Personnel/Administrative Affairs Committee

PERSONNEL/ADMINISTRATIVE AFFAIRS COMMITTEE OCTOBER 13, 2011 A meeting of the Personnel/Administrative Affairs Committee was held on Thursday, October 13, 2011, at 8:45 p.m. immediately following the Special Board of Aldermen meeting in the Aldermanic Chamber. Chairman Ben Clemons presided. Members of the Committee present: Alderman Kathy Vitale, Vice Chairman Alderman Arthur T. Craffey, Jr. Members Not in Attendance: Alderman Paul M. Chasse, Jr. Also in Attendance: Mayor Donnalee Lozeau Alderman-at-Large Brian S. McCarthy Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire Alderman Diane Sheehan Alderman Michael J. Tabacsko Chairman Clemons I understand that Alderman Chasse is out ill this evening. PUBLIC COMMENT - None INTERVIEWS Chairman Clemons Mayor if you would like to come forward with Ms. Pond? Child Care Advisory Commission Tracy Pond (New Appointment) Term to Expire: October 13, 2014 Mayor Lozeau Thank you Mr. Chairman. Normally I sit where Tracy is sitting, but it occurred to me at the last meeting if I sat over here it would be easier on my nominees, just a stroke of genius. Those simple things sometimes right. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity. I would like to introduce you to Tracy Pond. As you can see from Tracy’s resume, she is quite involved in child care issues in our community. As a matter of fact, Tracy came to my attention from a recommendation of the Child Care Commission saying that they would really like to have her as a member. Now Tracy works for Southern New Hampshire Services, which might be a familiar name to some of you as I had worked there for a very long time. Southern New Hampshire Services already has a member on the Child Care Commission, Beth Todgham, who has been on the Child Care Commission longer than she worked for Southern. Southern came after that. I talked to Southern New Hampshire Services to make sure that they were okay with having two folks represented on the Child Care Commission, just so you know, and they were quite fine with that, and thought that Tracy would bring a lot to the table. Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 2 She is excited about being involved. She actually went to their most recent meeting and had an opportunity to really see what she could bring to the table. I am honored to bring somebody to you that is willing to, as I like to say, put in the time, be the professional, and make a difference. Thank you. Chairman Clemons Ms. Pond would you like to say a few words? Tracy Pond Well I’m excited to get involved and find out more information about what is being offered in the city for child care providers. I’ve been providing resource and referral services for about 7 or 8 years. I really like connecting programs with resources in the community. I’m excited about it. Chairman Clemons Great. Thank you very much. I’m going to open it up to questions. Alderman Vitale You would be a welcome addition. I only got to be there for a few minutes this morning because I had another meeting. When I was looking at your resume I noticed that you were on the Bureau of the Child Care Licensing up in Concord. Tracy Pond Yes. Alderman Vitale When I was on the Zoning Board we had people refer to this all the time for zoning, to have childcare in their homes in the city so maybe Zoning could use you as a reference point when somebody refers to the fact that they have applied to the Child Care Licensing Board up in Concord. I’m curious to see some of the stuff that we overheard was part of that because there was never anybody from Concord at those Zoning Board things. But as far as the Child Care Commission, you will be a welcome addition. I know that they are happy about that. Thank you for coming forward. Tracy Pond Thank you. And I was actually the licensor for the Nashua area for the time that I spent at Child Care Licensing. We were based in Concord. Alderman Wilshire Thank you. Thanks for stepping forward. Really appreciate it. Your background seems like a perfect fit for this commission. I know that the organization that I work for goes through Child Care Licensing and it is a good job they do up there and it is not easy. Thank you for coming forward. Tracy Pond Thank you. Chairman Clemons Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 3 Any further questions or comments? I would just like to say thank you for donating your time to the City of Nashua. Certainly appreciate it, and I’m sure that you will be a great addition. Thank you. Tracy Pond Thank you. Chairman Clemons We will take up your appointment in a little bit. Thank you. Hunt Building Board of Trustees Cail Bellavance (New Appointment) Term to Expire: December 31, 2016 Mayor Lozeau Thank you. Mr. Chairman as you know, we’ve talked quite a bit about the Hunt building over the last year and all of the work that is going on there. Unfortunately, some of the folks that I have nominated have had to resign; for instance Claire McGrath, who was very excited about being involved, found a conflict in her time and could not manage. We’re really in the place where we’re trying to fulfill a full board of trustees on the Hunt building especially right now as they are trying to market the new building when the work gets done and rent it up. Cail came to my attention from some of the members of that committee as well as somebody that really has an understanding of history and a skill in teaching and being able to work with people on how to present things to the community. I really enjoyed my meeting with Cail. For those of you that are familiar with the Bellavance family, which I don’t know that you can be in Nashua and not be familiar with the Bellavance family, Cail is married to Joe, Jr. and has taken on a history project that she could tell you about, but I got so engaged in the conversation that our half hour meeting turned into like an hour and 15 minutes, and I thought she really brings something so different to that committee than we have had, and I really am pleased to present her for your consideration tonight. Chairman Clemons Thank you very much. Cail would you have a few words? Cail Bellavance Sure. I would