We'll call the 16th regular meeting of the council to order. Pat, would you call the roll, please? Bowman? Here. Berg? Excuse. Bonnet? Here. Doyle? Here. Graf? Excuse. Manny? Here. Montemayor? Here. Moody? Here. Perez? Excuse. Rinfleisch? Excuse. Wongerman? Here. Warner? Here. Winninger? Here. Twelfth present? Corms present. Alderman? Warner? Warner. I thank your honor. I move that the minutes of the last common council meeting of November 3rd be approved and the same stand on as entered on the record. Second. We'll get a second at the minutes of the previous council meetings and approved under discussion. Okay, none. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Pledge of allegiance this evening. We have one Cub Scout from troop 3827 and one Boy Scout from troop 857. The leadest. Now Pledge, would you come up front, guys? Alderman Warner. I thank you, your honor. I just would like to share with the council and with the public that the reason Alderman Graf is not here this evening is because his aunt passed away last weekend. The showing is today and the funeral is tomorrow. And also Mayor Schramm's father passed away over the weekend. And in that I would ask that we just extend a moment of silence and sympathy to their families. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Warner. Okay, we have one hearing this evening and that's to add the east side of South 13th Street from Maryland Avenue to New Jersey Avenue. The west side of South 13th Street from Illinois Avenue to New Jersey Avenue. And both sides of Maryland Avenue from the South 13th Street to South 14th Street to the residential parking privilege regulations. Any interested persons wishing to be heard on that? Any interested persons wishing to be heard on the hearing? Alderman Warner. Thank you, your honor. I move the hearings to be closed. Move this. I'm going to hear them be closed under discussion. All in favor? All opposed. Motion carried. Mayor's appointments. I would like to submit the following appointment for your consideration. Betty Moody to be considered for the library board to fill the unexpired term of William Longerman, which expires April 30, 2006, signed by the mayor. That will lie over. Public forum, Pat? Yes. Excuse me. Susan Hunley? Susan, will you check the microphones on, please? Hello? I think it is. Can you hear? Okay. 632 Michigan Avenue, Sheboygan. Susan, you're going to have to speak louder. It's still not coming through. Susan Hunley, 632 Michigan Avenue, Sheboygan. I'll never say never, because here I am again. I feel I've always addressed the mayor and the council with the respect that you are all entitled to for the positions that you are elected to hold. So I am disappointed that at the last public forum, when Alderman Groff chose to comment on what I spoke about regarding room tax, his comments came after I had finished addressing the council, and when I could not make a clarification what he commented on. To me, this seems as though he tried to get in a parting shot since he knew I could not come back to the microphone and respond. Personally, I think the public should be allowed to speak freely, respectfully, freely at the public forum with all comments coming from the council, unless those speaking are asked for clarification and giving the opportunity to respond. To address Alderman Groff's comments, yes, I am a chamber member and did know about the contract with the city and the chamber regarding room tax. This contract between the city and the chamber is at the center of the notice of claim filed by myself and Renee Sushia. Since we have been advised by our attorney that it is an illegal contract. It makes no difference that the city and the chamber have agreed to the contract and both sides have said they are happy with it. It is still illegal. I collect this room tax from my guests, as does all lodging facilities in Sheboygan. Only lodging collects this tax, room tax, and additional 8% on top of the 5%. Wisconsin states tax for a total tax of 13% added on to our room rates. The intent of the room tax law is for overnight travelers to pay this room tax to a lodging facility. For the lodging facility to turn the entire amount collected over to the city and then for the city after retaining their entitled portion in Sheboygan, that portion is 20%. And then turn over the remaining portion, that's 80% in Sheboygan, to a tourism-based entity, RCVB, to help attract more overnight travelers to our community. It is to benefit all tourism-based businesses within the community, but it is only collected by lodging facilities. Right now, the current contract lets the city retain 50% of the room tax in the chamber, 50%. According to state statute, this is illegal. This is what Renee and I have been trying to correct. We just want Sheboygan to follow state statute regarding room tax. Sometimes I feel as though I am fleecing my guest pockets when I know that the 8% tax I'm making them pay is not being spent within the intent of the law regarding room tax. I don't like charging this extra 8% to begin with, but it would be an easier pill to swallow if I knew that the money was going for promotion of tourism and our whole community would benefit. Many of us, including myself, in the community are very excited about the new Blue Harbor Project, especially those of us in tourism-based businesses. The future success of Blue Harbor will greatly benefit all of us depending on overnight travelers because our facilities will be used for the overflow from Blue Harbor's conventions. So we welcome Blue Harbor and want to see it become successful. Promoting Sheboygan with room tax funds will benefit Blue Harbor, existing lodging, and all other tourism Sheboygan. Cookies never get done. Was that a time? No, you have time. I just found out my cookies must. Oh, yeah, because it doesn't keep right time either. It's better early than later. Please finish. I'll start at the beginning of the sentence if that's okay. Promoting Sheboygan with room tax funds will benefit Blue Harbor, existing lodging, and all other tourism in Sheboygan. By not keeping Sheboygan the best kept secret in the Midwest. Rather, the city and the chamber should work with all existing lodging and Blue Harbor when it opens and use all room tax collected to promote Sheboygan. The city can use room tax collected by Blue Harbor to pay off the city-owned convention center, but then except for the 20% total room tax collected by all lodging, including Blue Harbor, 80% of the room tax collected should be spent on tourism promotion. Can I make a clarification or should I sit down? You have about 15 seconds. Any clarifications? Thank you. Thank you. Henry Capitello. I'll watch that clock and stand. Thank you very much. My name is Henry Capitello. I was here at the last council meeting to bring concern regarding a meeting that the finance committee had met and had made a recommendation, which I wasn't notified. And I was notified this last week Friday of a meeting that the finance committee was going to be having on the following Monday. Because there was such short notice and because my schedule was already had a seminar for some families that were dealing with the affordable housing project that we have, which had been scheduled for over a month, I wasn't able to, wasn't going to be able to attend the meeting. I called Alderman Groff and he's not here, but I would like to personally thank him because he rescheduled the business that I would have to attend for the meeting on the 24th. I appreciate that. He didn't have to do that, I know, but he did make that convenience for me. And also just to let you know that just because people do come here and voice their concerns does not mean that we don't like Sheboygan or that we're anti-business or anything. Contrary, I think if we didn't care, we wouldn't be here. And someday maybe you won't see us here.  And the one thing I would like to say is that our organization, Home Inc., is doing a lot for the community. I would like to invite any of the Alderman that would like to attend. There's a Thanksgiving dinner that we're going to have at the building on Superior Manor. St. Vincent de Paul is sponsoring and paying for a lot of the food that's going to be purchased. They have been tremendous. It's being put on by the St. Vincent de Paul, also the Bible study which we have there on every Sunday at six o'clock. Also the AA group that meets there every Tuesday is also involved with this. So if any of the Alderman would want to see what we're doing in the building, please you're welcome to come. And the 23rd at 5.30. The other thing I'd like to let you know is that I did hand out packets of information to the finance committee members. Please review this information because in there it will show how we have done quite a few things for the City of Sheboy. And in fact, we have, if you look at the total revenue that we were managed to get from back taxes, from fines for the city, it could be almost $30,000. And we helped individuals that had problems with the elderly lady that is included in here. Her property had fallen in disrepair. One of her properties was condemned. She was on the verge of being kicked out of the nursing home. We worked with her. We sold some of the properties. We purchased a lot which