Budget Review Committee

BUDGET REVIEW COMMITTEE JUNE 15, 2015 A meeting of the Budget Review Committee was held Monday, June 15, 2015, at 7:00 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chamber. Alderman-at-Large David W. Deane, Chair, presided. Members of Committee present: Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire, Vice Chair Alderman Richard A. Dowd Alderman Ken Siegel Alderman David Schoneman Alderman Michael Soucy Alderwoman Pamela T. Brown Also in Attendance: Alderman-at-Large Brian S. McCarthy Alderman-at-Large Jim Donchess PUBLIC COMMENT Ms. Marylou Blaisdell, 32 Webster Street I am also here as a member of the Downtown Improvement Committee as well as a Nashua business owner. I am here to speak on O-15-057 which wants to amend the intended use of the amount of parking revenue for which has traditionally in the past few years has come back to downtown which would be reallocated for the Police Department for salary and wages. First of all, I would like to commend the Police Department because we have had a foot patrol for the last year downtown which has been great. They are patrolmen who have gotten to know every single business owner, they help us, they ask us what our issues are and we have as a unit downtown really begun to work well with them and they have made a positive presence in our downtown. They have made it a community and we know that if we call them they will come and talk with us. That being said, I do not think it’s fair that the monies that we have allocated in a prior ordinance to downtown be taken away and be given to the Police Department. In 2010 we presented to the Board of Aldermen this plan from a prior committee which then evolved into the Downtown Improvement Committee and in this plan we outlined to the Board of Aldermen what our intent was for the use of the monies in excess of $728,000 out of line item 166. We have been following this outline and we have accomplished many items in this plan and we have many left to accomplish. We are very diligent in how that money is spent; we work with our constituent’s downtown and with our community as a whole. We are making strides with implementing this program and if this money is taken away from us there are many things that will be left undone that need to be done. These monies are collected downtown from our customers who come downtown to eat, dine and shop. We want to use these monies to improve West Pearl Street and this year we are going to put a sign package together. This $100,000 roughly that we do have every year has a huge impact to downtown, it helps us with a lot of improvements and I would encourage you to think long and hard about taking this money away from us because it is extremely important to us. Mr. Richard Lannan, The Lannan Company I own a couple of buildings downtown that have retail, restaurants, residential and so forth. I can’t speak for all of them but I spoke with the retailers and the majority of the people in this room tonight are either members of the Downtown Improvement Committee, as I am or business owners in the downtown. There was a lot of planning in this, it just wasn’t a five or six member committee that threw this together and said this is what we should spend money on. I was on both committees, the previous committee that kind of formulated a lot of what that plan that Marylou mentioned and it wasn’t a few people, it was a lot of business owners and property owners as well as a lot of residents who came to public hearings. There was a lot of thought and hundreds of hours. There were a few Aldermen at some past meetings to put this plan together that makes Budget Review – 6/15/15 Page 2 sense for downtown and as you all know parking hours change and parking meter rates went up and I don’t think it would be fair to the business owners and quite frankly to the taxpayers; they are spending more money at those meters and they expect something in return and we kind of promised them I guess, so to speak and showed them a plan of what we were going to do in return. Obviously the Sidewalk Program and other things like flowers and banners. These things makes downtown look vibrant and attractive; those are important and vibrant things. The Police Department is very important but I don’t think that this is where that money should be coming from, this is money that people expect to have provided in order for downtown to continue to improve and thrive and we’d like to have your support. Mr. Ben Clemmons, 188 Ash Street I would like to testify tonight on the same ordinance and sort of take you through a little history as to how it came about. When I was on the Board of Aldermen that ordinance was something that I sponsored and came up with the former committee that Mr. Lannan was talking about and one of the ideas behind it was to originally have a taxed district that would tax an additional tax onto property there and the problem with that was that it would be burdensome to the property owners. To come up with another way to raise money the idea of raising the parking meters came about and at the time, the Board of Aldermen raised the parking meter rates on Main Street and reduced them the further back from Main Street that you