I'd like to call the 14th meeting of the 2015 2016 Common Council to order would the clerk Please call the roll for the meeting Alderman Herman Hammond kath and Jose are all excused And would the clerk please read the quote for the meeting Are we on is the mic on yes? Okay. Thank you. Thank you mayor Being open-minded it doesn't mean just believing everything because you'd like it to be true being truly open-minded It is about being prepared to change your beliefs based on the evidence or the lack thereof Thank you very much. Please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands One nation under God Indivisible with liberty and justice for all Next is the approval of the minutes from our meeting of October 5th Alderman Ballinger Thank you, mayor. I move to approve second. Thank for the motion in support. Is there any discussion on the minutes? See none all those in favor, please signify by saying aye aye opposed motion passes Next is appointments City Attorney we have one set of appointments from the mayor Submitting the following appointments for your consideration for the emergency planning preparedness committee Mike van der steen as mayor Chuck Butler as deputy fire chief Steve Cobb as police captain of the administration Charles Adams the city attorney Jason Vlazola as superintendent of streets and sanitation Derek Mink as director of parking and transit Sandy Roark as director of HR and human relations Dave Augustine as information and technology director Sharon Teeson as wastewater treatment plant superintendent Joe Trueblood as water utility superintendent To non-voting members Steve Steinhardt as Sheboygan County Emergency government director and Carlin Raditz as health officer for the Sheboygan County division of public health Okay, and those appointments will lie over till our next meeting Next item is a program called city streets Dave Bebel director of public works in Jim Amodio Our administrative officer here to give us a program on our city streets Good evening. We're going to briefly Summarize and recap our presentation that we had at the committee the whole for those older persons that were unable to To make it in as well as for the viewing public We're going to start with the the first slide and really it's just a graphic a graphic representation of the timing of maintenance on our street network Basically what it shows is when a street is brand new zero years one year old It's an excellent condition. It's rated a 10 But over time with traffic weather and age Those pavements have a life expectancy just like any type of other infrastructure a home for instance And things will start to do to degrade What we try to do is extend the life routine maintenance be it crack-filling hot hole patching Some trip chip ceiling anything that can improve the surface keep water keep that pavement in Functioning in good operating condition The sooner you're on that the less costly it is and it extends the life however, as things happen Pavements deteriorate and they get to a point where those Routine maintenance strategies are no longer effective and we have to deploy more costly more More more intensive type of repairs As you can see there comes a point When it's rated between a six or seven that pavements really need to be intensely Maintained Just real quickly we can go to the next slide. Just don't want you to get that in your get in your mind about when the Timing of maintenance should should occur the next basically is The ratings of our entire city street network Sheboygan has 200 miles of streets. You go right down the middle and you measure it So it doesn't go lane for lane. It's just right down the middle 200 miles and this in this rating One is bad ten is good And you can see the the the failed pavements one twos and threes That are in failed condition is about six six and a half percent of our city street network Fair on the other hand, which is four five and six Fifty-one percent of our street network is in that category You get to you get to good seven and eight 23.8 and then nines and tens is 18 Next slide please Graphically it looks As what you see is you see a huge peak at the five slot as I just mentioned When pavements get to five talking more expensive type of maintenance We're doing overlays of asphalt over concrete if they're already asphalt that we have to improve that asphalt typical In the past would be what we call is mill off the old and put new back down this year We've deployed a hot in place recycling of the existing asphalt to to to extend that life But as you can see there's a huge chunk of our street network between seven and four That is in dire need of some maintenance So what types of costs are we looking at? Mill and fill as I mentioned is the traditional method where you have an asphalt overlay that asphalt is cracked as pothole that's shot grind it all off And you put new asphalt down the cost of that is $65.50 a foot as of today So that's real simply if I'm going down a typical residential street 36 feet wide from curb to curb and going right down It's $65 in 50 cents a foot Whereas the hot in place as we tried this year with some success is Roughly a little over half of that cost 31 dollars and 10 cents a foot So what you what you see here is kind of the cost that we've Totalled up for what we would need to deploy for these maintenance strategies over a number of years So the first those streets that have to be milled and filled is right around ten million dollars worth of work Hot in place ten point eight million dollars worth of our city street network Concrete reconstruction is basically where that street is no longer eligible for even an overlay It has to be completely dug up and replaced That's when it gets very expensive $225 a foot We have about five and a half million dollars worth the streets that are in that category New asphalt over concrete that's shiboyan has Predominantly concrete streets, and this is their largest area of need where we would put fresh coat of asphalt over the concrete To do that for our city streets where they're at currently would be 18 million 400,000 roughly Maintenance where we talked about earlier though, that's the lower cost on the what we would consider our Better better categorized streets Asphalt road sealing is six dollars and twenty cents a foot in crack filling is five fifty a foot so roughly again about 2.5 million there so all of this If you take a look at all those 200 miles of streets and what we're at where we're at in terms of their rating And what type of maintenance we would perform on that street based on its rating It's a roughly 47 million dollars that we would be looking at and that amount includes 7.6 million of curb and gutter replacement that is in dire need as well in our streets the next slide basically breaks it down over a nine to ten year period Basically starting in 2017 you can see we have the mill and fill the hot in place concrete reconstruction or asphalt over concrete and it roughly averages between four and a half million to Six million is the highest year which would be in 2018 Again totally in that forty seven million dollar Price take that that we're facing Jimmy you want to talk about maybe the tax levy and some of our issues with Thank you next slide Shows our current tax levy for 2015 For those of you don't know our general fund uses about 15.9 million our library fund is 2.3 million our debt service fund is 2.9 million and we fund transit about $511,000 a year for a total tax levy of twenty one point seven million dollars and our current mill rate Our rate per thousand dollars is nine dollars and fifty three cents or for an average home in Sheboygan That's valued at a hundred thousand dollars. It would be 953 dollars a year in city taxes When we look at the impact in 2017 as we always look forward it says that everybody hears and sees all of the net new construction We have going on in the city But what we don't see is some of the revenue sources that we will lose in the future one of them is the garbage fee sunsets in 2016 and That will have an impact on 217 of about 1.2 million dollars New construction permits albeit. We've seen an increase in the last three years There's nothing new on the horizon and probably after the end of this year when we see the influx from several little apartment buildings and One major manufacturing site permits will probably drop about 400,000 a year So in 2017 we're probably looking at about a 1.6 million dollar shortfall in city revenue on The other side we see revenue increases from net new construction in 2016 we have 750,000 in 2017 we're projecting 170,000 and in 2018 which is a year where all of these will be complete And as you know acuity will be complete at that time as well Will be 800,000 so that the additional revenue we'd get of a million seven is going to be offset by Lower permitting fees in the sunsetting of the garbage fee So there's really no room there to say we'll have money set aside Or we could set money aside from all this new construction to deal with road issues I've talked from time to time in meetings about looking forward where our debt service levy is fine for now But somewhere in the future around 2020 or 2021. We're gonna have a debt service issue currently when you look at our debt levy of 2.86 million dollars in 2016 our real debt service payments will be 4.5 million But we have other sources of revenue We funded from tourism Which helps offset the payment for the facility that we built at Blue Harbor the convention center We have the pension liability which we charge a general fund for which we borrowed about seven million dollars in 2007 that we currently pay And we have some special assessments that offset it and currently in a 2016 budget We have about a half million dollars of special assessment funding that we're going to use to help pay for debt That will carry us through 2019 in 2020 we're gonna have a debt service problem Without any additional borrowing for roads other than the three million dollars We currently borrow two million for general capital projects and a million for Equipment and vehicles and motor vehicle fund In 2021 is where it hits we have one point two million dollar problem Next year it goes to a million five then drops back down to roughly a million two The assumption we used here is that we're gonna continue to borrow three million no more or less We'll have a three percent interest rate Which is a little higher than we currently borrowed at last time, but as we all know rates are probably gonna tick up And the levy increase needed to cover the shortfall in 2022 is about 62 dollars per assessed Home of a hundred thousand dollars so it says Under the current laws in act 10 we have the ability to increase the levy By increasing taxes for debt service payments. We have to make so it says we probably won't have a choice come 2020 and forward but to raise the levy To pay the current debt that we have When you look at funding sources, the total cost is Dave laid out and that's for a nine-year period and Dave didn't Express this but those are condition of the roads based on a 2013 survey We're currently doing a survey this year that will end by the end of December that we turn into the state and certainly We haven't done a lot of road work between 13 and 15 So as he showed those percent percentages, they probably will decorate even more from where they were in 13 But in order to do that it says if we borrow two million a year over nine years It only gets us 18 of the 47 Three