just like to say I’m really excited about being involved with the Hunt building because I am really interested in Nashua history. You can see from my resume, in the last three years I’ve been really involved in this project with one of the older families, the Stevens family, in Nashua and Maine Manufacturing and preservation of a lot of Nashua history from the same time period that the Hunt building was originally built. I’m really interested to get in there. Chairman Clemons Great. Thank you. I will open it up to questions. Alderman Vitale Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 4 I see on your resume you had a little section of experience with the marketing part, and I’m sure that will be beneficial as we go out marketing the redone and reintroduced building. That will be a welcome addition. Cail Bellavance My degree was in…the first area was in mass communications and advertising. I worked in marketing with Samsonite and several other jobs and freelance advertising work so I do have that background. It seems like ages ago. Alderman Vitale That mixed with your interest in the history is perfect for the building I believe. Chairman Clemons Anything further? Thank you very much again for volunteering your time to the City. I’m sure you will make a great addition to the board. Thank you. Cail Bellavance Thank you. Mayor Lozeau Nice mix of history, marketing, teaching and that is what Claire had brought to the table Mr. Chairman was the marketing piece. COMMUNICATIONS - None APPLICATION TO LICENSE HAWKER'S, PEDDLER'S, ITINERANT VENDOR'S LICENSE - None APPOINTMENTS BY THE MAYOR Child Care Advisory Commission Tracy Pond (New Appointment) Term to Expire: October 13, 2014 88 Temple Street Nashua, NH 03060 Sarah Ward (Reappointment) Term to Expire: October 13, 2014 79 West Groton Road Nashua, NH 03062 Hunt Building Board of Trustees Cail Bellavance (New Appointment) Term to Expire: December 31, 2016 44 Raymond Street Nashua, NH 03064 Mine Falls Park Advisory Committee Leo Parker (Reappointment) Term to Expire: June 30, 2014 Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 5 14 Hazel Avenue Nashua, NH 03062 Nashua Housing Authority James R. Tollner (Reappointment) Term to Expire: October 14, 2014 1 Sequoia Circle Nashua, NH 03063 MOTION BY ALDERMAN CRAFFEY TO RECOMMEND THE CONFIRMATION OF THE APPOINTMENTS OF TRACY POND AND SARAH WARD TO THE CHILD CARE ADVISORY COMMISSION FOR TERMS TO EXPIRE OCTOBER 13, 2014, CAIL BELLAVANCE TO THE HUNT BUILDING BOARD OF TRUSTEES FOR A TERM TO EXPIRE DECEMBER 31, 2016, LEO PARKER TO THE MINE FALLS PARK ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR A TERM TO EXPIRE JUNE 30, 2014, AND JAMES R. TOLLNER TO THE NASHUA HOUSING AUTHORITY FOR A TERM TO EXPIRE OCTOBER 14, 2014 MOTION CARRIED TABLED IN COMMITTEE – RESOLUTIONS MOTION BY ALDERMAN CLEMONS TO TAKE FROM THE TABLE R-11-140 MOTION CARRIED R-11-140 Endorser: Mayor Donnalee Lozeau Alderman Jeffrey T. Cox AMENDING THE AGENT TO EXPEND ON THE FOUR EXPENDABLE TRUST FUNDS THAT ACCEPT CONTRIBUTIONS FOR SIDEWALK CONSTRUCTION BY QUADRANT • Also assigned to Budget Review Committee; Sent to full Board w/ No Recommendation - 9/19/11 • Tabled – 9/8/11 MOTION BY ALDERMAN CLEMONS TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE ON THE QUESTION Chairman Clemons Mayor would you like to come forward? I will allow you to introduce this. Mayor Lozeau Thank you Mr. Chairman. This legislation is the result of taking a look at some of the sidewalk quadrant funds that we were trying to allocate towards work on sidewalks in the city recently, and it came to our attention when we were looking at the sidewalk quadrants and the street corridors that the street corridors were designed to be, the agent to expend was the Board of Public Works, but on the sidewalks the agent to expend was the Board of Aldermen. When looking at them, I thought it was right to make them consistent, and because the Charter talks about the Board of Public Works having the jurisdiction so to speak over the Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 6 streets and the sidewalks, it seemed to make sense to me to change them both to be the agent to expend to be the Board of Public Works. I brought in the legislation to make the change. If the inconsistency should have gone the other way to bring it in, I would have brought it in to have the Board of Aldermen be on both. But it made more sense to go this route, and I hope the committee would agree with that for these quadrants. Chairman Clemons Thank you. Is there any discussion on this legislation? I would just say that I agree. I think it makes sense to streamline the process. I will be supporting it. Alderman Craffey Thank you. I just want to say this actually does make sense to have it under one roof so to speak, and I will be supporting this. Thank you. Chairman Clemons Is there any further discussion? MOTION CARRIED UNFINISHED BUSINESS - None NEW BUSINESS – RESOLUTIONS R-11-158 Endorsers: Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly Alderman-at-Large Mark S. Cookson Alderman Arthur T. Craffey, Jr. Alderman-at-Large David W. Deane ESTABLISHING AN AD HOC COMMITTEE TO STUDY AND MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE CITY’S PARKING GARAGES MOTION BY ALDERMAN CRAFFEY TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE ON THE QUESTION Alderman Pressly Just to get the discussion going; I’ve been interested in the parking garages for some time, and about a year ago even made a suggestion trying to make them electronic. And I know we have discussed for two years a lot of people feel that we should go back to having an attendant there. In thinking about it, I personally believe that a parking garage is not a friendly place especially for women, and it has to do the safety, and it is intrinsic to a parking garage. You think about all of the thriller stories and television shows we have, there is always a mugging or a murder in a parking garage. It is a difficult building to work with to begin with. In talking with other people, I know I asked a lot of people when was the last time you parked in the parking garage, and I think it really is important for us to start to