 Born, excuse, Bowers, Decker, Gisha, Hannah, Heidemann, excuse, Kath, Kittelsen, Klihounis, Montemire, Rindfleisch, excuse, Surik, Vanderweel, Vu, Wangeman, 13 presents. We have a quorum. May we all 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. Okay, we have resolutions introduced three, special resolution 6-1-A, a resolution authorizing the appropriate city officials to apply for grants to the staffing for adequate fire and emergency response program, also known as the SAFER grant. President Gisha. Thank you. I move that the resolution be put upon its passage. We have a motion and a second under discussion. I believe if we can have Commander Butler come up and explain the grant to us, the grant process, and what it's all about. Motion and a second. All in favor? That's okay. Please wait. The federal government, in an effort to maintain adequate response in the communities across the nation, has at times offered grant funding to locales to kind of help bolster local staffing. SAFER grant was put in place for that reason, knowing that there are places that it is very difficult to maintain those levels. As part of and recently, because of the economic downturn, the SAFER grant actually had some changes put to it, and there was some of the stipulations that were part of the SAFER grant application had been removed. For instance, there was no shared cost for a city to apply for the SAFER grant. There was no sliding scale of payments that had to be made to transfer the payments to fund those firefighters that's been removed. There was a four-year period of performance where you had to maintain the staffing that was funded under SAFER. They've changed that to a two-year period, and they've also removed the stipulation that after the two-year period for rehiring laid-off firefighters that you do not have to maintain them on your staffing. So hopefully you would have, at that point, maybe the situation economically has turned, and you're able to keep that staffing where it was. So all of that being said, the SAFER was an opportunity for us because we were in such financial hardship with the budget and trying to squeeze some things in. We saw an opportunity to put forth an application to the federal government, the Department of Homeland Security to potentially fund some of those short-funded firefighters on the department. The decision was made to apply for three firefighters, fully funded for two years, including benefits at 100 percent through the Department of Homeland Security. The application deadline was December of last year because of some confusion on the changes that were put forth as part of the stimulus recovery act. We had the deadline extended to January 15th, and so we were able to put this in. And of course today is January 15th, so we have five o'clock for me to push the submit button, and that's why we're here today. There was a stipulation in the paperwork, and I think it's, I don't know if you, did everybody get this, Terry? The paper that's in front of you, we are not eligible under the hiring of new firefighters because of that, the wording actually in the thing is the hiring of additional firefighters. So the additional firefighters essentially would have meant that we maintained our 77 sworn firefighters that we had previous in the last couple of years, and we would have had to add those three to that, which meant we would have had to hire all seven back and then go for the three. So we are eligible, and I'll get to why we're not 100 percent eligible, using the rehiring of the laid-off firefighters or firefighters that are lost through attrition, which is actually our case. So we, in the stipulation for the paperwork or for the contract or the grant application, excuse me, there was a period between January 1st of 09 and October 31st of 09 where either the action of laying off those firefighters or a decision was made to lay off those firefighters had to be in place and that's sort of the period that they were looking for. Because of the length of time in trying to make everything work and the contract negotiations and some of the other department layoffs and things like that, there was no hard formal decision to lay off, but the ultimate impact was that they were not rehired through attrition, and then, so what we're doing is in the narrative to be forthcoming in the grant application so we don't get hung on something as a technicality for applying and not being eligible. We made it very clear that this was an ongoing process. We were trying to do everything we could to try to get this timeline met and because the budget was decided after this, there was no hard thing, but the ultimate impact was we're still seven firefighters down here at the end of the year and so we put the application in that anyway and in the narrative it explains that situation. So the grant will be applied for the total of the grant if given to cover three firefighters for the full two years with benefits was 409,734 dollars that we would be allowed to request reimbursement for if we're approved. Now the approval, so nobody gets their hopes too high. It's a very competitive process. They expect anywhere between four and six billion dollars of requests and anticipate only paying out because that's what's allowed 210 million, part of which goes to volunteer fire departments for their recruitment and retention efforts. So it's a shot in the dark a little bit. We did as best we could in applying for it. We've tried to explain our need and the rest is going to be up to the grant evaluators to determine if we're eligible. Thank you, Chuck. We have some questions. First we have Alderman Bourne. Yes. Thank you, Mayor Ryan. When will we know how long is this process going to take? There's a kind of a two-tiered process. Most of the applications will be reviewed and granted within 90 days of the closing deadline. So in three months essentially and I think from reading the paperwork there were some stragglers that could come out till later in the end of the year because if certain periods or certain percentages that are allocated for volunteers or departments aren't met they have to reshuffle and then reallocate the limits and that sort of thing. So three months at the earliest and then it could be any time later in the year as well potentially. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Bourne. Next we have Alderman Hannah. Thank you. Commander Butler is there a chance that they could come back and partially fund our request or is it all or nothing? I believe they can come back and based on what they read or see they could say okay well we won't give you three but we'll give you one. But I think they understand three is sort of an important number based on the way we schedule. It's essentially one firefighter per shift. So it's unlikely that given the small amount that requesting that they would actually cut that down and it's kind of good that we requested the smaller amount instead of the full six anyway because they're looking to meet certain NFPA requirements for staffing and response and the fewer number that it takes to actually get you to that point actually gives you some leverage and puts you at a higher priority as well. Thank you Alderman Hannah. Next we have Alderman Bowers. Thank you Commander. The original was December 1st deadline. I believe it was December 15th. 15th and at that time you didn't know what fireman would be laid off for what the procedure was. The deadline for application was December 15th. The deadline for the period of having some kind of action already recorded that those firefighters were going to be laid off was set at October 31st of 2009 and at that time there was no clear cut. I think that we all sort of understood something was coming but there was no there was no council action. There was no specific budget pass that actually spelled that out by October 31st. I think you stated that at the end of the two-year period we could revolve or go back to the where we're at right now. That is correct. There is no obligation because of the way they made some changes to this that we retain those people after it. I think the idea behind that is they think that some of this has to do and the reason they waived some of these requirements is because of an economic situation that hopefully would be correcting itself as the economy improved over time and so at that point hopefully cities were able to pick up that difference a little bit. You consider our department under staff at this time? That's an interesting question. I do consider our department under staffed for the current makeup of our department right now especially with the seven firefighters and or six firefighters and one staff position who's also us were in firefighter. Yes I do. Are you familiar with the West Bend Fire Department? To some degree. I know what West Bend is. I know they have a fire department. That's all. Okay. Well let me bring you up to date here. West Bend serves a population of 40,000. 44 square miles. I think Sheboyga and our fire department serves 13 square miles. They have 40 fire firemen. We have what? Right now 76? We have 70 currently. 70. Well okay. But there was 76. So now you're trying to reire two more. Three more. Three more. Okay. So anyway, the department that has approximately 8,000 less population can operate with 40 firefighters and we need 70 anywhere from 70 to 76. That seems to be what the council of this city thinks. Oh, okay. Yes. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Alderman Bowers. We have Alderman Gisha. President Gisha. Thank you, your honor. I just wanted to inform the council that all we're doing is approving an application this noon. The process would be that if in fact funds were granted, the council would have to accept those funds and then under the terms and conditions of whatever grant, either partial or complete, we would get. So all we're doing today is approving sending a hitting a send button to see where we stand. Correct. Thank you, President Gisha. Are there any other questions? If there are no other questions, we do have a motion and a second on the floor to pass the resolution. Thank you, Commander Butler. We may have a roll call vote, please. Motion carries before we adjourn. If I may make one announcement on behalf of of Alder Person Kittleson tomorrow, this Saturday, there will be the Sheboygan County City and School District employee and family health care health fairer, excuse me, at the Blue Harbor Resort and Conference Center from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Everybody is invited. It says that 50 children who participate will receive free Blue Harbor water park passes throughout the day. So it might be good to get your kids out there and attend the attend the family health fair and maybe get them some some water park passes. So if everybody would like to attend that would be a good thing to do. Do we have any other comments? We have a motion to adjourn in a second. All in favor say aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, everybody.