million gets us 27 for gets us 36 and about five million actually a year Would service the roads that need repair over a nine-year period? When we look at the impact on the levy for those borrowings Borrowing two million dollars a year Actually has an impact of two point three million dollars on that levy. Don't forget our levies twenty one point seven million This is an additional two point three million in year nine three point five for three four point six and if we borrowed all five million it would increase the levy in Year nine by five point eight million dollars Pretty big numbers tax rate impact If you look at us borrowing two million dollars Over and above the three million we currently borrow the two me two million being specifically for roads It would increase the city's rate from 953 to 1056 And would cost the average homeowner on a hundred thousand dollar house another hundred and three dollars If we borrowed three million it'd be a hundred and fifty five four million would be two oh six And at five million dollars it would be two hundred and fifty seven dollars for the average homeowner as an increase Which is roughly 25% of what they're currently paying now If we look at some alternatives We've proposed a wheel tax Which would be a $20 fee per year per vehicle? Extending the garbage fee, which is a $60 per year fee Per apartment that generates garbage or help home if we borrow two million dollars a year We saw the increase would be about a hundred and three dollars And we currently spend capital of about seven hundred thousand dollars a year out of the current two million dollars that we borrow for the general fund There would be really no cost for that because it's baked into the debt numbers already It would be a hundred eighty three dollar impact per average household of hundred thousand dollars in value and it would Go as far as paying about forty one million dollars of the forty seven million dollars back over a nine-year period Express on the next slide is a chart that graphs this because as we borrow money it compounds And we borrow money over ten years So it says in the tenth year you have the full impact of years one through nine compounding through that and these In these graphs show it and it shows that it If we look at status quo, which is sixty two dollars a year It says that it would take sixty seven years to repair the roads that we currently have If you look at borrowing five million dollars It would be three hundred and fifteen dollars of impact to the average taxpayer Because this includes what we'd have to borrow in 2021 to pay our current debt levy that we have in the debt service fund I showed you that shortfall. So that's that's actually baked in here as well If we borrowed four million it'd be a two hundred and seventy thousand dollar impact If we did the alternative it'd be two forty five Two sixteen for three million and a hundred and sixty two for two million dollars So that would be the impact We'd entertain any questions if anyone has any is there any questions? Alderman Carlson, thank you, mr. Mayor the sixty seven year completion rate that's That's based on 2015 construction costs, right Yes, so how accurate do you think that really is in terms of no it's based on 2013 based 13 Road quality, but 2015 construction costs correct and it's safe to assume that costs are gonna continue to rise That's correct. We didn't build any inflation into this. The only thing we did was increase the borrowing rate to 3% The last time we borrowed we borrowed at 1.8. So we know interest rates are on the rise, but we kept constant dollars on construction costs, so this is a fairly conservative number Looking forward in terms of construction dollars correct And then what type of effect do you think the Implementation of I think the prevailing wage changes will take effect in 2017. What kind of impact? I know that doesn't affect work. We do ourselves, but do you have an idea how that will impact for where we contract out? Not at this point We're hoping obviously for for lower construction costs, but a lot of this work there It's it's fairly capital intensive to get into this work So there's not a lot of competition for road construction If I did put it bluntly is we have one asphalt contractor in the area and maybe like maybe two paving contractors to work with typically And are you fairly comfortable with that interest rate of 3%? I know the rates are really low right now But feds have been talking for a while about raising do I mean you can't predict the future, but You probably be making a lot more money if you could predict that, huh? I'd be done Typically the what we've seen so far on construction projects is about 5% annual increase for construction costs. I Guess the point I'm just trying to drive home with this question is that these are fairly conservative numbers And most likely they're gonna come out higher based on the the facts of the the data on the roads are two years old Already and construction costs are based on flat 2015 numbers with no inflation. Thank you Are there any other questions? Alderman boring. Thanks, ma'er Jim the the impact on the property taxes for 2017 would be $62 is that what you're saying? 2021 would be 62 pardon in 2021 would be $62. Okay And that's assuming that we're and then you're going over these different bar borrowing amounts here so at the end at the end of when we get up to 200 2000 and Was it 25? Over the period of those years that would have cost me $315 total or how I'm not quite I would be the impact in that year would gradually go up to 315 By that year, but if you continue to borrow at that rate from 2025 on the impact would be 315 a year Okay, so in 2000 if we if we pass the If we pass the wheel tax tonight With your with your different funding sources here, how much is that going to cost for? 2017 on a hundred thousand dollar house Well, if we pass the wheel tax, it's not included in the tax rate It's not it's a fee it's a pay that at motor vehicles when you register your plates every year Okay, but if we if we borrow two million dollars in 2017 besides the wheel tax What's what's what's that going to cost the person with a hundred thousand dollar home? It's probably 15 bucks 15 goes from 15 all the way up to 162 in year 10 If you look at the color, I don't know if you have a yeah, I got it. All right. Thank you Any other questions? Very good. Thank you. I'll go ahead all them and Carlson just real quick Could you the hot place is the new process we started this year? Could you just explain the limitations of that? I mean, it's a it's a great process, but it's not as long-term correct Correct. I mean as you see it's it's more than half the cost of the traditional what we'd say mill and fill However, the longevity of it is Debatable some have gotten seven to twelve years. We'll see It's our first year doing this. We want to see how it stands our winters the traffic And ideally yeah, we're hoping to get ten years out of it. We're the traditional mill and fill We've gotten anywhere from 15 to 20 years life expectancy But but at the same time it's As demonstrated we can't use that on every single asphalt There's some asphalt that will have to be completely milled and relayed And then last question on this part. I promise in terms of doing the work ourselves and house We do have limitations in terms of our equipment. Correct. We have terms of equipment labor and Just some of the some of the processes. Yes We're able to do smaller types of projects and we'll continue to do that such as the curbing gutter and in concrete panel replacement small asphalt repairs here and there but when we're talking about a Program of this scale and complexity the predominantly this will be contracted out Any other questions? I guess Maybe if I might I'd just like to make one more point what we showed you was for the next nine years But this cycle continues after that It doesn't mean that we're done with roads because we've got roads that are going to continually get worse if we don't get funding to maintain them and For example, if we do a hot in place at last ten years in that 11th year, we're probably gonna have to do a mill and fill so These things will continue to go that way through the cycle So if you're really serious about roads and you want to keep them in good condition It's a five million dollar nut a year for a city this size with 200 miles a road Gentlemen, thank you very much for your report Next we'll move on to public forum city clerk Okay, this evening. Let's start with Henry young Henry. Could you come up to the front, please? Okay Henry, can I have your home address, please? 1330 north 5th Street, Sheboygan. Okay, and you will have five minutes, sir. Thank you, sir. You're welcome. I Don't have notes in front of me. So I'm doing most of this from memory. I Have been the former owner of the young shoe manufacturing company in Sheboygan. I Have been had the privilege really of being on the Capital Improvements Commission for ten years currently I'm on the police and fire Commission for six with I have another four years to go and it truly is a pleasure and a privilege for me to be part of This is a great city of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. I am here to promote the wheel tax I've given this a lot of thought and the last meeting that the Capital Improvements Commission had was on August 5th And which I've done for the last three or four maybe even five years I have asked for permission to talk about the wheel tax And I really wasn't as adamant about it as I am tonight because I live a block away from 6th Street and have watched the continued deterioration between Superior Avenue and Niagara and I know that every year that I sit on the Capital Improvements Commission. It's been delayed and delayed and delayed So this year I thought I'd be a little more adamant about it And so consequently why I'm talking to this group this evening For me giving up one fish fry a year would not be an inconvenience Even including one beer and paying the tip to the whoever's waiting on me The same would be true if when my wife and I go to the movie and we decide to have a tub of popcorn I can get along probably without that $20 as well. I also calculated this year that driving down 6th Street It I make probably a thousand Yeah, a thousand trips a year and That's a lot and I am just concerned that We should be a little more concerned about how our streets really really measure up I also look at the fact that driving those 10,000 miles at 20 miles to the gallon with my SUV I'm using 500 roughly gallons of gasoline. It's a dollar a gallon cheaper than it's it's year Then it's ever been before So I'm ahead of the game. I also want to close by saying that For me when I get up on a Wednesday morning, which is garbage day. I Walked probably 26 with my blue bag and my white bag to the curb and within 30 minutes that garbage is gone and I'm a happy camper The next day, which is Thursday. I Also go out and listen early in the morning to the street sweeper that is taking my leaves away And again, I'm a happy camper within two months Which all of us I think might experience we may have a little snowfall and I'll be happy when the plows come through So I'll be a happy camper again. I Just encourage this group particularly the alderman I'm facing and addressing this evening to really please consider Consider this wheel tax. I know that when listening to Dave and Jim the one thing that came to mind is This is a serious matter of our streets