairman check and see what's going to be on their agenda and they have some control does this remove some of that control from the chairman of that committee it does not so this requires that the matter get directly referred to the committee the fact that it's now referred to the committee doesn't mean that the chair has to put it on the agenda just at just as is the case if something gets referred from counsel to the committee the chairman doesn't have to put it on the agenda they usually do but they don't have to okay thanks for that clarification Alderman Bellinger nope Alderman Boran thanks again Mr. Chairman I had a follow-up that I forgot before and that had to do with something you said Alderman Bellinger about a reporting system of documents that were going to be direct referrals would that and there would have to be notification of that would that come in the format of in it as an addendum to the council agenda that Sue would do that on that you know like we have other right now we have you know other things required by law would there be an addendum on the council agenda for things that didn't that didn't appear on the agenda but are going to be direct referrals so we have a way of knowing what the direct referrals are so for example if there would be something that would be with the finance that I would want to sit in on that I would have a reasonable way of finding out before the finance meeting and the and the agenda came out that that indeed I would have a way of accessing that what are what what did you envision as far as that notice of from the clerk I have not spoken with Sue she was out today I did speak with Attorney Adams earlier today and it was we discussed this and it was suggested that there would be some type of report that the clerk could generate what that looks like in how that's disseminated we didn't get into I would think that it would be you know something that would be electronic that would go out to the alderman something that would be on the website for the public to access you know you know at that seventy two hour point or whatever point in time during the week that you know here's what's going to you know the different committees or here's what's been referred to the various committees at that point in the week you know so I haven't worked out the minutiae with with Sue but that that's what we're envisioning and correct me if I'm yeah what we what we talked about I guess directly on point to your question what we kind of talked about is that every council agenda there would at least be a listing of items in some way so if something got directly referred let's say to public works the next council agenda would show that item either naturally because it's come out of or because it got held in public works didn't get acted on it would get listed there but there there's nothing in the ordinance that would say that prior to a meeting to which something would be directly referred that there would be some kind of notice to everybody the primary way to do that would still be via looking at the agendas sort of the way that happens with non document matters right now some committees will occasionally put matters on their agenda that aren't documents just for discussion but now this allows this to happen also for this for documents and this it doesn't and cannot affect the 24-hour rule for open meetings I mean agenda still have to be posted agenda still have to be posted 24 hours in advance so it can't it you know it creates a small area for creating the agenda from the earliest you could do it to the latest you could do it if I could just follow up Mr. Chairman yes so it probably Sue Richards could do another right now we get she sends out things it says minutes isn't it's minutes an agenda I don't think it would be too much I don't think it would be too difficult for her to send out another email to the older persons or everybody on her on her list that this item is being directly referred I think that would be another way of for the older persons and the citizens to know what the direct referrals are with as much notice as possible would that be would that be something we could possibly request of the clerk if this passes that just like she sends out agendas and minutes that she sends out another heading these are the ones these are the direct referrals I think and it's correct me if I'm wrong all the melanchor but I'd say a council meeting happens on Monday like they normally do and during that Tuesday and Friday period if somebody wants to throw something on agenda for the next week that would allow Sue time on maybe every Friday to post because there aren't any meetings on Wednesday so let's say on Fridays Sue Richards just sends out an email saying exactly what you're doing I think that's perfectly reasonable sue may not like it because it's more work but in the end it's a little bit more efficient for us to operate would you agree I would agree certainly I don't want to speak for Sue and I'm not and you know and I would like to you know talk with her but you know before we in accent like this but that would be my intent and you know I don't think it would be a problem to do that but you know confer with her first absolutely Alderman Hammond thank you Mr. Chair I think one of the things when we do the agendas it could be very easily noted on the agenda item whether it's you know 2.1 that in bold letters that this was a direct referral and it would save having to send out a whole another email listing all the direct referrals presumably most of us are looking through at least cursory the agendas anyways to see what's what's on there so if she just indicated that this particular referral is a direct referral you know everybody will be able to see that so I think one of the things we need to keep in mind is this will part of the reason this came up you know Alderman Bellinger and I've long past and others have had conversations about things pop up at the last minute we're either having special council meetings over suspending the rules or we're doing things whether it's especially around permitting and in things like that where if we want to be more responsive to the general public something like this will help us be able to do that so again this shouldn't be necessarily the norm either this is just gives us another tool to be able to get things in and help our constituents out a little bit faster so thank you all right Alderman Heidman he answered my question all right again I was more concerned with I wanted an example of where the process we have now is flawed other than the fact that when something pops up that we can get it into a committee without having to go to the council first I understand that portion but I guess having been here as long as I have I haven't seen where something that was so slow that we didn't get something done on our the normal way we do it posted on the agenda all the order we can read the agenda we know where items are going to be going to and I guess I just would like to get an example other than the fact that something just popped up Alderman down here I apologize it's okay thank you I am in full support of of this proposed change and we have a really clunky and so many ways we have a clunky procedural processes and I think that this is a good way to start addressing that the I've had constituents particularly in public protection and safety when we're talking about parking issues they're just dumb founded that it's going to be four to six weeks for anything to get done because you know something needs to come to council and then be referred and then come back to council and perhaps be referred again and so forth so I think and frankly if this doesn't work if it causes too much work or too much confusion we can just go back to the old way but I think this just brings us again more in line with 21st century processes of trying to move things forward in an efficient manner. Absolutely and just to clarify I saw some confused looks on the floor as she was speaking and being the chairman of public safety I definitely experienced it all this time so if there's a communication from a constituent in regards to a parking change they submit it like the normal process so it goes through the committee or the council comes back to committee and then when that communications is at the committee level if we act on it we have to send it back to council or we have to actually usually it's Ryan and the engineer's office has to draft an ordinance then send it back to council then send it back to committee then we send it back to council and that's why it's four to six weeks just to do a simple thing such as taking one sign off the street and as all the Bellinger said sometimes we move at a glacier pace and sometimes it's not good. All right any other I don't know are all them betters? Yeah just a small comment pertaining to whether the city clerk should send out emails or given if we have the rules in place by state statching you got to have a second reading for ordinances you have to have a second reading for taxes and levies given that it's probably sufficient to include that notification as part of the consent agenda at a council meeting. There's nothing to say that oh there was a direct referral that we couldn't object to it and say no we're gonna pull that back to an actual council meeting you know but as long as those rules are in