08-30-16 Personnel and Finance - Laserfiche WebLink

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Committeemember Voorde asked if the lighting has been replaced. Ms. Belew stated that the lighting has all been replaced with new LED lighting in the building. All of our heating and cooling, now each individual room can be controlled individually. If you are down in one of the suites, you can heat just Suite One (1) instead of also heating Suite Two (2) and Suite Three (3). Scott informed me that we have seen the lowest usage that we have ever seen in the building since we have done these upgrades. The prices have gone up so we haven't seen the decrease monetarily, but the decrease in usage has been huge. With the Guaranteed Energy Savings Project, we received $52,000 in AEP rebates which we put back into some pretty neat things, and it looks like we might be getting close to $35,000 more, so it's really exciting stuff. Councilmember Scott stated that he toured the Century Center and one of the big issues that I had was the old lighting. You walked into a closet and there were literally only two people with a key, and it was four - hundred and eighty -three (483) phase directly into a panel, which scared the hell out of me because there were no covers, no nothing on this electrical panel. If anybody would have touched it they would have died. There were fans blowing on it to keep it cool so it wouldn't catch the building on fire. When I saw that I just could not believe we're operating that way. Ms. Belew stated she would be happy to give the Councilmembers a tour if they are interested in seeing any of those things. Councilmember Broden asked when the Hotel Motel Tax Board would approve their budget. Aaron Perri stated that the Hotel Motel Tax Board will approve their budget, then the County has to approve it. Their budgets are on the same schedule as the City's. It has to go through the Hotel Motel Tax Board, then the Council then the Commissioners. Councilmember Broden asked if that is a pretty large amount ask. Mr. Perri stated that it is a pretty standard ask, and this is the first year we've asked for a reduced operating subsidy from the Hotel Motel Tax Board for the Century Center. The revenues have been strong over the past few years, so there is an attempt by some of the County to try to use it for some other projects as well. Mr. Perri introduced Ron O'Connor, the Fiscal Officer for the Parks and Recreation Department. He took an eighteen (18) year hiatus, and John Martinez is the Director of Facilities and Grounds, Rebecca Anderson is the Fiscal Agent for the Morris and Michelle Debeck is the Manager of the Morris. Mr. Perri described the new Venues, Parks and Arts department. The idea here is that we have a host of folks in the City of South Bend that are working on quality of place type initiatives. You've already heard from a couple of those groups that are outside of the City, but we'd love to 11