And it's not going to go away and it's even more serious tonight to me since I've heard their Presentation. Thank you so thank you the mayor and thank you everyone for listening. Thank you, Henry Next on our list is bill Paul is bill here you want to come on up bill Bill I need your home address, please 67 24 Wilson Lyman road It's an oosberg Mailing address, okay, and then you will have five minutes or okay Since I am not a resident of Sheboygan. I am going to make this pretty quick My concern when I first heard about the wheel tax was there was comments that were made in the sheboygan press That once this wheel tax was passed It was going to be cons. They there was one individual who stated that they were considering having the tax moved on to the county And that that concerned me but we had a discussion before we came here and I was assured that That would not be an issue coming up in the coming up in the future The other point that I wanted to make is I've seen this presentation And I noticed that it seems as though that sheboygan is going to be taking on the whole task for the for the next nine years I talked to a state representative and he stated that there there was tech There was bills that were being presented that could affect How much stays cities get construction Funding and I was just wondering if that were to take place What what's going to happen if this wheel tax is is in place? Is there is there ways that it's going to be adjusted or? Is it going to stay the way it is and we can have the same situation that we had with prevailing wage Pervailing wage as you well know was put into existence in 1931 And it was never looked at again until this this prior or current current year and I'm just concerned that Once you put something into place, it's very difficult to get out. Thank you. Thank you bill Next on our list is Philip Parker is Philip here Hello, would you mind coming up, please? Good evening. Can I get your home address, please? Yes, it's n4 960 blueberry Lane Plymouth, Wisconsin Okay, and you will have five minutes, sir Okay, I'm basically here on somebody out of the city also and my concern is Once you they you get a wheel tax here all the other communities are going to be interested in a wheel tax These they always seem to be a copycat especially the colony board likes to look at things a couple years ago Was a hard time stopping from putting on a half percent sales tax So my big concern is that this stuff is not being going to be acted by the other areas So I gotta find a way to stop them rapping and in our town of Plymouth We don't have a lot of problems streets because they seem to be working on them all the time They apparently have organized a budgeting process to take care of the streets. It was really a Rough year this year everything seemed to be closed employment. There's a resourcing all the streets Nobody's talking about they didn't have money to do this So the question is why is she bargain all this pushing off maintenance? We had the same problem for a while in Plymouth with the schools If they wanted to have to spend a few more dollars what they do is cut maintenance Always take it out of maintenance always take it out of maintenance Pretty soon. They got to put a bond issue for to get money to maintain and repair this stuff You need to go keep maintenance in place. It's like my own home. I have to make sure There's always every few years. I got to put a roof on something. There's always a need for something Sidewalks I have to do this myself, but I budget for the entire time I don't ignore budgeting for maintenance of my place And that's what the city should be doing should be budgeting for the For money to keep your city up on maintenance and he wouldn't have to constantly look for another source of income So and some of the other points it was already pointed out here And basically I just want I don't want to wind up having to deal with a tax also And any when you do get this tax. I know From my situations They put in this tax to get rid of tires You have to be a fee of like five dollars the disposal of tires what they do they come out and throw in my ditch. I Have to dispose of it So now what I do is I call the county to come and tell them get these tires on my ditch So what have they say by putting another tax on for five dollars? It's costing them more than they're getting on that five dollars so When you try to figure things out another thing they'll buy some people do is they'll move their vehicles out of the city They'll put them in not as part of the resident so they don't have to pay this tax I know there's some doing that in a number of areas what they're doing is they're moving their cars out of Should buy a county so they don't have to do the testing You'll find that happening was on the wheel tax. So I'm just saying You don't have some problems with it also. I thank you very much for giving me this time to talk and Thank you. Thank you Philip And lastly we have Rachel cook Rachel. Are you here? Okay, come on up and Rachel I'm gonna need your home address. I'm my address is 828 North Water Street Apartment number two Yes Okay, I'm a resident of Sheboygan and I don't know how many people in here would be in the same boat as me But we're a fairly low-income family family of four and we make about thirty five thousand dollars a year I'm a stay-at-home mom So I have these two right here in another one as well I have a child in school So I'm paying a lot of unpredictable fees with that out of our low budget for Field trips and books and then more books for early literacy intervention program And then there's always two gallons of milk a week which gets expensive always running out of something I've got to say just a couple weeks ago We paid our registration for our truck which we have one vehicle and that was a hundred dollars and that really hurt That was very hard for us. So Judah had to go an extra two weeks without mittens So that was hard Judah needs new gym shoes for gym class right now And I can tell you that if we had had to pay that little bit of extra which just seems like You know skip your coffees for a couple days to some people. It's detrimental to a family like ours and it really hurts My garbage fees are included in my rent So if those go up that's gonna increase my already very high for my budget rent We're very careful with our money to make sure that we're not Relying on government assistance for everything that we need We budget when money gets tight we eat macaroni and cheese And I can tell you that we just can't afford to help pay for the roads when I look at the roads I don't think about how much they need fixing. I think that they're getting me from a to b And our my kids going to have everything they need tomorrow So a lot of the people that are in the same boat as me can't be here I can tell you it was very hard for me to be here. It was very hard for me to even Get on the list to speak Because I needed a phone to call to get on the list and I don't have a phone So I had a friend who drove to my house so I could use her phone so I could call to get on the list So think about all the people that are in my shoes Who can't be here because they might have had to walk like me and maybe they don't live two blocks away like I do Or maybe they're doing spelling homework with their kids right now, which I need to do when we get home So think about us think about how that's gonna affect low-income families It is gonna hurt. It seems like just a little bit of money, but to somebody else that really is a lot So that's that's all I had to say and thank you for listening to me. Thank you, Rachel. Thanks That's it for this evening. Thank you Next we'll move on to mayor's announcements on your desk tonight you have a copy of the curbside recycling report since the program was begun in January our Recycling rate has increased six point one percent that doesn't sound like much But when you look at our goal to be recycling 40 percent of our curbside Garbage we've accomplished 46 percent of that goal so far, and I really want to thank our strategic fiscal Task force the rather the Sustainable task force the planning department DPW for all their efforts and just remind people that if you're gonna recycle your garbage It has to be in a blue bag And then also Halloween is coming up our hours for Halloween trick or treating will be on the 31st Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m Next we'll go on to hearings Item 2.1 is the hearing to obtain citizen views related to the community development block grant disaster Recovery funded project at Pennsylvania Avenue from North 7th Street to North 4th Street in the city of Sheboygan Is there anyone wishing to be heard? Is there anyone wishing to be heard? Is there anyone wishing to be heard? Alderman Bellinger, thank you mayor move to close the hearing. I get thank you for that motion in support All those in favor of closing the hearing please signify by saying aye. I opposed Motion passes Next we'll move on to consent agenda that will include items 3.2 through 3.13 Alderman Bellinger Thank you, mayor. I'd make a motion to accept and file all all our O's accept and adopt all our C's and pass all resolutions and ordinances Thank you for that motion. Is there any discussion on any of those items? Seeing none will the clerk please call the roll for passage on the consent agenda Motion passes Well, we'll move on to report some officers item 4.1 will be held for item 5.1 Item 4.2 will lie over until November 16th Items 4.3 through 4.11 will be referred to various committees Under resolutions item 5.1 is the resolution by Alderman Bellinger authorizing Entering into a contract for improvements to the Harbor Center Marina administration building Alderman Bellinger. Thank you mayor. I move to suspend the rules. Thank you for that motion to suspend Is there any objection to suspension? Seeing none, please proceed Thank you, mayor. I'd like to move to accept and file the RO and to Pass the resolution second. Thank for that motion and support under discussion Alderman Boren Thank you, mayor. I was wondering when I read over the document I couldn't tell which fund the 147,722 dollars where that's where that's coming from. Can anybody fill me in on that please? Administrator could this remote you'll come up to the front so everybody can hear at home please Administrator Modio if you'd Come to the front podium, please 148,000 dollars roughly is going to come from the Harbor Center Marina fund Since we changed management last year The Marine actually made a hundred thousand dollars in operating income for 2014 is on track to do the same this year So with that net operating income of two hundred thousand dollars, we will pay for those repairs out of that Thank you Any other discussion with the clerk then please call the roll? 12 eyes motion passes Items 5.2 through 5.5 will be referred to various committees And then we'll go on to reports of committees Item 6.1 is an RC by the Committee of the Whole to whom is referred RC number 143 of 1516 by the Finance Committee and GO number 17 of 1516 by Alderman Thiel amending section 118 dash 91 and section 188 dash 94 of the city municipal code relating to City motor vehicle registration fee and recommends that the report of the committees be accepted and adopted and The attached substitute ordinance be passed Alderman Bellinger, thank you mayor. I move to accept adopt and pass a substitute ordinance second Thank you for that motion and support The motion is