 Roll call Balvin he's excused Erg here Bonet is excused Serta Graf excused Manny Montemayor Perez Peterson Rinflash Sigali Sudefinn Van Akron Vander wheelie we had seven right in it and seven total Okay, I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes of Oh, I'm sorry Alderman Warner No, you don't there is no there's no action being taken so correct Okay, then I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the October 11th meeting Yes, okay Eight out of eight out of 15 is a quorum, isn't it You're missing one all right Yes That that's what Steve that's what Steve told me last night. Yeah Okay, the minutes have been approved and second it all in favor Contrary, okay tonight's Presentation will be on municipal problems, and it'll be the presenter will be mr. Ed Huck So I will turn it over to him immediately All kinds of wonderful news as you entered in your budget session But it's going to be another difficult year as you all know A lot of the state we have The meeting expenditure restraint Quote is in order to get the the incentive from the state dollars to keep spending down It's been a very difficult year for a lot of cities health insurance has been a major cause for for the dilemma Very large increases. I think the average is around 17 percent My understanding is that you've been fortunate enough to keep yours Under 15 percent, but nonetheless it is still going to be a very difficult year We don't really know what's going to happen with state shared revenues for 06 yet But at least for the 05 budget year you will remain fairly constant to last year Expenditure restraint however is a different story There were many more communities qualifying and although you have not received your estimate There's a high degree of probability It will be less than it was the year before because there were so many communities that were actually Qualifying for the expenditure restraint I'd like to start to talk a little bit about what you might expect in this upcoming session and some of the difficulties the the new majority leader and the speaker announced Their first hundred days of the upcoming session, which as you know starts in January of 05 Technically, they'll go to the floor in February and in the first hundred days One of the things they talked about was a was a tax freeze a property tax freeze Once again, the discussion will be about property taxes now the unfortunate discussion about just property taxes Is that a great deal of the problems that you folks have is the fact that your state shared revenues it's not increased at all but once in the last decade and We have no expectation and now they were cut in the last budget go around by seventy million dollars We don't know what will happen Right now the administration is estimating a seven hundred million dollar shortfall for the biennium If that's a minimum it could be as high as a billion, but we don't think so But when you consider you need around 450 million dollars for K-12 education We've got a one point one billion dollar problem again and even if the governor cut state Government spending by ten percent, which is his goal That will only take care of about half the problem So we don't know what will happen in the 06 but for 06 year for you folks, but it does not look especially promising at this moment although The administration contends they will do everything possible not to cut state shared revenues the the tax freeze is likely to Pass in the first hundred days of the session It is likely to be vetoed by the governor depending upon how the election turns out in November will determine whether The governor's veto will be sustained in the houses or not So we really don't know where any of this is going And we'll know a little bit more after the elections in November in terms of the constitutional amendment It is unclear at this particular time that there is consensus as to what this Constitutional amendment should look like there was a Senate proposal at the end of the last session It was Poorly written it had major problems with it Beyond just poorly written the very concept of putting a Tax policy in the state's Constitution is a critical error no matter where we look when it comes to The problem, but I just want to point some things out We really are not in a property tax crisis in Wisconsin as much as we hear this constantly from politicians It really is more of a diversion from the Fiscal crisis at the state level it is really the fiscal crisis at the state level that remains to be a problem And I can assure you that no Constitutional amendment that has been proposed up to this date takes care of the state's structural deficit So if you remember right before our economy crashed the state returned $700 million in taxes anybody remember this as we might have vague remembrance of this Credits back to folks right before the economy crashed and then we had a three billion dollar deficit problem Included in that was a structural deficit in other words spending from one budget was being pushed off into another budget in order for the Legislature to quote unquote technically balance the budget The constitutional amendments has been proposed at least in the Republican Senate in the last session did nothing to take care of the structural deficit and in fact would have allowed for Credits that go back to whoever the legislature chose to give those credits to could be homeowners But you know what it could be their favorite business pack We don't really know and in fact that's the case in Colorado. It's been more of Give money to our friends type of a scenario what the same time they were devastating Government in the state of Colorado, but let me just give you some statistics that you should know School property tax rates have fallen nearly 50 percent since 1991 That's very significant the property tax burden and by the way, I'm taking these statistics from Professor Roshofsky at La Follette Institute the property tax burden on a medium value house Has