Lewiston council debates budget cuts, approves order to secure 70 River St.

[0:36] Carl L. Sheline: Hello and welcome to our Tuesday evening budget workshop. As some of you know we also have a special meeting that got advertised for 7. So we will start with the workshop. If the workshop is done by 7 then there's that. If not then at 7 we'll put the workshop on pause, have our special meeting which I am not anticipating will take very long and then we'll come right back to the workshop. but we're joined here by administrator Cain Rath and director Roy please kick [1:09] Bryan Kaenrath: us off all right thank you mr. mayor so I think tonight's workshop is largely gonna send around we have two amendments that were offered by counselors counselor in a gene and also a counselor Chittum have two amendments they brought forward so I don't know if we'd like to start with maybe them kind of introducing their amendments and the finance charge you go through some of the numbers and the breakdown of those amendments if that if that makes sense or however you'd like to proceed but we have two counselors who have sponsored amendments tonight before us i [1:40] Carl L. Sheline: had previously spoken with director roy maybe director roy could go over the amendments and numbers and then we will kick it back to counselors so [1:52] Bryan Kaenrath: amendment one is council chidams you have the paper in front of you he's looking at the tier three without the take-home vehicles if you remember probably about three weeks ago we started the tier one tier two tier three so those items were to cover more the homeless shelter from the tiff 106 066 remove the vehicles for LATC the buses for 50,000 the workers comp gap for reserves that we usually put a little bit in to cover unfunded 150,000 and council Chittum is requesting without the take-home vehicle so we would remove the gas the repairs payers and the air cards and the auto insurance for $297,500, $255,000, $250,000, $18,000, $198,000, and $120,000. So we would have to add back in the 10 vehicles minus the trade-in as a reminder for $439,836. And then we have an increase when we open the gas bid. If you remember, we had that discussion of 116 985 and then we move down to some of the other smaller items move some of the salaries into utilities of twenty four thousand seven oh one mileage and office supplies from the recreation five thousand nine twenty and ten thousand nine hundred repairs to the armory 8,500 and 10,000 and then removing the coaching under the miscellaneous of 22,000 and the community forums of 10,000 and then position three if you remember was in tier two three positions 295,530 and then the positions five positions 454,482 was a savings of $1,082,826 and then we had where we're going to add the state revenue sharing up to 100% of $580,813 to revenue, increase building inspection fees of $150,000 and use up fund balance to get to the 9% of $1,950,153 and then additional to those three tiers that we had discussed council chitin would like to see from the supply lines 330 000 two additional positions of 176 328 those i believe are the two vacancies that were discussed last week one police officer one firefighter and then the request for other fees of 2 600 to be removed so that would be a savings of four million two seventy two seven twenty and then on the next page you can see the tax rate sheet and how that would affect it would reduce the operating expenses for the city to three point eight percent and would bring down the proposed tax rate to two point five percent which is below the cpi so that was councillor chittum's amendment next was councillor nai jean's amendment to remove the same items as councillor chittum for the without with the take-home vehicles so we wouldn't be removing any of the police that we that Council Chairman's requesting. So the first item, of course, is the homeless shelter. We would cover 106,666 from the TIF. Next is the vehicle for the buses, 50,000. The workers' comp gas gap for reserve, 150,000. Mileage and office supplies from the recreation, 5,920 and 10,900. Armory repairs to building, 8,500 and 10,000. miscellaneous services for coaching 22 000 miscellaneous services for community forum for 10 000 and then we would add the gas bid in the increase of 116 985 and then again the revenue sharing up to the 100 of 580 813 building inspection fees of 150 000 and then the fund balance up to nine percent a million nine fifty one fifty three would get us to the two million three sorry two million nine thirty seven nine sixty seven and then additionally director gagnon sent out an email to all of you on may 7th on some items that could be removed out of open spaces so they spoke about adding back to sale September 50,000 so that's adding revenue removing repairs to build in 66,000 removing 7600 from repairs to grounds and removing 20,000 from miscellaneous services and then removing 7 500 from the downtown program which would be a savings of 151 100 and then additionally requesting positions the mis director the senior assessor the hr technician another police officer to be frozen two Firefighters to be frozen, a caseworker and the recreation administration assistant, and then all the benefits below are 874,571 together. So in total, the savings would be 3,963,638. On the next page is the tax rate sheet that would bring the operating expenses down to 4.4% for the city and would bring the proposed tax rate down to 3.3 right at that CPI thank [8:22] Carl L. Sheline: you anything further director Roy or [8:25] Bryan Kaenrath: administrator Cane? Wrath, I would just like to mention on the supplies with the, I took the supplies and I did like 10% across the board, the largest ones of course if you are going to keep the police officers vehicles in for the take-home, that is one of the largest along with the gas. So if you want to reduce supplies, the largest ones are the gas from central garage which is going to be needed and the gas for PD take home and then of course salmon salt, those are the three largest reductions if you're looking at taking 10% off the supply line I just wanted to mention that thank you administrator came with [9:09] Carl L. Sheline: did you have anything? I think we're ready for questions. Yeah, so what I'd like to do is just proceed here in an orderly fashion with counselors and we're gonna start with the counselor from Ward one where go down the row like to hear what you think about each proposal, where you're