place I I don't see adding to the clerk's office but that adds a whole lot of value especially if we get carpet bound with individual emails about well this was direct referred and that was direct referred is probably sufficient to include in the consent agenda. Thank you. All right thank you. Alderman Warren but just before I open it up again unless there's anything pressing I think we've covered it pretty well I don't see too much opposition to it so unless someone's got really earth something or shattering I think we're gonna after Alderman Warren I think we may take a vote on this. Thanks Mr. Chairman. Yeah there's a motion. Thanks Mr. Chairman I'm gonna I'm gonna support this tonight but I would ask Alderman Bellinger between now and Monday night's council meeting I'm sure there might be more questions of Sue when she's here on Monday night if you could ask her how she would like to handle these direct referrals as far as notification at the council and so she's not blindsided so she so she can answer that question Monday night if you'd be willing to do that I tried to get a holder today with some questions but she wasn't available but if you could do that I would appreciate it. Absolutely I will take care of that. Thank you. And it turns out I'm imagining things we do not have a motion on the floor. Thank you. Thank you. We should always know that Maryland Donnie was always right. And substantially older. The motion from the dinosaur in the bag. So with that being said I'd entertain a motion. Move to approve. Second I have a motion and a second to approve any other discussion. All in favor. Aye. Any opposed. Chair votes aye. Motion passes. Thank you. Last but not least 3.3 RC number 143-15-16 by finance general ordinance 17-15-16 by other person feel amending section 118-91 and section 188-94 of the city of Shiboyan Municipal Code relating to the city motor vehicle registration fee and recommends referral to the committee the whole. All the men feel. You have something. Yes. Do you have any comments before we start. Let's do a second person. All right. Thank you. At this point we're going to open the floor to director people and City Administrator Amodio for a presentation. Nancy's handing out basically presentation which will also be on the screen but sometimes it's easier to follow along with our copies. And I have to compliment Nancy on the creative title of the presentation this evening. City streets. Large matter and thought the bar was still open. We're going to do a two prong approach on this. I'm going to give basically a background of the state of our city streets where we're at currently with our inventory. The importance of maintaining this critical asset in our community. And then the next phase will be with Jim and talking about funding alternatives and looking towards how we're going to do that in the future. So the first slide that you see and I think you've seen this in other presentations that I've made basically as a graph showing your pavement condition on the left. 10 being very good. One being poor. And the bottom going horizontally out is time. And over time your pavement will begin to deteriorate or fail. The top section between the 10 rating and a six rating is your excellent to fair good performing pavement I would say. What happens is over time is you get to a point of around 10 to 12 years even to 16 years of life expectancy where regular ongoing general maintenance is effective. It basically extends the life of your pavements. What occurs however if you miss that point where you're not doing your routine maintenance is it dips below and your pavements will deteriorate at a quicker pace therefore more expensive to repair. Somewhere anywhere from three to four times more expensive. So that just giving you a perspective of that philosophy of what we try to do. So you go out and you do your crack filling, your pothole patching, maybe some some seal coating. Those types of activities though don't appear to be big ticket items are doing a lot of good that is visual let's put it that way. However it is a tremendous program in terms of extending our life and doing it at a cost effective manner as well. The next slide we're going to get into our pavement ratings of where we're at currently. As of 2013 we will be finishing up our pavement ratings that are due by the end of the year for the 2015 and 2016 reporting year. But what you'll see in this chart is our failed pavements are rated one again excellent a 10 and what you see is that fair are basically failed and poor which would be ratings one two and threes is really only about six point six point six percent almost seven percent of our network is in that category. But by far the largest amount is in the fair category which is the four five and six range that's at 51 percent of our network is in that area. They're performing but yet they're almost there and a lot of cases that are beyond the routine general maintenance where you can continue to extend the life they're going to need a more expensive repair. Good pavements and excellent pavements we have fairly good high percentages of our network 23 almost 24 percent is in good condition and excellent is another 18 percent. So when you look at it and in the next chart shows it graphically you'll see the peak is at five and if you go to the right of five the six seven eight nine and ten we actually have more of our pavements performing fairly well in our community. Unfortunately though again time is a factor in this and when you have almost 45 miles of streets rated a five if you would draw an arrow from that point and go to the left that's what time is going to shift that peak to the four area to the three and two and it gets very very expensive as you will see as we continue this discussion this evening of trying to keep that category five and above. So how do we do that? We have quite a bit of different methods and construction methods but as I mentioned time that's the next slide shows you just a quick comparison we've been doing these pavement ratings that we report to the state since 2007. So if you look at 2007's ratings in 2007 our excellent streets were almost 20% good was 31% fair was at 44.3% and failed was at 4.6% fast forward to 2013 excellent went down now we only have 18.2% good went down we only have 23.88% fair what has happened is the good and excellent have now shifted to downward into the fair and so now we have 51% of our streets in the fair category and failed is actually increased 6.6% in our community. So time obviously is affecting the condition of our roads we can and even currently as you'll see even of our current maintenance program it's not enough even take care of the good and excellent condition to extend the life. So the next slide please we have multiple different types of repairs that we can perform and maintain in our network and they all have a cost associated with them. So what we did is we took basically tried to get this real basic you take the center line of the street and you measure up the length and when you take every street in our city we're roughly 200 miles of streets just going right down the center measuring it from one end to the next. So what we've done is we've taken our repair costs and converted them typically will use square yards of payment and square feet of pavement and things what we've done for comparison and for visualization is we just said what is a foot of street cost for this type of repair. So many of our streets are asphalt asphalt over concrete or just plain asphalt. So a typical repair on a asphalt street when it's down in the four even a five three two one category would be to mill off the old asphalt basically grind it up haul it away and bring in new asphalt. The cost to perform that is sixty five dollars and fifty cents per foot. What you're looking at is just to mill and fill our streets under the 2013 rating that would fall into this category it's roughly ten million dollars. The next category would be the hot in place and we did that some of this year and hot in place can be used in certain on certain streets it can't be used on concrete streets because we know if can't melt the concrete and replace it that way. So and you need a certain condition the road cannot be at a three or below for hot in place because the road is just too far gone it would take far too much asphalt to be replaced to do that work. Nevertheless we still have quite a bit that fall into this category and those roads that could be formed under hot in place method of repair it's at thirty one dollars so it's it's it's a good alternative it's half the cost of mill and fill albeit it doesn't last as long but it's cost effective nonetheless but the hot in place program for our city network as of 2013 is about ten point eight million dollars to do all those roads that are eligible for hot in place repairs. Next would be concrete reconstruction this basically is your one number one streets that are completely failed and shot and what we would do is we would basically do what like what happened what's happening on Penn Avenue right now. Now Penn Avenue wasn't completely shot there was a lot there was a lot of underground utilities we have a new water main we had new sanitary and we had new storm and in order to do that we had to perform a complete reconstruct basically take off the old pavement replace all those utilities