fallen since 1994 in terms of household income It was 6.4 percent of household income in 1994. It is now down to 5.1 percent was when you take Wisconsin's high taxes and you include fees for services rendered Wisconsin's burden falls to 15th we go from third to 15th when you include fees Also, it indicates that we have dropped from 6 to 12th in terms of total tax burden although my understanding is that that this data is old and 2002 and so it could be updated could be different but in terms of spending and this is a very significant point in Wisconsin as though it is third in taxes is 18th in state and local spending So we are not what we've considered to be a high spending state In fact, we're 3.8 percent above the national average in spending in state and local taxes so what I'm pointing out is that the taxpayers bill of rights the constitutional amendment is Really more political than it is policy and worse than putting fiscal policy in the Constitution is to put politics in the state's Constitution if you think about the debate over this constitutional amendment what they've been saying is well, you know, we always give the public the opportunity to to Pass a referendum to go above the controls This is not democracy because we already have I mean our forefathers created representative government You folks are here because of representative government the our forefathers were smart enough to understand that People needed to be experts about how government runs and the expenditures they need to have Full understanding and the general public doesn't have that level of understanding in fact the reality of it is if you think about your municipal elections in the face of Low voter turnout in the face of full knowledge about every issue that you folks deal with money dominates the issue because state law is no one the city cannot advocate for a referendum It's illegal for the city to advocate for a referendum. So only those folks outside the political arena can have a say so and Money will dictate that almost every time. So what you really have is a Concentration of power through the constant through the Constitution the essence of democracy is choice and The constitutional amendment does not fit the smell test when it comes to choice Because it takes choice away from local government. It takes choice away from people in a very real sense So we are going to continue at the Alliance to educate folks About the taxpayers bill of rights and what it's meant. We know what it's done in Colorado Right now the state of Wisconsin's university system, especially in Madison has Gathered some of the largest federal grants in research and development in the high-tech industry Colorado was kind of going in that direction But they've been devastated by the taxpayers bill of rights in Colorado and the university is almost a private university today But give you some statistics between Colorado and Wisconsin health insurance coverage were third in the United States Colorado's 21st was 21st in 1993. They're 37th today high school graduation, Wisconsin 7th Colorado was 31st in 1993. They're 47th today most livable state, Wisconsin 13th Colorado 8th in 1993 23rd today Healthiest state, Wisconsin 21st Colorado 9th in 1993 and has dropped the 27th Colorado continues to to go down Wisconsin has been stable. It's very important for if Wisconsin is going to compete in the international economy It's important for us to continue to be stable. I Want to talk a little bit about Real reform, but before I get to that I want to talk a little bit about what you already know Cities right now Have been fighting in order just to stay competitive Right now tax rates and the disparity between Cities tax rates and town tax rates Wealthy suburban tax rates have been they've been growing the disparity between wealth and poverty And where people live has been growing this creates added burden two things we know about taxes When wealth leaves one community and goes to another especially in large numbers It drives taxes in the place. They're leaving and it drives taxes in the place. They're going to So land use decisions by individuals have a driving of force on property taxes It's something that growing communities have to deal with and it's also Larger older well-established cities have to deal with one of the things that you want here in Sheboygan is for all Incomes to live in your city. You don't want to lose the middle class. You do not want to lose the wealthy You also have the problem that we recall it double whammy at the The alliance of cities, but what it really is right now the city of Sheboygan's Property value makes up about one-third of the county's property value Now some services you get from the county You've got you've got the jail. You've got some health services that type of thing But an example police services You don't really get a lot of police services from the county But you're paying for one-third of the cost of the police that may be Doing work in Kohler and some town government around this around the city And you're not really getting anything in value for that This can be extended to a whole variety of areas depending upon how active your county is in municipal services But the fact is that when you subsidize services outside of your borders You become less competitive for businesses and for residences and this is a problem all over, Wisconsin I don't know how you're dealing with your the cost of labor You know, we've got mediation arbitration which forces you to negotiate everything We had a bill last session that would have allowed for the city to determine How they provided service without negotiating it With their labor unions that got vetoed by the governor That was a problem for us now as we face. I mean 80% of your costs are associated with labor and the cost of labor you're going to be looking at a whole variety of things from opening up your contracts and talking about Concessions like virtually every city is doing in the