go to three different zones. At the time it was a very controversial thing to do. There was a petition that went around at the time that was against the Board of Aldermen raising the parking meters and the main reason was that the parking revenue that went into the accounts could then be allocated somewhere else in the budget. People wanted some guarantee that the extra money they fed into the meter would stay downtown. The plan was to come up with an ordinance that basically stipulated that the extra revenue above and beyond the $728,000 that the City annual collected from parking meter revenue that anything above that would be allocated downtown and that a committee would be established to recommend to the Board of Aldermen where that money should go and the committee would be represented by business owners, residents, residents of downtown and business owners. I have a couple of anecdotal things that I’d like to share. There was an article in the Telegraph from June 18, 2011, and the name of the article was “Show us the Money.” I think the quintessential quote from that article was from Ken Mummer of Bourque Jewelers and he said “the Aldermen recognized the problem and they recognized the solution and this demonstrates that they are working on it.” He was talking about the very ordinance that is on the table tonight to be changed. It went on to say that originally it would be unfair because there was no guarantee that money would stay downtown. Later on that month the Telegraph endorsed that proposal and the community got behind it in 2011. It was passed by the Board of Aldermen and implemented. I lost the re-election that year but the Mayor appointed me to that committee and I’ve been on it ever since and we’ve done some great things downtown. We put in the (inaudible) display with that money, we’ve done a lot of the banners that you see, some of the green space work and there’s a lot of other things that have been done as well, things that more importantly need to be done in the future. I have always been a big proponent of doing more of the marketing aspect or the business development aspect if you will of that plan as opposed to your flowers and banners. Both are important but I think that the committee got the message from the last time that was presented here which was for last year’s budget. Alderman Schoneman said that he would prefer a plan that would come forward that would encourage more downtown activities and Alderman Siegel said “I’m trying to leverage the money in a way that makes the most economic sense” and that was from a March 18, 2014, Union Leader article. I think the committee took those comments to heart because at our last meeting we had a discussion about how we could leverage some of that money with the Chamber or the Great American Downtown to do a three-prong approach of let’s see if we can invest to do a tourism campaign perhaps or use some of those dollars to perhaps get investors to know when a building is up for sale or to know when there is a property that is available. Let’s see if we can use some of that money to have sponsorships to different things downtown and to create a plan where we have an outreach both to investors in our City and as well as people that we want to come down and visit and shop. I think we got the message and in addition to the beautification stuff we are also looking into these things. To see this proposal come forward, and I understand it’s a tight budget year, but on the other hand in 2011 we made a commitment to the people of downtown that if we charge them extra that extra money that they are paying stays downtown and that they would see the benefits and see the result of that extra money. I think to re-allocate that to the police or anywhere else would be a mistake and I hope that you all consider that. Budget Review – 6/15/15 Page 3 Mr. Phillip Scontsas, 14 Ashland Street My family has been at 173 Main Street for over 100 years. I’ve talked a lot about parking meters over the course of my life; I’ve listened to my father and my grandfather talk about it. For years it was a thorn in our side but came to realize that it was a necessary evil in our lives. Through the years we’ve tried programs for the holidays where we would not charge for parking and what we found was that there was employees of different businesses that were parking there for long periods of time and it just turned into a nightmare. The parking has always had that issue where I’ve talked to people endlessly about how we need it and I do understand that it’s inconvenient but it’s something that we need to create turn downtown. A couple of years ago when we were approached as business owners that the parking meters would increase and go to Saturdays and the hours would go to 7:00 p.m. and the monies would increase, we all kind of swallowed hard and said you are kidding, right? They said yes but the one good thing is that we can finally reap the benefits of this. You will be able to, if we go above and beyond the $728,000, you will reap the benefits. In some ways although it wasn’t easy, it was a way in which we could convey to our customers that they are helping the cause, they are helping their downtown as well as the City