 These meetings are very real. We are facing a budget deficit this year. We have to decide what it is we are going to cut, what we are going to keep, and please rest assured that these meetings do mean something. We take the information and the input that you guys have, and we take it back to City Hall, and we do our very, very best to execute the guidance and direction you've given us here. I want to thank all of you for coming out. It means a great deal to us. I always say the moment that you leave it up to the politicians to make sure things happen right is the moment it all goes to hell. So thank you so much for coming and spending your evening with us. We're going to show you a short video, talk about the budget, and then give you guys a chance to really let us know your feelings about what we are and aren't doing right, what we could be doing better, and things that we can do away with or places where you would like to see some growth or some contraction. To get us started, I'm going to introduce one of our newest assistant city managers. She's sort of like the number one draft pick around here. Her name is Gloria Aritado, and she'll start us off. Thank you guys. Thank you, Councilman. Just a little bit about the process, and then we'll get the video started. We actually did a round of budget hearings before we actually put this draft budget together. So we took the input that we received in those hearings and they had input or they did impact the draft budget that we put together. The process here is this is a draft budget. These little blue forms are a draft budget. We want your input, and that's what all these hearings are doing, so we're going to ask you to do some hard work because we're going to ask you to look at what are some areas we might cut or reduce or increase fees, and then we're going to ask you for your priorities of what you want to keep or increase. We will take all of the information that's provided at all of these hearings and the Council members will get a summary of this. We'll also have two citywide hearings at the Council chambers. They're listed in this little blue book also. So we'll go ahead and run the video and then we'll give you instructions again and we'll spend about 20, 30 minutes for you working at your tables. We have a city staffer at each table to help facilitate the process and be the note-taker, but we really want to hear from the citizens, so it's not hearing from your city staffer, it's hearing from the citizens. And then when we do the report out, we're going to ask for a volunteer at each table to do the report out. Let me first introduce our city staff. Also on the executive team, David Ellison is here. Oh, there he is. David's here. We also have a number of department heads or assistant department heads that are facilitating at the tables. So let me introduce those and I'll start way down here. David McCary. David McCary is our public works. Solid waste, I'm sorry. Solid waste. He's the trash man. Great. I'm Joe Angelo, the chief HR officer for the city. Carl Wade, I'm deputy chief with part of our department. Melody Woosley, interim director, human services. Vincent Medley, assistant director, animal care services. Razi Hossein, assistant director, Sims department. Art Reinhardt, assistant director of public works. Roy Waldheim, deputy chief, police department. And also we have Maria Villagomez, who is our budget director, so she works really hard on putting all this together. We have a number of staff from the budget office, so if you guys want to wave your hand, they've been working hard for the last, for the entire summer. And I see our deputy city manager, Eric Walsh, has walked in. Hey, Eric. Okay, so we're going to go ahead and run the video and then we'll get started on the work. Who else? Hello, I'm city manager Cheryl Scully. The fiscal year 2014 proposed budget is balanced and allows the city to continue to provide quality services to the community while making the tough decisions to keep the city financially sound. The fiscal year 2014 proposed budget focuses on reducing administrative costs and prioritizes public safety, street maintenance, sidewalks, and drainage improvements. The proposed budget reflects policy direction from Mayor Castro, city council members, and valuable input from the recent community budget hearings held in June of every quadrant of the city. This video was developed to provide a summary of the fiscal year 2014 proposed budget and to enhance understanding of city services and how they're financed. It also highlights areas where the city has been able to recommend budget cuts while maintaining quality service levels to meet community needs. Over the next few weeks, the city council will carefully consider the proposals included in the proposed budget. Mayor Castro, city council members, and I look forward to your input prior to the adoption of the city's budget on September 12th, 2013. We appreciate your interest in the city of San Antonio's proposed fiscal year 2014 budget. We are committed to keeping San Antonio financially strong and to making San Antonio a dynamic and healthy community for you and your family. The city is committed to continually improving services for residents of San Antonio and nurturing an environment for future growth and prosperity. Each day, the city's workforce is in the community, working to maintain city streets, protect you and your family, preserve the beauty and integrity of your neighborhoods, and offer services and programs that can enrich the quality of life for all residents. The fiscal year 2014 proposed budget is balanced as required by law and does not include a city property tax rate increase. The general fund, which is the city's largest operating fund, totals $989 million, less than 1% higher than last year. The budget is transparent and reflects city council policy direction and valuable input from the community. In June of this year, five community budget hearings were held across the city to obtain service priorities from residents before the proposed budget was prepared. Following the community budget hearings, city council annually establishes priorities and the proposed budget recommendations reflect that input. This year, the high priority services identified are public safety, streets, sidewalks and drainage, as are city core services. Your city budget is more efficient and since 2007, the city has