at, if you have questions. Can the department heads please raise their hand, those of you that are in the audience, a number of department heads here. Okay, I was looking for our public works director, I found it. Yeah, so yeah we'll just go down the line for which proposal you support or what support, what proposal you support with modifications if you have any and then questions for department heads etc and [9:53] Joshua L. Nagine: we'll we'll go there. Councillor from ward 1. Thank you mr. mayor this wasn't easy and I worked with councillor long champs on much of this and the feeling was at the time that council perhaps did not support tier 3 cuts and so we had worked through to try to figure out positions that we could cut and we've had conversations with some of the directors concerns these positions some of the directors are not happy about the proposals that are being put forward to be clear and i guess it's a it's a it's a starting place to have these conversations Ultimately, we know that we have to get the budget to at least the northeast CPI. How we do that, you know, part of this, I think we have an opportunity to hear from some folks that have some concerns about some of the positions and that may be able to weigh upon us about those decisions. But one way or the other, both of these proposals include cut positions. The proposal from Councillor Chittim's, the proposal Councillor Chittim is putting out, is cutting more positions overall. One of the challenges that I absolutely have right now, I was looking at the way that each of the departments functions and the way that they're budgeted. Some of the departments are very thin in their costs. You look at the recreation department, that they don't even have a supply line. You look at the cost for the library, it's very, it's very low, and also the staffing is very low. And some of these larger departments, you know, I'm just going to say it, I'm very frustrated by the fact that we have to guarantee 1.7 million dollars in overtime for the fire department and we're talking about cutting jobs. It's very disappointing to me. We're stuck in contractual agreements that don't allow us to find any efficiencies in this city at all, and now we're talking about jobs and it does, it just doesn't sit right with me. But that's, and it's not just the fire department's contractual agreements. There are, there are other inefficiencies that are built into the model that guarantee overtime for people while we're talking about cutting jobs and other departments, and that is very challenging for [12:39] David B. Chittim: me. Good [12:43] Susan G. Longchamps: evening. Thank you all for being here. This was not an easy task at all. As Councillor Nagine shared, whether it was, whether it be the proposal that we brought forward with these amendments or Councillor Chittim's, or if we left it for our administrator, unfortunately we were looking at positions having to go, and it is unfortunate. I wish we weren't in this situation. This is probably the worst part of actually, it is the worst part of something I think I've ever had to do, and I personally looked at every angle and tried to see where we could take out supplies take out we really looked at everything and I just don't see any other we actually don't have any other option besides using more of a fund balance and we don't have we can't go below a certain number and to be quite honest we don't have the votes for that so we've used as much fund balance as everyone is willing to give we've done the best we could to try to look at every department and but the one thing we know is we do have to lessen the tax burden for the citizens of lewiston and i'd like to just apologize to anyone that this is going to hurt because it is going to and i am in support of the amendments that councillor naging did put forward and i would like to talk about the supply list at later on thank you [14:47] Carl L. Sheline: counselor Herman thank you director Roy could you remind [14:52] Scott A. Harriman: us what the gas bid increase is on both of those that was when we opened the gas [14:58] Bryan Kaenrath: bid so when we do the budget we don't have the gas numbers yet and as you remember we waited a little bit because it had spiked so high and then we did the gas bid so that we did the adjustment of what it would be for that happy year so we needed to increase the budget that 116 so we put that in there okay so that's [15:21] Scott A. Harriman: just that's just the increase over last year when the bid was open correct for what we had estimated [15:27] Bryan Kaenrath: for an amount for gas it was around the same as what we had for this year and then all of a sudden gas just went right up due to the issues that are going on okay thank you [15:47] Scott A. Harriman: anything else counselor herman no just seeing this and digesting it and i may have more comments later [15:55] Carl L. Sheline: do you have an idea about which amendment you're supporting at this point if any i will have to look them over first i'm gonna go at the end counselor roy [16:09] Michael R. Roy: thank you mr mayor i'll echo a few of our counselors that went before me this is definitely not easy I never really thought we'd be here out of both of these I mean I'm gonna go with the one that cuts less positions because I was not in favor of cutting any positions at all but unfortunately I don't see us getting to a point of where we can do anything without cutting positions the only other suggestion I would say and I and I don't I don't like this suggestion is with going with Counselor Nguyen's proposal, but I mean, if we're talking about cutting positions and we're putting in take home cars, I'm having a problem with that. I know the police department needs people, and I'm torn right now with us because I see people's jobs on the line, and I see cars that we're buying, and I know it's gonna be an added value to get police officers, but at and I know we need it because the city right now, we need a spark, we need something to change things right now. I would, I'm leaning towards council and Eugene's proposal, and I'm just torn with the cars because I just don't know what the right way to go is with that because I've heard people on both sides, so that's, that's my thing. I'm leaning towards council and easy because it's the less, the least amount of positions cut, so that would be what I'm [17:52] Carl L. Sheline: looking at right now. Councillor Noble, your thoughts? So