Bangor committee approves HIV grant, homelessness committee, HR director

[0:08] Michael Beck: All right, good evening. It is Monday, March 2nd, it is 6:35 p.m. This is the Government Operations Committee. I am Chair Michael Beck, and joining me our committee members Councillor Walker, Councillor Fish, Councillor Mailer. I'm going to be appointing Councillor Faloon to serve in Councillor Deane's absence. Also joining us our Councillor Leonard, as well as Council Chair Hawes and Counselor Carson, and also joining us the table is City Clerk Lisa Goodwin, and I [0:42] Carollynn Lear: believe that takes us to our first item, the City Park update. Good evening, just want to give you [0:47] Lisa Goodwin: a little update on what's happening in our office. Utility billing is now back on track again. We are, we're current with our billing. There's still a few glitches in the system, some issues that we're still working out with the water district, but overall things are good there. Online bill k that we've been working on seems like forever, but it's been since June of last year that got put on the back burner while we were fixing the other problems with the water district billing, but we're back on track with that. We're hoping tomorrow to be able to start testing again. We're hoping to get the file from them. If everything goes good then we should be able to implement it if we don't find any more bugs. It seems like every time we set to test we find something, so they have to fix it which breaks something else. I think we're, we're almost there, so I'm pretty hopeful about that. You know Emerson who was here at the last meeting, she got her certification. Janelle's worked for the city for 25 years and it's just within the last couple of years that we've been doing some professional development and having her get her certification, so we're lucky to have her. The plate issuance for the tree or no tree that will come full cycle at the end of April, so if you see any chickadee plates out there they either haven't licensed the vehicle yet after May 1st or they have reserved their plate and they just haven't got it yet, but they should have the right year sticker on it because the state will give them the right year sticker for it until they get their entry plate. Rental vehicle registrations, we do that for the airport rentals, we have been swamped with those. I had put in my report that it was 403, you can add 235 more that we got this week, so that kind of backs up the lobby a little bit because we have to pull somebody off to work full-time trying to process those and we got 135, 35 of those are brand new ones. So you've got your title and all of that stuff that goes along with this, so it takes a little bit longer. So, and you can imagine, because we're taking somebody to do that, then the mail backs out. So we're back to the 18th of February on that. My staff is coming in on Saturday this week to try and just get some stuff processed so that we don't have a huge backlog because that snowballs into people calling us saying I didn't my check hasn't cleared what's happening. So we're trying to make sure that doesn't happen on the clerk side of it. We've been having the nomination papers for the federal and state officers and those have been coming in fast and furious. So we've been certifying those and trying to get them back out because the deadline is March 16th for them for anybody that's running in the party. The non-party candidates they don't have to turn this in until of May. So we have a little bit of reprieve on them. The primary is June 9th. So we'll have the candidate ballot and we'll also have a county ballot which I don't know what the wording is yet but I think it's along the lines of building the jail somewhere other than the county seat. So I don't have the exact wording on that but so there will be two state ballots and then we'll have a local one for the recreation center the bond issue on that. Our absentee ballot applications will be available April 9th. That window is shorter for a primary than it is for general and in general actually you can request it three months ahead of time but this will only be two months. New this year starting just on January 1st anybody can request an ongoing absentee ballot. So you can get your application and say, I want you to send me a ballot for every single election. So they stay in the queue to get election ballot every time unless they move and they don't notify us or they're deceased or they move to a different town and we get notified. So that would be an ongoing thing. And we've got a few hundred, you know, mostly 65 and older that have taken advantage of that. that. So it's a nice thing for them. Because sometimes like if you have a small special election, people wouldn't know to request the ballot, they might not know about the election, they might not see it. So it's good for them. The in person absentee voting, we won't go over to the Cross Center in June to do that early. We'll just do all of it here like we did in November because we decided a few years ago just to do the big elections in November. And coming to you in April, or actually, yes, it'll be in April, I will have a couple of orders for you to appoint election clerks for the next two years, along with a voter registration appeals for the election clerks. The two major political parties can nominate people. And then I also have people that have worked for me for years. And I will put them one the less for you to consider for appointing, and they serve it to a year term. The voter registration appeals board, there's two members