state of Wisconsin to potentially laying people off You ought to consider the possibility of demanding from the sheriff that instead of hiring another police officer Maybe what you ought to do is tell the sheriff. Hey, we're paying one-third of all of those costs Maybe you ought to be providing some help within the city limits. It's something you ought to consider So we have the tax rate disparities. We have the tax-based disparities We have county government giving municipal services to smaller communities of which this city Taxpayers are subsidizing. These are problems that we're trying to correct We have the problem with Preempting of fees now right now as I mentioned We could do a lot more with fees and we could drop Wisconsin out of the top 10 in taxes Had we the ability to create do more with fees we've got an agenda I'll talk a little bit about that in terms of using fees a big problem. We've got property tax exemptions Every session the state legislature gives away an exemption to a property owner That benefits a few and everybody else picks that up Now one thing that we absolutely know Since 1975 almost all of the property tax exemptions that have been given out by state government Have impacted cities Significantly greater than any other type of local government because that's where the property value is I don't care if it's machinery and equipment line a stocks Theater equipment you start going down the line Housing there's a whole variety of exempt exemptions that have been given out that have had an impact we now have this pending crisis on property as my generation starts to Go into retirement these retirement homes. I don't know how many you have in the city of Sheboygan but what we have is a a virtual crisis about to occur large valued condominiums are being built by not-for-profits or non-profit groups and They are offering to take care of the elderly if they turn over large sums of money. So you've got these situations where Somebody will turn over two hundred two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to a One of these not-for-profits. They'll move in and what has happened. They've been growing They've been growing exponentially throughout Wisconsin our expectations is that they will double and maybe even triple over the next ten years and that means that those people who are paying the property tax the people in their homes those that are in apartments that cannot afford 250,000 dollars to enter into these homes will be picking up the burden There's a legislative council study on this right now. They seem to be bogged down and not moving very fast We've got mandates mandates have been a problem in the past. They continue to be a problem today Why because when you have to make choices about where you're going to spend your money, you know You you have to do recycling So you're gonna have you can't make the choice between recycling and a police officer You can't make the the decision between Recycling and a firefighter those choices are taken away from you every time the state government mandates something new Down the city government you lose your opportunity and your flexibility to make a decision about what is essential services in your city And what is not and that's wrong we continue to fight with mandates So what are we going to try to do about this? Let's recap some of the things we're facing a tacked property tax freeze, which is not only unwarranted It is absolutely political and we're going to continue to oppose it and we hope that we can educate our legislators To to not do this. I mean we have The expenditure restraint program which all of the Alliance members are participating in we as city government is The has the best record in spending on any level of any level of government over the last 20 years far and away the most conservative spending group and government anywhere in Wisconsin and far exceed The the spending differences between state government and local government. So we're going to try to talk To the state about that we're going to pose this constitutional amendment. We do not need Artificial spending caps and revenue caps in the state's Constitution the unintended consequences of this have been tremendous you remember proposition 13 in California It's been about 20 years. I'll give us give me an anecdote my son He's in his early 30s. He had two job offers in California He went out they wind him and they dined him and and he took one look at their school system He's got a daughter. That's 10 and a son. That's eight. He took one look at their school system and came back home It's and you can't pay me enough money To have my kids go to the California school system. You cannot do that and Similarly in Colorado where the school system continues to decline the opportunities For every day working people to go to the University of Colorado are diminished Daily because there is now no state subsidy for the university So we're going to oppose that constitutional amendment because the fact is we need smarter government not prescriptive remedies that are go well in a bumper sticker But we also need reform We need a lot of reform. We need to reduce the cost of government and we need to do that By by looking at consolidating services with where we can in terms of other units of government We need reform of our mediation arbitration. We need our unions to take a very good look at whether they are going to be Holding on to their particular Contracts because the reality of it is that in today's environment We must reduce the cost of government and we must get help from labor unions in order to do that We need to reduce property taxes. We cannot Continue to have freezes in revenue sharing we got a plan for revenue sharing and I'll talk a little bit about that But we cannot You know one of the proposals I heard Was well, we'll just give you a local option sales tax now This is really remarkable because if you cut state-shared revenues Which is state spending going back to local