Budget Review Committee

BUDGET REVIEW COMMITTEE NOVEMBER 28, 2012 A meeting of the Budget Review Committee was held Wednesday, November 28, 2012 at 7:01 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chamber. Alderman-at-Large Brian S. McCarthy, Chair, presided. Members of Committee present: Alderman-at-Large David W. Deane, Vice Chair Alderman-at-Large Mark S. Cookson Alderman-at-Large Jim Donchess Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire Members not in Attendance: Alderman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja Also in Attendance: Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly Alderman Diane Sheehan, In Attendance for Part of Meeting Alderman Richard A. Dowd Mayor Donnalee Lozeau Tom Galligani, Economic Development Director Mark Sousa, Transportation Department Manager PUBLIC COMMENT – None Alderman Donchess May I make an aldermanic comment, very briefly? Chairman McCarthy I would rather have them during discussion. Alderman Donchess It’s going to be really brief. I was going to say that in your absence last night, Vice President and Alderman at Large, Lori Wilshire presided at the meeting and she did a very good job. COMMUNICATIONS – None UNFINISHED BUSINESS – None NEW BUSINESS – RESOLUTIONS O-12-28 Endorser: Alderman Diane Sheehan PROHIBITING THE CITY FROM CHARGING FOR THE COSTS OF CERTAIN OFFICIAL VISITS AND CAMPAIGN EVENTS • Also assigned to Personnel/Administrative Affairs Committee MOTION BY ALDERMAN DEANE TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 2 ON THE QUESTION Alderman Sheehan I put in this legislation basically to start a policy discussion. We have had many other presidential visits or candidate visits before. This is the first time I was aware of a bill being sent to the Secret Service. My initial thought was, we are first in the nation for primary status, which many other states take issue with and each time we keep pushing our election dates closer and closer in order to maintain that. I think that doing everything we can to protect that is important. It is also important to protect the democratic process. If the bills got paid, it would be one thing. There is not a national policy so what happens is candidates go to different cities. Some of the cities choose to send a bill. The candidate hands it to the Secret Service who does not pay it. Sending a bill that we know is not going to get paid, to me, is just an opening for bad PR that can be used against us on first in the nation primary and I do not want to see that happen. Would it be great if these things got paid? Sure it would. We paid them. I know some people have spoken up and said, she is asking us to pay it. We paid it. We pay it every time. Sending a bill does not get it paid, it simply sends a bill. Until there is such a time where these people are required, and I fully understand that if the Kotch Brothers are pumping billions out into the economy for these elections, this is part of maybe what ought to be recouped and not just the piles of mail we get in our mailbox everyday. But until it is a national policy, I do not think that as a city moving forward, that we ought to be deciding each election cycle, whether or not we want to bill this candidate. I think it ought to be a policy and that should drive whether or not we are billing. That was my intention with putting this forward. I do not want to say that the sitting president and candidate both need to be treated the same once they are named a party candidate. I think before that whether or not someone has Secret Service is irrelevant. I do think we are a policy board and this is a policy we should be setting and adding until such time there is a Federal law or something to that effect is fine. But whatever we do, we need to decide together as a group. My position on this is writing a bill is simply feel good, so putting ourselves at jeopardy or crimping the democratic process to me, is not a good reason to do it. Alderman Wilshire I understand the intent and I understand what you are saying, however, I do not know how the taxpayers feel about paying. I saw a bill for $22,000 for the President Obama visit at Elm Street. That has to come from somewhere. Right now it is out of the Police Budget because they had to pay for coverage. It’s a campaign expense that the campaign should be paying. I understand what you are saying. We do not want to discourage them from coming here, but these are real tax dollars going out. That is my concern. I’m concerned about how the taxpayers feel about footing the bill for it. Even though I understand that our status is first in the nation, there are still bills attached to it that either we budget in every four years and make that a line item, but now it is coming out of the Police Department Budget. That is a concern I have. Alderman Sheehan As it did four years ago and four years before that, so logically yes. As one of the biggest cities and the first in the nation, we are probably going to remain a swing state for a long time. The other thing to keep in mind is that it brought about 8,500 people to Nashua. What did we just spend on the Stroll to bring people to Nashua? It’s the same sort of thing. If we are set up to do events, we are able to do events. But we have budgeted for them and we know they are coming. We can pretty much be sure we are going to get these visits every four years. I think having 8,500 people, I don’t know how many the Romney event brought, but I’m sure a lot of people ate dinner here as well. It was not in a walkable downtown, but I’m pretty sure most people ate because you couldn’t bring food and then you were in line Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 3 for a long time. What it brought to our downtown has a value as well. If it doesn’t, we would not be having a stroll to get tens of thousands of people into our downtown. There is a value of having an event worthy city. Alderman Deane Something inside me tells me that people in this state will battle to the end to keep New Hampshire as first in the nation. It’s been proven, because they have done it. They waited, they moved the dates. They have done all of that. I find it hard to compare President Obama’s visit to Elm Street and the stroll as things that are one in the same. I do not think the stroll had any political background to it. I’m not sure, but I don’t believe it did. Where this was set up as a campaign event that people came to attend. It was a two-hour affair where there were all these people and then they were gone and the economic impact might have been felt a little at Burger King, Taco Bell, the Shell station and Dunkin Donuts. We hear about economic impact in this community, we heard it about the Nashua Pride that they were going to bring millions of dollars into this community and I don’t think that ever happened. I think we should continue to pay the bills. I did not go to President Obama’s celebration of his campaign at Elm Street Middle School. I did, on my way back from work see tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of our public works vehicles and staff and police. We budget to maintain and operate our community. That is what we do. Look at last year’s overtime issue with the Police Department where tons of money was transferred to cover those costs. I think the right thing is for the Mayor to present the campaign with a bill. I think they should pay it. Those people raised hundreds of millions of dollars. They put the most obnoxious ads on the TV. Channel 9 was not complaining or the other stations that we get locally, but it seems they should be paying these bills. As Alderman Wilshire eluded to, I guess you would have to put it in the budget. I would be hard pressed to support putting a line item in the budget to support political visits by anybody. A while back when Vice President Biden was here at the café down around the corner, we had a ton of public works vehicles surrounding that like they were tanks protecting the building with him in there chatting with people. I understand what Alderman Sheehan is saying about having the prestige of these folks coming here but I do not think we should give up sending a bill. Maybe one day they will have enough good conscious to pay it. They came, they created the situation, they should pay for the cost of it. I think we should continue to send them a bill. Alderman McCarthy I would like to ask for a motion to table this until later in the meeting so that we can have information. MOTION BY ALDERMAN DEANE TO TABLE MOTION CARRIED R-12-80 Endorsers: Mayor Donnalee Lozeau Alderman Diane Sheehan Alderman Arthur T. Craffey, Jr. Alderman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja RELATIVE TO THE APPROPRIATION OF UNANTICIPATED REVENUE FROM DEPARTMENT 166 PARKING LOTS, ACCOUNTING CLASSIFICATION 44 CHARGES FOR SERVICES IN THE AMOUNT OF $140,000 INTO DEPARTMENT 166 PARKING LOTS, ACCOUNTING CLASSIFICATION 81 CAPITAL PROJECTS/IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE PURPOSE OF FUNDING THE PURCHASE OF PARKING PAY STATIONS TO BE INSTALLED ON MAIN STREET Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 4 Chairman McCarthy I will ask the Mayor, Mr. Sousa and Mr. Galligani to join us. Mayor Lozeau If you would give me a moment of latitude. I am not going to be able to stay this evening. I just want to point out one thing based on the last debate that you might be interested in knowing. When Vice President Biden came, he was here for our Congressional Candidates Campaign and that Congressional Candidates Campaign paid the cost of the Vice Presidential Visit. I thought that was worth people knowing so there is an opportunity that some of them see that and cover those costs. I just wanted you to know that one got paid. Chairman McCarthy That generated some questions. Alderman Deane Did they pay for the visit at the Community College as well? Mayor Lozeau No. Alderman Deane That wasn’t a campaign visit? Mayor Lozeau When President Obama came to the Community College, although he was an announced candidate, that visit was scheduled through his White House staff for the Energy Policy visit. It was presented that way and scheduled that way. Alderman Deane Who invited him, the college? Mayor Lozeau No. I don’t believe that he had been invited here. I believe he chose to come to this state and present on that legislation. While he was here, he did not ask for votes. What I am trying to point out is that with that particular visit that mentioned next door, because that was a visit based specifically on a campaign, as a guest of that campaign, that campaign paid that cost. Alderman Donchess How much was that? Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 5 Mayor Lozeau Probably about $3,600. Alderman Sheehan I don’t feel well. I’m not going to stay for the rest of the meeting. That is why I wanted to keep it at the Presidential level. The congressionals tend to have that happen more. In my professional career I worked for GTE and one of the things we did was set up candidates offices for elections. Something that they did, which shocked me, because I had to ask for Kennedy’s campaign, they had to be paid in advance or it did not get set up. Back then business phone lines were by the minute, so each line was $1,000 in advance because nobody got paid. They learned their lesson. If you want to rent a truck, it’s this much up front, that’s something that is perhaps a better policy because these things are going to happen and they are not going to send enough Secret Service people to handle these things. That said, I’m going to go. Mayor Lozeau This evening, I have brought our Transportation Manager along with Economic Development Director, Tom Galligani, who is also a bit under the weather but will stay as long as he can. The legislation before you tonight relative to the Pay station is an effort to get the authority to move forward with purchasing pay stations for the downtown area. The Downtown Improvement Committee, I think intended to be here tonight, I’m not certain why they are not. They may come a little later. The discussion has been held for quite some time about pay stations and what they would be. November 22, 2011 is when the Board passed the legislation allowing for the pay stations. The work that has been done since that point has been drafting the RFP, looking for the specifics, finding the right vendor, interviewing the ones that responded, talking about the software we need, the systems to be put in place and as you have heard, multiple presentations from the gentlemen here tonight both at Joint PEDC and Infrastructure Committee meetings; the discussion about what we think is best for Main Street and the parking garage is a three phase approach. Phase 1 was looking at changing the zones and parking and that sort of thing. That has happened, as you know. I mentioned at Infrastructure that the Downtown Improvement Committee is going to make some recommendations that they would like the Board to consider for some additional tweaks to that plan. Phase 2 was the parking garage stations. Phase 3 was Main Street. One could argue there is a Phase 4, I guess the first one was not really Phase 1, but surface lots and side street attention to come after that. When we saw the dollars coming in and knew we were going to exceed the expectation of the $728,000 which of course as we know has been discussed as the magic number, it made sense to discussion about whether or not we should be looking at doing all the Main Street pay stations at once. Originally, we were talking about, just over the last few months, that we were going to look at coming in with the garage, pay stations and then a pay station for the area of the sidewalk that we completed, from the railroads tracks, Peddler’s Daughter and Sausage King up to Water Street and Park Street. I thought we were going to come in with legislation asking for six pay stations from that vendor at Finance. What seemed to make sense after we talked about it was, let’s go for the garages and at the same time come in and say, let’s do Main Street. We really do not need to worry about upgrading the sidewalks to be able to put in the pay stations. The pay stations are proposed to be solar pay stations so we will not need to do any wiring. It’s our intention that we put on a piece of granite and bolt it right into the sidewalk so if we put it on what is brick today and concrete tomorrow, it’s an easy move. But then again, just like the benches and the trash, recycle bins and the newspaper condos, its an opportunity for all of Main Street to have some of those improvements happen. When you are looking at a 4 to 6 week window for ordering and getting them in and getting them installed, we wanted to try to do that sooner rather than later. If we can get some of those meter poles out now, we’re happy to do that. I do not want to put the meters back on the new sidewalks or in the area where we have done that work. In order to Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 6 put those in, I know people sometimes think, you have a couple of rows of bricks, pop those out, drop in a pole, put the bricks back and you’re good to go till the pay stations come in. That is not how we do the meters. We drop them in in 5-gallon buckets full of concrete below the sidewalk and then we put the sidewalk in because they are easy to take out if you put them in the way I just described. Rather than just do those two, we thought it appropriate to come in for all of Main Street. The Downtown Improvement Committee and the Service Advisory Committee supported the pay stations happening and when they saw the amount of revenue coming in they wanted to recommend doing Main Street as well. That is what we are here to talk about tonight. I would expect there to be a lengthy discussion about the issue surrounding pay per space and pay and display. As I said at the Finance Committee that evening, there are really good points both pro and con on both of the different styles. Our plan right now is for the garages to have the pay per space because it is easy to label the spaces in the garage and to have those pay stations at each exit on the way out. For downtown, we have not made a decision. The Downtown Improvement Committee, the majority of them support a pay and display system. I think the staff will talk to you that they also support a pay and display. I came in initially liking the pay per space for Main Street because I like the idea of not having to go back to your vehicle. I think there are compelling reasons to consider the pay and display. Whatever the will of the group is, we are happy to do. The pay stations, Mr. Sousa will talk to you more about the fact that they can be programmed either way. There is a cost associated with changing it. You could for instance start as pay and display and then decide you want to go to pay per space and pay a fee and change it or vice versa. I think whatever people think is best, I think knowing we have an opportunity to change it based on the software we have, I think it gives you a little piece of mind of what you might try out. With that said, I’m sorry I cannot stay for the evening. Mr. Sousa and Mr. Galligani can stay for a while. Please take pity on Mr. Galligani and not keep him too late. Some of the discussion you will need them here for questions you may have, as you make your decision, but after that, if you have a debate about that you might be able to cut him loose. Happy to answer questions before I leave. MOTION BY ALDERMAN WILSHIRE TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE OF R-12-80 Chairman McCarthy Alderman Dowd has arrived since we started the meeting. Alderman Deane I had a question. What was the original figure that the downtown group could work out of financially, was it $742,000 or $724,000. Mayor Lozeau It was above $728,000. Alderman Deane It was above $728,000. This does not have October. October’s book should be done, right? Do we have a revenue figure for October for 2012? What we got on October 24th finance I can understand because we were still in the month. But we are now in November. Tom Galligani I just ran some numbers right before I came to this meeting. So we have numbers as of today which show that the city has collected $755,810 and that includes parking meter fees, parking card revenue, Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 7 lease garages and lots and also miscellaneous parking revenue. We are at $27,810 over and above the $728,000 threshold. Again, we have a few more days left in the month and the full month of December which is a big month. Every three months we collect a majority of our leased parking lot payments, mostly those are on a quarterly basis and December tends to be a big month for parking revenue, March, June, September and December. This year exceeded $110,000, so would expect the same kind of numbers for December. Alderman Deane This document here is just meter revenue, right? Tom Galligani Yes it is. The legislation that created the Downtown Improvement Committee spoke about all downtown parking revenue in that calculation of $728,000. Alderman Deane What is the anticipated year end total? Tom Galligani I would suggest that we could expect probably another $120,000 in revenue. Alderman Deane That’s about $875, 000. Tom Galligani $880,000 maybe. Mark Sousa If I may add in. For instance, we have collected revenue this past week but it has not been counted. It will be counted tomorrow. It’s one of our biggest collections. That is not included into this. As we collect weekly, so you know there is still money sitting in the safe that needs to be counted. Alderman Deane Currently, the thing I do not like about this whole situation is we work on anticipated revenues with a ton of other things. They are not supplemental appropriations, whereas this is. I realize through what has been documented here, that it will keep us within $36,984 from the cap barring us having any other supplemental appropriations which would then require a 10 vote override. My question to you Mayor is, instead of doing this every year, are they going to look at the parking revenues? What this shows is a year-to-year with the old and new rates and the parking utilization looks like, just scanning through this from May and July look like they are vacation months, but the rest, October, November and December, we have not seen, but the rest seem like they have ramped up substantially. Are we going to look at putting something in the operating budget and then offsetting that with revenues from the fees that are collected for the rentals and the meters instead of going to the Supplemental Appropriation? Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 8 Chairman McCarthy If I recall the ordinance correctly, it anticipated we would do that starting the end of this year. There was not any provision in the ordinance for the excess revenue during 2012. Alderman Deane Is that what you recall? Mayor Lozeau That is my understanding. Alderman Deane Was that piece of legislation brought in under suspension? Chairman McCarthy No. It was debated at length. Alderman Donchess It was pulled out of committee. Mayor Lozeau The legislation that created the Downtown Improvement Committee is a legislation that had the language in relative to the dollars. That is not the same as the parking one. That, I don’t think was pulled out of committee. That legislation that created the Downtown Improvement Committee was debated at length and talked about the recommendations, and at the time Alderman Clemons really put some thought into how that calendar year would work versus the fiscal year and how the dollars would play out. While we expected an increase in revenue. I don’t think when it was being debated anybody thought it would be a number like this, this early into the process. We did talk about pay stations being one of the priorities and Alderman Deane, when I looked at it I had the same thought. If we are going to be seeing dollars like this and probably one of the biggest expenses in a one-time shot might be pay stations, then we have to make it a supplemental appropriation because, although we have the revenue source that we can pay for it with, how do we reconcile that with a spending cap. For me, I looked at this year and thought this is a value add. We still have enough between us and the spending cap. We are pretty good into the year. We have not touched the contingency money. This money had not been appropriated which is why it is a supplemental. But going forward, I think my recommendation is the same as Alderman McCarthy. Alderman Deane It could be, it should be or it will be? Mayor Lozeau I believe the legislation says it will be. If the legislation does not say it will be, it certainly will be something we will put into play while we are developing the fiscal year 2014 budget. Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 9 Alderman Deane Does anyone happen to know the number that resolution was? Mayor Lozeau Mr. Galligani has it. Tom Galligani The Ordinance is O-11-76. Alderman Deane The pay stations, the bids were open in May. We waited till November because there was no money to pay for them. Tom Galligani We went out to bid for the first four in the garage. That was the first part of the Phase that the Mayor had mentioned. We were going to pay for those through the bond with the garage with the upgrades of the construction. That was the discussion. We knew we had funds to do that piece of it. When we went out to bid with every company we asked them to do up to 100 pay stations so we knew if we wanted to go back to the next phase then we would not have to go through another whole bidding process. That was the start of it. When we got into this discussion with the bids it was obviously very technical. Our IT director was involved and then we had to go through the software company. It was not as simple as just picking one company. We wanted to pick the right company for the city. Mayor Lozeau It took almost four months to make decisions around, not only the right vendor but the right software. That was a big challenge; the right hand-held devices and what would work, it actually took a long time to write the RFP. Mr. Sousa and IT were negotiating with the companies as late as a month ago. That is what we were waiting on, to get all the final numbers, Alderman Deane. Alderman Cookson To the Mayor. You had indicated on the Main Street sidewalk at the bridge, that you did not want to put the meters in because of the reason you specified. Are the meters on the west side of the Main Street bridge and how were they installed? Mayor Lozeau They were not installed. They were left in place so when we started, depending on where we were going, we had not planned to necessarily take out the meters. After the first two were left in, it became clear that the right thing to do was to pull everything out and move forward and do it that way. We did not go back and pull those two out. Mr. Sousa told me it is relatively easy to take them out. It’s putting them in that is a challenge. We did not want to leave them underground, especially when we got into the bridge. That is why we did not do that. Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 10 Alderman Cookson Also, during your comments you made a statement about the Service Advisory Committee and the Downtown Improvement Committee both supporting the pay station. With regard to the Service Advisory Committee, when did they support the pay station or come out in support of pay stations. Mayor Lozeau It was in their report they put out. That had to be a year and a half ago, 2010. Alderman Cookson There was nothing since the report? The Service Advisory Committee has not met again since the report? Mayor Lozeau Right. They completed their work. They submitted their report. In that report, pay stations, downtown sidewalk improvement, there was a whole list of things. Alderman Cookson I have the language of Ordinance 11-76. If anyone needs that language or would like to hear it, I have it. Alderman Deane I would love to hear it. Alderman Cookson Let me briefly state it. This is Section 320-43.1, Funding for Downtown Improvements. “Starting with the fiscal year 2013 budget, an amount equivalent to the sum of any parking revenue received over and above $728,000 shall be appropriated annually in the budget to be used for the purpose of improving the downtown One Zoning District. Uses of these funds shall include, but not be limited to improvements to Infrastructure, beautification, marketing and promotion. The timeframe for the calculation of the amount shall be January 1st to December 31. It shall be appropriated in excess of the $728,000, but it is only for Downtown One Zoning District. Mayor Lozeau That is Main Street. Alderman Deane What fiscal year was that the appropriation to be in the budget starting? Alderman Cookson Starting with fiscal year 2013. Alderman Deane Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 11 That is when the appropriation is set to start? Alderman Cookson That is correct, according to legislation. Chairman McCarthy The problem is it does not make sense. Alderman Cookson It is a part of fiscal year 2012. Chairman McCarthy The ordinance with about a month left in fiscal year earned in the period that it calls for the determination to be made. Alderman Cookson I’m going to leave it up to somebody smarter to figure out. Chairman McCarthy Apparently, we should have done that last year. Mayor Lozeau Or one could argue we are appropriating it now. Alderman Donchess It is a little weird because the two periods that it mentions, I think are offset. There is the fiscal year and then it says we are supposed to measure in a different period. Mayor Lozeau Calendar year. Chairman McCarthy I think some of that was recognized in the fact that the budget is prepared in the first half of the calendar year for the subsequent fiscal year. The best thing to do is to use the data we have, which is the most recent, which is the calendar year data for the previous calendar year. Alderman Donchess How many pay stations will the $140,000 pay for and will it do all of Main Street? Mayor Lozeau Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 12 The intention is the four pay stations for the garages do not come out of this $140,000. We anticipate 16 pay stations for Main Street, but up to 20 if we go further than the area from the bridge to West Hollis Street. Mark Sousa Correct. Sixteen from the bridge to West Hollis Street and then North of that if we decide to put those in. I think there are one or two up there, but we did not include those in the $140,000. Mayor Lozeau Especially because this is that Zone 1 as Alderman Cookson mentioned. Alderman Donchess Is it clear how many can be brought for $140,000 or is the price still in negotiation? Mark Sousa The price is set whether you put in the next four or the next 16. It is one set price across the board. It’s the $64.50. Plus we wanted to have them lit at night so we add an extra $400 for the light bar and there is a $150 for the shipping charge. Approximately $7,200. Alderman Donchess I think that getting the flexibility to make the switch from the two systems was a good idea and makes it hard to make a mistake here, because we do not really have to decide which system to use. We can always test it and decide to change it later. Obvsiously, you thought of that. Mark Sousa Just so everyone is aware, there is one different charge for a pay station pay to park and the pay and display for the monthly charge. There is a different charge. The actual cost of the machine is the same, but there is a data cost that is different. It’s about $10. Mayor Lozeau Just to be clear, there is a fee, so if you have pay and display and you decide to go to