 We will call the 23rd meeting of the Common Council to order. Pat, would you call the roll? Bowman, Berg, Bonet, Doyle, Graf, Manny, Montemayor, Moody, Perez, Rindfleisch, Steffen, Van Akron, Vanderweel, Wangeman, Warner, Winniger, 16 present. Hormes present, Alderman Graf. Thank you, Your Honor. I would move that we approve the minutes of the last Common Council meeting in the same standard approved as entered on the record. It's been moved in a second that we approve the minutes of the previous Council meeting. Under discussion. Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Alderman, Bonet, would you lead us in a pledge tonight? 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 one hearing tonight, and that's to propose 2004 Annual Action Plan for the Federal Community Block Grant Funds for Project Year April 1, 2004 to March 31, 2005. Now, any interested parties wishing to be heard, please step up to the microphone in the back. If you could make it as brief as possible. We have a lot of people here, and I'm sure everybody wants to be heard. So if you want to be heard, please step up to the microphone at this time. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and member of the Common Councils. My name is Chai Song Yang. I'm the Director of the Hong Kong Association. Could you spell your first name, please? C-H-A-S-O-N-G. C-H? C-H-A-S-O-N-G. But most people know me by song. That's what I thought. All right then. I'll put song. The longer you live in the United States, your name getting bigger. Here, to my speak, I'm not against the bus services. I think bus services are good. What important to the people in Chicago? But I just have a concern how the decision had been made, your recommendation decision had been made by the finance community. I feel that the decision was not fair and shortcut the process. I feel that if the cities continue to open the city block line for the community, I think this should be a formal process established that will maintain the fairness and equal opportunity for everyone. The city have asked a group of citizens to spend hours at the time to review their proposal and listen to a presentation for all the agencies before they make the recommendation to the best they can. And for the finance committee to shortcut that process, I think it's unfair and inappropriate. In our case for the home association, I understand the finance committee reduced our grant from $19,500 to $1,000. For all the work we plan to do, member of the council fund $1,000 doesn't do us any good. I already have that spent on family literacy or support medical emergency for the mental health association then wasting $1,000 for our program because our proposal asking for $30,000 and this citizen advisory committee only cut it down to $19,500 which we accepted because we went through the fair process. But for the finance committee to shortcut the process, I think it's not appropriate. And we'll ask the common council reject this finance committee recommendation and take back the recommendation of city advisory committee because they are the group that spend the time to listen to our proposal and our presentation. So thank you. Thank you, sir. Anyone else? What should be heard? My name is Edward Kowsky and I'm a citizen of Sheboygan. What is your address, please? W-A-C-K-O-W-S-K-I. No, your address. Edward, right. You want me to spot that one? Your address. Oh, 2632 North A Street. Thank you. Okay. Tonight we're here to discuss the federal block grant money and how to be awarded to meet the goals and objectives of that grant as established by the federal government. It should be noted that these monies are not city or state dollars but are federal tax dollars and they are for a one-year period only. Many applications have been received with a total request for funding exceeding $500,000, far more than available of monies of the block grant. All applicants who the finance committee has recommended for grants to be awarded do meet the qualifications established by the federal block grant. One of the applicants is the Sheboygan Transit Authority and they do qualify for money. For this reason, they have the same right as all other applicants to receive block grant funds. Needless to say, some requests cannot be honored because there was simply not enough money. We're not here to discuss budget of the applicants or their funding sources or to offer advice to these applicants on how they can fund their agencies. We are here to explore how grant monies will be used and what programs and services will be provided by these funds. We should also consider how we get the biggest bang for the buck and how to have the most positive effect on the most citizens of Sheboygan. You, the common council, have to make a tough decision this evening and not everybody will be happy by the decisions you will make. I hope that one of the decisions will be to approve the finance committee's recommendation of funds for the transit system. Why? Because it is one of the applications that affects thousands of people, 52 weeks a year, and provides a service that is vital to these people. It also allows these monies to have a multiplying effect and produce even more matching federal dollars for our community. The need for night and Saturday bus service is not a luxury to people that need this service. It is a necessity because they have no other means of transportation. People who work during the day on shop for food, pay bills, get medical care, and etc. and have no other means of transportation. Many of these people who use the service are physically handicapped, blind, in motorized wheelchairs, and are senior citizens. If you ever ridden the bus and seen the size of some of the packages that they try to carry and I don't mean luxury items, I mean basic items like you and I take for granted food. Many times the bus drivers have to have to assist the people because of their age or their handicap in getting on and off the bus. The cost of bus service limits the numbers of trips they can make to secure the basic needs of life because simply they can't afford the cost of many trips a week. Night and Saturday service provides people, teens, others the ability to go to and from work. Not everybody works nine to five Monday through Friday. Without bus service these people would not be able to work. Recently you have read in the newspaper the ridership was down and some would say that proves that bus service is not necessary. Well I say let's get real. Service was cut on Sunday. I say that that is the main reason for the decline in ridership because those people that use the service on Sunday no longer can do it. Decline is proof of a negative effect reduced service is having on the citizens of our community. Now that we have taken the ability of senior citizens in the sunset of our life to attend church are we going to deny these same people the ability to travel on Saturday? I hope not. I could go on and on and give reasons and examples to justify the grant for the Sheboygan Transit but I will limit my comments so that other people will have an opportunity to speak. I want to thank you in advance for your positive vote for the award of granting funds to the Sheboygan Transit on behalf of all the people that ride the buses. Thank you. Ed could you spell your last name again for Pat please? What's that? Spell your last name again for Pat. O-A-C-K-O-W-S-K-I. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to be heard? Good evening. Shar Pachniak, Executive Director for the Literacy Council of Sheboygan. I'm not here to speak against any of the other applicants for this grant money but rather just to give a little bit of an explanation of what the Literacy Council is going to do with that funding. That funding that the Literacy Council receives is an investment back into the city. That funding is for textbooks, resources and training to help those students get their GEDs, to advance their education, to go on even as we tutor them into maybe LTC, the university or to other schooling opportunities. This helps them to get better paying jobs and become even more productive citizens of the Sheboygan area. It's real important to look at that funding as an investment into the future of our community because those people are the future of our community. And so the funding that is received by the Literacy Council is an investment back into what the city is able to do. Thank you and I do not envy you in making your decision this evening. Thank you, Chair. Anyone else wishing to be heard? Anyone else? My name is Henry Capitello and I'm the Executive Director for Home Inc. And just to let you know, we are not receiving any community development block grant monies this year. We're not on the list here for any of these funds. The reason I, well I'm scheduled to speak on the public forum, but I'm speaking now because you have a process that you go through when you look at identifying the use of these funds. I know for a fact that the city must develop some kind of plan that's sent to HUD, which basically shows how you're going to spend these monies. What are the things that you're, the categories that you're going to be spending on? I think there's three main categories. One is economic development. The other one is housing. The other one is I think social services. And I think that by taking money that you now have scheduled or have authorized or even have envisioned using under a certain category, which would be social services for the community, you now set a precedence. You know, this time you're looking at $42,000 that you need for the transit authority. And I'll tell you, I would be the first one to say, no, you shouldn't be cutting services for the transit because a lot of the clients that we have at our residents of Superior Manor use the bus system. But I think what happens is if you make choices like this and then you enter into other areas of funds that traditionally have been used for providing social services to the poor, the needy, what's going to happen next year when you run into even a tighter budget? Are you now looking that maybe