 I call this, I'll give you the whole meeting to order. Rockall, please. Court. Exused. Bowers. Here. Decker. Sorry, excused. Gisha. Here. Hammond. Here. Hannah. Here. Heidemann. Exused. Coth. Here. Kittleson is here. Montemayor. Here. Radke. Here. Reinfleisch. Here. Vanderweel. Here. Percy. Here. Anwangeman. Here. The quorum is present. You, Vice President. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Looking for approval of previous minutes? So moved. Second. Motion has been made in second. Approved the previous minutes. All in favor say aye. Aye. Chair votes aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next on the agenda is a statement from the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, myself, regarding the role of the mayor during the committee meetings. I put this on the agenda based on the communication I received from Alderman Wangeman, thinking for your concern. The request was to see if having the mayor speak during the Committee of the Whole is appropriate or not. And Alderman Wangeman, you are correct that the statute showed that the mayor is not a member of this committee to speak. I have been aware of that and was aware of that. My decision, though, in the last meeting to allow him to speak was based on the role I see of this committee, which is to gather as much information as possible, debate it amongst ourselves, and make a decision amongst ourselves. And amongst ourselves, there's only the 16 of us and the mayor. There's only one person that's a full-time person that isn't City Hall, and that is the mayor. And so I deemed it important that the mayor could speak on issues that were facing the Committee of the Whole. In particular, it was the fire department and the ambulance service, knowing that the mayor was traveling together as information on that. So I did make a decision to allow the mayor to speak, and it's one that I will continue to do so. However, the decision by the Chair is not final. This is, of course, your committee, not mine. And any decision of the Chair can be objected to. And that objection, if seconded, goes to a vote. And the majority of the committee can't overrule the ruling of the Chair. So my word is not final. And it's deemed inappropriate from the committee. It is the committee's decision, not mine, to allow the mayor to speak. Because again, technically, it's not part of the committee. But my view has always been to gather as much information as possible. That's the role of this committee versus the Common Council as they meet, so that we can have the information that we need to discuss items. So I'll go along. I want to thank you for bringing that up. Any other questions? Not a question. It's just a statement. I had a conversation with the city attorney. And he informed me that the status of the mayor at these committees is that of an interested citizen. And I really strongly feel that we should observe the same protocols we would if anybody else in the back room wanted to speak. I know the mayor's got a special position, but we have espoused the feelings many times that we should follow Robert's rules of order. And I think you could justify that position in Robert's rules of order. And so whatever your decision is at the time, I guess it's entirely up to you. But I would certainly suggest that we follow Robert's rules of order and treat the mayor the same as we would any other citizen who's here to witness these proceedings. And I just like to say that there's nothing personal in this. I just think that if we're going to follow the rules, we're going to follow the rules and if we're not going to, well then we're not going to. But technically, I think we're bound to follow the rules of Robert's rules of order because these committees have always done that. Even in the smallest of committees, we do that. We non-committee members do come to our meetings and they sit along the sidelines and they raise their hand, would we want to speak in the chair of acknowledges? I mean, they can speak. I have no problem with that. But I think what's the old saying, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. We maybe should follow those kind of rules. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Longwin. And I don't disagree with that. The mayor in the past has sat at my desk, hasn't been set up here. As far as I'm concerned, that's a convenience factor. In yes, in smaller committees, we would call on visiting all the persons of the mayor to sit. However, I think as a matter of time issue and convenience issue, having the mayor come up to the podium all the time, it's only the action reason why I allowed him to sit at my desk and use the board at that point in time. I have no problem where he sits. I mean, that's not, that's really not of me. If you want to let him sit next to you, that's fine with me. And that's the reason why I had done so. There was nothing unruly or trying to bend the rules or break the rules in any way. It was just a matter of, there's information from the mayor that I felt was important. I thank you for your opinion and concern. Thank you. All right, thank you. Is there any other discussion points on my issue? Seeing none, we'll move on. And brings us to an update from the mayor regarding the fire department ambulance service. Mayor, as far as I'm concerned, you may sit at my desk. If you'd like to sit at the Santa podium, you may do so as well. I'm sure you want me to speak. I do. If I may, Chief Herman will also join me. Chief, please do. Okay, the Chief and I took an excursion to Minnesota. We visited two cities, which were Eden Prairie and Maple Grove. Eden Prairie, we spent the better part of an entire day with the city manager, the fire chief. And toward a, there's some of their fire departments and the city in general. We took a tour of the city, including the industrial areas, the neighborhoods. And the differences in Eden Prairie in Sheboygan, I found alarming as opposed to the similarities. Similarities population-wise, they are very similar. Big difference between Sheboygan and Eden Prairie is the density. Eden Prairie is a community of about 60,000 people. Average household income is a little over $110,000, which is almost triple what Sheboygan is right now. Average home value is $306,000. A lot of single-family homes spread apart, as opposed to what we have in Sheboygan, which is a lot of multifamily structures. And the age of our homes in general is much greater than what Eden Prairie is. There's basically not much in Eden Prairie in the entire city that's over 30 years old. So it's a very modern city. It's a suburb of Minneapolis. It's one of the concentric circles that run around Minneapolis. A lot of their, with their average household income in home value, it is a very, a lot of well-tended properties. A lot of modern structures are sprinklered, hardwired, smoke alarm systems, now their fire department themselves, basically they run somewhere around 10 full-time employees in the fire department, and I believe it's 90, 90 paid-on-call firefighters. Now by paid-on-call, that basically means that they are paid for their training and they are paid for the time that they are actually called out. They do not have an ambulance service, as we do. Their average response time, and I'll let the chief cover some of this, is about seven minutes. Basically what they do in the average response time where they get enough firefighters on scene to actually fight a fire is about 11 minutes. Their main goal there is to save the adjoining structures. What they do is they go to a fire. The first unit there puts a hose on the one building, the next unit puts a hose on the other building, and then they start fighting the fire itself. In other words, they save a lot of basements. However they do not have the density that we have as far as fire spreading rapidly into adjoining buildings. The Eden Prairie, and I believe the Maple Grove Fire Department has not had a burning building entry in 10 years, I believe, 10 or 11 years that they have actually entered a burning building in a rescue operation or in order to go into a building to try to save the building from the inside. That is one of the major differences. I'll let the Chief speak more on this, if you will, Chief. As the Mayor said, they do not really do interior firefighting. They basically get there and protect exposures. We asked both of the fire chiefs that we spoke to if they were dealing with the property density similar to Sheboygan, what their results would be, and both of them said that more than likely they would have a couple of structures on fire before they actually could put them out just because of the closeness that we have of our housing. They do not experience that there. I would say the subdivisions that we drove through, probably the closest house was 40 to 50 feet apart with actually no rear exposures. They're all cul-de-sac type subdivisions. It was interesting that neither city has ever had a fire fatality in the history of their city. I think that can be attributed to a number of things. Average age of their cities were about 35 to 40 years old for the residents. And also, they had a very aggressive code program, as the Mayor said, with hardwired smoke detectors in all homes, and I think a lot of that has to do with its newer construction. If all our, I think if we look back to all our homes 20 years old or so, they also all have hardwired smoke detectors. A lot of their, all of their commercial buildings are sprinkled by code and monitored by outside agencies, which is a big advantage for early notification. And some of their homes also are sprinkled and monitored by outside agencies. It's interesting in Eden Prairie, the fire chief was looking into a program to require all homes to be retrofitted with sprinkler systems. They're looking ahead to, yes, their city's only 30 years old now. At some point, it'll be seven years old and they'll be facing issues similar to what we have. And they're looking at mandating sprinkler systems in the homes in an effort to keep the cost of their fire department down. As the Mayor said, we didn't really see any industry in those cities, it was more individual type light manufacturing and office buildings. As far as like a mall area, it's more strip malls with satellite type buildings so they don't deal with the 8th street areas that we have with adjoining buildings that share common walls. Anything I'm missing? One thing I would like to add, and this is all preliminary information, this is not to be taken as gospel, we have a lot more work to do on other communities. Eden Prairie averages for four structure fires a year in their community of 60,000 people. That's a big difference, I believe that Maple Grove was under 10 a year. A huge difference from what we experience here. So when we compare, which I hate to use this phrase, but as the, was it Eden Prairie or Maple Grove? Chief of Eden