appoint nominated by each of the political parties, and then I will nominate the chair for that committee. That committee only meets if, say, as the registrar, I deny somebody's application to register to vote, and they appeal it to you to this board, and then that board will have their own hearing on it and decide whether or not they should be a registered voter, and that's we've only had one since I've been here. [Carollynn Lear: The new] state's voter registration program is rolling out at the end of this month everybody has to be in my office has to be trained on that it's like a five-hour training with the state and there's new security stuff that they put in so that will be coming so I'm gonna have to shuffle the ladies on the front line to make sure that they can get into that training and be able to assist people back when I had my evaluation we had talked about a staff development day and closing the office for a day to do all of our major training, so we have selected April 8th to do that. So I'll be working with the city manager's office to make sure that we get the word out to everyone so that they know that we'll be closed on that day. The customer service window will still be open because all the other departments will still be open that day, so she will be there to direct people. Okay. [7:35] Michael Beck: Any questions for the city clerk? [7:41] Carolyn Fish: Do you participate in territorial or maybe statewide or nationwide? I know it would be in a way, but are you able to network with other clerks and other municipalities to discuss what software technology or systems that they have that might be intriguing to you? I'm sometimes we would call about the taxes and the person says they've paid their taxes. Let's see, they haven't. It's in limbo because it hasn't been, you know, processed. And sometimes it's two or three months. And I know you guys are busy and really overworked. And I just didn't know if there's systems or technology or anything that you have an idea on that we could maybe start having, have a discussion zone to help facilitate a better flow and process. You know, we do go to [8:40] Lisa Goodwin: a lot of conferences and there's vendors there that we, that we talk to. Three of them's been around a long time. And one of our problems or that's our cash receiving and we also do motor vehicle through them. There's only two or three companies that the state uses to do that. So that we're kind of pigeonholed there a little bit for that. So there's no easy answer. There is no easy answer. But we and I do network with other clerks through state. [9:14] Joseph Leonard: I just had a question regarding some of the, a lot of citizens have some election questions coming up this year. Does anything? Is anything changing regarding who handles the local elections? Have it is a and anything change by the time we get to November [9:40] Lisa Goodwin: this election things could change it on the federal level. We don't know. The Save Act is still out there. So I don't know whether they're going to vote on that or not. It's in the Senate now and you hear conflicting stories. They're gonna vote on, they're not gonna vote on it. So I don't know. If there's nothing on a state level that's gonna change. [10:01] Joseph Leonard: So let's say that were to pass, what changes at your level? [10:09] Lisa Goodwin: Well, everyone would need to show ID and anybody that's new would have to show proof of citizenship. So that would be a huge change for us. And if we don't document it correctly, I could go to jail for five years if that's in the bill. Also. So it's, you know, I might lose some election workers. [10:34] Joseph Leonard: So I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like this is like, potentially a lot more bureaucratic hoops that you guys have to go through just to make sure that one, you guys aren't violating the law, and also to make sure that people are actually able to vote. Does this likely mean that it's just is gonna potentially take longer for an individual person to register and or vote? [11:01] Lisa Goodwin: It will probably take them longer to register, yes, because we're gonna have to verify their documents and make sure that they're a legal document, and it would have to be passport or certificate. There's a couple of other different IDs that they can use to prove their citizenship, but. [11:17] Joseph Leonard: Would all Bangor citizens have to re-register? [11:21] Lisa Goodwin: I don't believe so. So I've read the bill, and I don't think that everybody would have to re-register, but if you were living in Hermann and you moved to Bangor, you would have to. [11:32] Joseph Leonard: Okay. One final question, completely unrelated. So we're talking about having a referendum question for coming up this November. member. What's the final deadline for us to submit that referendum? Like the last minute date that weekend? March 30. March 30. Okay. And that's for all referendums, not just Okay, thank you. Thanks, Lisa. [12:05] Carollynn Lear: Any other questions? [12:08] Michael Beck: I would just say I'm glad to hear about the development day and be interested to hear how it goes so thank you very much all right that brings us up to the order authorizing the application to Nasdaq for 500 000 grant funding to support a two-year program to increase support for people living with HIV it's like public health director Gunderman's gonna be joining us thank [12:37] Unidentified speaker (Public Health Official): you so we were just recently informed that Nasdaq the National Association of State and Territorial AIDS Directors has