we are going to build a brand new home for a low income family. Those are the kinds of things that we are doing in the community. And I live in Sheboygan because I love the community. I've worked all over the country in many different states. And I always come back to Wisconsin because I love Wisconsin. My family is on the West Coast. I'm the only one here out of all my family that's in Wisconsin. And that's for a reason because I enjoy living here. And I enjoy the people in Sheboygan and Sheboygan County. And like I said, we are doing a lot of good things. Please look at the things that we are doing. You're welcome to come to the building. See the types of work that we are doing for the community. And also for people that want to have meetings that need a place to meet, our facility is open for anyone. Anyone that wants to come and just give us a call. Our number is 4539444 Holmink. And we welcome anyone in the community to please come and utilize the building. That's what it's there for. Thank you very much. Melanie Cook. Melanie Cook, 2422 North Fifth Street, Sheboygan. I'm the city's part-time computer operator. My job is the one being eliminated in the proposed budget. All of the work I do is work that needs to be done. If not by me, then by somebody else who's paid about twice what I am. There's one person who only makes $5 an hour more than I do when she's there, but then the higher paid people have to do her work. And there's always to have to be two people who know every job. In addition to the IBM systems and production and office work, the PCs and network require constant attention and user assistance. And I help with that or find the people who can. There are now three and a half of us doing this and already it's not enough. Our programmers are ready to dread the afternoon because they have to answer so many phone calls and can't get much of their work done. Often all three of those people are out on calls or on the phone with a user or a vendor like Microsoft. We have 18 buildings we have to cover from Plymouth to all ends of Sheboygan.   Or if it's stuck, they probably can't move it anyway. Most urgent is usually the police department. They have to get something out in time for a court appearance or other scheduled event. Or they've got a detained person in the room with them or any number of situations. Of course the dispatch centers and emergency calls get first priority but multiply this by all the offices and buildings they have and without me there whenever any one person is off there's only going to be two people to cover all this. At the same time everyone else has immediate needs also. The people who work with the public hate nothing more than when they're in the computer doesn't work. I believe I am now the only permanent person other than new hires who is being completely laid off. There is one other such person in the finance department but that's a 20 hour a month job and not a primary one. Our union covering 10 departments including the police dispatchers was hardest hit and couldn't begin to cover them all. My job is roughly $18,000 a year plus partial benefits and would probably cost each tax payer about $2 a year to keep. With all the concessions that union and management have given I am asking that the city or the tax payers now give something to save this job. I certainly don't expect the city to give up a fire truck or a programmer for it. They have been finding money and if not these things together would only cost each tax payer about $6 per year. I have been here 19 years. I have a six year old daughter that I'm a big part of the support of.  We just got out of a high crime neighborhood a year ago. I will probably have to be laid off next year anyway but one year is a long time in the life of a six year old. We'd all love to see that big round zero in our tax increase but when the prices of everything the city uses from heat to vehicles to textbooks is going up to get that zero we have to do things that are financially harmful even if they look good at first and that way of doing things is what got the state and a lot of businesses into these areas. Older people have had their savings destroyed by inflation. If they are losing their homes I believe they ought to have an income and asset based limit on their property taxes just like the homestead credit or heat assistance for the rest of us it's more a matter of being squeezed and frustrated everywhere we turn and feeling powerless to change or in some cases take it out on anything but the city. Plenty of propagandists are happy to help us believe that. My family pays $217 a month $182 a month that's the average but looking at the ridiculous prices of houses, cars, income taxes and everything else which nobody else is hardly anybody's protesting about I consider this $217 actually one of the better deals I get for my money this is far less than what it costs just to educate one child per year let alone all the other things included. There's so much resentment toward blue harbor and the marina that I have to wonder what people think we're going to have here as the factories move out. I'm very concerned about the agendas of the people who are constantly attacking our governments and education. I live through the 60s once and I'm hoping they're going to be over someday. I don't see where the people attacking our governments now are any different. I understand the resentment toward most of us who have paid health insurance. Self insurance and years of giving up other things is what gave us that. Still we're starting to give it up anyway. Many of us wanted to give up more but we didn't win and getting rid of my job will not change that. I would personally be happy to see my taxes raised even if somehow more working people could have affordable health insurance but that isn't what the radio pundits and the majority seem to have on their minds these days. I'm glad to see more people getting interested in politics. I hope it's put to good use. Health insurance for one needs public insurance. Ross perl made his first 40 billion dollars stealing from Medicare. I don't think it's always the government stealing from us. It's the problem. I think it's often the people who are stealing from the government which is us. Thank you. Richard Sousha. Richard Sousha 303 St. Clair Avenue in Shebaugin, Wisconsin. Mayor, council and Shebaugin citizens. I'm here to address and support the petition currently being circulated in Shebaugin. It's a proposal in its states. This ordinance shall require the require the City of Sheboygan at the next schedule election to hold a binding referendum for approval prior to the start of construction on any new city building project requiring a capital expenditure of one million dollars or more. Excluded from this ordinance are infrastructure projects such as roadway repair, sewer and water system repair as deemed necessary by the City of Sheboygan Council. This ordinance would be in effect for only two years and it would not impede development and economic growth. It empowers the people, the citizens of Sheboygan, to voice their interests and concerns on major projects. Through referendums projects can still be introduced in the past. It will not affect necessities or infrastructure such as road repair or sewer and water system repair. Referendums are effective and common to the school system because the public is informed and involved. An informed and involved public can't be steamrolled by its leaders as what happened with the marina and blue harbor. The proposal also promotes fiscal responsibility by allowing the people to decide risk versus value. For example, the next time the city wants to give a developer a four million dollar gift of taxpayer money, the citizens would be able to vote if the value outweighs the risk. Keep in mind that other fiscal financial and cost effective means are available for development such as community block grants, a definition of democracy, government in which supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them or their elected representatives. I do believe in representative government. Citizens have the duty to exercise their views through representatives, but when the citizens are ignored, belittled and even vilified, cause for such a citizens initiative is warranted. It is unprecedented that the mayor would squelch the voice of a citizen's inquiry before such an issue is even presented to the council. I feel that the mayor is misguided by a permeating arrogance, coercion and abuse of authority at city hall. He's clearly being influenced by special interest powers, powers that will not relinquish their control over city hall. They are not elected by the public and a majority don't even live and pay residential property taxes in the city of Sheboygan. For example, only 15 of the 39 who signed the opposition ad in the Sheboygan press yesterday actually live in the city of Sheboygan. I challenged the mayor and the council to listen to the Sheboygan citizens, honestly encourage citizen involvement, courageously question powerful and influential outsiders and govern according to the interests of the Sheboygan citizens. In closing, I encourage the citizens of Sheboygan to sign the petition, thus exercising your right to the democratic process. Don't