 On Wednesday, August 10th, 2011, Cheboygan Common Council Committee of the Whole to order a couple of housekeeping things before we get started. Would somebody please turn off that air conditioner? We'll all be able to hear better. Besides the media that's here tonight, this meeting is being televised on our local cable access station WSCS on a delayed basis. If you have any friends or neighbors that could not attend tonight and you would like to watch the replay of this meeting, it will be Thursday, August 11th, tomorrow at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m., and Friday, August 12th, at 2.30 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. Madam City Clerk, would you please call the roll? Belt. Here. Boran. Here. Carlson. Here. Decatur. Here. Hammond. I'm sorry, Hammond. Here. Hammond. Here. Heidemann. Here. Coss. Here. Manachuk. Here. Rinfleisch. Here. Racler. Here. Sampson. Here. Vanakren. Here. Vanderweel. Here. Enversi. Excuse. Let's all please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Approval of the minutes from the August 3rd, 2011 meeting. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the minutes from the August 3rd meeting. Is there any discussion? Hearing no discussion, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Chair votes aye. Next thing on the agenda is the public forum. I think the way we're going to do this, if there's anybody against that wall that wants to be heard, we'll hear them first. Then we'll start with the section right behind the media here. In the front row, we'll work our way back and then we'll start out on this side and we'll do the same thing. So if there's anybody else, if there's anybody on this side of the wall that wants to be, on the wall that wants to be heard, please raise your hands. The first person can come up. And when you come up, if you would, please give the city clerk your name and your address, please. Good evening, Tom. Hi. Your whole name, please. Okay. Thomas Bowers, B-O-W-E-R-S. And your address? 2120 North 36th Street. 2120. 2120. North. 36th. And tonight you will have three minutes. Three minutes. Yes, sir. All right, I'll talk fast. Okay. Well, thank you for allowing me to speak tonight at this committee of the whole meeting. I have just a couple of things to add to the pot of fire. Number one, I would like to say, say pass all of it, Vicki Meyer. Vicki Meyer's brought up about three, four years ago when this council tried to censure her when she called Mr. Ryan a drunk. She had to go on hire an attorney, so I would apologize on behalf of none of the council, but on citizens of Cheboygan for calling Mr. Ryan what he really is. In addition, I'd like to read to you a letter that was sent to me by a loyal city worker. This was while I was in office, and I didn't think it appropriate at that time that I read what's in it. Dear Allerman Bowers, it would be of interest to you to know that Bob Ryan has been talking nil of you, commenting that he would rather have Allerman Meyer as bad as she was back rather than an old, stupid idiot like you. Ask Bob Ryan if he said this, watch his face. As he lies to you and claims he did not make this statement. Keep up the good work, we have faith in you, and God bless you. Now the people did not sign their name, but since then I have talked to a couple of city workers and one male and one female, so this was a collective letter and they told me basically what was in here. Also another thing I would like to bring up on the Sheboygan Press Internet, there's been some comment about Allerman Ryan Flesch that he's behind this entire thing. Now I've known Erick for three, four years, he's always been honorable, and I can tell you that he is not one that instigated this at all. Everyone claims he wants to be mayor. I think it's probably further from the truth. He will probably accept it when this is completed, but believe me, he is not one that went out and entertained this job. Now for my last thing, I would like to submit to Sue Richards to the Sheboygan Common Council, a charges submitted in accordance to Wisconsin statute 1712, 1716, regarding the removal of Robert Ryan as mayor of the city of Sheboygan, and Sue, it's been notarized. Can I give this to you now? Yes, you can and your three minutes are up, Tom. Pardon? Three minutes are up? Yes, they are. All right. Can I have your name, please? Sarah Oiler. Sarah, is it S-A-R-A? Yes. And then O-I? O-Y. O-Y. Eleon. Okay, Sarah, what is your home address? 312 Ontario Avenue. All right, ma'am, you will have three minutes. Okay. Thank you for letting me talk at this meeting. As I know the mayor, he's a good mayor of Sheboygan. Yes, he does drink, but my opinion is a lot of people have problems in Sheboygan, and I think he should stay as mayor because he's helping a lot of Sheboygan out, and a lot of the people in Sheboygan will lie on him as someone to talk to. Anybody else against the wall that don't like to speak? And we'll start in one with their long miller. Thank you, subject for a minute. Chase, could you give us your full name? Chase Longmiller. Your address? 611 Rolling Meadows Drive. Rolling Meadows. Rolling Meadows. Okay, and you will have three minutes, sir. Good evening, everyone. For those of you who don't know my name is Chase Longmiller, and I'm president of the Sheboygan Firefighters Union. While three minutes isn't enough time for me to cover all the standards and facts that support why the Sheboygan Fire Department needs to maintain its current staffing levels, I'm sure that Chief Herman Will as he gives his presentation later. However, I would like to say a few things which I hope you will help in making the right decision tonight or next Monday. When you choose to eliminate firefighters' closed stations or shutdown apparatus, you are reducing the ability of the department to respond effectively and efficiently. Remember, a fire doubles in size roughly every minute. This exponential growth is why small, seemingly manageable fires quickly and aggressively can consume a home. It is why an unattended candle can bring ruin to your home in minutes, or why a child playing with a letter can cause a fire that displaces dozens of people from an apartment building. With this knowledge, why would you choose to reduce your fire protection? We hear the phrase, do more with less from corporate leaders and government officials all the time. The fact is, you cannot do more with less unless you have developed a process that reduces the number of tasks a person must perform. Firefighting is a physically demanding task that requires accomplishing specific actions in a demanding and rapidly changing environment. Ask the Chief about the recent study done by the NIST on how staffing directly affects how quickly and efficiently, effectively, a fire department can perform critical life-saving fire ground functions. Fewer firefighters means less gets accomplished. It's not only the citizens of Sheboygan who are affected by any downsizing a fire department, but us as firefighters as well. We rely on each other not only to extinguish fires or rescue trapped occupants, but also to be there to rescue each other if the time comes. Today's fires are burning hotter and faster than ever, and a firefighter can be a victim shortly after he or she has entered the fire due to floor collapse or flash over. The firefighters needed to rescue a trapped firefighter is usually around 12. That number there almost takes up the entire amount of people we have on a scene, and there is still a fire to be extinguished. I ask you during the Chief's presentation to ask him about RIT or Rapid Intervention Teams and explain its function and how we accomplish it. In these tough budget times, the fact of the matter is that the fire department is a consumer of tax dollars. Firefighter salaries, the cost of apparatus, tools and equipment, and the continuous training. But the city of Sheboygan Fire Department per capita cost, along with the cost associated with the ambulance, according to the Wisconsin Taxpayer Alliance Municipal Book of Facts is $169, and the median per capita cost in the state of Wisconsin is 178. The Sheboygan Fire Department has been able to provide the number of needed firefighters at less the state median per capita. And lastly, I'd like to leave you with this. Last year, when Chief Herman announced due to staffing shortages, he was going to be closing stations on a rotating basis. We firefighters in less than one week were able to go out and collect over 1,500 signatures from citizens, not just in Station Five's district, but throughout the city who were opposed to closing any of the five stations. These signatures are your constituents speaking. Please listen. Good timing, three minutes. Thank you, Mr. Long Miller. Anybody up against the wall that wants to speak yet? Otherwise, we'll start in the front row up here. We have your full name, please. My name is Patrick Gillette. I live at 915 North Avenue, City of Sheboygan. You'll have three minutes, sir. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and committee members. I'm one of the complainants regarding the removal of Mayor Ryan from office. My intent is not to damage the mayor's reputation, but rather to speak to the issue of the image of the City of Sheboygan, the office of Mayor, and to the perceived reflection that the image has on the citizens of this city. Actions speak louder than words. We've all heard this adage before. We can say things and we can do things. But what we do leaves a more lasting impression. It is unfortunate we have to be here under these conditions. But whatever official progress the mayor has done for the City of Sheboygan, his personal actions have brought a greater attention to this city. Whatever positive things that the mayor claims he has accomplished during his term in office, his negative actions have far been more recognizable. His negative actions have been acclaimed, pro-claimed, and attached to the image of his office, the city itself, and to the individual citizens of this city. The mayor's and therefore the city's negative notoriety has been broadcast on radio, television, and newsprint, not only locally, but statewide, nationally, and internationally. I'm standing here before you tonight because I feel that the mayor is incapacitated by his recognizable disease of alcoholism. He can therefore request of the common council that he take leave from his official capacity to treat his illness by the mayor doing so. And with the acceptance of the council, the mayor can, at some time in the future, resume his official capacity, or again run for office. If the mayor is removed from office by the council for cause, he's eliminated from that possibility. If the mayor hears and accepts this plea, it would save the City of Sheboygan the cost, the time, and the additional embarrassment of removing him from office. I thank all of the complainants for stepping up to be heard. I thank the chairman and members of this committee and council for listening, and I'm hoping that I am thanking the mayor in advance for his understanding and his acceptance of this plea. All of the citizens of the City of Sheboygan, the common council, and the mayor are responsible for promoting the best image possible for the City of Sheboygan. Thank you. Thank you, Patrick. Thank you, Mr. Gillette. Next. Kelsey, can I have your full name, please? Kelsey Johnson, 1306 North 3rd Street, Sheboygan. We'll have three minutes. Mayor Ryan is in the gallery this evening, and I would like to address my brief comments to him. Mayor Ryan, I hope you will be successful in dealing with your alcoholism. My father's brother was an alcoholic, so I know the angst and embarrassment that the actions of an alcoholic can cause. But my uncle Ben was not an elected public official, and so the angst and embarrassment was only a concern for the family. Mayor Ryan, I hope you will accept the vote of the council and do what is right for yourself, your family, and the City of Sheboygan, which you have professed to love more than anyone else. Thank you. Thank you, Dulcy. Thank you, Dulcy. Next, whoever's next, come on up, please. Richard, can I have your full name, please? My name is Richard W. Hartman. I live here in Sheboygan at 2423 North 23rd Street. And you will have three minutes, sir. Thank you. We have been hearing words like will, plan, shall. Do this or do that. They sound like promises. But they are nothing but forward-looking statements, which are used in an effort to get another chance. Forward-looking statements are often used by businesses to put themselves in better standing with the people they must deal with. And they are nothing but declarations referring to the future and often never become fact. This has proven to be the case with the issue at hand. Compassion is one thing. But to be smitten a third time, we will always be known as fools. It may sound petty to some, but it is another matter to consider. Bob Ryan has been using the city garage to store his vehicle. This vehicle is not his day-to-day transportation to and from city hall. It is illegal to use city property for personal gain. Thank you. Thank you, Richard. In that section that wants to be heard. Yes, sir, step forward, please. Yes, sir, can I have your name, please? My name is Jeff Wessel. My address is 2517 North 10th Street, Sheboygan. And Wessel is Haji-Sveltov-E-S-S-C-L. Correct. And you will have three minutes. When I found out that there were three proposals