under discussion Alderman Carlson Thank You mr. Mayor. I would like to amend the document to add a sunset provision of 10 years So it has to be revis or it has to go away second How many years I'm sorry then Okay, we have an amendment in a second So the amendments now on the floor is there any discussion on the amendment alderman Heidemann Make a motion to amend it like seen it at five years So I was just wondering if you might want to reconsider that Alderman Carlson, thank you mr. Mayor The reason why I chose ten years is because the outlook we have is nine years I think ten years is a pretty good number It gives the city plenty of ample time to get the work done that we have right now Keeping in mind that the work's never gonna go away. I mean we live in Wisconsin The thaw and free cycles wreak havoc on our roads I think ten ten years is a good number it goes away in ten years and at that time that council has to decide what they're gonna do Thank you for those comments. Is there any other discussion on the amendment to put a sunset of ten years seen on Alderman Boren Thank you, mayor. I guess my only concern with the ten year I would be more apt to support Alderman Heidemann's suggestion of five and What piqued my interest in one of the gentlemen spoke of the public forum tonight is there there's a legis possibly legislation coming forward and maybe Alderman Carlson Would be aware of some of those but there may be some legislation coming forward that would help us with some of our street funding and If that does come to fruition Maybe there's an opportunity to You know a sunset it's sooner or make some adjustments to it Once this passes are is there any opportunity maybe for the city attorney to amend this if such legislation would come about that This maybe wouldn't be as necessary City attorney you can always repeal the ordinance Pardon you could always repeal the wheel tax And and while there was some discussion at the state level It never really got the light of day for a vote. It seems very Dubious that that is going to happen in the future, but if it does we always could repeal it then and adjust it at that time Alderman Carlson, thank you. I just response into Alderman Boren's comment or a question It's a very valid question. We we can all hope that Money is going to come raining down from big brother whether in the form of state or federal But as I talked about during the committee a whole meeting, I don't think we should depend on What could happen? We were not sure there's a lot of Uncertainty at every level especially at the federal level, but at the state level There is a lot of ongoing discussion right now as to how they're going to fix the transportation problem But that really directly affects the state Transportation in terms of highways the the bigger projects and the state funded projects when it comes to just the local road Here in Sheboygan that that's what we need to focus on right now the the numbers that we're talking about the 46 million dollars only affect the city roads That are not county roads or state roads, correct me if I'm wrong director So we really need to be focused on ourselves right now We need to solve the problem on our own because we cannot depend on the higher levels of the government to come to our Rescue because I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. Thank you Thank you for those comments again on the amendment of ten years sunset Alderman Donahue. I'll pass actually Okay, there any more discussion on the amendment See none will a clerk, please call the roll on the amendment. This is not the amendment This is the amendment Sunset In ten years Yeah, I'm just not seen. I'm sorry. I'm not seeing that on the screen. Yeah, it's there Amanda Sunset the wheel tax in ten years I'm not seeing that either. Maybe just scroll down It's a point of clarification. We are only voting on the amendment regarding the sunset provision. That's correct. That's what this vote is for ten eyes two nose Motion passes the main motion as amended is on the floor Alderman Boren Thank you, mayor. I would also like to make an amendment and I would add it I'd like to add it to be on the document and and that is To add to add to be and all monies remitted will be used for labor and materials only in Maintaining the streets in the city of Sheboygan And if I can just comment my concern is Could we have a second on that first we have a second please proceed my concern is I think the language is a little bad I'm a little bad a little vague I should say and what it actually can be used for my concern would be Let's say in three years Director Bebal would need a new roller for rolling out the streets after they're improved I wouldn't want to see any money coming out of the wheel tax if it passes to be used for equipment Because then that's going to take away. Let's say hypothetically and I don't know what a roller cost But let's say hypothetically it cost two hundred thousand dollars. I don't want that two hundred thousand dollars coming out of the proceeds From that year from the wheel tax to fix the streets, so I think in order to clarify the document That's why I'm making that amendment just for Again, please all them in one pardon me either. Could I have it or could you repeat it? Yes? We'd be adding that to be and all monies remitted Will be used for labor and materials only in maintaining the streets in the city of Sheboygan Right labor and materials Only Thank you for those comments Alderman Carlson. Thank you. Mr. Mayor Alderman Barney, and I actually agree on something I just wanted to make sure that does this affect how we would contract or subcontract the work? Yeah, I think it's good in principle, but I'm not a lawyer here So I don't know how that works when we're when we're contracting out the work That's a question the attorney You know, I don't know Specifically, I mean typically we're when we're contracting We're contracting for labor and materials. Are there times that we might contract for other things. I think probably Director of Public Works can answer that better than I can at this point David Beeple, would you like to respond to that please? The question is is that you're looking to do just Labor and materials and not necessarily to see for equipment purchases now one thing I want to qualify sometimes We're doing a reconstruction and we're doing traffic signals I would consider that part of materials even though it's kind of equipment related There's controllers and things, but that's materials It's for the benefit and improvement of the actual road surface. It wouldn't go into actual equipments And for contracted services. Yeah, same thing would apply when we contract work out It's for a complete job. They provide all materials labor and equipment and their equipment is Is part of the process there's rental charges that's built into their cost of them doing the work Please go ahead Alderman Carlson. Thank you. I'm getting into the weeds here You sometimes rent equipment for road construction. We do and typically what if that's the case I mean that's through our operating budget if it's a capital project again That's included in the contract the specifications. What's needed necessarily to do the repair So this won't affect your rentals. No, right. Thank you Alderman boring Thanks again, mayor I had I had this discussion with mr. Bebo last week and one other question I had and that would be most of the The specs on what you went done is that is most of that done in house by our engineering department or I guess I Wouldn't also if you need to hire an architect or something to to do a street I really wouldn't where would that money come from? I wouldn't want to necessarily have that come out of the wheel tax either Because then again, it's taking away from money that you're actually going to be using for materials and labor right at this point we are We are planning on doing the majority of this in-house some of it some of our larger Reconstruction projects such as well the Penn Avenue project or Eisner Avenue We actually contract the engineering out because and those are typically when we work with the DOT or federal funding there's special Specifications and needs for those projects that require a little different type of engineering and a lot of extra paperwork I would say on those projects so Therefore but with this program that is being presented tonight is mainly like I said our resurfacing program is hot in place We're looking at the mill and filp we have Traditionally done those types of improvements through our engineering office Specifying and going out for bids and contracting that all in-house I could just follow up mayor please go thanks mayor So just to be clear if you had a bigger project and you had to hire an outside engineer You wouldn't anticipate those funds for the engineering studies coming out of the wheel tax funds Or am I or would they or we're and if not we're where do the where do they come through we I? Think as you as we saw There's going to be multiple funding sources on this when we go through the capital improvements process Those are the projects that will go into the capital improvements and say okay. This is a major borrowed project It's going to be a reconstruction and then we lay out Okay, the engineering will be contracted the engineering estimate on this project is a hundred thousand The actual reconstruction is two point five million In so forth so that's where that would come into it Where if we go through the capital improvements commission and capital borrowing that's where you see the typical engineering services included, okay Thank you. Thank you for those comments Thank you Any other discussion see none will clerk please call a roll for passage To amend To be quotes and all monies remitted will be used for labor and material only Not equipment purchases. Does that pretty much something? Well, we could add that. I can add that's okay with the second Okay, are we clear on the amendment that's what we're holding on just that amendment all men borns Okay the clerk call the roll then Ten eyes to nose Motion passes Or the amendment passes when now we're back to the main motion as amended Alderman Warren Thank You mayor I Didn't vote for the wheel tax at the committee of the whole and I and I don't intend on Supporting it tonight and I just want to go over with the alderman and I want them to consider Not only what the young lady had to say at the public forum But also the environment that we have in Sheboygan for a will tax when it comes to the taxpayers I read with interest yesterday an article in the Sheboygan press that 52% of the Sheboygan school children qualify for free or reduced cost of lunch Which indicates that their parents are probably having a great deal of financial difficulty 52% of the kids in our schools qualify for that Per capita income in Sheboygan County in the United States has gone gone down every year for the last seven years So we're spinning our wheels at best Worker put the worker participation the worker participation rate in the United States as I as I saw on a report last week is 62.49 the lowest worker participation rate in this country since October of 1977 So you have basically 37.51% of the people in the United States and that does filter down Unfortunately to our area who have given up looking for work And as I mentioned last week it came to fruition People in my age group the senior citizens no increase in social security for 2016 Medicare supplement premiums are going up