a quarter or a dollar at a time. Interestingly enough a lot of customers really bought into it and really thought this was ok. My point in coming tonight is that if we were to lose that I think we would really be going back and that would have a negative impact on downtown and we really don’t need any more negative impacts on downtown. Things are tough for some people, we have lost some businesses and there’s a negative perception. I don’t think it’s totally correct but there’s a big negative perception of our downtown and to lose that money would be a real black eye and I really urge you all to think hard and consider the good that money is doing. Mr. Ron LaFleur, 2 Garden Street I am on the Downtown Improvement Committee and I am unique because I am the resident on the committee not a business owner and I’ve been accepted. I have spent “x” number of years in the military and I wanted to come back to Nashua. I lived in Nashua and grew up here. I walk my dog, my only friend three to four times per day. I don’t know if you’ve ever been on an aircraft carrier but I love trees, grass and seeing colorful things. There is a tree in front Alex’s Shoe Store that has flowers. You’ve got to beautify downtown. An Alderman on the Board recommended that we needed people downtown. There are people downtown but there are very few people downtown. I enjoy working of the Downtown Improvement Committee because I have been accepted and that I have a different input than the merchant’s. The merchants have to protect their own entity but I have to live downtown. Downtown Nashua is my backyard. To remove this money, and I do understand the police protection, don’t get me wrong, the Nashua Police Department is excellent but I’d like to walk downtown. I came back to downtown and I’d like to see it grow and more people living in downtown. We need the money to protect and beautify and increase downtown Nashua. Mr. Robert Porter, 5 Donovan Drive I represent the Masonic Building Association and New Hampshire Consistory, we are property owners with over $100,000 in property taxes each year and that money is collected directly from our tenants here on Main Street. In 2011 it was expected that the downtown parking increases would generate about an extra $500,000 and that amount of money would then offset the public works costs and could take the money from the property taxes to go toward downtown improvements. The ordinance created was looking at somewhere between $400,000 and $650,000 as the low and high ends to come back and look at whether more money should be taken by the City or to find out why people weren’t coming downtown any longer. Revenue from the downtown parking meters has steadily declined. Last year it was less than half of that low end amount, nothing had been done to lower the parking rates and the City’s commitment to downtown is substantially less than what was hoped. Now, in these times I can understand not getting more money for it but to take it all away; if we use this money as a quick fix to a budget shortfall you can expect that that amount of money is going to continue to decrease without any money being reinvested in that and you will soon find that downtown doesn’t have the number of people that it currently has and you are not going to have money available for the other needs that the City has as well. Budget Review – 6/15/15 Page 4 Mr. Guy R. Martineau, Worshipful Master, Rising Sun Lodge We have about 220+ members and we have been a fixture in the community since 1822 with a presence in downtown. We are one of the oldest fraternal charitable organizations supported to improving our community. We help out a lot of things and recently walked in the Veteran’s Walk supporting our Veterans. We walked downtown and the improvements over the last four or five years is incredible. You want to go out where there is atmosphere, safety and beauty. This is home. A lot of our members frequent the businesses here in Nashua when we come to our meetings and outside of those events because it feels like home. I would ask you to consider helping the businesses of this City. I’m not on the Downtown Improvement Committee I am the Master of our lodge. I love the downtown and I love seeing all the changes. You have to think about attracting patrons from outside communities. Make it more beautiful than it already is. Alderman Schoneman I know we are going to be talking about this ordinance a lot this evening but I want to point out that there is no shortfall in the police budget. The budget that was submitted by the Police Department is contained in the budget that was submitted by the Mayor and I think the likelihood of that budget passing is pretty high. There was an interest in increasing the police budget for the purpose of getting more foot patrols back into downtown and so I think that one of the impetus of this ordinance is that it sends a direct (inaudible) to the downtown that maybe that money could be used… Alderman Siegel This is public comment, why don’t we debate this. Alderman Schoneman That’s fine. COMMUNICATIONS – None UNFINISHED BUSINESS – None NEW BUSINESS – RESOLUTIONS R-15-145 Endorsers:Alderman Ken Siegel Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire ESTABLISHING AN EXPENDABLE TRUST FUND FOR POLICE OVERTIME COSTS MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE ON THE QUESTION Alderman Soucy I am all for supporting the police, we all know that. However, where is this money going to come from? Is this resolution tied in to R-15-057? Chairman Deane This just establishes the trust fund. Budget Review – 6/15/15 Page 5 Alderman Siegel This very explicitly does not tie in. At one point they were going to potentially be tied together and they were untangled because I did not believe that it made sense to tie them together. The reason there is not a funding source right now is because the budget has not been adopted and at this point any additional funding source would be another allocation of funds and we would require ten votes. The plan that I had should this pass would be to propose a piece of legislation to fund this out of some money that I believe will still be on the table so we can get an initial funding amount and then moving forward we will have to decide as a Board how we want to continue to fund. Alderman Soucy The money that I believe that you may be talking about on the table, would that be the $55,000 left under the cap? Alderman Siegel No. Alderman Donchess The first issue is the creation of the trust and I think I want to commend the sponsor because we have had police overtime problems and if we had a reserve account which could supplement the police budget when we have serious crimes like we did at the beginning of this year, it would help to pay for police services and help us avoid a reduction of those services. However, I do not think that we should take from the parking revenue downtown and we should find another source of revenue for it. Alderwoman Brown There was another ordinance that would have established another expendable trust fund and there was some concern that it not be included in the cap. Would this trust fund be excluded from the cap calculation? Alderman Siegel No. The initial idea for allocation that I had was from a source that is absolutely (inaudible) the spending cap and I would expect that in the future and it’s up to the Board, not me; it has to be funded. If the funds are depleted they have to be replenished somehow so right now the idea is to not to take it from something off the cap. Alderman McCarthy All of our expendable trust funds are expended through mechanisms not allocations so the monies have to be allocated and then put in the expendable trust fund which is a way of keeping it until it’s used. I am sympathetic to the reason for the fund but I am a little alarmed that the process is going to be to transfer money that’s in a budget that we haven’t even approved yet. If we think that money should be in the police budget why aren’t we taking it up in the budget deliberations? Alderman Siegel Right now there is already a proposal out of committee to increase the police budget by a certain amount and rather than put a funding mechanism in place right now for this it was really strictly mechanical that rather than try to require a ten vote funding source for this, to do it afterwards and there’s money that we have even discussed in committee that could potentially be reallocated but at that point it’s just easier. Again, an expendable trust fund, creating it is completely separate from funding it. Budget Review – 6/15/15 Page 6 Alderman McCarthy Is that money in the FY 15’ budget or FY 16’ budget? Alderman Siegel It’s in the proposed FY 16’ budget. Alderman McCarthy So that means we will immediately make a change to the FY 16’ budget after its passage which seems to be to fly in the face of the amount of debate that we have had on the budget. If there’s money in it that shouldn’t be where it is but instead should be in the Police Department, it seems to me like transparency would say that we ought to make that decision before we pass the budget. Alderman Siegel There’s no loss in transparency and certainly at the full Board meeting, if this gets recommended for final passage or however it gets recommended, we can have that debate about how it eventually gets funded. There’s no discussion in the creation of the trust fund where the source of revenue is to get funded initially. We can have that discussion at any point and if that is the preference of my colleagues then that is what we shall do. Chairman Deane This ordinance does nothing but establish the account, there’s no transfer. Alderman Siegel That’s correct. Alderman McCarthy Yes, it doesn’t do that but the budget resolution does and if the budget resolution is not believed to be correct because something should be in a department it’s not in then we ought to have that debate now and not after it passes. Chairman Deane This isn’t the budget resolution though this is just to establish an expendable trust fund. The budget resolution has come and gone so I guess if that discussion is going to be had it can be had at the full Board. Alderman Siegel I will say that I had lengthy discussions with legal about how best to handle this. The one thing to consider is that let’s assume that this didn’t make it out of committee, the budget is most likely going to be voted on at our next full Board meeting and