reduced the general fund budget by nearly $88 million and has eliminated 1,633 civilian positions with no layoffs. During the same period, the city added 307 police officers and 167 firefighters reflecting community and city council priorities. The FY 2014 proposed budget reduces $13 million in the general fund and a total of 279 positions in all funds. In the general fund five-year financial forecast presented in May of 2013, revenues were projected to increase at a slower pace than expenditures, necessitating adjustments to be made to the budget. The proposed FY 2014 budget presented to the city council on August 8th is balanced and reflects the city council priorities of no city property tax rate increase, budget reductions, and some fee increases. Included in the budget are 5 million in proposed revenue adjustments in the general fund, primarily in EMS transport fees, hazmat inspection fees, and recreational fees. The proposed budget also maintains the city's financial reserves at 89 million or 9% of general fund appropriations. With the efficiencies added in this year's proposed budget, general fund expenses increased less than 1%. One of the top priorities recommended by the community and the city council is public safety. The police department has applied for a community's organized for public service hiring grant that will allow for the hiring of additional police officers for three years. The budget includes 307,000 for a city match if the grant is awarded in October 2013 for 10 officers. 1.3 million is also included in the budget to add more police in-car video and other equipment. The fire department provides quality fire prevention and suppression, emergency medical service, and rescue operations to city residents. The proposed budget enhances these efforts by adding three full-time hazmat inspectors to improve inspections, as well as 3 million for the replacement of two hazmat trucks and other fire equipment. Improvement and maintenance of streets and sidewalks continues to be a high priority for residents. The proposed budget continues funding the Infrastructure Maintenance Program at 54 million. This amount includes 35 million to improve streets and 8.5 million for sidewalks. This is 2.5 million more than in 2013 and 4.5 of the 8.5 million will go to improve sidewalks to schools. 3.5 million will be used for drainage improvements and the final 7 million is for pavement markings, alleyways, traffic signals, and bike facility improvements. In 2012, voters approved a 596 million bond program that includes city-wide improvements for streets, bridges, and sidewalks, drainage and flood control, parks, libraries, and public safety facilities. During fiscal year 2014, many of these projects will be designed and approximately half will begin construction. The FY 2014 budget includes 1.25 million for initiatives to revitalize and improve neighborhoods throughout San Antonio. This amount includes the Renew SA program, C-Clovia, and the FitPass program. Also included is funding for animal care services to continue to perform 26,500 spay-neuter surgeries and maintain a 75% live-release rate. Code continues to be a priority in 2014 and no service reductions for code enforcement are recommended in the budget to ensure a continued focus on improving neighborhoods. San Antonio senior centers provide daily health, fitness, and nutrition support to residents 60 years and older. The FY 2014 budget continues to make these services a priority and includes 1.5 million in funding for the expansion of senior centers in districts 2, 6, and 7. The 2014 proposed budget includes 3.5 million dollars for economic development incentives. 1.75 million is dedicated for inner city incentives and 1.75 million is dedicated to city-wide initiatives. A key piece in developing the city's budget is making decisions to maintain a strong financial position while providing quality service delivery. The budget reduces 13 million by streamlining services focusing on community priorities and reducing administrative overhead. On average, non-public safety departments and the general fund reduced costs by 5%. This year's budget reductions include leveraging technology and process improvements in municipal court to reduce the time customers spend at court by 30% while reducing costs by 914,000. The budget also reduces 1.7 million in administrative overhead, which includes a 50% reduction to travel in other line item budgets as well as 11 administrative positions. The city will also achieve savings by transitioning services provided at the link centers to existing facilities, including development services one-stop, select libraries, and other city facilities. Service modifications totaling 1.3 million include realignment of parks' landscape and sanitation maintenance schedules and consolidating 10 open-play community centers with low attendance with other full-service centers in close proximity. The budget includes a change in the outdoor swimming pool program that is anticipated to save 310,000. This proposal expands the existing 6-day-per-week operation of outdoor swimming pools to a 7-day-per-week operation by limiting the number of days each pool is open. Delegate agency funding is proposed to be reduced by 5%, consistent with the average reduction of non-public safety city departments. Funding for Haven for Hope, however, remains at the FY 2013 budget levels. This proposal saves 630,000. Solid waste collection services are supported by a user fee collected monthly through your electric bill. The budget includes funding to support a subscription curbside recycling program for organic recycling and adding two additional neighborhood drop-off collection centers. An increase to the solid waste monthly rate of 50 cents is recommended in the 2014 proposed budget, raising the cost to $19.93 per month. Now that you've learned about the proposed fiscal year 2014 budget, we want to hear from you. We encourage you to attend any of the community budget hearings. There are five area-wide community meetings held across the city and two at the city council chambers. As required by law, the city budget is scheduled to be adopted on September 12th. The city's new fiscal year begins October 1st. Visit the city's website at www.sanantonio.gov to learn more about the proposed fiscal year 2014 budget and the public input process. You can watch this video again on TVSA, the city's government