how many of these [18:00] Chrissy Noble: positions, how many of these people have bumping rights? So [18:11] Bryan Kaenrath: I'm just going off of [18:14] Carl L. Sheline: memory right now. Once again, administrator, can you, for the general public, can you just explain [18:19] Bryan Kaenrath: what a bumping right is? Sure, our deputy administrator can also chime in on this, but this is your ability to bump or take the position of someone in your unit under the same contract of lesser seniority, that a position that you're qualified for, and you would have bumping rights to do that. So one, two, I believe there are four. Deputy administrator, is that correct, three or four? I believe there are three. A couple of these positions are not union positions. I'm not sure if one of them has any seniority to bump anyone, but I believe it. Okay, there's three that have. Is it just, I'm counting recreation admin, I'm counting caseworker, I'm accounting mis operations, and senior assessor. You are correct, for correct. Yep, and [19:19] Chrissy Noble: also I'm curious that like how these jobs will be absorbed, like what's, will we just not do them anymore? The positions are gone, so I'm, I'm definitely very concerned about the case manager position, especially when general assistance is one of the biggest expenses we have. I don't know who's going to do that job if we get rid of the case manager position. That's one concern I have, and then also the MIS director and the operations specialist, who's gonna do that? And is there a whole, like I'm just curious who's gonna do these, the jobs that we're getting rid of, what's gonna, they're gonna absorb and other people are gonna do them with no benefit, no pay raise, they're just gonna have to do the job, right? Is that basically the question? [20:20] Bryan Kaenrath: Obviously, departments are going to have to reorganize and reassess how their operations are functioning, and obviously there will be clearly more being put onto the plate of other existing employees. In the case of, you mentioned the MIS director, we would obviously have to figure out what to do with that department as far as oversight, where it could go. It involves some reorganization for sure, so depending on what the outcome is here, there would certainly have to be some reassessments done in departments of how to redistribute these duties, and in that particular case, how to handle oversight of that department. Thank you. [21:00] David B. Chittim: Councilor Chittim. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have proposed that we go with the tier three with no take-home vehicles like Councillor Roy. I feel that if we are buying vehicles at the expense of people's jobs, that's not a fair trade, not a good deal for the city. I fully appreciate the police department's rational explanation for the need for these cars, but to lay off an individual and still purchase those cars is, it just doesn't seem right to me. I will confess that Councillor Nagine picked up an area of a hundred and fifty one thousand dollars that I missed completely, and that is the sale of timber, and the other cuts that the director of public works has offered up as a sacrificial lamb, if you will. I would endorse those, particularly given that they have, if not the support, at least the grudging acquiescence of the public works director. I would like to point out that my request for $300,000 off the supplies line was not the way to do that is to look at 10% off every line, but the goal is obviously if we need gas to run the vehicles, we spend that. So if there is a way that we can find roughly 10% in the entire supply line, I do recognize that at least one department has already given up essentially all of that department supplies, and I want to call that out, that was recognized. So three hundred thousand dollars off the supply line, the tier three which we talked about would remove eight positions. If the $151,000 is incorporated, and I will point out there's a lot of overlap between Councilor Nagine, Councilor Longchamps's proposal and mine, my proposal would call for 10 cuts. If the $151,000, which was not included in my amendment, is actually effectuated, then that would reduce that to no more than nine and possibly even the eight that had originally been contemplated in the tier three. It goes without saying that this gives me no pleasure. None of us have any desire to do this. We recognize that losing your job is a life-changing event that has to be weighed against the increased INCREASE COSTS RIGHT NOW, 7.98% TAX INCREASE, WITH THE ANTICIPATION THAT THERE'S GOING TO BE A VERY SIGNIFICANT BUMP NEXT YEAR AS A RESULT OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NEW ASSESSMENTS. SO THAT IN SUM IS WHERE I'M PROPOSING. It does, with the inclusion of Director Gagne's $151,000, it does equal the number of cuts that Councilor Neneji and Councilor Longchamps have proposed. I think there are nine there, and this would be eight plus one rather than plus two. So both of them, unfortunately, entail the loss of nine valuable positions. I'D LIKE TO TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THOSE JOBS ARE LOST. I'VE EXPLAINED TO MY CONSTITUENTS THAT WHEN WE CUT JOBS, WE ALSO OF NECESSITY CUT SERVICES. SO THERE'S A VALIANT ATTEMPT TO DISTRIBUTE THE WORK AMONG THE REMAINING EMPLOYEES. THAT'S A VALID APPROACH, BUT I THINK IT PUTS AN UNDUE BURDEN ON THOSE FOLKS THAT REMAIN. I would suggest that rather than trying to distribute the work that we look at cutting services, which is really what this is all about. The people who work for this city loyally and diligently are after all doing nothing but providing a service to the work to the to the public. So losing those jobs in my mind equates to a reduction in services. Obviously there'll be some translation and reassignment of work, but I think that we need to recognize that costing jobs is costing services and the taxpayers have to recognize that as well. You can't have your cake you need it too. I want low taxes and I want immaculate streets. I want a police force that prohibits crime completely. I want all these things but I don't want to pay for them and that's just not reality. In some I'm I'm very comfortable with councillor nageen councillor longchamps proposals with a few amendments, particularly since i admit i missed director gyne's 151 000 contribution to reduction of the over the overages and the expenses. I'm happy to answer any questions about my