be intimidated. The voice of the people is right, just and strong, and it will prevail. Jamie Shram. Good evening. I again thank you for the opportunity to speak with you and for sharing your time. Six weeks ago, I stood before you and asked it as a community to turn away from the politics of deception, diversion and disrespect and embrace the traditional values of our community, hope, opportunity and progress. It has been an amazing six weeks as the truth is being heard and felt throughout our community. Despite the criticism and criticisms and negative remarks made about our hometown, the sun continues to rise each day over Sheboygan. The end is not near, at least not for hope, opportunity and progress. Our community continues to change, continues to grow and continues to be led by all of you, the elected leaders of our community. Sheboygan has vision, Sheboygan has leadership. Maybe some people don't care for the direction our community is taking, but the goals and values of our community have never been clear. While not utopia and very far from perfect, our journey of excellence has witnessed some impressive accomplishments over the past year. We often hear what is wrong with our community. Let's take a look what's right about it. Sheboygan continues to be a first-rate community in which to live, work, relax and raise our families. Expansion Management Magazine even gave Sheboygan its highest ranking five stars for business relocation. Our city's financial position remains strong, is evidenced by our double-a bond rating. You all are working on and I'd imagine struggling with a budget that includes 2.2 million spending cuts can hold the line on a property tax rate. This past year, you all ratified a new agreement with the Orange Cross Ambulance, thus continuing a partnership with the private sector. Blue Harbor, a 54 million-dollar addition to our community, will create an excess of 300 permanent jobs. The reconstruction of South Business Drive is nearing an end and continues our community's commitment to maintaining its infrastructure. Since 1997, there's been investment of over 500 million dollars in our community.  And our people, all of us, continue to be the finest asset to our community. So you can see without looking very hard, there is much to like about our community. Well, there are disagreements over issues, but our community continues to move forward. Our community is abuzz with the truth with opportunity and with progress. This past weekend, I once again drove through the mud, gravel, and concrete at the Blue Harbor site. I saw a lot of other people there, too. Their curiosity, a testament to the pride in our community, its future, and its vision. When faced with challenges, we have two options. We can turn inward, fear the future, view changes the enemy, and turn on one another.  The other option, however, is to embrace the challenges we face, see them as a never-ending journey of excellence, and know that because of our efforts, today will be better. Tomorrow will be better than today.  The only question is, which will you be? Thank you. That's five. And we move on. Alderman Warner, consent agenda. Thank you, Your Honor. I move that all our O's be accepted and placed on file. All our C's be accepted and adopted in all resolutions. Substitute resolutions and ordinances be passed. Move this, move this second item. All our O's be accepted and filed. All our C's be accepted and adopted. Resolutions, substitute resolutions and ordinances be put up on their passing. Under discussion, Alderman Monty, Mayor. Sorry, I'm not ready. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would like to pull forward 1612 to see if the architect is here. It could give us a few words on this. Are we up to 1612? Sure. Do I open the floor? Yes, please. Move this second to open the floor. Under discussion. Hearing none, all in favor? Please step up the microphone. LJM Architects and also with the River Park Place of Sheboygan, which we are presenting to do. I don't know if anyone has seen any of our preliminary proposals, but we thought we would bring them along and show anyone who hasn't been able to see them yet. Scott, I don't know if they heard where this was going to happen. Could you repeat that please? This is happening on 10th in Wisconsin. We're the old Kingsbury brewery that the World Warehouse used to be. There's two vacant lands there, right? There are two vacant parcels of land there right now. And what we're proposing to do is a group of 27 single family and two family condominiums. These will be designed in a way similar to maybe older homes or more traditional homes would have been more of a bungalow style. They're also we're going to set them up so they have universal design features being that if someone gets compromised or has a hard time walking up and down steps or stuff like that, they can live in this house a little bit easier. Master bedroom is going to be on the first floor. There's going to be wider doorways and a slight difference from the garage height to the main level. So it could be easy to manage. I don't know if anyone has any specific questions at this time. We weren't happy to answer them if they do. I have one question. And you're purchasing this land from the city of Sheboygan. Yes, we are. Thank you. Thank you. Beautiful development that will go very nicely down a riverfront. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, we'll have a separate vote on that. You need a roll call. Could you call the roll please pan on 1612? There's any discussion. Is there any other discussion? Okay, hearing none, would you call the roll call? Bonnet, Doyle, Nanny, Montemayor, I, Moody, Rinflaich, Stefan, then Akron, Longerman, Warner, Weninger, Baumann, 12 Is. Motion carried. Okay, everything else on a consent agenda? Alderman Warner. Thank you, Your Honor. I guess I would ask Tom Holton, if he could just get, or Dennis Baumann, just give us an explanation on document 16-6. That deals with Wisconsin Public Service Corporation and Sergeant Electric Company. They're going to be doing some work in the community, and I think it'd be nice to be able to get that out to the public so they understand if they see this, people around. Wisconsin Public Service, they're starting out, we'll be starting a program for a wireless meter reading that would be done through a network of modems. It'll be set like not 11 different centralized areas where your gas meter will be called to this area and be able to give their meter reading whether it be daily or monthly. So they've been doing other cities and we're up next. Thank you. Okay. Okay, if there's another discussion, Pat, would you call the roll?  To the November 24th. Pardon? Tell what meeting they're lying over to. They are lying over to 1124. 1633 through 1639 to be referred. 1640 by Alderman Boone, approving amendment to purchase the sale agreement was the Sheboygan Memorial Post 9156 regarding possession of an occupancy of the property at 811 North 11th Street. Alderman Boone. Thank you, Mr. Donner. I'd like to ask for a motion for suspension and rules. Is there any objection to suspension? Alderman Boone. Yes, I'd like to make a motion to pass the resolution and put it on passage. Move it to the resolution be put upon its passage under discussion. Hearing none, would you call the roll please? Manny? Montemayor? Oh, I'm sorry, excuse me, Alderman Montemayor, you had a question. But we're voting on 1640 right now, right? And I just had a comment about something previous. Okay, aye. Thank you. Moody? Ruinflage? Stefan? Ben Akron? Wongerman? Warner? Weninger? Bauman? Boone? Doyle? To be 12 Is. Along with that one is the R.C. 1628 to file? To file, right. Okay, Alderman Montemayor, you had a question. Yes, on 1634 about the found items city employees. What did we do up until now about found items? It's in her correspondence. Well, we're going to do something different. What she wants to know if we should do something different. So she's going, she's asking the ethics board to make a decision. Okay, and evidently, I didn't get it straight. So I think it seemed to me, she was asking, I don't know what to do. There has been no procedure. The public, when the public finds something and it's not claimed within a year, the public gets it. Right. She wants to know if employees find something and it's not claimed in a year, do they get it? Or does it get sold for and the money going to the coffers? Right. She wants to know what to do with city employees. This is the first time this thing has come up. I guess so. Okay. Thank you. Glad we could clarify that for you. 1641 will lie over. 1642 and 43 to be referred. 1644 will lie over. 1645 by public protection and safety, recommending filing documents, submitting various license application and the nine beverage operators license 6191 to Christina Figueroa for non cooperation with the committee and not revealing violations on her application, Alderman Doyle. Thank you, Your Honor. I move that we accept and adopt the report of committee. Move to the second to accept and adopt the report of committee. Is Christina here to speak on her behalf? No, Your Honor. We can proceed under discussion. Hearing none, what do you call the roll? Montemayor. Moody. Rinfige. Steffen. Ben Akron. Wongerman. Wanner. Winniger. Bauman. Boney. Doyle. Manny. 