access channel. As you can see, the city's fiscal year 2014 proposed budget is balanced and continues to provide the community with high quality services and a strong financial position. Okay, so now we're going to start the hard work. So what we want you to focus on first is three areas that you would like to reduce, cut in the city budget, or fees that you think are other ways to raise revenues. So those three first, you come to some kind of consensus on your tables and then focus on the priority areas that you would like to maintain or increase any of those service areas. And staff is available to answer questions and we have facilitators at each of your tables. We'll spend about 20 minutes doing this and then we'll give you a five minute warning to kind of wrap up. I think we're ready to start and actually Table 10 has volunteered to go first and Table 1 has volunteered to go last. So we're going to start with Table 10. Okay. Our first item for reducing is the street cart project and we're not quite sure we understand how it falls in the budget but we do understand that there are some funds in the budget for it. The next was the tax incentive program that one of my partners said that we don't have to give the city away. People should pay us to come to San Antonio because it's so wonderful and we have such a great economic development. And then this was another table partner that really had wanted to review the pay equity between the city staff. So of course libraries should be first on everybody's list for keeping and along with the library funding comes the book festival funding. So if you all don't know about the book festival it's a fabulous event that goes on downtown at the Central Library and the Southwest School of Art. And that's going to be April 5th next year so put it in your calendar. So it is a great economic generator. It's all about quality of life like libraries are. Back to libraries, bookmobile. Don't get rid of those bookmobiles please. And ours. Libraries need to be top priority in this budget no matter what. We have a quality of life. People come to San Antonio for that so that's my spill there. And then senior citizens, one of my partners was worried about planning for the future and the programming including arts and cultural events with senior centers. And then right here we have funding for the hike and bike trails which kind of goes down here with the park funding because there's quality of life again with mind, body, spirit and keeping everyone healthy mentally and physically and then the no animal kill. You had a, we wanted to increase that number the percentage of no animal kill. So that's number 10. Alright. Alright, thank you guys. Who's next? Right here. Table three. We here at table number three we had several things and we decided to cut some of our cuts. The first on the list was we thought about combining certain departments. We thought about maybe combining Sims and public works. Then we also have county city consolidations with the other municipalities that we have. Maybe that will, hope maybe, maybe. We have also bulk and brush pickup that we have cut. Can I ask a question about the, just so I understand what you mean. Sure. In terms of cutting bulk and brush pickup could you explain a little more what the sense of the table was? Betty? Yes, I can explain it. Alright. Miss Akron. I can explain it real easy. Seniors can't pull out sofas and mattresses and so forth and what's happening, nor can they go out and cut trees and put them in their front yards and so forth. So every time we have a bulky pickup San Antonio looks awful. Everybody has an old mattress and an old sofa that they pull out in historic neighborhoods. So if we cut out the bulky pickup and made the people responsible for their own pickups of the bulky items in other words they pay solid waste for this pickup. Call in, make an appointment, same thing with trees. Seniors can't go out and cut their trees and pull brush and things and put them in their front yard. So we need to cut that out. Let them call in, let them make an appointment and get their brush and their, whatever they want picked up, pickup that will save solid waste. We'll have a cleaner city. Right now Commissioner Adkinson is working on the county. He's got a big problem. They won't clean it up. So if we did this, we'll have a cleaner San Antonio. It'll be more beautiful. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Yes, so maybe some bringing in some senior services into that aspect and also with the code enforcement combined with our other suggestion might help with that. For our priorities we have of course public safety up at the top of our list. We also talked about increasing property rate tax except for seniors. Because it just seems like that's one way to instantly get money for us so we don't have to cut anything. We really did not want to do any cuts. So we wanted to put that on our list. We also wanted to save the library and with SIPA was mentioned and also Texana specifically were mentioned. Park maintenance and operations equity. We would like to see more equal services for all of the parks in the city. And to be clear by that do you mean explain that a little bit? You can look, we're all friends here. She can speak freely, right? Somebody in our table was mentioning how she went to one park and it was dark and she went to another park and there was light for all of the citizens in that park and it's unequal the maintenance and operations and some of them. Not all parks are treated equally. Economic development and maybe rounding up the garbage fee because you all are already rounding it. Yeah From 1993 to 95 and then somebody said just go ahead and make it 20. By the end of the night I'm going to figure out how much money that makes it. Okay. Alright, who's next? Right over here, okay. Decreases. We had a divided table so as I give these results remember that. Some members of our table felt that the proposed sexual rights ordinance was something the city could not afford to take on because the legal fees associated with defending it would prove to be very expensive. It's not the idea of this minute. It's the idea of what's going to happen down the line. Alright, so we'll cut civil rights. We were split. We were split. The second thing and we were split on this too was to defund the cultural arts department and its delegate agencies on the grounds that