work on making them as positive as they can be, a dynamic place, almost a destination of themselves because they came up repeatedly during the, that I heard anyway, the Services Advisory group was saying that their goal was to get more cars in the parking garage. That seems to be a goal in the whole parking of Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 7 the city is that the more cars that are in the garage the spaces on the street are available for the shoppers, the people who come and go and would like to be able to park close to where they are going. It has also been mentioned, people that I’ve been discussing with, that we could do some creative things that are being done in other parts. Use of color, I know for yourself Mr. Chairman that is an issue for yourself, that would not make a difference for you, but I think for a lot of people having a different color. Another idea that has been tossed out is to have everything a stark white so you can see things better and the lighting. I’ve spent a lot of time driving up to the roof of both garages trying to sort of see what is going on there and talked to people that are using it, and one issue that does frequently come up, two people that I encountered today remembered having the attendance and remarked how much nicer that was. One was a woman, one was a man, the woman did mention the safety; when the lights are out she is frightened if she has to retrieve her car after dark. I think there are a lot of positive things that could be done. I thought that a committee of the Aldermen might be the way to go. I know there are some of us that have more time than others that enjoy this type of work and like to have more hands on. That is why I’ve sponsored it. Given this is towards the end of this term we might not be able to fill the numbers this term, but maybe there will be at least three new members next term, and there might be people that would be interested in giving their time. I think we could also appoint other people. I’m eager to know what the rest of you think. Chairman Clemons Thank you. Mayor did you have any interest in joining the conversation? I see that you are still here. I am going to recognize Alderman Vitale. Alderman Vitale Actually one of the things I was going to do to see if Mayor Lozeau could speak to exactly where this city stands. I know that there are plans for the garage and it probably follows a timeline or what is deemed most important and down the line. I know it was referred to the other day in the remarks at our Board of Aldermen meeting that the usage of the garages is 90% at Elm Street and I think 70% at High Street was referred to as far as the use versus 100%. When I moved here, one of the first things that I remember being talked about was the signage to get to the garages off of Main Street so when people were coming downtown they were talking about signage. I know that new signs were then done, there have been different things done. I know there was leaking that was addressed at one time or another. I know the lighting has been addressed, and new lighting has been put in. Since I’ve lived here, I’ve seen many changes happen at the garage; the attendant is gone, we went to some meters within the structures. It hasn’t been like nothing has been done in our garages. I have used them many times over the years. I know that they are used by other individuals. I’d really like to hear the exact timeline. I’ve heard it in bits and pieces, but I would like to hear the timeline as to where the garages stand and what other committees maybe already are looking at things that could take place in the garage, some of the best practices that are out there to address some of the concerns that have been mentioned. Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 8 Mayor Lozeau Sure. Thank you Mr. Chairman. The other night when I made my remarks, I made my remarks only because I don’t think anybody intended the legislation to end up being front page above the fold bad news. I wanted to set the record straight. That was just my point. I know the reporters don’t write the headlines nor do the Aldermen when they respond to questions and what is on their mind. But I wanted to try to get a message out, and of course it got into the Union Leader, but now it’s on page B2, saying no the Mayor says the garages are okay. But I think that it is important to our community because I think Alderman Pressly is right that there are people that worry about parking garages. It doesn’t matter where they are; doesn’t matter if they are in Hollis, doesn’t matter if they are in Nashua, doesn’t matter if they are outside of the police station, people have a negative thought about garages. Alderman Vitale you are correct; 90% occupancy in the Elm Street garage, 70% occupancy in the High Street garage. The lights were changed out prior to my arrival. A study was done, the lights were looked at, there was a program with PSNH where they came in, changed out all of the lights to more energy efficient lighting. At that time, apparently only 50% of the lights were on on a regular basis. All of the lights went on, the price went up, and people said how is that possible. That is when they figured out they were basing it on only half the lights being on. The changes that we made when I started talking to people on this board and in the community were to give more attention to the garages, and the way that we did that was we started by taking parking out from under the traffic department, who is busy out there doing a million other things, and put it under the transportation department, and for some of those reasons I will remind some of you of that you may still recall is; 1) we have a transportation office right outside one of the garages, the busiest garage. When I got here, that office was not open. It was closed and there was no staff in the transit office. We changed that, we opened the office, we opened the restrooms, made it a little more customer friendly, had more presence out there. When we moved the parking that allowed us to put an attendant at each garage. Now not an attendant that works the gate or collects people’s money, but an attendant who