Prairie. Chief of Eden Prairie, he said, comparing Sheboygan to Eden Prairie is like comparing apples to potatoes, which I found kind of ironic, not even apples to oranges. One thing that we did see a huge difference in, in both Eden Prairie and Maple Grove, was basically the outlook of the people. People seemed generally content. People seemed to be happy to live where they did. People seemed to be enlightened in a way that they were very, very happy with their government and the way things were run there. Their government structure is totally different than ours. They have a grand total of four aldermen, all that large. Good. Yeah, it's a totally different community than we have here. It's newer, it's younger. It's more prosperous, it's more residential. Mayor, can you refresh my memory? Why were these two communities picked? These two communities were originally picked because they had similar populations and they were doing things with 10 full-time firefighters. We thought, you know, why go to somewhere in between when you can go to the people that are doing it the best? And with the, not the best, but with the least amount of personnel and cost. That's why we picked these cities. Now, we did find out when we got there that these cities are much different than Sheboygan. Now, that doesn't mean that Sheboygan can eventually go to some sort of a full-time paid-on call status. But that is something that is, you know, to be decided. Obviously, if we were to do that in Sheboygan, we would be sacrificing some things. Obviously, we wouldn't probably have five firehouses and we definitely wouldn't be in the ambulance business at that point. So that's, you know, that's food for thought. But like I said in the chief said, response times are a lot different. The lay of the land is a lot different. The density is a lot different. Not a lot of two family homes, not a lot of people that, you know, you have a resident downstairs and a resident upstairs or three or four families living in a structure. A lot more modern, a lot better. A lot more sprinkler systems, a lot of hardwired smoke alarm systems. When they only have four structure fires in a year, that tells you that it's a totally different community than we have here. So that's one thing that has to be kept in mind in the future. We did make an attempt on the way back. We had a meeting with the mayor, city manager, city administrator of Menominee, which has a 50-50 program, 50%, full-time 50% paid-on call. Unfortunately, we got there at our prescribed time and he had a funeral to go to. So he wasn't available to entertain us that afternoon. So we didn't get a lot of information out of there. My goal is to visit some cities that are more similar to Sheboygan that do things differently than we do. We thought we would start with the people that do things most differently than we do. However, I don't think we gleaned enough information there because of the differences in our cities and the number of fires, et cetera, to be very meaningful. So this is a work in progress. I believe we need to find more cities that are similar to Sheboygan that do things differently than we do and see how they do that. So that's all we have for now. Available for questions? We seem to have some box questions here. Sure. Chief, please. One of the things that we did find in Eden Prairie and I'm not positive if it was the same in Maple Grove is that they had a very aggressive rental property inspection program. And sounds great, but they are, as the mayor said, very different to us. I don't think we saw a two-family home anywhere. Their rental properties, I think, consisted more of 50, 100, 200-unit apartment buildings. But they did charge a fee for those inspections, $50 a building and $9.95 an occupancy. They did inspect those once every four years, I believe. And they too said that when they initiated it, it was not real popular amongst the landowners. But after a while, after they started going through and getting into the individual units and helping the landlords clean the places up, evidently before that time, they had quite a number of balcony fires of people frying outside on their balconies in these large apartment buildings. And that helped clean that up, which the landowners, the property owners, really appreciated that, kept their insurance rates down. As we look through the cities, and I've done a lot of comparisons on other cities in the state, around the country, haven't put a report together on them yet, last week I was in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, thought that that maybe was a department that is in between us and Eden Prairie. They have about 50 or 52 firefighters, I believe, run a staff each day of about 12 firefighters on duty, which in comparison to Sheboygan, we're running about 17, 18 right now. The big difference there, again, is they have Karahe and St. Francis right on their borders. They have a mutual aid station within a mile of their border. And they also utilize auto aid dispatching. So when a call comes in, which says smoke showing or flames showing, something that actually sounds like there may be a fire going on, they use that auto aid dispatching and they immediately get resources from the adjoining departments. And that's really the difference that I've seen in all the cities that we've looked at between those cities and Sheboygan. We just don't have that. When we call for help from the adjoining towns, we get it, but it takes 20 minutes. And there's two things that are key to firefighting. It's response times and getting the right amount of firefighters there within those response times. And those times are within eight minutes. You need to get your first unit there in three or four, but you need your resources there in eight minutes. And that's where we struggle here. And that's really the differences. And I think as the council weighs the options of the fire department in the city, you need to tell us what are the results you want from our fire department? Are you happy with the results you're getting? Can we not afford to continue in this mode? But you need to tell us what are the results that you want from our fire department. Thank you, Chief. Alderman Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of questions for the mayor or the chief. Did the chief in Eden Prairie tell you why he is not in the ambulance business? It's quite a different system in Minnesota. It's regional ambulance services that run out of the larger hospitals and cover a very large area. They did complain that they wait a long time for an ambulance sometimes. Like, would it be without, how should I say this? Within a timeframe that would not be conducive for a heart patient? I would say, yeah, they said they were waiting 11, 12, 13 minutes once in a while for an ambulance. So they are private companies, though? They are private companies and the fire department does not run first responders, the police departments are first responders in both cities. And I think they're able to do that because as the city administrator stated, they don't have the crimes on humanity in their communities, so their police department is freed up, I think, a little bit more for those, for first responding. If I could follow up, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Then another question I have is, did they go into you, go over with you at all, kind of the blend of people that they have of volunteers. They have blue collar, white collar, and then what is the difficulty in recruiting if there is any difficulty and then what else, you know, how much do they pay them? I think you said for training and then when they actually are called out to a fire, can you cover some of that? Yeah, this is Eden Prairie. The average paid-on call employee is 43 years old. And what they have is they have firefighter one, firefighter two, and they state certification. They train every Thursday, so every Thursday they're paid for their training time. Basically, they must live within seven minutes of a fire station, so their house has to be within seven minutes of their fire station. But they prefer them to live within three minutes of the station. Basically, they carry pagers and they have a minimum that are required to be available at all times. So they have a minimum amount that are available via pager to respond. They provide them with all of their gear and they pay their workman's comp, which is equal to the rate of their workman's comp, which is equal to the pay at their regular job or $52,000, whichever is highest. So they pay for their workman's comp. And they have long-term disability insurance. Eden Prairie pays $7.50 each time they train. Maple Grove pays 12 and a half bucks an hour anytime they're conducting any fire department business, including training. Now, one thing they do receive is a pension when they retire in a lump sum payment of $56 for every month that they serve. So they have $56 goes into a retirement fund that they're paid for every month that they serve as a paid-on-call employee. They have to serve at least 10 years to receive their pension and the annual cost to the city is about $250,000 a year for their pensions for their paid-on-call employees. Could I just ask one more, Mr. Chairman? Chief, you were talking about inspections. Are those just fire inspections? Or do they do the actual regular building inspections and did they give you an idea of how much revenue they're generating for Eden Prairie every year? It's just the fire inspections and they did not give us what the total amount was that they collected, just how much it was for each individual unit. Okay, thank you. I'll hand on your next before you speak. Just to follow up on one of the points you brought up regarding, I guess, Minnesota and the ambulance service. It's something that I hadn't put too much thought into. In many years, it's something that I put out of my mind, but when I was 19 and a student in University of Minnesota, I was brutally attacked downtown Minneapolis. Six blocks away from Hennepin County Medical Center, which turns out to be that district. Hennepin County responded with their ambulance to anything within that district there. My recollection is I waited over 10 minutes for six blocks away because they were on call somewhere else. The first responder was police. They literally came and left before the ambulance service came because that was within that particular territory. There was no municipal. It wasn't open to whichever ambulance service. I'm not sure what the plan was. All I know is that I was sitting in a commercial building bleeding for many minutes waiting for the right ambulance service to get there. So the system I can say is a little bit different. I don't know all the information of how it's different. They know better than I do, but it's not better. I'll can tell you that. Having blood out substantially in a bank building. It's six o'clock in the afternoon because the ambulance was somewhere else than the proper ambulance. So we could look at that further more, but issues like that are coming back to me. It's something that I put on my mind a long time ago and it's not better. I think we have a better system right now. Obviously we need to make some changes, but there's things to think about. Just simply having paid on call is not necessarily the answer. Thank you. If I may, if I can say this trip was not at all a waste of time. It did give us a lot of good information on the way they do things there. I look at it as it's the first step in the process. They are the extreme of where we're at. They are on the other end of the spectrum. And it was very interesting to see the way they did things. But I believe we need to find something more similar to our city in order to keep moving forward in this process. Thank you. Elma Hanna. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Chief. What is the total cost of fire protection for Eden Prairie or Maple Grove? Did you have both numbers in the green? Maple Grove is 2,843,000. Eden Prairie was, I think, around 4,000,000. While you're doing that, how many fire stations are in Eden Prairie and how many fire stations are in Maple Grove? Eden Prairie is 5,415,700. 5,415,700. Think four stations in Eden Prairie. And I don't honestly remember Maple Grove. I believe Maple Grove is four also. One thing that's unique about these areas is these were townships. And they basically took a township, which was a rectangle, and incorporated it into a city. So their landmass is much greater. But also, then, their density is much less. So it's easier shaped. Basically, they have, in 36 square miles, they have the population of what we have a little bit over the population of Sheboygan. And we are at 14. We're at 14 square miles. So it tells you that the density of the population is much different. Alden Giesha. Just a quick question. I think the council voted unanimously to, I think it was added onto the budget resolution. Somebody want to remind me of that, to have a report, I believe, by the end of December on options. Was that the budget resolution? That was the hiring freeze. That was with the other committee of the whole meeting? Thank you. I couldn't remember which one it was. And to have some sort of layout of options and so forth. I guess my question is from right here, the information you've gathered from here, where do we go from here? What is the next steps involved to get to that? Well, we need to do more research on more like cities, number one, in order to glean some information that is more similar to what we have here in Sheboygan. That would be the first step. A lot of it is going to be guidance from the council. What do we want? I know we have a talk of putting in a referendum on the ambulance. If the ambulance disappears at the end of the year, it's a whole different ball game. If we're not doing ambulance, then we're looking at something totally different. There are several options. I can tell you right now, the one option right now in the city of Sheboygan is not to go to 10 full-time firefighters and 90 paid on call. I don't believe that's an option for us, unless we want to lose several buildings at a time in our city, with the age of our city and the number of structure fires that we have. We have to remember right here, they had four structure fires last year, four. How many did we have? Probably 70. We had 70. That's a huge difference. And that needs to be looked at. That can't be ignored. For the safety of the citizens, it can't be ignored. Four to 70 is a huge difference. So that's a work in progress. Myself and the chief, we do need guidance from the council. What direction are we going to go? Are we in the ambulance business, or are we out of the ambulance business? If we're out of the ambulance business, we have a different budget we're working with for the fire department to start with. If we're out of the ambulance business, we're working with a different budget without that. No matter how you shake it, the ambulance brings in revenue. That revenue disappears. So then we're at a different basis. Do we go down to three firehouses? If we do, which three? And do we, at that point then, go from a full-time staff to part full-time, part paid-on call? I mean, it's all relevant. But first, we need to know where we're at. Hello, Radke. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chief. I just had a question on Oak Creek chief. Was that city similar in the structures and the closeness of the buildings, or is that similar to more Eden Prairie where it's more spread out? That, again, is I don't think they're quite as new as Eden Prairie, but it's more similar to that. It's, I forget what the square mileage was, but it's not, they don't have the issues that we have of houses close together. It would be more similar to the Eden Prairie. OK. Thank you. Hold ahead. Yeah, last question, really, really, it's a comment. I think that the chief touched on it. And really, the discussion should be what are acceptable statistical outcomes. I mean, at the end of the day, that's the discussion. If you get out of the ambulance business and go to three stations, will you? Another issue we have to look at, if you're out of the ambulance business and you go to three stations, you also need first responders. Right now, our fire department is our first responders. So if we're out of that business, who are the first responders? That's another question. Statutorily, am I correct that the police department cannot be? It has always been, since the police department was in the business, it's been the fire department. If we're going down to three stations and a minimal amount of firefighters, because that's the direction that we want to go, we also have to answer the question of who's doing the first responding. Do we add more police officers and make them first responders? If we do the way that the chief is policing right now is totally different, because then you need your first responders in certain areas of the city at all times. So we have to add more officers in order to have first responders. That's an expense. Or do we take a private ambulance business and basically subsidize them to become first responders? Because obviously, they need more staff and more ambulances in order to be first responders. So that's a question that has to be answered. For every savings here, there may be an expense there, and it all needs to be looked at. Your Honor, if I may, and keep in mind that first responders are not EMTs, necessarily. And my example, again, is the first responders, the police department, came and left having done nothing for me, because I wasn't having a stroke. I wasn't having a heart attack. But they responded. They were there. They did nothing, because it wasn't a heart attack. It wasn't a stroke. There wasn't nothing they could do. There wasn't a tourniquet they could put on. But I was bleeding from my face and nose. So there's nothing they could do. They left to go on a crime call, because they're the police department that responded there. Well, I waited for the ambulance service. So keep that in mind. The first responder does not equate to emergency life-saving techniques. Okay, Alderman Born. Thank you. One more quick one. Mary, you were using the scenario that if we got out of the ambulance business, that we would be down to three stations. If we got out of the ambulance business, we would have a decision to make of whether we were gonna lay off for people, the four people that are attributed to the ambulance business. If we did lay those four people off, I guess the question would be for the chief. If we did get out of the ambulance business and we laid off those four people, wouldn't you still have enough personnel left to do four stations? That's a two-sided question, because with the ambulance service, in addition to the four people, goes about $400,000 in additional revenue. So if you're gonna take that out of my budget, that's another seven people, roughly, six or seven people. So at that point, no, we do not have enough for five stations, we barely have enough for four. And I guess my comment would be, why would you do that? Why would you have status quo on your budget, but less stations and less firefighters to go to fires? That scenario, to me, does not make sense. If I could just follow up, though, but if we kept the four individuals, we got out of the ambulance business, if that happened, and we kept the four individuals, then could you keep four stations open? Yes, you could keep the four stations open, but what I'm saying is it would be budget neutral, or that scenario would cost you more money. You'd have one less fire station and less firefighters on duty every day, so I don't know why you would consider that scenario. Well, if you got out of the ambulance business and you laid off four people, that's roughly what, $240,000, then you have another $200,000 in ambulances expenses, so let's say that takes 450 off of whatever the profit was from the ambulance, just say hypothetically, taking that off $350 to $400,000. So can you explain that if we got into that scenario, then if we laid the, is that just what you were saying, then if we laid off the four people, we lost that $250,000 in salary and benefits, and we lost the $200,000 in expenses, we still got a whole of $350 or $400,000. Is that what you're saying? Exactly, it's about $400,000. Thank you. If I may, I think the thing we have to keep in mind is that budgetarily it's not going to get any better in the next few years, that we can incur more expense. The reason that we went on this is to try to figure out a way to curb expenses. So we have to keep that in mind, I mean, in anything that we look at, I can pretty much be assured that we're not going to have more money for our 11 budget than we had in 10. Hello, Mikesha. Just to clarify, we charge four individuals to the fire department, because at the time that's what we felt we added to the budget to do it, plus all the additional expenses. Those four people aren't there anymore. If you recall, there been more, and we had seven retire, we hired back four. So really, you lost three of those four people. The budget is still set up to charge those four, they're just a different four, having nothing to do with the original plan. It's just a charge, so if you take the charge, if you eliminate those four and get out of the ambulance, you'd be eliminating four more. So since the first of the year, then you'd be eliminating a total of seven. But if it's just a matter of accounting, that's out of the general fund, and on a separate, being paid for by a separate revenue source, it's like if your neighbor paid for your lawn mowing. It gets done, but the revenue comes from a different spot, your neighbor. So the four isn't four anymore, yet we'll