It has been a while since I advocated for you to get involved in city government.
Here is my reminder for you to go to the source in order to stay informed. One of the sources is the City's website for upcoming and past meetings. There you can find the read aheads for committee meetings and the general council meetings. You can also find the minutes from past meetings.
I highly recommend that you go to the committee meetings. Council does a lot of their coordination outside these meetings and they tend not to volunteer to hand out materials to the public - but I think they would if more of us started going and letting them know we want full discussions at the meetings.
You can also watch the general meeting live on the web or via streaming video after the meeting. The video below shows the citizen's comments from the April 8th meeting. The video of the entire council meeting can be found here.
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Mr. Otto talks about Brick City Sports and Ms. Smith announces National Volunteer week and the opening of a new Montgomery County Care House |
Also send Clerk of the Council Anthony (Tony) Rogers an email and ask him to put you on the city email list. He will send you the agenda's for upcoming committee meetings. These emails often come out before they are posted to the website. For instance here are the agendas for the April 16, Administration Committee (6:00pm) and Public Works Committee (4:30) meetings at City Hall:
- Administration Committee - I've provided quick summaries of the read aheads. Please review the item yourself if you want to fully understand.
- City Fireworks Contract - Council plans to contract with the same fireworks exhibitor they have used since 2010. Cost is $35,000 for both this year and next.
- City Marketing - The city is contracting with an advertising firm to produce two more videos at a cost of $7,500 and $5,000. One video will have animation footage of "The Heights" edited to allow for the marketing of this area of the City. The second involves the Community Open House planned for May 18, 2013.
- Music Center There are five proposals being requested to start the design work on the music center. Opening the first couple and we see they are extensive documents that deserve more attention and their own write-up. Please open and review. I appreciate your posting of your review and thoughts.
- GoodSports Enterprises Development - No read ahead as of Saturday
- The Heights Development/Carriage Trails - No read ahead as of Saturday
- Issuance of Notes/Bonds - No read ahead as of Saturday
- HB 5 Resolution - HB 5 is a state resolution designed to lower business taxes by pretending to simplify the tax code (your state legislators simplify the tax code by making companies keep track of depreciation over multi years instead of just one). Because it is a tax break it will cost the city tax revenues (City estimates $975,000 annually). This resolution states the city's objection.
- City Charter Residency Requirement - Ohio law prevents a city from requiring its employees from living in the city. This item clarifies that the courts have ruled Ohio Law trumps the City Charter. It is nice to know that every now and again council evaluates some of the things I bring up.
- Annual City Liquor Permit Renewals and the Heat Nightclub Liquor Permit - The city will discuss the recent court ruling about the Heat Nightclub's Liquor Permit. The court ruling is an agenda attachment and is interesting.
- Executive Session – Purchase or Acquisition of Real Estate Property
- Public Works
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PC Case 13-08 – Major Change – New Concession Stand/Restrooms – Thomas Cloud Park – 4707 Brandt Pike In 2012, the City’s concession stand and restroom facility was destroyed in a fire. The City has decided to replace that building but in a different location. Brick City Baseball has expressed an interest in creating a true Little League Baseball complex and this would help start moving towards that goal. This building will be located at the center of the existing baseball diamonds, which is still towards the center of the park and can be accessed by all users.
The building will be 62 feet by 25 feet 4 inches with an 8 foot covered porch. The total floor area is 1520 square feet. - United Water Contract Extension
- Commercial Service Trash Hauling
- Wayne Swim Club (I initially connected this item and the executive session when I first saw it on the agenda. Keep in mind, my interpretation of the Sunshine law tells us that council is only allowed to use executive sessions to discuss the Purchase or Acquisition of Real Estate "if premature disclosure of information would give an unfair competitive or bargaining advantage to a person whose personal, private interest is adverse to the general public interest." ORC 121.22 Public Meeting Exceptions )
- Executive Session – Purchase or Acquisition of Real Estate Property - (if this executive session is to discuss the possible donation or sale of the swim club to the city I wonder how council would meet the requirement of the Sunshine law?)
Edited
Comments
Do council members understand the proposals?
For instance I was looking at the MKSK proposal and I see that there are three phases to the Site Planting Plans that are associated with specific costs (Preliminary - $2,000, Intermediate - $6,000 and Final - $10,000).
Looking at the proposal it describes the work that MKSK will perform. From it we look for items that might relate to Site Planting Plans that we aren't being charged for somewhere else. We see they have made it easy for us by creating a Section B Urban Design + Landscape Architecture. In that section lets look for items that might relate to Planting Plans. Open the proposal and I see Schematic Design items 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 15, 17, 21; Design Development items 1, 2, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13; Construction Documentation items 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 10, 12 Bidding and Permitting items 2, 3, 4, 5 Construction Administration items 1, 2, 3, Project Close-out 1, 2 all seem to relate.
If this were the section our council member was seeking details about I would hope that council member asked to hear more about what it takes to get these items accomplished. For instance from my limited experience I would expect the "technical drawing items" to be accomplished by someone with an associates degree. A new hire might be paid $33,000 a year, someone with a little more experience maybe $45,000. In this case the company's hourly charge to the city would probably be about $70 an hour. For the rest of the items associated with Planting Plans the person doing that work could be making as much as the site manager. In this case the company could be charging around $100 an hour. I personally don't see any costs associate with "Site Planting Plans" other than employee costs (direct or subcontractor). If half of the work is technical drawings then it turns out MKSK expects it to take 210 hours of work to develop a Planting Plan. This seems excessive. So are there other costs that I'm not thinking about?
At this point it comes down to how good are the questions council members would ask in order to get more clarification on the cost for this particular item to determine if this proposal item is costing us what it should cost us. Remember if council does enough work and enough inquiry to save us 10% that will be $1.8 million dollars of savings on this project.
I wish I had made last night's meeting so that I could have seen which items each of our council members explored in order to make sure they understood at least a little about the details of these proposals. If each of the council members and the mayor had independently picked a proposal item to discuss in detail we would have heard a discussion on 9 different aspects of the proposals. This should give us a good indication if the costs of the proposals are reasonable. If the administration committee meeting happened this way this would help ensure we receive value for our tax dollars. I can't wait to see the minutes of last nights meeting to see how effective the discussion was in assisting our council members in making an informed vote.