HomeMy WebLinkAbout06-07-2007 MinutesMayor Patrick J. Moms
Council Members:
CITY OF SAN BERNARDINO Esther Estrada
Dennis Barter
300 N. "D " Street Tobin Brinker
San Bernardino, CA 92418 Neil Derry
Website: www.sbcity.org Chas Kelley
Rikke Van Johnson
Wendy McCammack
MINI TTES
MAYOR AND COMMON COUNCIL AND
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION
OF THE CITY OF SAN BERNARDINO
JOINT ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING
JUNE 7, 2007 - 4:30 P.M.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AGENCY
BOARDROOM
201 NORTH "E" STREET
SAN BERNARDINO, CALIFORNIA
This is the time and place designated for a joint adjourned regular meeting of the
Mayor and Common Council and Community Development Commission of the City of
San Bernardino from the joint regular meeting of the Mayor and Common Council and
Community Development Commission held at 1:30 p.m., Monday, June 4, 2007, in the
Council Chambers of City Hall, 300 North "D" Street, San Bernardino, California.
The City Clerk has caused to be posted the order of adjournment of said meeting held
on Monday, June 4, 2007, and has on file in the office of the City Clerk an affidavit of
said posting together with a copy of said order which was posted at 1:30 p.m.,
Tuesday, June 5, 2007, on the City Hall breezeway bulletin board.
The joint adjourned regular meeting of the Mayor and Common Council and
Community Development Commission of the City of San Bernardino was called to
order by Mayor/Chairman Morris at 4:35 p.m., Thursday, June 7, 2007, in the
Economic Development Agency Boardroom, 201 North "E" Street, San Bernardino,
California.
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Roll Call
Roll call was taken by City Clerk Clark with the following being present:
Mayor/Chairman Morris; Council Members/Commissioners Estrada, Baxter, Brinker,
Kelley, McCammack; City Attorney Penman; City Manager Wilson; City Clerk Clark.
Absent: Council Members/Commissioners Derry, Johnson.
1. Budget deliberations - Fiscal Year 2007/08 - discuss and take possible
action - City budget
Mayor/Chairman Morris advised that the Economic Development Agency
budget would first go before the Redevelopment Committee on Tuesday, June
12, to be reviewed by the Mayor and Council thereafter —that today they would
be reviewing the FY 2007/08 City budget.
City Manager Wilson stated that if he had to describe this year's budget in one
word, the word would be "challenging." He advised that what is being seen is a
downturn in the economy, resulting in lower sales tax; and little growth in
property tax. He stated that two important goals are public safety and financial
security.
Mr. Wilson advised that the budget is a balanced budget of $144 million —that
most departments were held to bottom line budgets with very little money for
new programs except for Measure Z. He noted that it does include mandated
cost issues such as Charter Section 186 and increases that have been negotiated.
He added that one other issue coming up is the seismic retrofit of City Hall, and
staff hopes to have information for Ways and Means in the near future.
Barbara Pachon, Director of Finance, reviewed in detail several schedules
contained in the Budget Summaries (Tab 3) section of the budget document.
She noted that revenues for the General Fund this year were over $134 million,
plus Transfers In of just under $9 million, for a total of $143 million of
available funds. She pointed out that the largest source of revenue continues to
be taxes.
Ms. Pachon stated that fiscal year 2007/08 would be the first full year of
budgeting for Measure Z. She pointed out that Measure Z monies are tracked
in a separate division under the Police Department budget, and that is how it
would be done in any department that eventually gets allocated Measure Z
funds.
Relative to the budget reserves, she advised that the only change was the
addition of the Tow Fee, and that part of the reserve funds are set aside for
some very real expenses.
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Council Member/Commissioner Estrada asked for a one -page summary detailing
City items which are paid by the Economic Development Agency (EDA).
Maggie Pacheco, EDA Executive Director, advised that the EDA budget has a
transmittal that will summarize the contributions made by EDA to the City and
contains almost everything the Agency anticipates funding for the new fiscal
year.