charge it that way, because that's where we have it set up. Frankly, if you wanted to charge 10 or whatever, deed up that whole thing, it really doesn't matter, because it then puts a burden on the general fund. The difference between monies coming from alternative revenue sources, and Adam Payne did quite a speech last night at the county board meeting of some of the things they need to do, they need to diversify their revenue sources. And that's what really the ambulance is, it's a diversification of a revenue source like your neighbor paying for your lawn mowing service. But so if you take away the diversified revenue source, which has given us relief on our general fund, the difference between those two is taxpayer and raising a taxes on the general fund. On the revenue source, alternative revenue sources that is non-tax payer revenue, huge difference. Non-tax levy revenue, let's say. So if you eliminate that revenue, which is paying for four, but from an account cost accounting standpoint, it doesn't fit the marginal cost any longer, because we've lost three on the marginal cost, but that's okay, you can put whatever you want on that. The other factors that, so if you eliminate that, it puts more pressure on your general fund, which is taxpayers, and that will put more pressure on future tax increases rather than really what this particular, you can call it an ambulance service, you can call, let's just say it's a alternative revenue source, it's a diversified revenue source. What that's done in the last two years is, allowed us to reduce the budget of the fire department, which has gone down over the last two years, reduce their staff, and reduce taxes. That's the trifecta. So the point being, that's great. If you wanna, if there's another plan that works better to, and for some reason, there's enough bodies to do an ambulance service, Dandy, but you're gonna then put, you gotta deal with the general fund, then besides, because as you noted, because it does put pressure on the general fund, and then thus the taxpayers in every single block in this town. All of them are in place. Sure, it's an interesting conversation. If, for example, we got to that scenario where we had to put the taxes on the general fund, I talked to our city assessor, David Lusky, last Friday on another issue, and we somehow got off on this. He said it costs $500,000 a year to run his department, and he said, as far as, it costs the average taxpayer about $28. So if we're talking about filling a hole of somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000, that would be about what it would cost if we would put that on the property tax, on the backs of the property taxpayers, if we were out of the ambulance services. Give or take, yeah. Give or take, so it'd probably be somewhere between $20 and $30. Yeah, a year on an average property. And we have, he said we have about 17,000 parcels that pay property taxes. I think I figured it one time at $23, so 20 to 30, it makes sense, I guess. I have one more question for the chief, it's just interesting. Yeah, you're up, go ahead. And that question is, chief, the one department that you visited, you mentioned they had 50 paid firefighters, and then they had 50 paid on call. How, is that what you said on one of those, what was the one where they had 50 firefighters paid? Old Creek has a staff of 52. Okay, but there wasn't- I think he was mentioning- The nominee. There was 50-50. The nominee. The nominee is a 50-50 split, except that, according to their chief, it's not quite 50-50 because they only have, I think they're, don't hold me to this number, but I think they had about 20 spots for 25 paid on call, but only had about 10 filled, and it could only count on three or four to actually show up. My question would be then, if you have a staff like that, let's say it's 50 paid, and then let's say 30, 40, or 50 paid on call, would you use your paid staff, you might say for the smaller fires, and just calling your on calls when you needed them, like for example, just, I wanna use the example of slides, but you would use your paid staff first and only call in the on call staff when you have a big one. Is that how they do it there, or how would? Well, in Oak Creek, because they only respond with, they have three stations with a minimum staffing of four, so they respond with 12 people, that's not enough people to fight even a small house fire, they automatically call for mutual aid from Cudahoe in St. Francis. So to answer your question, no, we would, on a normal house fire, yes, we would go with the paid people, but we would immediately have to call for other people, being that we don't have a paid department next to us, we'd have to wait that whatever the time is for them to get there. Okay. Alderman Boren, you know, they don't triage fires in Minnesota either. They don't say, okay, big fire, small fire. When they have their paid on call, you know, they have their regular staff, their paid on call goes to the fire department. It's, everyone is a fire, they don't determine, okay, we need 10 guys or we need 20 guys, it's the guys that are on call, I'll show up. One other thing they do with their paid on call guys is they actually, and we took some pictures of these when we have a final report, we'll show them to you, they spend a lot of money on their fire houses, on the brick and mortar. Beautiful buildings, huge lounges, big screen TVs, very comfortable places, great workout rooms that they try to get their paid on call guys basically to use it as a social outlet to hang out at their fire houses. That way if something happens, I mean they sit around and they're there, so your paid on call guys, I mean they really have some beautiful properties that they've spent a lot of money on to try to make it their second home per se that they will, you know, they normally will have a few guys that are, that when they're not working are hanging out per se. And actually both of those cities are moving towards going to what is called a duty shift, I believe it's called, where they pay the people the $750 an hour to actually be in the fire station because they were running into a response time problem, so they were starting to implement that night times and day times. Alton Ogman. Thank you for the resolution that's being introduced that I'm a co-author of. I would just like to point out, it's not a resolution calling for a decision on the ambulance service, it's a resolution calling to give the taxpayers of this city a right to tell us what they want. I can't imagine why anybody in this council floor would not wanna know what their constituents want. This committee, or I should say the council, failed to come to a conclusion. We deadlocked, which was no decision at all. So now we're turning to the taxpayer, to the people saying, look, what do you people want? And that's what this resolution is about. And I'm afraid we're gonna get way off of it and, you know, straight from the point, the point is shall we give the taxpayer the right to speak? That's all it says. I have Alder and Ratke. Are you pushed in? That must have been on from last time. Okay, let's give it in. Thank you, sir. And I agree with Alderperson Ogman. They have the right to speak at any time. But for us to do our job, we must supply and answer the adequate information. Not as simple, it's not as, I think you're hearing tonight, it's not as simple as a yes or no answer. For instance, if we move that money, and this would be a question for the authors, I think, to consider, or things that need to consider as it works its way through committee, we get a million dollars, one million dollars a year from the state of Wisconsin into expenditure restraints. That's because we haven't been growing our general fund. What will the elimination or the increase of our general fund by the elimination of a revenue source have to do, how will that have an effect on the million dollars? That is a direct effect on the taxpayers. I think it needs to, questions need to be answered. Would you accept a tax increase without this? Because it has been our reason for not having a tax increase. What in the general fund would you offset, the additional monies that this puts into the general fund over and above operating costs, pay for cops and stuff like that? How else will this affect other services? And if it is all going to be put on the fire department, fine, implode the fire department down, that's fine. But then what should the citizens be able to expect for response time? What should they expect in help from all the services that would be affected for that loss of revenue? So in its most basic form I agree with you a gazillion percent, but without that data, so that the citizens have an idea of what's at stake as we're involved with these things closer than they are, I think it's only fair that all that information be given to the citizens to make a decision. Alderman Wagemann, you'll be next. Before I get too far in this issue of the question of the putting it to the referendum, that document has been referred and will be more appropriately I believe to be discussed in finance committee as we're not prepared to discuss it tonight. And if the finance committee decides to refer back to me the whole, I welcome that. We can all be more prepared for that way. It was also referred to committee the whole. It was, but we're side of the agenda this evening. Oh, having said that, I will let you respond. Alderman Wagemann, and then we'll move on from there. Good, the only reason I brought it up was because it was brought up here tonight. And I agree with Alderman Giesha, but the question is, shall we permit the people to tell us? And once they do tell us what they want, then it's our duty. And you're, as you said, a zillion, I'm a zillion percent in your quarters on that one. Then it's our duty to tell them, okay, you folks said you want a referendum. Now if the referendum goes this way, it's our duty to tell you what's going to happen. If it goes that way, it's going to be our duty to tell the people what happens. And from that, I think they can make an intelligent decision. Had the authors, I'm sorry if I could follow up and then I'll shut up on it. And have the authors of this resolution considered any of these or done any work to have the data for this to be presented to the various committees it was referred to? Yes, there is some data available to us already. And that data, which I'm sure we'll look at in the next committee of the whole meeting when it's been your documents from one of us. So I'm gonna move on from that point. Seeing no other lights on this issue, Mayor, Chief, I thank you for your information. Thank you. It's not an actual item this evening. It's only a discussion item. So when we wait for the information regarding the referendum question and the information as all of them I'm gonna have spoke about. As documents come in front