Budget Review Committee

BUDGET REVIEW COMMITTEE April 15, 2013 A meeting of the Budget Review Committee was held Monday, April 15, 2013 at 7:00 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 Alderman Richard A. Dowd Alderman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja Also in Attendance: Mayor Donnalee Lozeau Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly John Griffin, CFO/Comptroller PUBLIC COMMENT COMMUNICATIONS – None UNFINISHED BUSINESS - None NEW BUSINESS – RESOLUTIONS R-13-91 Endorsers: Mayor Donnalee Lozeau Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire Alderman Diane Sheehan Alderman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja Alderman June M. Caron Alderman Richard A. Dowd Alderman Michael J. Tabacsko Alderman-at-Large David W. Deane Alderman Kathy Vitale Alderman Arthur T. Craffey, Jr. Alderman-at-Large Mark S. Cookson Alderman Daniel T. Moriarty Alderman-at-Large Jim Donchess Alderman-at-Large Brian S. McCarthy Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly RELATIVE TO THE ACCEPTANCE AND APPROPRIATION OF $63,125 FROM THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE INTO POLICE GRANT ACTIVITY – “FY2013 VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN GRANT PROGRAM” AND TO AUTHORIZE THE TRANSFER OF $45,000 FROM DEPARTMENT 194 – “CONTINGENCY”, ACCOUNT #70120 – “CONTINGENCY, POLICE GRANTS”  Also assigned to the Human Affairs Committee; Favorable Recommendation Issued 1/31/13 MOTION BY ALDERMAN DONCHESS TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE MOTION CARRIED Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 2 R-13-99 Endorser: Mayor Donnalee Lozeau ESTABLISHING A CAPITAL RESERVE FUND FOR MAJOR REPAIRS, REPLACEMENTS AND IMPROVEMENTS RELATED TO STELLOS STADIUM AND THE YMCA AND TRANSFERRING AND APPROPRIATING $23,750 OF YMCA LEASE PAYMENTS INTO THE FUND MOTION BY ALDERMAN DOWD TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE ON THE QUESTION Alderman Cookson For notification to the Board, I don’t believe that there is a conflict of interest but I am on the YMCA Board of Directors. I’ve received previous counsel from our legal department which indicates that I do not have a conflict of interest, but I just wanted to let the point be known. Alderman Deane I guess we have no choice in the matter on this piece of legislation because of the lease agreement with the YMCA. Chairman McCarthy Mayor Lozeau, is that true? Mayor Lozeau Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is true. This is a provision that was in the lease with the YMCA. This is moving that money into the account that we agreed to establish. Alderman Donchess How much are the lease payments for the Y? Mayor Lozeau For the first two years, they were $10,000. For years three and four, they are $15,000. For year five, it’s $20,000 and for year six and beyond it’s $25,000. Alderman Dowd I have a question on the improvements to Stellos Stadium. How does that relate to the Board of Education relative to the prior rezone and what gets repaired? Mayor Lozeau Back in 2009, and part of the Y’s lease, what we were looking at was just a footprint of that general area. It’s primarily about the parking lot, the entry point. I told them that I would not be in a position where I wouldn’t be willing to say, say the fund builds up over the next ten years and we need something within the stadium, this does not preclude us from being able to say to the school, we could help. We tried to Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 3 leave it a little bit flexible so whoever the legislative body is at that time, based on what they might be faced with. Alderman Cookson A question through to the Mayor. I’m just curious about the language in Paragraph I, the parenthetical at the end of that paragraph: Excluding the Conway Ice Arena structure until such time as the City of Nashua owns the structure. Could you just explain that parenthetical? Mayor Lozeau Quite some time ago, I guess when the city made the agreement with Conway, one of the provisions is that the city could apparently own it after a five-year period. I would argue, and I hope at some point if we’re having a conversation with Conway about a second sheet of ice, I think the city is better off not ever owning the ice arena. The city is better off doing a similar agreement as we have with the Y, which is they pay into a fund that maintains the property, and they operate according. But because that provision currently exists, legal put it in the document. Alderman Cookson I just find it curious. It’s in a parenthetical rather than – it just seems like in a side. Here we need to be concerned about this but. I didn’t know if there were any other forward looking statements. I know that we’ve talked about that area in general. I didn’t know if that was leading into part of the conversation, like you mentioned that second sheet of ice. Mayor Lozeau No, it has no intention to be looking at it the way I described. What it is saying is we’re not going to take the lease payments or payment in lieu of taxes or whatever we want to call them from the YMCA and then go use it to fix the Conway Ice Arena parking lot. That is what this is telling you. But when the city owns it, if we want to use it for it... Alderman Cookson If the city owns it. Mayor Lozeau When the city owns it. Under the current agreement, the city will own it in 30 years. I don’t know, perhaps the Chairman or Alderman Deane can tell you, how many years have ticked off since then. I don’t recall. I want to say it’s 2005 that it opened, or six. Alderman Deane Five, I think it was. Alderman Cookson Very good. Thank you so much. MOTION CARRIED Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 4 R-13-106 Endorsers: Mayor Donnalee Lozeau Alderman-at-Large Brian S. McCarthy Alderman Michael J. Tabacsko Alderman Richard A. Dowd Alderman June M. Caron Alderman Kathy Vitale Alderman Arthur T. Craffey, Jr. Alderman Diane Sheehan Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire RELATIVE TO THE ACCEPTANCE AND APPROPRIATION OF FUNDS FROM THE FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY (FEMA) INTO VARIOUS OPERATING BUDGETS, THE CAPITAL EQUIPMENT RESERVE FUND AND THE SNOW REMOVAL EXPENDABLE TRUST FUND  Also assigned to the Human Affairs Committee MOTION BY ALDERMAN MELIZZI-GOLJA TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE ON THE QUESTION Alderman Donchess I just wanted to ask the Mayor if I could get a copy of the grant application. Mayor Lozeau Certainly. I believe the Sandy one is complete. I’m not sure if that’s the one we’ve already provided. When the NEMO one is completed, I’d be happy to provide it. Alderman Deane Is it necessary to ask the federal government for this money? Mayor Lozeau Yes, Alderman Deane. I believe it is necessary to ask them because once the state has been declared an emergency, each of the communities then apply for a 75 percent reimbursement. There are times that we use money out of our general fund obligated and appropriated dollars for labor and overtime and other things that we have an anticipated using for other projects throughout the year. To be able to reimburse those lines and do our work the way we budgeted when you have these unanticipated storms at this level and at this cost, I think it makes sense. I agree with you, and I have in the past, about not necessarily applying for federal funds just because they are out there. But when an opportunity presents itself and it’s funds that are going to go to other communities and they are destined for this exact purpose, I think based on especially in New Hampshire, our small return on the money that we send to the federal government seems to me that it’s worthwhile to reimburse our accounts as I’ve laid out here. Alderman Deane The federal government doesn’t have any money. I look through this, the monthly financial report, and I didn’t see anything that really stuck out that was above and beyond. As of the 15 of March, the street department budget has $1 million left to operate with for the rest of the fiscal year which is April, May Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 5 and June. That’s 90 days to spend a million dollars. I looked at the fuel accounts. The gasoline account has $221,000. The diesel fund account has $214,000. The salt account has $104,000. The sand account has $10,264 in it. There’s a million dollars left in full time. You’re over in your overtime. You’re over in your seasonal operations and there’s a severance line that’s in here. Then there was the budget adjustment that was in there. What’s the breakdown of the $175,000? Where is it going? It seems like