the 42,000 is not 42,000, but you're going to be looking at a couple hundred thousand? Then what other organizations or what other services within the community that are targeted for the needy, the poor, are you now going to have to sacrifice and say, we don't need this? You know, the poor do not have as much of a voice in government as other entities do. And I think the reason you see people like executive directors from different organizations coming here and speaking is because on their behalf, on their advocacy, by you now looking at taking this step, you now make a precedence. Now are you going to be looking next year for this as a possibility of more revenue that you're going to be using for the transit? It may not even be the transit. Maybe it's something else within the city that you are looking that you need money for. I think that by doing this, you are going to be entering an area that you're going to set a precedence and which may not be the best interest for the low income, the needy of the individuals in the city of Sheboygan. Thank you very much. Anyone else who should be heard? Hi, my name is Sarah Euler. The only transportation I have right now is the transit. And I know other communities need the money, but the transit needs it the most so they can keep the ridership. It would be bad if they cut the Saturday services because nobody could get to work. And from my point of view, I don't feel like paying five or six dollars for a taxi just to get back and from work. And I mean, the buses, they have new buses that take a lot of the road space, but they're comfortable and they have a lot of people on there during the day, not so much at night, but that's the only way I can get home. I don't feel like walking home at night at eight o'clock at night, five or six o'clock home. And I just think it would be a good idea to keep the weeknights and the Saturday services for the senior citizens and the disabled and for people like me who can't afford cars. Sarah, can you spell your last name? O-Y-L-E-R. And then what is your address? 312, Ontario. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to be heard? Anyone else? Thank you, Mayor Schram. Brandon Jensen. It's B-R-A-N-D-O-N. Jensen is J-E-N-S-E-N. I traveled up here from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Address is 734 North 26th Street. Thank you. I am the legislative director for the Transit Union. Chief Steward Ed Procek, one of your operators, had invited me to come up. And some of you may remember last September, I also made the trip up here at a public hearing on mass transit when there were some discussions of cutting service, cutting the night service in the Sundays. Unfortunately, as Ed and I met for dinner before we came here, we were talking about the weather and how the majority of our passengers, that's a big factor in whether they make trips and whether they go out. So I'd like to take you back to that night in September for those of you that were in attendance to remember all the people that did come out that night. The room was packed. We got there early to make sure that we got a chance to meet some of the participants. It was standing room only, and we heard testimony after testimony of the people that needed the service, that relied on the service. A lot of elderly, a lot of handicapped, a lot of people that are going to and from school that can't afford cars or don't have the opportunity to drive like many of us do. As I testified last fall at that hearing, and then also last week at the finance, you're not alone here in Cheboygan. We've gone through the same situation in Milwaukee County, and nobody likes to see this where you're taking social services and services that people rely on and pitting against transit or pitting against parks or pitting against other divisions. But the reality is this is our reality. This is the budget that we're in. A lot of it goes back to the state cuts in state funding, cuts in federal funding for mass transit and for other areas. But the point is you guys have to be the visionaries. You guys have to look at the future. Where is the money going to be best spent? And has been brought up mass transit, every dollar that's spent on mass transit receives $4 in matching funds from the state and federal government. That's an investment. Well-meaning is a lot of the nonprofit organizations are, the reality is transit is a much bigger investment because of that return. For every dollar you put in, you're getting $4 matched to it. And the reality is also if you don't have transit services, how are people going to get to and from the nonprofit organizations, to and from job training centers, to and from schools, and to and from their jobs? You know, and this time where we're losing jobs by the millions, we can't afford to lose anymore. We can't afford to cut service because we're just going to lose more jobs and we're going to lose more opportunities and the revenues are going to drop even further. And then six months, Ed's going to call me and say, you got to come back up here because we're facing more cuts because now it's the weekday service. We eliminated Sunday. We eliminated Saturday. We eliminated weeknight. Now we're talking about the weekday service, which means basically we'll have no transit system in Sheboygan. So I ask you tonight is that you consider that, not for the jobs in the union, not for the jobs in the transit system, but for the people that we get to and from work, to and from school, and to and from all these good nonprofit organizations that are trying to help the community. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? What should be heard? Your Honor, I'll move that the hearing be closed. Move the second act to hearing be closed. Under discussion. Under discussion. Go ahead. Who did the second? I didn't hear him. Just under discussion. I will pull this forward as soon as we get to a point in the agenda where it's proper. We're still under discussion. So hang on a minute. Brandon, I'm sure you're aware of this also and so as a cheese steward project, Senator Feingold and some of his colleagues are working at in Washington to get funding for smaller cities from 50,000 to 200,000 and he named Sheboygan as one for getting some of that funding for transit system. Obviously it doesn't happen tomorrow but hopefully something will be in place within a year. So that should help us out also and I have the document up here if you'd like to see it. Good thing. Okay. If there's another discussion, Pat, we don't need to roll. All in favor? Aye. Motion cured. The first one is today's date. Hereby submit the following appointment for your consideration. Eldenburg, be considered for the Citizens Advisory Committee on Community Development to fill the unexpired term of Bruce Wolfe which expires April 30, 2006. Mr. Wolfe moved out of the city and no longer meets the requirements that serve on the committee signed by the mayor. And that will lay over. And two documents that came in at the last meeting. Richard Lindy to be considered for the Board of Appeals to fill the unexpired term of Donald Murchberger which expires April 30, 2004. And recommend that the first alternate, Mark Winkle, be moved to full membership. Second alternate, Brian Versi be moved to first alternate. Richard Lindy will serve a second alternate signed by the mayor. That we can confirm? We can do that with the other one. Okay. The other is Jason Borden to be considered for the Citizens Advisory Committee on Community Development to fill the unexpired term of Sean Severson which expires April 30, 2004. Signed by the mayor. Oldencroft. Yeah, now move that you're conferred. Your appointments be confirmed. We have a motion before us in a second. Under discussion. Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Public forum, Pat. Brandon, did you want to speak again? Your name is first down here. Again, my name is Brandon Jensen, Legislative Director for the Union. I just thank you for the opportunity to be up here today. I wasn't quite sure on the procedure with the public hearing versus the public forum, but I appreciate the opportunity to speak before you and hopefully I won't be back here in the next couple of months. Thank you. Thank you. Ed Procek. Edward Procek, 1215 South 13th Street in Sheboygan. Excuse me. I too was here this evening and it was not quite aware of how we were going to be doing things and we had a public forum and I think the words are pretty much said by Brandon, but at this point I would think that rather than be remiss, buses go down the roads and the roads do need to be in good shape and I would like to at this time thank the Department of Public Works for such a great job. They did on some treacherous roads that we had in this city this winter with some heavy snow and because of that we were able to stay on time and get a lot of people back and forth to work so I like to use my time to thank the other city workers for their job well done. Thank you. How about Richard Riley? Is he here? He's not here? Henry Capitolo? Henry Capitolo, Home Inc. The reason I wanted to speak today is I know that you're going to be start looking at the budget and budgetary things that you're going to be reviewing. I just want to let you know that the action that you take on your expenditures and how you spend money directly impacts a lot of the community in various areas that you may not even realize, but it does. I'll give you an example. The water utility now has gone up, I read in the paper it's going up to 16%. We're now looking that we provide laundry service for the residents at Superior Manor, which is the boarding house. We're finding that now with the added cost of sewer maintenance or the water utility fee that we have the stormwater sewer fee now that we're going to have to pay, the added increase in the water utility, we no longer can provide free laundry service to the residents that we have there. The residents that we have, the majority, I'm going to say 90% of them are low income. They cannot afford even hardly to make the rent, let alone go out and pay for laundry and certain