this was not necessarily a good use of the money that the funds could be used otherwise but again this was split. Now what we agree on. Okay, now we're over the splits. Forget splits. Now we're into what we agree on. We agreed that the streetcar program was a good place to save some money but that was something that we could save some money on. We also agreed that as far as the police and fireworks concerned that the city manager has a good point in that we are heading for a dangerous position where we're going to find ourselves spending on this area especially when you consider the deals that our firefighters and policemen have gotten in such things as retirement which could in the future be quite expensive to the city. And overtime. And overtime, thank you. She's very good. I appreciate that. And overtime that there seems to be a lot of things about police overtime that could get quite costly. We also agreed that on downtown development that we are putting money into something that maybe we shouldn't be putting money into. For example, we're granting 15-year tax abatements to people who are building luxury apartments that most San Antonians can't afford to rent or buy. Why are we giving fireworks that kind of money? Now, the idea is that that's a very poor use of our money. We also agreed that as far as we have a generic thing here it's written up as utility and garbage fees but we also have CPS and SAWS the idea is that the citizens are being hit by fees that in the sense of rate increases that really are not warranted. It's a wish list on the part of those departments but it doesn't really jive with the reality of this world. But it's a way for them to get money for certain things that they want so to speak. But not fair to the consumer. Now, as far as what we felt should be maintained and I'm going to give a little bit of explanation on this we felt that the library was very central to the well-being of the city and that there were proposals that had been made that were not exactly in keeping with the role of the library. For example, the library is a place that many people go to who don't have air conditioning. It also provides a spot off the street so people can be safe. So the idea of closing the library to save money is there's a question here about you want to save a buck and then you want to have someone not be safe or not be in a healthy environment plus the fact that there are a lot of people who use the various services of the libraries for example you have people who don't have access to computers who use the library computers not everyone has a home computer but the library has it for the public. We also had and we also did discuss too that the library has extensive cultural programs that bring culture to the community for free basically for the public not everyone can afford to go out and buy a ticket. So the library is a cultural site as well so we said let's maintain the library no cuts now we also did say on the parks and we have down here on the sheet maintain that there's two sides to the parks there's the issue of maintaining the park hours for example there's a lot of talk about reducing the number of swimming pools that would be open and that would in turn adversely affect access to the swimming pools for people who needed to swim and then you also get into the issue of maintenance of the parks I don't know if any of the other tables are gonna bring that one up or not but the idea being like I think one of the tables said that one park was nice and bright and the other park why why is one park dark and why is one park light you know so in other words we shouldn't go in other words that parks are an important part of our community and every neighborhood that has a park should really have what do you call it equal quality parks that's what we came up with thank you guys very much I got a quick hand over here for table good evening everybody okay what we decided is that hi there what we decided is the cuts that we would like to see are tax abatements yes special tax abatement we would also like to see equal cuts for haven for hope if you're gonna cut the delegate agencies cut haven for hope too it's not fair cut the supplemental funds of special events like fiesta and the limo dome like supplemental events or yeah supplemental special events okay the city services that we would like to keep her increase there is CRTs crisis response staff at the police departments that handle domestic violence and we want to make sure that that does not go away and right now I think they're getting ready to cut them by 10 and there's only 20 so that's not good domestic violence is very serious we would and this grows right in line with keeping the human services there's also a 5% proposed cut to delegate agencies I'm with one of those delegate agencies dressed for success our services are the number of services that we are providing actually our clients have increased and we're they're getting ready to go up again and they're talking about cutting the money to do that we really need more money but we're just trying not to be greedy okay just but please maintain okay and not cut and then equal funding for per capita for senior services and centers throughout the city okay that we that was a big thing for you before we flip the page yes can you help me understand that last bullet point better the equal funding per capita for senior services okay there are some senior services like in the video it talked about adding some senior services in some of the districts but for instance in district one I think there is no senior service there's not one new senior center so some districts for example up north they have a big sort of institutional senior center we don't have that we have a smaller size just wanted to be fair all right we wanted to be fair okay equally spread out and that it okay because and let me let me just say on that and I want to make this clear we could always do more but in this proposed budget there are no cuts to senior services or sites now we could do more but one of the things that has sort of like a platinum halo around it this year are senior services okay um but then again I really we really want to get across the word the the importance of human see a services that serve human capital because in reality that is our greatest asset folks is as our our individuals the people in this community we're asking for no cuts