12 ayes. Motion carried. 1646 and 47 will lie over until 1124. 1648 by special marina committee, recommending entering into the Harbor Center marina management agreement. Alderman Bauman. Wanner. Wanner. Right, the Warner. Is it? I got Bauman, Graw, Warner. Okay. I know about Warner. Your Honor, I make a motion to accept and adopt the report of committee and pass the resolution. Move to the second to accept and adopt the report of committee and pass the resolution. Under discussion. Under discussion, Your Honor, this is authorizing entering into the Harbor Center marina agreement with Skipper Marine Development Incorporated and will continue our contract to basically operate the marina. Alderman Bauman. Well, thank you, Your Honor. Generally, I don't get up and say a lot of things, but tonight I'm going to speak on this one. The agreement is again with Skipper Bud, and evidently they were the only bidder that was considered more or less for the operation of the marina. Back when the marina first opened, everyone knows I was definitely nodding for the operator. And since the marina has become the marina and has become a very beautiful place, we've experienced a lot of growth in the city. And of course, more businesses have come to the city along with other areas of development. But again, this evening, Your Honor, I will be voting against the operators for the contract, the way it is proposed. Thank you. Is there any other discussion? Would you call the roll? Moody. Rinflaich. Stefan. Van Akren. Longerman. Warner. Wenninger. Bauman. Boney. Doyle. Manny. Montemayor. Hyde. Eleven highs, one no. Motion carried. 1649, by seller agreements, recommending filing documents, amending ordinance, adopting the revised City of Sheboygan compensation program for non-representative employees for 2004 and passing the attached substitute ordinance. Kalderman, Van Akren. And I move the ordinance to be put upon its passage. The second ordinance be put upon its passage. Under discussion. Thank you, Your Honor. I just think it's important to note that our non-represented employees in the city have also stepped forward to help the city through this difficult budget. I wanted to say something a few weeks back and I feel to at that time. So I'd like to say something now. I think the city's non-reps will be paying 5% of the employee health insurance costs and that's an increase of 2.5% over what they are paying now. And I think that's quite a significant change and it should be commended. In addition, the non-reps are also giving up 1.75% of their 2004 pay increase for half of the year. And in addition to that, 1.75% of the bi-weekly salary will be deducted and applied as an additional employee contribution to the health insurance premiums during 2004. I think it's important to note that. I think it's important to note that the non-reps are contributing a substantial amount to help meet our budgetary needs and their sacrifice and commitment to Sheboygan needs to be recognized. Thank you. I agree. Thank you, non-reps. Good job. Is there any other discussion? Hearing none, would you call her old please? Rinfleisch? Stefan? Ben Akron? Wongerman? Warner? Wenninger? Bauman? Bonet? Doyle? Manny? Montemayor? Moody? 12 ayes. Motion carried. 1650 and 51 will lie over. Alderman Montemayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. My husband says I do talk a lot. He's a saint for 41 years. On 1651, we're going to hope to change the wording of our franchise, our cable TV franchise, so that the money goes first to TV eight, then to debt service and to general fund, capital outlays. We want to amend it to also spend some of that money for general operating appropriations. Rich isn't here this evening. Could Mike Hutz explain that we can do this? It is legal. We don't have a contract. We can just change those words. Hang on. I guess that's what I get for being here when Rich isn't. What this document is, it's brought to you by Strategic Fiscal Planning Committee. Our franchise fee amounts to about $400,000 a year from Charter. As Alderman Montemayor had said, she detailed what the uses of it have been and the document, in order to help us out during these tough times, we're asking for a revision in addition to include general fund operating expenses. The reason we can do that this year and this year only is during the past few years, capital outlay requests that have been approved have averaged around $360,000. That was the entire amount which was available through the Cable Fund for this purpose. This year when we went back to all the department heads, notifying them of how difficult a year it is, telling them we wanted an absolute bare minimum for capital outlay requests, they responded and we approved $224,000 in capital outlay expenses. So that would leave roughly around $130,000 roughly, which could be applied towards general operating expenses, but we would need your approval, this change in the general ordinance to accomplish that. Okay, that lies over till next meeting. 1652 to be referred. 1543, resolution by Alderman Van Aker and Wongaman Winninger, accepting the revised agreement with the IAFF Local 483 Firefighters for 2003-2004. Alderman Van Aker. Your Honor, I move to ordinance to be put upon this passage. Another one that has made some more giving to the city for helping the city with the services and your budget. Thank you. We have a motion before us, under discussion. Alderman, right flush? Thank you, Your Honor. Last time we had looked at this before we sent it back to, or actually we just held it over last time around, the question I had come up, that it would cost the city additional $60,000 to meet what they're proposing here. My question is, have the city found that and where is that coming from? Michael, do you wanna, do you want? Yeah, thank you. The answer is no, we haven't found it yet. But part of the money that will be allocated is that we do have savings from all seven contracts. We know that, for example, the police department's coming through with some concessions, which we'll be talking about later on this week. There are also monies that are from the now represented group that have not been allocated yet. So we're still on a working stage on this, so. But we'll get there. Thank you. Alderman, Warner? Oh, thank you, Your Honor. I would make a motion that we open the floor. I know a lot. Hang on a minute before we do that. Did you have something to say before we do that? Yeah, there's a little question on that $60,000. The way we come up, it is $30,000. And there's, or three more firemen and another Riga on $30,000 is not a lot of money. Thank you. Chief has the right, you don't have to open the floor for him and President Union's also with him. So please step up to microphone board here. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Common Council. Basically, the $60,000, actually $30,000, in my, when you talk to 5% across the board with six firefighters, in my deliberations with the mayor and the budget, I saved, I took enough out of the budget to save three positions. That was pure monies. But also what was saved is the severance payout for those three firefighters and unemployment costs, which would rate, which would come to about $31,600. So that was still in the savings come forth. Finance Director Geppard happened to take that money and just apply it across the board for all city employees, which the deal we had with the mayor is that whatever you saved your department was supposed to be saved for us. So I feel that the $31,000 still is our savings, which was given up by firefighters through this proposal and my budget, leaving about $30,000. That was the city has come up with, but do nothing and don't replace the $30,000 and you will have to lay out three firefighters and those unemployment costs and severance payout would be about $30,000.  My feeling is this, this year 2004 is a very important year. Number one, if we can provide the same service to the citizens at the same cost as we are, for one more year, we owe it to all citizens to do that. In a time when the PGA is gonna be bringing in hundreds of thousands of people a year at Sheboygan in the month of August, we happen to be having the state men's bowling tournament coming in with 10,000 men coming here at bowling this year. We have two major projects of over $50 million each being built with 100 construction workers on each site who are walking around and steal 130 to 50 feet air trucks coming in out of city. What a better time than to provide the same service as we had at least for this next year. If 2005 is harder on us than we think it is gonna be and we have to make some major cuts, then I think the cuts have to be made and priorities have to be taken by this council. But it's before you for about the same cost. It's a wash as far as I'm concerned.  