is actually sweeping and washing and telling us if lights are out and if there are problems, and that has been met with great success. We had people using the facilities as restrooms. That changed when we opened the transit office and had restrooms available there. Frankly the restrooms in the back of City Hall were locked when I got here as the Mayor. There were no public restrooms available. We changed that. It has been a little bit difficult because sometimes people don’t behave well in them, but we have been able to manage. We put a portable toilet in the garage for people after hours going back in late, that sort of thing. That has worked very well. The work being done in the garages now consists of, as you said Alderman Vitale, fixing the leaks because you could be parked under cover and not really be under cover and you are of course paying more for those spots if you are leasing them to be under cover and if it doesn’t matter that is a problem. The report done in 2005 that laid out the work that needed to be done in those garages had an estimated cost of work somewhere between $1.2 million and $1.3 million. When we went out to bid we were pleasantly surprised to have that bid come in under $800,000. They are 95% complete. They have repointed the bricks. If you look at them they look very nice. They have sealed places. The new doors are going in in the stairwells, the glass is being sealed. One of my particular pet peeves that hasn’t been addressed yet is the plexiglass in the Elm Street garage that is there for the winter season so the way it works is when they are plowing the top or the other floors they then dump the snow out from that level down to an empty spot on the tar instead of driving the backhoe through the garage, which makes sense, but what happens is that when they dump it over it falls into the other floors. We are looking at a different system for that. Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 9 The work that remains to be done is we’re getting bid prices on better cameras, the cameras are in there and they do work and people to look at them and they are used from time to time, but we need a better system. We’re looking at that. We have received quotes for putting in electronic parking machines that will allow you to pay per space. Now most of you are probably familiar with the pay and display system so you go and you pay and you walk back to your vehicle and you put it on your dashboard. We are looking at a pay per space system. I want to make sure that the one we put in the garage could also be put out in the downtown area. Let’s say for instance you park in the garage and you do some shopping wherever you are going to shop and you bump into a friend and you decide that you are going to head down to Saffron Bistro and have dinner, I want us to have a system where you can walk up to any of those pay per space ones, you have a ticket in your hand that says your space is, let’s say it says G12 because you are in the garage, space 12, you could go up to that machine and you could pay more money for your space without having to come back to the garage. Chairman Clemons They have that at Hampton Beach. Mayor Lozeau Right. Systems are like that and then you can work them throughout. You’ve got some quotes out there. As a matter of fact, we are going to have to bring in legislation to have the board approve putting in those electronic devices in the parking garage and take out the meters. If we take out the meters we can move those meters to the new locations downtown that need meters or conversely we’re getting a price for switching the whole system at one time; what would it cost, where would we get the money from, how would we do it. We have funds available in the garage funds that were put aside for construction in that bond to buy the system for the garage so it makes sense to move forward with that. But as far as the rest of the downtown area, it could be pretty costly. We anticipate the price to be about $30,000 for the garages. That would be four machines; two in each garage at the entry points. We’re looking at that. As far as beautification efforts, I don’t know that you have to legislate that. I think we would love some ideas. I don’t think anybody has a problem with talking about murals. We’ve actually talked about painting the floors. But I don’t think that those are necessarily the things that are going to make somebody feel like they are safer now because they look better. The idea of having a coffee house, I think that is mentioned or has been mentioned, I don’t know about that. But there is another component that I know that people have asked about and that is the attendant. I put together some numbers for you that I thought you might be interested in knowing, and these are numbers that I looked at when I was making the decision to recommend moving parking under transportation. Back in 2001 when we had an attendant in the garage, the expenses ran about $323,000. Of that $323,000, $138,000 was for the company providing attendants in the two garages. The revenue in 2001 was about $500,000. Now today our revenue is about $700,000 and our expenses are $216,000. That $138,000 for the attendant in the two garages played into that $323,000 number. Now that number is actually $216,000, and that is for everything. I spend a lot of time out talking to people about similar concerns. I particularly talk to our employees who are significant users in the garage. And I’ve talked to the court who we made arrangements, you may recall this, it used to be that the jurors would park throughout the downtown. It was particularly a problem for Crosby’s and some of the area merchants over there. And they had free parking all day long. We met with the court and we solved that problem by moving all of the jurors to the Elm Street garage and so they have a parking card for the Elm Street garage on the top. It is about 128 spaces when they are doing jury pool, which won’t be the same when Manchester moves, it won’t be quite so high. But moving them out of the downtown has had a significant impact. But I have asked them about have the jurors had problems with the garage. It has all worked very well. Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 10 I talked to the downtown folks, particularly those close to the garages. They notice the difference. They see somebody out there with a broom; they see him walking through the garage. I knew that you were at High Street today because the employee is on duty and paying attention. Alderman Pressly He was driving by and I stopped and chatted with him. Mayor Lozeau They are very aware, and they take great pride. I’ve gone out of my way to talk to them and thank them. Alderman Pressly Did he come back and report to you that I’d… Mayor Lozeau No he did not report to me. It wasn’t quite like that. I see him. But what I’m trying to point out is they are aware, they are paying attention, they are talking to the merchants, they are out there, and they help when they shovel around the garage. It has allowed us now to do the downtown sidewalk plows because it comes from transit. It works out. It is just really a nice system, and we have come a long way. Are there more things we can do, I think that there probably are. Are we interested in people’s input on it, I think we are. But we also have the new Downtown Improvement Committee, we have the BID group that was working, and I have a staff group that is working on what we are going to do. I’m very interested in input about it, but I think that we’re on the right track and our garages are in great shape. I would be happy to answer anything else that the committee is thinking about. Alderman Craffey Thank you. Just a follow-up on what you were talking about earlier. We had a presentation in the Planning & Economic Development Committee put on by Director Galligani, which was very informative, that talked about the garages and with the introduction of the Broad Street Parkway and the possibility of the courthouse going away, that is one of your dreams to have that go away, and some two-way streets, changing the direction of the streets so that when people come off the Parkway they go right by the …sort of funneling them downtown to the garages, which I found was a very good idea. I do like the idea that you are going to have these electrical park per space, is that right park per space? Mayor Lozeau Pay per space. Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 11 Alderman Craffey Pay per space. I have been down at Hampton Beach and I do like that idea to be able to go from one space to another and I don’t have to go running back to my car, and going forward from there. I think you have done a great job with the garages so far. I would like to see some other things, but we will have to wait and see I guess. You’ve got some ideas going forward. I like the idea of the better camera system. That is all I have to say right now. Keep up the good work. Thank you. Mayor Lozeau Thank you. Alderman McCarthy Thank you. We just had a really nice 20 minute discussion of the parking garages. What is actually on the agenda is a resolution establishing an ad hoc committee to study the garages. I guess I’m wondering about that. If what we want is to have the ability to influence the way the garages work, should we have an Aldermanic committee that has some oversight of the garages, yeah, and the answer is we do. The Infrastructure Committee as the successor to the Lands & Buildings Committee is the one that when that legislation that the Mayor just spoke about comes in, will probably get to see that. Do we need another committee? I don’t think so. The administration, are they willing to come in and talk to the Aldermanic committees about what is going on with the parking garages, I think we just saw a 20 minute demonstration that the answer is clearly yes. Why don’t we just do this in the Infrastructure Committee where it belongs or if it is an issue simply about payment or those sorts of things that may belong in this committee, but we’ve got the structure there already we don’t need an ad hoc committee that adds more scheduling difficulty to the board and the more difficulty to the members of the board who want to be able to get to it. We clearly have had numerous discussions with the administration over the topic of parking in the garages and have had not lack of willingness to participate with us in the committee process so let’s just leave it before the Infrastructure Committee. I don’t see any reason to create an ad hoc committee. Alderman Sheehan I was probably of the same mind as President McCarthy. I was curious when I saw this because I would be more interested in what staff and consultants would tell us that are professionals. I would like to see an attendant perhaps after dark. I don’t know if the $138,000 was regarding that, but keeping that aside I was curious why it was done this way. My only two experiences with committees have been the Band Shell Committee and the Services Advisory Committee and what I’ve come to realize is they do a lot of work and then none of those recommendations get followed anyway, it gets overridden, and it just seems that it adds a lot of extra work for a lot of people when we just make a decision in the committee that is appropriate for that at the end of the day anyway. I would be more interested in having it come to Infrastructure with staff and perhaps an outside recommendation. And yes I’m interested in perhaps having attendants back at night or when it is dark because I do think that leads some level of comfort right or wrong. Cameras also have a similar presence. Keeping all of that in mind, I do agree that it belongs in Infrastructure and that that is sufficient because we have had really good feedback from the department when we’ve asked for revenue and to do the parking plan. We’ve had cooperation so I think that is the appropriate place. Alderman Vitale Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 12 And that was probably, as was pointed out by Alderman McCarthy, probably the number one reason I wanted to ask the Mayor how it stood and how things were done presently. Different suggestions have been mentioned by people that I know and how they are being addressed, and because concerns are currently being addressed under the current scenarios, I