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HomeMy WebLinkAbout06-10-19 Community Investment SOuTxa.�d ti U C W \ "„ PEACE � .az s'.% 1865 186i ..._...„7„) 9�,: OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK KAREEMAH FOWLER, CITY CLERK COMMUNITY INVESTMENT JUNE 10, 2019 4:16 P.M. Committee Members Present: Gavin Ferlic, Regina Williams-Preston, Dr. Oliver Davis, Sharon L. McBride Committee Members Absent: None Other Council Present: Tim Scott, Jo M. Broden, John Voorde, Jake Teshka, Karen White Other Council Absent: None Others Present: Bianca Tirado, Graham Sparks, Bob Palmer Presenters: Jo M. Broden Agenda: Bill No. 19-43- A Resolution of the Common Council of South Bend, Indiana, Encouraging Continued and Increased Public Engagement Between the Public and the Redevelopment Commission Committee Chair Gavin Ferlic called to order the Community Investment Committee meeting at 4:15 p.m. He introduced members of the Committee and proceeded to give the floor to the presenters. Bill No. 19-43- A Resolution of the Common Council of South Bend, Indiana, Encouraging Continued and Increased Public Engagement Between the Public and the Redevelopment Commission Councilmember Jo M. Broden, 201 West North Shore Drive, stated, We did not discuss a presentation and who is doing what, but I will lead it and the other cosponsors can jump in. Essentially, this is a follow-up to previous discussions and pulling together and formalizing our request as Council, to the Redevelopment Commission, to change their meeting time. We have suggested 5:00 p.m. or after. Also, we want them to adopt procedures for citizens to participate in some level, similar to what they do at other public Boards and Commissions. Those are the two (2) requests embedded in this. All of the other statements and the Whereas statements that are a part of this are basically educational to anyone who is reading it, in terms of the scope of the Redevelopment Commission, the role of our Committees here at Council and the intersection of all of us toward promoting the redevelopment of our City. This also makes sure the processes are as transparent as possible and actually involve the public, both from the participation in and being INTEGRITYI SERVICEI ACCESSIBILITY JENNIFER M.COFF MAN BIANCA L.TIRADO JOSEPH R.MOLNAR CHIEF DEPUTY/DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS DEPUTY/DIRECTOR OF POLICY ORDINANCE VIOLATION CLERK EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1227 W.Jefferson Blvd.I South Bend,Indiana 46601 I p 574.235.9221 I f 574.235.9173 I www.southbendin.gov CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK in attendance but also if they would like to offer input during the process, they have the opportunities to do that at the Redevelopment Commission meeting itself. She continued, So,it's pretty simple, I think,in scope. I don't think it is unfamiliar to anyone from Council in terms of the requests over the years and, again, I think it aligns with both the Administration's goal to be transparent and also to empower residents and that they have agency in effecting any business that, frankly, is the City's. Having said that, I'll turn it over to others. Councilmember Karen White stated, I will say, too, that part of the Council's mission statement includes that we always be responsive to the needs of our citizens. So, as you begin to look at this resolution, I see it from an educational perspective. There tends to be a lot of misunderstanding in regard to the role of the Council and also the role of the Redevelopment Commission.This clarifies that. Also, it gives some sense that we want to ensure the meetings are held at a time that our citizens can participate. It also talks about the reports we would like to have as it pertains to the TIF and other areas. I see this as very informative and in line not only with the Council's mission statement but also in line with the City's established priorities, as we move forward. Committee Chair Ferlic then opened the floor to questions from Committee and Council Members. Councilmember Tim Scott asked, Did anyof the cosponsors speak to Redevelopment in anyway p p P regarding this? What are their thoughts? Committee Chair Ferlic stated, I touched base with Marsha and connected with Dan late last week as well. Marsha's concern is that we had tried that previously and for the staff members, as well as the people presenting, a lot of times business hours are better for them. That is something we can continue to work through. Councilmember Scott followed up,Has there been any thought to expanding the public portion for that? Can a packet be out for a longer duration of time to allow for anybody to give feedback? Committee Chair Ferlic then opened the floor to members of the public wishing to speak in favor of or in opposition to this legislation. Dan Buckenmeyer, Director of Business Development for the City of South Bend with offices located on the 14th floor of the County-City Building, stated, As staff, and as I've said in the Commission and in my conversations with them, I'm sitting here in attendance to this meeting because I am direct staff to them. I am very much indirect staff to you all. I have my own opinions about it but I'm trying to keep this objective. We did just a bit of research on what other communities are doing. Daytime meetings happen in Elkhart, Fishers, Fort Wayne, Goshen, Hobart, Huntington, Indianapolis, Muncie,Noblesville, Valparaiso, and Warsaw. We found a few that do have meetings that edge up to 5:00 p.m. or 5:30 p.m. Of the nineteen(19) communities that our team researched,ninety percent(90%) of them have meetings that start before 5:30 p.m. Sixty percent(60%) of them happen during the day. If you look across the many Councils, Committees, Boards and Commissions across the City, there actually were three (3) that meet in the evening. Of course, yourselves, the Park Board, and one (1) notable fact are those are both paid positions. The only other one (1) is HPC and they are not paid. He continued, I believe it was 2011 and some of 2012 where it was attempted to have the meetings at 4:00 p.m., and the Commission saw zero (0) uptick in attendance from public, press or others. EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana46601 p 574.235.9221 1574.235.9173 TTD574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 2 CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK So,it moved back. Another note is that in terms of averaging or generalizing,at one(1)given RDC meeting, all we might talk about is giving permission to someone using the Gridiron for an event. At another one (1), there may be three (3) major projects on the docket. So, it's hard to average out across those attendance and press interest and so on. Usually, when the packet goes out, I start getting calls from certain members of the press and so on, asking me what it's about. So, they are involved. As far as transparency goes, we are, as a governmental and City