Thanks, Jeff. Did you have anything you want to say, add to that? Thank you, Your Honor, members of the council. Yeah, I would like to take this time to, I think clarify some of the misconceptions that are going around about our offer. I have spoken to some of you in committee meetings, but I understand there still are some inaccurate numbers that are being sent around in emails and communications. This was a very difficult decision for us to make. To my knowledge, we're the only fire department in the state of Wisconsin that is doing this. And I speak weekly to the 50 other fire departments in the state and to this point, we're the only ones that are doing this. Ed Surick and the city didn't just come to us during our past negotiations and say, here's your raise for 2004. The raise that we got came through giving, going to higher drug co-pays, taking on residency, reducing our initial clothing allowance. We changed our work schedule. We limited the number of people that we can have off on vacation at one time and that saves the city overtime costs. And we contributed to our health insurance for the very first time. So those were all concessions that we gave to get our raise for 2004. As recently as 2001, 2002, when the city's general fund was growing and it grew by 7% that year because of increased expected revenues and decreased spending, the city didn't come to us and say, hey, we'd like to open your contract. We got a little more money to give you. Yeah, we're here now trying to do our part. So when I hear and I read statements in the paper that the firefighters need to give more, it upsets me a little bit. It upsets the people that I represent. First, let me clarify what we're actually giving back. We're not giving back the one and three quarter pay raise that were due January 1st. What we're actually returning to the city is 1.82% of our raise. We're actually giving back over $62,000. For me personally, that's over $1,000 next year. And for some of you that are saying, we're not giving a concession, trust me, that's a concession. When the city came to us earlier part of this year and said we need to lay off three firefighters, we got together as a union and came up with this plan. We said, instead of laying off three firefighters, let's spread it out amongst all of us. We'll take the time off and in return, we'll return the pay to the city. So what we are offering is to lay each and every one of us off for 51 hours next year and in return, we'll return that money to the city. It's not 1.275 weeks off as it's been reported because you have to remember firefighters don't work a 40 hour week, we work a 56 hour week. And that's without getting paid overtime, I might add. This is not about saving jobs. This is about saving lives. There's a few firefighters here and everyone that's back in the department, every one of those can tell you about a close call that they've had of being in the attic of jumes, hot, black, smoky, so hot that it destroyed my face mask with flames all around me and then finding myself 10 feet below on a hallway and not knowing how I got there.  We're going to a house fire on Superior Avenue on a Sunday morning and having one of our firefighters fall through the hole in the living room floor and then finding one adult and three kids, one of them the same age as my son, dad. That's why we needed to pass this with them to our contract. This will keep all our fire trucks on the road next year. I along with the other union presidents realize these concessions are only a one-year fix but it at least buys you a year at a very little cost.  And one more thing, I don't get the floor very often and after this statement I probably won't ever again. The next time you get the chance, put the ambulance service in the fire department where it belongs. Because I'll bet that 13% rate increase they got this year, if you were collecting it, it would look a lot better to you. And if you were collecting it, I don't know if we'd be standing here tonight. Thank you. Can I answer your questions? Okay. Alderman Warner. Thank you, Your Honor. I did have something to say but I think it's been said pretty much but I'm gonna say it anyway since I took the time to prepare it. I guess a lot of attention has been paid to this cost sharing and money saving proposal by our firefighters. And some of it has been accurate and some of it has not been. The bottom line is quite simple. This is a savings to the city that will help us meet our 2004 budget needs. And we know we have 2005 to work on. Period, this saves us money in 2004. Without this, we would have to find that money somewhere else in order to keep emergency service levels intact. The emergency response readiness, the level of emergency medical services as well as fire protection will be maintained largely because of this proposal. We have to remember and consider the fact that our firefighters are part of the city's emergency medical services. And be very careful not to negatively impact a service that directly affects the lives of our citizens. Every city in Wisconsin is dealing with the same issues. Loss of state-shared revenue, increased operating costs and increased healthcare costs. The firefighters have been paying 2.5% toward their healthcare costs since last spring. Second only to our transit workers who I believe started prior to that. As an example, in Appleton, the Common Council voted to increase property taxes by $58,549. And to use $147,000 in unused salaries to keep its fire department fully staffed in 2004. Why? Because of the safety of their citizens. I think it's significant. It shows Sheboygan is not alone in its effort to maintain critical emergency services that impact public safety of life and property. The fire department staff has already come up with over $150,000 in their budget, reductions to save three firefighter positions. This additional savings will help to keep the other three positions intact. And most importantly, the safety of our city will not be compromised. I for once say thank you for coming forward. All other unions have also done similar things to help with the budget and save as many jobs as possible. I think that's a good thing. And I thank them also as well as our non reps. And I know this may rub some people the wrong way. And I do not mean to lessen the importance of any employee the city has. But time and again, people tell me not to support any cuts in emergency services and critical core city services. And we should all stand firm on doing all we can to maintain our core services. Again, thanks to the firefighters, the other unions are non reps for stepping forward. This is the extra mile and we're all walking it together. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Orner. Alderman Doyle. Thank you, Your Honor. I'm sympathetic towards the chief's remarks, but I'd like to talk about the budget making process here in the Common Council and how this is an example of how it doesn't work as well as we like it to. At the start of the year, the Common Council and the mayor have to make a decision. Do we want to set priorities or do we want to have across the board cuts? The city clearly said we're going to do a hiring freeze and then we're going to have across the board cuts. And the rationale was that we would spread the pain out evenly from department to department. And that's been the plan all along. Then suddenly now the different groups make concessions, which I applaud. It does keep the wolf from the door for another year, but now Alderman are coming back and say, no, no, no, no, we need to set priorities here all of a sudden and change things and give preference to the firefighters proposal because that's a life and death matter. Now that's clearly departing from the original plan. The Alderman knew that if we made these across the board cuts that the fire department was going to be affected negatively and why did this suddenly surface at the last minute? It almost resembles too often what I've seen in this Common Council that we get in these kinds of situations right at the end of the budget year and the Alderman put on their white hats and jump on their white horses and come riding to the rescue and go contrary to the original plan. I believe that we should start listening to what the taxpayers say. When you talk to them about are there higher priority services that the city offers, they'll tell you definitely yes. They'll tell you if I talk to ward five and six people, they say the fire department, I'm sorry, the police department is the number one priority in the city. They don't want to see cuts in the fire department but they are concerned about the cost of the fire department and whether that should be looked at. When you start looking at other services that the city provides, there's always someone who objects to any given cut but there are cuts that could be made that would have the broad support of the electorate in Sheboygan. What are the consequences now of us not doing it the way the community wants and setting priorities but doing a hiring freeze followed by a departmental freeze where we supposedly treated all departments the same way. Well the first thing that happens is the fire department, I'm sorry, the police department is down by seven or eight officers. Now if I talk to the people in my wards, they're clearly totally unhappy with that because they pick up the newspaper and 20 years ago, I can remember there would be years, five to 10 years at a time where there would be no murders in Sheboygan and now it's getting like it's an attempted murder or a murder it seems like it's every other month almost. There's high speed chases, there's drug problems and so on and the