government and you give the local governments A local option sales tax, you know what happens the state can spend more money and Tabor doesn't say taxpayers bill of rights doesn't say That when the state stops giving property tax relief back to local government that they can't spend it someplace else They're just freeing up spending at the state level and giving taxing authority to local government So what you actually have is more taxation not less taxation So the public needs to understand what's really going on here This is about this is not about less taxes This is about Shifting taxes. This is about allowing the state to spend more even though they look like they're not This is not what we should be doing in, Wisconsin. We don't want a local sales option tax We got other problems you go to up the road to Appleton Appleton is in three counties, but it's even worse is the shopping centers in the town of Grand chute So you give a local option sales tax what happens the town of Grand chute no longer has a local property tax Probably could subsidize half of their school system as well and then Appleton sitting there with a higher Property tax and they lose people, you know, who wouldn't go to Live in a place that doesn't have a property tax People aren't foolish. They certainly will make those decisions So we can't we have to create a future with revenue sharing in it. We need to reduce property tax we need to reform government and In many ways we have really a 19th government's 19th century government system and I'm talking mostly about town government We need to try to figure out how we can Merge services and deliver them in a more effective manner and I don't just mean moving them to the county Maybe villages and cities and even some towns can get together and work through some of these problems Because if we're going to Revitalize Wisconsin's economy what we need to do is have smart government and smart government is hard work It's not Simplistic. There are a lot of barriers. There's labor barriers. There is turf barriers There are a variety of barriers. Does it mean we shouldn't try it that we shouldn't do it? No but I can assure you that if we pass a constitutional amendment in Wisconsin The ability to move services or to combine services will be gone Because that constitutional amendment will lock into place 19th century government in Wisconsin and we will never be able to get to smart government So we're looking for a variety of regional problems But we've got some other issues health insurance The Wisconsin Alliance of Cities has endorsed the AFL CIO proposal on health insurance now I Don't expect you all to be Experts, but you need to take a look at this We saw the actuarial report that was done on their proposal. This is good health insurance This is not Cadillac health insurance, but it's good health insurance. It's good for families This insurance if you follow the employer plan, it's an employer plan not a government plan. It's an employer plan this system would Reduce costs to about three hundred dollars per employee per month now right now The Alliance of Cities is paying anywhere from nine hundred and fifty and these are old numbers between nine hundred and fifty dollars per Employee all the way up to fourteen hundred dollars per employee our estimate is that if it were implemented today the taxpayers in Wisconsin would save eight hundred million dollars in State and local taxes eight hundred million dollars in savings to the taxpayers of Wisconsin if we reform health care Some might ask the state legislature. What are you waiting for? So health care reform? We need some changes in mediation arbitration. I cannot tell you how difficult it is to Combine services or to get out of the 19th century government box that we're in unless we have some changes in mediation arbitration. I've got three cities that 25 and 30 years ago lost in arbitration cases where they had to pay the insurance premiums for the retirees These three cities are not going to name them could be in receivership before the decade is over Because their retirement workforce is as large as their actual workforce and Just moving people into retirement doesn't help their problem with health care So we've got the health care problem, and we've got the mediation arbitration problem We need to do something with it. We've got a couple proposals on mandates Where we are mandated as cities to do things that other governments are not mandated to do it small stuff But we pay a gas tax Every city town village and school district in a state pays the state gas tax now. What Sense is it to have the property tax payer? pay for Higher tax have higher taxes because we pay the state's gas tax One level of government taxing another level of government. It doesn't make sense We would like to actually see some definition of the responsibilities between counties and cities and villages and towns why to eliminate redundancy of services In order for to make sure that the citizens the taxpayers in Sheboygan Don't pay a property tax to the county and then have the county provide services to everybody Accept the citizens of Sheboygan because that's the current law. We want to eliminate that And we've got a variety of proposals to do that we want to Want to do pursue regional revenue sharing now we've got a proposal now this is Just to kind of explain where we were the old formula for state share revenues has not run since 1999 so we really don't have a revenue sharing but what we're not talking about is Reallocation of any of that money We're going to use that as a base for the future So no city town village will lose Any shared revenues because of a new formula being Developed what we're talking about is Creating a base year The legislature could choose this year and if they did What shared revenue spending is as a percent of state taxes general taxes is six point three percent So what we're saying is carve out that six point six three percent for the future 