agree; Infrastructure is a good place to do it. It seems that the administration and staff do take concerns to heart and address them. It might not happen today, but it has to be part of a bigger picture and a plan. I think concerns are being addressed and I’m happy to know that I’ve watched changes happen over the years that are for the better. Alderman Tabacsko Thank you. I agree with a lot of what has been said. I’m particularly interested though in this pay for space system and better cameras and attendant enhancements. I think that is all in process, and I’m glad to hear that is going on. The one thing I did want to mention that was recently brought to my attention is that when we did the parking ordinance I think there may be another, and I don’t know how this would work with the pay per space system because we’ve got time limits on different zones now, and I think that we probably need to make sure that we’re incentifying use of the garage, and I don’t know that we’ve got that exact at the moment. I think that is exactly where we want people to park, but if we haven’t set it up that way then we should make sure that we do. Alderman Wilshire I agree. I think there are some changes that need to be made with the parking garages. I think most of what everyone said is very valid and legitimate. However, I don’t see the need to create another committee to do that. I think it is already happening. Alderman McCarthy At the risk of going back to the garages, I actually think that the pay per space system solves the problem we have now. Right now every space is either metered or it is leased and it has been brought to my attention that while supposedly there are unlimited metered spaces in the garage, under the ordinance in practice there actually are not because the meters are only on the first floor. This system would allow us to say there is a limit on the first floor parking but not on the upper floors. Those could be either leased or metered spaces effectively, which would give us the same advantage we used to have. So I think we’ve actually found a solution to that problem already. Mayor Lozeau At the risk of being way off track again, and then I’m going to wrap up because it’s actually my son’s birthday so I would really like to head out. If the process allowed, it would be really great to be able to amend this tonight and say yes you can put the electronic devices in the garage because I don’t want to buy new meters for new spaces downtown that have to have meters, and I can take them out of the garage in the interim. In a perfect world, we would be looking at going to this system right now, one fell swoop everywhere. I just don’t know if I can find a way to cover those expenses. I know I can cover it for the garage. And I didn’t realize it needed legislation for the garage. I knew I needed legislation for replacing the downtown meters, but I thought that there was some flexibility in the garage for me to just do this. Well I mean I would talk to you about it, I wouldn’t just let you walk in one day and find it. But when I asked Legal to take a look at it in the last few days they have come back and said you actually need legislation. By the Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 13 time it comes in to committee it will be October 28th, right that is your next meeting I think. It would get its first reading and then it would be assigned to a committee and then we are in November and then we are at the end of the November, and by the time we order them it will probably be maybe Christmas by the time we could actually get them in. If the committee can think of some way to move that along sooner if we’re all on the same page, that would be most helpful as we are getting those quotes. I know that is probably…I know that this is not the mechanism for that. Chairman Clemons Right. Mayor Lozeau …I’m just laying it out there for you to think about it for helping me to find a way to move that along. Maybe the way is to come to the next Infrastructure Committee and see if everybody is on board with the idea of going that route, show them what the system looks like, and then knowing that everybody is on board maybe we can just bring it in and do a committee of the whole thing. That might be a way to move it along a little sooner. I just wanted to put that out there because I don’t want to surprise anybody a couple of weeks from now with that. Chairman Clemons Thank you. Is there any further discussion on R-11-158? Alderman Pressly Well I understand that everyone is supporting the Mayor’s plan and it sounds good. I think it is sort of unfortunate that people don’t want Aldermen more involved, those that want to be. I will certainly go with the group’s decision, and maybe another time there will be another approach. Thank you. Chairman Clemons I would only say that I think that there is ample opportunity for any Alderman that wants to be involved. I don’t know if you have ever talked to Mr. Sousa or you can talk to the Mayor about these certain things or… Alderman Pressly Absolutely. Chairman Clemons …as a … Alderman Pressly I have early on. Chairman Clemons …and as a… Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 14 Alderman Pressly Early on, over a year ago. Chairman Clemons …committee, the Infrastructure Committee, I think… Alderman Pressly We’ve never had a… Chairman Clemons …like everyone else says is the appropriate place to have these types of discussions. Hopefully the committee can have them as they come along. It certainly sounds as though a discussion is coming forward as far as the new parking plan. I look forward to hearing that. As we all know, any member of the board can attend any committee and participate. I would encourage you all to do that if you are interested. The motion right now is to recommend final passage of R-11-158. Is there any further discussion? MOTION FAILED MOTION BY ALDERMAN CRAFFEY TO RECOMMEND INDEFINITE POSTPONEMENT MOTION CARRIED NEW BUSINESS – ORDINANCES O-11-83 Endorsers: Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly Alderman Arthur T. Craffey REGARDING RELEASES FROM JOB CANDIDATES MOTION BY ALDERMAN CRAFFEY TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE ON THE QUESTION Chairman Clemons Alderman Pressly I think this is one of yours as well. Alderman Pressly These are ideas that I put forth. The next four are ideas that I put forth early on, and many of them just need to be worked on. One of the interesting…if I can just reference all of them, I’m happy to have you put all of them either just not put them on the agenda since we are near the end of the term. One of the more interesting ones had to do with 84. Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 15 Chairman Clemons If I may, we have O-11-83; it has never been discussed, before us. If you would like to introduce it, I’d… Alderman Pressly I will. I feel sort of uncomfortable that I have monopolized so much of your… Chairman Clemons That is okay. Alderman Pressly …committee’s time. Chairman Clemons Oh no no. Alderman Pressly I’d be happy to have you just remove them from the agenda because I don’t think anyone else on the committee shares my interest. Chairman Clemons Well we haven’t discussed it yet Alderman Pressly. Alderman Pressly Okay. Chairman Clemons Would you like to introduce it or Alderman Craffey? Alderman Pressly Can’t even remember. Alderman Craffey This is similar to releases the police and fire department sign… Alderman Pressly I think that is a really great idea… Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 16 Chairman Clemons Alderman Craffey has the floor. Sorry. Alderman Pressly Okay. Alderman Craffey I will yield to Alderman Pressly since she is the main sponsor. Alderman Pressly Sorry, it’s been a long night. The idea that brought this forth was that one of the issues particularly with the employees in the higher levels, that we’ve, and I think the school department is the most obvious where they have hired people that we find out later really are not qualified or there are reasons that had we known the information would not have hired them. I was hearing about the police have a wonderful example of how they are able to when they are considering a candidate for the police department, they are able to talk with all sorts of people regarding the candidate and not be liable to be sued. Didn’t I send you all a copy of that early on? Chairman Clemons Yes. Alderman Pressly It has been a while. So that you could take a look at it and see if it applied. I know that there are a lot of people that object to that. I’m not going to make a big fuss over it. I think it is really smart that we have a better way of …audio inaudible… In the school department we had two situations where superintendents were clearly not qualified, cost us $6 million, and if we’d really done a thorough investigation of them it would likely have not happened. I felt it was a way of improving our job application and being able to investigate and vet people in a better way. That was the impetus for that. Chairman Clemons Okay. Alderman Vitale I don’t have the piece of legislation in front of me, but as far as our background checks that the City does, it seems that it should cover anything that is job specific for that job. You have your standard background checks, your educational background checks, whatever is on the resume and what is determined. That should suffice. I’m not sure if some of the information that the previous speaker just mentioned was actually correct as far as being qualified. I don’t even want to open that up, but I believe our process for doing background checks should work. If there is a point where we do additional checks that maybe would be more what we are looking at. I don’t know if we’re the venue that would discuss it at this moment anyhow. Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 17 Alderman Craffey I think it would be a good idea; we have a piece of legislation coming back, I think it was R-11-111 that has been re-referred back to us from the board, it deals with the same type of information. I think it might be a good idea that we table this and have the same discussion on both pieces of legislation at the same time, at the next meeting. Therefore, I would like to make a motion to table. Chairman Clemons Before you do that, if there is anybody else that would like to speak on it, just because… Alderman Craffey Okay yes, before I do that, I think Alderman McCarthy wants to speak on it. Chairman Clemons Okay. Alderman McCarthy I actually agree with Alderman Craffey that we ought to think about this with the other piece, and I think we need to think really carefully about it. The police have some right to ask for much more of an invasive background check than we have when we hire people to do some of our other functions. I’d hate to get to a big brother kind of situation in terms of trying to hire people to do the jobs the City has that often are not the most rewarding either personally or financially and then we will ask you to sign your rights away to get that job in the first place. I’m not sure that is a great idea. I’m also not sure…a couple of references made to specific individuals and understanding who those are I can’t for the life of me understand how a background check would have dealt with that. In the one case of the individual who may or may not have been responsible for a good portion of the $6 million shortfall, background checks don’t find out whether the person is qualified for the job. They find out whether they lied on their resume, they find out whether they lied about their education, they find out whether they are in trouble with the law. We would have gotten three phone calls asking to verify that this guy had worked for the City before and had done his job adequately. If there is any failure there it is a failure in the interview process not in the background checks that we did. I think there is room for us to do some of this stuff, but I want to tread lightly on it because I don’t know that we need to invade our employees’ privacy that much for many of our positions. Those that we do we should restrict it to just that information that is important. I can see us, when we have people that are in a position to handle cash or to have control over large sums of money; yes you want to understand that is not somebody who is