deductibles and prescription drug costs are continue continuing to skyrocket Yesterday there was a letter to the editor in the Sheboygan press. It's only a couple paragraphs So I think I'll share it with the council in case you missed it It was from a young man from Usberg who wants to move to Sheboygan I Am 19 years of age and I'm looking to move out of my parents home to live in the city of Sheboygan I am working on saving money and also paying back my student loan for my first year at UW Sheboygan With working 40 hours a week at $10 per hour I should easily be able to make a living, but when I did the math and budgeting it did not work out When I when I look at the budget I can easily cover the cost of rent food and living expenses However, when I look at my new taxes expenses presented We'll we'll tax garbage fee property tax sewage fees, etc I will believe I will be living from paycheck to paycheck Why do we have so many taxes put on us? Why doesn't the city believe we are taxed enough? Living in the county so much in debt. I'm sorry living in the country so much in debt We should understand that every little bit every little thing adds up This only encourages people to live and depend on the government when we should be prosperous and Able to succeed if the city wants young people to move and thrive it should be It should be affordable. So again I'm I'm looking at this from the environment that we currently have and it's all age groups It's it's the people who have kids in school. It's the senior citizens and young people and And I think this young lady's story here tonight is just the tip of the iceberg And as I mentioned last week at the committee of the whole and I and I appreciate what Jim Amorio does, but We have 81 percent of our general fund goes I'm sorry of our tax levy goes to salary and benefits that doesn't leave a lot for all the other necessary things that we have to do and Also, I think there are areas in the budget That we can take a look at to possibly come up with some savings and I and and I understand Alderman Carlson's point from last week that we're not going to cut ourselves Be able to make the cuts. They're going to be able to sustain but I had a I had a conversation with Jim Amorio last Friday and we were talking about the budget not only for 2016 but for 2017 if the garbage fee is not renewed we have a structural deficit for 2017 of about two point two million dollars even if we renew the garbage fee For 2017 and that brings in about one point two million dollars We're still going to have a structure a structural deficit for 2017 of one million dollars So, you know, I think and we're going to be talking about the budget at the next meeting We can talk about some things But I think we've been kicking the can down the road for too many years already And that's basically what I think we've been doing with the garbage fee, which I which I oppose so until I think we do a little better job of looking at our spending in in various departments I can't support a wheel tax until we get a better handle on our budget and try to whittle down that 81 81% salary and benefits. Thank you Thanks for those comments any other discussion All of them in Carlson Thank You. Mr. Mayor. I think I've been here for four and a half years Not ever has there been a time in the past four and a half years that there's been a proposal that could Significantly decrease our budget. I have not seen one We keep hearing about the fact that we need to cut our costs We need to fix our fix our structural deficit. However, no one's brought anything to the table The fire department always comes up but nothing else ever comes up At some point we need to realize and I've mentioned this during the community the whole meeting We do not have a spending problem. We have a revenue problem We are still recovering from the recession back in 2009 The city hasn't grown as fast as it needed to The growth equals tax dollars. The more businesses expand the more people that move the shaboy and The more revenue we're going to be able to take in at the same tax at the same tax levels However, it's not happening as quickly as it as we would all like it to Roads are a major issue. They always have been nobody before us has really focused on the problem of fixing our roads And that's why we're in the situation we're in right now That's why we have 46 million dollars of roads that we need to fix right now Everyone has kicked the can to us at this point We kind of need to draw a line in the sand and say we're going to start fixing their roads We're going to start doing something To fix it in addition to continually fixing our budget and we are doing that we are doing that in terms of The health insurance packages the entire benefit package as a whole we are continually making cuts and I'm repeating myself I've said all of this during the community the whole meeting But I just need to drive home the point that we are working on all of that and that's gonna Possibly help us sustain our budget as a whole but it's not going to address the streets issue because the streets issue is so bad To the point where it brought us to the conversation that we have right now We need to stop kicking the can and if it's in terms of a 20 dollar a year fee. So be it. That's what we have to do And I lost my turn to thought so I'm going to sit down now. Thank you Thank you for those comments alderman donahue I'm hanging on to my train as long as I can I'm going to vote in favor of the wheel tax and again thank alderman field for bringing it forward The the most important thing that we need to realize in the discussion from my perspective is daviebel's very first slide So if you look at the cost to repair when it's done in a timely and sensible fashion is about Two dollars when repairs are delayed Comparatively then we're looking at six dollars So if we think we're saving taxpayers any money now if we think we're making that young woman's life any easier now That's just simply not true. So what we need to do is we need to have the courage today To reinstate a wheel tax, which is not going to solve all of our problems It simply isn't but it's going to go a long way towards that now When my children when we talked about owning a car. I said Excuse me. This is a really expensive thing that you're looking at you need to buy the car You need to send set money aside for maintenance. You need to pay insurance And then you have to pay the registration fee now if they were living in minnesota That registration fee for you know an old beater car would be about 138 a year in wisconsin says about 75 dollars We have done a very I know it's hard. But if you look at 953 dollars a year, that's about my math tells me it's about 90 dollars I'm sorry 80 dollars a month for the services that mr. Young was talking about that garbage service and The snow plowing and the street sweeping I have taken advantage with my family of the the the ambulance service My children when they were we lived at the library So we have a really wonderful city here and we pay If your house is worth about 100,000 about 80 dollars a month If it's if it's worth more, of course you pay a little bit more. I figured that the the 20 dollars in in wheel tax Comes out to about a dollar 75 cents a month or so And so what i'm saying is that We've got to pay one way or the other if we pay now In this really I think reasonable fee and not to diminish the financial hardship that people in our community are having When 35,000 a year barely gets you there We know where income inequities and inequalities are coming from that's not a middle class lifestyle anymore I am not in any way shape or form Denying the information that that young lady conveyed to us or that quarry the the young gentleman who called me I bet he called all of you but didn't leave me a phone number so I couldn't get back to him I'm not discounting that but as I said to my children you want a car you're gonna have to pay And you're gonna have to figure it out And that's just the responsible thing to do as a city We have to pay we have to figure it out. We have to make this work If we rely on the state, it's like relying on fantasy land We've watched the incredible Chaos and confusion at the state level in terms of trying to address transportation Yes, a lot of that money a hugely Disproportionate amount of the transportation money for the state does go to interstate highways The state has repeatedly shortchanged us on the money that we are supposed to get back in taxes for local roads So we can't look at the state We need to look now to this partial solution Remember the wheel tax is only a partial solution to this very expensive problem It is our job tonight to pass this to begin to address this issue And maybe then there'll be additional Revenue coming to the city because you'll actually be able to speed On 6th street between Niagara and superior because right now you can't drive more than 30 miles an hour without taking out the underbody of your car, so I just think it's a good thing that that we should do Thank you very much for those comments alderman heideman. Thank you, mayor I'm not supporting the wheel fee wheel tax When I first came in an office, there was a wheel tax or as a storm water fee and I I took the position that I I thought that we were already taxed enough that we didn't have to have any additional fees And voted to eliminate eliminate those so that I'm you know I'm being consistent the calls that I received Were not to have the the wheel tax And again, I think it's unfortunate that we're missing four members of our council That might also be able to vote on this Uh It might sway the boat one way or another actually might be a little bit closer But I just wanted to make sure that my constituents and the citizens that I'm not in favor of any wheel tax Thank you for your comments Alderman Carlson Thank you, mr. Mayor. I've gotten back on track here. I remembered where I was going There's a tagline out there About shiboy going to be in the place to to live work and play. I think that's out there somewhere tourism. Jen. Is he here? Anyways, it's our goal as a council to create policies and direct the city in a fashion That's going to make shiboy going a great place to live work and play We're not going to have a lot of business here businesses here for people to work at if we don't keep up the roads I mean the road construction roads are vitally important to to manufacturing to business We need to be able to get goods from point a to point b. We need to get people from point a to point b This is just one piece of the puzzle In regards to uh being anti tax I'm anti tax for the most part, but I also live in reality One thing having principle. I have principle. I have conservative principles. However, there's reality And this is where we are. This is reality. We all know the numbers I'm going to reiterate in the four and a half years that I've been here I haven't heard one single good proposal to reduce the budget even further to free up more money So my my stance is if you're going to vote no, I want I want an alternative and to this date I have not heard a viable alternative to come up with the 46 million dollars in today's dollars Just to fix the roads in their current condition Never mind the fact that they're going to continue to degrade costs are going to continue to go up in the future If you vote no on this and do not propose something to help fix the problem You really are just part of the problem in my opinion. Thank you