FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING

SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

Committee Member Mr. Evers opened the meeting at approximately ­­­7:00 p.m. Members of the Committee in attendance were Mr. Evers, Mr. Hoefle and Mr. Zuren. Present from Council were Mr. Meyers, Mr. Kasunick, Mr. Spotton and Council President Ms. DePledge.

In attendance from the Administration were Mayor Morley and Police Chief Reik.

Also in attendance were members of the public.  

Members of the audience that were recording the meeting:

PROPOSED:

Discussion about video recorders at meetings.

Mr. Evers: My understanding is that there is some request that was put in to make a resolution and it came from Councilman Zuren. I am now going to turn the meeting over to Mr. Zuren.

Mr. Zuren: I am proposing a resolution that the city video records all the meetings from Council and Committee Meetings. There are numerous reasons why I feel that this would be beneficial to the city and to the resident’s of Eastlake.  First of all they are being recorded now and if the city records them they would have control and procession of the intellectual property rights of the recording.  It could not be altered, changed in any way or part of it deleted, which is a concern.  If we control that it would be the true representation of the meeting, which I feel is very important.  It is very low cost with the recording device and the tri-pod I think that it would be less than a couple hundred dollars.  We could put it on YouTube for free.  There would not be a cost to put the recording on YouTube.  It may also save money, because right now and sorry that Law Director Klammer is not here.  I had a question for him.  It is would the meeting minutes have to be transcribed by the Mrs. Simons or would we be able to put the video recording on YouTube or on the city website?  Would that be acceptable in replace of transcribing the minutes?  It would save her a lot of time and effort.  It may actually free up some time for her to assist in other departments.  That is a question that I have.  The one concern that I had with it was…it was mentioned and the reason we have the public announcement about who is recording any of the meetings.  If we would inadvertently pick up a private conversation.  I added to the second resolution…I think that I sent two other wise I will send the second one.

Ms. DePledge: Nobody has seen any resolution.

Mr. Evers: That brings a major concern to me right now. You had a resolution that you sent out.

Ms. DePledge: There was no resolution distributed.

Mr. Evers: Okay but if we are discussing it at this meeting that resolution should have been here.

Mr. Zuren: Then it is a proposal.

Mr. Evers: Where is the proposal at? I haven’t seen anything.

Mr. Zuren: I sent the information out to…

Ms. DePledge: Your new resolution that you worked on and you had tonight that you want to propose nobody has seen it yet. So what we will do is we will have Mrs. Simons copy that and she can distribute it to everybody.  Then everybody can look at it.  What you can go over it tonight is your proposal.

Mr. Zuren: I suggested that a proper signage be put on whatever the resolution may be so that it would advise individuals of any private conversations in the area so that they would not be recorded. I think that this would be a good way to reach out to the public.  It would increase trust.  Taping the meetings because I believe that there is an issue with trust with the citizens of Eastlake.  This would be one way where we could make it easier for everyone to listen to the meetings.  I know that with the different age groups that some of them read the minutes and some would like to watch the videos.  I think that this would be a way to reach out to them.  It would be a way to save money and I believe that we may even be able to get the camera and tri-pod donated.  It would increase the transparency, clarity and trust for the citizens of Eastlake.  Thank you.

Mr. Evers: Mayor Morley?

Mayor Morley: Have you reached out to the City of Euclid at all?

Mr. Zuren: No.

Mayor Morley: I know that they do taping there so you might want to reach out to them. Actually the gentleman that used to work here I believe that he works there.  When we had an IT and when Channel 12 was in full force.

Mr. Zuren: Okay.

Mayor Morley: I believe that they are the only ones that….I think that Mayor Anderson goes there and does his taping for their channel. I think that Mayor Margalis from Wickliffe does also.  I think that Mayor Bonde did his somewhere else but again you can check with them.

Mr. Zuren: Okay.

Mayor Morley: I don’t have an issue with it. From our end I talked with Ms. Schindel today and obviously we have no money in the budget.  The only thing that I can do is go into the room where we used to have Channel 12 and see what is in there.  I think that everything that was in there is really old. 

Mr. Evers: I think that we had Mr. Alford look at that old stuff. It is all analog and with everything being digital today it created a major problem.  It just wouldn’t work.  Have you talked to AT&T at all?  If you get digital equipment can it be used on the Public Access Channel?  You are going to reach a much wider audience there than you will on YouTube.

Mr. Zuren: I think if we posted the…first of all the cost of this is very minimal.

Mr. Evers: The access channel is free to the city.