underground and now we're going to put brand new pavement in. Very expensive two hundred and twenty five dollars a foot to do reconstruction that's for those streets in the city of Sheboyan that's five and a half million dollars worth of work right there currently in those at that category. The other is new ounce fault over concrete we have a lot of concrete in our community. Concrete's great because it lasts a long time. It's cost effective and it's our primary choice when we build new roads or reconstruct because typically we've gotten forty to fifty year life expectancy out of our concrete streets. Nevertheless a lot of our network is concrete it's eligible for what we would do is a repair is doing a concrete excuse me asphalt overlay of the existing concrete. As I mentioned we have quite a bit miles of that. That that repair cost is at fifty two dollars and fifty cents a foot. And when we put that figure on what is eligible on our city street network for that type of repair. It would be eighteen point three million dollars to do the overlays of concrete in order to bring those streets up to up to where they need to be. As I mentioned earlier in the earlier side we're the streets that are ten category the nine and even eight at some in some cases. General maintenance can extend their life of those streets and keep them in that category without the need to do some of these higher expense repairs. One would be such as an asphalt road seal that costs around six dollars and twenty cents a foot. We can get ahead of the game and get those streets such as an Erie Avenue that was recently paved three years ago or Superior Avenue which is four to five years. We get in there we do crack feeling we do road sealing and do that on a three year cycle that continues to extend the life of that street. At six dollars and twenty cents a foot verses getting into the thirty one dollars we have to come in and hot and hot and place it crack feeling again another another strategy that we use is five dollars and fifty cents a foot. So just looking at asphalt road sealing crack feeling you're looking at around two point five million dollars right in the end for those those two categories. So when we add up all of these different types of road repair and maintenance strategies for our entire network and what type of strategy we would we would deploy on pavement type as well as its condition. The bottom line is it's forty seven million dollars. And that includes as you see in this this chart is that that includes carbon gutter replacement which in a lot of cases if you if you're familiar with our streets a lot of it's nonexistent. It's broken away. It's crumbled. It's failed and that causes drainage problems on our street. Poor drainage also done leads to poor pavements because the water isn't getting off our streets. It's penetrating our pavements. It's causing freeze thought cycles where we're getting potholes and premature failures. All of this is based on twenty fifteen prices. So if we go to the next chart in your in your packet you see that from this programs laid out from twenty seventeen through twenty fifteen and breaks down the individual types of repair mill and fill hot in place concrete road reconstruction new asphalt over over concrete asphalt road sealing and crack filling. Basically what we've tried to do here is lay out what the annual outlay would be. On on a program to start moving forward to protect our pavements and get him repaired and get him in serviceable condition for our community. So it basically takes that forty seven million dollar price take spreads out over the years through twenty twenty five. Any questions regarding the state of the roads and condition and some of the pavement strategies or reconstruction strategies that we've laid in front of you at this point if not I'm going to turn it over to Jim to start talking about the next next next portion of this is the financing of this. I just wanted to know what the term hot in place means. I didn't catch it. If that's a system we use this year where it was a piece of equipment that basically heats up the existing asphalt in place heats it up another machine will come back and scarify and scrape up about the two two and a half inches of the top and then it relays it and then we resurface it and roll it and compact it again. So it basically is resurfacing the existing asphalt and it keeps it in place and recycles it in place so you're not removing it you're not bringing new stuff in it's basically reconditioning and reusing the existing asphalt. It's it's less expensive and it doesn't take as nearly as much labor as the other other process but it can't be used on every asphalt street. There's some streets that are just too far gone and they still will need the older traditional mill and fill that. I'll start on page 8 tax levy. Our current level levy is twenty one point seven million dollars. You can see the general almost sixteen million. The library fund is two point three. Our debt service fund is two million eight eighty six and we fund transit at five hundred eleven thousand dollars a year. The rate per thousand currently based on two two fifteen is nine fifty three or an average home in the city of Sheboygan is roughly hundred thousand dollars so it'll be nine hundred and fifty three dollars per hundred thousand dollars of taxes paid by residents in the city. On page nine we talk again from time to time about the impact of our net new construction and we've looked forward on this and we saw a couple things. We see the revenue coming in in sixteen seven eighteen from that net new construction. We also have issues on the revenue side in the general fund. As you know the garbage fee sunsets in two thousand and sixteen that's worth one point two million dollars and our new construction permits based on the flurry of activity we've seen will probably be reduced by roughly four hundred thousand dollars for that activity starting probably in two thousand and seventeen forward. The revenue increases this year we saw about seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in our levy increase from that new construction. In two thousand and seventeen we're looking at roughly one hundred and seventy and where it really impacts us is in two thousand eighteen we'll see roughly eight hundred thousand. That total is about a million seven but you can see it's offset by one point six million dollars in revenue decrease for losing some construction permits and the garbage fee sun setting. So if we thought there was any upside that we could use you can see where the upside is going to go to some of the funding sources on the revenue downside. We'll wait till the end. The next slide on page ten shows our current debt schedule and this goes from two thousand and sixteen through two thousand and twenty five and again the point I want to make is the road construction of forty seven million dollars doesn't end in two thousand and twenty five it continues on another cycle for example if we did hot in place we can probably do it one time last for seven years at the end of seven year cycle we probably have to do a million fill on that road which takes it to sixty five so this is just looking forward nine years it continues on for every year in the foreseeable future with city roads but the point I'm trying to make here is that you can see our debt service in two thousand and sixteen four point five million dollars principal and interest our levy that I just covered is two point eight so we have a shortfall of about one point six million dollars and where does that come from comes from other revenue sources currently tourist tourism funds that because we have the tourism that we get from blue harbor for the convention center that sunsets in eighteen we also have the pension liability that the general fund pays the expense for the debt service for the pension liability that was back in two thousand and seven to fund that current and we also have special assessments which in two thousand and sixteen we plan to use roughly half a million dollars of special assessment reserve funds to help fund the debt service fund but you can see most of that goes away and by twenty twenty we have a problem in debt service of roughly four hundred twenty seven thousand and twenty one it grows to one point one million goes up to one point five and then back down to one point two this schedule for debt assumes that we can borrow currently the three million dollars a year that we borrow today two million for general fund projects in capital and a million for motor vehicle fund we also base this on a roughly a three percent interest rate you know last time we board was around one point eight but in the foreseeable future interest rates are going to climb so we use three percent this tax levy in two thousand twenty one will have to be assessed and it'd be a roughly a sixty two cent increase in the rate or sixty two dollars per hundred thousand dollars and home value so I don't see any way of getting around this so two thousand twenty and twenty one we're gonna have to take some action to put that service into the levy and have it paid for through taxes if we look at funding sources you saw forty seven million and if we look at two million dollars a year over nine years that'll fund roughly eighteen million dollars you can see three million funds twenty seven four