and I don't know that there's cuts planned for the police department and the fire department we don't want to see cuts in that in any kind of safety no cuts to parks recreation libraries but we also don't want to see an increase okay just maintain just maintain and then we actually um I want to propose something that I think is that maybe initially you might just go oh my god no Pamela no no but I really want you to hear what I'm saying what we've what we've talked about over here that we have not had an increase in property taxes for 20 years but wait y'all hold for a minute just hold for a minute please because it's a controversial issue right what we are proposing is that a 1.56 cents increase okay for the average homeowner it would be $20 a year it would not include seniors right seniors would not be affected I don't think low low-income people would be affected that's right people whose property value I think is valued under $55,000 or exempt from that and then seniors who have the homestead exemption or exempt from that is that about right okay wait let me let me just let me continue because there's something that I really think is important so the out-of-pocket cost for most of us would be about $20 a year okay but the benefit would be $11 million to this city we could use that money and continue to invest in each other and to help the poor become tax-paying citizens so that our tax base goes up even more alright so I think she thank you before we go to the next table I wanted to point out that I got the answer from Maria about rounding up the garbage fee and it would result in about $289,000 a year that round up alright you guys who wants to go next you guys okay um sure let's let's make it quick though I don't as long as we're not starting a debate I think that's fun thank you for that let's let's get the table for recommendations sorry I didn't write this bigger it's really important I didn't realize yeah this was our first draft but we didn't have time for another one okay so our first reduction would be in the tax abatements like others have said um also yay we also agree about street cars at our table not I mean this wasn't uniformly agreed upon but um code enforcement we felt could be uh reduced and then if the county city um management was consolidated maybe that would be a good reduction moving on to what we really want to maintain number one libraries um especially no cuts to the hours and to the bookmobile which is so incredibly important in terms of getting books in the hands of kids um we want to maintain health uh senior citizens specifically uh we also there was a big push at our table to support the public works maintain streets sidewalks and that and then the parks number four question alright thank you very much who's next right here already we decided to cut in tax abatements decrease uh cities cities center city development h park reduce executive staffing and reduce bonuses and incentives lower amounts of pay increase for police department and fire department no reductions to library services do not cut CRT positions more sidewalks and curves no no cuts in project uh project quest and more neighborhood parks no cuts to community pools alright okay those are good who's next ferris your group ferris who's in your group I am the group I'm the 18 by the way guys honestly you know we should give a hand to ferris he's someone who is involved in everything in the district he comes to every meeting he goes up at city hall all the time and I think that a lot of folks have a propensity to look at folks like ferris and jack is as folks who are there for the fun of it or the sport of it but I've come to believe over the past years that they're really here even if we disagree on things because they really really care so I really value the table of one that is ferris okay the first name are all the counselors need to uh your assistants need to make more money they need to increase that don't let them hear that they're right there I know what they're at I'm looking right at them I don't know their name though seriously they work hard for their money you work the daylight side of them I can tell you that what about me you need to get an increase too extra bologna sandwich no t-bone steak but in a way the PD overtime they need to cut that overtime in the city and the way you can do it I would like for all the city council and the city manager to go to Selma Texas if you ever been to Selma Texas you know what I mean there was 12 trucks on the left side 12 on the right side one police car must have been the sergeant they gave over they probably given about a hundred tickets a day and then they hauled their cars in if the city police would do that now they're doing it on Collabor they have four motorcycles giving tickets last week and they did it out there the sheriff's department is doing it out there on the other side of Bendera and I think the city of San Antonio need to do that hire 50 more policemen and that would be their job to give tickets all the time that would save a lot of money and this friend of mine he got a ticket he had to pay $168 so a hundred and sixty eight times a thousand y'all wouldn't have the problems y'all having now number two out in the Kenwood park the lights are cut off at night we have a game problem out there those lights need to stay on every night I want the the Kenwood community center double the size what it is right today we don't have enough space we don't have enough restrooms anything the sidewalk need to be rebuilt and many other things the next thing the downtown area we need more policemen in the downtown area the lights in the downtown area are dull the parks all over the city need more park police in the parks especially at night time cause there's a lot of crime going on the police department did clean up the downtown area people and the gang bangles the police said that was their turf so they pushed them completely out of the downtown area now they over there by haven for hope about 200 people just over in that area by haven for hope and we don't want to shut down haven for hope somebody said shut it down now those people need to be fed they need to be school and clothes and stuff like that we don't want to shut that down and then the next thing is we talk about the speeding tickets the police cars I think the city is buying too many police cars every year and they don't need the bottom