Thanks for your comments, uh alderman bitters Thank you, mr. Mayor To alderperson donahue's comments You can do anything once Including speeding on that street once um as far as the The wheel tax and its effect on everyone that one of the things that Isn't it doesn't come through Clear enough I suppose is We talk about five to six million dollars a year for roads per year for the next ten years Uh, the wheel tax projected to be eight hundred thousand dollars It's just a down payment Even at it at its best you know, it's it's something for the public works department to count on and Which is alderman feels original Premise when when he proposed it Remember This also assumes that nothing else in our budget changes Nothing else gets worse and The the hole that we we see in the slides That's Probably a good case scenario Things could get very bad in our hurry and That that Downward spiral that our streets might be seeing now Could get even worse Very soon, you know in the in the two to three to five category so I'm with alderman carlson. I I don't like taxes This is closer to a user fee. I'm not crazy about it either but We're stuck We're stuck in this revenue hole that we have to claw our way out of And With that uh, thank you Thank you alderman gooders Alderman carlson. I'm off my soapbox now. I just have points of clarification for the city attorney Actually the first one People are telling me to stop calling a wheel tax and the ordinance that actually caused it a fee So let's just call it a fee The first point of clarification I want to ask does this include motorcycles and mopeds? How does that fall into this? It includes all Look at the exact Includes all automobiles or motor trucks Registered at a gross weight of not more than 8,000 pounds. So that includes motorcycles mopeds I mean just whatever term you want to call it as long as it's under 8,000 I don't think I I do not believe it. It does counts motorcycles now automobile or motor trucks Under 8,000 pounds Yes, all right So I'll get back to that the second point Why is it limited to 8,000 pounds? Is that some type of state or federal? Okay, I just wanted to clarify that for people who are asking there is a state statute that does not allow us Impose the friend. Okay Thank you very much alderman. You're on Just very quickly. I went back to look at the numbers again I know we all just saw that a minute ago But if we do let the roads get to that point It's kind of like your teeth if you let them get to that point 225 per foot on average for concrete reconstruction And that's you know That's three almost working on four times the amount that it would cost to take care of it in the proper manner Is presented I think we need to do this because if we do look at five six seven eight years down the road We could be looking at three times the amount of deficit. So It's not it's not fun. Nobody likes this, but we need to do it Thank you for your comments any other discussion Alderman carlsson I guess my follow-up. Is there a reason why motorcycles weren't explicitly Put into the ordinance state statute again. Well, that is okay. I'm sorry. I missed that Thank you. Alderman bellinger Thank you, mayor I too i'm gonna support this wheel fee I've been on the public works committee for four years now Ever since I've been on it. It's been a concern of mine ever since I've been on the the council It's the number one concern that I receive from citizens is the conditions of our roads It's the number one concern from people that visit too that I end up speaking with is that the conditions of the roads You know, aren't very good. You've got a beautiful community. You know, if you just do something with the roads The last couple years we've been fortunate as a city to have Tremendous tremendous amount of economic development and we all know that the future looks bright in that area as well We need to take care of our infrastructure It is the skeleton or the backbone of the city And kicking the can down the road like alderman born mentioned before Doesn't serve us well There's been other alderman that has spoken that said that, you know Delaying this it's only going to get more expensive David Bebel has the first slide that alderman donahue mentioned. It's very impactful As you let things decay and delay things the costs get greater and greater We're we're in this problem because we have been kicking it down the road quite frankly In our predecessors did the same thing. So It needs to be addressed. It needs to be looked at I'd like to commend rachel for coming up and speaking She sounds like an outstanding mother and parent and and there are some issues with that but one of the reasons i'm supporting this as a Partial solution to the the street problem is that it is a fee and those that use the roads in the streets in the city Are are able to you know help pay for that and I and I think that's very important I've had several phone calls and emails from people that have been opposed to this And as well as in favor and those that have been opposed to this I've always asked them. What is your idea? What is your suggestion for dealing with a 47 million dollar problem that we have Over 10 years and no one's able to come up with an answer for me I've had one person said you need to do better code enforcement and have you know do that well In increasing our code enforcement. We're already doing that. We're doing an outstanding job of that But it's got nowhere near the income that we're going to need to address that And I had another gentleman say why aren't trucks being Assessed any type of of of the and again state statute Attorney adams mentions that there's a reason for that that we can't do that And it's impractical to put a gate on the city And in charge any truck that comes in for any kind of delivery into festival or any of the other You know places of business that we have too. So that's impractical as well So this this isn't easy. It isn't fun But but it's what we signed up for and I think we need to take care of our infrastructure And you know get beyond this and you know make our city You know a great place for everybody to enjoy citizens and visitors alike. Thank you Thank you for those comments anyone else See none I'd ask the clerk to call the roll I will read the motion that you're voting on would that be okay Okay, we're going to accept and adopt the rc pass the substitute ordinance as amended And the amendments are to sunset the wheel tax in 10 years and to add the b Quote and all monies remitted will be used for labor and material only not equipment purchases Yes, okay 10 i's to nose motion passes Next is item 6.2, which is an rc by finance to whom was referred resolution number 81 of 1415 By alderman ham and authorizing the transfer of appropriations in the 2015 budget To establish an appropriation for cable tv equipment and it equipment and recommends that the resolution be passed Alderman bellinger Thank you, mayor and move to accept adopt and pass resolution second Thank you for that motion and support. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none. Will the clerk please call the roll for passage 12 i's Motion passes Item 6.3 is an rc by finance to who is referring resolution number 83 of 1516 by alderman ham and authorizing a transfer of Appropriations in the 2015 budget to establish an appropriation for parking and revenue control system for lot 14 equipment and recommends that the resolution be passed alderman bellinger Thank you, mayor and move to accept adopt and pass the resolution second Thank you for that motion and support Under discussion alderman boring Thank you, mayor could uh, maybe alderman bellinger Or maybe alderman carlson from the transit commission. Just give me an idea of what this equipment exactly does It's I know it's a control system, but I imagine it must be the latest and greatest technology, but I really don't understand it Alderman carlson, would you like to respond to that? Yes, um, I actually wasn't at this meeting. I was out of town. Um, however, yeah, it's a Entry control system for a parking lot I think to expand upon that it'll allow people to Come in and get a monthly rental there. You can also come in and just stay for a few hours It's sophisticated enough that it'll allow different types of use So you get better utilization of all the spaces that are available And how do you pay? You get you get a bill or how does this work? Chad, do you know if uh Call chad palachek up the director of city development That's partially the cost of it. It's allows you to pay either by cash or credit card. So it'll have a mechanism in order for you to insert the cash While you're there or you can swipe a card And it'll it can it'll be at the north side off of Niagara avenue Where the attendance used to be And it'll be a multi gate system with you know an incoming gate in an outgoing gate And then the electronics and it also has a remote Electronic component that allows transit to see what's going on without having to go up there and look at it Should there be some failures or some issues with it? Thank you Any other discussion on the motion? Seeing none will the clerk please call the roll for passage 12 ayes Motion passes item 6.4 is an rc by the committee of the whole to whom was referred geo number four of 1516 by alderman burr creating section 2-138 of the municipal code entitled remote attendance and meetings So as to permit And regulate participation in meetings by telephone video conference or other means and recommends that the ordinance be passed Alderman belliger Thank you, mayor move to accept adopt and pass your ordinance. Okay. Thanks for that motion and support items on the floor for discussion Seeing no discussion will the clerk please call the roll for passage 11 ayes 1-0 Motion passes item 6.5 is an rc by committee of the whole to whom was referred geo number 12 of 1516 by alderman belliger Amending various sections of chapter 2 of the city of municipal code to provide for direct referral of communications Resolutions and ordinances to committees and eliminate the requirement Of a second reading except where otherwise required by law and recommends that the ordinance be passed alderman belliger Thank you, mayor. I moved to accept adopt and pass the ordinance second. Thank you for that motion and support Any discussion on the motion? Alderman borne Thank you, mayor. I had a question on this at at the committee of the whole meeting And I believe alderman belliger was going to check with the city clerk But seeing sues here. I suppose I can ask her the question and that is sue on the direct referrals Have you thought or have a plan on how you're going to make us? The council and the public aware of the Of the direct referrals that would it be similar to what you do now with? minutes and agendas Or other matters authorized by law. I just was wondering your thoughts on that. Yeah Um, I've looked at it in the easiest way and the most complete way would be to Any document that comes in in that week of council that would be a direct referral What I would do is do typically what I do now is scan the entire document Attach it to an email send it to all the distribution lists media all the persons everybody that gets The agendas and minutes now They would have you'd have one two three documents and you would be the subject matter would say direct referral So you could recognize that that's what's coming So I think that's the easiest way. Thank you Okay, is there any other discussion See none will the clerk please call the roll for passage Well, vice Motion passes item 6.6 is an RC by finance to whom is referred a communication from zimbals properties LLC requesting the interest and penalties for a 2014 delinquent personal property taxes be waived all of them in Bellinger Thank you, mayor. I moved to accept to adopt into deny the request Is there a second second? Thank you very much the motions on the floor. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, please call the roll 11 eyes and one abstention Motion passes item 7.1 will lie over Item 7.2 through 7.4 will be referred to various committees Alderman Bellinger Motion to adjourn. Sorry. We have other matters. Okay Second come on Other matters 8.1 is an RO from the city clerk submitting various license applications for the period ending December 31st 2015 and June 30th 2017 8.2 Is an RO from the city clerk submitting that will be referred to law and licensing Submitting a petition from residents of shabuigan asking the mayor and their representatives on the city council To reject the proposal to levy a 20 dollar wheel tax on the citizens of shabuigan That will be referred to the committee the whole mr. Mayor Carlson, could we actually refer that to a standing committee? I don't plan on calling a committee the whole meeting anytime soon Okay, that'll be referred to the finance committee Thank you Very good. Alderman Bellinger Motion to adjourn second All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye opposed and stand adjourned. Thank you very much Thank you