of this committee, we will discuss it further. Thank you. All right, we do have three documents, somewhat dealing with the same issue. Discussion of possible action on issues regarding Fire Department and Ambulance Service. Communication 15-10-11, 586 from Gooders-Schwelling Committee. Communication 2-10-11, 443 from Beverly and Henry Schaefer. And communication 3-10-11, 4-44 from Richard Teamy. Are any of those citizens or citizens groups available here to speak on those issues? Holden, please go forward. Thank you. The Gooders-Schwelling Committee's interest germinated as a result of the Finance Committee report, which laid out scenarios over a period of five years. Some alternate funding difficulties would be experienced by the Fire Department, and I'm assuming every other department considering the parameters that were placed upon that particular study. I guess at that time, we took a look at a number of options, and as the timing of that particular document seemed also to coincide with the resolution to then hire four firefighters, at that time we forwarded our paper and also spoke to the council specific to a couple of things. One would be that to hold on the particular matter of hiring the four firefighters at the time of the first reading, that was basically taken care of by the three-man hold. Our logic was we felt it was important to hear the special budget committee's report and really hear from all the departments to get a broad global impact on the budgetary picture for the coming year. The hiring of four firefighters is not without risk and depended upon the retirement profile, if you would, of future firefighters, but it seems to be one of the things we looked at, a reasonable short-term response, and I guess our issues were what in the short-term seems to make sense and what would be a reasonable long-term solution or a long-term alternative, not only for the fire department, but I would argue perhaps for all of the departments to look closely and very critically at how services are delivered, as was mentioned tonight, what does the community want and are there viable alternatives that haven't been considered? I think at that time I spoke about the old fire house having the place where they used to haul up the hay for the horses, and in many ways that's the model that fire services were built out originally. Volunteer fire departments, we had industries that were fired with coal, and Sheboygan still enjoys the old Sheboygan, the density that we see in many of the particular places. However, once we started looking and reading what the literature had, it seems that there were longer-term alternatives that we felt could reasonably be vetted and looked at, and one of those seemed to be the paid-on call. The typical route via the fire chief, which is an excellent magazine for those of you who wish to follow the firefighting journal, if you would, seems to be volunteer departments then go to paid staff and continue to have paid-on call, and there are some risks along with that. I don't think that we, from the get-go, said that this would be the perfect model. There is a calculus that I think the mayor and fire chief are already looking at that will be what would the data set call for in terms of trying to find comparables, and then, if you would, matching the best possible alternatives. So I think in terms of our particular interest, we're pleased to say that many of the activities that this council has taken move along in the direction that we felt would be appropriate for looking not only at the fire department, but other departments that are in these trying budget times. Thank you, Alden. Alden, Hanna. Thank you. Alden, the reason I voted to hire four firefighters was really to give us the bias time to look at a short-term and long-term solution. And I think the mayor and the fire chief have made the first step, we need more data. There's pros and cons of all the systems, and it still comes down to, at the end of the day, what are acceptable outcomes? And I think we need to make, like in any business decision, you need to take the statistics and educate the taxpayers to the point where they can make an intelligent choice as to what's acceptable to them or not. And I appreciate the data and the time you folks put into producing the reports. And thank you for your time and effort. It can be thankless at times. Thank you. Thank you very much. Do you have any questions? Any other questions? All right, thank you, Alden. At this time, I'm looking for a motion on three communications. A motion to file. If there's no additional citizens represented by these. Motion made and seconded to file, Alden Board. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to mention that Beverly and Henry Schaper are constituents of mine who I hear from quite often on a number of issues. And the email from Mr. Thimi, Mr. Richard Thimi is also a constituent of mine. And both of these documents were unsolicited. They just sent them to me. And so I'm passed them on to the council. And they were referred to the appropriate committee. So I thank them for taking the time and communicating with me. And we'll look to hear from them in the future on many other issues. Thank you, Alden Board. So you have a discussion on the motion to file. Okay, all in favor of that motion say aye. Aye. Chair votes aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next on the agenda, discussion of possible action on annual proposals for action by Sheboygan County Taxpayers Alliance. R.A. 126-10-11762 from Sheboygan County Taxpayers Alliance. Chair made this evening, would you like to speak on that issue for the Taxpayers Alliance? Alden, okay. I was gonna say I did actually receive an email saying that they stand behind the document and will not be speaking today. And it looks like Alden's not speaking, he's just leaving. Is that correct that there's no wish to further speak? You may, you may. You spent the effort in writing it. I ask you to speak upon it. Before you speak, I did receive an email asking to forward the communication on, which I did via email today as it was not have time to copy it on your desk. So those of you who were able to read your email, did get an email from the Sheboygan County Taxpayers Alliance urging not to file and to submit various items to various committees. So they did receive that email today. I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you just said if it pertained to my speaking here at this time. No, it was just simply that I received an email from the Taxpayers Alliance asking that we don't file the document that we refer to various committees. And I did forward that email on to all the various members of the council today. Thank you. I was, I didn't know when the public was gonna be allowed to speak on any of these issues this evening. I came prepared with a word for word statement here, printed out and it happens to include item number seven which we just finished with. So parts of this, you want me to go, Ms. Alderman-Gesha? What's that? Would you, would you allow me to start from the beginning of my, you have no problem with that? Do you, Mr. Chairman? Thank you. Yes, Chairman's decision, please continue. I'd like to comment on just two items that are on tonight's agenda. The first one being number seven. For anyone who may not have an agenda to refer to it reads Fire Department and Ambulance Service. This item consists of three communications all from respected upstanding citizens. I believe the concerns of these people deserve your well thought out consideration and action. That being that this committee send a favorable recommendation to the common council. A recommendation that reflects the wishes of these people and many more who want this issue finalized. The second item, I'm sorry about I had to go back to number seven, but the second item, number eight reads Discussion and Possible Action on Annual Proposals for Action by Sheboygan County Taxpayers Alliance. This item refers to a lengthy list and I know it's lengthy because I helped to compile it. A list of suggestions from some pretty well informed people who have determination but not always enough time to concern themselves with the ins and outs of local governments. Basically, the list consists of ideas on how to reasonably serve the populace with an emphasis on using less tax dollars. Now who can argue with that? As for discussion tonight, other than what I am saying or any other private citizen may say, not much discussion is expected. By its makeup, the only action asked for would be to send a favorable recommendation to the common council along with a strong commitment by all alderman to address the contents of the brochure throughout the coming year. I want to thank all of you who took the time to listen to me and heard what I had to say. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other comments this evening? Any comments from the committee? Are there any motions at this time? Alderman Hanna. It's my suggestion from the follow up email we received today that the appropriate committees tackle items as deemed appropriate for those committees. I think we work best through the committee system and I think the email you folded to us would allow us to make some referrals. So my suggestion is perhaps give Sue some guidance so that the various committees can be cognizant of areas of the Taxpayer Alliance reports that they should focus on. Very good, Mr. Hanna, Alderman Hanna. For those that have not had a chance to check their email today, it is an email from Dick Susha, the Shwagin County Taxpayers Alliance, requesting that item number one in the report go to strategic planning. I'm assuming that's strategic fiscal planning. Good committee for us to discuss. Items two, four, and six to finance. Items three to salary and grievance. Item four to PPNS and finance. Items five, two, and seven to public works. And items six to redevelopment authority. Is that your motion, Alderman Hanna? I'll make that motion. Motion's been made and seconded for those referrals. Alderman Hanna. Is there any discussion on that motion? All in favor of that motion say aye. Aye. Chair votes aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next on the agenda, discussion and possible action. Ethics complaint filed against Alderperson Versi. RO 143-10-11, 727 from Susan Lassard. I see Susan Lassard's here, would you like to speak? Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you. The letter I wrote to the council bearer's serious issues. As the city faces other challenges, it brings me no pleasure in standing before you tonight on this topic, yet it must be addressed. The state statute state, no public official may use his or her office or position in a way that produces or assists in the production of a substantial benefit direct or indirect for the official. One or more members of the official's immediate family, either separately or together, or an organization with which the official is associated. It also states, nor take any official action substantively affecting a manner in which the official, a member of his or her immediate family, or an organization with which the official is associated has a substantial financial interest. This is chapter 19, sub-chapter 19.59. Our city municipal code states section 2-261 under definitions. A financial interest mean any interest which shall yield directly or indirectly a monetary or other material benefit to the officer or an employee, or to any person employing or retaining the services of an officer or employee. Personal interest means any interest arising from blood or marriage relationships or from close business or political associations whether or not any financial interest is involved. With that being said, on June 21st, Alderman Bowers made a motion which failed and then Alderman Versey made his motion and I quote from the Common Council Minutes. A motion by Alderman Versey and seconded by Alderman Bowers was made to amend, to lift the hiring freeze and eliminate the ambulance service was lost on the call of the roll. The discussion that evening was to give the ambulance service back to Orange Cross. Scott Versey is married and his wife works for Orange Cross Ambulance Service. The whole discussion of the ambulance service in my opinion is a matter that Alderman Versey should not comment on nor make motions to nor vote upon. It is a direct conflict. This council and the taxpayers are aware that the opportunity for another ambulance service to come to this city is minute. Stating that we will open bids to the other ambulance companies is only remotely the truth. It is difficult enough promoting competition without an older person handing the contract to his wife's company. To further express my concern as to the ability of Alderman Versey to separate his own personal agenda from that of our city was blatantly apparent on July 6th, 2010 and I quote from the minutes. RO number 143-10-11 by the city clerk. Submitting a communication from Susan Lissard stating her upset with Alderman Versey regarding his comments about the fire station's an ambulance service. A motion by Alderman Radke and seconded by Alderman Bourne to file the report to the officials was lost on a call of the roll. The aye votes for this vote for this matter was Bourne, Bauer's, Coth, Kittleson, Radke, and Versey. The nays were Bauch, Orgisha, Hammond, Hannah, Montemure, Vanderweily, and Wangerman. On a motion by Alderman Gishen seconded by Alderman Hannah the report of officer was referred to the committee of the whole. All Alderman present voting aye. Even on these votes Alderman Versey is unable to distinguish what he should abstain from. To think that he would be able to conduct himself in an ethical manner is the question. To further my concern in a recent request for information from various Alder persons the following was included and I will read the email in its entirety. From James Bourne sent Monday, June 7th, 2010 at 3.52 p.m. to Corey Bauch. Subject, re, I am willing. Alderman Bauch, Corey I just got your phone message and I agree with your talking points. I will talk to Dennis. Number one, Alderman Hammond called me and he will be a counsel and not finance. Number two, Alderman Versey would have stood up but Alderman Radke and I thought because his wife works for Orn Cross, a non-issue the fire department would have put up a big stink in the media if he was part of the hold. Dennis, number three Dennis in no way wants the freeze lifted. There was enough of a conflict of ethics to have the Alderman Versey not join in on their three-man hold. Our counsel should set the code for their governing body. If Alderman Versey's conduct is acceptable to you then you will set the precedent and there will never be a need to abstain. This is illegal and dangerous. The important issues that face this counsel are many and they should not be undermined by tolerating unethical behavior. If it is your intent to allow this behavior it'll make one wonder just how many issues will be compromised in the future causing delays and lawsuits. If the ambulance service is to be returned to the private sector, let it stand on its own merits and not be compromised. I believe in transparency in local government. I believe in ethical behavior. I've seen it on our counsel floor and in committee meetings. I have personally abstained from discussions and voting on issues that my vote may compromise the findings. You have the opportunity to investigate my request. A request submitted by a voting taxpayer in this city. Thank you again for the opportunity and the ability to witness good local government in action. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Lissard. Are there questions for Ms. Lissard? Anyone first? Okay, I'm sorry. Alderman Hanna. Yeah, thank you. I do have a follow-up question. You did an open records request. Yes, I did. Did all the Alderman respond? No. Who was the request made to and who responded? The request was made of attorney, excuse me, Alderman Bowers, who did not respond. Alderman Boren, who responded and said he had no emails. Alderman Bauch, who did respond, and Alderman Radke, who did respond. Any follow-ups for Alderman Hanna? That's all. Okay, Alderman Bowers? I take issue with, I didn't respond. I sent a note and I delivered a hand made to the clerk's office as you requested. Didn't you receive it? No, I did not. Well, I'm sorry, but it was placed with Linda Long and it was dated July 10th. I did not get it. Well, okay. But I don't wanna be put in the category that I didn't respond. The response was I have no emails to any of these Alderman that you asked me for. Okay, well, that's your response. I just did not get it. But I didn't, in what I had to speak to this council, didn't address who I asked for information from. It was a request from a question. A question among Alderman that we had had any communications with emails between us was the question. No, the question was how many people responded to my information request? That was the question. The first to me was I want a copy of all emails between me and, I believe this is that key, Versi, Born, and Bulk. I didn't ask for Alderman, Versi, and that was the request of my email from the four of you, yes. And I responded, there weren't any. You're telling me that now. So you had the same response as Alderman, Born, and yet I read an email from Alderman, Born, in my address to this council. But I didn't, if I didn't get it and you didn't have any, then what is your point? My point is if I had to respond, knowing your behavior, you probably would have come after me with another. I'm gonna take offense to that. I think if you're. All of ours, Mrs. Hard, the issue at hand is not the information request. The, is the documents, which is claiming Alderman, Versi, has an ethics violation. So I'd like to move on beyond that. I think you made both major points. So I'd like to move on from that. Is there any other questions for Mr. Sard? I have one. Alderman, Born, and I'll get back to over here. First of all, Mrs. Sard, the first email that you sent me, I never received, which I communicated with you. Right. And then when I did communicate with you, I said I did not have any emails, but I specifically said, if you had anything with my name on it, send it to me to refresh my memory, which you never did. You said thank you for your response, but you did not have the courtesy to forward that other email. I, as a rule, I don't keep emails for six months. I keep them for three or, you know, two or three weeks and then I delete them. And that's why I said, I didn't recall, but I asked you for the courtesy that if you had something with my name on it, to send it to me so I could respond to you directly. You never did that. No, I didn't. I would appreciate that courtesy when I asked you to forward it to me and you didn't. You thanked me for my response, but you never extended the courtesy of forwarding it to me so I could comment on it. If you could remember the rest of the email you sent me, you told me that you normally don't email anyone, that you normally pick up the phone and talk to them. That's correct. I had a number of emails that you had sent. Your response was you didn't have them. There was no reason to send them back to you, in my opinion. Your job to me was to request the information. My job to you is not to provide the information I already get so that you can take a look at it. I didn't, I couldn't send you specific emails because I didn't have any in my memory of what I had sent. And I ask you specifically if you had emails with my name on them to send them to me so I could call you back and comment on them and all you did is thank me for my response that I didn't have any. So I would have appreciated anything that you had with my name on it that you would have forwarded it to me so that I could have called you and responded in a more appropriate manner. I don't know what the rules are for Alderman to keep their correspondence. That's not my job. I'll then go on again. Mrs. Lassard, I'm going to ask that we move forward again on the discussion. It is pertinent to a degree. We do have, I did ask the city attorney to be present. He'll be able to answer any questions regarding the length of time required. We can move on to that issue later on or I can schedule that later on. So any discussions, Alderman Wildman here? I have just one question. We're talking a lot about emails when it appears to me that this is a question of whether Alderman Bursley acted unethically or not. Has it been shown that if Orange Cross say worthy designated ambulance service that his wife would profit? Thank you, Alderman Wildman. Has anybody got any information on that? Has it been demonstrated that she would profit? Because that's what this is all about. Correct, and actually that brings it more to the point. And thank you for the question. The question today is, as lights are lighting up, as my understanding of the role, the committee of the whole in the situation is if there's enough information that warrants an investigation, the document should be referred to us again, but in the purview of the ethics committee. The ethics committee has the right to swear witnesses in as well as to subpoena any witnesses as well, whereas the committee of the whole does not. If the complaint does not rise to the level of investigation then the proper motion is to file at this point in time. Quite frankly, the discussion on the ethics committee is not appropriate for this committee itself. And yes, I know it's the same 16 people discussing the same issue, but it's under a different committee structure is what we need to do. So that's the question at hand, is does it move forward or does it not move forward? Thank you Alderman Longman for bringing that