Council Member/Commissioner Brinker noted that $80,000 was earmarked
from the Air Quality AB2766 Fund to be used for 50 percent funding of
crossing guards. He asked whether the City was going to include Victoria
Elementary in the crossing guard program this year —that they are part of the
Redlands School District and have not been included in the past, and he wanted
to make sure that they would get a crossing guard, or that the City would at
least provide 50 percent funding like it does for San Bernardino schools.
Police Chief Billdt advised that his department could do a traffic study to see if
Victoria Elementary warrants a crossing guard. If so, the City would have to
enter into an MOU with Redlands School District relative to funding half the
cost associated with the position. He stated he would follow up with Sgt.
Burguan of the Traffic Division and report back at the next budget deliberations.
Chief Billdt provided a report on the Police Department budget. He advised
that last June he had presented to the Mayor and Council his combined hiring
plan; and as reported during Monday's Council meeting they have hired all 14
of those positions, along with 4 OTS grant officers the department receives for
traffic safety. He stated that in this year's combined hiring plan they are
proposing to hire 17 additional sworn personnel, plus 7 non -sworn positions,
which includes 3 dispatchers, 1 transcriber, and 3 forensic technicians to assist
with the increased calls for service.
The Chief noted that fiscal year 2007/08 is the first year that the City will have
the quarter percent sales tax revenue, and as previously mentioned by Ms.
Pachon, it has been estimated that there will be approximately $5,461,800
generated through Measure Z. He advised that the department's proposed
budget had been presented to the Measure Z Committee on May 22.
Chief Billdt advised that the personnel costs associated with funding the 14
officers hired during fiscal cycle 2006/07, plus the funding for the 17 officers
and 7 non -sworn personnel that will be picked up in the 2007/08 budget, equates
to approximately $3,089,000. Included in that, they have budgeted $910,000
for equipment; $633,000 for continuing the helicopter contract; and $950,000 to
continue the Crime Impact Teams, which have proven to be a successful tool in
driving crime down (identified in the budget document as overtime), for a total
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annual cost of $5,583,000—leaving a surplus of $736,000. Add to this the
$150,000 that was carried over and the total surplus is $886,000.
Chief Billdt then went over the detailed line items of the Police Department
budget on page 197 of the preliminary budget. When he came to the hiring
incentives, Council Member/Commissioner Brinker indicated that if the City
would reach out to the business community, he thought it would be possible to
get them to offer some incentives as well. Discussion ensued regarding housing
incentives and the possibility of reaching out to the business community for
some of these incentives; and methods of advertising for new and/or lateral
recruits.
Council Member/Commissioner McCammack questioned how staff had come to
make the decision to spend $10,000 on an independent Measure Z audit.
City Manager Wilson stated that it was actually a recommendation of the
Measure Z Oversight Committee —they made a motion that there should be an
independent audit done of expenditures, and staff estimated a cost of $10,000.
Council Member/Commissioner McCammack stated that she was not
discounting the committee's thinking, as she wasn't at the meeting; however,
she did know that the City sets quite a bit of money aside annually for financial
audits every year, and she didn't understand why the Measure Z portion of the
budget couldn't be included through the independent audit that we contract for
outside of City Hall annually.
Barbara Pachon, Director of Finance, advised that she was at that meeting and
had made that very recommendation —that staff would specifically request that
the City's independent auditors perform the audit of Measure Z and give the
results to the committee. However, that wasn't what they wanted —they wanted
a whole separate audit.
Mayor/Chairman Morris noted that the Council could certainly make another
decision, other than the one recommended by the committee.
Council Member/Commissioner McCammack stated that she had not
specifically spoken with her committee member to understand what the thinking
was, but in terms of economies of scale, it just becomes much more expensive
to sub out one portion of an audit. She suggested that if there was a way to ask
our auditors what the pricing would be to add the Measure Z monies (revenues
and expenditures) as a separate entity to the whole audit, she thought it would be
possible to save some money.