things like that. We now have to look at charging them to do that. What happens is when you make the decisions to spend the money that you're entrusted to do, another example is that, I was just reading in the paper that we're talking about extending the water inlet pipe, and you're talking about three to four million dollars that expenditure that's going to be included on there. For the possibility that it froze once in 100 years, you have to look at the cost that you're spending, and in part of that news article that said, I think they were recording the mayor, that part of that money, yes, is coming from the state, where that'll be covered. But the other thing that it mentioned in that news article is that, well, of course, the people that use and utilize water are going to have to pay extra to pay a portion of that. Well, if you're already looking that, you've increased 16% for the water utility, and you're now talking about more money that you're looking to spend, how much more are you going to increase the utility service for that? Is that going to be another 15%, 20%? We look at it and it directly affects us. We had to pay our property taxes this year. Over $17,000 is what we paid. We, as an organization, basically are losing money, and we're willing to provide these services, but I think what happens is, we also have to look at the fees that we have to pay, and also the cost that comes back to the citizens. What I look at is our clients and the hardships that they have, and I can envision what a retired couple that maybe has worked all their life, bought their home, doesn't have a mortgage, but they still have to pay property taxes, and you say, well, you know, we didn't increase property taxes, but you know what happens? The value of that home did increase. That directly influenced the amount of property taxes that that elderly couple now paid. Now you're looking at that with the added cost of the water fee. Well, that's now an additional cost. Now we're looking at the use of their water is going to be more. That's another cost. Now if this couple is on Social Security and they're on a fixed income, where are they going to get that money to pay for all those added costs? These are the individuals that really are going to be impact on the decisions that you make and how you spend the money within the city. Granted, you know, you need to provide services. You need to look at what you have to build on the infrastructure, but I think that you also have to realize that where is that money coming from? Part of it is from the general revenue, but a lot of it comes from the taxes that you collect and the fees that you impose. It's going to get to the point where you're going to have so many fees and so many taxes that you just will not be able to maintain. So definitely I would ask you to look at seriously what an impact you have when you start looking at making additional expenditures. Thank you very much. That's all I have. That's it. Okay. Alder McGrath. Thank you. At this time I'd pull forward document 2341. And along with that also 2352 and 47 please. Sure. Thank you for other matters. Alder McGrath. I would then move that the RC 2341, which is regarding the Federal Year 2004 One Year Action Plan for Community Development Block Grants, that RC be accepted and adopted and that the substitute ordinance be put upon its passage and document 2352 and 2347 be filed. So it's a resolution, not an ordinance? Oh, excuse me. It's a resolution, that that resolution be accepted and adopted. I'm sorry. Okay, we have a motion on the floor in a second. Under discussion. Your Honor, I have to make two amendments. The first one is regarding the substitute resolution and that is to correct some wording in the document. If you go down to paragraph four, which starts off, whereas the Citizen Advisory Committee for Community Development has recommended to the Common Counsel, those words should be deleted, Common Counsel, and instead has recommended to the Committee on Finance and then in five, whereas the Citizen Advisory Committee for Community Development further, those words be deleted and replaced with Committee on Finance. In paragraph six, which is whereas the Common Counsel has reviewed and hereby approves the Citizen's Participation Plan, the words as amended has to be placed in there. And paragraph seven, whereas the Common Counsel finds that it is in the city's best interest to secure the FY 2004 funds for the activities approved by the Citizens Advisory Committee for Community Development, as amended is added. And with those, I would move that those amendments be accepted and passed. Okay, is there any discussion on that? Hearing none, all in favor of the amendments? Opposed? Motion carried. Okay, Alderman Graf? Then the second amendment that I need to make is if you go to the attached sheet showing the public services with 160,000, at this time I would move that the following two amendments be made, or three amendments, I guess it is, the long mutual be reduced from the $1,000 that has been recommended to a zero and that the Latinas be reduced to zero also. Subtracting $1,000 from there and that the $2,000 from there be added to the mental health proposal and allowing that to stay at the $7,000 that was proposed originally by the Citizens Advisory Committee. Okay, it's been moved in second for the amendments. Under discussion? Under discussion on that amendment. So you realize, as you heard Song speak, he said that really the $1,000 wouldn't really help them and the $1,000 I looked at the Latinas and they had requested $180,000 which was more than we had to give out and I didn't think $1,000 would help them at all for what they were planning on doing. Therefore, I know the program and the mental health and I thought if anywhere they could use it there. Under discussion? Hearing none on amendments, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Then as amended, I would move that the resolution be the substitute of the resolution be put upon its passage. Move to second that substitute resolution be put upon its passage. All in favor? Thank you, Your Honor. I would like to move that we amend the amended resolution as it has been amended to reflect the following amounts. I understand that the MONG Mutual Assistance Association has declined the amount that was awarded to them and I understand that Alderman Groff would like to see that amount and the amount the Latinas would use go to the mental health. What I would like to propose in my motion would be that we take, that we do $19,000 for the Sheboygan Boys and Girls Club and that would release $1,000 and that we do the, let's see here, $1,000 from the transit fund which would leave $41,000 and assign that amount to the Even Start Club or organization and the reason I say that $1,000 from the transit system is automatically going to go back to the transit system. The Even Start programs uses that money to buy tokens for people to ride the bus and not only do they use that money to ride the bus but they also use that money to educate people so that they may be aware of the importance and necessity of the transit system and in doing so we're putting the money back into the transit system. Alderman President, okay. I want clarification, $19,000 from the Boys and Girls and $1,000? No, no, no, it's $20,000, $1,000 from, which would leave $19,000. I'm sorry, I'm still not understanding this. You're taking $1,000 from Boys and Girls Club. I believe they were $3,000 in Even Start? They wanted $3,000. And you're funding them $2,000? No, there's nothing there, no. Oh, it was proposed $3,000? It was proposed $3,000, he wants to give them $2,000. Okay, so you don't want to fully fund it, you just want to go to $2,000? $2,000, yes. I've had spoken to, actually they called me before and they said that if they could at least get that much that money would in turn come back to the transit system in the form of tokens and education, the educational process that they do with the parents and with the needy children, that they train them to use the bus system. What's their second? Do I second? Okay, we have a motion before us in a second. Under discussion. Alder McGrath. Your Honor, Even Start would be a great program. They were not awarded anything during 2003 and because taking $1,000 out of the transit is like taking $5,000 out of there because of the matching funds that we do get when we do spend $1,000, we get four additional dollars back, I could not support this amendment. Is there any other place you'd recommend taking $1,000? Any one of you? Alder McGrath. Thank you, Your Honor. Why don't we use the $1,000 and put it in here? I would have no objection to that, I guess. Would you amend your amendment? Yes, I would to reflect that. Do I have a second? Wait a minute. There's an amendment that has been passed. No, it hasn't. Yes, it has. The amendment was passed to take the $1,000 from among mutual and give them to have mental health. We've got to vote that down. If one would make the amendment to take it away from mental health, the $1,000, and give it to even start, and leave the $1,000 in transit, that's what I would mean. Is that okay? I'll write that. No, do I have a second? Yes. Does everybody on the board? All of them are in flush. For clarification, please. Yeah, hang on. We've already taken the $1,000 out of among mutual assistance and given it to the mental health program, correct? So actually the amendment is taking $1,000 from mental health then. That's what I said. That's what we're doing. I just want to clarify, clarification from Alderman Perez, is that really what he's looking at doing? We're not taking it away. We're just not going to add it on the board. You're just going with what the finance committee recommended. In this instance. That result would be that mental health association then gets $6,000 instead of the $7,000. Correct. Okay. All right. Everyone understand the amendment? The amendment? Sure. All in favor of the amendment? No. Motion carried. Now we go back to as amended. As amended, I will move that the resolution be put upon its passage. The