when you read through this, it replenishes labor and material. Then if there’s anything left after that it goes into a capital reserve account. If there’s anything after that, it can be put into the expendable snow account. Is the street department crippled because of this snow storm to perform its duties for the rest of the fiscal year? Mayor Lozeau Alderman Deane, the numbers that you are looking at are actually through February, I believe. They are put in the book with a March date. Alderman Deane March 15. Mayor Lozeau That’s closing the February books. Alderman Deane 28. You’re correct. Mayor Lozeau So that isn’t showing all the money that’s been spent since then. The $175,000, we get a 75 percent reimbursement. The policy that we’ve done since I’ve been here when these funds come in, we make the conscious decision to replenish the accounts where the funds came so they are budgeted accounts. Then whatever is left goes into the CERF account because one of the things that we are reimbursed for is wear and tear on the vehicles. It seemed most appropriate to put the money in our account for replacement of vehicles. I’m certain this board and others can debate the idea of asking the federal government for the money. I wouldn’t disagree with you that the federal government is not flush right now, but clearly FEMA has money that has been appropriated for this purpose. It’s available to us and we have applied for it. Alderman Deane How many years has the federal government been running at a deficit? Mayor Lozeau Alderman Deane, I can’t answer that question, but as the co-chairman of the Fix the Debt Committee, I can tell you that there’s an awful lot of things that need to be discussed. One could argue that this might be part of it, but I am not concerned about looking for this reimbursement of funds. It’s the purpose it was put in place for. Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 6 Alderman Deane Everything that’s appropriated through the federal government, there may be some sort of purpose but this is not a shining example of how to try to control the debt. If we were the coastline of New Jersey when this happened, I could see the federal government perhaps helping those people out, which they did. But we’re looking at reimbursing some labor lines that we funded for along with everything else that’s still, I would imagine, has a balance left in it. What does this do to the Spending Cap? Mayor Lozeau At the bottom of that resolution, Alderman Deane, you will see the number of $90,536. After the reimbursement of all these funds, we’re still below the Spending Cap by that amount. As you may recall this year’s budget, I brought it at just over $480,000 below the Cap. Alderman Deane It requires a 2/3 vote of the Board of Aldermen. Mayor Lozeau This does not. Alderman Deane Charter Section 53 permits specific non-budgeted supplementary appropriations. No public hearing is required under 56-a. A two-thirds vote is required under 56-b for an item or amount not in the mayor’s budget. This is an item or an amount that was not in the mayor’s budget, right? Chairman McCarthy It increases to existing line items. Alderman Donchess Alderman Deane asked the question: how long has the federal government been in deficit. The answer is since 2000 when President Clinton was in office. That’s the answer to that, for those of us who remember him fondly, I guess. Chairman McCarthy While I think the federal government ought to get its house in order, us not asking for funds isn’t going to achieve that. We did the same exercise with the city in New York. New York spends more money in the first week of January than New Hampshire spends in the year. I’m sure in a budget that size, they can do the same exercise and find it, but that’s not the way we do things. The federal government appropriates money to level the playing field when there are disasters. They are going to give money to New York; they are going to give money to New Orleans; they are going to give money to the places in the Midwest that are hit by tornadoes; and, they are going to bill me for it in the end. I think we may as well get our part of it as well. Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 7 Alderman Deane That’s the problem this country has. Chairman McCarthy It is, and if I thought a vote of this Board could fix it, I’d take one. Alderman Deane Well, how about leading by example? Chairman McCarthy That doesn’t help. Alderman Deane It doesn’t help? Chairman McCarthy It doesn’t help a thing. Alderman Deane That’s the problem. The debt will never be … Chairman McCarthy They don’t even watch these meetings in New York. Alderman Cookson We’ve got the expenses incurred as a result of Hurricane Sandy. That’s already been determined. When do we expect a determination for the winter storm, Nemo? Mayor Lozeau Our expectation is once we get the application in, it usually runs anywhere from 30 to 90 days. Alderman Cookson When will the application be submitted? Mayor Lozeau We’re working on it right now. Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 8 Alderman Cookson Is that Mr. Kates that’s working on that? Mayor Lozeau It’s Director Kates, it’s the treasurer, it’s the CFO, it’s the public works director. Everybody is providing their information to Director Kates. He and Treasurer Fredette will polish it off. They’ve really done a great job in the past getting this done. There’s a significant amount of work to put it together. Alderman Cookson Certainly. But you don't expect it to exceed $175,000? Mayor Lozeau We do not. Alderman Cookson How did you come up with that determination? Mayor Lozeau The storm cost us approximately $250,000. There’s a window of allowable costs, 48 hours. A straight 48 hour cost. When you go through that exercise, $175,000 is the most we could get help for. Alderman Cookson And that would be the 75 percent rate of the $250,000 that was expended? Mayor Lozeau Correct. Alderman Cookson The process has already begun. You’re already working on this. Mayor Lozeau It’s close to complete. I would imagine in the next week to ten days. Alderman Cookson Okay, so by us moving forward with this, it just accepts the funds, whatever fund we would receive from Winter Storm Nemo? Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 9 Mayor Lozeau Yes, and it allows them to reimburse the lines where the funds were spent, and the remaining funds to go into the CERF account. MOTION CARRIED TABLED IN COMMITTEE 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 DEANE TO TAKE FROM THE TABLE R-12-83, R-12-84, AND R-12-85 FROM THE TABLE MOTION CARRIED R-12-83 Endorser: Mayor Donnalee Lozeau Alderman Michael J. Tabacsko ESTABLISHING AN EXPENDABLE TRUST FUND FOR EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS  Tabled 12/13/12 MOTION BY ALDERMAN DOWD TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE ON THE QUESTION Alderman Deane What are we going to use this $50,000 for? Mayor Lozeau Thank you for removing them from the table, Alderman Deane, for discussion. This particular fund for emergency preparedness is something that Director Kates has asked for so he has an opportunity to have funds if necessary in an emergency. If there's not a line that's out there and available where funds can be drawn for an emergency. If you look at his budget, it's relatively sparse. In the past funds in that budget because there wasn't a Director, we're pretty close to what that budget is now but most of it was used for equipment and other things. Most of which we moved into the Fire Department and the Police Department based on the dive team and other training. This is an opportunity to have funds available in the event of an emergency. Alderman Deane Where is the $50,000 been sitting and how much of it has been expended to date? Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 10 Mayor Lozeau The money is sitting in the City account. No money has been expended to date. The money was escrowed back during the escrow process in August. All 3 of these resolutions are based on escrowed funds. Nothing has been done. Hopeful the trust fund will be set up and I'm hopeful we don't ever have to use it in this instance. Not in the other two but in this instance. Alderman Deane So what's the plan? What's his budget going to look like this year? Mayor Lozeau I would expect that his budget will look much the same as it did last year. He is finishing up the emergency preparedness plan and quite a few other things. As a matter of fact, I'm working on trying to get a time set up for the Director to come and talk about emergency management, some of the plans, the volunteer work that he's done. I've mentioned some of it before. There will be an opportunity probably to talk about this a little bit more at that time as well. This is just based on a request from him. He made a compelling argument to me for it. I thought I would bring it before the Board. Alderman Deane Where did the $50,000 come from? What accounts? Mayor Lozeau From surplus accounts - I think I indentified for this one. Most of it came from the welfare fund. I believe that this one and the one for waterways came primarily from welfare and then the one for the energy efficiency came all from utility savings. Alderman Deane What are the parameters going to be on what this money can be spent on? Mayor Lozeau When you look at emergency preparedness when you have a copy of the report that Director Kates is completing, it will demonstrate - I have read the report and I've learned more than I would ever think I'd learn in a lifetime about things that happened during emergency preparedness. It would have to be something that's a declarable emergency. It's not necessarily a snow storm event but it could be depending on what happens. Say for example the power is out and a tree falls on the generator that brings power to City Hall, or to the Police Department, or one of the Fire Department generators and we need to do an emergency for something like that, this might be used for that. A tornado comes through and it does something and we need to deploy somebody right away. It could be used for that. As I said, I think the Director would be much better spoken to speak of this. For a City of this size and based on many of the trust funds that we currently have in existence, a $50,000 trust fund for emergency seems to be not unreasonable. Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 11 Alderman Deane I'm just wondering what this is for. I mean if a tree falls on something, we have people that can take care of that and we have a Risk Management Department. If a tornado comes through here, we can always get money from FEMA right? Mayor Lozeau Not immediately Alderman Deane as you know. Alderman Deane I'd really like to understand what this money is needed for. This doesn't supplement appropriations that should be made in his operating budget does it? Mayor Lozeau No it does not Alderman Deane. Both the City Charter and many City Ordinances speak specifically to parameters around emergencies. I wouldn't see this as any different. Perhaps it would have been worthwhile for me to put together something with the Director that we could have provided to the Committee that would have laid out those parameters and I wouldn't disagree. Alderman Deane That would be helpful. Mayor Lozeau I would be happy to do some work around that but as I said, the emergency preparedness document that we're required to have and that he's been working on is probably a 250 page document. I think that's specifically what they're talking about. Public health also have emergency preparedness but there are no funds available outside of appropriated dollars. Maybe the tree wasn't a good example. I understand that we have a Risk Department right now. I'm just trying to come up with something to give you some example. As I said, the Director would be really the one that should be doing that. The case he made for me was quite some time ago. As you know, the escrow happened in August. Alderman Deane Mr. Chairman I'd like a better explanation on this whole thing. If Mr. Kates is willing to just provide us with that, I would be more than happy to look at it. In the meantime, I'm going to move to table it. MOTION BY ALDERMAN TO TABLE R-12-83 ON THE QUESTION Chairman McCarthy Before I accept that, I'm going to call on Alderman Donchess who has been waiting to speak. Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 12 Alderman Donchess Mr. Chair I had a question. Wouldn't there need to be if this were established, if it were funded, wouldn't there need to be a vote of the Board of Aldermen to spend the money? In other words, the Emergency Preparedness Director could not decide to spend this money on his own. Chairman McCarthy It depends on the scope of the expenses I suspect. Alderman Deane This one appoints the Mayor as the agent. Mayor Lozeau For all 3 of these, what I requested from Legal was for them to review the ordinances and whoever was the most appropriate agent to expend to please have that be what was put in the legislation. Currently under the Charter and the ordinance, emergency situations all give the authority to the administration to expend funds under those circumstances and that's why this one included the Mayor. The energy efficiency based on the same set of circumstances does the same and the waterways have the Board of Aldermen to expend because there is no precedent for that type of thing. Alderman Pressly I think you may have answered my question. Would the $10,000 cap apply to this if any expenditure were over $10,000 you would be it to the Finance Committee. So the check and balance with the Board of Aldermen would be based on the amount of the expenditure. Mayor Lozeau That would be correct Alderman Pressly. Alderman Dowd It would seem to be if this is for emergency preparedness and we had an emergency, I'm not sure you'd want to take the time to have to come and get a vote of Board of Aldermen. I'm sure the President when he deployed federal resources to Boston today because of the tragedy, he didn't wait for Congress to vote on it. I think under the nature of the exact reason we're putting the money aside, it should be able to be expended as quickly as possible to meet whatever emergency takes place. Alderman Deane We have provisions in our purchasing ordinances which allows the Mayor to do just that. She can set out - all she's got to do is drop a letter off to the City Clerk's office and if a street caves in or something, I agree with you. We can't leave an open hazard like that around the community. She can go out and get things mobilized, and get the repairs done, and she just brings it to the Finance Committee at its next regular meeting. The administration does have the authority to handle that even though this would fall with a general purchasing guidelines. If there was an emergency that required instant decisions to be made, that's not being quelled. The administration has that authority. Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 13 Mayor Lozeau I believe that is exactly why the agent to expend in this circumstance isn't there. I can understand holding onto this to get more information. I think fundamentally people understand it. I don't think it's an unreasonable about. I'll be happy to get something from the Director to provide to the Committee. I don't know that this couldn't move forward for that and be taken up at your Board of Aldermen meeting if you haven't got information that has resolved any questions about the parameters but I also don't have a problem with... Alderman Deane We can't debate a motion to hold. That's what you're doing. That's what it seems like to me. You're asking us not to do that. Correct me if I'm wrong Mr. Chairman. Chairman McCarthy We can't debate a motion to table. We can debate a motion to postpone. Alderman Deane My motion was to table which is non-debatable. I'm sorry. I stand corrected. Chairman McCarthy I have no objection to holding it and getting the Director to give us a little better explanation. I actually think the purpose of it - there's a lot of things that we may have to do during an emergency that we have money in the budget to do in an existing emergency authority covers it. There are things we do not have line items to cover however. For example, let's say we had a situation where we have to activate one of our shelters and we wind up providing a large number of meals that we have to contract from the outside. We may not have a place in the budget where that can come from. This would seem like the sort of place it would. The tree fall we can cover. If the tree falling requires renting a crane from somebody, we probably don't have that money in the budget. There probably are a list of things that would make sense to do this. It also makes sense to get them written down from the Director still. MOTION CARRIED R-12-84 Endorsers: Mayor Donnalee Lozeau Alderman Michael J. Tabacsko Alderman Diane Sheehan ESTABLISHING AN EXPENDABLE TRUST FUND FOR ENERGY EFFICIENCY  Tabled 12/13/12 MOTION BY ALDERMAN DOWD TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE ON THE QUESTION Alderman Deane What is the plans for this $100,000? Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 14 Mayor Lozeau Thank you Mr. Chairman. As I said Alderman Deane, the funds for this account came from our savings and utilities based on choices that we've made, equipment that we've changed, and things like that. The plan for these funds are to continue down that path. We have reports and recommendations as it relates to city facilities. For instance, Fire Department, Police Department. The Fire Department is very interested in changing out their lights at the Lake Street fire station. We want to look at LEDs and things like that for them. This would be an opportunity to be able to leverage funds in some instances and use funds in others for additional energy saving changes to city buildings, lights, fixtures, and things like that. Many communities actually have set up accounts like this and the way that they have used them is that there are communities that have not had the resources that we have to do some of the work that we've done. So they hire other companies to come in to do that work to front them the money and then they take the savings from those utilities and they use it to pay the loan back for the company that did the work. When I was made aware of some of that when we were looking at them to work and realized that we could actually do a much better job with a lower rate because of our ability here as a city with our financial structure as well as we've done things. As you know, we've gotten some great rates. It occurred to me that we could use it a little bit differently which was to try not to have to bond for some of these changes and to have some savings from those utilities in to perpetuate savings in a like way moving forward. That's why I've suggested this approach to some of those savings. Alderman Deane This $100,000 was left over from unexpended from utility accounts and this was that winter that was an anomaly right where it was warm? Not this past winter but the winter before, right? Mayor Lozeau Actually Alderman Deane the utilities really were not necessarily around heat. They were fuel for vehicles, it was lighting, electricity, and things like that. It wasn't just hey we had a light winter. Alderman Deane It was utilities. If it didn't snow, we weren't burning a lot of fuel. If it didn't get really cold out like it did in that winter, we weren't heating buildings. The heat ratio was down along with the electricity. The $100,000 came from just utilities like natural gas and electricity or did it include diesel fuel and gasoline? Mayor Lozeau Natural gas. Alderman Deane Natural gas and electricity. That's it. Okay. That was the winter where we had a very mild winter and we budgeted accordingly, which we should have done. Everybody who has large utility bills along with the due diligence that was done by Mr. Gabriel to lock in at some fabulous rates, KW rates, and his gas rates, we managed to save $100,000. It was probably more than $100,000 now that I think about it. Was it Mr. Griffin? Wasn't it more than 100? Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 15 John Griffin Yes. Alderman Deane So now you want to put this into an account and look around at energy saving values in different city buildings not just this one. It would be police and fire. What about schools? They're on their own? Mayor Lozeau Schools have set up a similar account for a similar purpose. Alderman Deane The gentleman that was working on the Hunt Building and he was overseeing these projects, is he still on the payroll? Mayor Lozeau No he's not. Alderman Deane Who's going to make the evaluation and then prioritize the project when they get brought in? They'll probably have to get brought in for some sort of review and approval by whomever to see what makes the most sense, see what's depreciated the most, see where we get the best savings for the dollar. How is that going to be done? Mayor Lozeau Most of these have already been identified in the review that was done prior. So we will follow some of those recommendations. So fire is pretty high on the list as is police for their buildings. The team that's been working on the buildings here as you know, we don't have a facilities department here for city buildings so the team that's been working is the CFO, Treasurer, Purchasing Manager, Building Manager, myself, and then whoever from - we've had Chief Gallipeau in for Fire and so we look and we make an analysis based on what the cost is, and then of course it has to come here if it's over $10,000 as already discussed. Alderman Deane Alderman McCarthy had brought a piece of legislation in to create a facilities department. I even co- sponsored it. I think that's been done a couple of times. Quite frankly, I think that makes a lot of sense. I think the one problem we might have is with the pensions because of the Public Works pension plan and things of that nature. That was the only real big problem I saw. I think we should have a facilities department. So this has all been reviewed, basically prioritized, and now the timeline of moving forward I guess would have to be after this is established and then they're going to move forward and start doing some of this energy efficiency? Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 16 Mayor Lozeau We would like to continue our energy efficiency efforts. Alderman Deane Have we looked in to the rebates? Is there any money left in those rebate accounts? The last time we looked in the School District, they were just about dried up. Mayor Lozeau What we have found Alderman Deane is where we've been able to get rebates; we've taken advantage of them. Right now there are some new programs within the LED lighting program where we think we might be able to get rebates. One of the things that we discovered here when we did the HVAC is some of the reviews that some of the utilities do to make the list of those things eligible for rebates have not kept up with some that are actually more efficient than some on their list and they've not been added to the list yet. That's impacted us as well. Whenever we can get a rebate, we will certainly apply for one. Alderman Deane So we'll look at the long list and see if we can acclimate the products that the City wants to purchase and install to the list that the utilities made available for a rebate on what they've approved for rebates. The thing with the rebates is you have to get out of the gate early. What was he saying Alderman McCarthy - what was Mr. Dubois saying at Joint Special - it's like by March they were done and out of money. It kind of bothers me because the thing with electricity especially with that size utility, if you look at what they did for the Front Door Agency, they went into that building on Manchester and Concord Street intersection and replaced everything in that building - refrigerators, lights. They went through that entire building. When you look at the options that are made available and the amount of people that are applying, the whole idea with the energy savings is they can't keep up with the demand of electricity in the State. It's a lot cheaper for them to give these rebates, or go in and take care of facilities to help reduce their load on their system than it is to go out and borrow tens of millions of dollars and increase the size of their facility and pay interest back on those loans, which in turn they'd be charging us for. Then to see them deplete that account by March, it bothers me anyways. You'd think they would lay that out there. You can get the dollar for the light bulbs and stuff but there's some big stuff that people put in. Like the Front Door Agency, they made out really well on their electricity bill went way down. They got all new appliances. It was good for them but they got out of the gate early and got somebody in there. They went through the whole place. You might want to think about doing that where you work Alderman Wilshire. They're there but you got to get on it early. Thank you. Alderman Donchess Well these have been on the table for the last 4 months or so. I don't have a copy with me. I do have this question. Can the $100,000 be expended without a further vote of the Board of Aldermen? Mayor Lozeau Alderman Donchess it requires us to still follow the ordinance that requires anything of $10,000 or greater to come before the Finance Committee. Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 17 Alderman Donchess Thank you. Alderman Cookson I just have a general question but I can relate it directly to this ordinance. I'm wondering about the funding levels as being appropriate. Once there is identified an opportunity to spend some of those funds, how are those reimbursed? So whether its emergency preparedness with $50,000 or it's the energy efficiency with $100,000, once you start spending down on that expendable trust fund what's your plan to reimburse or ways to reimburse and is the $100,000, or is that level an appropriate level to begin with? Mayor Lozeau I believe it's an appropriate level to begin with. If we had the opportunity, I might make it higher. I think that that's an appropriate level to start with. I would say that to me it's like many of the other trust funds. When I'm budgeting, I'll make a recommendation to this Board about whether or not I'm going to replenish it, or asking if we'd increase the level, and things like that. So that would be the plan to do that. I really think if we keep moving forward with success and the energy efficiency area, we're going to have a natural way to replenish that when you look at some of the cost associated with - think of the lights in a fire station for example. That's really a really great example - much better than my tree falling on the generator on the last one. Those lights are on 24/7. Some of those instances the ballasts that are in those lights, they don't even make them anymore. So they're really having some challenges. It makes sense for us to look at the new technology that's out there that's been out there since they opened the station to say okay can we do LED lighting, and what might that do, and what are the costs, the replacement value, and things like that. Let's just say for example that we spend $30,000 a year on a fire house on electricity. We use some of these energy saving dollars to buy lights and then next year there are energy costs to say half, $15,000. I may very well come in and say we saved $15,000 and in this year's budget we can afford to add that to the trust fund because we spend X in buying the new lights. Now we want to do the next fire house or whatever that might be. I really look forward to this being a conversation that we're all aware of. I think all of us as policy makers should be talking about some of these opportunities. Often times grants become available from utilities as well as other groups that are targeted towards people making some different choices. If we need match money, or we want to leverage money, or show what we've done, this is a great opportunity for that as well. Alderman Cookson So you said we'd be working off of a plan that's already been created and particular about the energy efficiency. So we already know how this first $100,000 is going to be spent down? Mayor Lozeau Alderman Cookson I have not looked at it in that context. I've not said here's everything that's been recommended. It equals X and here's how we'll start. I really just have not had the time to do that. We looked at the cost. We know some of the quick early hits where we can make an immediate difference, so I have not had the time to expend to lay out a plan. Should this fund be created, we'll have to work towards that goal. Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 18 Alderman Cookson Thank you. Mayor Lozeau You're welcome. I would say, if I could Mr. Chairman, that the first priority is fire and police. Alderman Dowd For years the School Department has had this type of an account and saved an inordinate amount of money - hundreds of thousands of dollars on energy and it served the School Department very well. Alderman Cookson How does the School Department replenish their funding for that particular account? Alderman Dowd Through the budget cycle, through savings. Alderman Cookson Through both savings and appropriations? Alderman Dowd Right. Alderman Cookson Andy do you regularly increase that amount or do you have it capped at a certain number? Alderman Dowd We had an individual that used to spend his entire time doing that and now he's retired. Mayor Lozeau I don't know if he was a light Nazi or the... Alderman Dowd We used to call him "the prince of darkness". Mayor Lozeau That's much nicer that the light Nazi. Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 19 Alderman Dowd We basically covered the cost for him to go through the program but the savings were far greater. Chairman McCarthy I think in a lot of those funds it's appropriate to just have it done on an annual basis. Look at what funds are available and whether the fund needs to be replenishment, and do we have surpluses, we put them into funds and when we don't, we don't. Alderman Cookson I guess the reason why I'm asking, and it's a general question about all 3 of them, is that they all stay in the expendable trust fund and none of them lapse. I know that there are in some cases we do have expendable trust funds with caps and they can't exceed this amount. So that's the question about appropriateness of funding level comes in, how much do you see them increasing over time. That's the question that I was trying to get at. Should there be a cap associated with these and that's where my line of thinking was. Chairman McCarthy I guess from a pragmatic standpoint, the number of votes it takes in this chamber to change the cap on the reserve account is probably exactly the same number it takes to appropriate money into it. The cap is essentially a creature of our creation that while it may record some policy, it doesn't actually enforce anything in the future. Alderman Cookson I appreciate that explanation. I believe in some instances a cap might be appropriate where we're not just putting money into an account and not letting it lapse. I think it goes into some planning and some forward thinking and really understanding what the expectation is moving forward. I think that it can be done. Can it be done with $100,000? Does it take $200,000? I don't know because the planning hasn't necessarily been completed yet but that's the thought process that I'd like to see happen prior to us determining whether $100,000 is appropriate and whether the expendable trust funds shouldn't lapse back into the general fund at a particular level. Mayor Lozeau I have given some thought to that because I have along you and others on this Board supported and brought in legislation for changing some of the caps, or putting a cap in place. I don't disagree that a cap is likely appropriate for some of these. For this one in particular, I'd like to see us get started on the work Alderman Cookson. It's just there is not enough hours right now with all the things doing on to have been ready to complete the planning to the degree I would like. I can tell you that right now the lights in the fire station have to be replaced. So they're either going to look at using another source but I'd like to get started and I'd like to see some experience on what we're expecting and moving forward and planning as we go. I think we can get that work done. I just don't think that I can get it done anytime soon. It's budget season. There's a lot of other things that the same staff is caught up on. I wouldn't disagree or even object at some point to coming in and saying maybe this is a $250,000 fund, or maybe its $100,000 and we revisit it every year. I wouldn't disagree. Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 20 The most challenging one of the 3 is really the waterways one. That's a very small number. I know that we're going to need way more than that. I wanted to just start somewhere and get into that. This one - we've met over the last 3 years between the Jordan Institute, Mr. Pietrinaro, the company that the State provided for municipalities for energy needs, Cannon, VFA, all of these other organizations that have come through working with us on this have all agreed that this is not an unreasonable start to this. I don't disagree that we should make that analysis a no. Chairman McCarthy There's somewhat of a difference at least between the funds I can think of where we have some mention of the cap like the welfare trust fund, snow plow fund in that those are expenses that we have half in the budget and we use the trust fund to flatten out the budget between years. When we have a year where there's lower welfare expenses, there's a natural source to put money back into the trust fund. So some guidance on how much you want to keep in the trust fund is there. In these cases so far, I haven't seen any of these where there is an analogous budget item that's going to be used to replenish it. So the replenishment will be specific acts that this Board has to do. I think as we get experience with them, we may want to figure out what the level and figure out how to do that the same way. I think establishing this one for example with $100,000 in it, that seems like a number that's maybe low but it's in the ballpark and we're going to have to revisit it every time we replenish money into that account