pay per space, you will pay a set fee to convert everything. Then your monthly fee that you are paying for the pay and display is going to be different than what you would pay if you change it over to pay per space and that is $10 per pay station per month. Mark Sousa Pay to park is $10 more a month than pay and display. Alderman Donchess What is the monthly fee for either one of those two? Mark Sousa Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 13 It is $50 for pay and display is $60 per month for pay to park. The reason being, is it goes by the amount of data that is actually transferred through your wireless selection and through the software. That is the cost. Chairman McCarthy By the way, Ordinance 0-11-76 was not taken, it was returned with a favorable recommendation on July 21, 2011 from this committee. Alderman Cookson It was the one Mayor Lozeau had mentioned with regard to the tiered parking that was pulled from Committee. Chairman McCarthy This one, we had a very lengthy discussion on the July 21 that established the dates that made sense at the time. Mayor Lozeau Mr. Chairman, if there are no other questions for me. Alderman Pressly I do have a question for the Mayor. I have been extremely confused. I consider the two citizen committees; the Services Advisory and the Downtown Advisory is pretty much the same. They have a similar role and similar makeup of the members. What confuses me is that I remember the heart and soul of the debate as to even creating this second Downtown was that they needed to be in charge of the amenities that would be in front of their places of business. The legislation does specifically talk about the amentities. I remember in the debate we talked about the planters, the benches, all those things. I am well aware that your Public Works Committee, I felt that they took care of the items that were supposed the authority and input from these downtown groups and not the parking. If I recall, during the debate, there was an issue that any money generated from parking meters had to be used for parking purposes. I do not have the laws in front of me, but that was a big part of that debate. I trust some of you remember some of that. That was why we had to take an order for the downtown people to have any authority or jurisdiction over anything other than parking, which is what they were supposed to do, such as marketing, promotion. They could not legally use parking money unless the revenue from the parking went into the general fund and then was taken out. That was the heart and soul for the creation of that group. Somewhere along the line, the Public Works Department took over what I thought this downtown group was going to decide regarding the amenities that would be placed in front of their shops and places of business. I believe that some how the funding got switched. I certainly support raising the fees for parking and I have no problem with having these pay stations. I am confused by, how it happened that the Board of Public Works and team of employees that did all the design work downtown, how did it happen that they took over what I thought was going to be the decisions for this downtown group and not the parking. How did that get switched? Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 14 Mayor Lozeau It did not get switched, as you know because you have often been at the Downtown Improvement Committee meetings, it has been a collaborative effort between the Public Works Division and the Downtown Improvement Committee. I have gone on multiple occasions, with staff from the Division, including the Director and gone through different choices. They agreed to the choices on the benches, the colors, the trash receptacles, the location of the planters. This has all been done collaboratively. Meeting after meeting we come in, we go through it, we make agreements and we move forward. They have been at the table through this whole process. I will go out on a limb and tell you that the Downtown Improvement Committee could tell you what is out there and what is to come. They are continuing the work with us, moving forward about what else is going to be done. They are working with merchants that are not part of the Committee meeting with them about benches in front of their stores or no benches, back no back, plantar or no plantar, trees or no trees and we have been doing that in conjunction with them and others all through this process. We will continue to do so. Chairman McCarthy I would also point out that the money we spent so far is not the money that is anticipated by O-11-76. This is other capital project money from the city we have spent on sidewalk work. We done the amenities in the spirit of what that ordinance anticipates when we ask them about that, but we have not gotten there yet. There are three things. There is the sidewalk work we have been doing with other capital funds. The work we anticipated doing for benches and other work that will ultimately come out of the mechanism funded by O-11-76 and the factor in front of us which is spending parking revenue on parking expenses, which is different again. Mayor Lozeau Legitimate. Alderman Pressly I have attended as much of these meetings as I could, when I know about them. I know they meet for an hour once a month. They all are actively concerned and involved. They are thrilled some things are being done. My impression has been that all the design work and everything planned has been brought in by the Public Works. The committee says, thank you and we’re happy and yes we like them. Up until now, and I do read the minutes, do plan to involve some of the other merchants. I would like to add one other thing that I mentioned at other meetings. One issue I have had with this group for the last three years has been the notification. I would hope at the next meeting they take a re-vote on this recommendation because it was not a posted meeting that took place the last time. I think in order to establish their credibility, they have to be aware that they are responsible for posting their meetings and if they don’t, taking votes at unposted meetings diminishes their credibility. I think it is in their best interest to acknowledge that they did not post the meeting and therefore, it would behoove them to take a re-vote at a proper meeting. Changing the subject a little bit, I did read the minutes of the unposted meeting. There was one person that voted against this. Of all people, it was the former alderman who drafted and created the legislation. His reason for objecting to it is one of my concerns too. He said we need to do it all at once. I support the increase in fees, I support this work. I am troubled by the confusion of it. We have three zones and we are in the process of changing once again the rules for those three zones. We are going Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 15 to put some meters here, some meters there, we don’t really have a plan. That troubles me. It’s very confusing. Is there any way we could do this at once, because we are still going to have the old fashioned meters at some places, that’s the third system. Mayor Lozeau First of all, Alderman Pressly, the Downtown Improvement Committee is an Advisory Committee. They are not a committee equipped to design sidewalks, planters, crosswalks and the things our engineering people are doing. We look for their input and we have changed things based on their input. I think that will continue. As far as them not posting a meeting, as we explained to you quite often, that last meeting was a rescheduled meeting. Somebody dropped the ball. It was not intentional. I’m sure they will take this up another time as well. Former Alderman Clemons concerns were relative to the parking lots, making sure we did those at the same time. There may be an opportunity that we could do that. I think it depends on dollars and cents that are available. Yes, I would say that I’m concerned that you would think we don’t have a plan; I think all three of us would sit here confidently and tell you that we do have a plan. We know what it is. We know how many pay stations are going where. We have a plan for the surface lots if we are going to do that. There are some side streets and off the beaten path areas where it doesn’t make sense to put in the expense of a pay station, but those are things that may change depending on what actions this Board takes about where some may be and some may not be, but there is a plan. We feel it’s a very good plan. Mr. Galilgani or Mr. Sousa would you like to weigh in. Mark Sousa The plan we are describing here, the three phase approach to transforming and installing the new modern pay stations is, last August we had a three phase plan. It is really the same thing and what has changed is we would like to use some of the money that has been generated. They anticipated $140,000 to advance that plan a little quicker. Otherwise, we would just be doing the new meters at the parking garage; that was our first phase. We are jumping into phase 2 because the money is available and why not do that. One thing we heard consistently throughout the planning process of the Services Advisory Committee and even, as you will see in the meeting minutes of the most recent Downtown Advisory Committee, that people were desperate for parking meters or multi space meters that take credit cards so that people did not have to carry around a lot of cash. We felt this was a great opportunity to advance this to give people what they wanted as soon as they could. Again, we are not going to be able to implement all three phases at once. That was not our thought. It’s akin as to how we are approaching the downtown sidewalks, where we are taking a block at a time because it is more fiscally prudent for us. We do not want to borrow money to do these improvements. Let’s spend the cash we are generating and take on bits and pieces of these projects as we can. Alderman Pressly Since it is parking meter revenue, can’t it go directly to that? Mark Sousa That is exactly what we are talking about today. Alderman Pressly Do we need to go the Advisory Committee? Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 16 Mark Sousa The Ordinance does require that these excess funds, if they are to be used, that the Committee would make a recommendation to the Mayor and the Board of Aldermen. That is what they have done and that is how we are approaching it. We just sped it up a little bit because the money is available and we have an active bid, and we would like to implement the first two phases. That is just the first phase. Alderman Cookson I have heard a couple of times this evening, that the pay stations are intended to be just on Main Street. Is that the 16 stations you have identified or just for Main Street, is that correct? Mayor Lozeau That is correct. Four for the garage. Sixteen for Main Street and Phase 3 would be including surface lot and side streets where appropriate. Alderman Cookson If the pay stations are just on Main Street, that would make me assume that it is just for the 90-minute spots, is that correct Mayor Lozeau Correct. Zone 1. Alderman Cookson I am looking at a map that is associated with Ordinance 11-76. It identifies the downtown one zoning district. The downtown one zoning district is much larger that just Main Street. It goes all the way to Quincy Street or in some cases Spruce Street to Cottage Street to the east, it hits Beach Street, Factory Street, Walnut Street, Front Street, all of those. Those streets are still within the downtown one zoning district, but they certainly are not within the tier one part of the parking plan that we have. There are tier 2 and tier 3 in those areas. Do the parking meters have the capacity and capability to address multiple zones if they are placed on a street; for example, I believe it’s Factory Street that has three zones associated on the one street. If there is a pay station that is placed on Factory Street, would it be able to address all three zones? I could see if it was pay per space. How would work for pay and display? Mark Sousa It’s the strategic placing of the actual pay stations which helps you differentiate between the zones. Chairman McCarthy I think the question being asked is, let’s suppose we have spaces here in Zone 1 and spaces here that are in Zone 2. Can we put a single pay and display meter at the intersection of those two and have it serve both sides? Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 17 Mark Sousa No. That is what I’m talking about, strategic placing of the meters. For example, you are talking about Factory Street, when you hit Zone 2, you place that meter closer into Zone 2 or the other end of Zone 2 so you are actually separating the zones. Mayor Lozeau You are sending them to the areas they need to go to. Alderman Cookson I understand. Thank you. Alderman McCarthy I don’t know if you recall, but I think at the intersection of Factory and Main you have Zone. A few spaces in I think there might be three or four spaces that are Zone 2 and maybe even a little further down on Factory Street it might be Zone 3. Chairman McCarthy I think the division is actually pretty large. If I recall Factory Street, what happens is, the ones that are between the end of the parking garage and Main Street are Zone 1. Alderman Cookson I think they are Zone 2. Mayor Lozeau When you come in from Main Street, they are Zone 1 closest to Main Street. Chairman McCarthy On the other side they are Zone 2, but those are separated by a couple of hundred feet. Alderman Cookson Again, you would have to determine if you wanted a pay station there. I cannot see putting a pay station at $7,2000 there for four spots and then another pay station down a little bit further for five or six spots. Chairman McCarthy What we could do for Factory Street is have one right at the corner of Main Street that also covered those spaces that are right at the corner. Mayor Lozeau The exit at the High Street garage one can be programmed for some of the spaces in that area, depending on how you put it as well. Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 18 Mark Sousa Just so you are aware, when we did the plan for the whole city, there was absolutely zones in the city that make very little money on a monthly rate. To put $7,200 worth of equipment, your return investment could be 15 years. It does not make sense. At that point you look at the single head meters and you make decisions based strictly on that area. Right now technology is moving so quickly you can have single head meters that take credit cards. There are a lot of options and we are well aware of that. Mayor Lozeau If there are no other questions for me? Alderman Donchess My question is a follow-up on the amenities that were being discussed. Is there any way that the designers of this project would consider saving the remainder of the trees that exist on Main Street? The reason I ask is that I have received feedback from people being surprised that these trees that took 30 or 40 years to grow are being cut down. Yes, there are trees replacing them, but some of us won’t be alive by the time they get to the size that our current trees are. Chairman McCarthy Several months ago the Mayor and I had a discussion of having an arborist come in and look at the trees. At my request we had Mr. Knute from UNH Extension Services come down and look at them. The problem is that most of them have outgrown their britches where they are now and the roots are up above the sidewalk. His recommendation was either replace them or lift the sidewalks up by four inches to save them. What has come out of that is that we are going to look at buying more mature trees and planting them so they will be closer in maturity when then go in. Mayor Lozeau The other problem with the trees, besides the damage they are doing to the sidewalk, and the roots being above and the crown being where it is, and it causing a lot of problems, a good example is right in front of St. Pat’s gymnasium. Those are beautiful trees. You would love to leave them alone, but you can see there is just no way to do that without significantly changing the height of the sidewalk. I met with a priest at St. Pat’s to ask him about putting in bigger trees and putting them in his lawn instead of the sidewalk. The Church of the Good Shepard has it on the lawn and the Methodist church was talking about putting it in the lawn. We are trying to make some of those changes and get the more mature trees. There are some locations downtown where the buildings actually go out under the sidewalk. We have places where some of the tree roots are wrapping around things they should not be, which are causing other problems. The mature is nice esthetically, but functionally it is creating some real problems. Alderman Donchess I have noticed in some other places, because I have been looking at the tree issue in other cities. They seem to plant new trees among the old trees and it seems, not that I have talked to people, just observing, it seems they wait some period of time for the new tree to gain a certain size before they get rid of the old tree. That is just an observation. I don’t really expect an answer on that. As I look at the situation you have described, where the tree roots are disrupting the sidewalk, some roots are disrupting the sidewalk more than other trees. Some are not disrupting the sidewalk that much. In my untrained Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 19 eye it seemed that an individual solution could be tailored with respect to some of these trees that would save them and where the sidewalk, even if you go with concrete, if you put some kind of circle around the tree it might be possible to save them even with the current design. Again, just an observation and I just ask you to consider saving as many as possible. Alderman Pressly I’m delighted you had Jonathan Knute from the Cooperative Extension, I have worked with him before. He is extraordinary and it’s no cost to the City. I’m wondering if you would have him out again and take a look at the trees along the riverbank. The library has complained and also on both sides where I live, the trees are actually growing out between the granite. I have seen some places that the big chunks of granite that support the wall have fallen into the river. I do not think they were trees they may have been weeds that just planted in the area. When you look at old photographs there were no trees along the sides of the river, near the Mill building. If you would consider bringing him back and have a look at what we can do with the trees along the river. That is another situation. I think it’s a disaster waiting to happen. Mayor Lozeau As you know, Alderman Pressly, I have spoken to you about that and spoken publicly about the waterways and some of the work we have to do there. As you know, we escrowed some funds for it. I will be coming in with the legislation creating the expendable trust fund, talking about that and looking at putting together a group that is going to take some responsibility for that, for a lot of things that impact the waterways; not only the retention walls you are speaking of that I mentioned behind the library, but we also have a levy we have responsibility for in the Merrimack, so yes any help we can get in resolving some of those problems. Chairman McCarthy We are getting a little far afield. Alderman Pressly We are, but you mentioned him. He is a talented person and he is no cost to the City and he could be a great advisor on that group. Could I know when that group meets? I will meet with you personally. Mayor Lozeau We have not put the group together. It is not going to happen until the legislation gets squared away. There is plenty of time. Chairman McCarthy We do not need to discuss it this evening. Mayor Lozeau If there are no more parking questions for me? Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 20 Alderman Deane I have a question for Mr. Sousa. What is the depreciation on the equipment that are going to be placed in the parking garages? How long do they last? Mark Sousa The lifespan is 20-years, obviously depending on weather. Alderman Deane How long have these been on the market? Mark Sousa The meters we are looking at, they are constantly upgrading. The pay stations have been around for years. Europe has had them a lot longer than we have. This is an international company. They are all over the world? Alderman Deane Are there any local? Mark Sousa Manchester, Concord, Dover, Portsmouth. Alderman Deane How long have they had them? Mark Sousa I’m not sure of the exact years for all the communities. I would say Manchester has been the longest, probably eight years. Concord and Dover just put theirs in. Portsmouth had theirs for a little bit. Alderman Deane I find it hard to believe these things will last for 20 years. Mark Sousa That is their recommended life span, whether in Florida or New England, maybe that changes. Chairman McCarthy I think typically you wind up replacing them because there is different technology you want to use long before their physical life span. Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 21 Alderman Deane When we bond money for 20 years, it is just a fixation on the majority’s part? Under the terms of the bond we cannot be using things that do not last the life expectancy that the bond requires them to last. I have a lot of heartburn taking bonded money buying these things for the parking garage. I do not find it as an improvement to the parking garage, an upgrade of $1.8 million bond that was floated was for repairs. This is a new purchase. The pay stations on the garages ought to be paid for out of the revenue from the garages, not from the bond. I guess there is not enough money to do that, is that why the bond money is being used. Mark Sousa I was not part of that discussion. Alderman Deane What do you think, Alderman McCarthy? In my mind it just is not right. Chairman McCarthy It is a complex question. I would pay for them the same way we are paying for these, if it were up to me. The question is, when we use bond money to pay for those improvements on the garage, is that additional bonding authority that has never been exercised or is that cash on hand that we have already sold the bond for? We are required to utilize the bond proceeds within two years when we sell the bond. If we have money sitting around from a previous bond sale we have not used, we are better off to put it into that than we are to pay the arbitrage fee on it when it gets more than three years old. Alderman Deane Could we pay the bond down with the excess cash? Chairman McCarthy No. You may be able to refund the bond, but probably would not at this point. If you pay down one bond with another you still have the same problems. I suspect, but I would have to look at it, that those are proceeds we have not used. It’s bonds we have not sold yet. Alderman Deane I believe its $1.8 million. I believe that is the figure that was given to us. Chairman McCarthy These are roughly a little over $10,000 to $15,000 a piece? Mark Sousa The meters are $7,200 a piece, plus you have monthly expenses. Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 22 Chairman McCarthy If it were up to me, I would include the parking garage when its in the same usage if we have the funds to do it that way? Mark Sousa My understanding is they separated the two. This one is strictly for the downtown parking revenue from the leasing and all the other revenue that comes in for parking. I believe there is another piece of legislation that addresses the garages, I believe, that came in. Alderman Deane When we take your revenue figures, Mark, include everything. Parking garage revenue? Mark Sousa Yes, that’s everything. Alderman Deane Why are we using bonded money. I understand your point, Alderman McCarthy, if there was a dire need for it, the legislation had to be passed, we needed to have all these repairs done and then things did not happen. We approved the contract for the carpet in this building how long ago? It still isn’t done. There is baseboard missing. I’m not being critical of not spending money fast enough, but I have a problem with using bonded money when the building repair money had to do with replacing windows and the HVAC and all the other things in City Hall and all the necessary structural repairs to the parking garage and drainage and this is a revenue generating amenity and the parking garage is being paid for out of bond, which I do not think should be. I was told by the Mayor, CFO and the treasurer and anybody else that is charged with handling finances in the city have agreed that is quite okay. I disagree with all those people. Credit card fees, when are they going to be here? What are you anticipating paying for fees? Mark Sousa Our IT Department is currently looking into a company. I do not have the name. The anticipated rate is anywhere between 2.5 to 3 percent. The software company and the equipment company Cal-A America and T-2, it does not matter who we work with. They work with all sorts of different vendors who do credit card charges. It is up to the city to negotiate with those credit card vendors and for the fees. I know our IT Department is dealing with them. I think you can pay online with some other charges that come through, so this would be a separate charge. I do not have that number right now, because it has not quite been negotiated. Alderman Deane I saw all of the banking services, which have been outside of contract for well over a year. The contract expired. I brought it up about seven months so we have not a contract with our financial institution, City, anymore. We are at will with Citizen’s Bank. Would that be part of that? Would they be doing the negotiations with Citizen’s on that? Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 23 Mark Sousa No. This is a third party vendor that does the credit card charges. Citizens would also use a third party vendor. It would not be passed on to the customer during the charge, we would pay that charge. Alderman Deane That is a lot of money. Mark Sousa It’s part of doing business unfortunately. If you look at the end of the day the amount of revenue that comes in, especially in the first year, the average is about 40% return on investment. Alderman Pressly I have a few questions for Mr. Sousa. Do you think two meters per garage is going to be sufficient? The reason I mention that is, I was in Concord a few Fridays ago, I went to the Rail Authority Meeting. I parked in the garage and the meter was broken. It said I had to go find another one. They had a meter mid way through the garage. I was able to just walk halfway into the garage. If we just have one at each end and the meters break, I guess I need to know how we are going to deal with that, what sort of maintenance do these people have, how quickly can they respond, and do you think it’s reasonable to expect a customer with a broken machine to walk all the way through the garage and find the other machine? Mark Sousa There are several issues. These are recommended by the vendor. The vendor clearly could have put a third one in if he wanted to, but it is the recommendation of the vendor to put it at either exit. The reason being is because of the size of the garage. To do pay by space was important in the garage. Their recommendation is always pay by space in the garages on surface lots because of the amount of spaces they can cover. The second part of it is, yes we will have a maintenance agreement that is included in the cost. That agreement basically does have somebody within the two states of Massachusetts and New Hampshire that could come up if there was a major issue. These machines are fairly simple if they break down. There are certain parts you will buy upfront and keep because the company recommends these are the type of issues you will run into. The last part of that is the software we will be buying with this system alerts us when a system goes down by email, text or however we want them to, to alert us. If it goes down in the middle of the night, a text could come across their phones and tell us this machine number is down. It could be for several different reasons or that it is missing its maintenance schedule. It also has a schedule in there for maintenance. To have a machine down for a significant period of time, I cannot see that happening. I have staff on 24-hours that will come out, but after a certain time they have to come out early in the morning to fix a piece, then that is what it is. We have overnight shipping. There are four different locations in the US that they ship from. Alderman Pressly I thought I heard you say there is new technology where they have single meters that will take the coin and the credit card? Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 24 Mark Sousa No. I believe most of the technology is strictly for the credit card. I may be wrong because we have not looked into those yet. I do know there are a couple of vendors that specialize in single meters using credit cards. Whether they still have coins or not, I have not looked into that, but they are out there. Alderman Pressly My next question is what has the Infrastructure Committee has asked about and that is lowering the lights? Can we digress and hear if there has been any? Chairman McCarthy That has nothing to do with the parking meters on Main Street. Let’s keep to R-12-80. Alderman Cookson The other meeting in Finance, I just learned that, at least the meters I thought were going to be in the garage are actually going to be outside the garage. They are going to be in the elements. I would assume that the 16 meters down Main Street are also going to be in the elements. What kind of charge does the battery retain? How long can it go without an appropriate level of sun? I’m a little surprised, at least in the garages, that there is not some sort of overhang or booth that they are sitting in so that people who are interacting with them are also not in the elements. First, the battery life, is there a backup to the solar power? Mark Sousa Each machine comes with a charging station within the machine itself, so the batteries are actually charging. It also has a battery backup, so there is one battery that is not even being used that is charged. If one battery goes bad, never mind the elements, then the second battery automatically kicks on. Again, I go back to the part of the software that then tells us that battery one is now no good. That is when we change the batteries. These machines do not generate a lot of electricity. The light bar comes on with a sensor and is not on all day. That will probably generate the most electricity out of those machines. We were told you possibly even put these inside the garage and they would still work. That was another vendor, I was not comfortable with that. These solar panels, I would not say state of the art, but are right up there. With two battery backups there should not be a problem. Alderman Cookson What is the span of a battery? Mark Sousa We will have to replace the batteries depending on their usage, depending if they switch over anywhere between five or six years. Some will go quicker because they are used more or just because they come out the factory not the same way. Alderman Cookson I recall you mentioned the difference in price between pay and display versus the parking space. That got me to thinking. Are there any other monthly costs or expenses associated with a pay and display Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 25 that are not incurred with pay per space? I’m thinking for example, the paper. How is that maintained? Is that an addition of cost per month or does that bill tend to the cost of the unit? Mark Sousa You buy a year’s worth supply of rolls. The other thing you have to think of is you have look at the difference. We buy it in bulk so it is not a monthly cost. The first roll will get us through probably the first six months. Then we have to use the same vendor or look for a different place. Alderman Cookson That’s based on the utilization of the spaces in that particular area, so you have already calculated this as, we have this much roll and if we go with the pay and display and we know what the utilization is for this block or this span of spaces, we can estimate this roll is going to have a six month life span? Mark Sousa Correct. You also think of Main Street being probably the busiest. You look at some of the lots and some of the side streets and those rolls may last a year, i.e., Maple Street, Maple lot, I can’t see going through too much rolls over there. On the other hand, maybe we don’t even put meters in those areas. That is a pretty good calculation. Our first year in we will probably be more exact in knowing how people use it downtown. People put max time on and leave, then someone else pulls in. Alderman Cookson I actually have a question about meter head technology. Once a space is vacated, do you have the ability to set that space to zero so that somebody else is not parking on someone else’s dime? Chairman McCarthy With meter heads, there are meters that will sense whether there is a car there and zero it. I would point out that with these it really does not matter because the person who pulls in next does not have the tag on their windshield and does not know if there space credit. So it is effectively zero to the person pulling in the space. Alderman Donchess I wanted to follow up on something Mr. Sousa had said, which was the return on investment in the first year is 40%. I do not understand exactly what you are calculating. Is that extra revenue compared with the cost of the station, or 40% of what is my question. Mark Sousa You have metered revenue downtown. That number may have fluctuated with the new rates on that, but I am utilizing some of the information we received from other cities. Manchester, for instance turns in all of Elm Street from meters to pay stations. The revenue from Elm Street was a 40% increase in revenue one year after they received it. That is what we are utilizing it on. We asked other communities and it’s very similar on their Main Street. Main Street is what you really have to calculate. If you made $50,000 on Main Street this year, your return investment next year could be another 40%. What happens is people learn after the first year, so instead of doing max time, they will only pay for the hour and it starts leveling itself off and that is what they attribute that to. Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 26 Alderman Cookson On that thought, I can see the increase going from a meter head to this new technology. I can actually see the increase based on that alone in year one. But year two, I think depending on the amenities and other variables within the setting of where those pay stations are, in our instance downtown, I think those variables have a lot more impact on the revenue generated. I think it might be fairly flat from your two- year, three year, four and on. I think you see the increase going from meter head to new pay station. Mark Sousa I would agree that it would eventually level itself off, but you also have to remember there are still people who will come down on Saturday and pay max time no matter what, because they don’t know when they will be back to their car, so revenue will not go down, I believe and they have not seen that in other cities. You may get your bump in the first year but it will probably level off. Like I said, people will learn how to use them. Chairman McCarthy You also get people who will pull into the space and realize they do not have a dollar’s worth of quarters in their pocket. If you don’t take credit cards they just say they will risk it and go in the store anyway. If they do, they say, I’ll put the card in. Motion was to recommend final passage of our R-12-80. MOTION CARRIED Chairman McCarthy Do we want to go back to O-12-28? Is there a motion to take O-12-28 from the table? MOTION BY ALDERMAN DEANE TO TAKE O-12-28 FROM THE TABLE MOTION CARRIED Alderman Deane Although the sponsor has left, I am not supporting this Ordinance. Therefore, I would move to definitely postphone O-12-28. Chairman McCarthy The motion we have on the table is actually for final passage. That was made by you, correct. Alderman Deane Yes. I will withdraw that and move to recommend indefinitely postpone O-12-28. MOTION BY ALDERMAN DEANE TO RECOMMEND INDEFINATE POSTPHONEMENT OF O-12-28 ON THE QUESTION Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 27 Alderman Pressly This is an interesting issue. There was an article in Cities and Towns. They gave advantages and disadvantages of both and they are pretty even in their opinions. I have lived in many other states, I have lived in three foreign countries and I do not think the people of New Hampshire realize what an opportunity and honor it is to be as involved as we are in the selection of our President. I moved here from the State of Virginia and was never invited to meet the Governor. In 1979 I was staying at HoJos waiting to buy and move into a house and there was an article in the paper to come and meet the Governor of Virginia. So I thought, I have to do that, I just moved from that state. I went and there were two other people in Hudson and we were talking with Governor Chuck Robb. I do not think a lot of people who have lived in New Hampshire most of their lives realize what a difference it is to be in New Hampshire and have this opportunity. I have to say, I think we should do everything possible, but I don’t know if this would make a difference one way or the other, but to have a presidential candidate, I think the legislation narrows it down to the candidate from the two major parties, I think we should everything we can to make this a friendly place to try to get them to our city and therefore, I think we should really consider this, step forward and say, we in Nashua are delighted to have these people come and will do whatever it takes to have them be comfortable here. If they charge the Federal Government, it’s our tax dollar too. I do certainly sympathize with any cost to the police and maybe we should see to it that if any city department is over taxed or has an extra burden that they have the possibility to recoup that through the City. After a lot of thought I am supporting this. I would like to see Nashua put out the welcome matt to the two presidential candidates. Alderman Deane The Federal Government is not getting a bill. It is not our Federal taxes. It’s the campaign that should be paying. Although I feel that Nashua has lost some of its advantage, contrary to the differences of opinion between different political parties, I think all the political parties that exist in this state now and the people involved in them all have a vested interest of maintaining the First in Nation Primary. Whether they agree or disagree on a lot of different issues, they all agree on this. That is my opinion. People would make sure that New Hampshire maintains that advantage. I said earlier, these people raise so much money. When you look at the state of the economy and everything that is going on in this country, a lot of that money could have been used for more worthwhile purposes than what it was used for. Although people donated it for them to use as they wished, it’s too bad they didn’t use it to pay some of the bills they ran up. Some of these other communities, i.e. Dover, they will pay anything. That is their prerogative. You provide a service, you should pay for it. And these people have the money to pay for it. The Romney campaign paid the rental on the stadium, granted I believe the security bill went to the Secret