transferring it to the Cayman Island instead of the bank where we have out account. I just don’t want to become big brother in terms of what we do with our employees. Alderman Pressly May I qualify something, a misunderstanding? Chairman Clemons I’m going to allow a little leeway, yes. Alderman Pressly Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 18 Thank you. This does not really cover background checks. I think it is the other one that you are thinking of combining with for discussion does. This has to do with people being able to give you an honest answer when you call for a reference. From what I’ve been told many people, if you call a place of business and ask for history, that most people will not give you much information or what they do is very sanitized. I think what this does it allows people to answer very honestly what their opinion is. I didn’t intend for it necessarily to be for everybody. This would be just for people at a certain level of responsibility. This did not have to do with background checks. Alderman McCarthy Okay, but those are essentially…checking references are background checks, and I will tell you that for any place I’ve worked in the last 35 years, it won’t get you any more than you would have gotten otherwise. Every place I have worked the policy is if someone calls you to ask about a reference you may say yes that person worked here from this date to that date and you may not answer any other question. Alderman Wilshire Thank you. Doing H.R. myself, that is true what Alderman McCarthy said. It doesn’t matter what releases people sign, if you call a company and say well Barbara Pressly worked for you, can you tell me a little bit, yeah we can tell you she worked here, we can tell you the dates she worked here, we can give you the job title, and pretty much that is all you are going to get from companies. Regardless of what people sign, companies out there don’t want to put themselves out on a limb and they are not going to regardless of what the employee or the candidate is willing to sign. Alderman Sheehan Thank you. I agree with some of the previous speakers. I think this is an interview process issue. The police have a different threshold. They also have different tools to verify. So if I ran into someone who say worked with you previously and said alright well she signed off and then that person doesn’t like you so says she likes to cause trouble or she likes to do whatever, so now you couldn’t sue that person, but how would we check to know if that is accurate? The police have ways of doing that. They are investigators. We’re not investigators. So when you have an interview process and you get this standard, that is why people generally if they want to be hired offer a reference that is separate but from the same company so you can call my previous employer, get all of that, but I’ve also offered you a reference letter from somebody I’ve worked with before that verifies what my resume says and says if you have any additional questions please call me for a personal reference, which is different. Generally you have networked with somebody who has left that company. People that want to be hired find ways for you to verify. When you can’t get anything on anyone that in itself is telling. It is an interview process more than a vetting process and I think that is where it needs to be. Chairman Clemons Is there any further discussion? MOTION BY ALDERMAN CRAFFEY TO TABLE MOTION CARRIED Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 19 O-11-84 Endorser: Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly RELATIVE TO RECORDED AUDIO OF PUBLIC MEETINGS MOTION BY ALDERMAN CRAFFEY TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE ON THE QUESTION Alderman Pressly Thank you. This has taken an interesting turn of events. What I’ve heard people complain about is being able to get accurate information of something that has taken place years ago, and it all has to do with how we record meetings. Complimenting the Board of Aldermen, I think we are the only board in the city that does keep really very good, not totally verbatim, but almost verbatim records. Most of the others do not. What is interesting, the people who…the high tech people have said oh it is easy you have all of these technical things today, well low and behold the City Clerk says no it is not that easy. This needs a lot of work. I bumped into John Barker coming in tonight and we talked about it, and he said one of the problems if you keep an audio or a tape of some sort it is not so much that that deteriorates, but the way the instruments used to play them change. It is not as easy as I thought it would be. It is not as easy as the high tech people told me it would be. I think I will try to work with them and see if they can come up with, between the City Clerk and the high tech people, an appropriate way to keep the records so that people can reference them. Technology is changing all the time. What I was told initially turns out not to be too accurate. We need some work on this. I would be happy, if you want to just table it and not put it on your agenda or do whatever you want, but this is not ready for final passage. Chairman Clemons Okay. MOTION BY ALDERMAN CRAFFEY TO TABLE O-11-84 MOTION CARRIED Chairman Clemons Tabled in committee we have two ordinances. They are both Alderman Pressly’s. Alderman Pressly do you have any interest in taking these off the table? Alderman Pressly I really don’t. The hour is late. I think everyone is tired. That is fine with me. Chairman Clemons Do any committee members? Personnel – 10/13/11 Page 20 TABLED IN COMMITTEE - ORDINANCES O-11-75, AMENDED Endorser: Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly RELATIVE TO THE USE OF ELECTRONIC DEVICES DURING MEETINGS • Amended & Tabled - 9/8/11 O-11-77 Endorser: Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly RELATIVE TO PUBLIC PARTICIPATION DURING COMMITTEE MEETINGS • Tabled 7/14/11 DISCUSSION - None PUBLIC COMMENT - None REMARKS BY THE ALDERMEN - None ADJOURNMENT MOTION BY ALDERMAN CRAFFEY TO ADJOURN MOTION CARRIED The meeting was declared closed at 9:45 p.m. Alderman Arthur T. Craffey, Jr. Committee Clerk