anyway. It seems to me like this is a good way to get experience with what is the right level to have in there. If we wind up not spending the money, it's always still there. Alderman Deane I think what you want to do Mr. Chairman is spend the money to start realizing the savings. That's the whole...now replacing the lights at the Lake Street Fire House should not be a big project. I don't think there needs to be any ad hoc committees to spec a light. You put it out to bid, people bid on it, it should be real simple to do. This prince of darkness fellow that you mentioned, darkness has its advantages and disadvantages like shutting off things you shouldn't be shutting off. Shutting off circulator pumps and wondering why pipes freeze and burst over the weekend. There's things that were done that cause big problems. I mean those ventilation units - it's like anything else. If you don't understand what the system does, you shouldn't be touching the power. It should be left alone. Unfortunately there was some hard lessons learned. Thank you. Chairman McCarthy We should never use "hey what does this button do". Alderman Deane And that happened. MOTION CARRIED Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 21 R-12-85 Endorser: Mayor Donnalee Lozeau Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly Alderman Arthur T. Craffey, Jr. Alderman Kathy Vitale Alderman Diane Sheehan Alderman Michael J. Tabacsko Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire ESTABLISHING AN EXPENDABLE TRUST FUND FOR THE CITY’S WATERWAYS AND WATER BODIES  Tabled 12/13/12 MOTION BY ALDERMAN DOWD TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE OF R-12-85 ON THE QUESTION Alderman Pressly This is the reason I came to the meeting tonight. As some of you might remember, I brought it up at every public meeting that I have an opportunity to. For three and a half years I’ve been asking about this so I will continue to. Once of the reasons I’m doing this is that I can see from my window at Clocktower a big chunk of granite that is part of the embankment. It is part of the bank that holds the whole area together. There are more coming loose. I guess I’m the only one that thinks this is sort of an emergency. I’ve signed on. I endorse this. I think we have to do it, and as the Mayor said, it’s going to take much more money than this. My problem is as I understand it, as I have asked over these years, what about this, I’ve been told we’re working on it. The other evening at the Personnel Committee when they were considering a new person for the Conservation Commission, I did bring this up. I know the mayor was very quick to jump in and said: “Oh, we’re doing something else regarding this.” I support this. Of course I do. I support much more, but I don’t want this money to go to just water chestnuts. I think we’ve got to do something with the embankment, not just at Clocktower. We’ve got Cotton Mill coming in, the library is at risk. We have what looks like trees. They maybe weeds that just became trees that grow out of the granite embankment. It’s putting just like the pressure on the Main Street and the bricks. The pressure on these embankments is severe. We’ve got a problem because the Feds have some very strict rules about what you can do. Nobody seems to understand who’s in charge of doing it. The mayor has repeatedly referenced groups that are going to get together. There’s going to be a lot of environmental groups. It needs to be a regional issue because our rivers don’t stop at our boundaries. They go other places beyond Nashua. I support this, but I would much prefer that we have this group put together. Part of this talks about to develop a plan. I would much prefer to have the plan developed before we start this, but I would certainly go along with this. But I’m pretty frustrated. More and more of these big granite chunks are going got be falling into the river unless we get this plan in place involving the talents. We have so many talented groups that this is their pet project. I know the mayor has referenced them by name in the past. I don’t know where that stands. If you have any news tonight as to who is going to be on this group, what their structure is going to be, I would really appreciate hearing about it. Mayor Lozeau Alderman Pressly, as you recall one of the examples that I did use when talking about the problems in the water were the trees growing out of the retaining wall along the library. Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 22 Alderman Pressly For three years. Mayor Lozeau There’s only so many hours in the day, Alderman Pressly. I mean really, and we have limited resources. Groups that I’ve talked to about doing this that are willing to do the work are looking for the dollars to be able to back it up. Developing this plan can’t be done with just volunteers. They should know that there’s some funds available if they want an engineer to come in and talk to them of if they want somebody that the Nashua River Watershed Council has worked with before to solve a problem. There needs to be funds available to them to know that they’ve got that professional support in developing this plan. That’s the point of this being kind of a starting point with that. It’s not my intention to use any of this money for water chestnuts. The water chestnuts this year, as a matter of fact, the Mine Falls Advisory group has agreed to use funds out of their trust account for the water chestnuts this year which is really very helpful. We’ve got to look at the stagnation in the canals. We’ve got to look at pollution under the Main Street Bridge. We’ve got to look at these retaining walls. We have a levy that we’re responsible for that’s going to home to roost along the Merrimack. As we have agreed, this $50,000 is barely going to scratch the surface of what needs to be done, but it ought to be enough to put together a plan that prioritizes things and probably gets some work done sooner rather than later on some on the things that we can do relatively quickly. As the crest gate work is being done on the Jackson Falls dam, from my perspective, it’s a really good time to be looking at some of those things that are in that general area, that stretch of river, which would include some of the trees that we’re talking about and some of the granite along the retaining wall. I suspect that that would happen. I have members of the Conservation Commission that are interested in this, the Nashua River Watershed Group that is interested, some of the members of Mine Falls that are interested. It is my plan to try to put together a group to look at this. When I came in, much like you frustrated about, okay so who’s responsible for this? There’s not a city department that it comes under. There’s not a city appointed board that it comes under. You look at conservation for things that it means in the wetlands, but not all those other items that we’ve talked about. I don’t know where it’s home is going to be in the end but I’m looking towards some of the folks that I’ve mentioned to help us develop a structure and make recommendations. Alderman Pressly I appreciate that. I almost seems like it’s a chicken and egg. You don’t have the money to create the team and you don’t have the team to decide what you’re going to do. It’s a dilemma. Would it be helpful if we sponsored legislation and created this team and identified expertise from different areas and gave them some authority to do something because I don’t think it’s fair to have you do it all and I don’t think it’s fair, we don’t have employees. Our employees are pretty busy. Would that be helpful to create something that would make this happen? Maybe we could look at other communities to find out what they do because it affects many of us. Mayor Lozeau I don’t think right now, Alderman Pressly, that it’s necessary to bring in legislation for this. I think what this accomplishes tonight is the chicken and the egg together. If we approve this, the funds are going to be there. At the same time, the folks that have agreed to play a role here can get started because now they see that there’s funds available to back up any work that they want to do. I look at somebody like Kath Nelson, in particular, having served on Conservation for many years, she’s familiar with how the city operates and the way things happen through the different city departments as well as boards. As somebody that sits on the Nashua River Watershed Group, I think that she brings an expertise to help Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 23 us say here’s the best structure. Do I think at some point they are going to make a recommendation that a