people are asking me how can you not set priorities when you do the budget? How can you ignore the crime problems that we are having? So my suggestion is next year you might wanna have a plan and you might wanna stick to it throughout the whole process and the plan should look something like this. We should set priorities. We should say which services are absolutely essential and then agree to fund those and then start looking at areas where we may have to cut because the wolf is going to be at the door. We've just moved the timeline back again one year if the state comes through with the $800,000 cut we can't keep stealing or borrowing whatever you wanna call it from the reserve fund because that's our kitty for the city and it's gonna hurt our bond rating. We can't use that money forever. We're trying to take now from the cable fund and so on for operations and so on. You have to save emergency money for other things besides just the immediate crisis at hand. How can we solve this long-term budget problem in Sheboygan? It isn't actually necessarily the city council's fall completely, the problem really is employee costs. We just can't afford the contracts that we have. The employee costs for the city are going up all the time faster than city revenues. There's only two ways that we can bring this situation under control and that would be literally to have employee wage freezes for three years and then have an approach to the health insurance problem that other people are using. The evidence that I've seen on the internet and so on says that the employee contribution to the health plan doesn't work as a controlling measure for health costs. That the most effective measure is very high deductibles and very high co-pays and so I suggest that we start developing a long-term plan instead of just having a plan and then changing it at the last second to fit our needs and try to follow through with it and solve the budget crisis instead of having it postponed one year after another. Thank you. Here, here. Anyone else? Okay. Alderman Rainfler. One more. I want to thank both the non reps as well as all the reps, the union labor groups that have come forward so far for keeping the wolf at the door for one more year and not letting them in. But I really think the groups that have a net decrease in their human resources cost and kept mid the changes within the union itself to keep all the positions versus those that actually have a net increase that the city has to outlay to keep all the positions there. I think some of the other labor leaders need to, discuss amongst themselves why some humans have priority over others. And I understand the sympathy with, especially with the firefighters that they have already been made cut so far. I sympathize with that. Unfortunately, I think that's the way that the future is going to go. I will vote for this because they did come through and make some cuts, but I think that long-term we are gonna have to look at some layoffs, some cutbacks in some ways that we simply can't keep increasing our labor costs year by year. That is why we made $2.2 million in cuts this year ready. Here's one thing Alderman Doyle, the state is coming out with a plan. They want a state plan on health insurance. Now I don't know if it's gonna benefit us or not, but it's in the works right now and we're working on that. Milwaukee claims their health insurance only goes up like 3% a year or other municipalities have been gone up 10, 11, 15% a year. And they are trying to push a plan out there because across the state for health insurance, obviously some aren't going to get the same coverage they have now. I mean, some of the communities have very good coverage, other communities don't have as good as coverage, but that's gonna be part of the deal where it's comparable all the way across the state. So we're looking into a lot of different things for next year. Yeah, so we saved one more year, but I gotta compliment the unions and like I said, the nine reps for stepping forward and doing that, they didn't have to do that. Did we make cuts? We eliminated positions this year for that 2.2 billion. Is that a million? Is that the right way to go? In some ways, yes it is, but you like to lay off people? No, you don't like to lay off people and make them lose their jobs. But that's the fact of life right now. When the state takes $844,000 away from you, well actually it's over a million with transportation funds and next year we're gonna look at it too, but next year we will have a larger tax business that will help someone and we will look at it very close next year. But I guarantee you one thing, we will set up a committee to look at this health insurance. A committee to look at the health insurance and if we can save, if we would save the city, should bring the money. Secondly, after the first of the year, we are going to start working on a new budget for this city immediately. So we are not caught like other municipalities across the state, or if the state does make changes that we are prepared and ready to go with those changes for next year, so. Alderman Warner. I think I don't agree with everything my friend Jerry stated tonight, but he makes a lot of good points and I think it should be noted that as you stated, Your Honor, after the first of the year, we're starting on the budget for next year right away. That's the discussion we had a few weeks ago and we know we're up against the wall again in 05 and the intent is to start working on it early and put together a group of people that will address the needs and prioritize some of the situations in the city and see what they can come up with, so. Correct, thanks. Alderman Stephan. Yeah, I just wanted to echo the comments we've heard thanking the both the non-webs and the unions and everybody's pretty much come forward I think Ed mentioned that the police union I think was the one we hadn't heard from and they're formulating something, I guess I would just challenge the council, the one group I haven't heard from is us. I have limitations with my employer, whatever I make the majority on this council, the majority of it, I have to give the charity, so it wouldn't be fair for me to come up with a number, but I think somebody should come up with a number and I would support no matter what it is, thank you. Good point. Just another discussion, Pat, would you call the roll please? Stephan. Aye. Vena Akron. Aye. Wongerman. Aye. Warner. Aye. Gweninger. Aye. Bauman. Aye. Boonee. Aye. Doyle. No. Manny. Aye. Montamere. Aye. Moody. 1542 by Alderman Graf, Wininger, Boonee, Doyle, and Stephan, authorizing entering to a tax collection agreement with Sheboygan County for 2003-2004. Alderman, Wininger. Thank you, Your Honor. I make a motion to pass the resolution. Second. Moved and seconded the resolution, be put upon its passage under discussion. Hearing none, would you call the roll please? Vena Akron. Aye. Wongerman. Aye. Warner. Wininger. Bauman. Wininger. Aye. Doyle. Aye. Manny. Aye. Montamere. Aye. Moody. Aye. Wrenfleisch. Aye. Stephan. Aye. 12 ayes. Motion carried. 1547 RSC by Public Protection and Safety, recommending amending the no parking area regulations to add, excuse me, both sides of Union Avenue from South 24th Street to South 25th Street. Alderman Warner. Your Honor, I make a motion to accept and adopt the report of committee and pass the ordinance. Moved and seconded to accept and adopt to report a committee and pass the ordinance. Do you want to take 1549? Do you want to take 49? 48. Sure, on that I would make a motion that for 1549, that the general ordinance be put upon its passage as well as 1548. Okay, we have a motion before us. Under discussion, Your Honor, on 1547, this is in reference to a request by Old Wisconsin Sausage Food, or Old Wisconsin Food Products Company for some changes across the street from their plant. The company has experienced difficulty with its semi trucks using the docks when cars are parked across the street and the neighbors in this area were contacted and had no objections to the change. This change will help increase safety when the trucks must use the docks and will only be effective on weekdays. Parking will be allowed on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. The committee recommends passage on that one. And on 1549, this is a general ordinance relating to residential daytime parking privileges so as to add the east side of South 13th Street from Maryland Avenue to New Jersey Avenue and the west side of South 13th Street from Illinois Avenue to New Jersey Avenue and both sides of Maryland Avenue from South 13th Street to South 14th Street to the commuter impacted parking regulations. This area has been impacted by employees of Rockline Parking on the residential streets rather than using the company's parking lots. And the people I live here do not have access to park in front of their homes, even right in front of their own houses or even close for most hours of the day. There's been many problems with excessive automobile and semi truck traffic in the area. This change will help the residents immensely by giving them back their neighborhood. This is a result of another problem solving effort by the traffic department of the police department, Sergeant Tarkowski, as well as a community policing unit and the residents in the area who've worked together to come up with a solution to this. Rockline does have plenty of parking in the parking lots but it just was a little easier for people to park on the street I think when they get awful work or something like that and that's why they were parking up there. So this should help that neighborhood out. And on 1548, this is adding a 15 minute parking limits stay at the north side of Wisconsin Avenue from the west curb line of Broughton Drive to a point 100 feet west thereof from 5 a.m. daily to 6 p.m. daily. Currently it is 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. And people get, this is by the YMCA, people get there before the 6 a.m. timeframe and park up those spots and people can't drop off their people at the daycare center at the Y between that time because they're all parked full. So this will open that up a little bit so people can get in and out in 15 minute regulations. Thanks. Is there any other discussion? Hearing none, would you call the roll? Longerman? Aye. Warner? Aye. Wieninger? Aye. Bauman? Aye. Bonet? Aye. Doyle? Aye. Manny? Aye. Montemayor? Aye. Moody? Aye. Rindfleisch? Aye. Steffen? Aye. Van Agren? Aye. 12 ayes. Motion carried. 