presented to the fire chief on reorganizing the fire department, I sent an email to my alderman and asked him how much my property tax bill of $3,100 would go down for each proposal. I received no reply. About a week later, I resent the email and still received no reply. I sent the third email to him and stated that this was my third attempt to find out how much my taxes would go down and I still haven't received a reply. I then contacted him on a third time and he was not able to answer me that time either. After another attempt, I got a reply from him and was as follows. Well, Jeff, I have been gone for over a week and do not check my email when I am gone. I can inform you that since you are Sheboygan firefighter yourself, you have a misconception on taxes. First of all, your $3,100 property taxes are subsidized by the taxpayers. And you also have a misconception on how much tax money goes towards the fire department. For your records, per the city assessor's department and the former city assessor, it is $501.78 per parcel that goes towards the fire department, not the $28 or whatever it was you guys were saying. I hope you understand that I am doing what is best interest of the majority of the constituents and the taxpayers. If you would like a breakdown of what we will be saved, you can either ask your chief or wait for him to present it to the council and then ask our finance director what each will do for your taxes. I hope you have a wonderful day. Please feel free to pass my email along to whomever you like. I then email him back and ask, how does he know that I have a misconception on taxes? And how does he figure that my taxes are subsidized? I thought that since he introduced the proposal that he may have actually done some research on it. And I hope that he would also do what the majority of constituents want and not the vocal minority. But I would not have any way of know this, no reply. I then sent another email asking him, what does he consider a parcel? Is he inferring that jail, French, Walmart, Acuity, and myself all pay the same amount for fire service? Would it be more accurate to go on an assessed value or a per capita basis? If you were to do that, then your numbers wouldn't be as sensational to the person that has a property that is valued at $30,000. And you say our numbers aren't correct. Are you going to ask the police to reduce their department since they get $657 per parcel? When the chief presents his breakdown of the proposals, are you going to vote on it at that time? Or will the council allow time for public input? Is your per parcel number before or after shared revenue? How much money has the ambulance taken in year to date? Will you support the results of the Whitewater survey? This may surprise you, but I still haven't received a reply. Alderman Versi, when will you answer my questions? Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, Sarah. Good evening. David L. Gartman, G-A-R-T-M-A-N, 5509 Mending Road, M-O-E-N-N-I-N-G. 5505? Correct. Oh, nine. Oh, nine, I'm sorry. That's Sheboygan. OK, and you will have three minutes. Thank you very much. You all found a copy with Talon Wilson letterhead. I'm David Gartman. I'm chairman of the Talon Wilson, which is your neighboring municipality to the south. We have the checkerboard south side boundaries. So our things that are done in our area do affect each other. So our Talon Wilson board, last few weeks ago, I like to read the statement that they sent me here to address the council on the mayor. Dear city, all the persons in mayor, Ryan. It has been brought to our attention, the city of Sheboygan is in the process of reorganizing its fire protection services. The Talon Wilson encourages you to be cautious in changing your structure for fire coverage. Our town board supports Mabus and neighboring communities working together with significant fires. But we are hoping that you do not restructure your fire protection services in a manner which would involve a significant increased dependency on neighboring communities. The Talon Wilson board thanks you for opportunity to share our concerns. Sincerely, David L. Gartman, chairperson Talon Wilson. I'd just like to give you a little background on how we're structured. I would like to invite communication at any time we will come in, or if you want to come out and speak with us. We are not a municipal fire department. We contract services. We have a volunteer 501C, the Black River Fire Department. And we also contract with the Woosburg Fire Department for a section of our coverage in the southern edge of the town. What this means is that it wouldn't be the elected officials who would have to make decisions. We own the equipment. The town residents and the taxpayers own the equipment. But the firemen themselves are a 501C. So I would encourage any input. There's two members here this evening that are here also. Corey Wentland and Brian Schmidt, if you want to hear from them or ask them questions or any time in the future, because they'd be the ones who'd have to come in with the mutual aid. We want to thank you for all the cooperation in the past. This is Mavis is a mutual aid alarm box system which can affect many communities how they shift over. It's a new scheme and it's very well done. So you make decisions in your own boundaries. I always say that in our town too. Your municipality has to make your decisions. But some decisions you make have consequences to the community. Community doesn't have boundaries. So I appreciate any working together or any lines of communication in the future on the challenge before you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Garpman. Next, anybody have the first couple of rules up here? I believe you're next, sir. Can we have your full name, please? It is Milton R. Storm. And I reside at 1736 Marvin Court. It's in the city of Sheboygan. You will have three minutes, sir. Thank you for this opportunity. I will try to be brief. I have submitted a communication and a complaint to the city clerk not to remove Mayor Ryan. There are too many people that are using their own selfish emotions to make negative comments and I don't think are valuable. I learned from my mail carrier that Jackie DuPlein may live in my area. I wrote a letter in response to her editorial letter in the press. I'm asking the president if I may read that letter. If I can find it. As long as it's within the three minutes, Mr. Starr. Well, I'll read it at the common council meeting. Must have looked up at some place. Well, I do attend many of the council meetings and committee meetings. I've always found Mayor Ryan to be of a clear mind and a sound wisdom at council meetings and also at committee meetings. Mayor Ryan hosted a public forum in the police department. Conference we talked about how to improve the revenue. I had the privilege of being seated next with county administrator going Adam Payne at that meeting. Again, the Mayor Ryan hosted a forum at the University of Wisconsin-Chaboygan and I again had the privilege of being seated next to Adam Payne. I support Mayor Ryan with the plans of the shookered property. My father-in-law and my mother-in-law were good friends with them. My father-in-law did not drive and Walter shookered did the driving when they did socializing. I thank Mayor Ryan for his plans that were out of him for the plans that he adds for the shookered property. There has been other leading citizens here who have been DWI and one of them is the superintendent of the school's Joe Sian. I feel sorry for the loss of his son but I would encourage him that after the darkness is over and or the sadness is over and the darkness of the night has passed the next morning the sun will always rise and a new day begins. Lord willing, I hope to see you all at the council meeting Monday. Thank you, Milton. Thank you, Mr. Storm. Anyone else want to be heard? Yes, ma'am. Joanne, can we have your full name please? Joanne M. Scribner. And your address? Three Seneca Trail. And you will have three minutes. Yes, probably public officials have to be very careful of their conduct in public. So I would advise Mayor Ryan as the mayor of Sheboygan and as my friend to stay out of bars and taverns. I have a husband who is the love of my life who also likes to drink sometimes a lot but he drinks at home which is a good thing. Mayor Ryan has said at the August 1st Common Council meeting that if he is caught drinking in public he would resign. I believe we should give Mayor Ryan another chance. Would you not want another chance to improve your public or private life? I know I would. Three strikes and you're out. It's a good thing God does not look at us that way. He gives us chance after chance after chance after chance many many chances to repent from our sin. And accept him as our God and Savior and Lord. Anyone who speaks anonymously against anyone, anonymous sources have no credibility with me. If you're going to voice a complaint against Mayor Ryan or any other public elected official, state your name. Whether it's in print or on the air, don't be a wimp. If someone is addicted to a pornography and sends porn over the internet at work on the job, that person is usually fired. If they view pornography at home in the privacy of their home, they don't lose their job because they did it in private, not in public. Now Mayor Ryan, when he goes drinking, he's off the clock. It's not on the time clock, it's his private life. Thanks to the dastardly use of camera phones, being used without people's permission or without their knowledge many times, we in the public sector and the private sector have no more privacy. This is not right. Alcoholism is not a disease like cancer or pneumonia or the flu. It is an addiction. I believe though that Mayor Ryan is up to the challenge of getting rid of his addiction to alcohol. Mayor Ryan has done far too many, many good things and made far too many good business decisions for this city of Sheboygan that he should not remain the mayor of Sheboygan. So Sheboygan Common Council and citizens of Sheboygan, please give Mayor Ryan another chance to be the great mayor that he is. Sheboygan's on a good track. I've seen. Mr. Chairman, three minutes, yes, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Scrivener. Is there anybody else that would like to be heard? Is there anybody else that would like to be heard? Is there anybody else that would like to be heard? Okay, I wanna thank everybody for contributing to the public forum tonight. Next on the agenda, we have the Chairman's comments. I don't have any at this time, but I may reserve that for later in the meeting. The next thing we have on our agenda is items for discussion and possible recommendation to the Common Council, resolution number 42-11-12, Council document number 716, a resolution requesting the fire chief to draft a long range plan for the city of Sheboygan fire department by the second council meeting of August 2011. Chief Herman and staff, you're on. Excuse me, all of them, Van Akron. Mr. Chairman, on this resolution, I would make a motion to hold this until we get the UW Whitewater study back. That is currently pending. I would make a motion to hold this at this time. It looks like it dies for a lack of a second. Thank you for the motion. Chief Herman, proceed. Thank you, Chairman Boren, Clerk Richards, members of the council, Mayor Ryan, members of the public, for this opportunity to discuss the long range plan for protecting our fine city. In any community, the fire department is in place to provide public protection and safety. This encompasses far more than just fire protection. Natural gas emergencies, hazardous chemical spills, industrial accidents, car accidents, water rescues, emergency medical services, and extrications. And just about anything else that you can think of, the fire department is the first and last line of defense in a community. When people do not know who else to call, it usually ends up being the fire department. Coincidentally, this afternoon while I was typing this exact sentence, we got a call to get an animal out of a tree. While I've never been a big fan of PowerPoint presentations where I stand up here and point at a screen and read to you all the material that you already have in front of you, therefore what I would like to do tonight is to explain to you how do I came to the conclusions in the different scenarios and answer the many questions that you may have. The success of any fire department essentially relies on three factors. Early notification of the emergency, and some of this is out of our control. The rest is accomplished through having solid smoke detector and fire protection codes in place and having a quality dispatch center. Combined dispatch will improve an already great 911 system in place in this city. Quick response times. Nearly all of our outcomes are dependent on response times. Much of what you will hear tonight is based on response times. It is difficult to find any article or study done on a fire department that is not centered on response times. Response times are generally controlled by station location and having firefighters available to respond at any time. And finally, equipment and firefighters, getting enough resources on scene in a timely manner. The National Fire Protection Association places this at 15 firefighters on scene within eight minutes is the key to safely controlling an emergency. Everything you have in front of you is based on these three factors. I