million funds thirty six and closest to the right number is five million dollars a year in funding sources to pay for the roads that we have on slide twelve this is looking at levy impacts in the tenth year because as we go out and borrow two million a year it compounds till the tenth year and then flat lines so it says if we borrow two million dollars a year in two thousand and twenty five it will gradually flatten out at two point three million dollars in a levy increase that we would have to pass on to our taxpayers to make that investment at three million dollars it takes the levy up in twenty twenty five by three point five million at four million four point six and at five million five point eight and if you recall our current levies at twenty twenty one point seven million again borrowing at three percent interest over ten years an annual boring for regular projects is still at three million dollars so this would be an addition to the current three million dollars that we currently borrow for debt service if you look at impacts in the tax rate two million dollars would raise the rate in two thousand and twenty five to ten dollars and fifty six cents from nine dollars and fifty three cents are out in two thousand and twenty five each taxpayer on a hundred thousand dollar value home would cost them another hundred and three dollars for that at three million it raises it to one fifty five at four million to two hundred and six dollars and at five million dollars it takes a rate to two dollars twelve dollars and ten cents for a homeowner impact of two hundred and fifty seven dollars slide fourteen if we look at funding sauce source alternatives we've talked about a wheel tax that's the proposal that would impact a resident by twenty dollars we have a garbage fee that sunsets that potentially could be used for roads at sixty dollars if we borrow two million dollars that would cost the taxpayer a hundred and three dollars and currently using roughly seven hundred thousand dollars of capital that gets allocated out of the two million dollars that we have each year there would be no additional costs because that's in our current borrowing rate so it says that would be an impact to citizens of a hundred eighty three dollars on a hundred thousand dollar home and it would come close to funding the forty seven million dollars would be about six million dollars short if you look at fifteen this pretty much sums up where we're at and it takes a status quo which is currently funding seven hundred thousand dollars a year in our current roads and whatever Dave has in his operational fund of roughly three hundred thousand dollars for all of his material needs to use some for crack-filling it would take us sixty seven years to fix these roads so just imagine how everything would move forward into the I can't drive on the road category if we borrow two million dollars a year would take twenty three years if we borrow three million fifteen four million twelve and if we borrowed five million or use the alternative with some borrowing and some fees it would take nine years roughly in both of those cases and this graph just starts out as I said like if you look at the blue line the blue line represents five million dollars it starts out at twenty eight dollars increase per hundred thousand dollars of home in two thousand and seventeen and gradually over time claims to three hundred and fifteen these numbers also include the sixty two dollars per hundred thousand that we would need for the levy in two thousand and twenty one to fund that debt so you can see the lowest cost is status quo two million three million the alternative than four and five million any questions on this I'd be happy to answer it Alderman born thank you mr. chairman I had a couple of them Jim sure I gotta find my mark pages here going back to page 10 on the debt schedule take that was my first one well I'll take that one first what if the tax levy can continues to be frozen I don't know how we can borrow any more money I mean we said that our current debt level should be at around twenty four million we're currently at thirty two and will grow about a million a year just borrowing three million dollars so it says we'd have to stop borrowing completely and how would that how would our ability how would our ability just to levy the property taxes that were that we're doing now because at least through this biennium the state says we can't the only thing we can raise the general tax levy on is through growth what if that continues we can also raise it through debt and debt and debt we can pass whatever we borrow we can pass on as a tax increase okay I think I have two thousand and five and then on page 14 you have the sixty dollar garbage fee as using as using the garbage fee towards a funding source so if you use the garbage fee that we're currently connected assuming that it would be re-up re-up if we use the garbage fee for streets then what else is going to suffer if we use that one point two million dollars for streets because we're using it for something currently it's just in the general word is it being used now we're using it to fund the general fund okay I'm saying by two thousand and eighteen we have enough to cover the garbage fee with net new construction so in 2018 you could take that but you'd have to extend it because it sunsets at the end of 16 you'd have to extend it to 17 to help bridge the shortfall in the general fund budget okay and then an 18 with roughly 80 million dollars of net new construction you could probably move that to roads and quite frankly we start roads here in 17 but if we ever did put a wheel tax in depending on the timing we wouldn't see a lot of that benefit in 17 or 16 so more than likely 18 would be a good starting year but we could start some in 17 the other issue we have on the timing of these roads and spending five six seven million dollars on roads we're doing a lot of miles of roads whether it's mill and fill hot in place or reconstruct and you know how many roads that are shut down in the summer because you know our window to do all of this is very short so we have to be cognizant of that as well and quite frankly we really took a crack at weighing the dollars over time but haven't really looked at if we could complete all of it in that time my final one is on page nine under general fund revenue you have the government garbage fee sunsetting I didn't quite understand what you meant by new construction permits that that would be going down by four hundred thousand dollars I don't I don't understand what we're currently generating about four hundred thousand dollars more in revenue over the last two years and permitting fees because of acuity and the other things we've got going on and I'm saying by 2017 that construction is going to go away we've got a thirty million dollar construction project on the eleven acres we bought on the other side of the highway that'll be completed by then we've got two developments for housing downtown that will be completed by then and right now on the pipeline in the foreseeable future don't see any big other big projects coming so it says you know our revenues can be down on permitting I got you okay question this this data is based on the 2013 street condition correct yeah we're currently doing a survey now so 15 is it safe to say that the numbers will increase since two years have passed and road conditions may have degraded even further we haven't done much maintenance so the answer would be yes it's probably worse than it is correct all right questions from the floor there's got to be some least one on Melanger thank you chair and isn't the forty seven million dollars an unrealistically low number because it doesn't include any utilities any sewer storm sewer you know you look at North Avenue right now you you didn't want to finish the complete overlay of that until the water main was fixed I mean so there's that number is going to grow correct true by tremendous amount I would think yes good water water mains I've they're funded through the water utility sanitary sewer can be funded through the wastewater rates the one that's that's going to be the difficult one to quantify is the storm sewer we did include the curb and gutter but storm sewer yes that that can at times on projects increase the cost however we have done a tremendous amount of storm sewer work and a lot of with the flood project since 1998 so overall I mean our condition of our storm sewer network is in fairly good condition but yes the bottom line is yes the number will will need to go up for storm sewer to be included in these projects okay and it just one follow-up question absolutely I understand why you do concrete you know for the life of the road and some of the roads obviously heavier traffic like Taylor Drive that that makes sense why is a road like North Avenue go from concrete to asphalt the concrete to asphalt yeah I mean would that is you drive down it it switches all the time I'm just wondering if it's just the the maintenance that was done it was a cheap weighted is that the simple answer a lot of it is maintenance if it really is concrete from third all the way to Taylor however there's older sections that have been overlaid over the years and and overlaid and different maintenance strategies and you know the east side is much older than the section west where let's