25 percent of that new money would go as a percent increase to all levels of government Barring none, but then we create a regional focus now. This is what's different And this is this is quite unique What we'd be saying is that the general fund revenues raised in the County of Sheboygan would stay in the County of Sheboygan and Would be shared on a need basis But what this does your regional economy is the county of Sheboygan You are a metropolitan statistical area People who live in the county Work in the county to the greatest extent what we're talking about is for those revenues to stay in the county and be Distributed on a need basis for municipalities with with rates of three mils or greater So if you're under three mils, it's kind of hard to say you're a needy community when you have a mill rate of About three or less than three mils It's it's either because you're very wealthy or because you just not providing services either way You don't need a tremendous amount of help But the idea is that all local governments within Sheboygan County Would be more concerned about building The regional economy and working together Then working apart or between each other We want to be able to build cooperation to grow the economy because the fact of the matter is one of the major reasons we're a high tax state is because we have very low wages and Part of the reason we have very low wages is because we're tied very greatly to manufacturing Now you might think in terms of manufacturing being high high wage a Why high wage industry that was the case in 1970 it is not the case today high tech biotechnical types of Companies pay three times the wages Three times the wages that manufacturing pays We are changing in the world economy our vision for where we're going needs to be a little bit different So we want all local governments to work together to build their regional economy and if they do Then the corporate taxes and the income taxes that go up in the county of Sheboygan Will be shared by all local government and you will share in the the new economy in the new vision so We're going to be trying to push this agenda at the state legislature to deal with the problems they actually We we know what the problems are of city government. We've known them for years We cannot regress away from that fight We know we have land use problems. We know we have Separation of income problems. We know that we have the state legislature that just Loves to give away your tax base while they keep their tax base We know that politics partisan politics is the way of the land today And that we have to deal with that in some manner But we cannot just roll over to partisan politics because the problems That the cities face are about delivering Public safety, you know, every family wants the same thing, right? They want they want good schools. They want safe streets. They want the their Everybody wants a chance at a good-paying job. They want good health care This is and everybody wants this it doesn't matter what race what what ethnicity you are what religion you are you all want the same things and Cities play a role in that why because cities Cities are the only level of government that are part of the economy state government artificial lines Did he deliver services other than one of the lausias prison systems in the state of, Wisconsin? Where the spending is out of control three times higher than the state of minnesota a Little bit of subsidy the University of scots and the state doesn't do much They don't do anything counties artificial lines Those lines were drawn in the 1800s They haven't significantly changed in in a hundred and fifty odd years more than a hundred and fifty years They're artificial in their nature towns artificial boundaries just a way of measuring Governments so to speak back in the 19th century, but cities cities are dynamic and They grow because Businesses need space. They need to grow They grow because this is the place where jobs happen These are the flow of people and the flow of commerce is Because of cities This is where it happens So unlike any other level of government instead of the state trying to impede What cities do They ought to be turning over greater local autonomy They ought to be trying to help them grow because in the end That's what makes the state grow. So although you have these problems You also have the greatest ability to impact the people who live in wisconsin And it is an honor To represent those people and you know our forefathers created representative government. They were geniuses You know the I don't know if they saw 10% turn out at the polls in a municipal election I don't they first saw that But if it were not for the Republic That was given to us In the 1700s, where would we be? This is the greatest nation on earth because we are a republic because of representative democracy and And the thing to remember is this those legislators Are accountable to you That's what representative democracy is about To you and your neighbors and the citizens of this city, they're accountable to you. They don't tell you What to do in the real sense Unless you're willing to give that power over So we've got a really tough couple of years ahead of us But the thing about it is you're on the right side of the equation You're in the place where it matters. It's not partisan politics. It's about growing your economy It's about giving services and keeping your citizens safe So the Alliance of Cities is going to try to help in that effort And I'd be happy to entertain any questions about something that I said or didn't say And most willing to discuss it with you at this time Anybody to have any questions from Mr. Hook? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. He was Maryland's Mike here for a moment First of all a comment and then a question The health plan that Ed alluded to the AFL-CIO plan There is a presentation at Mead Public Library on that by Tom newbie on David David no be I believe on November 4th at 3 p.m. In the Roka room For anyone who's interested in that I think as Ed alluded to it's a kind of an exciting proposal That's going to spread the cost of health insurance amongst all employers and would reduce our costs substantially Then second point just a question for Ed I think as you alluded to Shared revenues have at best been frozen for the last decade decade and a half And I if I recall correctly Sheboygan sheboygan use sheboygan counts on Shared revenues. I believe we are the third Uh Third largest how would I phrase it third largest user of shared revenues in the state of Wisconsin it counts for a well over 40 percent of of our revenues Looking into your crystal ball because the state is on a different fiscal year than we are How the the second payment in 2005 For shared revenues. How is that does that look stable? Or will we have a problem with that? I asked this because we're in a midst of budgeting right now Yeah, I you'll be fine with it But it's part of the structural deficit the reason state shared revenues Is uh frequently targeted by the state legislature. I talked about the structural deficit of pushing out spending from one of their budgets into their next budget If you look at the state structural deficit About half of that structural deficit is state shared revenues because that second payment Now you got to go all the way back to 1985 Tony earl And the last time we had a crisis in wisconsin What they did to help pay Uh to balance the budget in 1985 was a shifted that Shared revenue payment out of the 1985 year budget to 1986 And they've never changed it in 20 years And so over a period of time that second payment is hanging out there Um Asking to be cut in the times of of fiscal crisis. That's why Uh, then governor mccallum took a look at it But let me just point out what shared where you're talking about 40% you lose your state shared revenues the local tax rate Here in shabuigan will go up $6 and 15 cents Without any new spending That that's the significance of it. I don't know where you are but imagine you're Somewhere around 10 11 dollars in your local rates. So there's your there's your impact of it Your oh five payment is secure. I have seen no scenario where that'll be a problem Oh six is another manner We still have a structural deficit. We still have an actual deficit to deal with And we don't know what the recommendations are going to be at this particular time This many thank you, mr. Chairman My question relates to your influence in the capital today as the alliance of cities We can help you as we are informed and clear ourselves in lobbying our own representatives Um How effective are you in your educational process in your lobbying and in your own reading of the situation today? Well, we educate on two levels. Um, I have a communications director who spends Merchally all of his days and hours Communicating with Other levels of government and the public in general about what's happening in the state legislature because people Need to understand the issues And and and we do that We have a newsletter for for everyone listed here and listening if you go to www.withcities.org We have a website and we have a newsletter that changes on a regular basis about what's happening in madison So we update and educate a whole variety of folks in the business community and the private sector And in local government in terms of the alliance of cities in our lobbying We have a contract lobbyist jim tanuta jim and I share actually share office space jim is the former Caucus chair for the senate republican party He's a his expertise is in politics And I need jim because I live in a political world of partisan politics Which happens to be dominated in the legislature by republicans right now and we have in place a political strategist and someone who Works very closely with the republican party Myself As a lobbyist I have very good relationship with a lot of legislators We are the alliance is honoring six legislators five republicans and one democrat Across the state. I have two awards left to give we have Representative wickardt from appleton was legislator of the year senator step from we're seeing with senator of the year both republicans and both Urban folks who work for cities on behalf of urban families But I can't take political positions and so Where the alliance stands is on public policy Now public policy in a political world sometimes seeps through and it sometimes doesn't seep through So we have to have a a political strategy We have to have a political entity and we have to have somebody who stays on the straight and narrow when it comes to public policy Because in the end it's the public policy changes That advance the health and well-bearing of the citizens that live within cities across the state So We are incrementally successful. I have never Had well, that's not true. I've had a couple of outstanding budgets Last session we had the best tax incremental finance reform ever in the state of wisconsin That will allow for cities to invest in their downtowns for 30 years in a way. They've never had that opportunity before So we have our incremental successes And uh, but I can tell you this if you don't have Lobbyists working for the interests of urban families every day at the state capital You would have a situation like oak creek Incorporating and surrounding the city of milwaukee like in 1950 when we didn't have Lobbyists in the state of government you would have your annexation powers ripped away from your city in no time at all And you would see A decline like you've never seen before are we effective? Absolutely. Is it always visible? No Are we going to be successful on an ongoing basis? Yes, but it will be incremental I'm seeing there are no further questions. Mr. Huck. I'd like to thank you very much for coming tonight. It was a very good presentation Thank you. Thank you Now I entertain the motion to adjourn Motion made and seconded to adjourn all in favor Contrary