would like to start by giving you a short overview of how the fire department operates today. As I've outlined in your packets, the department has been undergoing a downsizing for about the past 35 years. Because of technology, downsizing has been accomplished without any loss in service. When I started, it took six people to put up an aerial ladder. With today's new aerial ladders, it only takes two or three. Firefighting foam has been introduced to supplement water. We used to have two and a half inch hose lines that took five people to maneuver. We now can deliver the same amount of water through an inch and three quarter hose line that only takes three people. Thermal imaging cameras, lighter jaws of life equipment, the list goes on and on, have all enabled us to do more with less people. However, the environment we work in has also changed. Lightweight construction, increased fire loads, and the corresponding higher temperatures that we face has shortened the time that we can safely fight a fire from the inside of a structure. Making quick response, all that more important in today's firefighting world. I'd like to explain briefly how the fire department operates on a day to day basis. All of our fire inspections, public education programs, and training are conducted on duty, while in service to serve the public. We attempt to stagger these duties, keeping as many crews available as possible at all times. With over 2,000 fire inspections to conduct a year, we divide these among our eight fire and EMS crews at about 250 inspections per crew. Some of these inspections can take an entire day to complete. When we have a crew out in the center of a factory, we have enough depth to cover for that crew when a call comes in that they need to respond to. Typically when we're doing a fire inspection, we're taken through the building with either an owner, a manager, or a maintenance personnel. When we need to interrupt that inspection to respond to a call, not only interrupts their day, it interrupts our day. So when we have less crews to do fire inspections, we'll be interrupting the business community as well when we need to leave that inspection to go to a call and come back in another time. It also, with less crews available and more fire inspections per crew to do at least less time for critical fire training. We put on over 200 public education programs a year. Most of these are in our elementary schools in the city. When we are doing these programs, we take the fire unit out of service to conduct this program. The schools have set aside this time for us, and it is not fair for us to leave during that presentation. Having enough crews available to cover for those calls when that crew is out of service doing that program is critical to what we do. The thousands of hours of training that we that are accomplished each year are done by training half of our crews at a time while spreading the other half throughout the city and the stations to cover calls. If we reduce the number of crews, the number of stations that we have, the only way that we'd be able to effectively train would be to draw all the people to one area of the city for our training, thus leaving the rest of the city uncovered. The other option is to use overtime and that is just not feasible. I also believe there's a great need in our community for new safety programs to be delivered to the elderly and people in assisted living and apartments. We also need to develop an inspection program for rental units and single-family homes in problem neighborhoods because this is where the majority of our fires occur. I could show you charts and bore you with endless statistics on response times. However, I think a couple of pictures and reports of actual fires are worth 1,000 words and will graphically show how important response times are to the outcomes of the fire department. The first picture we have is that of a stove fire that we were able to get there with a fast response time and control to just the stove. There was very little damage to the rest of the kitchen. Here you see the rest of the kitchen involved in that stove fire, very little damage. Quick response, we were able to extinguish that fire on the stove. Here you see the damage just above the stove. The next set of pictures are where the fire maybe had a little bit bigger head start on us and it did spread to some of the surrounding cabinets and appliances on the counter. Here we were able to control this fire and maintain it to the room of origin, the kitchen. Some of the pictures will show the rest of the house that had light smoke damage, but it was basically just the kitchen that had the fire damage. So if we had a longer response time and weren't able to control the fire and keep it in the kitchen, you'd have much more damage throughout the rest of the house. This picture is of 518 North 14th Street. We had a three minute response time to this call. As you can see the fire, it was at 12 o'clock in the morning, so it did have a little bit of a head start on us before we got the call. This is again a picture of the same building. This is 2314 Indian Avenue, coincidentally it occurred within the day or two of the fire on North 14th Street. On this fire we had a four minute response time to this call. On this fire an infant did perish because they had to jump out of the second story window prior to our arrival. On the first slide that I showed you on North 14th Street with our three minute response, we were able to rescue a young lady out of that window that the latter is pointing into. On this call I can definitely say a one minute longer response time that individual while I don't know if she would have perished would have had to jump and sustained injuries. We are unable to see whether a one minute quicker response time on Indian Avenue would have made a difference, but as you can see in our business every second does count. The next picture, the double picture. These two pictures are pictures of two fires that occurred last summer. The one on the left was in a fire on Union Avenue in a church. It was started in a dumpster outside. It was fueled by the natural gas meter which had ruptured. We had just over a three minute response time and were able to stop this fire before it got up into the attic. Time of the call was about two in the afternoon. The fire on your right was identical circumstances. It was the next afternoon. It occurred at four o'clock in the afternoon in a township next to us. Quality fire department all conditions the same started on a rear deck and was fueled by a propane fryer. The only difference between these two scenarios is a three and a half minute response time on the left and about a 20 minute response time on the right. Water supply and everything else was the same. The next thing we have for you is a video. It's called fire power. It's been around for quite a long time but it does a very good job better than I can do of showing the speed that a fire does spread. Maybe you could get the lights cheap. I think it would be better. Thank you. About to see a fire demonstrating the water with a still small rate cigarette is dove into the waste basket. Two minutes, eight seconds. The contents of the waste basket are smaller. Seven minutes, three seconds. The waste basket is in flames. Nine minutes, 14 seconds. When the room is in a, you are about to experience the discarded cigarette is the cause of this fire but home fires can start many ways. Space eaters, wood stoves, faulty electrical equipment and cooking among others. 30 seconds from the first flame, the smoke that ignites. From this point, fire grows rapidly. If you discover a fire, leave immediately and call the fire department from a neighbor's house. Two minutes, 30 seconds. The temperature among the couches now 400 degrees Fahrenheit. That's over 200 degrees Celsius. Three minutes, 41 seconds. The energy in the room suddenly ignites everything. Flash over. The fire grows so fast that the fire department may not be able to rescue anyone trapped inside. Fires wearing protective clothing enter to search the house and to combat the fire. Would you recognize this? It's the living room. There's not even a faint reminder of the comfortable room we saw earlier. Nothing identifiable but the coils from this is here. It took just four minutes from the first flame in the waste basket for the temperature in this room to reach over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. The fire ultimately became so hot, the window blast softened and blow-marked happening. This is part of a residential sprinkler system, a device designed to spray water during the early stages of fire development. Watch what happens. You just saw, has been stuck in this room. Prinkler systems have long been used very successfully in commercial buildings to control fires, minimize damage, and save lives. They have now been adapted for home use. As before, the fire-growing property smoke fills the room from the ceiling now. Also, the furniture in this room, lives and property have been saved. So as you can see, without quickly fires growing size, the, how rapid we can respond to that emergency makes a big difference in saving lives and saving property. The next thing we have, you have the audio. Next thing I'd like to play for you is an actual 911 tape that, a call that was placed in the city of Sheboygan for, I believe it was a kitchen fire. We've been using this tape for probably 20 years or so now, when we teach our, the kids in schools. Now as I said, this is an actual 911 call, one call from city of Sheboygan happened about 20 years ago. And as you can tell, it's quite chaotic when this is occurring, and the dispatcher didn't inform them that help was on their way, and we did respond within three to three and a half minutes. I sure wouldn't want to be a dispatcher that would have to tell this person that we're initiating a call in to get the proper resources there to respond for help. As you can see, again, response times are critical to what we do. I'd like to show you a couple charts now of the differences in the scenarios that I presented to you. The first column on the left, and everything that I presented to you is based on our actual 2010 fire call numbers. We had 160 fires in the city last year, 118 of those fires, the fire department was directly responsible for extinguishing. 42 of them either self extinguished or the bystanders put them out before we arrived. Of those 160 fires, three of them, we did not contain them to the room of origin or the piece of equipment that had started on fire. One of those fires that can be, part of that can be contributed to, it was a time when station five was closed and they would have been the second unit to arrive on scene. So it did help with the spread of that fire. One other one was a basement fire that actually first showed smoke on the second floor and we had a difficult time finding the seat of that fire. The third one was one that had a large head start on us and actually spread to the neighboring houses. So then as we move into the four station scenario and we ran all the response times off of our actual calls of last year, we did radiuses around the fire stations, estimating increased response times and we also used a mathematical formula provided by a Mr. Shram that had done a paper on the fire department last year for Lakeland College. They all came out within seven seconds of each other. So what we see is of those 118 fires, we now can expect that because of the increased response times, six of those fires instead of three will likely spread beyond the room and contents that was started when we were called. And now this is not saying that the house is going to burn down, but it's saying that maybe that kitchen, that stove fire becomes a kitchen fire, possibly that kitchen fire becomes a first floor fire, possibly the garage fire extends to the house or neighboring property. As you move to the three station scenario, again we have less fire resources available, our response times increase, so those 160 fires now become 26 that we can expect that we are not gonna be able to contain to the room of origin or the appliance that started on fire. And as we move on down to the paid on call once again where we have less and less fire apparatus in the city to respond to those numbers continue to grow. This graph is a snapshot of what we expect our response times to do. Again, the green column is actual calls from last year of our 3,751 calls, 263 of those calls we did not respond to in less than five minutes. 