board be created or that additional responsibilities get added to Conservation or something? I would anticipate that that will probably come along. I’d like them to be able to do some work making that happen first. As I’ve said, I have identified at least six members that are willing to start doing the work on this. I’ve talked to them. Alderman Pressly Can you share? Mayor Lozeau There’s Kath Nelson; there’s Greg Andruskevich; I’ve got the list in my office. There’s somebody from the Conservation Commission right now. Mr. Andruskevich is on Mine Falls. There’s somebody else from the River Watershed Group that has said that they are willing to be involved. There’s a rowing club along the Merrimack. They are willing to be involved. There’s a pretty collective group. Somebody from the company that manages the dam at Mine Falls that would be willing. I think that we’ll have a pretty reasonable group. They might not be the permanent group, but a group that will at least put together an outline of a recommended structure and some immediate priorities and which way to move forward. At some point I’d be happy to share those recommendations and legislation may very well be necessary, but I would hate to assume a way to do that before somebody has actually taken a close look at it. Alderman Pressly I hope you know that I’ve agreed to do that. It’s been three years. I’ve waited patiently. What I’m wondering is when this group starts to meet will it be something that the public could sit in on or people who have an interest could be there. Is it going to be a formal group or sort of a backroom group? When you start to meet can you notify those of us who are interested so we could sit in on it and see how it is going? Mayor Lozeau I try never to have a backroom group, Alderman Pressly. I’m happy to notify people and let people know when the group is meeting. I’m sure they would welcome any input. Alderman Pressly I just would ask that I be one that you notify. Mayor Lozeau I understand. Chairman McCarthy In the case of some of the concerns we have around the banks, for example, the granite blocks behind Clocktower, are they on property that we own or are they on property that is owned by Clocktower? Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 24 Alderman Pressly I’ve looked into that and nobody knows. That was really the funny situation. I went to the manager at Clocktower. She thought it belonged to the City. I went to the City; they thought it belonged to Clocktower. There was a question, did we have authority into the middle of the river. That is part of the problem. There’s such blurred understanding as to who’s in charge of this. That is why we have a big problem, particularly with the erosion. The owners thought somebody else had to do it. Or if they were to go out and prune their trees along the embankment that were supporting the bank, they could go to jails. That the Feds would come down. That’s part of the problem. I would also recommend that you go to some of the state and county groups. Jonathan Newt at the County Extension will go anyplace and help. He’s an arborist. He could go along with the team and probably identify all these. I don’t know if they are trees. They are green things that have become trees that stick out of the granite block. He could go along and probably identify all of that. But there’s lots of free state support and federal support to help us to this. So many communities have made their riverbanks and their view from their towns just the highlight of their community, and we could do that too. But I feel we really have to move ahead on this. Mayor Lozeau DES and EPA have been talking with us. I don’t disagree with you, but based on some of the things that had to be done in the last three years, there just wasn’t enough time to do everything at the same time. I agree it has to move forward. That’s why it’s here tonight. I think we’ll have some great success if we can get it started. Alderman Pressly This has been on the table awhile too, I believe. I don’t know how long. Mayor Lozeau They’ve all been on the table for about four months, Alderman Pressly. They came in as part of a cycle and then I was away. Timing just was what it was. We’re here now. It’s good timing for something like this, and we’ll get started. Alderman Dowd About a week ago I had the opportunity to be having dinner at Marguerite’s, looking out the window and thinking how really nice the river could be. It looks like a dump. There were trees knocked down. There’s a trail that could be so pretty if somebody just took care of it. Chairman McCarthy I have to relate a story of dinner I had at Marguerite’s once. There’s a little kind of an eddy that forms over on the side of that where stuff just floats around. I got to sit up on the second floor looking out the window at this bloated dead seagull going around in circles with one wing up in the air for about an hour and a half. Alderman Pressly What did you have for dinner? Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 25 Chairman McCarthy I didn’t have the chicken. Alderman Pressly Poultry? Alderman Deane I don’t care for Mexican cuisine but I would just say to my distraught colleagues, have another marguerite and eventually it will look better. Alderman Donchess When you asked about who owns some portion of the bank, I missed what exactly you were asking about. Chairman McCarthy Things like when we discuss the maintenance of the granite blocks, for example. If they are not on property that is owned by the city or that we don’t have a lien of some sort, I don’t think we have the authority to go in and do anything with them. I’m not sure we have the authority to spend money to have something done on private property out of public funds. I think there’s an issue there that we have to sort out. One, who owns the riverbank, and I’m not sure that’s even a consistent answer everywhere. In the case of Clocktower, I suspect we did get easements along the banks, but I don’t know what rights that gives us. In the case of over on the other side, I know that we have easements but there are places where we don’t. I don’t know behind the Jackson Falls Condos where there’s a similar set of granite walls, which are beginning to show signs of vegetative intrusion, I’m not sure we have the authority to fix that. I think that’s one of the things we’ve got to sort out. We may want to work with those property owners to get the right kind of easements so that the city has the right to maintain that and also the city has the benefit of the improvements that it does on those banks. Alderman Donchess This comparison may not apply, but Portsmouth some years ago, there was a dispute because over the years the riverbank, the deed said to the bank, but the deeds are like 100 of years old. Over the years the bank had expanded because there was dumping. It’s along the river next to – the names of the streets I’ve forgotten at the moment, but where all the bars and stuff are. The riverbank was considerably further out than when the deeds had been written. The question was: who owns that thing. I think the city took the position that they own it or at least can regulate it. The property owner said well we own it because our deed said to the bank. There can be ambiguity as to who owns what. Alderman Pressly That is exactly what. There is so much misunderstanding. I believe, Mr. President, you are accurate that every area might have different rules of ownership. I think what this team has to do is to number one, find out what the rules are. Find out what the choices are. If it is the homeowners or the owner’s responsibility, tell them what they are able to do. I think at least Clocktower, and I really shouldn’t quote them, but I think they think they cannot cut down any of those trees or even prune them. They trees are, in fact, doing the damage. I think there’s a great deal of work that has to be done with this group. I think Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 26 every day, every week; it gets a little bit worse. I would be happy to sit in. I hope some of you also will join in because it really is pretty ugly. The area behind the library, you look at their dumps. I think it’s time we take a real hard look and make our rivers and what you see from the bridge and from all the other spots in town that you make them a spot of beauty. I signed on to sponsor this. I’m happy to do it, and I hope we will. I know I’m certainly willing to put in any personal time it takes to help to get the answers to some of these questions. I’ll drive places or go to other communities and find out what they do. Do whatever we can do to get