every year they need the bottom every two or three years that's where you would save a lot of money the administration cars they buy new ones every year they don't need to do that the park lights we always talk about the park lights more police downtown brighter street lights employees with 10% pay raise which one is that one employees with 10% city employees with 10% pay raise it's coincidentally at a table full of city employees well I think they deserve a 10% pay raise I know who's working and who's not working I'm downtown at city hall five days a week God bless Ferris' generous heart just one or two more things we need to advertise for people to be more courtesy we're having a lot of DWIs in the city with over 500 regs Christmas day or Christmas night and I believe it's the police department give enough tickets like Selma that the pay raise they want now they can do it six months they can double or triple the amount of cars they give and I'm going to say this here this is a true story if y'all go to Travis County Austin, Texas they got a helicopter up in the air they have the sheriff department they have the police department they have the constables they have the patrol on both sides of the highway why can't San Antonio do the same thing? I want to say that our councilman is doing an outstanding job and I want him to keep the good work I know they beat y'all up last night I don't agree with it either but that's another story but I want to commend you because you had my archivan for the senior citizen those were some of the beautiful music I ever seen and on my TV show my TV show come on at 7.30 p.m. on Saturdays Ferris Horse Jr. TV show this is going to be the last thing this lady told me if I didn't sing in Spanish that the Hispanic people wouldn't watch my show I said wait a minute I do know how to sing in Spanish Feliz Navidad thank you alright thank you guys who's left this table here okay we wanted to I think we agree with most of what everybody else has said just to underscore that we recognize the city is a very poor city and lots of working class people and the jobs that are based are folks that work at hotels and the restaurants and all these places like what are they called the Texas and such and so our folks don't make money so that we want to avoid as many increases in fees because those are regressive fees to our people who don't have that money so a dollar cost for somebody that makes a million dollars is not the same as somebody that's on a fixed income so what's your name well Daniel also put a lot of these so don't just assume they're and Viola so it says reduce economic development incentives such as the infill center city and again as many people said limit tax abatements we understand that it's about 7 million dollars a year that we spend out on tax abatements and that again some tax abatements are 10 years some are 15 years some are 20 years so that's a lot of money that we could put somewhere else reduce or keep the same historic preservation budget that was Viola Viola and because I know that there are every year after we pass the budget it seems like CPS because we have 105 degree weather we're going to see an increase in CPS and what they give us and it seems that we see the increase after the budget cuts so if there is a surplus then we want to make sure that we stand by our priority list so that we keep the libraries we keep the parks if we're going to cut them now then let's make sure we put the money back later on when we see that CPS extra money come through it's a limit executive salaries and merit increases keep raises with I can't understand your handwriting with executives at same level as other city employees limit or reduce the police department expenditures he said between 5 and 8% would make 19 million dollars as other people said that meant not new cars every year or every two years some of us have our cars for how many years 20 25 years we are always like oh I have 300,000 miles on my car trim the fat extra equipment and don't pay all that extra overtime don't increase fees to make sure that we fund nice to have services which are not essential what are nice to have services just so we're clear because I'm not sure we all would share the same opinion what those are I agree too I think part of like I think they were talking about some cultural event some cultural centers and cultural centers that they're nice to have but they're not essential like police and fire just to speak on it a little bit I think one of the challenges is that not only do we have different opinions of what nice to have are but for example when it comes to our delegate agencies or programming like the book festival dress for success some people believe city government should be involved in any of those things we're always having about the role of government in going what some would argue beyond the core services sidewalks, fire, police, parks and a few other things my argument with that is that once we start drawing some of those lines then is it our job to bring jobs is it our job to bring companies here and provide 700 jobs for folks from the city the only reason I'm even talking about it is to point out that these things are not black and white that for the most part after you leave those four or five core city services we're in the gray we're in that gray area where we're trying to strike a balance between the budget reflecting our values and taking care of our folks and at the same time being responsible with our money so I appreciate that you said it I just wanted to clear it up to figure out what people meant that's what I meant and I can't stress enough that I don't want to spend more than what we're bringing in and I don't want to increase to have more of what we'd like to have to stay within our budget like everybody else has to stay and I definitely don't want to increase the property taxes not at all in fact I think we pay too much alright thank you and I did also stress that the historic preservation arts funding for delegate agencies and the convention and visitors bureau they get different funding from the general fund so although some people may want to still cut them they come from different sources and I for one don't want to see we always want to cut what we see is the extra stuff but it's what feeds our hearts and souls as well and I've learned this especially from the Viejitas and the Viejitos of the