just released some funding this funding is specifically for people who have been considered out of care for their HIV treatment that means that they haven't gotten certain lab tests in the past six months to 12 months and it's an effort to relink them back into care we know that when people can suppress their viral load they as an individual lead healthy and happy and they also reduce the risk of transmission so we are contemplating we have not definitely made up our minds yet about applying for this funding there are certain criteria and thresholds with the funding that we're working through to determine if we're even eligible and so what I can say is that $500,000 is for per year for two years. It would go to expand our intensive case management program to get another van that could collaborate with our street medicine partners and to other costs to break down barriers for people to engage in care. This is beyond the outbreak. This is for people we're looking at, particularly the Bangor area, that have gotten out of care. When we look at the risk factors for HIV, actually the most reported risk factor is men who have sex with men, followed by heterosexual sex, then followed by injection drug use. We've spoken a lot about injection drug use being a risk factor for our current outbreak, but that's actually historically in the state of Maine, kind of like almost like the third risk factor. So this grant would look beyond this outbreak and anyone who's not linked to care. We believe that there is potentially a good group of people that were receiving case management from HEAL. And then with all the changes that happened may have been lost along the way. So, again, we're still trying to look at the data to decide if it's appropriate. appropriate and but wanted to get your approval if we land on a yes we think we meet [14:54] Carolyn Fish: the criteria questions of the director that's for fish would the criteria involve outreach [15:02] Unidentified speaker (Public Health Official): beyond the greater bangor area no so what we've done is one of the criteria is that you need to have a prevalence rate or the number of people who are currently living with HIV, it has to be 200 people per 100,000 of the population. When I asked Maine CDC for that data for Penobscot County, for example, it doesn't reach that high of a number. So what we'd be look what we're looking for now for Maine CDC is what is the number specifically for Bangor, and that is probably what we would land on if we have an application go in. [15:36] Carolyn Fish: Then for the price when we fluctuate it could be up to 550 but it might be population [15:42] Unidentified speaker (Public Health Official): No, because you know what's interesting with this population, the population who falls out of healthcare means that they have a lot of significant challenges in their life potentially. So the intensity of the service that are brought to them, sometimes it doesn't make a difference if it's like sometimes 10 people to 15 to 20, the intensity of what they might need for engagement could still be quite the price tag. That's the experience that we're having right now. [16:11] Michael Beck: I have a question. so to this point we've been spent a lot of time talking about you know folks who are being camped in or you know folks who you don't have a substance use disorder so this grant then it basically wouldn't wider like that picks up [16:22] Carollynn Lear: everybody who fell out of care yes and people fall out of care for many [16:27] Unidentified speaker (Public Health Official): different reasons but this is definitely beyond it can include people who are experiencing homelessness injection drug use but this definitely cast that way [16:38] Carollynn Lear: Any other questions? You're saying that this funding, sorry, well, that's a lot, but you this [16:45] Lisa Goodwin: Funding is for transportation included with the end that you were talking about, yes, okay. [16:51] Unidentified speaker (Public Health Official): So we, 're on a webinar this week with Nasdaq to understand what the allowable costs are. Being able to lease a vehicle is an acceptable cost, allowable, sorry, okay, sorry. [17:05] Carollynn Lear: Okay, all right, action from us, yes, I'll entertain a motion. I move that we [17:15] Carolyn Fish: approve the application to NASA for $500,000 grant. Okay, I have a motion [17:21] Wayne Mallar: in the second. Any doubt? I just will make a comment. Sure, I'm not excited about getting grant money. I know it's everyone thinks of it as free money, but someone's paying for it somewhere along the line. Considering the numbers we have in the HIV area, I really have to think long and hard about whether it's worthwhile to spend this amount of money. Can [17:52] Unidentified speaker (Public Health Official): I ask a question? Oh, sure. What would make it worth it? Help me to understand what [17:57] Wayne Mallar: would make it worth it for you? Well, the problem is we have so many other areas that deserve our consideration and monies that I really have a problem isolating such a small group. And it seems like since we've had the HIV outbreak in the outbreak in the area, we seem to have gotten more people from away moving here because of it. So if you know, it's like the old search, you provide the service, they'll be there. And I'm not sure that's what we want. I don't mind taking care of the people we have. But I'm not sure I want to cast the net wide to bring in everyone else. [18:35] Unidentified speaker (Public Health Official): So that's not the experience that we've had with the HIV outbreak. What