say in 25th Street or towards towards Taylor Drive so that still is concrete however if you've driven that section it's pretty bumpy and there's a lot of potholes and it's probably due for an asphalt overlay so yeah it's again it's timing of it and the condition thanks thank you Mr. Chairman Dave does the 47 million dollars take into account any any cost shares between you know on a road where well we're doing the 14th Street Bridge now but let's say we had to continue going down and repave that all the way up to Penn Avenue for example now wouldn't that be a cost share between the city and the state yeah I mean for the most part the state included in this inventory so this is only so this would be no cost share yeah this would mainly be the local roads that we have what there there is some opportunities but hit and miss I mean it's not an ongoing where we're guaranteed money from the state I think they're the only program that we we know is an ongoing year-to-year is what's called the local road improvement program and it's about a hundred thousand dollars that we get from the state for the local roads for instance we do have two two local road projects that we're going to get some federal funding North Avenue from 21st Street or Calumet Drive to 15 Street we get we're going to get about three million from the state and the feds on that project and we're doing Superior Avenue from Taylor Drive to 29th Street but again those are once every five years we're eligible to get some of this federal funding for our functional class roads they're called and there's some apps that we can after if you're interested and we can explain the functional class system but yeah these figures are mainly addressing what's under local control thank you and it's based on 2015 numbers doesn't take into account the rising cost of construction over the next ten years correct Alderman Daniel thank you I just wanted to make sure I understood the 47 million proposed cost I mean we compare it to your street maintenance graph this for this assumes that we're doing things in a timely fashion in other words so the 47 million is not they I know the figures would change but it's you know two dollars of renovation will cost six to eight dollars if delayed here I'm not saying there's a direct translation but so be 47 million times some factor if we delay correct thank you Alderman here thank you I'd actually like to thank mr. Bevil and I'm audio for putting this together for us today I think it really gives a good idea to the the general public out there I don't know what the conditions of our roads are gives them an idea of how much dollars we're actually looking at and how important it is to have some type of plan in place in and dollar wise on how important a wheel tax does come into play into the whole big plan of the of the streets as far as the city of Boyden we're doing so many good things we're looking at all the things as far as bringing to her has been how we're bringing in you know the businesses in the area they're growing acuity all these other areas we're looking at bringing in professionals into area if we don't take care of our streets they give them something that you know to come here for I think we're defeating the purpose of all the other things we're doing I think we really need to look at you know the plan that they set forth and this wheel tax as part of the plan to make this work we got a great community here it's funny I actually went online to find that the readers digesting under and I didn't believe I'd actually find it on eBay but I found a copy of the readers digest of the best place to raise a family and you know we're doing a lot of the things that we are great at back then we're getting back to that and I think this is the streets are a big part of it one of the things was a big highlight in here was companies growing and I think we're doing that opportunities for kids was actually one of the big things also in that article and I think we're really taking a good step on that also coming up soon with the help of Aurora and those projects that are going to be happening so with all those good things happening if we don't care take care of the streets I think that defeats the purpose of everything we're doing so thank you guys I also want to thank mr. Peters for was the only person who spoke tonight will give us some ideas I think his ideas are are valid it just I think that's a short term thing I think we need to look at long term like you guys laid out here so thank you thank you all right well I will take this chance to speak these numbers are staggering I mean we know that forty seven million dollars and that's that's probably fairly low in the grand scheme of things once we account for everything else that we can account for on principle alone I I've said that I was opposed to this wheel tax mainly because it's a tax and all the men or other women Donnie you made a comment after our last meeting what one of our meetings kind of in response to that and I understand that thought about this for a long time obviously I know the the situation we were in I've been around for I think this is my fifth year and I've been fairly involved there's no way we're gonna be able to cut our way to this I mean we've cut as much as we can we've had a great staff especially in the finance department along with the director of modio we've cut as much as we can and if anyone thinks that we can cut any anything more from our operating fund it's just kind of foolish in my opinion and it's easy just to get up and spot out some ideas but they they're they're generally just short term or one-time savings I'm sure we can sell a piece of land but that's that's a one-time sale so we've got to figure out a way to fix this we've heard a lot of good things tonight well and not good I mean this there's nothing about this that is good I'm like I said on principle I I kind of I do disagree with this but obviously there's no secret as to my political affiliation outside of these chambers there's no secret at all and even one of my beloved presidents Ronald Reagan campaign on lowering taxes but he raised taxes at least five times during his presidency and one of them was the Highway Revenue Act of 1982 which was a gasoline tax a user fee and that's precisely what this wheel tax is it's a user fee the garbage fee is a user fee people directly benefiting from the service are paying for it and like I said I don't like it I really don't however we can't cut our way to prosperity we can't borrow we had a prosperity there is actually a funny quote I heard this morning and other thing I forgot who said it but in regards to the transportation issue at the state level because this this transit transcends the city and the in the county this is a state issue this is a national issue and one of the comments was I don't care if we were building a stairway to heaven I wouldn't borrow it I wouldn't borrow the money I probably said it a little bit wrong but you get the point and the number to borrow five million dollars per year for nine years I mean that's just huge we never be able to sustain that because I mean you should all know the more we borrow the less money we have in our general operating fund and hopefully I'm not here when you have to reinstate the garbage fee but I think it would be a poor choice not to and along with the garbage fee the plan that was laid out between the wheel tax the garbage fee and the borrowing the small amount of money that we do borrow borrow right now we'll be able to make a huge dent in this process and I think it would be wrong of us not to do this because currently we're kind of paying for the sins of our fathers that never made it never kept up their old construction that rated the money that was supposed to be there and this is a common theme throughout all levels of government that happened in the Doyle administration with the transportation fund it happens everywhere the nice thing about this legislation or this ordinance right here we cannot use this money for anything else unless something major happened at the state money at the state level because if we were used to use if we were to use this tax money or this user fee money for anything else that would lower our the ability to spend I forgot how to word it but the levy so truly this money could not be used for anything else I know that's a common complaint against the last time the wheel tax was instituted and should be going on it for other reasons but legally we would not be able to because we just be shooting ourselves in foot it wouldn't help us we wouldn't get along with that being said I would move on to Alderman Hammond thank you thank you Mr. Chair I'm really depressed I'm sorry that's okay you need a hug when we started looking at these numbers what's it I said do you need a hug yeah I do need a hug we started looking at these numbers and having conversations with David Jim and Dave you know there's not a real positive alternative to a lot of this you know if we raise our debt you know we brought our debt now down from at 1.65 million to roughly 30 any of these alternatives could take it back up as high as 55 million our debt level our debt levy supports 24 you know so the the creative options that are in here the alternative whatever whatever we want to call it you know maybe the one way that we can accomplish what we're trying