75 of those calls it took us longer than eight minutes to respond to. The reason for those usually are when you look at our calls we had 908 times last year when we got multiple calls at one time. Typically 40% of those calls occur in the same station area. So when one call comes in that station is busy, the second call comes in, it needs to be covered by another station, hence longer response times. So as we move through the chart, as we have less and less fire apparatus available and less stations open, our response times get longer and our outcomes as it showed in the last table also get worse. So with that, I guess I'd like to open it up to your questions. Have any questions? Thank you, Chairman. Certainly a lot of information was covered by the Chief. I guess I would just like a few clarifications. You've touched on the response times. I believe there's a chart in here that goes over the response times showing that if we went to a four station model, we would increase by approximately 50 seconds. Going to a three station model, you're looking at an increase of approximately two minutes and then the paid on call model which is asked for in this sort of resolution. There's a question mark as to how long that would take. Can you just touch on those response times and the effects of what those response times are gonna do? I mean, you touched on some of the property damage effects but also the survivability of people coming out of those fires, the injuries that could be called. Also, can you touch on the EMS service and how that would be affected by any reorganization that this resolution calls for? The question mark on the response times on the paid on call system as we were analyzing our response times and plugging them into each of these scenarios, when we got to the paid on call scenario because of having only basically two and a half stations open and enough people to staff two fire apparatus, it became very difficult to determine what our response times were gonna be in the calls that were over eight minutes. I think a good number of those calls we figured were going to be 15 to 20 minute response times which was really going to throw our average response time off. And where we run into problems when we close stations is the depth of our service. And the numbers that we went through where we have so many multiple calls, 908 in a year as I said before, 698 are two calls at once, 183 times we have three calls going on at once, 21 times five calls at once and five times six calls at once I believe so. As we lose fire apparatus in stations we can no longer handle those extra calls and that's where we would have to go to another system of relying on mutual aid and that's where we run into some of those longer response times or calling people in. In addition, we also analyzed all of our calls where we had three fire apparatus on one call, four fire apparatus on one call and five fire apparatus on one call. At those times also all of our resources are tied up. So in the past, we'd scramble to free up one rig from the scene or we would use callback personnel on overtime to staff a spare apparatus. So at five stations we were able to handle all of our calls and we used mutual aid four times last year. As we would go down to a four station module that number is going to increase significantly for the number of times that we would need help from our neighboring communities and as we go into the three station scenarios that number increases dramatically. To answer your question on how those response times increased response times are going to affect our outcomes. As you saw in the video on how fires grow there's also a graph that's put out by the National Fire Protection Association that shows a definite curve at the eight minute mark of how a fire just gets out of the control of what our resources are. So we're at the eight minute mark is very key for us to get on scene. That's why our outcomes in last year and other years have been so successful as we get on scene and put a fire out while it's still small. The times that we've had to call for mutual aid that fire has gotten beyond our capabilities. We end up calling the town of Wilson. We end up calling the town of Sheboygan for help. We just can't staff for those larger fires. So as our response times increase the size of the fires are going to increase the number of times that we're able to contain that through human origin are going to decrease and well larger fires and we need more resources than to put those fires out. To answer your question on the emergency medical part of it we have a great track record this past year on cardiac arrest saves. We're up about at about 28% I believe. National average is about six or 7%. That's not because that we have the best paramedics in the world it's because of the system that you the council and we have built here. It's the quick response times. It's the first responders that get there on scene ahead of the ambulance and can start treating these patients. So as our response times increase I can expect that cardiac arrest success rate to actually start to go down. The response time of our ambulances in these scenarios will all stay the same. It's the response time of the first responders which really are also a key part of this plan that's going to decrease and affect our outcomes. Thank you Alderman, Van Akron. Any other? Alderman Hammond. Thank you. Thanks Chief for putting this together. Certainly appreciate it. Couple quick questions as I was going through here. Notice you were talking about if we went down four stations, water rescues. Obviously we live on a nice big air conditioner over there. How many water rescues have we been part of? Just let's use 2010. Last year we actually had a rather busy year. If I was going to give you a number I'd say it was a handful. This year we were out a couple of times. Actually last week we had one. Okay, the next question I had was how often do we respond to Town of Wilson or Town of Sheboygan on calls out there? Versus incoming. Probably less than what we request them. Okay. And part of that is due to the fact that when Mavis was developed, roughly three, four years ago it was in the beginning stages. The powers that be in the city here, the mayor at that time, had the fire chief inform our neighboring communities that if you want our services you need to annex. So if you're familiar with the way Mavis works there's all cards that we sign as to what we're going to provide neighboring communities. At this time we are not on the neighboring community's first out call when there's smoke or flames, which is something that in my opinion needs to change. We need to offer that same service to them. And then finally in your proposal you talk about going to a regional plan for fire protection. Could you just maybe elaborate on and what you would envision that looking like? Because again you mentioned that that's the long range goal that you would see. Thank you. In the past years, a couple of years since I've been chief, I've been sent to numerous communities. Numerous other communities have been brought up as comparables. Most of those paid on call communities. And what all those cities had in common is that they were all surrounded by cities that at full time paid fire departments within a number of miles of their border. You can see the reports that I have given the mayor of my trips around the state. That's one thing that we do not have in Cheboygan's location. We are surrounded by volunteer departments. As the price for fire apparatus continues to rise, the last engine that we purchased was $455,000. I would anticipate the next aerial ladder to be an $800,000 to a million dollar range. It just does not make sense for all of us especially as close as we are here in Cheboygan County to continue each purchasing our own pieces of fire apparatus. For the number of fires we have, we need to share apparatus, we need to spread that cost out. And I believe that to stabilize the cost for fire protection, to help out the surrounding communities and their struggles with maintaining members, we need to develop some type of a regional fire service. How far out that goes, whether it's the town of Wilson and town of Cheboygan only, whether it goes to Kohler Falls and even Kohler or Plymouth, it's something that we definitely need to explore. I think we need to get together as fire chiefs, community leaders, and say, how can we do this better? How can we, because we had 160 fires out of our 3,700 calls, that's 17%, I believe of our actual fire calls, our fires. And every other community has that too. We need to share resources. And when we actually do have that live fire, we need to all respond to that. Thank you, Alderman Hammond, Alderman Riesler. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to point out this document, the Cheboygan Fire Department Organization from 2005 to 11. And then the comparisons that it has with other cities throughout our meeting area. I guess, correct me if I'm wrong, Chief, but in looking at that, we actually are in pretty much in line with other places. Brandon, we're one or two off here and there, is that correct? I believe our staffing is adequate. I believe we are a little bit light on the command staff compared to other cities. And just so that the people at home and the people in the crowd understand, your suggestion coming out of this long-term plan would be to maintain the current staffing levels roughly and also the five stations, correct? If you're looking strictly at how do we provide the best protection to the city of Cheboygan, that's my recommendation. As I have in your information there, the five stations in the city of Cheboygan were laid out systematically as a city group. If you look at a map and you draw circles around those stations, they're all even. If you close one of those stations, you're creating a hole somewhere in the city unless you rebuild stations to make up that hole. And the last thing before I stop my questioning is, I guess last year you were given a budget to work within, correct? And you made your budget last year? I made the budget last year and am under this year. So I guess that is the same as what other department heads are asked to do, correct? Yes. We give you the amount of money, you work within it, and you make the decision on what the best plan is. That's correct. I'm gonna make the assumption that you think and I think that I don't know too much about fires and I know much about plowing snow. So I guess I'm leaving that in your hands to make the decision of what to do with the money we give you. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Raceler, Alderman Samson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Chief, for putting all this together. It's a fair amount of paperwork we all got. This is a couple of questions. You can't mention it a couple of times. That you showed up on some fires and they already had a fairly good head start on you. So does it matter, I guess, when you get called at the point of a fire? I mean, there's a lot of unknowns, but you guys, you can respond in five minutes, but if you weren't called, you know, the fire had already been going for 10, 15 minutes or something like that, there's just a lot of unknowns. So it's, as I said in the first, one of the first factors, that is the great unknown on the notification and typically you'll see the larger fires at night when there aren't as many people out on the streets and they're not noticed as readily. The other part of that is that you really need to have quality smoke detector, fire protection ordinances in place, which provide that early notification as much. If you look at the cities that have smaller departments, some of the cities that are newer cities, they haven't enacted ordinances that have hardwired smoke detection system so you don't have tampering with the nine volt batteries. They have sprinkler codes in place for all commercial buildings. Some of them even have monitored and sprinkler system codes in place for residences. So all of those things help in the early notification but yeah, that's the great wildcard and some of the ones that we're not able to contain is how early are we notified? If I may just keep thinking. With that in mind then, would it make sense to possibly, if there was a point where, if budget constraints called for losing one of the fire stations to have some sort of a hybrid system, maybe if there were on call, where I grew up in Indiana, we had a lot of volunteer firefighters and we saw them everywhere. They were driving their personal vehicles everywhere. So they're all over the city at that point so they could show up or respond to a fire. For example, you had that stove fire where if they were able to put it out fairly quickly, it stayed right there on the stove. Could that be something that could be entertaining if there was some sort of a hybrid system where you had folks that may be located all over the place driving on their normal daily lives? They had something that may have, they were close, they could respond to it right away. Could that be something that would benefit? Obviously anything that you can put together that allows for quicker response is going to help. However, even in those type of systems that you're speaking of, those firefighters first need to respond to the fire station to get the necessary equipment needed to put that fire out. There are national standards that we live by as far as how many people need to be there before you can even enter that building. We have to live by those so as far as having, it'd be great to have people, if they were in every neighborhood with a fire truck, I guess in three other bodies with them that would work, but they still need to respond to the station to get the equipment. And then one more question. We had a gentleman come up earlier, part of the public comment, discussed cost per parcel. Do we have a minute or so? Could you explain how that's figured out cost per parcel so that we all know how that's figured out? I'm guessing that Alderman-Versey took the entire cost of the fire department and divided it by the 17,021 parcels that are within the city and came up with that number. Is that how it's done? I think that's one way of doing it. I know there's a number of ways to do it. I don't think that that would be an accurate way. I guess if you were going to do that for all city departments, the cost per parcel for police department would be $658, just for the parks alone would be 133. Department of Public Works 570, the library 186, and I calculate the fire department at 479. So that's one way of doing it, one way of doing a comparison, but that's not the way that the cost for any city service is allocated. And the reason I only brought that up was because it was an issue. So I just wanted to make some clarity. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman-Sampson. Are there any other questions? Alderman Hammond? Thank you. Not to belabor this point, but obviously we want to move forward and have the most efficient fire protection out there. Have our friends, I know that the town chairman from the town of Wilson spoke earlier, has there been any willingness on their part or town of Sheboygan or Kohler, Sheboygan Falls to at least come together to discuss a regional fire plan? I just wanted to... Part of the resolution that is in front of you and what I was directed to do was to, I forget the exact words, I believe, approach the neighboring fire services to develop a more proactive method of mutual aid. I did that. I went out and spoke to the town of Sheboygan fire department, spoke with the town of Wilson. Both of them expressed that what we were looking at doing here would be very taxing on their resources, something that would probably be above and beyond what they would be capable of handling. Both of them expressed concern that the times that they have, the least amount of people available are in the afternoon hours. The times that we have the most, multiple numbers of calls are between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. So I think that just asking them to respond to calls that we are not able to handle would not be realistic. I'm not talking about the MAVIS type of calls. I'm talking, again, in your proposal, you indicated a regional plan for fire protection or a regional fire department. Have they at least bought into having the conversation about that? I haven't begun that conversation yet, but just to make it clear, MAVIS and that type of a system is a completely different system. MAVIS was set up for very large incidents that can bring enough people to that incident to handle it, while also backfilling all the communities that are supplying the resources to handle that major incident. MAVIS is not set up for handling routine calls in a community that you are not able to do. And within the MAVIS agreement is the department providing the resources and providing the aid is not able to charge the city requesting it. It's within their agreement, so that you can't have monetary amounts passing back and forth for that coverage. But to answer your question, no, I have not started the formal discussions of forming more regional fire protection. Thank you. Thanks so much, Hammond. All in the racelor. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd ask if you had any questions, otherwise I'd like to entertain a motion. Yeah, I do have a few. I'm hoping somebody else would ask. When you're done. I got a few. Again, Chief, thanks for preparing this that was very interesting and very informative, but I do have a couple of questions. You made a comment that I was looking for here and I can't find it about combined dispatch, possibly being an asset to the department. And it just so happens that the city county shared services committee is asked our police chief and the sheriff to work on a plan to further those discussions. My question is, have you been in the loop on those discussions and could you possibly at a lateness on how combined dispatch would be an asset to the department? I have not been in the loop on those discussions. The second part of that question is there's a couple parts that go into your response times. The first part is how long does it take to handle that call when it comes into a dispatch center? Second part is your turnout time, the time it takes when that call is sent to the station or the fire rake till when you're actually on the road and in route. And the last part is when do you get there? In my opinion, combined dispatch is important because in today's day and age there are so many cell phones and I don't know what the percent is right now of the number of 911 calls that are placed by cell phone but it's a large amount. In the current system that we have in place in Sheboygan and Sheboygan County is those 911 cellular calls go to the county first when they determine the addresses within the city they need to be transferred to the city dispatch center. So I believe that that would be a time savings if that was located in one spot. Thank you. Also on the first page after the, of your report, the first page after the logo, I think it's the fifth paragraph you state here. The current system of fire protection that we have set up in the city of Sheboygan differs from nearly every other city we would consider a comparable. That is a system of five fire stations staffed with two person fire apparatus and two person med unit. The national standard is for one fewer fire stations with greater staffing per station. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? To my knowledge, Manitowoc is the only other city in the state that ever sends a piece of fire apparatus out of a station with only two firefighters on that piece of, on that fire truck. The reason that we do that so often in city of Sheboygan and it's probably 70% of the time that we only have two people on a fire truck is because that we have set up the five fire station system within this city and taken the same amount of firefighters that every other city has and spread them out thinner throughout the city. It's a reason that our response times are so good and I think it's a reason that our outcomes are also so good. Other cities operate with maybe one fewer fire station but are sending their fire trucks out with three and four people on instead of two. My next question is, if because of budget constraints we would have to go to a system where we would have four stations and 72.5 full time equivalent, would we still, I think you referenced it in here somewhere but just so I understand it, would we still be within the national fire protection standards if we had to go to that? We would be within the NFPA standards for putting 15 firefighters on scene within eight minutes. Where we would fall out of the standard is, the standard says when you are setting up an aerial ladder at a fire you need to have 17 firefighters on scene. We would not meet that standard. However, in my opinion, the number of times that we set up an aerial ladder in the city for an actual fire, either it's well into the incident or we call for help from the town of Sheboygan or we call in people. So to me that's not as critical as meeting that 15 person standard and that we would do under the four station scenario with 72.5. Thank you. Another question I have chief is that when we have personnel from the fire department retiring with all that valuable experience that they're retiring with, have you given any thought to using retired personnel from your department to do the public education, fire inspections or would even be qualified for training or would current contract language prohibit you from doing that? At present time, we're covering out all of our duties with the amount of employees that we have. As I stated in what I've presented here, if we got down to the 54 employee three station scenario or lower, we have to come up with some different method of providing those services. When you look at departments that are smaller in size, the smaller the department, the larger the fire prevention bureau tends to be. If there's one area that we're lagging behind it's members in that bureau, however, I assign those duties to everybody. I think if we got down to a three station scenario, I think anything's on the table. However, I sense that once our employees retire, I don't get a sense that they want to come back and do what they just did for 30 years or longer. Well, I guess my question is, you've got all of that valuable experience in those retirees and bringing them back as possibly a scheduled ex-employee where they would get a wage and they wouldn't get any benefits. Would there be any way that even in the current system that you wouldn't be as spread as thin, you could do a better job in the public education or have them do the inspections or would they be qualified to do training? In our current system, that would be an added expense for us. So I guess I wouldn't be in favor of that. Once again, if we got into one of those other scenarios, we'd have to look at something. I have one more. Back when, back before Chief Lesteski retired at the end of the year, just before he left, and he was looking at the budget for whatever year that was, I don't know if it was 2009, I can't remember. He invited the older persons up to the headquarter station to go over with us what he was proposing and he was proposing possibly closing the downtown station. And I know Alderman Heidemann and I attended and I think I remember correctly what he told us that if he was going to close a station at all, he would consider closing the downtown station and then he showed us a map of your coverage area and he said if that would come to pass and the council decided to close that station, that station's number two, three and four because of being able to cover the downtown area fairly efficiently, that would be the station that he would recommend closing. Now in your plan here of four stations going down to 72.5, you're indicating a possibility of a new station on 14th and Niagara. Can you just go over what Chief Lesteski's ideas were and then why two, three and four couldn't cover the downtown, why we would need a new station? Again, I would agree with Chief Lesteski and I think I've said that up here before that if we are going to close a station, station one would be my choice. Even though that the majority of our fires tend to be in this downtown, older section of town, we do converge on this area very well from three of our other stations. I also put in my proposal that while building a new station centrally would take away the inequities of our response times to the downtown area, it is not paramount that you do it as a cost saving measure. You would not have to do it, but as I said before, with the five station system that we currently have, if you close one of those stations, it's going to create a whole. This map that we have here, and we couldn't project it very well, has the circles around the five stations that we currently have and these are three and a half to four minute response times around all these stations. So as you can see, we have very equal coverage. We just meet at the outer circles of these stations. So if we would close the downtown station, it is going to create a hole in our coverage basically from Ninth Street to the east and from Ghillie Avenue to roughly Broadway Avenue. And one of the other difficulties that we would face, as I said, is the majority of our fires are in this central area where the homes are closer together, homes are older. At those fires, we tend to get two stations there nearly at the same time, which really helps with advancing hose lines and getting those fires controlled. If we do close that downtown station, we will be showing up at those fires with only one fire station and we'll be waiting for about two to three minutes for that second station to arrive. So that's one of the reasons that I put in there that if you're looking strictly at how do we protect the public the best and you are going to close the station, you need to consider relocating the other station to cover that hole. Thank you. Alderman Van Anquen. Thank you, Chairman. Again, I think we've seen a lot of data. I think we've heard the chief's recommendations. We've seen a lot of the data as to the quality of service that's provided currently. Based on the three proposals here in this resolution, I think it's apparent that our quality of service would certainly go down. Our response times are certainly going to go up and I think the risk to the public is certainly gonna go up. I don't think it would be wise for us as a committee or as a council to go forward with any one of these recommendations or proposals. Would that be in the case? I guess I would make a motion to file this document or recommend filing this document. I guess that dies for a lack of a second. I don't believe we should probably be making any decisions on this document tonight as far as what scenario we're going to go with because I think it's premature, but that's up to the council. I would possibly recommend a referral. Alderperson Kittleson, do you see any need for this to come to your committee or have we discussed it enough tonight? I was thinking possibly of having this go to the strategic fiscal planning committee for when we get into our budget negotiations, when we know all of those factors and have strategic fiscal planning use this as part of our planning for next year's budget. Alderman Hammond, would you want to see this at finance or would strategic be the proper place for this to go? You can bring in the strategic fiscal planning. Finance doesn't even see it. I would entertain a motion to that effect. I move. Second. We have a motion and a second to refer this document to strategic fiscal planning. Madam City Clerk, would you call the roll? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? No. I vote aye. I'm sorry, was there a no? A no, one no. Thanks again, Chief. We're going to take about a seven-minute recess before we get into the next agenda. I guess we all get up and stretch a little bit. Let's convene at 8.30. Thank you. Back in session again, please let the record show that all-her-person Vanderwillie is excused for the rest of the meeting because of a family issue. The next thing on the agenda, we have number eight, which is a preliminary consideration of complaints for a removal file to date with the City Clerk. And I'm going to call on our city attorney, Steve McLean, to report on that, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I would say that I received... I can't hear you. Steve? Yeah, I can't hear you. Usually I get feedback if I talk too close into it. The City Clerk provided me with copies of five different communications that have been filed in her office and asked that it provide her an opinion as to whether or not any of those submittals constituted written verified charges brought by a resident taxpayer for purposes of triggering the removal statutes. So I did that. And to be fair, the process in this... These circumstances get a little out of whack. Typically, communications come into the City Clerk and are introduced at a City Council meeting and get referred to committees. Here, these documents have not yet been introduced into the Council. So the Council hasn't formally received any of them, although I know, because I looked at them, I know they're on the Shpoing and Press website and maybe many other websites as well. I don't know. They're out there in the public. Chairman asked that I make copies for the Alderman of the five complaints because I don't know if the Alderman have looked at them. I did cut down half a tree to do that. And I've made copies, so I'll have to pass those out. As preliminary matter, I received an email from one of the, I don't remember which TV channel it was, I think one on Green Bay, asking what my function was in this process and whether or not it was statutorily required that the City Attorney review these things as they came in before they went to the Council. The answer to that is no. I was asked to take a look at them. And I did do that with the view that I would perhaps assist the Council in kind of cleaning the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. I think the statute is not the clearest and it hasn't been interpreted very often because these sorts of situations don't arise on a regular basis. So I have to say that at the outset, I have provided an opinion and I finished it late this afternoon and the Chairman could pass that over to the City Clerk. That's the original. I have made copies for the Alderman of that opinion as well and I provide that to the extent that there aren't enough news media can either get it from the City Clerk or get it from our office tomorrow. The Chairman asked that I had agreed at the time we added these items to the agenda, provide my preliminary review of the complaints. I did have a fair amount of time today to review them and I'll provide my opinion as to each of them in the order that they were filed. But also as another preliminary matter, I did not and my office in no way is rendering any opinion as to the sufficiency or factual basis or merit of any of the charges set forth in the complaints. That determination, in my view, is within the province of the City Council. I looked at whether or not, in my opinion, these communications met sort of a threshold standard as to whether the written verified charges brought by a resident taxpayer of the governmental unit in which the person against whom the charges are filed is an officer, i.e., a resident taxpayer of the city of Shiboyga. The first complaint was filed on August 1st by Jackie DuPont. I'll try to go through these briefly and not read the word for word. Mr. DuPont signed what I would view as a communication or a letter. It's not notarized. There's no declaration in there that the statements contained therein are true. There's no oath or affirmation to that effect. And in my opinion, such a declaration is required as a minimum to elevate written charges to verified written charges, which is what's called for in the statute. The removal statute does not define what verified written charges are. It's pretty obvious what written is. I'm not totally clear anywhere what charges are or what verified are, verified is. There is a definition, however, in the statutes under it's the uniform notarial acts statute that deals with what notaries do and so forth that defines verification upon oath or affirmation to mean a declaration that a statement is true made by a person upon oath or affirmation. So in my view, verification has to do with making it some sort of a declaration that the statements therein are true either on information of belief or to the best of the person's knowledge and that there's some oath or affirmation to that effect in the document. There is an attorney general's opinion that talks about verified written charges under the removal statute that that requirement being in place to protect public officials from having to defend themselves in removal actions unless there's a solid factual basis for the complaint. In other words, all of you as Alderman are elected officials as well. If all that was required was basically a letter into the city council, you could get inundated with complaints on a regular basis against you or myself, city clerk, any department head, any city employee, you'd have to deal with them. So I think the statute is trying to make it impossible for citizens to bring charges, but to elevate the status of someone doing this to recognize that this is not a routine sort of thing and that there are consequences and repercussions to doing it. I reference an older Wisconsin Supreme Court case in 1950, it's not, the case isn't directly on point, but as a tangential issue, the court noted that where a statute required a verified complaint to be filed with the district attorney prior to the DA commencing an action, that Supreme Court held that the DA was without authority to commence the action without the statutorily required verified complaint. So in my opinion, what that's saying is that if the statute in the removal section says it needs to be written verified charges, that the verified has significance and that without the written verified charges by a resident taxpayer in the city, that the council or whoever the removal authority is, really is without statutory authority to act on that. The reason I say that is because the removal statute does say removal rules from office for cause under this chapter may be made only upon written verified charges brought by resident taxpayer, the governmental unit. So anything less than that, in my view, does not constitute written verified charges. Now, so as to Mr. Punt's communication, in my view, it's not verified. In addition, I checked with the city assessor's office. First, I checked on the city's AS 400 computer, which I have access to and found that the address that Mr. Punt gave as a residence is not, was not owned by Mr. Punt. So I checked with the assessor's office to determine whether Mr. Punt owned any real estate in the city of Shboygan or owned any property within the city that's subject to taxation and the response I got back was no, she does not. Assuming that to be the case, I don't feel that it meets the test of coming from a resident taxpayer of the city and therefore would not qualify and council would be without authority to commence a removal proceedings based on that complaint. Any questions on that? Any questions for the council? So I guess the only question I would have is on the planning of that, would include a renter in the city of Shboygan according to the statutes and for filing a complaint? Not necessarily, and it could be a renter but own other real estate in the city and pay taxes. So in other words, just strictly if she rents that house and does not pay property taxes then that precludes her from having this, filing this complaint. Well, she can file the complaint, but in my opinion, it would not subject that communication to the standard where the council could then go forward with removal proceedings based upon that complaint. Any other questions? Okay, thanks attorney McLean. Those two issues are really what I focus on in most of these communications. The next was of Deborah Jelonic, sorry if I mispronounced the name there. That was dated August 2nd and filed with the city clerk on August 5th. Ms. Jelink is a city resident and taxpayer and that I checked on the AS 400. And also with the confirm that the assessor's office. Ms. Jelink's letter is signed and notarized and in the document, she swears that the statements contained in her letter are the truth to the best of her knowledge. Then I talk about as to whether the letter contains charges, I guess in my opinion short answer is that it does, I think that's a, it's not a very high bar to overcome in my view for something to be a charge. There's statements that the mayor lied to the council. There's various statements in there that I think can be construed to constitute charges. And in my opinion, that communication would pass the initial threshold requirement of written verified charges by a resident taxpayer of the city. And the third complaint I looked at was of Marlene Reindel. That was dated August 3rd and filed with the city clerk on just the other day on August 8th. And once again, Ms. Reindel is a city resident, but based on information I received from the city assessor's office, she is not a city taxpayer in rents and apartment. Again, while her communication sets forth charges and is signed, there's no declaration made about her affirmation that the statements contained are in or true. And basically, I conclude that it doesn't constitute the threshold requirements for the council proceeding to commence removal action based upon that complaint. The next one I looked at was the complaint of Patrick Gillette, dated and filed August 8th. And I see Pat back there. Well, I know Pat is a city resident and I did check the S-400 in the assessor's office, he is a city taxpayer. His citizen complaint is what it's titled, is signed, notarized and sworn to on information of belief. And that the various allegations of statements contained therein could constitute charges for purposes of the removal statute. And in my opinion, it would meet the threshold standards for the council to be within its authority to commence removal proceedings based on that complaint. The final one I looked at was the complaint of Asher Heimerman, dated and filed August 8th. Again, Mr. Heimerman is a city resident. He didn't make any allegation about being a city taxpayer and based upon information that I received from the city assessor's office. It is not owned property which is being taxed by the city. He notarizes, his document is notarized. The notarization, the way I read it is basically your typical notarization and what that represents is the notary makes a verification that the signature is that of the person that claims to be Mr. Asher Heimerman. It's not, just because it's notarized in my view does not make it any sort of declaration made on oath or affirmation that the charges contained are in or true and there are no statements to that effect in the communication. So in short, I conclude that on those two bases that the council would be without authority to commence removal proceedings based on that complaint. So on the last page, I conclude in summary three of the complaints I don't think meet the threshold requirements. Two, I believe, do this joints and Mr. Gillettes. And I think the council could consider those as far as proceeding further with removal proceedings. And I close with a statement that while it may be within the council's authority to initiate removal proceedings upon submission of written verified charges by a resident taxpayer, the council is not obligated to do so. Such actions are discretionary on the council's part. If you do proceed and we'll talk a little bit further about the process beyond that, but I would suggest as a threshold by the council that there be some majority vote or something to go forward with whatever it is you wanna do. The statutes do provide, this is the removal statute, I should go back as chapter or section 17.16 of the Wisconsin Statutes and it's subsection three that has most of the requirements. But in subsection four, it does say that the council may, before acting upon any charges preferred against any officer, require the person preferring the charges to execute and deliver to the authority, in this case the council, a bond and sum of $1,000 for the payment of all costs and expenses actually incurred by the city and by the removing power in the hearing and investigation of the charges. Once again, that's discretionary in my view and it's not required that the council require that. I don't know if there's any questions as to- Any questions? That aspect. And then I turn it between if there's no questions, let's move on to item number nine, the procedure in the event of formal removal process. First let me go back and once again, there are two methods that the statutes provide for non-voluntary termination of an elected official's office, at least a local elected official. Those are removal and recall. Statewide, a lot of people not necessarily