proposal. [26:00] Bret Martel: If they come up, Council Martel, we're up to you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. It was just a couple weeks ago that you ignored the stated agenda for a budget workshop to discuss the reevaluation due to public concerns. I'd like to ask you to pause this meeting right now, address the multiple shootings, the kidnapping and torture that happened recently, and someone using a vehicle as a weapon and attempt to maim or murder another Lewiston resident. This is a extreme crisis, a public safety crisis that we're dealing with right now that trumps the concerns of the valuation, I would say, and you were willing to ignore our previous budget agenda to address that issue, so I'm asking if you'd pause this meeting right now and open that conversation. Yeah, I will not. Thank you. [26:44] Carl L. Sheline: Mark, Council Martel, do you have anything to talk about the current topic or talking about [26:48] Bret Martel: proposals, amendment one and amendment two? Would you be willing to give me a reason why you're not [26:53] Carl L. Sheline: willing to do that? We're here discussing for no other reason than this is a budget workshop. [26:58] Bret Martel: That was the case two weeks ago when you hijacked the meeting to discuss. We will, [27:03] Carl L. Sheline: this is not up for debate. I'm not arguing with you. Do you have anything to [27:07] Bret Martel: add about the budget? Do you not feel like a public safety crisis warrants a discussion if [27:13] Carl L. Sheline: you're done discussing the budgets or refuse to? I'm not, I'll move [27:17] Bret Martel: on. I was hoping you'd answer us and the public that are kind of worried in our city right now. No, anything about the budget? It's the kind of leadership I've come to expect from you, Mr. Mayor. I would like to address the budget. I will not support anything that gets rid of take-home cars for our police. We're not cutting any positions in order to provide these take-home cars for the police. We're bonding it. The budget actually goes down this year if we provide the take-home cars, cruisers, for our police department. If there's anyone in the city right now that thinks that we don't need more police officers and more public safety, then I would invite them to come have a conversation with me after this meeting. As far as the budget goes, I am in favor of Councillor Nejean and Councillor Longchamps's presentation. It doesn't cut as much as I would like to cut. I don't envy cutting anybody's jobs, but the bottom line is that government doesn't owe you a job, and secondary to that, for everyone that sits up here and is Upset about individuals having to lose their positions. I can relate with that, and I don't, I empathize with those that might lose their jobs, but I also sat with an 84 year old man two days ago. It is too disabled to leave his home to get groceries. He paid off his house years ago. But he is in a position where he's now going to go back into debt with a home equity loan just to pay his taxes, or the man that can't go to the store to get milk and bread is going to have to uproot his life, sell his home, and move because we're not willing to make the necessary cuts in order to ease this burden on our taxpayers. We continue to go back into the same pockets of the same taxpayers over and over again, and it's just not sustainable. I don't like the idea that we're using all this fund balance. This is what we've done for the three years leading up to this, kick the can down the road, tap the savings, not make any cuts. It's unfortunate that this has all come to this crucible, this pinnacle, where such drastic actions are necessary to remedy the ineptitude and the inaction of the majority of this council for three years, three budgets leading up to now. The re-evaluation is separate from the tax burden. We don't have to collect any taxes that we don't spend. If we spend less, we can collect less. The re-evaluation is a fault that lies on both sides of the aisle over a number of administrations for 30 some odd years. No qualms with that. The spending has gone out of control, and that is why taxpayers are facing the burden that they are. So I don't want to see anyone lose their job, but if you give me the option between someone losing their job or someone losing their home, I'm sorry, you're gonna have to go find new work. [30:38] Carl L. Sheline: Thank you councillors. Do we have director of rec here, Nicole? Well, yes, okay, can you join us here? Good evening, thank you for joining us, director Welsh. So yeah, here scheduled for elimination, a recreation admin assistant. Can you explain what this position does and how this work might or might not be redistributed or how impact operations at the rec [31:20] Unidentified speaker (Recreation Director): department? Sure, so the recreation evan assistant, some high level stats of what they do, they complete thousands of invoices annually, both coming in and out, help run the background checks for 110 volunteers annually, onboarding a paper work process for 70 plus part-time employees annually, in the last year daily cash ups totally more than half a million dollars. They deal with credit card reconciliations for five employees, weekly payroll, troubleshooting, the random things that happen in the armory, and also currently does our family payment plans for summer camps. Again, that's just the kinda high-level stuff. The biggest thing that this position offers is the customer service, is the face of the window, is the person answering the phones, which sounds very silly and basic, but they're answering questions about one of more than 300 activities and events, walking people through registrations and troubleshooting accounts, sharing information about facility and athletic field rentals, greeting renters, greeting contractors, and all of these communications come through the form of 100 or so weekly phone calls, walk-ins, and email questions. Our other six full-time staff do assist with these things, but what makes our department unique is that we are not a Monday through Friday 8 to 4 30 office structure. We are a Sunday through Saturday 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. On any given day season night, we don't operate only out of the armory. We're at multiple sites and facilities around the city, and we operate that way because most the activities and programs are for youth, and those happen outside school working hours. So between employees who