substitute resolution. We have a motion before us under discussion. Anyone want to make a amendment? Alderman Doyle. Is this on the big picture itself? Yes. I'd like to speak for the citizens of the community. It's always difficult to make a decision when the common council has to choose between two causes. Should the community development block grant monies be taken away from the local charitable organization selected by the citizen committee and given to Sheboygan transit? Who's more deserving of this money? Will more people benefit if the transit gets the money or if the charitable organizations receive it? For those of you that went to the finance committee meeting or have listened tonight, it's pretty obvious where the aldermen stand on this issue. They favor the transit situation and they feel that there's all these people out there that need rides that are absolutely dependent for their livelihood on these rides. Now if I talk to the residents of the community, I get a totally different picture. I get more comments about the transit situation than I do about anything except winter parking rules. The three comments go like this. There was no one on that bus but the driver. The second one is why do we need such big buses for so few passengers? The third one, do we need this Cadillac bus service in Sheboygan? That's the feedback from the community. Now who's correct the public or the aldermen? Well, I would guess that not many of the aldermen in this room have ridden the bus. I did for 10 years. I got the bus on Erie Avenue, rode down to the transfer point, walked over to the school district building where I was an administrator three times a week for 10 years or more. The bus drivers were courteous. The service was great. The schedule was wonderful. I didn't need a ride. My wife and I have two cars but it was a public service supported by the taxpayer so I thought well, I'll be a good citizen and support it. But the citizens are right. There were few riders on those buses. There was many, many times where the driver and I were the only one on the bus. Bus systems have two major problems in the United States. One is high cost, the other is low ridership. Bus systems are incredibly costly. The state and federal government provide huge incentives, taxpayer incentives, to run these buses. Otherwise small cities like Subwagon could not even think of running a bus. It is money that is not that well spent because so few people in this country in small cities use the service. How much does this service cost? Well I'm just getting this out of the newspaper. Riders pay roughly 17% of the cost of transit. That means the taxpayers paying 83% of the cost of transit. If the 17%, if you set up a ratio that's $1.5 fare, that means that the cost per rider is approximately $9 to $10 per rider. In other words, the taxpayer is paying $7 to $9 in addition to that fare every time the person gets on the bus. Now, mass transit studies are old. Are there cities where lots of people ride the bus? Well, in order for a lot of people to ride the bus in America, the city has to have three characteristics. They have to have high population density which we don't have. They have to have lots of massive traffic jams where people don't want to drive. We don't have that. When you arrive at your destination, there has to be a very high cost of parking. We don't have that. So we don't meet any of the criteria for a wide bus ridership. In the United States, New York City is literally the only one that really has major bus service. If you go to small cities in Wisconsin like Waukesha, Racine, Canoes, you'll see the same thing you do in Sheboygan, largely empty buses. Why are there so few bus riders in the United States in small cities? Five reasons. The first one is the American Americans have always loved motorized vehicles. Be it snowmobiles, ATVs, you name it. They want to be driving their car. The second reason they don't want to take buses is, autos are far more convenient than buses. If I would choose when I was working to drive downtown it was 10 to 15 minutes if I took the bus, even with the excellent service 30 minutes. More convenient to ride your own car. There are social barriers to bus ridership. Most people, unfortunately for better or for worse, if their middle class are up think they're too good to ride the bus. The fourth one, crime factor. People feel safer riding in their own auto than they do riding in a bus, especially if they meet a tough teenager. Fifth problem is the percentage of people needing bus service in the United States constantly goes down every year. So what does the future hold? Bus ridership will continue to decrease in Sheboygan because groups who use it now are less likely to use it in the future. The six main groups are these. Elderly women. If you go back in U.S. history there was a time when Papa went to work. Mama stayed home and raised the kids and she didn't have a driver's license. That generation is almost gone now. They don't have driver's licenses. The second category is the poor. The United States says this constitute the poverty level, a certain dollar figure. But poverty in the United States is not the same as poverty in Haiti. 70% of people that are declared to be poor in the United States drive a car. The statistics show that more are well in the future. So the number of poor people is increasing all the time. The third thing is students. Students used to ride buses but because of crime concerns, elementary students now are driven by their parents. When they get to high school, they drive their own car rather than take a bus. If you don't believe, you go to North High School and try to find a parking spot. Next category, handicapped people. Handicapped people used to take the bus to be fitted for handicapped people so that handicapped people can drive. The last category is the elderly with medical problems used to take the buses. But now the federal government through Medicaid or Medicare is providing scooters and the people are driving these scooters instead of taking the bus. So every category of major bus ridership potential is decreasing in the United States. Hard times. Money is limited. We must make hard choices as a common council. What have we done already? In order to keep the buses running, we have reduced library services. We have provided fewer recycling center services come this summer. Fewer police officers on the street. Fewer people to serve the public at City Hall. If you look at capital expenditures, we keep having to buy buses but we can't afford a police station. To summarize, it will not be possible to get Shabuiganites out of their car and riding buses. There are a few people out there who need bus service but studies show that it's very few. How long will we continue to run big buses with professional drivers to meet the needs of a tiny group of people and then turn around and cut one major service after another to 50,000 people? We simply don't have enough people to justify the present level of bus service that we have. With respect to the funds that are at stake tonight, I feel it would be better spent on the charitable organizations. Thank you. All of them in the right flash. Thank you. Let's start back to follow. I do think that tonight we've seen a lot of people speaking on both sides of the issue of money to transits with the federal match, money to charities that need them as well. And Shar had a comment. Sarpakniak had a comment at the finance committee Thursday. It's the good versus the good. We're putting two services that may be very useful to individuals against each other and that's just not fair. The thing that I heard that most intrigued me on Thursday, however, is that we're currently with the 46,000 or 45,000 here, 46,000 that we're using from the community development block grants and the 80% match that we're getting or the $4 per every dollar that we're getting is already in this year's budget. And the reason why the cuts would have to be made is because we're operating already two months into that budget year, operating on the assumption that we already had this $46,000 plus the match from the federal government. My concern is to the advisory committee those that sat down and interviewed all of the various groups, decide what programs were worthy. If it was the case that the decision was made ahead of time that we needed this money to operate the buses, they should have been told that. They should have been told that they did not have $160,000 to give out. They only had $114,000 to give out out of the $501,000 worth of requests. I think that would have stopped a lot of the bad blood, the bad feelings. They've been able to make tough decisions right away knowing the impact that they would not have felt that their advice to the finance committee wasn't just changed a little bit to meet the bigger picture, but rather changed outright. So hopefully next year if we're doing this again that we communicate that to the advisory group ahead of time that a certain dollar amount we're looking at using for the match from the federal government as well. So at the beginning of the process they understand fully what dollar amount they have to use. Thank you. And at that, would you like to speak on that at this point? Actually it was 42,000. Eric, not 46, but I'd like to have Ron touch base on that because I don't feel it was allocated before the citizen advisory group got to start. That's correct, Mr. Mayor. There were no promises that there would be money available. This is the third year that we were hoping to receive funds. Two years ago we received $36,000. Last year the citizens board recommended that we receive $46,000. This council saw that the literacy council had been overlooked and was granted zero, or recommended to have zero. So they took $5,000 from transit and reallocated to the literacy council. I agree. We're pitting good against good. You know, I don't have any issue with the agencies that are out there. They're all fine agencies. But there wasn't any money promised to us. Yes, we did budget for it, and as we go through our budget process