1653. Alderman Bonet? Yes, Your Honor. Thank you. It's been moved to seconded file. Disciple by city clerk submitting communication from the Sheboygan Citizens Action Group filing complaints that the mayor and the city attorney have violated the Sheboygan Code of Ethics and it would go into the Ethics Board. Under discussion. Alderman Rindfleisch? It's to make an alternate motion to send this communication to the Ethics Board. Pardon? Do I get an alternate motion that we send this? Yes, Your Honor, what do we do with the Ethics Board? Right. No. So. Motion to file takes precedence over that. Okay. Thank you. I have something I'd like to say on that before we vote on this. I serve all the people of the city of Sheboygan. In my role as a public servant, I am committed to the ideals of democracy and open government. Therefore, I am interested in giving this group of citizens the full benefit that an investigation of the complaint will be provided. I am confident that the investigation will disclose that my conduct and that of the city attorneys with ethical and consistent with our duties as elected officials. I will cooperate fully in the investigation and I look forward to the full and complete resolution of the serious charges raised by this complaint. I look forward to carrying out my duties as mayor during the investigation and for a long time to come. As part of those duties, I recommend that the committee of the whole chairperson, appoint an independent audit group approve by the Common Council to investigate the ethics complaint and report back to the Common Council on the results of the investigation within 60 days. This process will provide a greater assurance to all our citizens that a fair and a complete investigation was undertaken. I believe this independent audit should reveal both the ethics complaint issue as well as the city's role in the Blue Harbor project. We need to ensure our citizens that their tax dollars are being invested ethically and legally. I, as mayor, am committed to being the top watchdog for the taxpayers of this great city. And I welcome an independent audit on whether our work on Blue Harbor meets the ethical and legal standards to which we all hold to ourselves. Until this investigation is complete, I will make no further public comments on this matter as I was elected to serve the public's interest and to do the work of the people. This issue will not be a distraction to the progress and opportunities that lie ahead for our future community. Thank you. Alderman Orner. I think I will support filing this. I guess I also support having an independent group unrelated to this council, the Southpaw Project, or any of these issues, look into this and give us an unbiased report of the facts. Thank you. Alderman Monke, mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I applaud your words about having an independent audit board in addition to the ethics board. With our citizens concerned, I think it would be not good of us to simply say, sorry, we're not gonna address this, we're gonna file it. I think we need to at least have a meeting of the ethics board and give credence and substance to what they're saying. Maybe we, it will all turn out just fine, but we have to pay attention to what they're saying rather than just filing it. But I think the idea of also an independent audit is a good idea. Thank you. Another discussion, would you call the roll please? Oh, excuse me, Alderman, right in place? Yes. I'll second what Marilyn had said. This is a political body, and it does have differences of opinions. And I think one concern people may have is that an investigation of the ethics board may get politicized, and I would hope that does not the case. But I do think it's, you do need to call the ethics board at least to discuss the issue at hand and look at the ethical aspects of that. And if there is an independent investigator group that can look at all the dealings better than a body of 16 can do, I would also second that as well. But I do think we have to meet as the ethics board. Thank you. Alderman, Stefan? I guess I'm a little confused. We are the ethics board. I mean, what are we gonna do? We're gonna meet and what? I mean, I don't know what we're gonna, we've got this document, which I think it's frivolous, I agree with Marilyn and I guess Eric that I'm not sure you should just get rid of it, but on the other hand, I don't know what are we gonna do? Are we gonna spend money calling in the corals and Brady people calling in the Blue Harbor people? I just think you got to do something. And I guess I'd rather, I just think it looks better for the public if it's not us doing it because we're here now, we're the ethics committee. We could discuss it right now on the floor. If you wanted to have somebody said, let's move it forward, let's discuss it. But I mean, I think we all know it's pretty frivolous, but yet the public doesn't know that. So I guess I'm gonna support regrettably the motion to file and then I could, congratulate the mayor for coming up with the idea of the independent thing because I really think it's a no-win situation for us, but it certainly is a better idea than us looking at ourselves. So I'm gonna support the motion to file. Thank you. Alderman Doyle? Yes, Your Honor, we could file it and then when the report is back from this committee, Alderman Warner could call a meeting of the committee of the whole at that time, could we have theories on to it? That's what I'm hoping that'll happen. If I need to come back to committee, to the ethics committee. So, Alderman Warner?  I didn't have a chance to really look at it until Saturday, but my first impression was, well, we're gonna be dealing with this and committee the whole is ethics board and I thought about it a little more and I read this thing and then I compared it to the actual ordinance that we have in the city. And it, to me, it became clear that there's a little more something here than what you would call normal political speak on this document. I see it as a personal attack for reasons that I can't explain and I'm not trying to stretch it out that way. But in my mind, I smell rotten eggs in this communication and I think it's political rotten eggs. And in my mind, if we wanna get down to the bottom of this, we should take the politics out of it, give it to an independent group, they can report back to the council and let's see what the real truth is. There may be people involved in here. There's a lot of things to deal with in an ethics investigation like this. I've spent most of the weekend reading and looking and documenting a lot of things here and I think we'd be far better served by having an independent group look at this to bring it into the committee of a whole. I would not, I would do my job period in that aspect but I really think it's in the best interest of the city to put this behind us and at the same time, find out what the facts are. I think there may be some people involved in this that perhaps don't want things known. Thank you. Alderman Rainfresh. Pat, then perhaps you could clarify for us the procedure to establish a investigative independent board. Is it a mayor's appointment? Would it go to the council to appoints? What is the process or procedure? I did not see them in the city code statutes. Steve. It's kind of awkward for me to even discuss and what your procedure would be. But I guess what I would see is the council, somebody coming forward with a resolution to create a committee, a citizens committee or something like that, that would be presented to the council and acted upon by the council and in that resolution you could indicate who would be responsible for making appointments to citizens on the committee. It's basically what I asked the committee an old chairperson to do.  Okay, another discussion, would you call the roll please? Thank you. And I will be the file. Warner? All right. Weninger? All right. Mahlmann? All right. Boonee? All right. Doyle? All right. Manny? All right. Montemayor? No. Moody? All right. Rynfresh? All right. Aye. Stefan? Aye. Ben Ankren? Aye. Wongerman? Aye. 11 ayes, one no. Motion carried. 1154 will go to finance. Other matters, Steve? Yeah. Turn on 1654 on the charter communications thing. Does, you know, first blush, you say why are they submitting this communication here? It's more than two years away from the franchise agreement expiring. The franchise agreement runs until September of 2006. But the federal statutes provide that that's kind of how the process starts. There's a window that the franchisee has between 30 months and 36 months before the franchise is up to start the renewal process again. So that's what that is. 1655 has a communication from Jay Barnard, 1132 Oakland Avenue relative to a safety concern regarding the intersection of Union Avenue, South 17th Street and South Business Drive. Public protection and safety. 1656 is a resolution authorizing the city to enter into contract for obtaining medical stop-loss insurance. Lights over. 1657 has a resolution to authorize the transfer of appropriations in the 2003 budget. That lights over. 1658 is an oral by the city clerk submitting a claim from Mark Koistra for alleged damages to his automobile when his wife drove over a manhole cover which then gave out. Special committee on risk management. Move to the secretary during under discussion. Hearing none, all in favor? Okay.