point up. Alderman Hanna, you're next. Yes, it's from a school board experience to my experience here in city council. It's been my practice, and it's just my personal practice, to err on the side of caution. A couple of years ago we shifted to St. Nick's to also offering Aurora. My wife works in the accounts receivable department of Aurora. She would not benefit in any means whatsoever from that, but I abstained from that vote. I've been approached by citizens that said, well, don't you manage money at maritime for some of the city unions? No, we don't manage money for city unions at maritime. So I just, it's been my practice to be a little bit more conservative. Even when I've been given guidance from Attorney McClain that it's a great area, it's your call, I've just chosen to abstain. Alderman Warren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Alderman Versey has to do it, he thinks is right for him. However, I really don't see a problem because we right now have no, the city has no business relationship with Orange Cross in any shape or form, zero. And I think it's a conjecture on Ms. LaSarde's part to say that if this went out to bid that it's a slam dunk that Orange Cross is going to get this. You remember years ago when we put this out to bid we had Curtis Ambulance from Milwaukee come up here and they were the ambulance provider for a while and then they made a business decision to no longer be the ambulance provider. So to say that it's a slam dunk that if we decide to get out of the ambulance business and then it's going to be Orange Cross, I think it's pure conjecture. There's a, maybe we'd only get one bid. And if that would be the case and the council was asked to do a contract with Orange Cross I'm sure I can't speak for Alderman Versey but if I was in his shoes and I had a spouse that worked for Orange Cross at that point I certainly would not vote on a contract for a company that my wife works for. But as I said before right now we have absolutely no business relationship with Orange Cross, zero. And therefore I guess I have to agree with the decision that Alderman Versey made based on that. If we had a business relationship with Orange Cross or we're going to have one in the future I'm sure he would have abstained but right now there is no business relationship. Is there any other questions this time? Deep. I don't think Alderman Versey is an unethical human being and I don't think his intent through this process was to be unethical in any way whatsoever. But that makes this a pretty good exercise because it resets all of us on the ethics policy of this city. It doesn't say if they do business with the city Alderman Born. It says in great detail you heard it read appearance of, I mean there has to be some sort of logical conclusion as they're the only option in town that voting to get rid of one to give another one an opportunity. I feel it's not even close. It's a no-brainer. I never would have personally never would have voted to. I would have abstained on that. I've abstained when Johnson Banks' name's been on closed session documents in redevelopment authority. Yet it wouldn't benefit me. It's a completely different division and completely different than anything. But that name was on there and that's my employer. I'm out of there. Stood up, walked out of the room. I've seen Alderman in this room go through hoops to stay out of any, to give, and it's not just an individual. It's the appearance of the council and the integrity of the council to remove any doubt, cloud or bias. And to me it's more of a group exercise here and I personally have no interest in elevating this. Zero, none whatsoever. But I think the fire department issues are not an issue. The ambulance would be because of a potential appearance and the family relationship. But I personally do not believe Alderman Versey was intentionally being unethical in any way. Zero, it's just not there. But we as a whole are affected by we as individuals. And as a whole, I've seen, it's been pretty cool actually, Alderman really twisting and turning. Alderman Bauch last week on Monday just did some PR work, gratis for an organization that we were voting on, giving a contract to. He was way out of it. He begged off on an abstention. I've seen abstentions going like crazy. It's not a bad thing and it's not a hurtful thing. It's good for all of us to err way on the side of caution. But to me, this isn't even a gray area. It's not even close. There's no way I would have ever voted or made a motion on the issue. Not a chance because I think it casts a shadow and that's the point of the ethics guidelines is to remove shadow and doubt. And I think if Alderman Versi would abstain in the future on ambulance issues because of his personal relationship via marriage, I have no issue with putting this to bed, personal. Alderman, you next. I certainly agree with Alderman Gisha. Asking us to make a decision on an unfounded supposition is very, very difficult. It would have been a little bit like when I was a law enforcement if the judge said, why did you bring this man into court officer? I'd say, well, he was looking in a jewelry store window and I thought he might break it and take a watch. So I arrested him and brought him into court. The judge would have threw me right out the window and I can't make a decision on an unfounded supposition. If somebody would have said, well, if we have a contract now or a contract is pending and Alderman Versi's wife would get a raise out of this or some such thing, I'd say, well, yeah, that's terribly unethical, but we have none of that here. We have a little bit of smoke and mirrors. We have a big appearance that something might be wrong, but please don't ask me to make a decision on something that's an unfounded supposition because I can't support that, just as Alderman Gisha said. I think we ought to take this whole thing and just put it to bed. Alderman once more. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with Alderman Gisha 100% and I'll make a motion to file. Second. Motions are made and seconded to file. Is there any questions for Mr. Sardar this time? Thank you, Mr. Sardar. Thank you. I see that the mayor and the city clerk would like to perhaps clarify some issues that came up during the discussion. For the committee's sake, we also do have the city attorney presence. If there's any questions that we have for the city attorney at this time, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I am speaking here as the mayor. I'm speaking here as a former member of the council. I'm also speaking here as a, I have a relationship with Alderman Versi and that his father, John here, has done architectural work for me in the past. I myself and my ears on the council abstain from any votes. If I had a commercial property that it was a vote about redoing the road in front of it, about doing sewer work, I would abstain on that vote. I don't think Alderman Versi had any ill intent on making the motion that he made. However, to say that there is no personal interest, no monetary gain is ridiculous, no business relationship is ridiculous because Orange Cross and the city are competitors. There's a business relationship there. We're competitors, we're in the same business. I don't wanna see this go to the ethics committee, but I really would like to see Alderman Versi abstain in the future for the sake of the council. I see Alderman Hammond, Alderman Hanna abstaining regularly when they have a remote client in their company that they do business with. I see Alderman Gisha doing it regularly. I see Alderman Kittleson, anything that has to do with fire department retiree benefits insurance that she is under, she abstains from. This doesn't belong in the ethics committee. It doesn't, it's not good for the city. However, I would really like to see Alderman Versi just make the commitment then when it comes to fire, when it comes to ambulance issues, that he abstains in the future for the sake of the council. That's all I would like to see come out of this. Thank you. Senator Richards, did you have a comment? I saw your hand before, so. I saw your hand before, so I just. I just wanted to clear up with Alderman. I'm sorry, we are being televised, so. Just a quick clear up on Alderman Bowers and it's just to do with email and I know this is not the issue right now, but it was said when Ms. Lassard did, from what I understand, request from different Alderman emails, copies of emails, they were directed to bring them to my office and that Ms. Lassard would come there and pick them up. Alderman Bowers did drop off a slip of paper that said, I do not have any emails that you're requesting. We left it on the counter. I'm not taking responsibility for mailing or delivering or anything. It was supposed to be picked up, so I just want to let you know that he did drop something off just to clarify. Thank you, sir. Alderman Hammond, you were punching before. Do you have comments? No, I'm. I'm here for now. You're out, okay. Alderman Bowen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to ask Attorney McLean a question. Attorney McLean, please come forward. Go ahead, Alderman Bowen. Attorney McLean, my question is, is how long should I and the rest of the council keep their emails before we delete them? Is there anything in the statutes about that or do you have a recommendation? Well, number one, there's a case on point, directly on point where an open records request was made and an individual replied that no longer had the email that had been destroyed. The requester brought a complaint under the open records law. The court said that's not an open records violation. So the citizen didn't have any right to any recourse under that. So it's really a separate issue, the records retention requirements under the statute. But the general presumption is governmental records should be kept for at least six years. We had a discussion on this subject at the Council's orientation session for the new Alderman, and perhaps we should have broadened it to all the council. It's obviously become a big issue everywhere throughout the state and the country. And one way to deal with the issue that I've seen in other communities is to provide all the Alderman a city email account where you could conduct your governmental business through the city's email account system and then automatically a record is kept at the end of each month as to what's on the server and those are permanently kept for proper records retention purposes in the event a request is made. Right now, it's hard as an individual Alderman, you're on your own, I mean you keep your own stuff, you send your own emails, you aren't given computers, you aren't given anything, access to the network or anything as far as retaining those things. But yet, as I say the presumption is should be keeping those things for an extended period of time. I think