Mr. Zuren: If we put the video on the city website and it is accessible there where we are putting the information about our meetings. I think that would be the free no cost way to make this accessible to the residents.  Instead of any expense at all I think that we should just go for no expense to just do YouTube and make it accessible.

Mr. Evers: Channel 12 is free to the city. If that camera can be hooked in to AT&T’s box it can be broad cast over Channel 12 for free possibly.  You are going to reach a much broader audience that does not look at YouTube the seniors in particular.  Ms. DePledge?

Ms. DePledge: My issue is that I don’t know what the creditability is with YouTube. I don’t have an objection to videotaping or recording our meetings.  When I think that when you look at YouTube anything can be on there and I would rather see the recordings put on the city website, to give it some legitimacy and credibility instead of just it being out there on the internet.  Who knows what type of manipulation it could have.  I don’t know anything about that.  I know that anything that is recorded anything that we have there has to be a records retention policy.  There has to be a custodian to be taking care of that tape. There has to be a way for it to be preserved in order to maintain its integrity and credibility.  Those are all things that have to go onto any type of decision that we would make.  There has to be somebody who is going to be responsible for it.  If we are going to give it to Sergeant-at-Arms are we going to train him and is he going to know how to use this? If there is a donation of equipment what kind of equipment and what happens when the equipment breaks?  The city doesn’t have money to replace it at this point in time.  With reciprocity everything becomes possible with reciprocity this conversation is like let’s move forward and do it.  We can hire somebody to run an IT Department and have someone here to run the camera.  We can have someone to put it on the internet an hour or the day after the meeting.  We don’t have any of those things right now.  It is more of a struggle.  Those are my comments.

Mr. Evers: I don’t think that anybody on Council objects to the video taping of a meeting at all. Without seeing anything on this I don’t know what you would expect from the committee tonight?

Mr. Zuren: I think that there was some misunderstanding. Because I thought that this was distributed on what I sent out. 

Ms. DePledge: It couldn’t be distributed out as the way that it came in.

Mr. Evers: Has the city attorney seen this yet? That would be my next question.

Ms. DePledge: This is why we are having this meeting. These are all the issues that come up.  It’s never as simple as you think that it is going to be.  You have seven people with seven different thoughts.  There are thing’s that you don’t think about that is why we have these meetings and why say these things.  It’s a great idea and nobody so far has said “hey I don’t want to do it.”  Some of the negatives to video recording, because we did talk about this before when Mr. D’Ambrosio was President was show boating.  What do you do when someone comes up and they have their business on the back of their jacket and they are standing up there during the public portion for five or ten minutes and you can’t make them sit down?  How do we make them sit down? Then does the President look like the bad person.  You are out of order go sit down and that is on the video tape and out in public.  Is that what we want to see happen and that is one of the reasons why it went down before.  Those are all things that you have to consider. 

Mr. Evers: Mr. Kasunick?

Mr. Kasunick: It might be an obvious question but who would do the videotaping? Would we have to have a camera person and would they have to be hired?  Or would it be a volunteer?  If it is a volunteer then there is a reliability issue of someone who is not getting paid.

Mr. Evers: I would think that anybody could do it. Per sunshine laws anybody can video tape our meetings to their free will.

Ms. DePledge: I think that what Mr. Kasunick is getting to is that custodian issue and the chain of custody to protect the integrity of the recording. Is that what you are talking about?

Mr. Kasunick: What I mean it that it’s not just…anybody obviously can come in and do it but now we are going to pass a resolution that says all meetings are going to be recorded. So that means that there is going to have to be some reliability and somebody there who is going to do the taping.  It should be somebody who knows a little bit about how to point the camera.  So people don’t have any knowledge of that.

Mr. Evers: Mr. Zuren?

Mr. Zuren: My perception of this is that there would be a spot in this room and in Council Chambers with a sign so that everyone knows that there is taping and it would stay there. It would be on a tri-pod and it would be a little iPhone.  That would be the device and it would be used.  Either the secretary or the Sergeant-at-Arms can turn it on and off at the end of the meeting.  That was my whole concept.  It is in full public display.  I don’t think that anyone would need to be hired and I think that it would actually save money then cost money.  That was my idea behind it.

Ms. DePledge: How would it save money?

Mr. Zuren: Well if the meetings don’t have to be transcribed that would save a lot of hours of time.

Ms. DePledge: I would probably touch base with Mrs. Cendroski on that. I am sure that there are rules that require us to transcribe them.  Otherwise we would have stopped doing that a long time ago.