Council Member/Commissioner Kelley stated that he didn't want to speak for
any members of the Measure Z Oversight Committee, but he thought the sense
of charge that they all felt they had was the sense of being independent, and they
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were looking to see that somebody from the outside was doing this and not
anyone in-house. He stated that although Ms. McCammack's concerns were
warranted, if he recalled correctly, the committee's sense was that their charge
was to be independent and separate from the City, and that it was their role to
audit staff and make sure that those dollars were spent correctly.
Council Member/Commissioner Estrada stated that she agreed with Councilman
Kelley that the committee has to have some kind of authority, and this is
probably the crux of their authority in terms of being able to hold the City's feet
to the fire in terms of accountability on those funds.
Ms. Pachon explained that the City's independent auditors will come in and they
will review Measure Z funds —that it's part of their audit anyway, because it is
part of the general fund. She stated that she wouldn't want to misrepresent this
fact, because the auditors have to do this because it is part of the whole City,
just like they audit EDA and the Water Department. She noted that it is an
outside audit firm, so she doesn't have a problem if they want to spend
additional money to have an additional audit done, but it will be done by the
City's audit team.
Council Member/Commissioner McCammack stated that the committee may or
may not understand that the auditors who come into the City are definitely
independent auditors, hired separately and specially to be sure that they are
independent, for our accountability to the public. She stated that it might be that
the Council, as elected officials, don't typically tell the auditors what they want
them to look for, or it might be that the committee wants to be able to interact
with the auditors.
Mayor/Chairman Morris asked Ms. Pachon if, when she met with the
committee, she had fully explained that this was not an internal audit, but it was
indeed an external audit by an independent auditing firm.
Ms. Pachon indicated that the committee members who suggested the audit fully
understood the audit process —that the auditors pull samples of records, they
don't audit every single item. She thought maybe their thinking was that if they
had an additional audit there would be more detail, more scrutiny, and it was
just a comfort factor for them. It was her impression that they understood that
the City auditors would look at Measure Z also, but since it would be in such a
broad context, maybe their feeling was that it wasn't going to be detailed
enough.
Mayor/Chairman Morris suggested that perhaps Ms. Pachon could meet with
them again and explain the opportunity that we would have to save some City
dollars by unifying those audits, with instructions from Ms. Pachon and the City
Manager to do a more detailed audit on this particular fund because of its
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specialness. He noted that they may or may not be satisfied, but maybe that
further explanation would help resolve their concerns.
Council Member/Commissioner Estrada asked Chief Billdt how he was going to
tie the $4.7 million designated for Measure Z programs in the fiscal year
2007/08 Police Department budget into those plans being developed for the five
focus areas.
Mayor/Chairman Morris advised that they had met today for the first time as a
team with all the departments who will be engaged. He stated that they did not
yet engage the County or the Schools in this, but they are starting down that
road to decipher how the extension of Operation Phoenix into these five new
discreet zones will be applied because each one poses unique challenges; and so
the strategies for each will be different in policing, as well as in code
enforcement, human services, and all Parks and Rec services. He explained that
they are going to assess both the challenges in those areas in terms of dwelling
places and apartment houses, as well as assets that are available to partner with,
as they did in Operation Phoenix. He stated that discussion probably is going to
take place with the Council after they complete their analysis of the situation.
Chief Billdt explained that the majority of costs associated with Measure Z
funding is personnel costs; and they have had a long-term vision as a City, and
certainly as a police department, that they wanted to fully staff the Beat Plan to
make sure that they have personnel spread across the city in each of the
geographic areas. But they also want to have their Community Policing model
of all to a level where they have resources that can be proactive in addressing
specific crime problems in each of the five district commands.
He explained that what they have done as a City during the last year to year -
and -a -half, is spend considerable amounts of money in overtime deploying
Crime Impact Teams. In the 20-block area that they originally started in, they
used the Problem Oriented Policing officers as well as the Crime Impact Teams
to suppress violent crime in that neighborhood. Our plan in the future will be to
fully staff our Beat Plan, to use the resources in a proactive way through a
variety of different enforcement strategies to include drug interdiction, gang
suppression —but also to use our Problem Oriented Policing teams in such a way
that we can implement intervention and prevention programs while collaborating
with all our city stakeholders, whether they be state, federal, local, county,
whatever the case may be.