that's a good subject for further discussion in I don't know, committee of the whole is the right forum but finance perhaps or somewhere to consider the city adopting a program like that where Alderman could use a governmental email account separate apart for your own private email account to keep track of the records and so you don't have to then personally worry about records retention and concerns that everything on your computer at home might be viewed as a public record and there's a lot of issues that come up there. If I could just follow up. Go ahead Alderman. So then what you're saying then, we don't necessarily have to keep them on our computer for six years, we would just have to keep a copy of a copy of the correspondence, a hard copy of paper copy but you're not saying that we have to keep them on our computer for six years. No, you wouldn't have to necessarily keep them on your computer. I mean my computer wouldn't move anymore if I had. You can keep them on a disk. Or on a disk, yeah. That is something I would to follow up with Alderman. But again, that's not an open records violation. If that's of any consolation to you. I don't understand what you, would you repeat that about the open records violation? Yes, if you don't have a record, whether you threw it away or never had it or never generated it, you don't have to respond to open records request if you don't have the record. And it doesn't really matter under the open records law why you don't have the record. So that's not an open records violation but could be a public records retention issue that is not enforceable by citizens making open records requests. Correct. Clear as a moment. To follow up, I do ask the finance committee to look into providing each Alderman an email account. My current employer requires me to do all business through there on my laptop it comes up but also on my phone or any other device I wanna access the web I can access that email. So there couldn't be that much cost involved in simply establishing a web based email site for all of us and then all these issues would just simply. Did you say a specific committee? Finance goes off. We have an IT steering committee that that might be very appropriate for you. Then perhaps IT steering committee would like to meet and discuss these issues. Thank you. To go off a little bit on that the Wisconsin Supreme Court just last Friday I think it was issued a long awaited decision regarding email records of employees and I think it would the same rationale would apply to Alderman as to whether personal communications that you send via email say can you do launch on Friday or something like that? Whether that because of the fact that in this case it was a city network and was saved on the city server well I guess it was a school district but whether mere fact that that was then retained by the school district on the server whether that personal sort of email became a public record and the court ultimately decided that those sorts of personal emails are not subject to the open records law. Now they didn't come up with a majority as to the reason why or why not but the net result was that the employees in that case teachers who were trying to prevent these emails from being released were successful. So that would also be helpful so that if you had access to the city's network and there were some issues as to you sent perhaps a personal communication on the network it doesn't necessarily mean automatically that just because now the city has retained that on the server that that becomes a public record you really have to look more as to the content of the email. All the more reason I think that the but the thought would be that if you guys were allowed to have email access in the city server that you would use that for government business as opposed to your own private email accounts. Thank you attorney. Albany University you were next in line. All right thank you Mr. Chairman. Yeah as far as committee and council is concerned I have no problem staying from ambulance issues. I will not obtain from fire department issues that's where you know that will be sounds like consensus anyway so I have no problems with that. We have a motion and a second Mr. Chairman. We do have a motion and a second. Would you still have a discussion Alderman Hanna. Yeah I just one more question while we have the expert up here. I've received group emails in the past and I've cautioned all the people that if there's a majority of a subcommittee let's say majority of our protection and safety majority I've cautioned them that we could be violent and having a walking quorum and that I'd prefer to be left off of those emails. Can you just briefly touch on whether email communication between three out of five of a standing committee creates a walking quorum. Sure the question is this is under the open meeting law again that says presumption is when you've got a majority of Alderman present discussing matters of governmental business that are the subject of their bailiwick that the presumption is that that constitutes a meeting for purposes of the open meeting law. That applies both to physical presence where a majority are physically together as well as telephone conference calls, email or any other means of communication and applies not only to the council meeting as a whole where you would or the committee the whole say the committee the whole you'd need nine to constitute a quorum, a majority. With a committee you've got we've got risk management committee has three Alderman on it. A majority of that committee is two. So theoretically two of the three are discussing items that are subject to the risk management committee unless that discussion or meeting has been noticed properly 24 hours in advance that's an illegal meeting and that's true even if you're sending email communications however email communications are a little different in that typically they're a one way thing initially you send out like mailing a letter that the process of sending out the email is not necessarily a meeting or communication but where you run a foul of the open meeting law is when the nature of the emails becomes more like a conversation where somebody else your recipients you sent out an email to several people and they're all responding back in sort of real time with their comments and then you're responding back situations like that where they become more like a meeting as opposed to you send an email out two weeks later you get a response that's really not even though it's done by email and you send it out to everybody on the council that's not really a violation of the open meeting law but you run the risk of sending out shotgun emails of other Alderman responding back and starting all these conversations online that could potentially create open meeting law problems. Okay, thank you, Attorney McLean. The topic at hand again is the motion which we would have a motion made and seconded. If you mentioned the information that Attorney McLean is speaking to us sounds familiar it is because we have heard it before and it was the training session which I noticed a lot of the new people were here for and all the existing people were not. I urge you next to the existing people that have been on before do come to training sessions there's so much information that we could even get to in two hours I believe we were meeting there's some more it is very important I can add a topic for community whole on further discussions with that but I ask that we focus back upon the question at hand and there's been a motion made and seconded on that motion to file. Alderman Radke you're next, I'm sorry you're not Alderman Warren you're next. Can I ask, can I ask Attorney McLean another ethics related question that is not exactly what the matter we're doing here that would have to be another time right? All out this time let's try to keep it close to the topic at hand. Well it is ethics and how people vote on things. Please. Attorney McLean if we have a standing committee and I'm gonna use the example of the insurance committee that we have and there are people on the insurance committee there's all the persons on there and there's other people on the insurance committee that are directly the decisions that are made in that committee are directly related to a benefit they're gonna receive as far as insurance is concerned. Should employees or older persons that are directly will directly benefit from actions that are taken in the insurance company should they be voting members of that committee and only Alderman that are on that committee that are not beneficiaries of a health insurance plan? I guess I have a problem when city employees and possibly some older persons who may be a direct benefit of insurance even if that older person would abstain on voting on a health insurance matter but in that committee is building policy that would affect them or their family is do you see any problems with the way that committee is set up? Yes, if that's what the committee is doing if the committee is reviewing insurance, group health insurance issues and making recommendations to the council I think the genesis of that group was there was two separate groups there was a group health insurance committee and then their memory serves me right there was a separate labor management committee that had members of each bargaining unit the purpose of that was to try to keep dialogue between labor and management where representative from each of the unions could be present and there could be some discussion as to what was going on but it really wasn't a policy setting at least the intent my view was not to be a policy setting sort of forum it was more an informational sharing mechanism but those sorts of things are fraught with potential issues where you start meeting as a group like that and they kind of take on a life of their own and I think potentially you do run into problems there Well the issue would be who would be voting members and who would be non-voting members that's I mean it's great to have all of those parties together to discuss things but I think there's a potential issue there of who should be voting on the issue Well I don't disagree with you Alderman Boren at all Thank you Alderman Radke Call the question Second Motion is made to call the question All in favor call the question Aye Chair votes aye opposed Questions have been called Motion has been made and seconded to file the document we've heard from Alderman Versey Motion has been made in a second we've heard a lot of discussion about that All in favor of that motion say aye Aye Chair votes aye opposed Motion here Excuse me One One more One more section Next day and time of the meeting will be August 4th, 2010 at 7 o'clock p.m. Same chambers here August 4th Do we have a motion to adjourn? So moved Motion made a second All in favor say aye Aye Chair votes aye we are adjourned