08-26-13 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING AUGUST 26, 2013 balancing the general, maintaining our cash reserves and hope to preserve our best in state bond nd rating. The best of any 2 class City in the State of Indiana. A difficult balance and he commended our team for the work that they have done to get that initial view of the budget out. Even as we continue to work with members of the Council within the Administration to refine and improve that budget as it moves toward the deadline for passage in October. Another presentation that got a lot of attention and stirred some very interesting commentary on how to have a vibrant downtown and the opportunity to re-think our streetscapes. Probably the most important element to that was the data and analysis that was shared by Ian Lockwood who is regarded by many as the World’s Top Thinker about transportation issues when it comes to downtown areas in one-way; two-way conversions. He gave a presentation at the Century Center, and just wanted to make sure since not everybody was able to attend that presentation. He wanted to make sure that it is known that the full video of that presentation is on-line on the City of South Bend website and strongly encourage anybody who is interested in some of the facts and research surrounding that opportunity and would take the time to view that presentation and see what they had to say. Lastly, he stressed and hopefully there will be an opportunities for fiscal officers to speak, but there was a very important mid-year budget transfer coming up this evening. This is something that was delayed once in the past so that the Councilmember’s could spend more time with the information that was given to them. It was first submitted on July 17, stnd 2013 for 1 Reading on July 22, 2013 and scheduled for 2 Reading and Public Hearing and sent th to committee on August 7, 2013 and then continued to August 12 so that more information th could be given on the mid-year budget transfer. It now being the 26 of August he was a little concerned that some may wonder how mid-year the mid-year transfer is going to be, if it doesn’t get action today. He stated that he appreciated that there is a lot of information in it but also know that Councilmember’s have been committed to doing their homework and reviewing the data that has been brought before them and look forward to sharing any information needed. He stated that they made sure that some of the fiscal officers are here tonight to share any information that might be helpful to Councilmember’s ahead of taking action. Councilmember Schey asked about the anti-violence work that Chief Teachman is working on, one update that would be helpful would be also this afternoon Chief Teachman met with the Council to talk about the new chronic nuisance ordinance person. Have there been any re- alignments in the police department in terms of what she understands as a burglary unit, and provide an update, if there has been re-alignment of duties in the police department would be helpful. Mayor Buttigieg asked if she was asking with specific regard to the anti-violence strategy or in general whether there have been re-alignments. He stated that he can get with Chief Teachman and try to generate an update. Councilmember Henry Davis stated that he would like to be in the dunk tank next year at the employee picnic. On a more serious matter, he is paying attention to what is happening with the budget and how the administration is trying to balance and operate more efficiently and with obviously less and that has been the moniker of what government should be and everyone wants to operate like a business, not that is a bad thing, because sometimes government is a circus and sometimes you are going to end up in the red. This is just a part of it, but one thing that I am looking at because of the way that it is being done and I’m not in total agreement with it. We probably need to start looking obviously several years down the line as it relates to how much money we are bringing in property taxes. We are obviously on an aggressive vacant & abandoned plan that calls for a number of demolitions that call for a higher rate on this coming week. Given those elements, I think that the conversation now needs to turn into de-TIF. I think that if we being to de-TIF we can begin to correct a lot of things that are going on. I don’t like to see more people in the unemployment line, I don’t want to see more people not being able to feed their families, I don’t want to see more people just be unemployed and because folks are unemployed and we already have a high unemployment rate, I think it only makes sense to look at de-TIFing for a number of reasons but reasons such as the school corporation needs money, they always say that they are broke. They probable are, I don’t look at their budget, however, what I do know is that teachers have not received a raise in over 5 to 6 years, so that would constitute more dollars in their till. Our libraries, we end up having a war of words, protests, etc. to make sure certain branches stayed open, and still those branches have really shaky hours. So, if we begin to de-tif, we can save the employee base of the City of South Bend. I am talking 4