for us to be able to leverage state and federal dollars and all that goes along with it, we do have to put that into our budget or we can't go after the state and federal dollars along with it. So we're not going to get the bang for the buck. If we didn't budget for it, this service wouldn't be out there and we'd have to be looking at eliminating the service and re-implementing it a few months down the road. So we don't have any services out there. And that's why it was budgeted for, I guess. Does that explain why we did it that way? Thank you. I guess then better communication next year involved with that, what we're budgeting for needs to be communicated even before decision is made, which they've just made now, so they have a better understanding of what they're really working with. If that's the case, my understanding is they didn't really know that if they didn't fund, to what extent the cutbacks would occur. So I just hope for more communication amongst the departments so they understand in the budget process where money from one end really impacts something on another end. I appreciate that, Alderman. I guess one of the reasons that we are transit budgeted for that money and had an assumption that we might get it is that during last year's proposal I was asked directly if this is something we expected to come back each year for, and when I answered yes to it, the committee really had no comment to it. And when they awarded us the $46,000 last year, that was pretty indicative that we were favorable with the committee and then quite frankly, then getting this year where we asked for $42,000 and we're docked away to zero that was quite a surprise. Thank you. Alderman Wogelich. Thank you, Your Honor. I have to completely support Alderman Doyle. He stole all my thunder from me but he perhaps put it far more eloquently than I could. But whenever I go out and I went out today and I talk to people and I made phone calls and Alderman Doyle is correct and I really can't understand the transit system. All they see are huge buses driving around with nobody in them. Not to try and be funny, but one man said you know the ad where the washing machine repairman is so lonely, he said the only guy lonely here is a city bus driver because there's nobody with him and Alderman Doyle is right. Tonight as I walked up I saw four city buses pull out of the transit thing down here and there was one person on there and we realized yes the bus company is federally funded there's a lot of federal funding going into it but that's tax money too and the people said you know where does that money come from, it comes from us and the only thing I can do is paraphrase Winston Churchill never has so many people paid so much money to benefit so few people. Our transit system is probably a dying breed Jerry's right all over the country ridership is decreasing everywhere there's no prospect in the future that it's going to increase and I just find it incomprehensible that we would transfer extra money to the transit authority when we have to meet public library gets nothing and I bet you there's ten times more people use the library than ever dream about using the bus system, thank you thank you Alderman Steffen Yes thank you I will miss Alderman Doyle he puts a lot of thought into his comments and I really think he made the argument for me and why we should support the transit I'm just going to trust his numbers when he said the riders pay 17% of the costs and the citizens of Sheboygan through our general fund pay 3% of the costs and the other 80% comes from the federal government however, but I'm guaranteeing you if we don't take them somebody else is so I think if you ask the citizens if 3% of the costs of the bus service in Sheboygan was on the Sheboygan tax level I don't think they'd be worried about the size of the buses and how many people are doing it and I think if you sat in the finance meeting or the transit and listened to the numbers people see it when it's empty they don't see it when it's full you ask the numbers, they've got the numbers of how many riders there are, you'd be shocked thank you thank you we're having a really good discussion here tonight and I think that's healthy I will support the amended recommendations of the finance committee for the 2004 one year action plan regarding funds from the community development block grant program and I think the finance committee is a parent committee of the citizens advisory committee for community development as in my opinion exercised its obligation of oversight for the block grant program every organization that applied for these funds is certainly worthy however there is not enough funding to meet every request the advisory committee did its job and brought forth its conclusions the finance committee did its job reviewed those conclusions and made changes that felt were necessary and in the best interest of the city as a whole and at this time I think the transit system fits that part for the city as a whole that 30% of people that Alderman Doyle referred to who have no other means of getting around the city 30% of the citizens of Sheboygan or 30% of the people who need that service maybe not 30% of the citizens of Sheboygan but that 30% out there that still uses transit I realize that not everyone is happy with the results but no matter what changes are made someone will not like it we've been through a very difficult budget year and the upcoming year difficult as well we as a council will have to make some very tough choices and the citizens will have to realize that we cannot continue to provide all of the same services at the same levels with less funding year after year something we will have to give and we will be under significant pressure from all directions I am confident we will do our best as I believe the finance and its subcommittee have done in this case in the last few generations including the funding of transit transit is a subsidized necessity at this time in the city of Sheboygan perhaps like you all say, maybe someday it won't be but right now it is just like our school systems are subsidized by the property tax a lot of them don't have kids in school but we still pay over a third of our taxes to the school system for our schools to me that means something that will directly impact you and those people that get on those buses and need to get to work have to have a way to get there perhaps someday we will have moving sidewalks I don't know but right now I think we need to keep the transit system running at a minimum level so that these people can get to their jobs and to work they can't even get to the charitable organizations that provide services to them without transit some of these people there is no other way the county system for the elderly I forget the name of that system right now if you want to see an expensive deal I believe that's something like $75 an hour that the city pays towards that I mean that's expensive but you know what it's needed those are the things societies do as a minimum and eventually when they're not needed of course we won't be running buses but right now they are and people talk about the large buses but the small buses rattle, shake and fall apart cost more to repair by far than the large buses go to the transit commission if you ask the director of transit what's happening with those buses they'll tell you they'll tell you why the larger buses are better it's not just because they take up more room on the road it's because they last longer they're built stronger, they're built better that reduces maintenance costs in the long run we save that's something I learned on the transit commission this is a good recommendation not everybody's going to be happy but this is the way we should go Alderman Reinflesch back to you thank you your honor in the budget process the reason why we do it on an annual basis to me is promises made we can give a dollar amount to various departments within the city this is what you have to work with they come up with a budget and they make do with that are there areas for perhaps improvement in the transit maybe but that's something that needs to be investigated and over time needs to put some serious thought into it looking at the dollars per rider is something very important look at the individuals that rely on that maybe there's better ways that we can get them around that's not something that we're going to get done today though we've already made the promise for the riders I'm not talking about the management but the riders to expect that service through this year I think despite what happened with the surprise and the miscommunication perhaps and the advisory committee and the finance committee I think it's a promise that we have to keep for those riders this time around and not cut back service I also think that the two amendments that we've made today perhaps brings the spirit of what the intent of the advisory committee was now obviously we did not reallocate $46,000 here we only allocated about $4,000 but hopefully the promise that they made to those departments we are better able today to change so I will support this I will also support perhaps looking at the service and as a way to save money but today right now I will support it as amended thank you thank you your honor just a couple of quick comments one would be that I would advise wherever is capable of doing it I know that some of us may not be here after April including myself that perhaps we consider putting together the educational program so that all of us seem to know bits and pieces of why the transit system is so critical and so crucial to this community I understand it I'm not so sure that a lot of the people out in the community do when we hear often buses are empty why do we need those big buses they're costing us money but all of us seem to have information that's important to the community that we should use to educate the community so that they can buy into the transit system most of us have bought into the transit system but the public perception now out in the community is you don't need such a huge bus to drive