Mr. Zuren: There is dragon software which actually…if we had the video…and I have been using that for years. She would just have to check it for accuracy.  It would save a lot of time.

Mr. Evers: As far as the record keeping…as far as the Sunshine Law goes they don’t care if they are all electronic they are fine. But if you have a senior citizen that comes in and they do and they request a record’s copy of the meeting.  She still has to transcribe those minutes to them, because they don’t have the obvious technology today.  So keep that in mind too when you do this.  Somewhere along the line yes she probably will have too.

Mr. Kasunick: If is just a matter of stationary camera that is sitting there…the way that the room is set up with Council, Mayor and the Administration on either side in the front. It is going to be a difficult set up and it would have to be a really wide thing.  I don’t know if people are really going to want to watch that.  So want some quality and you want to see the person who is talking.  If it is just set up in front of Council and when the Mayor is speaking or one of the other Director’s it is going to be difficult.

Mr. Meyers: Just to address Council President DePledge brought up the issue of the public with show boating. I attended a Municipal League Meeting some months back and this very issue was brought up not so much the show boating, but recording of members of the public.  There were some different opinions expressed by other city council’s…what the overwhelming opinion was that most of them set up their camera so that members of the public were not recorded.  It was specifically elected officials or administration to prevent any issues with that.  Also to prevent any issues with people coming back and saying you recorded me without my consent.  They were specifically set up that way.

Mr. Evers: Were they not on the video but their voice was recorded as part of the meeting?

Mr. Meyers: Their voice was recorded but they were not on the video. That is correct.

Mr. Evers: That is a good answer to that. Mr. Zuren?

Mr. Zuren: My point with the video recording is the value is far more than just a typed transcription of the meeting. If they could see the inflection, emotion, what is going on in the meeting and they could feel the meeting it is ten times more valuable than a transcribed piece of paper that says what people said.  That is showing what is going on in the city.  Video recording is very powerful and it will be a better depiction of what is going on at these meetings for the public then just a transcribed piece of paper that they can read.  I think that the value is evenly more important than just…I think that we should look into all of these things but this is something that we really need to consider and we really need to try and push through.

Mr. Evers: Again nobody here is objective they are all for it. The problem is we didn’t have the proper documentation before this meeting.  It hasn’t gone before the Law Director and me being the Chair to this committee it would be my recommendation unfortunately to table this.  Until we have the proper documentation.  Till we can review it and look at it and raise questions in a proper manner and not just say that we are going to pass something here tonight based on wants.

Ms. DePledge: If you want to add things to your proposal based on tonight’s discussion why don’t you go ahead and do that. If you do more investigation and you get more information you can always modify your proposal.  When you have it in a form that is something that you are satisfied with or it is something that you want to reconsider send it to me or to Mrs. Simons and we will distribute it to everybody.  Then we can set it again for another meeting and go over it.

Mr. Evers: Again Mr. Zuren I don’t think that anybody here on this team is fighting this. It is crossing our T’s and dotting our I’s and making sure that we are doing it in the proper manner.

Ms. DePledge: I think that part of our minutes go to the Historical Society too. So we have to make sure that whatever…they will probably still take the written minutes but we have to make sure that we don’t over look that either.

Mr. Evers: Are there any other questions? Mr. Hoefle move forward or table.

Mr. Hoefle: We need to table this.

Mr. Evers: Mr. Zuren?

Mr. Zuren: Table it.

Mr. Evers: My vote would be to table it. Not on the fact that we are against it or for it we just need the proper information to come before us as a team to look at it all.

Ms. DePledge: There is nothing improper about what is being presented we just need more information.

Mr. Evers: More information.

There were no objections.

Discussion on the creation of a safety levy task force.

Ms. DePledge: This was a suggestion that came in from Mr. Zuren. I don’t know if you are still up for talking.

Mr. Evers: Mr. Zuren?

Mr. Zuren: There has been a lot of discussion on the Community Block Watch Page and there has been a lot of support from Eastlake residents for a Safety Levy Task Force. I suggest that it would be a larger task force if we do go with it, because there is a lot of interest and I think that we need to capture the interest right now.  While it is fresh and they are excited and they want to help.  We should create a task force and bring people in to listen to their suggestions and see what we can do to promote this idea.

Mr. Evers: Are there any comments? Chief Reik?

Chief Reik: Who was the name of the lady that spoke at the last meeting?

Ms. DePledge: Ms. Wittreich.