to accomplish but not put ourselves back into you know such a high level of debt because my other concern is by getting our debt level up there what does that do to our bond rating and our ability to bond at the most favorable rates that we have and have been over the last couple a couple bond cycles so you know there's not a great alternative my challenge with them with the wheel tax and I you know I get the whole you know levy reduction we've kind of lived and breed that but there was a group here during the motor vehicle fund when the motor vehicle fund was prosperous that used that to pull out for the pension issue now I'm not sure how I'd voted if I was there at the time but the point being is that fund is now almost default because it was rated so I want to make sure that if this wheel tax goes through and I get what's going at the state level but we all know that can change that there needs to be something very concrete and solid inside of this ordinance that says a supermajority or some sort of supermajority has to approve before this money can be used for any other purpose other than that short of that I'm not sure I can get behind that piece of it so I think one of the things we need to also look at is every opportunity to leverage different dollars and I will tell you Dave Bebo and Jim Amorio and Chad Pelotech do a wonderful job of taking dollars that we either to get from CDBG or HUD or what have you in various different areas and trying to leverage all that we just need to continue to do that so we can make a dollar worth for five but again I think we also need to be very cognizant of you know yes these provide solutions but there's also a downside to this you know it's not unfortunately a win-win here to get these roads fixed there's gonna be some pain and that pain is going to be increased taxes to cover this debt levy that we're probably going to have to do to get out of this issue so thank you Mr. Chair Alderman Boren or Alderman Danny who were you first you can go first okay thank you Mr. Chairman I just I I certainly understand being chairman of public works for two or three years and being on the committee for probably five or six years I'm certainly aware of the issue of the streets however we have other issues we've got the thing that Alderman Bellinger is working on with his committee the building use committee for what we're gonna do with City Hall what we're gonna do with number one fire station over here and also you know I got to play devil's advocate from the taxpayer standpoint people in my age group just got the news that and I can probably afford it myself but Social Security is not going to be going up next year people in my age group just got notification from their insurance companies for their Medicare supplements or their Advantage plans if the premiums aren't going up the maximum out of pocket is going up you know $20 doesn't seem like a lot like a lot of money but the people that are going to be paying the freight for the last seven years the per capita income in this country has gone down and that's and that's that's the working that's the working age people and it's very easy to talk about slapping another 20 or another 40 on top of the garbage fee if that's reinstated plus the other fees that are on the water bill it just keeps adding up and adding up and for a good segment of our population we're continuing to ask them to make sacrifices I believe if I remember correctly from what Jim Amodio said last year about this time salary and benefits for the city of Sheboygan I believe are going to be 81% of the budget and I don't know if we've been doing enough to try to whittle that down one department since I've been around here when the last when the last police chief retired we saved about $450,000 a year by making deputy chiefs change their title from deputy chief to commanders I believe it was and we also got some early retirement on people in the police department as of January 1st we're saving over $900,000 in city levy that it is going to cost us on the county side but it is coming off the city levy and also public works if you look at the public works department director Bebel is working with many many fewer people than he was years ago and also we are hiring new employees now at about $17 an hour which is good it's it's probably not a good living wage if people have families but in comparison I believe those people were starting at over $20 an hour so this leads me to the one department that I have constituents talking to me about and whether some alderman like it or not I'm going to mention again and I understand the chief Rolmos is working on a maybe on a five-year plan for the fire department but I don't see how we're going to be able to afford a million dollars of repairs and improvements to number one fire station we have an opportunity with two or three distinguished members of the fire department retiring in 2015 we have another six retiring and distinguished members of the fire department retiring in 16 and I and Jim Amorio told me a couple weeks ago that he anticipates another five and 17 if we are ever going to make any improvements or doing things better than we are in the fire department when would we rather do it when we have to potentially lay off the newest employees or do it like many companies do in the private sector when people retire that's when you make changes I would much rather if if we had to come to this is not rehire some of these people that are retiring and possibly go to four stations I've had some alderman tell me they think there should be a one station on the north side and one on the south side I think that's a little radical but if we're going to make any changes I think this is the department where there are a lot of dollars and these aren't one time dollars these are in the tax levy that could be transferred to streets so you know looking at you know playing devil's advocate and thinking of the taxpayers I think that's a department we have to take a look at and I'll be very interested to see if chief Ramos comes up with something that's not basically the status quo when we have this many people retiring in my opinion this is the time to restructure that department and still maintain good public safety and I think it can be done thank you thank you I'm gonna address a few things the crumbling of City Hall is not gonna prevent people from moving to Sheboygan absolutely not I would say 98% of citizens do not care where City Hall is actually placed that is not a factor in quality of life here in Sheboygan roads are the fire department police department public works as with almost every other branch of our city government is important to quality of life this right here is all about roads this is gonna help address the road issue we're gonna have to continue to make tweaks at every level in every department to help with the rising cut with with just staying just staying in line with inflation salaries benefits they're all gonna continue an increase we're gonna have to continue to make changes at every level this does not address that this is simply just four roads and when the time comes I'm sure the a possible change of the fire department could be brought up but we're not addressing that right now that's not gonna fix the road problem it's not going to it's a revenue problem like I said a little bit before we can cut as much as we would like we're still not gonna have enough money to fix the roads we have a revenue problem we do not have a spending problem unlike the federal government we're on the other side we need to raise money whether it's a tax a user fee whatever you want to call it that's the issue that we're addressing here that's one issue the roads and as we move forward we're gonna continue to look at health benefits we're gonna continue to look at retiree benefits there's a lot of things happening at the state level and at the federal government that are gonna affect what we do there's there's less money coming in from the state there's less I mean heck I mean I don't even know how the federal government is operating right now if you look at the numbers it's astounding so we're gonna of course we're gonna have to continue to make changes in every department when it comes to staffing that 81% number that is always thrown out we are in the service business every branch of government is in the service business we do not produce a product so of course our salaries and our salary cost is gonna be 80 to 90 percent because that's the business that we're in short of cutting half and the other half of our city departments I mean what where else do you think our cost is gonna come from that's a frustrating part the fire department and I've been a staunch reporter a supporter of the fire department since day one I always have been I always will be they do a great job they do a great job with the money the ambulance service brings in money to the general fund regardless of whether you want to admit it or not it's what $700,000 last year Mr. Modio granted I know we're not talking about cutting the ambulance service but okay let's cut six firefighters it's gonna affect service as a whole let's just say we get rid of the ambulance service there's a $700,000 hole we need to recoup once again revenue problem not a spending problem this is step one of a larger picture that we need to address thank you Alderman