I would say is the HIV outbreak has been a priority for our health department because it's been, but I welcome you to our department anytime to see the amazing work that we do in a bunch of different areas, including nutrition, maternal health, and other programs. [18:55] Wayne Mallar: Well, as I remember, I asked you for information regarding the people that were being served in the community and the report you gave me tells me nothing because I can't even read it. I'm happy [19:09] Unidentified speaker (Public Health Official): to work with you to interpret the report. What I will say is that when we do work like the options team there's also a level of privacy that we need to have for individuals and so you don't always [19:24] Wayne Mallar: Share information with other. I think I was very specific when I asked for the information. I don't care who the people are. I just wanted to know when you were taking, you fill out these cards supposedly, and when you fill out the card, I was interested in who the referrals were made to, because we seem to lack coordination in a lot of areas, especially in public health in my opinion, and I want to see that change. I want to see more coordination. I think we spend a lot of money and I don't know if we get the box for a buck that we should. That's all. We're going back to the motion. So we have the motion, [20:00] Michael Beck: we have a second. Do we have any doubt? See no doubt. Looks like this has approved. Appreciate it. That brings us to item number three. This is our revised homelessness committee task force drafts. Spell [20:19] Carollynn Lear: there. All right, so in a recent meeting we took a look at a version of a joint homelessness and affordable housing committee, and I had a number of takeaway edits to make. The primary takeaway edit was to break apart two concepts, homelessness and affordable housing, and we were just going to focus on the homelessness committee for our first committee to tackle. Additionally, you asked that we add the superintendent or a designee as a member, that we set a non-mandatory goal of a third for the lived experience component of that committee, reduce the number of seats to nine, make the list of types of expertise we were seeking be sort of a non-mandated list to give council some flexibility to evaluate those applicants as they came, and then to clarify the counselor fish you had asked adding mention of medicaid assisted, medication assisted treatment experience. That has been added, and then counselor mallory you asked to clarify the voting requirement for the passage of the committee's recommendation. So all of those changes have been made in this draft. But as I'm sure you noticed, there are two drafts. As I looked, actually went back and looked at the video to try to confirm what you had asked of me. And it wasn't clear from the video whether the intent was that this would proceed as a temporary task force or a permanent standing committee. Committee. So I have drafted it both ways and you have both of those before you. That is the substantive difference between the two drafts. The order would be for a temporary task force that would just focus in on the strategic plan, whereas the ordinance would be a permanent standing committee. [22:42] Carolyn Fish: Questions? Counterfish, thank you very much. This to me, taking the housing from phoning out just seems so streamlined, so clear, and much easier for me to kind of wrap my head around. And so thank you. This really just flows very well. And one remembered and I guess it doesn't, I don't have great deal passion either way. My first thought is maybe we start with temporary just in case, as we start we see tweaks that we need to come back for this to change. It might be easier with a temporary one than if we maybe a permanent one where it's new and we're just going to be starting. We may find there's things we want to add, things we want to change, so and then it may go a lot better than you know, we may be surprised that it goes well. At some point we may want to make it permanent, but those are my thoughts. Thank you for your patience with us and changing this has made a lot more sense to me. Go [23:50] Daniel Carson: for Carson. Yes, thank you. I'm not on this committee, but you are asking for clarity on whether it should be standing or permanent, and I'm going to answer not neither. So I sort of have this vision, right, because the whether it's task force or it's a committee. And I think this is a question that's going to be ongoing. I'll start there. So some permanence to the, it's going to be ongoing. I think we're gonna need to revisit this question very often. But at our last meeting, when these ideas were combined, I think I was talking about how this task force or committee, right, we have this, we're sort of like running towards winter here, right? We really need to have a plan together. Other winter is coming and we need to know what we're acting upon. And that is going to be based on our conditions as they exist now, what we have in terms of resources, what we have in terms of we're able to build in terms of collaboration. And then if we do a housing committee, which we're not talking about right now, but now I'm going to, then I would suspect that our conditions over time would change. And so the task force or the homeless committee is going to need to revisit visit its strategic plan as conditions change based on the work that another committee might do if we get that far. So then I think to myself, it probably I would love to see a task force that grows up to become a subcommittee of a