He added that this particular budget spends most of its money for the continued
hiring of resources that will be needed long term for sustainability in terms of
focusing on the most at -risk areas. He stated that in this budget he had
programmed in $950,000 as a proposal to this Council to continue to fund
proactive resources in our most at -risk corridors in our most at -risk areas to
suppress crime. As the Mayor stated, they will be drilling down in each of
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these five geographic areas. Each of them have their own inherent problems
and they will be taking a look at specific strategies to deal with crime in each of
the five geographic areas.
Ms. Estrada noted that when the Chief talks about Impact Teams, currently that
is really the equivalent of overtime; and she asked whether a time would come
when there would be Impact Teams that wouldn't be the equivalent of
overtime —that there would be enough patrol personnel on an ongoing basis so
that officers wouldn't have to come in on overtime in order to have these Impact
Teams.
Chief Billdt explained that when he hires a new police officer it takes five
months for them to go through the academy, and then it takes another five
months for them to complete the field training officer program. He stated that
they have hired 14 new officers, plus 4 OTS officers, and they are all in
training. He stated that they have several coming out of training, and many
more coming out in the near future. He stated that his long-term vision and goal
is to create Crime Impact Teams as all the new officers come on, to replace
what they have been doing with overtime. He stated that he was hopeful this
could be accomplished sometime near the end of this next fiscal cycle.
City Attorney Penman pointed out that relative to the $10,000 audit cost, several
lawsuits have been threatened on both sides —one, if we don't spend all the
money on police they are going to sue; and the other, if we do spend all the
money on police they are going to sue. He stated that as the Mayor and Council
consider this $10,000, they may want to consider the following information on
page 197: Under line item 5111, seventeen .45 caliber handguns can be
purchased for $12,500 or seventeen threat level IIIA ballistic vests can be
purchased for $10,300; under line item 5505, credit checks for pre -employment
applicants are $1,000 each, so that would be ten of those; and under line item
5704, seventeen Puma digital voice recorders would cost $11,000—so that
extra $10,000 for the audit can fund quite a few other necessary Measure Z
items.
Council Member/Commissioner Kelley stated that he had three areas of
concern:
1. He stated that he would like to see the City address the needs of the
Parks Department to maintain our Landscape Maintenance Districts
which is a citywide issue that we need to tackle and resolve.
City Manager Wilson stated that one of the concerns that everyone is
aware of, that exists right now, is that many landscape maintenance
districts are being formed in conjunction with new development
throughout the city. One thing that staff hasn't done as good a job with
is hiring contract administrators to manage the out -source contracts. He
7 06/07/2007
stated that what staff would be doing over the coming 60 days is working
with the new Parks Director and others to come up with a strategy for
assessing a) the contracts —how well they are written, how well they are
enforced; and most importantly b) beefing up the level of contract
supervision that we have right now. He stated that all this is hopefully
coming by next September or thereabouts.
Mayor/Chairman Morris noted that that was certainly on the minds of
our auditors when they looked at us and made recommendations, and one
of those was just as Mr. Kelley suggested —that we do a better job of
overseeing our parks and landscape districts. He added that the City has
also gone out to bid for a Master Plan for our parks, and that will
probably identify opportunities as well.
Mr. Wilson stated that the second part of that is really the fact that there
is a Master Plan under way, and as part of that plan they are going to do
an assessment of the current staffing levels, and they will not only
receive recommendations on how to improve the appearance of our
parks, but will also be looking at opportunities to restore our parks, and
more importantly, how to finance the growth of our parks and do it in a
responsible way.