city that really say that it's essential to keep or increase again park infrastructure repair expansion he talked about alpine drive again the inner city parks that people talked about no lights there are a lot of places that only have ported bodies and not even real structures and some young men have told me that they play soccer and they don't even have places to change so they're changing in front and the neighbors are getting upset so that you know and yet we spend millions of others in parks like Harburger Park and they get both bond money and more general funds and inner city neighborhoods have very limited stuff concern again swimming pools our communities don't have swimming pools in our backyards some neighborhoods do so if we want to cut the ones that have those individual swimming pools at home then in the inner city neighborhoods from one through seven I think those parks and those swimming pools should stay around a long time as others said keep the 33 positions were being cut from the library and 44 from the parks so we were concerned about that if and this is again as people said if don't go beyond so we're now spending more for Hemisphere Park but we're not even able to keep the ones that we have so why are we it goes back to her don't go beyond our means if we can't maintain the ones we have maintain programs for youth and seniors keep brush pickup brushes bulk pickup increase hazardous waste centers and then additional funding for streets sidewalks and drainage and oh well it just was your stress of no new taxes okay all right thank you guys who's left here you go we're table one and I'm happy to be here and I'm glad our council member is here but we started out with the reductions we want to minimize the streetcar footprint 40 million dollars a mile of our money is going into this project obviously somebody didn't do their homework and they didn't study the same streetcar effect that Tulsa, Oklahoma has had if you go online you'll see what a mess that is we found that same track to be derailed we also talked about restricting or reducing tax abatements how many times are we going to be have our eyes poked out I'll give you a good example the Alcolla Reynolds aluminum recycling plant that was going off of high 87 and 410 year tax abatement guess what see ya quit doing that we have to be smarter than people that are coming into town and also I feel this way if a company wants to come to town we shouldn't give them one million dollars worth of infrastructure like we did for that South Korean panel company they want to come here and bring a million bucks put it up front as a deposit in 10 years you take half of it back if you leave we keep the whole thing one moment please I'd like to mention the millionaire condo program for 14 developments downtown the city kicked in 35 million dollars that's the whole library budget why? that's what I asked taxpayers accommodate misdirected downtown living it was the headline on my column of March 28 now what do these condos go for minimum of 200 dollars a square foot so we're subsidizing millionaires who can afford it they can't drive 5 miles to play in work downtown but they can afford to pay these exorbitant prices and pay a quarter of a million dollars for a 700 foot condo and over there balconies they can watch a couple of drunks duking it out at night or they can watch the urban blight or some of the other things now how much how well do these condos do why do we even need them in the first place well you talk about the Vidora okay the Vidora was built in 2009 a couple of weeks after my column they had an auction auctioning off 30 of the properties that were unsolved in four years so the public rejected these so even with their subsidies no one wants to buy them or they can't afford to buy them whatever they're not the only ones these other projects they can't afford yet the city is subsidizing them the city is giving developers the money if they can get 250 dollars a square foot they probably can goose it up to 270 dollars a square foot rather than having housemaids and fry cooks at fast food people doing it with their sales taxes and stuff so again just one little spiff 35 million dollars and that's just the city contribution the county is also kicking in on some of these things that's how bad some of these abatements are can we get a rebate you know what you want 10% of your property if you're buying a house the city can pay 10% of your property that's what we do here along with the reduction or restriction of tax abatement we also talked about reducing redundancy there are too many departments doing the same thing they should be combined or eliminated and I'll give you another one too along with this every year and I'm very compassionate I'll give the councilman my shoes my shirt but I want to know why every year we keep giving Haven for Hope money that could go to the senior citizens somewhere else there's no accountability there and we keep expanding and it's great if it was only for the people of San Antonio but it's not everybody is coming down here redundancy we tried to be just like San Diego and they shut their homeless center down I think we need to do the same thing okay that was our 3 this police and fire union on contracts we need to reduce the amount that they are proposing you know what they're not going to quit why because they signed a contract says they can't quit and they can't go on strike I know I used to be a federal agent and that's the same contract that they signed I signed okay we can't be given away the farm and I know it's a dangerous job but we have to be frugal with our money it's not their money it's our money so that's what we talked about as far as priorities no reduction to library services in fact we should increase library services and their funding we also need to increase or maintain the current level of 20 CRTs maybe boost it up to 30 they do a job that most people will not do and that is to see the sorrow and hurt of family violence so they need help also so I say increase it we don't want to be like other departments that you know they just set off their emotions these people can't we also want to improve the quality of services for senior citizens and by that we need to have a professional licensed nutritionist go to each of the centers and look at the starches that they're feeding our senior citizen by the way I'm a senior citizen and I