are you going to hold up the budget while we have a discussion about how to fund this which is still in committee potentially? This is just creating a shell, we can all think about what we prefer in terms of funding. I’ll just say that I thought of one and it came up during our budget discussions as a means to offset the $55,000 that we wanted to raise the police budget by already. The sense of the committee at the time was let’s keep that a separate discussion which is what it was. Budget Review – 6/15/15 Page 7 Chairman Deane Which is what it should be, we are discussion creating a fund and not transferring money. Alderman Donchess Putting aside the issue of where this money would come from, and I don’t think it should come from the parking meters, this is a valuable trust fund and idea because what we encountered this year was a Police Department that is tightly budgeted and the overtime is under pretty strict control. We had three murders at the beginning of the year which resulted of much of the overtime account being expended very early on. This left them not being able to fund normal overtime for the rest of the year. The ultimate result was for them to retract police services. We don’t see the downtown patrols anymore, the school resource officers were withdrawn so the irony of this was that because there was a spike in serious crime the ultimate result was a reduction in police services. If we had this expendable trust fund when there are unusual serious crimes during the year this could help us even out the delivery of police services. Alderman Soucy I do understand that the funding part is different and I am for establishing the fund but I do have concerns that the $55,000 extra for the Police Department, that’s with no strings attached. In fact, the hope is that the NPD would get another officer for that money. We wouldn’t be in a position to take that money and tell Chief Lavoie that we want that money to be in a trust fund. Alderman Siegel I’d like to thank my colleague, Alderman Wilshire who actually gave me the idea. It was Alderman Wilshire’s comments about crime being like snow that gave me the idea. I want to give her proper credit where credit is due. That aside, the $55,000 has nothing to do with it, I voted in favor of that and I’m not looking to that as the funding source. The funding source that I had in mind was that excess funds that we talked about that the Welfare Department was overfunded over a period of years because things have changed and they are over $100,000 overfunded. We talked about in committee if we had to potentially use that to offset the $55,000 which we voted for if it came down to that. Again, we are going to need ten votes out of fourteen people to pass the budget. I didn’t want to complicate things; this is just to establish the trust fund and the $55,000 for the police that we agreed to increase in committee is completely separate form this. This has nothing to do with parking meter revenue by the way, so for those that may find that a bit confusing it initially was wound in there with that but it seemed like not the right thing to do because if there was a sense of the Board that the parking meter revenue legislation was not good then we wouldn’t want to throw out the other piece that was intertwined in it which is why I separated it out into two separate items. Alderman Soucy I am happy to hear that. I can support the trust fund because I think it’s important and we can talk about the funding source down the road. Alderman Dowd First of all I did see a police patrol downtown today so I don’t think they have been totally eliminated. The second thing is that there has been a lot of concern about the timing of this resolution and I think that in order to put it in its proper place I don’t think there is any urgency with passing this right now. MOTION BY ALDERMAN DOWD TO TABLE R-15-145 UNTIL A TIME CERTAIN OF AFTER THE FY 16’ OPERATING BUDGET IS PASSED MOTION FAILED Budget Review – 6/15/15 Page 8 Alderman McCarthy Now that I understand some of the intent of where the funding might come from I am not opposed to the creation of the trust fund. I’ll point out that what may be a better place to look than immediately transferring things from the FY 16’ budget is to look at what the year-end wrap up of the FY 15’ looks like. Chairman Deane We have authority over the non-similar, the similar purposes the Mayor has authority over and purposes that weren’t alike through the initial budgeting process we have authority over so when that escrow legislation comes in we can do with it as we see fit and we need a majority to pass it. Alderman Dowd Given that perspective of potentially funding it from FY 15’ reserves I am not opposed to the resolution and its intent, I was concerned with the timing. I will probably support it. Alderman Siegel Again, I welcome any suggestions regarding funding. This was a very neutral proposal in that there was the snow trust and the crime trust and then separately how we as a group fund it but let’s put the container in place and figure out afterwards how to fill it. Alderman Wilshire I agree with that and it did dawn on me a few months ago that if it snows we have a trust fund to clean up some