entity, absolutely and diligently transparent. As we've noted, the packets go out. President Scott, I will address the comment you made about going out earlier. The packets go out and everything is online. Everything down to the minutes is absolutely and completely transparent and shared with all Council Members. There is a huge list. If the press or anyone else wants to be on that list, all they need to do is ask. They will get the agendas, full packets, minutes and so on all sent to them. I think I've noted before, even for Council,the staff takes the extra step of listing which district any given project is happening in, so you can zero (0) in on those if you would like. He went on, One (1) of the big things on this is just the nature of the business that takes place. Going back to the three (3) that happened right now, the Council is very directly the City interfacing with the consumer, the citizen. The Parks Board, City to the resident. HPC is City to the resident. With other examples like the Board of Public Works,which is where the most money is spent than any other Board or Commission, that happens during the day because it is business to business focused. It is contracts being made with contractors and the City. Whether it is individual professional services or other outside entities, Redevelopment Commission is very much the same. It is not as consumer-facing as it is business-facing. So,it makes a lot more sense, to us, to keep that happening during business hours. We are dealing with developers and other things TIF is used for. The majority of TIF is utilized, and a lot of it is already allocated to bond payments,but a majority of it goes to infrastructure projects. So,it will be myself and Engineering up there working in concert on a water project on Michigan Avenue or Western Avenue, what have you. He continued, There are public-facing elements of it. We have a lot of public meetings. Using Western Avenue as an example, we had several public meetings going up to that to formulate the program. The same is true for Michigan Avenue. We had public meetings with the businesses up and down Michigan Avenue. So, in those projects that make sense, there are a lot of resident- facing elements of those TIF projects that take place.We,we would argue both for the Commission itself and the staff as well as the folks we are interacting directly with, during those meetings, to have those during the day. In terms of process, I want to press that point. The question about the packets going out early, beyond just who we are working with, the things we are doing in Economic Development can't always be public right away. I'll use Amazon as an example. It was no fault of ours, but it was leaked out that Amazon was moving into a spec building in town and it ruffled some feathers and raised some issues. It actually could have impacted whether or not someone came into town and employed a few hundred people. Those are the types of situations that we have to work really closely on with builders, developers and incoming companies. They want to control the message and what happens in terms of their entry into a market. A lot of them demand secrecy. In many instances, we are looking at formulating deals and packages to compete with Fort Wayne, Toledo or Battle Creek so they can make the final decision of whether or not to invest in South Bend. So, often times when that packet doesn't come out real early or as early as EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 3 CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK we would like it to, again, we don't strive for anything but transparency. Sometimes our business customers demand control of when word might come out about something. So, that is one (1) consideration. I'll stop there but those are some of the more objective reasons of why we think the way it is going makes sense. As a side note, I don't think there is any objection to reformulating the meeting in some way so that the public is more involved. I heard no objections to that, but we think the meeting time works. We understand the perception of the timing and we don't want that, in any way, to mean a lack of transparency. Committee Chair Ferlic stated, If you are able, after Committee meetings,please speak together to pursue any possible amendments. Councilmember John Voorde stated, I will try to make this brief. It seems to me this is a well- intentioned resolution to increase transparency, openness and have an informed public. There is, as Dan mentioned, evidence that a later meeting doesn't necessarily increase attendance by the public. It seems to me that this could be the beginning of the call to make Board of Public Works, Century Center Board of Managers, Board of Public Safety all later. Any Board or Commission, there will always be someone who wants it after hours.We might as well put the City on the second (2nd) shift if that happens because there are all sorts of costs associated with that, whether it is staff or whatever. It seems to me,and it is kind of ironic I am the one(1)suggesting this,that technology can make things a lot more transparent. If we could live stream Board and Commission meetings, that could make them more accessible. If I knew there was something important coming before a Board that I was really interested in, I would just record that. I know not everyone has computer access but certainly they can get that a lot of places for free. But, if we make an initial investment in whatever technology it takes to do that kind of thing, then we would really be opening up the process to the public. If anyone was interested, they can look at it either when it's happening or in its recorded state. I think we could even set it up to participate live. Politically, there are all those town hall meetings where people call in. I'm not saying these meetings should go on forever, but again, the technology is there to really open up the process without having to put the City on the second(2nd) shift. That is all I'm saying. Committeemember Regina Williams-Preston stated, This is also a call for us as Council Members and whoever else who has that responsibility to make sure. I had heard the concern about trying to do it in the evening and no one came. We have to do something to engage people before there is a problem,right? Because that is where I hear most of the complaints. I do feel they should be in the evening and we have to do the job to get people to these meetings to keep people engaged and informed. Committeemember Dr. Oliver Davis made a motion to send Bill No. 19-43 to the full Council with a favorable recommendation. Committeemember Williams-Preston seconded this motion which carried by a voice vote of four(4) ayes. With no further business, Committee Chair Ferlic adjourned the Community Investment Committee meeting at 4:34 p.m. Respectfully Submitted, Gavin Ferlic, Committee Chair EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f574.235.9173 TTD574.235.5567 ea v.southbendin.gov 4