for the opportunity to talk to your group around what we've been doing with some of our understanding of our data quality and particularly applying fair principles to some of our data. You mentioned the GNS is a little bit like CSIRO in that we are a government owned research organization and we specialize in the geosciences sector of the New Zealand science landscape. So, yeah, we have a mandate to work in things like geological resources, geological hazards, environments and climate related themes and underpinning that is a whole group of work which goes under this land and marine geoscience on the bottom left of the slide, which is essentially underpinning geoscience for some of these more applied ends of our research. Anyway, so that's kind of a very quick presay of what we do at GNS. I'm a geologist, I worked in the geological mapping space for a long time and it included a tour in Australia from the late 80s until the mid 90s. And I worked in one of Geoscience Australia's former geysers for a number of years, and a lot of what I brought back to New Zealand was had its origins and what I learned in Australia. So the work that we're doing here is largely the work of myself and my close ex-colleague, now Maria Mavridi, who was hoping to join this meeting, but can't, unfortunately. So just in mind, I'm going to be presenting this, but please, this is also very heavily Maria's work and that I'm presenting here. So I'm sure you all know what fair principles are and I don't really need to sort of explain these to this audience here, but I guess the key things to get out of it are that it's actually about machine to machine understanding of these principles. It's not just about a human relationship, but it's also about machines being able to find things, access, et cetera, et cetera. So I won't dwell on this slide too long. And I guess in the wider context of why we undertook a particular analysis here, well, in New Zealand, we've got some rather old principles relating to data and information management. And these essentially are predating the fair principles, but they're talking about things that need to be open and readily available and reusable, et cetera, et cetera. So a lot of these concepts existed well before fair principles and are expressed in government requirements. In the around 2020, we were designing a new set of business plan measures. We do this every year and we often want to try and find ones in the data space. And so what we're trying to do with this particular one was we will say, well, fair principles exist. How can we actually use them to get an understanding of our current state of fair compliance and our potential to improve that over the years? So that's essentially the driver. So we've just got embedded in our business plan. And once you do that, of course, you have to have to comply and go for it. So, but it did raise a few questions. So what is fair principles compliance? How do you know when you are compliant and can you actually quantify that in a way that you can then say, well, in a few years time, I want to be even more compliant or have a greater degree of compliance. So this is kind of the drivers between why we went through this process. So we were looking for a practical solution to try and give us a measure of how good our fair compliance was. So as a research organization, we invest heavily in our geoscience data sets. And we've got this sense of what high value data sets versus ones which are maybe not so high value. And you can see all the criteria on the left hand side there in terms of what constitutes a high value geoscience data set. And when I say data set, you know, it's a pretty elastic term. A data set is just a collection of related information, but that in itself could contain many other data sets. So this 120 number that we're pulling out is actually probably just the tip of the iceberg when it comes down to really breaking down to the finest level. In the example, there is a geological map collection, the geological map of New Zealand. And you can have basically a product line underneath it, map seven. And then you can have one of the parts of the product is a geological map or the GIS version of it. And then you can also have that GIS broken up into whole bits and layers. So each one of those technically could be regarded as a data set. But in this exercise, we're treating the whole lot as just a single data set. So the reality is we've probably got many, many thousands, if not into the tens of thousands of data sets to work with at GNS. So for this exercise of those 120, we've taken, I think it's quite my own side here. But I think it's in the order of, did I say 50 at the top? Anyway, it's and we've got two different classes that we will groups that we're dealing with what we call the nationally significant collections and databases. So these are these are data sets which have got an official government recognition status. And they are actually well funded and and reasonably continuously funded. And they haven't had much or no reassessment over the last 20, no, it's getting to 20, 23 years or so. So the the data sets are basically right now, 33, I should say. So these data sets have been locked in stone for a long time. They have grown internally and their scope may have changed. But each one of the on the left hand column, what is what we call a data resource? Let's say and then within that a bunch of data sets. So the geological map I was referring to here is just one of those at the top. Can you see my cursor when I'm leaving it me? My mouse. Yes. Yes. OK. Yeah, excellent. OK, so I can use my mouse for pointing if I need to. And so we've got things like a rock collection and database. We've got the National Seismic or earthquake database, etc. etc. And so these are all of the geoscience data sets that we're going to apply this fair analysis to the other data sets or the group here is our natural hazards ones. So these replant represent the data sets, which are not in part of the nationally significant ones, but they are still incredibly significant important. And these are generally not as well funded and may contain these data sets here. So this is basically what we're running the assessment over these ones. We do have a whole bunch of other ones in the natural resources space, the environment and climate space and so on. But these are the ones we concentrated on for this exercise. And again, when you break down those fair principles, and this is coming out of the Go Fair initiative, each one of the the principles can be broken down into a number of sub-principles, if you like. And so these are things by which you can measure how well you are meeting that particular principle. And so I won't read them out again. I'm sure many of you are already familiar with them, but but these are certainly available from the Go Fair site, if you want to look at them. And some of you may may even be authors of this for all I know, but the ARDC have made a tool, a fair self-assessment tool, they call it. And effectively, this is a slightly old iteration of it now. It looks like it's changed since I looked at it last year. But anyway, it's essentially the questions I showed on the previous slide here, all these F1 to F4, etc., etc., are all expressed in these questions here. And then there's a bunch of answers and the answers have a certain level of influence on where this green bar will slide across the line. So essentially, this green bar for findable is solid, so that's indicating like a hundred percent score for this particular set of four questions and accessible slightly less intervals, etc. And then you can add it, they've got a total down here. So the purpose of this tool and and and, you know, we've been we've probably ridden a little rough shot over its original intention. The intention of this thing was educational and informational, according to the website. So basically, it wasn't designed to be used in a quantitative, comparative way at this stage. However, as soon as you put something out on the internet and you have given it scores, then it's almost open slatter and that's exactly what we've done. We buried into the HTML code and we've extracted the essentially the guts of how this works. And the reason why we've done it, use this one is because it's first of all, it's available. It's one of the most clear and effective ones that we saw. But it's also because people who know more about fair compliance have actually thought about how they wait to scores and things. You know, somebody else has done that work and some people who actually know what they're talking about. So we're more than happy to borrow that expertise. And so that's kind of what we've done. So if you look under the hood of that, you can you can see the answers to all of those questions here and you can you can see the scoring. There's 8310 and of course, it's not a linear scoring. There are the best answers or the most complete ways of answering tend to be give you a higher scores, obviously, but sometimes it's not a linear fashion. And so these are the scores that are applied through the under the hood in that particular application. So what we've done or the mirror year, I should say, is put that into something which we could utilize in a more efficient way for our purposes. So basically, we built a spreadsheet version of that. So the idea there is for every question, you can nominate one of these questions and that gives you it tells you what score you're going to get for that. And then it basically adds them all up and then you get a percentage of of compliance for each one of these questions. So that's what we did. So for all of those 50 data sets that I showed you earlier, we have basically run the spreadsheet over and we've attempted to score each based on all of these questions. Does it have a license? Is it has it got a piece of metadata? Has it got a DOI attached to it? That's sort of so all of those questions were asked of each of these. It was