are working nights and weekends programs, daytime meetings and off-site programs, this person is holding down the fort. There's often times where myself and other employees have to come in late because there are evening meetings and weekend meetings. So if this position were going to be reducted, we would see a lack of open office hours, programs and rentals. We'd also have to reevaluate the time that our age-friendly program or position works with our Lewis and senior citizens. Right now it's kind of a split position. I'd recommend that some of those hours came back to the rec side instead of just the Lewis and senior citizen side. So this position holds down the fort while we are at Kennedy Park pool, track meets, collaboration meetings, coach trainings, camp senior trips practices and all other hands-on deck occurrences that [34:09] Carl L. Sheline: makes an apartment where it is. Thank you. Since we have director Welsh here at the podium, do counselors have any questions before I move to the next department [34:20] Susan G. Longchamps: head counselor long chance? Thank you so much for being here during this very challenging time in that department. Can you tell me again how many people there [34:30] Unidentified speaker (Recreation Director): Are we have seven full-time positions, seven full-time, and right now we've actually hit a good stride where we have one person assigned to kind of each pillar, if you will, or each silo. We have senior citizen and older adults, we have adult programs, youth programs, summer camps, youth and family events, so we're kind of hitting every single nugget right now. [34:59] Susan G. Longchamps: They were all very difficult, not one was more difficult than the other, to be honest. But this here, the rec has done some really phenomenal work over the last few years, and what's amazing is it's not just kids, right, it's really helping our elderly. And so yeah, that, and I have another question: Kennedy Park pool, how much does that cost us a year? [35:38] Unidentified speaker (Recreation Director): Operations wise, I would defer to director Gagnon. I, we usually, but at sixty to sixty five thousand dollars for temporary wages, that is roughly seven and a half to eight weeks of temporary part-time employees, and that one also includes the cost of an aquatics director and any training that we need. I'm just gonna ask this question, if we [36:01] Susan G. Longchamps: were to not fund that, the Kennedy Park pool, and possibly put, keep this position, and how would you feel about that, honestly? [36:13] Unidentified speaker (Recreation Director): I mean, this is probably gonna sound very, you know, on the line. Both are needed, they both serve very different purposes in the community. What one is, you know, keeping day-to-day operations up and running at the armory while multiple staff are running around the city doing programs, events, meetings, collabs and such. The pool is a literally like a life-saving skill building facility that gives our kids and families a chance to go swimming, not only just cooling off down the summer, it often serves as a early employment stage for a lot of our local youth, and it's important life-saving skills that kids learn. A lot of kids don't get to use pools and don't have access to waterfronts. If we were a coastal town that might be different, but having that pool open in the summer is really important for our younger residents to learn how to swim. Thank you, that's, that's it for now. [37:12] Carl L. Sheline: Counselor Nijin, did you have questions for our director? I do. Director, could you just speak [37:18] Joshua L. Nagine: to the council concerning the, currently one of your positions is self-funded through the programming that you're, that you're actually budgeting, correct? Could you, could you possibly speak to that, and also how the programs have built up over the past few years in order to [37:32] Unidentified speaker (Recreation Director): Create revenues to pay for a position. Sure, so the position Councillor Nageen is talking about is the community sports day position. A couple of years ago, we had a lot of residents who are looking to for ways to get access to the turf facilities, and those were folks of all ages. They were youth, they were adults. So the community sports a position was created to help schedule the athletic facility and build free opportunities for kids who want to use the turf to be able to get them. Some examples of that program, what they're offering right now is they do a spring and summer pop-up turf program where we literally go down there. We have three to four hours of turf time where there's cricket, touch football, they play a lot of soccer obviously, and they really get that turf time because you have these kids walking by these facilities like I want to be on the turf, I want to be at that, the football field. This position actually lets those kids get on there. When they're there, they're supervised, they're behaving, and there's a mentorship kind of component to it too. This position also oversees our Armory Hoops League, which is a free league that we work on with Tree Street Boys and Girls Club and Root Cellar. It's a five-week league that we host at the Armory at zero cost for our kids. Over the years, we have anywhere between 125 to 175 kids participate in that. So they oversee a lot of those free opportunities, but they also have to help pay for their position. So the department covers the salary side, the benefits are still covered on the tax, on the tax side. So as part of that revenue generating piece, they help to run our youth basketball program, youth soccer program, t-ball program, and they also help with other programs that might need some assistance throughout the year. [39:21] Joshua L. Nagine: And removing this position, would that affect your ability to generate revenues in order to pay for the, for this other position? Is it going to stretch, like my question is, right now I think we're all seeing that we need youth activity in our community that is positive with mentorship, the presence of adults and older youth being supportive role models. But removing the position that I've proposed, does that hurt your ability to actually run the department as far as fundraising is? [39:59] Unidentified speaker (Recreation Director): Concerned it's it's a it's trickle effect, you know, the thousand invoices I mentioned, running background checks and volunteers, onboarding employees, you