2. Council Member/Commissioner Kelley stated that his second concern
was another citywide issue which deals with our Code Enforcement
Department. He stated that he has a specific interest in four things —to
provide for public safety —police, fire, and code enforcement; maintain
our parks; pick up our trash; and maintain our streets. Relative to Code
Enforcement, there are a lot of business corridors throughout our city—
"E" Street, Hospitality Lane, Highland, Base Line, and the University
district has University Parkway. He stated that it was his understanding
that we only have one code enforcement officer making sure our designs
for maintaining our main thoroughfares throughout our city and business
districts are addressed on a day to day basis. He suggested the addition
of at least one person to that particular position so that they can address
our business corridors, which would help the City to bring in the tax
revenue it needs.
Glenn Baude, Director of Code Compliance, advised that at Legislative
Review Committee they had discussed a proposed program that actually
came from the Chamber of Commerce where the City would have an
annual inspection of businesses —check their size, check the exteriors,
check the landscaping, check their paint —like they are proposing for
single family residences or multi -family residences. He stated that they
are proposing to do a survey (they are proposing "E" Street at this time)
to determine what the cost would be to do these inspections. He noted
that they are talking about a special, minimal fee imposed on businesses
8 06/07/2007
to do these inspections each year, which would pay for the inspection
services. He stated that the last time they talked about this the Chamber
was in favor of it because the ones involved in the Chamber take care of
their businesses and they are concerned about people that don't take care
of their businesses.
3. Lastly, Mr. Kelley commented on the maintenance of the City's streets,
including normal wear and tear, weeds and palm trees growing up and
splitting the asphalt, weeds growing between the curb and gutter and the
street, which then ruin the surface of a street, requiring the City to
repave. He also mentioned the flood control areas and sewer drains,
where a lot of debris builds up and sometimes you see weeds. He stated
that it was his understanding that the City does perform some weed
spraying on our streets, something to the tune of $25,000; and he asked
Mr. Wilson to verify this.
City Manager Wilson stated that the City currently has a contract for
$25,000 to spray weeds in the right of way. He stated that he thought
what Mr. Kelley was saying is that in a city of 60 square miles, we
probably should have more resources allocated to this problem. He
stated that staff could certainly look at options and bring that information
back to the Mayor and Council.
Council Member/Commissioner Estrada had a question regarding the Parks and
Recreation budget shown on page 153 relative to the figures shown for the
Westside Community Center ($75,600 for FY 2006/07; zeroed out for FY
2007/08) and other Community Centers ($668,100 for FY 2006/07; $931,700
for FY 2007/08). She questioned why it was zeroed out on one line, but then
increased by $250,000 on the other.
City Manager Wilson stated that staff would look into that and get back to Ms.
Estrada at the next budget meeting.
Council Member/Commissioner Estrada asked Mr. Wilson to prepare a
document that details the Parks and Recreation Department. She noted that the
City continues to add little parks, yet the number of employees continues to
shrink. She stated that she has heard, "Well, we contract with certain people to
do certain things;" however, she would like to see the whole picture. She noted
that "in the old days" when we didn't contract work out, Parks and Recreation
did the whole nine yards. Therefore, she wants to know how many employees
we had then and how many acres of parkland they maintained versus the number
of employees we have today in the Parks Department, the number of contracts
we have with private contractors, and the total number of acres today.
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Council Member/Commissioner Kelley advised that the City has added almost
40 acres of new parkland in the last three years.
Mr. Wilson agreed to have that information available at the next meeting also.
2. Adjournment
At 6:10 p.m. the meeting adjourned to 4:30 p.m., Thursday, June 14, 2007, in
the Economic Development Agency Boardroom, 201 North "E" Street, San
Bernardino, California, to continue budget deliberations. The next joint regular
meeting will be held at 1:30 p.m., Monday, June 18, 2007, in the Council
Chambers of City Hall, 300 North "D" Street, San Bernardino, California.
No. of Items: 2
No. of Hours: 1.5
RACHEL G. CLARK
City Clerk
By: ' Aa^.t
Linda E. Hartzel
Deputy City Clerk
10 06/07/2007