around one person around town you don't need to have empty buses that's the public perception whether we like it or not we need to address that so I would urge that somebody look into that perhaps Mr. McDonald could look into that the other comment that I like to make is again with respect to the process other alderman have already talked about it but I would hope that this council would not have to deal with the situation again somehow somewhere in some way we should communicate to the people who are applying for these funds that the citizens advisory committee is exactly that an advisory committee and the council does have the authority and the power to override any advice from that committee if they understand that who's not to serve and I say that because I was in the advisory committee and there was countless hours and meetings and time and I know the nonprofit organizations put amounts of hours and time to and for them to be awarded an amount by the advisory committee or propose an amount there's a certain amount of reliability on that people start relying on that amount coming in and they start budgeting for that money and then to have it yanked out of them so I guess what I'm trying to say is somehow if we can communicate to all these organizations and our community we're trying to do the best job we can there's only so much to go around not everybody's going to get what they want but somehow we need to make sure that the perception out there in the community is that we're doing it fair I guess you already have that tool in place Alderman Perez I would hope the next committee and the whole chairman would bring that up and we could have Director McDonald up here and present what the trend system really means to our community thank you Alderman Moody thank you Your Honor 19 years ago I was appointed to citizens advisory committee on community development by our former mayor Richard Schneider that was how I got my start in politics it seemed back then that we had a lot more money and a lot less requests for that money I can remember we planted trees we put lights in Kiwanis Park and these are much more needy things now than ever before we never had all this and I guess addressing the transit in all the traveling that my husband and I have done some of the communities like Seattle a certain inner area of Seattle the bus rides are free but who pays for that of course the businesses and the attractions and things like that maybe in future years we need to talk to like the businesses in the industrial park the outlying shopping areas Blue Harbor see if the private sector can contribute to keep that transit system going otherwise I don't know what we're going to do I believe that was already tried but it doesn't hurt to go back and re-talk Alderman Graf thank you Your Honor just to make a few comments on what was all said just to let Alderman Moody know yes that was tried I'm sure we'll be tried again and brought up at future transit meetings also to let all the Alderman know that Kurt Jackson who is the chairman of the citizen advisory committee for community development block grant he and I have been talking back and forth by email and after the last finance committee meeting he wrote to me saying I just wanted to let you know that I will support the finance committee's recommendation 100% I believe in the democratic process we may disagree on issues but we still work together for the good of the city and that's what the finance committee tried to do with their recommendations we did take into consideration the fact that 85% of the ridership of the buses are low and middle income and that's what some of these funds are supposed to be used or these funds are supposed to be used for low and middle income in addition to that Mr. Jackson had also recommended that possibly next year and I will put that in as one of the things that should be done by the next finance committee or finance committee chairman due to the fact that the citizen advisory committee is an advisory committee to the finance committee Mr. Jackson had recommended that maybe we should have a joint committee meeting prior to distribution to make sure that we we know from each other what we kind of expected what we kind of determined so that's something else that's in the process the final thing is the same thing that we did to Boys and Girls Club this year we announced to them we have these funds for you but this will be your last year and I don't know if it was done the prior year or not but this year we did write them a letter and we told them that we will not be contributing to them out of our room tax dollars any longer and the same thing needs to be done here when the advisory committee did their distribution they looked at only including non-profits that is a policy if that policy should be made or is desired to be made that needs to be addressed by the finance committee or the common council as a whole if that's what we're going to do with these block grant funds in the future to only use them for non-profit organizations then that's the policy that we should adopt and follow and I hope we have enough support for this document to pass it no other discussion Pat everyone knows what you're voting on would you like don't ask me to repeat this I think you all know roll call please Berg Bonet Doyle Groff Manny Ken Akron Vanderwheel Warner Bowman motion carries thank you all for coming this evening consent agenda Alderman Groff thank you your honor for items 21 23-1 through 23-20 I would move that we accept and file all ROs accept and adopt all RCs pass the resolutions and the ordinance move to second file all ROs pass the resolutions and ordinance and accept and adopt RCs from 23-1 through 23-20 Alderman Steffen yes your honor I would just request a roll call on 23-6 please 23-6 we'll handle that first do that one first Pat would you call the roll on 23-6 any discussion 23-6 before call Alderman Montemire yes thank you Mr. Mayor just a little bit of information the other two communications that the council received that were referred to the ethics board anything happened where are they what has happened they're in committee which committee are they in ethics board they're in the ethics board folder when he decides to have a meeting then they will be discussed is that a long time to wait or this it's not boards do not have to report out on their documents any special time they can go from year to year to year if you want same as commission let's hope not thank you I don't like it either would you call the roll please 23-6 this is acceptance file 23-6 Doyle Graf Manny Montemayer Moody Perez Rinfleisch Stefan Ben Akron Vanderweel Wongamon Warner Wenier Baumann Berg excuse me he had to leave 15 ayes motion carried is there anything else under consent agenda Alderman Van Eckerd I just got a question on 23-10 I think Tom or somebody could answer it for me was Mr. Thiel notified of what's happening on this on this commerce street he'll be notified he was invited to come into committee and it didn't come to committee so after this action tonight we'll send a letter out to him are there any dates or anything that this is going to be done we don't know we have to get the money first this wasn't figured in with the rock line deal not the total reconstruction all it should be done because of the drainage okay another discussion would you call the roll path Doyle Graf Manny Montemayer Moody Perez Rinfleisch Stefan Ben Akron Vanderweel Wongamon Warner Weninger Baumann Bonet 15 ayes Motion carried 23-21 and 22 to be referred 23-23 through 23-31 to be referred 23-32 by Alderman Graf authorizing retaining outside legal counsel to represent the city in a matter of Brian S. Morick versus the city of Sheboygan Alderman Graf I'd like to ask for a suspension the move to second for suspension is there any objections hearing none proceed then I would ask that the resolution be put upon his passage moved to second the resolution be put upon his passage under discussion Alderman Rinfleisch thank you just point of clarification why specifically we're hiring outside legal counsel is there a conflict of interest on this one is it workload I'm not familiar with the case at all so Alderman Rinfleisch the summons and complaint is is document 23-29 it's a auto accident where police officer was on Indiana Avenue pulled over to the curb Mr. Morick's vehicle was driving along the officer saw a traffic violator on the going the other direction pulled out tried to make a U-turn real quick on Indiana and there was a side swipe with the Morick vehicle so he's filing a claim against the city he actually filed two claims he filed an individual claim by himself for about I can't remember what the amount of damage was I want to say $2,000 or $3,000 there was discussion with them we almost thought we had it settled we'd sent a letter to him asking him to confirm that that amount was fine and sign a release form the day before that was received by him he had contacted an attorney and we got another claim then on the same incident for $150,000 so that's that's what this is a $150,000 claim and this is covered by the cities and villages Mutual Insurance is one of our insurance claims and we've been using the Jim Conway and the Olsen-Cloet firm for defense of these these sorts of claims so it's not costing us any additional to hire outside it's part of our insurance program or our claim program we're self-insured we've got a self-insured retention level so we have to pay up to that I think it's $75,000 per claim for attorney fees as well but if it exceeds that amount then we're covered by the insurance and we in consultation with cities and villages discuss using outside counsel and they recommend using Mr. Conway of that firm Oliver Perez thank you honor just a quick question do we have any guidelines that guide us as far as how we go about hiring an outside legal counsel on what circumstances and so forth on the all the small claims that are insurance claims we're doing in-house we're doing in-house but when we do hire outside counsel for whatever reason do we have any guidelines or