know, the credit card cash ups like that, all still has to happen. Ultimately that would probably fall on myself, the deputy director. By that happening, we have then less opportunities to produce those community collaborations with people, train new employee, train new coaches and such, and provide more programming support. It's a lot of these tasks have to be absorbed, and I think that we would see a drop in services. We definitely wouldn't see any new programs in the next couple of years, and kind of how I mentioned earlier, we're really starting to hit our stride where we're fully staffed, we're starting to do some of those unique different programs. We have like a skateboarding program downtown now, we have ten people sign up for that. We have an archery Program, we have a safe sitter program. We're really starting to hit those kind of niche programs. So that way it's it's not just soccer anymore. You know, it's not just senior citizen bingo anymore. We're really starting to activate not just the youth but more of the older population as well [41:14] Joshua L. Nagine: They assume that also provides supports for working families, an opportunity for volunteering as well, correct? Yes. Yep [41:21] Unidentified speaker (Recreation Director): 100 percent any [41:25] Carl L. Sheline: other questions from counselors for director Welsh? Thank you director well thank you chief Conley if you could just join us at the podium here that'd be lovely. So we have slated to freeze another police officer position, we already had two frozen, so would this be a third or have I lost count for I believe this would bring it to four I believe so okay. And so how many positions does this leave open for your department? [42:00] Bryan Kaenrath: It's hard to keep up with the math on this. So we currently have seven positions open right now. It would be nine if you weren't counting the frozen that were already existing. So if we have seven minus four, we'd have three open. [42:23] Carl L. Sheline: Three open. Sorry, five. Five open. okay and you have some looking down the rest of the year there are some [42:37] Bryan Kaenrath: officers who are going to be retiring correct yes we have three that we know of that will be retiring once done in a couple weeks we have one about a month [42:48] Carl L. Sheline: from now and then one in September okay and then those positions would you know be open yes yeah and then i think we've talked about in the past if police were to get their take-home cruisers what is your current best guess as to how many officers [43:08] Bryan Kaenrath: Blue pins that would bring in our best guess at this point from what we're hearing is, and again, I hate to give you a guarantee, but we've been told at least four in. [43:21] Carl L. Sheline: The absence of the, take home police cruisers, we are unlikely just to get four blueprints. [43:31] Bryan Kaenrath: To come on over. It, doesn't know. I mean, we've, we've tried several things at this point and that's, that's really, this is kind of what we're looking at. The road we're going down, we think this is our, to be honest, our best option. Understood. [43:45] Carl L. Sheline: And then so it looks like from where I said perhaps the freezing of this position the department would be okay given the positions that are coming up that are going to be vacated or what is your thoughts on that understanding that you would like to have no positions frozen yes I mean certainly we don't. [44:08] Bryan Kaenrath: Like having positions you know frozen but you know the reality is you know the budget is tight this year we're aware of that and you know I've done some of the numbers and looked at how things tend to ebb and flow you know it seems tight to say we're only gonna have this many positions to fill but the reality is I know then we'll have three more retirements and we could potentially have more so I really to be honest think that the department can sustain that even should we get the take-home. Cars I think we'll be able to. [44:39] Carl L. Sheline: Manage that okay thank you chief I appreciate your honest assessment here yes questions for the chief while we got her here counselor Nijing thank you Mr. Mayor we had actually. [44:52] Joshua L. Nagine: Discussed this as well I had called you to ask whether or not you thought you could fill that position and the feeling I think was that you'd have a difficult time filling that position right now as well right yes so one of the questions that I have considering all of the frozen positions that we're looking at I know that there's a 980 000 that is being transferred from the congressional spending account into the take-home cars does the take-home car formulation and the cost drop based on the. Fact that are we talking about five less cars because there's five less or four less cars because there's four less officers could you speak to that at all so I. [45:40] Bryan Kaenrath: Don't know that it would necessarily lower the cars it could initially but I think that the challenge with that right is you want all the vehicles to be sort of on that same line and should we fill those positions but I mean it's certainly. [45:56] Joshua L. Nagine: Something that we could, we could look at, and I don't know if you could answer this or not, but we were adding 10 cars back into the budget if we cut the take-home cars. From my, from my understanding, that is a low number, correct? Yeah, it would normally be 15. I believe we requested 14 [46:12] Bryan Kaenrath: this year, and that was cut down to 10. And right now we have 17 cars operational, or I believe so. Out of a department of how many people, if we're full complement? We're 86. Right now we're at 77. [46:28] Joshua L. Nagine: How many times have we called out every officer on duty in the past week? Quite a [46:35] Bryan Kaenrath: bit. It's, it's funny you bring that up. The reality is we had, I'm sure many are aware of the issues we're facing in the city right now. We had a situation just recently where one of the shootings where we were fortunate to have an officer that wasn't working had come in early and we were scrambling around to get him a car. And that's, you know, obviously one of the other things that we look at with, you know, is the take-home car a recruitment thing? Yes, but it's also a deterrent. It's a having officers be ready to go, ready available to respond at any time. And, you know, we've had several incidents in the past month, unfortunately, where we've had people