done in a very manual way. So so Maria would would go to the data set manager. So this is the person who understands most about that data set. And she would go through them with this bunch of questions. She could, at some level, anticipate their answers or give them guidance about what they should be answering, because not everyone is OK with all of these sort of terminologies and stuff. So it was very much. There was quite a manual time intensive project process, but ultimately was actually very good for the data set manager to be involved in this process, because they got a sense of what is really important from a fair concept point of view for their particular data set. So it was actually very good educational exercise. So here is the results for the nationally significant collections and databases so you can see five columns on the right here. You've got all the all the data sets listed on the left. And so the fair and the accessible, interoperable, reasonable, and then a sort of a combination of those expressed as a percentage here as a total sense of fair compliance for each one of those. So the whole raft of numbers there is not particularly digestible in this form. So what I'll do is I'll show you something which is maybe a little bit simpler to follow. So this is both sets of data sets as not all of them, but just a selection of both. So we've got the nationally significant ones up here. And then on the lower part, we've got the high value natural hazard data sets. So green is where the each data set achieve the best possible score for that particular question. And so you can get a sense of where it's green. It's it's good. That's it's really fair compliance by those standards and where it gets a pink score is the lowest possible score. So you can see that some data sets within the nationally significant ones are scoring green quite consistently, whereas some showing a few pinks, which means that they're not nearly so compliant. Look at the natural hazard ones down below. There's a there's a lot more pink showing. So basically, this is saying that the the natural high value natural hazard data sets are not as fair compliant as the other ones. Another way of looking at it. And you can see the individual question components coloured in here, but essentially the findable by these two groups here, the one on the left is the nationally significant databases. And this is the natural hazard ones. And so you can see that the natural hazard ones are always lower in terms of their their compliance score. I'm just going to divert a little bit into the importance of metadata because this has been absolutely critical to getting a sense of their compliance. And it doesn't, in two ways. The presence of metadata, of course, is in a in some in something that's harvested and so on, is that it's findable. You know, if you've got metadata, that makes it findable. So that's a great start. But metadata is also the way that you can express how accessible it is. It's interoperability. So you can reference how it is interoperable, whether the data are referencing vocabularies, for example, or following data models and the reusable components. So the embedded in the metadata are statements around the licensing and and and the provenance lineage of the data. So so the top some metadata is absolutely critical to the data quality story. So, you know, I look at some of our sister organizations in New Zealand around in the science space. And some of them don't have well developed data set catalogs. And so I think they're going to be struggling from from a point of view until they do have something like this in place. And you can see some of those elements. So I won't go into the details of these. Anyway, so getting back to the results. So we're saying that the the NS, the nationally significant databases are consistently scoring better than the natural hazard ones. The findability is as high in both data sets because we do have that metadata catalog. Accessibility is a little bit variable. Some some of the natural hazard data sets are not needing to be made public or open, whereas the nationally significant ones, that's a that's a requirement. So good accessibility is really important there. The interoperability is lowest in both categories. And I think that reflects the lack of standards which are appropriate to some of those particular types of data sets. I mean, I work in the geological mapping space and we've actually got some really good international standards that we are applying. So that's the GSML data model. And it's this the the international vocabularies that we bring to the score. But not every data set has that sort of resource available to them. So hence the interoperability scores are generally on the lower side. Our lower reusable scores. In part due to not so great practices within our own organization around defining licenses. So we've been a little bit ad hoc in that space. And I think that's reflected in some of our reusability scores. And to be fair, some of the metadata content around the describing the provenance of the data, the lineage is not as fulsome as it probably should be. So I think, and that's an area that we can make some improvement in. And of course, I think it's pretty obvious that the National Institute of Data Basis because of their sort of consistent and funding and pretty good funding. It makes a big difference in being able to support fair or data quality in general. And so these scores, you know, we ran this process a couple of years ago. It's certainly marked areas that we could improve. And we've actually gone a long way to doing some of that improvement. For example, even through the process of doing the assessment, we realize, well, hey, if we create DOIs for all of these data sets, then then our scores go up instantly. So, you know, that was almost something we did as we were running survey. Whereas improvements in terms of licensing and wordage around lineage provenance and so forth is something that is sort of ongoing. But through that process, and we were to run this using the same parameters as we did two years ago, then we would expect to see a climb and scores across the board. And so this is sort of feeding into our wider data management maturity model work that we're doing. So fair is an important component of that. And it's also giving us a sense of, okay, how good is our data and where do we need to get our data in the future. So I guess, and I've just been expressing some of this, but if you want to be pragmatic about what are the things that make a difference in terms of improving fair compliance? Well, these are the things that refer to within each of those. So I mentioned DOIs under the findable category. That makes a big difference in terms of the score. If you don't already have those. If your metadata are harvestable, you know, again, that works really well. Some of the stuff is, it doesn't really change very much. If it's on the server, then it's probably, it has to be under these conditions anyway, but the APIs are important. And so the interoperability, if there are standards out there around data models or terminology and so forth, and you adopt those, then those are going to have them influence on your compliance levels. And then reusable, as I said before, it's about making sure that the licenses is clearly expressed, you know, by default, you just put in creative commons by attribution, then you've gone a long way forward to ensuring that. And then just increasing the how clear and you are around how the data have been put together, the provenance, it makes a big difference too. So, GNS is one of what we call the Crown Research Institutes and there are another five Crown Research Institutes and a relatively recent initiative is to try and get some of our data into a common platform, at least findable through a common platform. And this is the platform here. We're calling ourselves the National Environmental Data Center. It's not unlike, I should say, it's a step in the direction to what you guys, the Australians, have already got in terms of your research data Australia platform where you have the ability to search for the spectrum of science data in the Australian Science Cape. So, this is our early steps towards that and effectively we've got a bit of an online catalogue for doing that. And the reason I'm mentioning that is that we're, as a collective group of Crown Research Institutes, we're also going through a data quality exercise and this is some work that we've been doing on that and effectively it's built upon fare. So, virtually all of these terms and this checklist here relate to things which are addressing fare principles in one way or another. So, it doesn't have a lot of terms of use. Is it up to the license, for example? Common format addresses and for approval to some extent. Reusable is referring to the data lineage and so on and so on. So, what we've been doing is each CRI has put up all of its important databases that can be accessed into the portal. And now we're running the ruler over them and say, well, do they actually, do they have data quality that is acceptable for them to be there or do we actually have to improve the quality or take them down? So, this is what I've done through a spreadsheet here. So, this is on the left-hand side of some of these data sets that we have now on this shared portal. And again, the colour is much the same green as something where the checklist thing is present. So, it has a license or it's got addresses, a model, or it's got a provenance statement, et cetera, et cetera. Red, pink is where it's not there. And orange is where it may be there or it's partially present or it's maybe a bit difficult to find. So, but anyway, just giving this spreadsheet here is just giving us a quick visual about what is the status of the data sets we're pushing up and, you know, you could argue that maybe the Cenozoic, Maluska of New Zealand one has got too many orange or pink scores and needs some work to make it acceptable to lodge on the site. Or if we can't do that, then we simply take it down. So, this is, yeah, so this is a sort of a parallel and related, it's not quite as prescriptive as the scored version of fair that we're doing. This is much more of a qualitative assessment. So, this is my last slide, I think, I think it is. Anyway, so, I guess having gone through the exercise and on the high value ones that we looked at, I think by and large we are measurably fair. So, we can actually tick the box to say we are pretty compliant. And what's more is we can say almost how exactly, how compliant we are. And so, I think that's been a good step forward. As mentioned before that our data managers have actually learnt a lot through this process. So, I think in terms of data management being exposed to ways of understanding data quality is actually really important for them. So, it's not just about, you know, the accuracy of the numbers or anything like that. It's actually about the quality of data. The things that are important to the end users in terms of being able to use that data down the track. And then the last statement is really just that your money does make a difference in terms of that compliance. So, there's a couple of links there. This report is publicly available. It's a GNS internal, it's not internal but it is externally available. So, that is available for the downloader. We probably don't have this presentation and there's the link to the cross CRI one. So, with that, I'm going to stop.