anything that we follow just we're part of Sivnic as I say Sivnic's got their their concerns as far as who we select for outside counsel and they have input because there are insurance company and they recommend using Olsen-Cloet we've been using them on these sorts of claims for the last four or five years and we've been very successful we haven't had many where we've had to pay out so that's it's really past practice that we've been using that firm and have had good success on with that firm I was just wondering a problem with that was there a problem with that and it is a local firm I just wasn't sure how exactly we made a determination because people ask how do you decide who to hire we use local firms if we can good thank you would you call the roll please motion carried 2333 authorizing the sale of 1,500,000 general obligation promissory note series 2004A 1,065,000 general obligation promissory note 02004B and 3,200,000 taxable bond anticipation note series 2004C Alderman Groth do I need suspension? no then I would ask that the resolution be put upon its passage moved to the second resolution be put upon its passage Alderman Rainfelsch pretty much the question I have every time we look at this is the resolution on our city's ranking our ability to issue new bonds with this is Rich here Rich is not here this evening Steve do you have you mean on our rating this is still within the guidelines that we had established after the last council or the last budget process that we had to retain so much and this would still be within those limits we're still in the 3% under the 3% cap of the self-imposed cap that 3% cap has been approved by our bond council as we're still getting that rating that's somewhere if you're still there correct and if we would go over we'd have come back to college for approval which I don't foresee us doing okay if there's no other discussion Pat what would you call the roll Montemayre Moody Rinsley Van Ackren Van Der Wiel Warner Bowman Boonee Doyle Graf Motion carried 2334 we'll lie over 2335 through 39 to be referred 2340 based on 50542 based on criminal record which makes the applicant ineligible denying beverage operators license 6300 based on criminal records which makes the applicant ineligible and denying taxi cab drivers license 6301 based on applicant not revealing all information is requested Alderman Doyle moved in second except end up to report a committee under discussion Mr. Coulter Coulb or Mr. Kailer here tonight no they aren't your honor you can proceed okay other discussion Alderman Montemayre thank you Mr. Mayor I'm back on 2336 we're on 2340 we're on 2340 okay then I'll ask for you then I will stand again thank you that's okay if there no other discussion what do you call the roll Montemayreians moody Reyes, Rinsleisch, Steffen, Ben Akron, Van Der Wiel, Wongeland, Warner, Wieninger, Bauman, Boney, Doyle, Graf, Nanny, 15 Ayes. Motion carried. 2336, Alderman Montemare, do you have a question? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. A question, the John Ross associates are going to do some work for us. Sounds good. Now the last page says investment, approximately 15 to 20 hours of John Ross's time, not to exceed $2,500. The not to exceed 2,500, does that mean a limit of 2,500? Or it's just permission to spend 2,500 and might come and ask for more? It does come into finance, Alderman Graf. Thank you, your honor. That means that finance is gonna discuss it at their next meeting. And so we will be discussing it at that and make a recommendation back to council. That's why it's being referred, correct. That's why it's being referred to finance. Okay, 2342 to be referred, 2241 by Alderman Bauman, authorizing entry into amendment 2241. Oh, we did that, you're right. 2237 by Alderman Winger, Doyle, and Boney, authorizing transfer appropriations into 2004 budget. Alderman Winger. Thank you, your honor. I make a motion to resolution people put up on his passage. Moving to the second resolution we put up on his passage, on your discussion. Hearing none, would you call the roll please, Pat? Moody. Aye. Perez. Aye. Rinfleisch. Aye. Stephan. Aye. Van Akron. Aye. Van Der Wiel. Aye. Wangerman. Aye. Warner. Aye. Manny. Aye. Montemayor. Aye. 15 ayes. Motion carries. Just a second. Okay, let's go back one, here's a question. Mindful. Okay, let's go back to 2241. Was that, what you wanted? That's okay, I found it. Okay, 2241, resolution by Alderman Bauman, authorizing entry into amendment to the current lease extension agreement with the Schmoyer Outboard Club, Alderman Bauman. Thank you, your honor. I move that the resolution be put up on his passage. Move to the second resolution and be put upon his passage under discussion. Hearing none, what do you call the roll? Perez. Aye. Rinfleisch. Aye. Stephan. Aye. Van Akron. Aye. Van Der Wiel. Aye. Wangerman. Aye. Warner. Aye. Winner. Aye. Bauman. Aye. Bonney. Aye. Doyle. Aye. Draft. Aye. Manny. Aye. Montemayor. Aye. Moody. And Wangerman. No, you get resolution to be passed. I'm sorry. Okay. Apparently we got two different agendas here, but that's okay. We'll get through it. Amending the code to provide additional regulation of taxicab companies and the vehicles used by said companies. Alderman, Warner. I thank you, your honor. I make a motion to general ordinance be put upon his passage. Move to second to general ordinance be put upon his passage. Under discussion. Under discussion, your honor. This is an ordinance repealing in recreating section 13059 of the municipal code source to provide additional regulation of taxi cab companies and the vehicles used by said companies. This is something we talked about in the past and what this does is we talked about taxi cab owners in the city, the owners of the companies that came into public protection and safety and we've been discussing this for over a year and came to some conclusions that would help provide a better service. And what this does is it makes it unlawful to operate or permit to be operated a vehicle for the convenience of passengers unless it has liability insurance to protect the public which is something that we're putting into the ordinance. Another issue is that taxi cabs shall be inspected by an automotive service excellence, excellence certified technician to ensure that they're safe and operation and also the taxi cabs may not be put in service until the required safety maintenance inspection has been completed and the taxi cab has been rated as satisfactory. Some of the other issues involved in this is notice of certain occurrences when a taxi cab driver has a violation of a state or local ordinance arising out of taxi cab operation. That would be something that has to be brought forward to the committee so that they can look at that to ensure that there's nothing that would preclude that person from having a taxi cab driver's license and also whether they would have a license suspension or revocation or another restriction on their license that would be something would come forward. If they're involved in an accident so there's any death or personal injury or damage or theft caused by a taxi cab or license holder that is something that would come forward to the committee for discussion. All these issues are public safety issues that we felt should be put into the ordinance. During the last several months, as I said, the Public Protection Safety Committee has discussed this ordinance with the owners and operators of two local taxi companies that were able to make our meetings, the rest for one reason or another did not attend the meetings. We reached these conclusions with their help and with their input and the Public Protection Safety Committee recommends passage. To another discussion, would you call the roll please? Green Flight? Stephen? Aye. Ben Akron? Aye. Vanderwill? Aye. Wonderman? Aye. Warner? Aye. Weninger? Aye. Bauman? Aye. Bonney? Aye. Doyle? Aye. Graf? Aye. Manny? Aye. Montemayor? Aye. Moody? Aye. Perez? Aye. 15 Ayes. Motion carried. 2343 will go to Special Committee on Risk Management. We'll go to Public Works. And 2348 lies over. Steve? I believe 2349 was addressed previously. 23. No. Not 49. Is that 49? I thought that was with the block grant. No, that was 47. That was 47. I don't have 49. 49's Transfiance? Don't have it handy. They don't have it handy? No. Don't have 49. Here you go, Steve. 2349 is Ordinance Amending, section 78 of the misplacodes is supposed to make various revisions relating to transit merchants. And two? Lies over. Lies over. It lies over. Okay. 2350 is an RO by the City Clerk's Committee in claim from Gary and Tiffany Klum for alleged damages to their vehicle when it sideswiped by a snow plow. Special Committee on Risk Management. 