dining and I'm just gonna read redirect us back just a little bit more practically thank you as Alderman feels said I am really appreciate this report I appreciate what what Dave and Jim have done here this is really you know I've looked at the other stuff that that Dave has done but this is just very informative and that leads me to my second point which is it's really pretty clear to me that a wheel tax in this respect will be a positive revenue source I think I understand Alderman Hammond's concerns I think section 118 dash 94 sub B really is fairly explicit language that indicates that all monies remitted to the city through the wheel tax shall be directed for the use for the operation of maintenance of streets within the city if we need something even more specific I would certainly cheerfully support that but I look at my attorney 118 something well no I it's section two of the proposed I know I'm just okay but here's the deal I think this brings into sharp relief that we need to continue to look for other sources as well so the wheel tax is helpful but I think that looking on a broader scale of you know what Mr. Peters was talking about one of the things that you know we may want to sit down and talk with other government bodies about is a potential for cooperation the process you know what could we look at in terms of a sales tax for the county how would that money get divided up in terms of money I guess what I'm saying is is that in addition to the wheel tax we really should be looking at some other alternatives as well just redeveloping the advocate here what I would say is that and I understand Alderman Bourne's concern for taxpayers I have to say for $96 a month if my house is worth $100,000 a year I I get a lot of service it cost me less than the cell phone but I get fire protection I get police protection I get some nice streets to drive on some not so nice streets to drive on I have great parks I have a world-class library we even maintain a cemetery for $96 a month that really seems to me to be a pretty good deal but I think that we were the reason that we're in this pickle is because we haven't been thinking of the taxpayers we've been thinking about let's kind of bury our heads average road repairs according if you'll remember when Todd Berry came in and spoke at the last committee of the whole meeting average road repairs for an individual's car because of bad roads in the state of Wisconsin averages $793 a year now for some of us it may be more for some of me be less but nonetheless bad roads really do cost a lot of money and I think that this will taxes is a good first step question in terms of the the resolution itself and I guess procedure if we were to try to get some language in there in regards to the supermajority type of votes how could we could we address that in the same ordinance you could amend the ordinance okay and just have that as a like because right now a subsection C is based is based on the current state law but trying to add in another provision saying if state law changes it would require a supermajority to to raid the funds because that's what they would do well yeah I mean subsection C is there regardless of what the state law is okay it's the state law is an additional protection okay so you would have to amend C and the state law would have to change in order for for you to raid the fund okay thank you Alderman born thank you mr. Chairman I'm gonna have to rebut a couple things that you said first of all Jim Omotio standing up here last year at this time I asked him a question on ambulance revenues he said that if he included the cost of the salary and benefits of all 21 paramedics the and that says nothing about even any management time that the ambulance service would be losing money okay I'm assuming if I'm assuming and I'm not proposing it but I'm assuming that if the ambulance service went away and through this reorganization if it ever takes place we get to lesser stations we do not need the number of people in the fire department that we have right now because if we didn't have the ambulance service we wouldn't need as many paramedics as we have right now and if we go down to four or three stations just like if we close station number one out here that means that that no longer has to be staffed so it depends on how you look at the numbers of the ambulance service but I'm just going about what mr. Omotio set up here last year that if all of the costs of all 21 paramedics were on the ambulance were treated as an ambulance expense rather than four sure you can show $700,000 going to the general fund but you're only charging four paramedics to the ambulance service but I'm just going back with mr. Omotio said last year all expenses of the paramedic salary and benefits the ambulance service loses money that's all I want to say mr. Omotio thank you for the clarification all the men field to keep it on the topic that's at hand is that the wheel tax I think we kind of got a little carried away I just wanted to mention before I did propose that the ordinance and even afterwards I did talk to a lot of people as far as the $20 and their biggest concern was making sure that it went to the streets I feel that a lot of phone calls obviously after it happened after it came out that you know my name's on the ordinance fielded a lot of phone calls and once you explain actually how the ordinance is set up that the money will go to the streets they almost every one of them except I think to said you know what as long as it's going to the streets and not getting rated I'm fully 100% favor of it but they're all worried about what happened last time that the fund got rated so that's one of the other that I did talk to a lot of people and I think I think it came down to two I didn't bring the sheet that had written down because I kept everybody's name down that said they were in favor of all the other ones once you told them how to set up they're all in favor of it so thank you thank you any other comments from the floor mr. Mayor thank you mr. Chairman I think we had a great report tonight I think our finance department DPW the administrator's office and engineering for all the work they did on it one of the things that wasn't brought up tonight is the right now most of the things we tax is on our home and the value of your home and this really takes it to I think a little bit true user fee if we go with the the wheel tax people are going to pay for these road improvements based on how many cars they have and the cars that they drive on these roads rather than the value of your home I think this is a extremely fair way to do it and while it's not the wheel tax isn't the you know the only part of this it's the equation there it's the thing that we're considering right now and where we're making a change so I think it's a very fair way to assess the roads and and get this this road rebuilding program started thank you all of them born have one more question that maybe the American help us out with this being that he used to be in county government first of all are there any county wheel taxes around the state and I guess if we did have a county wide wheel tax I think we would end up with what 33% of the proceeds of that tax and would that be about the same amount that we're anticipating and getting if we do it ourselves Mr. Mayor if I can respond I'm not aware of any county wheel taxes personally and I've never heard of a county that has a sales tax or any other tax where they're you know giving part of the proceeds back to the local municipalities during the budget bill there was a proposal that was circulated that that counties could have a sales tax that they could implement and then that would be divided up amongst all of the municipalities and in the formula that they were talking about they said that in Sheboygan County would raise about nine million dollars for half percent sales tax but then the county got half for their roads and the rest was split up amongst the other municipalities based on their road miles and the condition of the roads and I think that formula would have netted the city of Sheboygan about maybe two point two million dollars out of the nine million every year every year if they would have done it but that's the only proposal that was brought forth and it didn't go anywhere in the budget discussions so I'm not real hopeful it's gonna come back it would take a lot of work I think to do that and given the position or the climate and the legislature I don't see them wanting to implement something that would allow for another sales tax over and above the existing five percent sales tax that's currently there before I move on correct me if I'm wrong but during your term as County Board Chairman wasn't there an attempt to create a county-wide sales tax and it was killed yes yes and I don't think the makeup of the board has changed that much I don't want to rely on something that may happen at the county level or something that may happen at the state level DOT already came out and delayed a bunch of project projects that include projects within the city of Sheboygan we need to take the approach in my opinion that we're on our own and we need to raise the revenue on our own because we cannot sit and wait for a higher echelon of government to come and rescue us because it's not gonna happen other than Herman thank him when I was