Service which ended up in the trash, but was there a rental fee on the Elm Street Middle School that was paid? I have to pay rental fee when I have baseball tryouts at Amherst Street Elementary School and we are a nonprofit. Send them the bill. Whether they pay it or not is another thing. We have a lot of needs in this community and when you look at our Police, Fire and Public Works, we budget money to maintain our community. I do not think the economic impact found at this end of town amounted to much of anything. I’m going to support indefinite postponement. Alderman Cookson The reason I voted no, to take this from the table was because of the primary sponsor’s absence. She indicated she had to leave but she thought she had expressed herself well enough. I did not know if this conversation would generate any more discussion which Alderman Sheehan might want to address. Mind set right now, based on what I just heard, I am not in support of this ordinance. I would support recommendation for indefinite postponement. I believe that we had established ourself in this country as First in the Nation Primary. I believe we will continue to do that as long as we have a strong Secretary of Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 28 State and we will continue to see visits from Presidential candidates throughout. I do not anticipate they would not come to New Hampshire and they would not come to Nashua just because we would bill their campaigns. Alderman Deane is correct in the point that these campaigns raise hundreds of millions of dollars, so for those reasons and many more I do not support this and would support the recommendation for indefinite postponement. Alderman Donchess I do not want to reiterate, but one advantage of indefinite postponement is that under the current system, the Mayor or the Police Chief has discretion and can try to get money where they can. Maybe that is a good thing. So setting a rule such as this where there are situations where we definitely could recover money to me is a mistake, so I will support Alderman Deane’s motion. Alderman Dowd I too am going to support the indefinite postponement. I just want to say that during other than campaign issues, if the President comes to the state or the city I think that is a good thing for reasons that have been stated before. We obvsiously should not charge them. However, during campaign season, I think whatever is done for one party ought to be applicable to the other party, regardless of the fact that one is the incumbent president. I do not think this legislation is laid out clearly enough to figure out what should and should not be charged. I will vote to table as indefinite postponement. I do think that during national campaign years, that we ought to allow the departments that are affected to budget for those expenses, because the chances of them getting reimbursed are nil and the fact that those people are going to be here is almost a dead certaintly. I also think we ought to allow these same agencies to put money into contingency if they don’t already, to cover for when the President arrives for visits. If it’s not in their budget and we budget so close it is a pretty big hit on what they can and cannot do in other areas. That said, I will support the motion. Alderman Wilshire I am going to support the motion for indefinite postponement as well. I did see a bill that was sent for $22,000 that the police paid for coverage for the Obama 2012 event. Somehow they have to recoup that money. I support sending it because we did not budget for it. I hope when the police come in and see they are over budget on their overtime or payroll accounts that we do take this into consideration because they had to pay. Chairman McCarthy I am sort of mixed on this. I think this does actually cover both parties by the way. The way the bill is written it says either the incumbent or the challenger. I am very sympathetic to Alderman Deane’s point. My understanding is that over $6 billion was spent on the two campaigns by the campaigns themselves and the superpacks that contributed most of it to television advertising that in my opinion, was junk on both sides and did nothing to enhance the debate or make the election of the president easier. I’m not sure I understand why we spend $20,000 to $30,000 on security if there is a billion in the bank. On the other way we have no way to collect it. I don’t know that we have ever paid or if anyone has ever been paid for the bills that were sent other than the case that was brought up from the congressional campaign that volunteered to pay it in advance. I’m not sure if I understand what the advantage is of sending bills that we know will not be paid for expenses we have already incurred and would have incurred anyway. I am ambivalent on what to do with the thing itself. I actually would ask, as a courtesy to the sponsor that we hold it until she is here. I’m not sure I would have taken the course of action I did if I knew she was going to leave because she did not feel well. Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 29 MOTION BY ALDERMAN DONCHESS TO HOLD UNTIL THE SPONSOR IS AVAILABLE TO BE IN ATTENDANCE ON THE QUESTION Alderman Deane Is that a debatable motion? Chairman McCarthy Yes, for purposes of the day. Alderman Deane It’s a nonexisting motion. It’s tabled. Chairman McCarthy Move to a time certain is debatable as to the time is a proper motion. Propose holding it till the sponsor is here? MOTION CARRIED R-12-81 Endorsers: Alderman-at-Large Brian S. McCarthy Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire Alderman Diane Sheehan Alderman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja Alderman June M. Caron Alderman Richard A. Dowd AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND CITY TREASURER TO ISSUE BONDS NOT TO EXCEED THE AMOUNT OF ONE MILLION SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS ($1,600,000) FOR THE FIRST PHASE OF THE RADIO COMMUNICATIONS UPGRADE MOTION BY ALDERMAN DEANE TO TABLE R-12-81 PENDING THE PUBLIC HEARING SCHEDULED FOR THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2012, AT 7:00 PM IN THE ALDERMANIC CHAMBER MOTION CARRIED NEW BUSINESS – ORDINANCES – None TABLED IN COMMITTEE Chairman McCarthy Table in Committee. I do not have an update of the costs. I have talked to the Mayor about it but there is nothing to bring back just yet. Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 30 R-12-69 Endorsers: Alderman-at-Large Jim Donchess Alderman-at-Large David W. Deane Alderman-at-Large Mark S. Cookson Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly Alderman Arthur T. Craffey, Jr. REGARDING ACCOUNTING FOR THE COSTS OF THE MAIN STREET PROJECT • Tabled 9/18/12 • Also assigned to the Board of Public Works; Tabled 9/20/12 MOTION BY ALDERMAN DONCHESS TO TAKE FROM THE TABLE R-12-69 MOTION FAILED GENERAL DISCUSSION Alderman Cookson I saw this afternoon the Mayor is having a Broad Street Parkway informational meeting on Monday, December 3 at the Millyard Technology Center. Do we know if any of these accounting costs are going to be part of that presentation? Chairman McCarthy We do not. Alderman Cookson Do we know what the presentation is going to be? Chairman McCarthy I do not. Alderman Cookson Did you know about the presentation? Chairman McCarthy I did not. Chairman Cookson I had understood from the last Board of Public Works meeting there was going to be a joint meeting between the Public Works and the Board of Alderman. I will bring this up tomorrow at the Board of Public Works meeting, specifically about the Broad Street Parkway. That was supposed to be held before tomorrow’s November 29, Board of Public Work’s meeting. Apparently, that was never scheduled. I didn’t know if this meeting on Monday, December 3, was an attempt to address or if we will have a future meeting scheduled between Public Works and the Board of Aldermen. Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 31 Chairman McCarthy No one has asked me to schedule one. Alderman Cookson So the Mayor has not had any conversation with you with regard to a joint meeting between the two Boards? Chairman McCarthy Not to the best of my recollection. Alderman Cookson Thank you. I will bring it up to the Board tomorrow. Alderman Donchess On this point of the Broadway Parkway meeting, to the extent you have influence on the format, I would request that your input be that there be some kind of general presentation to the entire audience, that everyone hears and then people can ask questions or make comments and that everyone hears what is being said. What has happened in the past, is that Nashua Regional Planning commission has held these informational meetings where people walk around and if they have particular questions, they can ask a person at a particular station. No one else knows what that person is concerned about or hears what that person is asking and then, when Alderman Moriarty, for six months or more, tries to figure out what questions were asked at those meetings, we never get an answer. I think, to the extent I understand the position you are in, you did not even know the meeting was going to take place, but if you do have input, I would ask you suggest there be a general public presentation where everybody present can hear and then there could be questions or comments from the audience. Chairman McCarthy I will pass that along to the Mayor. Alderman Pressly Could that be put on the Aldermanic Calendar, is that appropriate? Chairman McCarthy That meeting? I would assume it will get there. I will talk to Sue about it in the morning. Alderman Deane When was it scheduled? Chairman McCarthy I have no idea. Budget Review – 11/28/12 Page 32 Chairman Cookson I heard about it this afternoon, about 3:00 or 3:30 p.m. ADJOURNMENT MOTION BY ALDERMAN DEANE TO ADJOURN MOTION CARRIED The meeting was declared closed at 8:52 p.m. Chairman Brian S. McCarthy Committee Clerk, pro tem