housing committee, right, a task force now that actually creates that strategic plan. But then when we move in a different direction then maybe it finds a new home I [25:41] Joseph Leonard: Was gonna say that as like if we're gonna do one of the other identical for more of a standing committee, and the reason why that's the case is we ourselves as a council body or even the committee itself can actually ask Council for an ordinance change. In fact, you guys will be hearing for an ordinance change regarding the parking committee very soon, heads up on that. So that's absolutely something that any committee is able to do if they want to request an ordinance change or an amendment to their specific ordinance, we can entertain that if we want to. So but because time is of the essence, you know I'll go with the whatever Council's whatever this committee deems to be most appropriate. I think we know in deep down that the poverty that we're seeing right now, it is going to be not solved next year or even the next five years. This is going to be something that we're going to have to really understand is going to be with us for a while, and it's going to get better slowly. I think a standing committee that's able to evolve over a long period of time is going to be much more effective than issuing out a task force that doesn't know if it's going to be here for the long haul. We know we're going to need those specific individuals for the long haul. I just I don't really see another way around it. I don't think I think a task force is it's it's too narrow in terms of its vision. Dr [27:29] Susan Faloon: Floyd, I agree with a lot of what Council Leonard said, but I think we could lose some momentum if we have this temporary task force and then it goes away, and then we don't have that continuity of you know having this you know at least some of the same people carrying it forward for a longer period of time. So I personally would be in favor of a more permanent committee. I [27:57] Michael Beck: would just add that you know my fear is you know we had the task force in 2019 and that's kind of what happened. They came this report, Council accepted it, and then it just got dropped, whereas if we have a standing committee, they're going to keep pushing them you know that boulder of bail you know and keep giving that political will to keep you know because Council is going to change. I mean a third of us swap out every year, you know, whereas this you know committee kind of transcends that and Keeps putting things in front of council in accordance with this plan they're going to bring us and to the point of you know things will change but we know you know the plan they're making now is in front of us but you know as we do more work situation will change and they can you know continue to edit this living document and keep bringing things forward so I do in favor of a standing committee with this with the first task being the strategy but then them staying on they see this strategy Through the other comments I [28:58] Wayne Mallar: Was curious about something and I didn't remember looking at it so I went back I just went back now that the term that you're going to appoint people to the committee obviously now you're appointing three a year how are you going to know I'm just confused as to which positions you appoint every year if we're going to have specific people involved is it a replacement of the one that's like the superintendent appoints can appoint someone. So if it's that term up this time, it has to be another superintendent appointed person. [29:37] Carollynn Lear: So the superintendent is on there forever, an ex officio permanent non voting, non voting. [29:47] Wayne Mallar: So what about the others? I mean, you we've got categories of people we want. So you're You're replacing the category for the election or for the appointment. It's gonna be very confusing doing it. That's why I'm confused by it. [30:03] Michael Beck: I would see more along the lines like what we do with Acorn. You've got this bucket of expertise you can pick from and some people come back and wanna get reappointed and we agree and sometimes we don't. Same thing where people will reapply and if we think they're doing a fine job, we can certainly reappoint them. them. But, you know, we have we have a bucket of expertise to pick from, you know, as long as they check one of the boxes. Yeah, [30:30] Wayne Mallar: That we just needed clarification, because it got a little confusing thinking about, you're going to have to point someone that was specific to the person that just term was over. So eventually, you could end up with a one sided committee. [30:48] Carolyn Fish: I think this is a very will be a very important committee and somehow council's gonna really have to be aggressive in trying to reach out into the community to make sure that those categories when their term is up that we have already reached out or we have an inventory of people want to reach out to. I think this is going to be a very important committee and we just may have to make a little more effort energy into reaching out to those and they don't volunteer on it now. [31:24] Michael Beck: We'll add that during the anchor committee they did say that we need any help reaching out to the committee that's something they'd be willing to do if we asked so I wanted to pass that along. Any other comments or questions? It's not like we need to make a motion on whether we want the permanent or the same to be rather versus just the task for us so we have to pick one to make a motion. I'll entertain a motion to a [31:53] Carolyn