07-13-15 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING JULY 13, 2015 their attention that they're in violation of the city code, we are asking them to immediately comply. Councilmember Davis then asked, what is the remedy if they do not comply? Council Attorney Kathy Cekanski- Farrand stated I think everyone in the city of South Bend wants to do good business. I think it is now displayed publicly, the public now knows. I think they will be in compliance. Councilmember Davis insisted, well then there is no list of remedies or things that can be done for the council. Council Attorney Cekanski- Farrand responded we are not going to penalize monetarily the administration as those are taxpayer's dollars that would be used for that. So again by working together we have set the standard and we expect that those standards will be met. Councilmember Davis Jr. — I'm confused again, as this is Oliver's question if in fact there is tea or no tea is it suggesting that we have the ability to not approve funds for a particular department if their bonds are out of compliance and not working with the council? Council Attorney Kathy Cekanski- Farrand replied past councils have done that. Councilmember Oliver Davis —Those kind of things we have to be very real with it. My objection to this other ordinance that we have, we can make all these resolutions that's nice and good. But the book of the power comes within the administration that comes down to the enforcement. Our job is to set the budget, my job is to make sure that it is there. So when it is there and they don't enforce it we need have to consider other penalties. If it means that a department is not following that through, then we have to look at that when it comes to budget season. Council Attorney Kathy Cekanski- Farrand there is a bill that is pending in the utilities committee that deals with this very ordinance until you get the responses that you want that are reasonable you can hold that up in committee. Councilmember Oliver Davis responded that is what I'm saying to you. There is nothing wrong with that, and it is not about us playing hardball. (Council Attorney Cekanski- Farrand interjected and it is not an abuse of power) That is not an abuse of power. But if there are better practices, I think when it comes to budget time that we stand firm that we are not going to hear this until this is done. Council President Tim Scott — I just wanted to interject quickly to Council Attorney that you understand the memo that Dr. Varner is requesting. (Council Attorney Cekanski- Farrand replied yes) This being the time heretofore set for the Public Hearing on the above bill, proponents and opponents were given an opportunity to be heard. Those wishing to speak in favor of: Jesse Davis, P.O. Box 10205, South Bend —You knew I was going to come up here. Just to shed a little light, this actually started in 2010. When this particular contractor came rolling into town, the city claims now that they had no means to give this guy a boot to the curb. But in 2010 when this guy was brought to South Bend, he was hand fed work, they had no problem booting 8 -10 local contractors to the curb instantly for someone who had not done a job in the city of South Bend in five (5) years. So I'm not buying that we didn't have this in policy to get rid of this guy. I think it could have been done. I am in favor with this, I agree with Derek, when I read online what this is going to do. It does need to be expanded. There was a list on Public Works of ten (10) contractors that were in rotation, I was one of them. All of sudden, they brought another guy in to save money and threw the local guys to the curb to heed this guy all the money. In 2013, I discovered he was double dipping getting paid by the government and billing the homeowners for the same work twice. I took it to the prosecutor, no results, went to the police chief, no results, went to the legal department no results, brought to the council in May 2013 again it went to the administration. Finally, we are here two (2) years later getting some head way. This falls in the Mayor's lap, this is not the councils fault. They were under state police investigation, I'll verify that as I launched the investigation. I spoke to the FBI about this company so there was a federal investigation; there probably still is. When he got preapproved to do work for the city for this year, he provided false documents to the city in 2013. Someone who was supposed to oversee this 40