taking a survey on Friday amongst my constituents concerning the wheel tax one of my constituents brought up a very good point he said that the taxpayers are ready paying for street repairs that's already on the general tax rule general tax payment he said he should not have to pay for the same service twice all right thank you Alderman Hammond I just wanted to make a quick point if we if there was a county-wide wheel tax you know we still have the same amount of vehicles registered within the city of Sheboygan so assuming it got broken up that way you know that we've got our share of the number of vehicles we have registered in the city it pretty much be about the same effect other than someone else is collecting the money for us so I don't know that there would be a whole lot of difference in income if the county instituted it versus you know us instituting it so I can tell you there's no appetite for anyone to create a new fee or new tax anywhere in government but it's just kind of how it's happening right now all the bellender comments on the floor questions from the floor trying to move things along here all right there is no motion on the floor Alderman Dunn you I move up I've moved approval of the proposed ordinance creating a wheel tax for the city of Sheboygan. I have a motion and a second under discussion. Alderman Hammond. Thank you. Although I understand from attorney Adams that this is probably overkill, I would amend or I'd like to make an amendment to add that any funds that are directed outside of this require a super majority of the council to approve. Second. All right, I have a motion and a second to amend the document to require a super majority to be able to take any money out of the fund for purposes other than road construction. Alderman Bellinger. Thank you, Chairman. She, you want to know what the confusion is? It still says Carlson when you hit the button. So it hasn't been updated since I've been there. So I don't, whoever Bellinger is now, that's why it would be like. That's you. We just switched. That's Mike. Thanks for turning me off. Welcome. My question is with attorney Adams, is the super majority, is that the greatest majority? I mean, we couldn't do unanimous if we wanted to. Well, there's two issues. First of all, the motion as you have proposed it actually is in conflict with the ordinance as you have it. So we're saying you can't do it, but if you want to do it, you have to have a super majority. So it's not consistent with the ordinance. Now, if you were to say have a different amendment that would say the repeal of 11894C must be a biased super majority, you could conceivably do that. And that is the greatest. Under Robert's rules, can you do a, can you do? I would have to look that up, but I would suspect that requiring a unanimous vote would not be well looked at, but I don't know the answer to that off the top of my head. I'd have to do a little bit of research. Thank you. Alderman Hammond. I would redo my motion using the language that attorney Adams had so indicated. Second. Okay. Alderman Donahue. I'm just following what attorney Adams is saying, and I think having a super majority or any provision that allows the undoing of this amendment or of this of both B and C is actually counterproductive to protecting the fund. I mean, it says it can be used for, only be used for street repairs, but a super majority of us can change that. And so I think, I mean, the language in both B and C taken together is so directive as to say, that's it. That, I think adding a super majority actually weakens the protection for the taxpayer. Even if the state law changes, so B is no longer in effect? Well, if you look at, if you look at B and C together, and notwithstanding the provisions and so forth, I mean, and attorney Adams can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think if we are doing something that is, well, is less restrictive than the state statute, then we have some issues. Right. So, I mean, I'm happy to support the super majority piece of it. I just think it weakens, I think it weakens the provision. Point of order, weren't we just talking about, the amendment is upon repeal of 118, blah, blah, blah, blah, then it would require a super majority. Any repeal of 118.94 sub C would then require a super majority. Legally speaking, you can do that. I think practically speaking, Alderman Donahue has raised a valid concern. Once again, the attorney strikes. Alderman Warren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess Mike, and I thought about this when I was reading this over today, what would prevent one of us from bringing in a resolution to, for under number C, to use those funds for something else? And if we didn't have the motion that Alderman Hammond is proposing, what would prevent that from just being a simple majority? Well, our levy would be reduced under current state law. There would be no benefit to taking money out of the fund as long as things are status quo right now. Okay, but then let's say the law changes. I guess that's what we're trying to address right now. My concern would be that somebody could bring in a resolution just by simple majority without having to the super majority there. That would be my concern. When I read this this afternoon, that was what my concern was. So I guess I would want to stay with what Alderman Hammond was proposing and I originally seconded it and it was updated and seconded it by Alderman Bellinger, but I think I would personally feel more comfortable with that if there was a law change. Alderman Hammond. Thank you. Attorney Adams, how do we structure this so that we don't tell them down to his point, we don't weaken the current but put protections in that I'm hoping to have so that we don't have another motor vehicle fund type issue. You can do one or the other. Either way, you have some concerns and some protections. So you can add another subsection that requires see any amendment to see to be a by super majority or you can leave well enough alone and leave it as is. You have to make the policy decision as to whether one is weaker or one is stronger. I think that all I can tell you is that Alderman Donnie who's raised at least a valid concern for you to consider policy-wise. Legal-wise, if you choose that you want to have that, it can be done. You can put in a super majority in order to delete subsea. So as a matter, as a practical matter though, if the amendment is upon repeal of whatever those statutes are. So you would put something in that says if the state statute is repealed then. Frankly, your bet or bet is if the state statute changes then you come back and you make some changes to the ordinance. That's typically how we do things. If the state statute changes how we do things in the city, we change our city ordinance. Obviously there's always the concern that some common counsel down the road won't want to do that and you want to prevent them from doing that. But typically we take the law as it exists and we work with it because we don't know what changes might come forward. But that's a policy decision. Legally we could put the amendment in and if the body came and said two thirds of the bodies says we want to spend the money and if state law is current in place then that'll reduce our levy. So there's no incentive to to raise money from the fund. Under the current law you have a sort of a double protection. Yes, so what if the state law did go away? Then you'd only have the single protection of our ordinance and well that would be your second level of protection. But if we don't put the two thirds in if the state law went away there would be no protection of the fund. No, the protection would still be there. In fact. What would it be a simple majority? It would be a simple majority to change the ordinance. You still, it would still not take a simple majority to raid the fund. You would actually have to go through the process of changing our ordinance then raid the fund. So there is still two steps to it. So there would be public scrutiny at that point. Correct. Okay. Thought somebody had their hand up back there. Stretching. So I get this at this point. I mean what route do we want to go? There's an amendment on the floor. There is an amendment on the floor. There's an amendment on the floor. Correct? Yes. More of a friendly. Yeah, I guess could we take that as a friendly? Okay. Would you support that Alderman Borne? Yes. Okay. So the amendment on the floor by Alderman Hammond and seconded by Alderman Borne. All right. Any other discussion on this? What's that? Flash Ballinger. Flash Ballinger, yes. If not, we'll take a roll call on this. Okay. Aye. Bidders? Aye. Borne? Aye. Carlson? Aye. Damrell? Aye. Donahue? Aye. Hammond? Aye. Heidemann? Aye. Berman? Bards? Shields? Aye. Genni? All right, the motion, the amendment does pass. So we have the general ordinance as amended. Any further discussion? All right, I'm not gonna pause any longer. Let's take another roll please. As amended. Oh, okay. The general ordinance as amended. Okay. Ballinger? Aye. Bidders? Aye. Borne? Bill? Carlson? Aye. Damrell? Aye. Donahue? Aye. Hammond? Aye. Heidemann? No. Berman? Bards? Shields? Aye. Eight ayes, two noes. All right then. General ordinance does pass as amended. That being said, we don't have a next meeting date, so I would entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you.