something done to make things better along the rivers. Chairman McCarthy I couldn’t agree with you more that we need to make things better. When I was first on this board, if anybody remembers, the lot on Water Street had a six-foot chain linked fence on it that was covered with vines and was falling over. You couldn’t even tell the river was basically there. I’m happy to report that I took that fence down with my own hands about 15 years ago as part of the first River Festival because I thought it was atrocious that we had a place that was close to the river where you didn’t know there was a river. We’ve done a lot of work on getting first access to the river throughout the community, and second, making that access more attractive. I think we still have a lot of work to do and there’s a lot of maintenance to do. I think this is a good first step to get there. We just need to start making some progress on what is it that needs to get fixed. There’s certainly are approvals one needs to get to cut down trees that are within the flood plain or within the wetlands buffer which the stuff on the banks certainly is. We need to understand what those approvals processes are. I think the good news is most of them are local so when we have a plan, it’s likely we can get it to execute correctly. But we need to get started on thinking about how to do that. Mayor Lozeau I would just say that the timing is great right now. As I said, we’re doing work on the Jackson Falls dam. We’re looking at, of course, the River Bridge that’s going to go for the Broad Street Parkway. We’ve been talking about additional boat launch areas, things like that. I think you’re right. We need to open the river up even more. The fence I want to see taken down is the one along Ledge Street down the canal that’s exactly the same thing. Chain-linked, vine covered. Chairman McCarthy When would you like to see it down? Mayor Lozeau Now that I know that your hands are capable. Chairman McCarthy I’m busy this weekend, but I can get to it next. Alderman Pressly It’s on the record. Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 27 Mayor Lozeau Well we do have to put a little something up there, but what that is and what that might look like and what we do with the sidewalk, we just have so many marvelous opportunities here. We have come a long way. As you know, I live along the river. There was a period of time in the early eighties when you couldn’t tell if you were smelling the landfill or the river. Now it’s not so bad from either one. Chairman McCarthy See, you still can’t tell. Mayor Lozeau No, but there’s really no odors anymore the way that there used to be. We’ve made progress. There’s so much more that we can do, but it’s nice to hear that everybody around the table is agreeing that we have an opportunity here. The city does have two rivers that touch the city in ways, and there’s a lot of work to be done. I’m concerned about the levy. I think that’s going to be a pretty big challenge. The levy that runs along the Merrimack because that’s just a bigger problem with a bigger river. Alderman Pressly With the renaissance area? Mayor Lozeau Right, but that’s a levy that we own. The Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for oversight of that. There is a lot of expectations that they have. It would be work that we’d be doing whether Renaissance was doing anything or not. So, I think that there’s a lot of challenges. To get our arms around it as soon as possible is a good thing to do. Alderman Pressly You mentioned the Army Corps of Engineers, another wonderful agency that will give advice. They don’t charge. They will come out and look at things and help you out. Mayor Lozeau Sometimes it’s not that kind of help we’d like. I’m just saying Alderman Pressly Well no, but they will advise on other things. There are other resources out there. Mayor Lozeau They’ll advise for free and their advise if very costly, but I don’t disagree that they have resources, Alderman Pressly, all kidding aside. Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 28 Alderman Deane Is there some sort of deficiency report on the levy for the Merrimack? What are we talking about for problems down there? Mayor Lozeau I don’t believe that we have a deficiency report on it, but there are things that the Army Corps has brought to our attention when Mr. Kenison was the Director of Public Works. He was working with them as was the city engineer about their expectations around the levy and us having to plan to accommodate some of those requirements. I would not presume to make another mistake as I did earlier about a tree dropping on a generator so I’m not going to talk off the top of my head about it, but there’s going to be some work that needs to be done. I don’t know exactly how much it is and how soon it has to be done, but it’s on our radar screen of something that we’ve got to pay attention to and something along the river like that is significantly different than a retaining wall along the riverbank., Alderman Deane When are you going to let us know what it is? Mayor Lozeau I’m not keeping it from you, Alderman Deane. Alderman Deane I don’t want to see my sewer bill go up again because the levy has fallen down and you knew about it awhile ago or whatever the case may be. I think we should know about this. It shouldn’t be sprung on us is what I’m trying to get at. Mayor Lozeau Alderman Deane, I’ve talked about this levy for at least three years now. Every time I’ve talked about the waterways, I’ve talked about the levy. I’ve talked about it at Board of Public Works meetings. This is all public information. I’m not holding out. I’m not hiding anything, and I’m not springing anything. Alderman Deane Beautiful. Then you can supply us with the list of deficiencies then, right? Mayor Lozeau Let me just back up and repeat it, Alderman Deane, in case I wasn’t clear. Alderman Deane You’re clear. You’re very clear, Mayor. Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 29 Mayor Lozeau I’m not aware of a deficiency report. The items that they have brought to our attention, I’m happy to share with anybody. I intend to share it with this waterways group. It’s something that we’re looking at, and we’ll continue to look at it. Hopefully we’ll continue to work with the Army Corps and have a plan. Alderman Deane Thank you very much. I look forward to seeing the plan and the report on the deficiencies just so we know what we’re up against. Mayor Lozeau Well I’m apparently still not clear, Alderman Deane. There is not a report on deficiencies that I am aware of. Alderman Deane Well you said of the last three years, you constantly talk about the issues with the levy. So what are the issues? Mayor Lozeau There’s a difference between what you’re characterizing as a deficiency report. I’m just not aware that there is such a document, such a report. What I am aware of is that they have talked about things with the levy that the Army Corps is concerned about. There have been discussions with staff for quite some time. I don’t know that they’re called deficiencies or if they are just items that need some attention. Alderman Deane The levy is inspected every year. Chairman McCarthy My recollection from the little I’ve heard about this in the discussions of the development down there is that over the past few years the Army Corps may have significant new experience with levies and may have some recommendations for how to maintain them that they didn’t previously have. As I understand it, there’s no regulatory issue with it. There are things that the Corps now says it would be a good idea if you did. I don’t think we’ve seen all of those, and I don’t think we anticipated all of them. I don’t think any of them represent a place where the levy is deficient to the letter of the current regulation. Alderman Deane Thank you. MOTION CARRIED Budget Review – 04/15/13 Page 30 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; Indefinite Postponement Rec. 12/17/12  Tabled – 11/28/12 GENERAL DISCUSSION Alderman Pressly I would just like to comment. I’m sure you all join me in a day of sadness today with what has happened in Boston. I know I feel very sad about it. I guess we have to wait and see exactly what happened, but this is the first opportunity that I or anybody has had a chance to publicly express the tragedy that’s just taken place today at the Boston Marathon. Thank you. PUBLIC COMMENT REMARKS BY THE ALDERMEN POSSIBLE NON-PUBLIC SESSION ADJOURNMENT MOTION BY ALDERMAN DONCHESS TO ADJOURN MOTION CARRIED The meeting was declared closed at 8:26 p.m. Alderman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja Committee Clerk