in our area because we didn't have a recall election today, but many parts of the state they did over state senators. Recall process is a very effective process. It's one initiated by citizens. If they don't like their elected official who was elected by the same people, they submit a circulated petition, get enough signatures, have a referendum election and vote that person out of office if they so choose. That's sort of grassroots democracy where the individual citizens have and pursue that process. One threshold requirement is the office holder has to have been in office for at least a year. It's not an issue in Sheboygan as the mayor's been in office for over two years now, I believe it is. The other process is removal that basically puts the power of removing an elected official in the hands of the city council when it comes. Steve, excuse me, just a moment. If we could just follow up on that, the one you were just talking about. Recall. Pardon? Recall. Sue, I don't want to catch you off guard, but I know you and I talked about this a couple days ago. Could you, would you be prepared just to go through the process of approximately how many signatures, I think it was 4,000 something, and then what the process is for the time period that the filers have to get the signatures and what happens and then when you project if it was a recall election, what it would take place? Love to. Okay, with a recall election, I've done the numbers. It basically is, let's talk about the signatures first. What I do is I take 25% of the votes cast for the last gubernatorial raise. In our case, I don't know, don't quote me on the exact number, but I believe it's 4,100 and something. So let's just say 4,200, just to be safe. So to recall the mayor, it would be a city-wide recall election. Obviously it would take more than the 4,100, 4,200 signatures because you don't hand in just the exact amount you need. You would have to have over that in order to, when they come back into me, we have to verify, addresses, et cetera. So we, with any candidate, always say there have to be more than what is absolutely needed. To start the process, what would happen is a person would come into our office, the city clerk's office, and they need to file a notice of intent to circulate a petition for recall. That's the first step. They also have to take out the typical campaign papers, the registration forms. For a campaign, it would be perhaps a committee, a recall committee called Recalling the Mayor or Recalling John Smith or whoever it is. They would take out those papers. The minute they file the intent and take out those papers, the clock starts running. From that point, for 60 days, they would have to collect the signatures up to 60 days. When they turn the signatures in, say at 60 days, then I have 31 days after that to verify all of the face of each of the petitions. Within that 31 days, I also have to allow the official that's being recalled a 10 day period where they can challenge before I finish my 31 days. Then we move into the setting up, if it is verified and everything, then the council would order a recall election. Then it would be a waiting period as far as when the election would actually happen. In estimating it, if it were to be a 60 day, 31 day, my guess is that the earliest the election could be would probably be sometime in December or possibly January. The mayor would automatically be on the ballot. He would not have to take out campaign papers. And then anyone else that qualifies to be the official would take out campaign papers to run against the mayor, the current mayor. And that's how it would generally go. I can't give you any more details right off the top of my head, but that's generally how it would go. Are there any questions from the alderman on the process? Alderman Reisler. What if there were like three other candidates? Would we have a primary? Yes. That would take more time. Yes. Or money. Alderperson Kittleson. Thank you, chairman, in the cost. Sue, approximately. This would, because we'd have to open city wide, it would be opening all of our polling locations. Typically I estimate anywhere from 15,000 to 25,000 depending on how many people I have to hire, et cetera. Somewhere in that range, I can't give you an exact. Thank you. Thank you, Alderperson Kittleson. Are there any other questions? Thank you, Sue. You're welcome. Stevie, do I continue? Okay, the second option obviously is removal under the state statutes for city officials is 17.16. Under that process, these charges that are filed need to be prosecuted. Basically, it becomes similar to what we do with law and licensing, there's a quasi-judicial hearing held, quasi-judicial in that it's not in a court, it's in a legislative arena. But it's sort of an analogous process to a certain extent. As I see it, at least theoretically, there's a couple of ways that that could work. And again, let me preface Puckin, kind of what's in the statute and theorizing somewhat because I am not aware of anywhere in the state where there's been a removal process of a mayor in the state of Wisconsin. Now, maybe going back a number of years there have been, I am aware of one reported case from the 70s that involved a city clerk, that was where there was a removal proceeding, it gave me what community it was. But that went after the council went through their process and removed that officer, there's provision for appeals to the circuit court, and the chain to the court of appeals and this particular Deluca case went to the state Supreme Court. Now, that's because at the time, there was not a court of appeals and intermediate court in Wisconsin, so it went from the trial court to the appellate court, which was the state Supreme Court, but that potentially is a lengthy process and not an inexpensive process. I just say that, not to say that you can't do that because you can, but it's not something to be taken lately, I guess is the point of that. Going back, I think in theory, you could have the complainant who you could treat basically as the plaintiff in a lawsuit, say, okay, Mr. Complainant, you filed these charges, you're charging that the mayor did this, that, and the other thing and that they should be removed. We're gonna put the burden on you to prosecute the case, you prove it and the council will act as judge and jury and render an opinion as to whether you proved up your case. I don't think that that is the process that's intended by the statutes, but it's not, it doesn't really talk to that. The fact that it talks about having the complainant perhaps post a bond would leave me to believe that the process is different than that, that it's not the complainant necessarily prosecutes the charges. So the other option, as I see it, would be to hire a special prosecutor, have the council hire a special prosecutor if you chose to go forward to prosecute the charges and it would have to be those charges that are submitted that meet the tests of the verified written charges. In this case, in my opinion again, it's just my opinion, I think there are two. The statute doesn't really get into whether or not you can either pick or choose one or the other or sort of do a hybrid, I would assume you could, the council could decide to go forward with both kind of at the same time and prove up the case using both of them. Using both of them. Again, the standard that the council has to arrive at for removal is statutory and it's cause for the purpose of the removal statute is defined as inefficiency, neglected duty, official misconduct or malfeasance in office. Those aren't further defined in the statute and it's kind of left up to the deciding body as to what meets that standard. That's sort of a discretionary test I think but I think there clearly has to be some cause for removal and the statute makes clear it has to be by a three quarter vote of the full membership of the council, so in this case it would be 12, I guess three quarters of 16 as a minimum to remove. I say special prosecutor because in my opinion our office is pretty much, if this goes forward is going to be out of the picture. I think our office has a conflict. We, our authority and duty is to provide advice and counsel to the mayor and the council which constitutes the governing body of the city and we're not going to prosecute one of our clients if you will, I don't think that's what meet any standards of due process and would probably relate to our office's code of conduct for attorneys. So that means hire an outside council to act as special prosecutor. Likewise, in my view, it would be prudent for the council and perhaps I'm overstating, overstepping my bouncer because as I say, I think go forward our office is going to drop out of this issue but I guess I think it would be prudent for the council to consider hiring special counsel also to represent the council in the sort of the hearing process and the procedure that needs to be followed. So that's two outside counsel and there's certainly a cost to that and I can't give you really any sort of reasonable all part figure as to what the costs of that would be. There would be so many variables I wouldn't even want to hazard a guess. I can tell you that at least from reading the Marinette Eagle Herald, I think it is the newspaper online from what was in their paper they were all parking similar process with their mayor at between $10,000 and $50,000 for basically outside council services. I think you'd also want to contract with a court reporter. The statute talks about ironist stenographer but I think if you're going to go through the process you want to have a good record and you should have a court reporter recording all of the proceedings. Steve, could I just ask a quick question on that? That would preclude your staff from taking minutes like they do at our quasi judicial hearings. When you said your department is out of it, does that include your clerical staff? No, I don't think as far as taking minutes or anything like that. Could they act as a court reporter? Well, they're not court reporters. They're not court reporters. Could they act as stenographers? Yes, and the statute talks about stenographers but I guess what I'm suggesting is that you might want to go beyond that and use a court reporter. But again, I guess my thought is that what you may want to do if you're gonna go down that route is get on board an attorney that will be representing the council and perhaps discuss with that individual. I generally didn't do depositions. I don't believe the city attorney, assistant city attorney, Chuck Adams did any depositions or I don't even believe the defense council that we basically subpoenaed the people and then they just, the councils, each council, the prosecutor and the defendants council were able to ask questions. Is that a hard-fast rule or are depositions a possibility in this kind of a procedure? Well, again, there's not a whole lot of precedent. I don't think, but I would think depositions would not be wise to permit. I don't think that necessarily depositions would be required to provide due process to all the parties. The statutes don't talk about depositions. It talks about a speedy hearing and the ability of the accused and their council to confront the witnesses and cross-examine witnesses. I think that's clear, but I hate to harken back to the Angela Payne situation, but that was filed a couple years ago and had been set for hearing next week. Part of that was a lot of procedural processes, depositions and interogatories and all that, but if you want to eat up a lot of time and money, you can do that, but I don't think that that's required under due process standards for a removal proceeding. Thank you. Any other questions from the alderman? Thank you, Steve. Go ahead. Another caveat, I guess if and when the council decides to hire a council representing them, perhaps that's a question you would ask them as well. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. The next item on the agenda is number 10, funding and hiring of special counsel. I see our financial director, Jim Amorio, is in the audience and I'd like to call Jim up to answer some questions we may have regarding funding this if we would indeed decide to head with this removal process. So director Amorio, could you step up to the podium please? Director Amorio, from what attorney McLean said, we can't give you a hard fast figure, but based on what he did mention about a figure from 10,000 up to $50,000, when we're talking that kind of money, where would you envision those funds coming from if we decided to go ahead with this? Well, as you know, coming into the 2011 budget, we did have a contingency fund that we used to meet our budget in 2011. So our current budget does not have a contingency fund in it. My recommendation would be that if you chose to use funds, you have the authority to use some of the undesignated reserve funds in the general fund balance. Any questions from the alderman? Alderman Medichat. And right now, if we wouldn't spend that money, what would that money go towards for next year? Spend from the general fund? Well, the general fund has a reserve balance in it. We're required by local ordinance to maintain a certain percentage of that in reserve in case there's emergencies within the city. Those funds can be used that are undesignated. And currently, what's the balance? The balance is 5.4 million. Any questions? So I wanted to turn it to the clean. Jim, my understanding, that would require, though, a budget alteration. That is correct. To move the funds from the undesignated reserves to some account to cover that. Correct. Which would have to be a resolution. A two-thirds vote of the council to do it. Yes. Any questions for director Muriel? Thanks, Jim. Oh, I'm sorry. Alderman Hammond. Jim, what is the level that the undesignated funds is mandated by? Well, it's normally 18% of our next year's budget. So if we spend $35 million, it'd be close to six, six and a half million dollars. We'd just barely meet the threshold. From 10 to 11, we improved it from 3.6 to 5.4. We still have a ways to go to meet our 18%. But in emergencies, we can use those funds. It does, at some point, you know, for going out for large bond issues, could affect our bond rating. Because they do look heavily at our undesignated reserves. So at this point in time, we're not at the threshold? Correct. Any other questions? I think that's it. Thank you, director Muriel. The next thing I would want to discuss with the council is what action, if any, does the council want to take because we do have two verifiable complaints here. What action, if any, do we want to take to remove the mayor from office? And I'll open that up for discussion. President Rinflation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was expecting a bit more conversation at this point in time from a fellow all the persons. The vote was 14 to two last time, as per resignation. I believe, though, that wasn't based upon politics, budgets. It was based upon a feeling of responding to the constituents. I think in most cases, those that voted two against and those that voted 14 for that motion were responding to the constituents. I don't hear anything in this conversation right now that would lead me to believe that the constituents would change their mind. Any actions that we take today, obviously, would have to get voted upon by the council. It does give us a few days if we make some motions today to hear back from our constituents to either alter our course or look at some other options that way. But the phone calls that I've received basically involve do whatever it takes at this point in time. So my goal is to maintain that. I will continue to do that. You're seeing anything that it takes to removal. Right. I'll make a motion at this time if no one else has any idea, any thoughts? Motions would be to proceed. I guess motion would be to recommend to the county council to proceed with the formal removal process. Furthermore, the motion would be to direct, I guess, the president, county council president, county council vice president to interview potential attorneys. And the third resolution would be to a budget resolution to use undesignated funds to fund the hiring of the attorneys. Second. I'll second that. We have a motion and a second. I wasn't going to take, can't take shorthand. So. I don't either. So you may want to read it again. There's nothing written down, so I'll have to go again. The resolution would be to direct, I guess, to recommend to the common council to commence the formal removal process. Furthermore, to direct, I guess, council leadership to interview and hire the two attorneys, one for council for the council and one for special prosecutor. And furthermore, because it's a budget item, to move the undesignated to, I guess, create a resolution to move from the funds, the funds necessary to hire the attorneys. Undesignated funds to move from undesignated funds, the funds necessary to hire the attorneys. We have a motion and a second. And now we're under discussion. Alderman Hammond. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I would just offer maybe a friendly resolution based off of what attorney McLean had indicated. Maybe the first step would be to hire just the council representative, the attorney representing the council, get his or her feedback as to what attorney McLean presented in the process and then determine from there whether a special prosecutor is necessary. So I guess I would just offer that as a friendly amendment. President Rinplaysh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Not opposed to that amendment. Trying to, though, in essence of time, of a speedy hearing, as attorney McLean pointed out, I guess that would be the intent. But at least the resolution would be there that if we need to proceed, then it's been allocated at that point in time. But attorney McLean's point, speaking with her own council about the validity of the specific charges now, I think it's important to do first. So I agree, but that would be within that picture. Also, President Rinplaysh had asked a question before I would make a motion, a friendly amendment. Do you think it would be a good idea to possibly put a cap on the transfer? And then if we go along in this process, maybe just hypothetically, if the cap was $50,000, that we get a report back from our council when we maybe reached $40,000, because I know some lawsuits in the past with the city, we've ended up with a big legal bill surprise, and I'm just offering that as thought of possibly incorporating that into your motion to have a cap in there that whatever the cap is, and then perhaps when we get three quarters there, get advice from our legal council as to where the clock is running and how much we spent and how much we have to go, and then we also can evaluate where we are on the process at that time. I'm not opposed to that as well. The motion's meant to be most from the body, so the will of the body, so I would accept that motion. I'd make a friendly amendment to put a cap on the expense at $50,000 with a report from our council when we reached the $40,000 mark. Make that friendly amendment. Second. And then of course the document that comes through for the meeting on Monday night would reflect that the transfer would be a transfer of up to $50,000. Sue, what's the procedure? Do we have to vote on my friendly amendment? It's been seconded or? Well, it's a friendly amendment. I think that we incorporate that in the one before, but my question would be you said that you wanted to have the leadership interview and hire two attorneys. You've got that, plus then you've got, let's do the another friendly amendment that says let's just hire one. So which one do you want to? One says two, one says one. Alderman Hammond? I don't think my button's working, sorry. You know, maybe again, just as a suggestion, we can certainly authorize the leadership to hire up to two and that might solve that, but again, I think at least initially would hire one. I would just also like to make a comment about the cap, keeping in mind that it takes two-thirds of this body to, if we cap it at 50,000, it takes two-thirds of this body to raise it a second time to authorize more money. So instead of putting a cap on it, again, a little bit of a friendly amendment would be maybe to appropriate whatever's needed, but then the council can dish it out after review at $40,000. Put that in right now. I would go along with that. That's what I remember now. I would withdraw mine and go with Alderman Hammond's. It's not put a cap on it, but review it at 40,000 if it gets that much, if it gets to be that much. I'll withdraw my second and second, the new motion. Thank you, sir. Is there any other discussion from the Alderman? Alderman Medichak. I just want to get this clear that tonight we hear about from the Fire Department that they may have to close firehouses, risk lives by cutting in time, so that they can respond to. We haven't made our threshold for next year's budgeting, so that money's gonna have to come out somewhere. Basically, we're ensuring making cuts such as closing the firehouses and whatnot to pursue the chance of removal. And then even then, we don't even know for a fact that it's gonna be for sure removal when we have the option of a recall which would limit the city's liability and future spending of the removal of the mayor, if that's truly the will of the people. Thank you, Alderman Medichak. Alderman Heidemann. Thank you, Chairman. I don't want to get a lot more phone calls on this. I get enough comments during the day but my phone is not ringing off the hook as far as whether they're for or against getting rid of proceeding to take Bob from office. I guess I would think that spending $50,000 on something that might resolve itself in a year and a half might be a waste of our money. So I'm not gonna support spending any money to try to get the mayor out of office though I did and would have liked to see him resign and I voted in favor of that. I have trouble spending our hard earned tax dollar on something that might be alleviated or there might be the other option of the recall. I guess I'd rather see that come forward and limit our liability to that. But so I can't support a $50,000 cap to go against the mayor. I think the current motion on the floor is that there's no cap. Okay, well even spending any, I don't want to spend one dime on doing that so. Alderperson Kittleson. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. Just to ask those undesignated funds are for emergency. You wouldn't use that money to fund the fire department anyway. So those are monies put away for emergencies. Just to make that clear, I think that's correct. Am I right in that? Thank you. Director Ramonio. Let's read you some of the data to step up here. The city in the past 10 years, probably six to seven times out of those 10 years has used undesignated fund reserve balances to fund expense budgets for the city. So we do use that. So in your example, if we wanted to fund the fire department an extra $200,000 or $300,000, and the council approved that we could do that. Any other discussion? Alderman Medicek. So once again, that money could go to saving the fire house or it could go towards pursuing. If the council so chooses, that's correct. Thank you, Alderman Medicek. Any further discussion? Alderman Samson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't believe we're at an issue here where we're deciding on keeping or closing a fire house in order to pursue this matter. I think those are two completely different issues. So we're not choosing to close one or keep one open just so we can pursue this particular situation. Thank you, Alderman Samson. Alderman Hammond, I think you're next. That was from before. Thank you. President Rinplige. Thank you. I guess to make it clear, to respond to Alderman Heidemann, I don't want to spend a penny either on this. The action that's taken, weren't taken by me, it was taken by the mayor. The responses that we took last time on the 14th to do a vote, was a response that we took lightly was response to the mayor's actions and it's response to the comments that I'm receiving on the street, at home, and I'd rather not spend a penny either, but we asked the mayor to resign, he publicly stated that he will not do so. By not doing anything, I think we're granting approval for the behaviors. I think we're granting acceptance that for the next year or several months that we're okay with what had happened. And quite frankly, I don't think that's acceptable. I think we have no alternative because the mayor has forced us into the situation. Thank you, President Rinfleisch. Alderman Heidemann, I think you and I probably qualify as a couple of the biggest penny pinchers when it comes to the taxpayer's money on this council. I have to tend to agree with Alderman Rinfleisch based on the calls that I've been getting from district four. I've been getting the same volume of calls for removal as perhaps you and I don't want to spend a dime either, but under the circumstances, we asked the mayor to step up, man up and resign and he refused to do it. So this has, this leaves us basically with no other alternative if we want to move forward with this, but I agree with you, Joe. I don't want to spend any money either, but under the circumstances, if we move ahead with this, we don't have any choice. Any other discussion? Okay, with no further discussion, I believe we're ready for a roll call on this. Does everybody clear what we're voting on? Sue, can you go through it? I can kind of generally go through it because I've got it on tape. Basically, there was a motion to recommend to the common council to proceed with the formal removal process, in addition to have the leadership interview and hire up to two attorneys, in addition to draft a resolution for a budget transfer using undesignated funds and to have those undesignated funds with no cap basically and the reporting by the legal council that's been hired when it gets to be 40,000 and then advise future. Is that basically what you all said? Attorney McShree, did this take a simple majority or two thirds? It's just a recommendation. Just a recommendation. It's just an recommendation. It's also a simple majority. Mm-hmm. Madam City Clerk, would you please call the roll? Carlson? Aye. Decker? Aye. Hammond? Aye. Hammond? Aye. Heidemann? Nope. Coth? Aye. Kittleson? Aye. Matacek? Nope. Rinfleisch? Aye. Racelor? Aye. Samson? Aye. Vanakren? Aye. I'm sorry, she's gone. Belt? Aye. And Boren? Chair votes aye. 12 ayes, two noes. The next thing on the agenda, it passes. The next thing on the agenda is a set for nice meeting date and that will be determined for anyone to be close to the committee of the whole. I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Aye. Motion to second to adjourn. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Thank you, everybody.