additional snow and when we have more people planning for welfare we have a welfare trust fund but when we have a lot of crime there was nothing. I support this but I don’t support the next resolution coming up. Alderwoman Brown I would like to thank Alderman Siegel and Alderman-at-Large Wilshire, I do think it’s a good idea and I will vote in favor. Chairman Deane The motion on the floor is to recommend final passage of R-15-145. MOTION CARRIED NEW BUSINESS - ORDINANCES O-15-057 Endorser: Alderman Ken Siegel AMENDING THE INTENDED USE OF AN AMOUNT OF PARKING REVENUE FOR POLICE DEPARTMENT SALARIES AND WAGES MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE Budget Review – 6/15/15 Page 9 ON THE QUESTION Alderman Siegel I’m going to go through the mechanisms of how the current legislation works so people have an understanding. I’d like to say right out of the shoot, I’m not against the downtown or downtown improvements. In fact, we certainly have the ability to allocate at any point and there are several good items that are out there. Please understand we had three letters. One from Rich Lannan, one from Mary Lou Blaisdell and one from Sy Mafhuz specifically requesting police presence downtown. I understand that. We’ve had some issues, and we want to make sure our downtown is safe. Obviously all of the bells and whistles and every marketing opportunity we take down there will fall apart if it’s not safe and people don’t want to come downtown. But we have a limit on what it is we can afford to do and that limit is unfortunately the Spending Cap and it’s only going to get worse over the next couple of years. That’s unfortunate. Now what this does is it recognizes that the downtown is an area that requires a significant amount of police presence, not the Main Street area per se but the immediately surrounding areas are the most active sectors in the city. To help support that, I believe that it probably makes sense to look at this as a revenue source potentially. Again, this is something which is a benefit to the downtown and also understand that the resources that are used by the higher crime areas downtown are taking resources from the rest of the city. It’s the rest of the city that is feeding those meters also. It isn’t the merchants per se that are feeding the meters. We are all feeding the meters. Let me just walk through the current legislation and some of the things so people know this money isn’t guaranteed to the downtown the way things work legislatively. What has to happen is out of fund balance there has to be a certain amount of money determined which is parking meter revenues over $728,000. There’s a caveat there. State law says that we have to spend at least the amount of parking meter revenue we have on road improvements, be it paving, which we generally do. But it isn’t free money. There’s that string attached. The mayor has to craft a request to allocate this money. That money is put in a fund and it is voted on and we decide whether or not we want to spend it. Then the downtown improvement committee puts a list together and says here’s a list of things we want to do with the money. Then we, as a Board of Aldermen, decide yes or no; this is okay or not. The further hurdle is after that’s all approved; the city is the entity that buys all of the items on the list. The downtown improvement committee doesn’t do it. It goes through city purchasing. I believe it goes through the economic development department. Any item on there over $10,000 is subject to finance committee approval. There’s all these hurdles that there’s no guarantees if the money is not reallocated. Any mayor could potentially come in and say I appreciate that, I’m not even going to take step one and take the money out of fund balance and allow for the creation of the legislation to have it set aside. The other thing that’s a little bit of an issue is the current legislation is written so the money for the meters is taken from January 1 to December 31. That’s not our fiscal year and that’s a problem for the finance department. At the very least this legislation changes everything to be calculated on a fiscal year basis which is how it should have been done originally. What this legislation is going to do is it’s going to eliminate at least one step, but it also is no guarantee. This legislation has the same authority as the other legislation, which is to say, none. This is not a demand for funding. This is a suggestion by the Board of Aldermen to divert resources to a different purpose. It is not binding on the mayor nor is it binding on the Board of Aldermen going forward. Just as the 2011 ordinance was not binding on the Board of Aldermen or the Mayor going forward. It happens to have come forward that way that the money has been allocated and the downtown improvement committee is given a list. But again, we vote on that and we could have voted no in which case it would have not been spent that way. I think it’s fairly clear that we have a crime issue which needs to be addressed. Nobody likes that. Absent the crime issue and what’s been going on downtown and the things we have to deal with, this legislation would not have come forward. The problem is my belief and the