On the 21st, I was notified by the while missing field office that an accident had occurred, a mobile equipment accident, and a serious injury was the result. We was signed with tech support. They came out to add professional technical assistance in the investigation. I got a call from my supervisor saying that the blasting company was going to come up and lay out a shot up in the top bench and said, OK, we'll have it ready for him when he arrives. So I drove my pickup truck up there and checked the area out. Notice that there was a lot of overburden on top of the ledge. So I noticed that everybody else was pretty busy making stone, keeping things going. And I drove down to the yard, grabbed a D6 high track, brought it up, started skimming the top, getting the excess mud and gravel off the top of the ledge. And after a while, it kept on pulling up bigger and bigger rocks.  I'll grab the small loader, which is an IT-14, you know, just, you know, finished skim what's left. So, you know, because it wasn't as heavy as the machine is the D6. And so I went, brought the D6 down and grabbed the IT-14, you know, checked everything out, went up to the top and started to basically plow the excess gravel. You notice more of a muddy, wet gravel. Started to plow it down the incline because there was a steep incline before you went up to the actual, the blast area that we were going to lay out. It's a steep ramp right at the top. It was shot by tech support with a hand amni-level at a 23% grade. The conditions of the ramp was rough, muddy, and slick.   I'll back drag it one more time. As I turned around the machine, there was on a slight incline, I would say about midway up the hill. And I started to feel the machine to start to tip over. So I had about four seconds to figure out what am I going to do here.   So I basically said, well, I'm going to jump out. So I did my seatbelt and jumped out the uphill side of the machine. And as I jumped out, the machine started turning over slowly, and I was actually walking across the steps of the machine as it was rolling like this. And I jumped onto the ground because of the steepness of the hill. I actually, the momentum actually made me slide down underneath the machine and out in front of it. And then as I was laying on the ground, I seen the machine rolling towards me and it rolled over one more time and the tires on the rear landed right on my legs. I looked down at my legs and I noticed that they were all, they were mangled, you know, and mush. But I was still, you know, I was still conscious.  And that's the first thing that came to my head. That's the first thing. At that point, there was, the crusher operator had seen Paul coming out of the cab and he notified, there was a 990 cat front end loader right below it. He notified that miner on the unloader to go up and provide assistance or see what he could do. The guy that runs the primary crusher, crusher tower, he had a two-way radio. He basically radioed the main loader.  What happened was a welder came and they got the medical kits from the welding shop, the blanket and everything and the crew, the welder and I believe it was a truck driver, took the medical kit up there and by that time they had a contractor that was contract drilling up on the top bench and he had his medical training and between all of them they was able to provide support.  He just waked the whole time and you got to give the man credit to have an inloader sitting on both legs, looking down knowing they're both crushed and to be able to tell the inloader guy, hey, pick it up off of me and I'll climb out from underneath it because there's nobody around here to help yet. It shows he wanted to live. As far as my rescue and all that, that was, you know, picture perfect the way it went down, you know, because the guys were trained, they knew what to do, so it does work. Training does work. Other statements we obtained during the accident investigation was from one of these friends that was there at the scene and the injured minor stated that this is what you get when you don't wear your seat belt, so that was a real powerful statement that he knew he had made a mistake at that point. Your instincts tell you certain things, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of information out there and films that prove that if you stay in the machine, you'll survive. You know, I saw the machine after it was, after it rolled over, there is like barely any damage to it at all. Roll over protection cabs is like a race car cab. I mean, they're designed and perfected. There's the strongest point on any piece of the mobile equipment. And when you look back now at Paul's accident and his statement even stated that once he looked at the piece of equipment and saw the cab and what we, we visioned and what we saw, he would have received no injuries. There was no injuries to the inside of the cab, so, you know, he made the fatal mistake though of trying to remove his seat belt and jump out while it was moving. You know, check the area out that you're working on.  You know, miners should help miners. People should help people. If you see a friend or somebody that's not wearing it, you should have the gumption or the nerve to look up at somebody and say, put your seat belt on. You know, we want to play football with you or we want to go play poker with you tonight. You know, so, you know, everybody's got to help, everybody's got to pitch in, but we're starting to see it in the mining industry that it's a common practice. A lot of employees still refuse to either wear them or they think the safest thing to do is they can out jump and moving a piece of equipment and time after time again, just like in this miner's case and he stayed, he thought he could do it. And you know, just time and time again, that's always the last thing. Well, I wish I'd have kept it on. Well, I didn't stay in. I didn't keep my seat belt on. Now, you know, I'm missing my legs. It does happen. I really believe Paul's number one priority in life now will be his life experiences and his thoughts on seat belts. I believe he'll be one of the best seat belt teachers in the United States because he's got proven experience and exposure to tell people and explain why seat belts should be worn.  I've been in the business for 23 years and it happened. So don't think it can happen if you're out there because it does, it does.


The floor may not be in your old box. Loved this show. Horse Horrible was my favorite. I remember looking everywhere for his action figure, but Kitty City and Kitty had never even heard of the line. I finally found a talking horse, good as new, at somebody's yard sale, though I didn't see a house around and never saw those people again. I was pretty excited, and ran right to my friend's house to bloat.  She told me to get lost with that thing and slammed the door in my face. My kid logic concluded that she must have known I bought a toy from a stranger completely unsupervised, and that it must have been an even more serious crime than I thought. So I did my best to keep Horse hidden, especially from my own parents, but his voice chip was pretty damn loud, and every so often he'd go off by himself, like his battery was dying. My mom kept asking if Marble, our cat, was in my room. I don't know how you mistake that goofy chuckling for a cat. It was subtle at first, but after a few days he started to smell weird. His voice kept getting weaker and more garbled, and his joints kept getting looser like they were ready to drop off. I was afraid of getting caught and we didn't have trash pickup, so I did what a rational child does when he thinks he has contraband and buried it in the woods. I never found another one or figured out what was wrong with him, but it's the weirdest thing.  It never grew leaves and it never got much taller than me, but it's there to this day, and every summer it swarms with disturbing numbers of flies.