11-30-10 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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SPECIAL MEETING NOVEMBER 30, 2010 Mayor Luecke advised that he did not believe that there was a deficiency per Major League/Minor League Baseball standards related to the scoreboard. And, certainly not in relation to the other enhancements that they are proposing as well and that their presentation never indicated that those were deficiencies, but felt that it was an opportunity to spruce up a twenty-five (25) year old stadium and to bring it up to current public standards as well as minor league baseball standards so that it continues to be a place for families to enjoy themselves. Councilmember Varner stated that they can bring it up to standards without some of the other things. He stated that he believes that they have collectively made the effort to select the specifics and the necessities and then it would be good to go forward with that Councilmember Varner stated that it was referenced to the Ft. Wayne stadium project. He noted that project had a major hotel chain involved as well as private dollars and dollars invested by the team along with a bond issue, he didn’t know how much money was involved with that, but there were some guaranteed revenues. He stated that some of the citizens in South Bend would call some of the proposed enhancements extravagant during these economic times. He stated that if everyone expects grand things to happen, there needs to be some willingness to more dollars collectively rather than just the city but he wanted to make clear some things are necessary and what most people would agree to and probably consider. Councilmember White asked that the project that is before the Council tonight what was the process that went through in identifying that these would be used for this project. Mayor Luecke stated that as they looked at the proposals that they wanted to bring before the Council for funding they had looked at a variety of funding sources. First, the use of the Recovery Zone Bonds that will be paid back by the Professional Sports Development dollars and that is in the bill that will be considered next by the Council. Then there were some available downtown TIF dollars that they could commit to the project. And as they looked at the remaining amount of approximately 3 million dollars, he felt it appropriate to use some of those dollars that they had been reserving over the past several years for capital expenditures in the COIT and EDIT funds. He stated that these are dollars that they have been collecting and receiving. He stated that if the Council will recall there had been some smaller capital budgets than they had historically had because they were reserving those dollars in the event that they would need them for operating expenditures for the City of South Bend. Mayor Luecke stated that it has been this administration that those dollars should generally not be used for operating but for capital investment in infrastructure and facilities that they own and economic development initiatives because those are critical dollars to have to keep our facilities up to snuff and to be able to spur additional private investment in the community. So he felt that the 30% of the funding for this project coming from COIT and EDIT dollars was a reasonable distribution of resources as they brought this forward. Again, they felt that the full package was worth funding by the City as they move forward. Councilmember Oliver Davis asked the Mayor to elaborate on the issue of using local labor and workers for the project. Mayor Luecke stated that one of the considerations would be to do a project labor agreement on construction work at the Cove in particular because of the very tight time frame to accomplish the work within that time frame. That would also add for goals to use local labor and local purchasing as they do that. Councilmember Rouse stated that he supports the project except for the use of COIT and EDIT. He stated that he likes the idea of sustaining the Cove. But the Professional Sport Development Fund expires in 2027 and the money that they would be using here to support the bonds, hopefully the bonds would be paid off by the expiration, but what is the City going to do going forward to sustain Coveleski? Councilmember Rouse noted that question is resonating throughout the Council of putting that debt on future generations and how they are going to pay for it. He stated that the 17 years will be here before we know it, and is suggesting that they need that on the radar screen. How is the City going to pay for the Cove going forward and maintain it, because he feels that there 6