Chief Reik: That is what we’ve done in the past. It seems like we are back in…we do a 360 and we end up right back where we are at.  The problem with the Community Block Watch Page or any specific Facebook page and think that is the pulse of anything more than a small group of people I think is unwise.  We talk to a lot of people and we have a lot of support.  Maybe after Dallas Safety Forces in general have more verbal and vocal support than ever.  I don’t even know if some of my friends that I talk to if it goes with them when the certain shuts behind them into the voting booth.  I know some Safety Forces who live in our city that are from other communities that have voted down Safety Force Levies.  I am always willing to talk to anybody but the task force and the meetings first of all don’t seem to get a lot of people to come.  It is easy to sit on your computer at the doctor’s office or where ever to Facebook it.  To provide some input that way and some of that input has been valuable.  In general I don’t think that you will see a lot of these people attend meetings.  We can always try again.  I am just not that confident.

Mr. Evers: One problem with these Safety Levy Task Forces is that it cannot be one task and it cannot be one levy. They have to be separate.  Now with that being said you are not looking at one levy or two but three.  Service would have to be in there.  How can you leave Service out and go for the other two?  Service is in the same boat that the other departments have.  They have been cut to the bare bone and they have not seen pay rises.  This is my question.  Mayor Morley?

Mayor Morley: My opinion and that is why I asked for Police and Fire only. It was that if we make them big enough that take care of their own department that frees up the money in the General Fund for the Service Department.  I wasn’t trying to alienate anyone back then.  If we make it that it runs a majority of their department’s with the levies that you put on then that frees up…say they get $2 Mills or $2.5 Mills each it gives them half a million dollars then there is $1.2 Million there that…if it is running their department we still have to take some money out of the General Fund for those departments that is fine.  Then that leaves the department money.

Mr. Evers: Where does that leave the 155 some?

Mayor Morley: I am not worried about the 155’s at this point.

Mr. Evers: It is just a question.

Mayor Morley: I don’t want anyone…I have told the director’s that even if the reciprocity goes through it’s not like we are going to bring twenty-five people back. I don’t want anyone to have that thought cross process that because we get this done that we are going to say everyone that is laid off since 2011 that we are going to bring forty-two people back.  From my view that is not happening.  My view and they all know and my director’s all know is that it is these two departments.  We will work on the other things.  There are some other things that can occur.  We have negotiations coming up in October, but there are some other things that can occur after January that I would look at for the other departments.  There is nothing that can happen until January.

Mr. Evers: Ms. DePledge?

Ms. DePledge: There are two ways that you can…I don’t know if you need Council’s approval to create a Safety Level Task Force. I think much like they did last year it is a grass roots effort.  If the people want to organize and they want to support the city we support them 100%.  What we have found in the past is that when Council gets involved things tend to get a little jaded and people don’t want to support us.  But when it comes from the people then the people tend to want to support the other people.  The last time we got together Council was not involved.  We took a backseat.  If they called us and asked us questions we answered their questions and gave them all of the financial information that they wanted.  That group started off with the first meeting there were probably twenty to thirty people and at the end of the day Ms. Wittreich was the only one knocking on doors.  She was the only one and she fell short of all the signatures because when she knocked on doors and they slammed them in her face.  I don’t think that if this is something that you want to work with certain people and you want to run with it.  I think that you are okay and I don’t think that you need Council’s approval for…my opinion.  Grass roots efforts start all the time.  If you are looking for a takes force to be assigned like people from the Mayor’s office, or people from the Council’s office, or people from Police, Fire, Service and maybe Finance to all serve on a task force.  To determine how we do this we can do that. That is something that Council and the Mayor’s office can do.  I think that those people are pretty much run dry.  They will still participate and give you all of the information that you want and need.  That is how…when I saw this note I wasn’t really sure which direction you were trying to go in. My initial thought was we will support you and we will support any endeavor that is revenue generating or beneficial for the city.  I don’t know if you need Council’s approval or anybodies approval to get a group of people together who want to work and better the city.  I don’t mean to put words in anybody’s mouth but I think that we would all support the right positive endeavor for that.

Mr. Evers: Mr. Hoefle?

Mr. Hoefle: If I recall when we had that…we had a liaison at the time. It was the liaison who attended the meeting and reported on behalf of Council.  I know that when I was there I was just sitting in the background…we have to be careful to make sure that we don’t have to many people from the same committees.  We have to make sure that we aren’t violating any Sunshine Laws or anything like that.