belief of the people in my ward is that the public safety part of city services is more important in a priority list than some of the other issues. We can talk about the flower pots and banners and that makes a good slogan, there are other things also. The downtown improvement committee, I appreciate listening to some of the things they say, and there are some things that make a lot of sense. Again, we as a board of aldermen can certainly vote to support those things. Nothing has changed along those lines. For example, better security and lighting in the parking garages is something that is happening independent of the downtown improvement committee request. We had large allocations for that. Why? Because we all believed it was a good idea and still do. I think what this is a redirection of funds towards the principle priority of a city which is to provide public safety. Budget Review – 6/15/15 Page 10 More than any other thing that we do, public safety should be number one. That was the intent. Alderman Soucy I agree with public safety. I really, really want to do everything to support our police and fire department. I just have trouble taking money that’s been purposed for one group to move it to another area. One of the things that concerns me is we have no control over the police department or the police commission. I know the city merchants want more police presence downtown. I know that. It’s needed. With the hope of the $55,000 that we put back into the police budget to increase their police budget, after speaking with Chief Lavoie, it is a priority for him to have an officer downtown. However, there’s no guarantee. Crime is fluid. That officer may be needed to temporarily work some POPP issues or a bike issue or whatever else is going on. I know the merchants want another officer, but taking the money from the parking revenue is not going to mean we’re going to get another officer downtown. That officer can end up in a myriad different amount of locations. I know the priority is there so the argument has some weight but not enough weight in my opinion to make me vote yes at this point. I just don’t like the idea of taking money from a group. Alderman Dowd I am not in favor of this ordinance for a couple of reasons. I don’t think we ought to be taking money from any one account and giving it to one particular other department. Yes the police are important. I support the police department and supported the motion to add the money to their budget. I don’t support taking it from this fund which goes to the other reason why I am opposed to this. There may not be a requirement of law for the ordinance to give it to the downtown authority, but I would like to believe the integrity of this board is such that when we promise a business owner that we are going to do something that we do it and not change our mind ten minutes later and take it away. I don’t think that speaks well of the integrity of this Board. We’ve done it before, and I was opposed and I will be opposed to it again. Alderman McCarthy I have similar sorts of comments. As was stated there really is no binding effect of the ordinance that is in place. It is essentially a statement of policy by this board that says we will take the money that is generated by the increased parking fees and put it back to help the downtown where those increased parking fees are generated. In fact, the business owners came to us and said please do that. Do something that may negatively impact our business to increase the revenues and use that. We are betting that will help us out in the long term by helping the downtown. That’s the statement of policy we made, and I think that was a good policy. We don’t have control over where the police budget goes as Alderman Soucy pointed out. What we are saying is we are going to have a special tax on downtown in parking meters that goes to paying for something that is a city-wide service. We don’t charge anybody else extra. We don’t charge the mall extra for the fact that it’s given police protection. We don’t charge any of the businesses on Amherst Street. I know we get tons of calls from those places. We don’t have letters from those ends of town that say we need more police presence which says we’re probably doing an adequate job out there and it’s only downtown that we’re not keeping up with. The policy that this expresses when we make that change is we’re going to tax downtown and spend the money elsewhere. The policy says when Mary Lou Blaisdell takes quarters of the register at Design Wares and hands them to customers to go out and feed the meters so they can shop at downtown stores, we’re going to say thank you, give me that and use it to protect Costco and BJs. That seems like bad policy to me. Alderman Siegel Let me address this idea that we made a promise before. I assume that you are alluding to the Cotton Mill Square vote. That’s my only conclusion. That wasn’t a promise. There was no legislation in place. There was a contract that was signed specifically against that. That’s a bad analogy. As far as this is concerned, I understand Alderman McCarthy’s sense he feels we are taxing the downtown to pay for police down there. It’s not really about that. I understand we