doubled up in, you know, CID cars, which is our detective cars, that don't have necessarily lights and sirens, or at least the cages and all the equipment that you need. And that's, that's certainly a challenge [47:27] Joshua L. Nagine: for us at times. I think speaking to the operational readiness of the department, having the tools in order to respond, I can speak to a week ago I had a vehicle show up on my front lawn that was, that had been stolen, and the people who had stolen the car ran away, and we had, I think, seven officers respond to it at one o'clock in the morning. And this is happening in my neighborhood. The shooting that happened on Avon Street is right down the street. I think it's tough when we look at new programs, but I think there are very valid arguments for why we have to consider this, including the fact that it reduces the overall budget for next year, the year after, and the year after for vehicle replacement, which makes it easier when we're trying to figure out where revenues are coming from [48:24] Carl L. Sheline: Council Long Jump, did you have something? Yes, thank you, Mayor. Thank you. [48:28] Susan G. Longchamps: Chief, when we looked at your department, you know, we recognize that you did have two frozen from last year, and during the beginning of our budget process, you guys were willing to freeze is another one, and then we came back and asked for another one. Yeah, so that's four in total, and we greatly appreciate it. Also, from my understanding, if for some reason all of the positions are filled and we find the need to add another one, you can always come back to council and request that. Without a doubt, we have to figure out a way to attract people to come and work here in Lewiston, and I understand that, you know, each year we're always adding something new or trying something different to recruit people, but that's what recruitment is, you know. Just a few days ago, we had a few hours spanned, I want to say from like 1 to 4, 1 to 5, where on Howe Street I was actually right there when two groups of young adults and teenagers were firing at each other, and I can't tell you how many police were there and then just continued to show up to surround that building, and shortly after that we had a fire on Bradley Street where then police needed to be there, and then shortly after that we had a car that hit a pedestrian purposely, and there were lots of dangers surrounding that. So without a doubt, we have to find ways to recruit. You know, I've been in support of this, and I just hope with the recent events that have happened, this is what we're at, what we're up against. Spring is here, we've had several shootings and, excuse me, do you have questions? You know, so there's reasons why we need to support the take-home vehicles, and I just wanted to express obviously those things that have just occurred in hopes that you do get the support that our police department does need. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for the, yes [51:12] Carl L. Sheline: Councillor Chittim, and then Councillor Martel. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Chief, thank you for all of [51:18] David B. Chittim: your service and that of your department. One quick question for you, are you aware of how many other local municipalities have take-home vehicles in the state of Maine [51:27] Bryan Kaenrath: so we would be the first larger department? So throughout the state you obviously have like the various counties and the state police, and I believe there's one small one, I don't want to misquote it, like was Cassett or something, a lot, but we would certainly be the largest municipal agent or the first municipal agency of our size in the state. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank [51:55] Bret Martel: You chief, I just want to accommodate you and your staff for dealing with the third world crime and chaos that Lewiston seems to have been come under comes along champs mentioned a lot of the things that have been going on lately. I just wanted to point out the recent kidnapping and torture. This is not mean, this is not Lewiston. Sometimes I wonder if this even represents or reflects the United States of America anymore. This is a tragedy and I hope you get the help you need. I do have a question for the chief. Do you think it makes it easier or harder to combat the crime that's going on in this city with being down seven or nine officers? It's certainly more of a challenge. Thank you for that answer chief. Have a nice night. [52:39] Carl L. Sheline: That's everything for right now, thank you very much chief. Do we have the fire chief here? Chief Karen, please join us. So on the amendment 2 proposal we have two additional firefighters slated to be frozen. Will this, you know I had concerns the other night that even one would affect overtime. I guess can you, can you speak to that? Yes, so or [53:15] Unidentified speaker (Fire Chief): your thoughts in general on this too. When I was asked about potential cuts I did propose that I could probably get by with one less entry-level firefighter replacement firefighter. When I said that I was being extremely optimistic that next fiscal year that I would have less overtime and long-term injuries are less long-term injuries and illnesses that I had this year. Two is not manageable. If you go forward and don't fund two of those positions it will increase the budget not decrease the budget. I will be paying overtime every day instead of straight time at entry-level wages for that replacement person with if you didn't fund one that would leave me two and as I said I could do the best job I could moving that person around in the spots where they're needed to minimize the overtime. But if you don't fund two of those I will only have one for the entire department across three shifts and it will most certainly increase the overtime more than the reduction in salary of that person. [54:31] Carl L. Sheline: Thank you for that feedback Chief Karen. Do we have any questions for the fire chief since we got him here at the podium? Yes counselor. [54:40] Joshua L. Nagine: It's more comments but part of it is a question as well. I talked about the two new programs which was a fire Marshall and a and the assistant fire chief which who again apparently is not a new position. They were there till 2010, the last time we had a serious financial impact to the city. The challenge that I'm having is I don't sit with the same view