Ms. DePledge: To touch base on that there are seven members on Council. Four of us cannot be present at the same place.  That is a sunshine violation.  We have committee’s that have three people on them if two people on a committee are together at the same place that becomes problematic and we have to avoid those situations.  If you start a grass roots safety levy task force and someone from Council wanted to be involved you can.  But it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to have Mr. Hoefle or Mr. Evers, because you are on the same committee.  But if you wanted to have Mr. Kasunick, Mr. Spotton or Mr. Meyers could be there, because I sit on all committees.  Those are things that you…again if it was…I don’t know how the committee’s break down in my head.

Mr. Hoefle: My thing is that if it is a safety force thing I chair the safety force part of it so myself, Mr. Spotton and Mr. Meyers are all on the same committee…if this is something that is a levy what would it fall under? Would it be Finance?

Mayor Morley: You would have to talk to Mr. Klammer. Because if you are having an outside group do this…I am a resident so I don’t even know if that takes effect.  I would double check with Mr. Klammer.  If we are invited…like if we go to the Block Watch Meetings we are all there they are not under any violations.  We are going as an outside entity. 

Ms. DePledge: The difference is if you’re talking business.

Mr. Evers: Let’s clarify that. When two or more members of a committee are present there can be no discussion of city business and decision made.  If all of us go to Trader Jacks after this and have dinner there is no violation as long as we are not making a decision or discussing city business.  We even had…Mayor Morley what was her name she was from the school? 

Mayor Morley: Ms. Beil.

Mr. Evers: We even had Ms. Beil work with SOS. My only thing would be is that if you are going to advertise this advertise it city wide.  Not just on one social media network.  There are several out there and make sure that it goes city wide.

Ms. DePledge: It was mentioned to me about the Block Watch Page that it isn’t a community page because it is a closed group. If they are going to be involved they need to open that page to everybody.  If it’s community it’s community.

Mr. Evers: All of the Block Watch Pages that we have in the city I believe are closed groups.

Mayor Morley: They are all closed but just for that group my wife actually asked Ms. Krajnyak last week and she won’t allow her.

Mr. Evers: They won’t allow the Chief of Police.

Mayor Morley: While we are talking that its credibility it’s on two sides.

Ms. DePledge: They have to let us in. You can’t have it just one way.  We are here to help but we’re not here to be blindsided wither.

Mr. Evers: From the committee stand point I don’t hear anybody objecting. Mr. Hoefle?

Mr. Hoefle: I have no problem with if Mr. Zuren wants to form a task force with people on it. I have no issues with it.  Basically we aren’t talking about anything else.

Ms. DePledge: I would just say to you the Finance Director is available, her records are available and all of the budget reports are available. The Fire and Police Chief will probably attend your meetings and they would probably talk to people.  They’ve talked until they are blue and you will have unlimited support from your city, administration, departments and council.

Mr. Evers: Here again I would defiantly make contact with the city attorney and let council know what is going on. Cross our T’s and dot our I’s we are all here as a team.  Are there any other questions or comments?  Mayor Morley?

Mayor Morley: Ms. Schindel brought it to my attention today that you guys need to look at and talk amongst yourselves. I am probably going to need and change the first Council Meeting in November it is on Election Day.  They will be using it for voting.  You will probably want to change that date.

Ms. DePledge: Is there…

Mayor Morley: You can probably change it. It is up to you if you want to keep the second whatever.  You just change it to whatever you want to change it to instead of Tuesday to Monday or Wednesday whatever day of that week.

Mr. Evers: I don’t remember what we did in the past. I thought that we just met later in the evening.

Mayor Morley: They weren’t here with the poles. All we would do is met later.  You can try and figure that out.

Ms. DePledge: Do it on the 15^th or the 22^nd?

Mr. Hoefle: How we do the holidays.

Mayor Morley: Like you do in December with the holidays where it is two weeks in a row.

There were no objections.

PENDING:

There is no Legislation Pending.

MAYOR’S COMMENTS:

Mayor Morley had nothing to report.

There were no further questions or comments.

LAW DEPARTMENT

Mr. Klammer had nothing to report.

There were no further questions or comments.

FINANCE DEPARTMENT

Mrs. Schindel had nothing to report.

There were no further questions or comments.

MISCELLANEOUS:

There was nothing under Miscellaneous.