don’t get to decide where the police department puts their police nor Budget Review – 6/15/15 Page 11 would we ever want that authority. Nonetheless, the downtown right now is the highest crime district. You may view this as a tax or you might view it as a help the rest of us deal with the fact that resources are being taken out of one area to be allocated to another. Separate from that, the downtown isn’t just the downtown improvement committee money. We’ve got that $104,000 this year. What about the $3.5 million in sidewalks and the Broad Street Parkway? I’m not against spending money to help support the downtown businesses. I’m just saying this is recognition that we have a real problem and we want to get on top of it before it gets worse. Look at our Narcan consumption. The overdoses isn’t going to get any better so we need more police officers but we really don’t have any place to get the money to pay for them. That $55,000 you’re right, it may go wherever Chief Lavoie wants to put it, but that’s one officer. We’re well shy of where we need to be most likely. By the way having walking patrols may make people feel good downtown but in fact it’s a very, very inefficient way to deploy police resources because they can’t respond effectively to different locations if there’s a problem. They need to be in cruisers. Alderwoman Brown I am opposed to this ordinance for several reasons. We had asked our downtown businesses and residents and the community what they would like us to do to improve the downtown. This ordinance was created to use part of the parking meter revenue when they were raised. Everyone that has spoken during public comment is opposed to this. I have spoken to other individuals and they are opposed to this. I believe the downtown improvement committee has done a fabulous job. The downtown is greatly improved. They work diligently. I’ve attending their meetings. They are very careful at budgeting items. I believe we really need to honor our downtown businesses and our community and keep the money invested in the downtown improvement committee. Thank you. Alderman Donchess Although I like the reserve account, I don’t think we should divert downtown parking meter revenues to police services. I do believe we have an obligation to provide police services to all parts of the community without extra taxation. It is part of community safety. Again, I commend the idea for the reserve account, but to me the parking revenue that is generated downtown should remain downtown as originally planned. Alderman Dowd I would not have opposition if the downtown association asked us to put some of this money that we are giving to them to police, but they are not asking that. In regards to Cotton Mill Square, it may have not been exact legislation but there certainly was the intent of the conversation that happened in this Chamber that if the developer repaired the side walls which was not part of the dam that we would compensate him. You can argue it six ways to Sunday, but I think was a commitment on the part of the city and the board to reimburse him. Chairman Deane That ship sailed. The money was spent on other things. I don’t’ want to get into an argument about John Stabile and the $100,000 that he didn’t get. Alderman Soucy I wasn’t going to speak again, but I just want to make a correction about the officers needing to be in cruisers. I just want to point out that Main Street is a hub of police activity and cruisers. East side of Sector 4, west side if Sector 7, 14. At Canal Street, Sector 9; Lake Street, Sector 5; and a Charlie car which is an undercover car. The center of the city, along with a (inaudible) unit, a LT and POPP unit. There’s at least 8 cars downtown. What the need is officers on the grouping? You’re right, maybe walking officers aren’t the most effective method, but bicycles are. Budget Review – 6/15/15 Page 12 Alderwoman Brown I have complete confidence in Chief Lavoie and his ability and the individuals that report to him to balance the resources at any time in 24 hours. I am confident this can be a win-win. We can take care of our downtown. I believe we have additional money we have voted to give back to the police department. I think we should do that. A viva voce roll call was requested which resulted as follows: Yea: Alderman Siegel 1 Nay: Alderwoman Brown, Alderman Soucy, Alderman Schoneman, Alderman Dowd, Alderman Wilshire, Alderman Deane 6 MOTION FAILED MOTION BY ALDERMAN WILSHIRE TO RECOMMEND INDEFINITE POSTPONEMENT MOTION CARRIED TABLED IN COMMITTEE R-14-046 Endorser: Alderman-at-Large Brian S. McCarthy AMENDING THE PURPOSE OF A FISCAL YEAR 2014 ESCROW FOR THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT  Tabled – 6/30/14 GENERAL DISCUSSION PUBLIC COMMENT Mr. Ben Clemons, 188 Ash Street I just want to say on the record thank you very much for your vote. I think it shows a confidence in downtown and a confidence in the ordinance we passed years ago. It shows this board’s commitment to the downtown community. Thank you. REMARKS BY THE ALDERMEN - None POSSIBLE NON-PUBLIC SESSION ADJOURNMENT MOTION BY ALDERMAN WILSHIRE TO ADJOURN MOTION CARRIED The meeting was declared closed at 8:05 p.m. Alderman Ken Siegel Committee Clerk