can't afford to eat starch okay same thing with the accessibility there is no transportation for most seniors going into the now combined senior citizen centers they used to be like different outposts where in the neighborhood the seniors would all gather they knew each other now they have to take two sometimes three buses to get to where they're supposed to be by the time they get there they're worn out especially in this heat so we need to provide transportation services to our seniors and high quality food I know we can do it this is America and this is San Antonio and we're compassionate okay we also need to increase our enforcement at animal care services these poor guys and I've got to tell you I've called them six times in one day waiting for them to come there but I understand why they're stretched so thin we need to increase their funding and also enforce the people the owners that have these pets to run wild okay and last but not least along with that we want to double the brush and bulk item pickups it's killing us councilman it is especially you know where I live okay now are you saying just on the last part are you saying because people have items in the front of their house for too long or what about it isn't sufficient now help me understand that once a year it's correct what people are going to do as human beings I'm a landlord and what they'll do is dump the stuff um it's taking properties twice to bulk we circle a city four times a year so we say that you want that every three months we're at your house and we alternate it so that you'll have brushed one three months and the next three months it's bulk so if six months apart if they're alternating we're in front of your house every three months it's four times a year okay I don't want to make sure well I heard what you said and I listened real good however Mr. Bernal I gotta tell you at my house I'm lucky if they come by once a year and I'll tell you why oh well we can't get in there so they keep on going and I have to call them I'd like to see that look you guys can hang out after this one last item I forgot to mention about senior citizens are renting the properties why can't we buy them and make them permanent senior citizens well we are and here's I appreciate that let me close up and talk about a couple things my job is to listen to you guys but I also want to share with you some of my priorities just starting off before this process the things that I'm interested in doing what's tough about some of this is that some of these are conflicting in this instance you're asking for an increase from two to three or more other folks are saying you should drop down to one you're asking about buying vacant properties and redeveloping them for single family a lot of other people are saying to cut infill development and that's what that is so you can see that part of our job is difficult because we're getting a variety of sort of broad range range of suggestions that are tough for us in our office we care very much about the CRT positions for those of you who haven't heard those are essentially social worker type civilian employees who work with SAPD and if I get it wrong let me know and they focus almost exclusively on battered women and domestic violence issues if you've ever gone on a ride along with SAPD you'll note that a tremendous amount of their time is spent responding to domestic violence issues and family violence issues and so right now we're at 20 there's a suggestion to go to 10 I think there's pretty much unanimous support in the council to get back up to 20 one way or another and I know it's not easy we also have maintained the level of street and sidewalk repair and installation as we did last year one thing that I'm especially happy about is that my staff and I passed an ordinance early on which was to prioritize the installation of sidewalks around schools that didn't have them you know I know that sidewalks can become a very political thing you want a sidewalk in front of your home you've been asking for 40 years you want a sidewalk in front of your home you've been asking for 30 years I have only so much money to do it but I think we can all agree that if we find schools especially elementary schools around the city not just in our district that don't have sidewalks we can all agree that that's a place where we can agree that they should go first and so it deep politicizes the whole thing so a big part of our street and sidewalk program includes nearly five million dollars to pilot a sidewalks around schools program so that's us spending our money in a way that we believe is needed most and then of course beyond that we're committed to maintaining levels as they were in the past but things do get more expensive I agree on the library hours issue I agree on the pool issues everything else of course gets great but that's sort of our from our office that's our starting point and then we're going to take all the things that we've heard you guys say and around the city and incorporate them on August 28th there'll be another one of these it's a citywide presentation and then there'll be another one on September 4th and so that's at the city hall chambers one at the city hall chambers at six o'clock yes yes it's at the same time as citizens to be heard which on September 4th is going to be interesting but that being said are there any more questions or comments yes Mr. Finger that's right to clarify what Jack was saying that at six o'clock is when you'll have the budget presentations and then citizens to be heard will happen after that Ferris yes let me respond to that you're talking about sidewalks between Fortin and Oblate on McCullough and I can and I can tell you that for our district the two schools that are part of the pilot the first year of sidewalks around schools is Neal Elementary if you guys don't know where that is that's on Blanco and Bassey there's a bunch of churches along Bassey about two blocks in is it is a little inner city pocket where there's an elementary school and they're getting sidewalks and Regio Elementary on McCullough between Fortin and Oblate so we'll see how that goes thank you guys so much for your time thank you for your attention we really appreciate it please believe me and trust me that this is not an exercise in futility we are taking all of your comments and taking them seriously we'll see you at the next one thank you very much