REGOGNITION OF PUBLIC:

John Farwell, 36823 Lakeshore Blvd., Eastlake

Mr. Farwell: Great suggestion on the recording. It is already being done and it is cheap.  In fact everybody is on YouTube and I think that it would save a lot of money then having to transcribe stuff.  Nobody really reads that stuff everyone would much rather watch a video.  In fact if you look around at a lot of the other cities and school boards across the United States and across Ohio…I attend a lot of School Board Meetings.  You can attend them live where you just click on a link and everybody has internet access.  Nobody wants to go to a cable tv at a specific time and watch it on their t

v when they want to watch it on this or their iPad or whatever it is. It is already being done and every one of these meetings is already…I don’t know if it is going to be going forward because the individual…can you actually attend and a record a meeting if you don’t live in the city?

Mr. Evers: Yes.

Mr. Farwell: They maybe…not even recording anymore since the people that were recording them are no longer living here in the city. So that will be interesting to see how that pans out.  That is my comment on that.  The other comment that I have is more of a question on that I didn’t understand the context of what the second topic was is it a safety task force for a levy?

Mr. Evers: Safety Levy Task Force.

Mr. Farwell: What was the purpose or what problem are we trying to solve with creating that task force?

Mr. Evers: There is no problem. It doesn’t need a vote of Council to do that.

Mr. Farwell: So it is a task force to put a levy specifically on the ballot for the Police Department?

Ms. DePledge: And the Fire Department.

Mr. Evers: The Police and Fire.

Mr. Zuren: Community outreach to get as many people from the community involve and help support it so that we can get it passed.

Mr. Farwell: To me it’s a no brainer. I know everybody says that levies never pass right.  How difficult is it to put a levy…even if it fails…we don’t know if it is going to fail.  But I am a member of the Block Watch and a member of some of the other social media.  I think that you would be surprised at the amount of momentum and the amount of support that you would get from the citizens.  I am willing to write letters, and put memo’s…I have done it before.  I will put letters in and I have spent money to push this to go door to door if we have too.  You can put signs in my front yard.  I would defiantly think that you guys are missing the boat if you don’t put the Police and Fire on the levy and allow the citizens of Eastlake to vote on this.  There is not cost, no harm and no foul to just do it.  It just makes complete sense.

Mr. Evers: Are you aware that we have done that in the past?

Mr. Farwell: I understand.

Mr. Evers: We’ve done it. I just want to explain that we’ve had our policemen firemen and our councilmen our promoting them as best as we could.

Mr. Farwell: I understand. Just because it failed…

Mr. Evers: I am not disagreeing with you. I am not disagreeing with you.

Mr. Farwell: Can I speak? Just because it failed previously doesn’t mean that it is going to fail again.  It may or it may not.  But I can tell you based upon the reciprocity and based upon the problems that we are going to have with how much people are not going to like the reciprocity solution. Giving them a chance to vote, because you guys are going to either approve or approve it right?  They are going to petition to put that on the ballot to shut it down and then where are we?  Why don’t we just put it on the ballot to help the Police and Fire and drive that through social media?  Drive it through the news papers to promote and to make this thing pass.

Mr. Evers: Like I said I am not disagreeing with you I just want you to be aware that have tried that in the past. There was a huge amount of effort put into a huge amount.  Ms. DePledge?

Ms. DePledge: Mr. Farwell we have tried so many different ways to increase our revenue and reduce our expenses. So many ways at least for a decade that is all the city has done is cut, cut, cut and unfortunately our revenue has just been cut, cut and cut.  Now some people say we are swinging from the end of the rope with a knot on it, well we are doing this because the rope is frayed.  This city is going to snap and I will say it again if there was a fair way to implement a tax increase across the board that would appease people and appeal to people we would certainly use that option.  We don’t have that option that option doesn’t exist.  It is not a property levy because the residents have told us again and again no.  So after all of that time…so the rope is fraying and people’s backs are breaking here and we are absolutely in a position where it would be irresponsible for us not to take some action.  That is where we are and nobody on council is comfortable with it and nobody is a cheerleader for but I can tell you my phone has been ringing and it is 75% for thank you for doing something.  Once I talk to people if they are against it and I get to talk to them they change their tune. 

Mr. Evers: Is there anybody else?

John Farwell, 36823 Lakeshore Blvd., Eastlake

Mr. Farwell: What’s the cost to the city to put Fire and Police on a levy?

Mr. Evers: If there is no other issues on the ballot I believe it is about $4,000.00 per voting place.

Mayor Morley: It is about $16,000.00 to $18,000.00.

Mr. Evers: Somewhere in the area of $16,000.00 to $18,000.00.

Mayor Morley: Other than like November or when there is a general primary it would probably be about that amount I believe.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:38 p.m.

tms     

                                                                        APPROVED: ___________________________

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        DATE: ______________________________