2351 is a resolution authorizing entering into a contract change order for loading, hauling and placing 9,000 ton of beach sand cover. Extend surface water discharge trench and excavate haul in place still for burying Fisherman's Road in order to finish the beach restoration project at South Peer District. All week works. Hang on one moment, please. Gentlemen, just want to address one issue. Chief, come up to the microphone, please. Obviously you've been reading the paper lately with some of the large drug busts in the city of Sheboygan. I made a comment. I will give chief all the resources or what resources we can give chief to curtail this drug problem we're having within our city. We were told about 10 years ago, and correct me if I'm wrong, chief, that drugs are moving this way and we've been watching it happen now they're here. And I guess fill us in a little bit where we stand and what we need to do. Well, first off, by some of the actions here tonight, perhaps we should come back where we're a little bit more fresh. I mean, it seems a little lengthy, but given the opportunity, Mark, I won't be that long. Given the opportunity, I certainly will address this council. Good evening. Thank you for allowing me a couple brief minutes to address where we are. I want to first off say several thank you to several people. First off, to my employees, they've done a fantastic job as far as what they've been working under. They also did a fantastic job in the recent drug seizure. Not only my employees, but my police officers, members of the Shpoing County MEG unit, members of the Shpoing County, different law enforcement agencies. This was not our action alone. This involved the Shpoing County Sheriff's Department. It involved almost every agency, law enforcement agency in the county. It involved the state, its department of criminal investigation, and on a federal level, the Department of Drug Enforcement Administration. Why and how do all these agencies get involved because this was a rather large incident. This has implications of being a rather large nation. A wide distribution. I will not say much more than that other than at times, we need the assistance of the state. We need the assistance of the federal government to come in here to provide various resources. I think it's fantastic under the direction of Deputy Chief Bob Weiss, the criminal investigation division, along with the MEG unit, our street crimes unit was able to pull this off. It was fantastic work by a lot of good people. Second off, I wish to say thank you to the mayor. You have said repeatedly that you will provide us the resources necessary to deal with the drug concerns and again concerns. It was a real busy week for us this last week, a lot of domestic arrests. We of course had the large drug seizure of over one million dollars, a street value of cocaine and almost nine kilograms of cocaine. We had, I think, 80 pounds of marijuana and a methamphetamine. That was the third case of a methamphetamine arrest in the county, in the city of Shboygan, within the last year. I wish to say thank you to the mayor for providing his support. I also wish to say thank you to our current employees. We have about 130 employees at the Shboygan Police Department that have been working under some stressful situations. How and why did we get here tonight? Well, some of this is, excuse me, our department's response to a tight budget. Three years ago, we were working with seven vacancies within our law enforcement community, within our police department. Last year, we were down eight officers. This year, we're currently down three. I thank you for allowing us to hire five officers recently. I believe we are talking at the present time that we would hire one and begin efforts to get to full strength by year 2005. I believe it's extremely crucial we get to that point. Why? Because, Mayor, you're absolutely right. We have not, this is not recent information I provided to you. Approximately four years ago, I said that the community is becoming more violent. We had four homicides later that year. Three years ago, we had three homicides, two homicides, two years ago, two homicides last year. We are seeing a violent community. Some of this violence is the personalization of people, who they are, what we see. Some of it is people coming from the outside communities to serve and deal drugs in our community. Several years ago, after I took office as chief, I spoke on the issue of a, we needed members for our gang unit. At that time, I was told I could have four officers. I did not receive any. Last year, we made a presentation to the Common Council, the Committee of the Whole, about the drug problem that we're seeing in the city of Sheboygan. We at one time were told we would see 10 more officers. We have not. Part of that is self-created. We took it upon ourselves. We are public managers. We understand what the problems are with the city budget. But I stress to you, please take a look at what has occurred. What we say, we take pride. We're honored to be public managers, especially in the police department, as many of these people here. We have to work together. We are currently down three people, three law enforcement positions. I would ask that we look forward to getting us back to full staff. I would love to see next year to get a handful more employees. I know that's probably not feasible. There are efforts that need to be done on the city of Sheboygan streets. We have a street crimes unit that currently, we wanted to be members, have four in members, four in number. We now currently have two members in that street crimes unit. They've been on the street almost 70 days. It began at the first of January. They've made a number of arrests. They've made a buy at a low priority crack house. That led to a search of a house and a search of another house. We obtained a crack cocaine and several pounds of marijuana. The drug problem is real. In two weeks, we're gonna make a presentation to this committee on the school resource officers. There have been some who said, chief, you're short, just stop the school resource officer program. That's not the answer. I'm in support of that program. I think it serves a very valuable resource to this community. And please in two weeks, when we present it to the committee of the whole, please listen and please come to an understanding. And then at that time with some knowledge of the program, when it comes up for contract last time, then we can at least speak on terms where everyone is trained, I believe. Juan, you indicated or Eric, you mentioned earlier tonight that we should learn, we should educate ourselves on some of these programs. And all I say is in two weeks, listen to the school resource officers and we make this presentation. Then with some knowledge, then make your decision as far as that contract. The challenge in this community is certainly to address public safety. I've been termed by some to be a crybaby. I speak on my shortages. I say we need more and more officers. We have worked, I sometimes think to a mistake. If I was to say, I've agreed to be down three officers this year, I see it as a mistake. We try to work within the community, within the city and to create and work and come up with solutions to this budget problem. I think the task in front of us here tonight is of course to address the increasing demands of policing, to address the violence, to address the drug concerns and to deal with it within the budget and to prioritize. I have said this before and Mayor, you're probably sick and tired of me saying this. I think that public service, public safety, public protection within a police department needs to be a priority. I think what I would ask from the common counsel here tonight is to give the mayor some direction, give him some support to get us back to full staff because our city is changing. We are doing what we can. I've asked our department to give approximately 120% of themselves. It's led to different problems, different issues, different stress and I'm just asking we need, we do need to get back to full strength. We've been under full strength for a number of years and I ask certainly we understand and it's been our own creation. We have tried to work within this budget crisis and we've kept ourselves short but many of the things that I predict that have come true and some of these things are here as last week, shortly after the mega drug bust. We then had another drug arrest which was at a traffic stop and we had psychedelic mushrooms in marijuana. I believe some cocaine also so it's there please. Give us a manpower. Hold on one moment please. Alderman Steffen? I just wanted to. I know Alderman Warner wanted me to mention it's actually three weeks I think. Is it three weeks? But the other issue was, I mean regardless whatever it is, just my other question was we had a lengthy discussion in finance and we talked about your department putting, I felt that we should get the officers rather than using the silver time we weren't really saving any money. We'll be able to see that whenever you make a presentation at those numbers. We can at least look at that and see how we really aren't saving any money by putting all this over time out and not hiring officers. At least that was my condition. Excuse me. That's probably one of the most difficult requests I've had. I've looked at numbers on overtime and police overtime, individual numbers. We got papers this high thanks to Rich and his office. I agree a certain amount of overtime can be cut by the addition of officers. Yet by their mere existence I think there will be some overtime that is associated with a new officer. Why? Because they're at holidays. They're at festivals. For example, the 4th of July we will not allow any vacations. That's what I should scratch it. We will not allow any people off except those on vacation. So which means you pick your vacation after that everyone will be working the 4th of July this year. Any officer on the street will make some arrests and with that comes court time. So within a certain degree if we staff by overtime that overtime cost will be cut back. We handle over 45,000 complaints a year, 30,000 follow-ups a year. In 1977 when I first arrived in the Spoying Police Department we had 93 officers. 1981 we then went to 97 officers. We currently have 91, currently staffed at 88. We obtained statistics from the DA's office that from 1990, now this is not from the period when I first started. In 1990 the number of criminal felony arrests went from 371 to 717. Same time period, 1990 to the present. Criminal misdemeanors, 1,249 to 1800 and 04. Criminal traffic arrests went from 731 to 1223. That's about in each respective category increases of 194%, 144% and then 167%. We handle a huge volume of complaints and arrests yet if I was to compare the staffing of the current police department with the staffing when I first started we have less people on the road than we did at that time. What does that create? It creates a more efficient department that needs to work together and consolidate efforts with the county yet at the present time I'm not asking for more people than what's on my table of organization. And I thank you Mayor for addressing this concern, to take a look at it, to give us what we need, the resources we need, yet at the same time I know it's a tough year, it's a tough budget. Many of this and much of this is self-created and we need to address some of the issues and concerns that we have, so with that.