Fish: Mover of the committee over fish I make a motion that we adopt the homeless committee as a permanent committee. Motion second. We've [32:10] Carollynn Lear: a further discussion big doubt looks [32:17] Michael Beck: like the motion for a permanent committee passes. All right, we'll take this to number four, the referral resolve appropriating from undesignated fund balance in the amount of up to $50,000 to fund a director of human resources position. [32:38] Carollynn Lear: So I think you all heard my skill about this once, but I will try to repeat it a little bit more briefly. So I think one of the first things that was really notable to me when I joined the city was just the incredible workload that the assistant city manager currently shoulders. So in addition to being the assistant city manager our city manager is responsible for essentially being the department head of the community connector bus system and is also the chief human resources officer. As you can imagine with a staff in the several of hundreds of employees, we have a lot of high level HR issues that require input and oversight from a director of human resources. And essentially the situation that we find ourselves in as a city is that we're not paying adequate attention mention to either role because we're expecting one person to essentially do three jobs. And so I've brought to you a request to pull the chief human resources officer out from the assistant City Manager role and make that a standalone position that will oversee human resources for the city. When we started considering this idea, I looked at all of the similarly sized cities in Maine, and none of them combine this role. They all have a standalone chief human resources officer, separate and apart from their assistant city manager. I think that having someone truly dedicated to full-time hiring, training, retaining, policies and procedures for employees will really serve the city in the long term, particularly since the vast majority of our budget is human capital. So I'm looking for your approval to make that higher eminently as opposed to waiting until the start of the next credit cycle using unassigned fund balance questions I [35:13] Michael Beck: did have one question just about terminology, you know, so if we hear the phrase unassigned fund balance and the order it says [35:20] Carollynn Lear: undesignated, oh I'm sorry, I don't know which one's undesignated is the right one, okay, that's what happens when you hire a new city manager. Well I guess to expand on that question I guess [35:36] Michael Beck: I mean I guess what's the difference, like we talk about our unassigned fund balance, you know, I guess what would be the difference between what's on an undesignated fund versus what's our unassigned fund [35:47] Carollynn Lear: Yeah I don't, I actually can't answer that question for you. I would need to have to our finance director and get the actual explanation on how those two figures are determined, but this is the line item that we're pulling from that was specifically listed in the budget last year as money being raised by taxes but not being designated for a particular purpose so [36:17] Michael Beck: We need a motion on this, so the motion in a second, any doubt, looks like that motion goes forward, that brings us to an executive session is [36:31] Carolyn Fish: I'll entertain a motion on that. I move we go into executive session MRSA 405 60 consultation [36:41] Michael Beck: Won't you have a second, all right, we need a roll call vote. Counselor Walker, counter balloon, yeah, counter finish, yeah, counter Miller, and I'll be a yes, we are in executive [Susan Hawes: executive session so] We are out of executive session, we were toward a committee member here, we're out of executive session, so I will entertain a motion. I don't [1:14:30] Susan Faloon: know what the motion is, but let's see, I'll give it a shot. Okay, I move that we don't pass the ordinance as presented, however we do approve a an order supporting the city adopting the state's law that would go into effect in July immediately or as of [1:15:04] Susan Hawes: Our next council meeting. Did I do that right? Any subject, City Solicitor, just as long as the part that you're talking about would be to direct staff to prepare an order to be considered by the council. That I think that's what you meant, I'm not sure. Yeah, to direct staff to prepare [1:15:25] Susan Faloon: prepare an order to be approved by that was really long. I know that we're saying the motions [1:15:35] Susan Hawes: and then in what type of an order you're directing staff to prepare would you want [1:15:39] Susan Faloon: to conclude that emotion. Yes, so the so in the order it would be to implement the state law 1971 sooner than it would go into effect for the state to comply with it, to comply with it like immediately here in the city of Bangor [1:16:05] Carollynn Lear: it's [1:16:08] Michael Beck: a motion. Do we have a second for a second? As a chair, yes [1:16:20] Susan Hawes: you can I'll offer [1:16:21] Michael Beck: a second. Don't, I'm so sorry. It's okay. All right, so the motion was second. So again, the motion was we were going to recommend ought not to pass as the ordinance is written and instead I'll ask staff to draft an order that would have the city comply immediately with lb 1971. So we'll do we have a doubt to that motion? Yes. Yeah, so we're gonna do a roll call vote on that. Councillor Walker? Yes. Councillor Fluke? Yes. Councillor Fish? No. Councillor Miller? No. And I'll be a yes. So three yes, two no, and that closes that matter and that brings