that some of the other counselors did. There are two employees of this municipality that live within my neighborhood. One of them is seeing cuts to their department. And they're also taxpayers and they matter. Their jobs matter, their contributions matter. The challenge that I'm having is these are unfilled positions and I understand that because of the inefficiencies in scheduling with the department, we're stuck with this. And so like what I'm asking for ultimately going forward it is a reorg so that we can i also admit the city is 35 square miles. The reason why the fire departments are where the fire departments are is because we have to respond to fires all over the city and keep the city safe. There's no question that the work that the police that the fire department does is essential to public safety in this community. But these overtime lines when compared to losing a person's job in the city is challenging and i understand that we're underfunding this municipality and have been for a long time. We have to find a balance there somewhere and that's why that proposal came through with the two positions. If you're telling me how much that this is gonna cost us more on the overall budget I'd like to know how much it is so I [56:40] Unidentified speaker (Fire Chief): with the current wage that will be in place on July 1st with this the contractual increase. An entry-level firefighter will be approximately $84,000 a year. If I was going to replace every one of those shifts at overtime at the median wage, it would cost $137,000. And I also went by and got some actual numbers from this current fiscal year. So, to date, we've spent $83,000, the our persons have cost, it's difficult for me to explain this in 10 minutes, because it's complex. So when I hire people, usually hire them in groups, and even though we fund them for the entire fiscal year, they're usually vacant for some portion of that time, because as we hire people, and then through attrition, they move up into permanent spots, and then that spot is vacant and then we wait till we have at least two and then we hire because it's easier to hire two. We have economies of scale of training and getting them assimilated to the department. It we don't just hire people and you know put them on the truck the next day. So it takes time to get them to get them trained for the job. So there is there's always a surplus in the regular salaries line due to those vacant positions. So even though we might fund three, in reality, you know, it might be one and a half at the end of the year, right, after, through the vacancies. So for this current year, fiscal year, we spent $83,000 on our personnel, replacement personnel. If I had if those people were not available and I had to hire for the actual vacancy person for person at that at that wage the actual wage of the person who was out on injury I would have spent a hundred and sixty six thousand dollars twice as much. The so the are the our persons the replacement people that we're talking about are very cost-effective. [59:06] Carl L. Sheline: Counselor knee or sorry counselor long champs did you have a question? I have a question and I [59:12] Susan G. Longchamps: probably will have some comments. Thank You chief for being here. I am concerned with the overtime if we do freeze these two positions and I was one of the counselors that because the positions are not full at this time said you know let's freeze those positions but i do understand after you know you explaining this and speaking with you i am concerned about the two positions and then there being a lot of overtime that the city then is having to absorb and pay in the long run. I'll be asking questions after the end of this to our administrator regarding deductions maybe in different areas to fill maybe to put one of them back but I don't think right now is the time for me to talk about that. Thank you any [1:00:19] Carl L. Sheline: yes counselor Oh counselor Martel [1:00:23] Bret Martel: Yes, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for coming tonight, Chief. I've got a question. You said that an entry level firefighter makes roughly eighty five thousand dollars a year. Is that the rate that you quoted? Eighty five thousand? Eighty four thousand? Eighty four? All right, I used eighty five for my math, but eighty five times four. Say we opened it, gave you four positions. Eighty four, eighty five thousand times four positions is three hundred and forty thousand dollars. If we give you those four positions and the three hundred and forty thousand dollars to do it, can we take 500k from your overtime and have you fill in the void there? You want to hire in groups, bring in four guys, entry level, young bucks ready to do some work. You get a little bit of surplus there and we can cut your budget, your overtime budget 500k, save the city 160 grand in the meantime. Could you make that work? No. Why? Because the current [1:01:14] Unidentified speaker (Fire Chief): the current budget for the overtime was based on having three replacement personnel already on the books, so you're talking about only adding one additional person and cutting the overtime by [1:01:27] Bret Martel: five hundred thousand dollars. I mean, I just, it doesn't seem like we can, and I don't want to seem like I've got something against the fire department. I'm, I'm very enthusiastic about public safety and first responders. It just seems like none of the proposals that we give to you seem like they're gonna work. Can't cut your overtime, can't freeze two positions. We just got done listening to Chief Conley say she's down nine with the rash of violence that we're dealing with in the city right now. It's just, we're trying to work with you and it just doesn't seem like there's any scenarios that we're able to present to you in order to cut some money off the budget that you find satisfactory. So if what we're proposing doesn't work, I would like to ask you to present us something that you could finagle and could work in order so that we can take some money off the budget, because there's a lot of departments with at least or more open positions right now and they might not all be as critical as the Fire department, and I understand that, but you know, I just offered you four positions. You're, you're telling me it's one. I don't know how to get that math there. I know two are frozen, but there has to be something. So if we're not getting there, would you present us with something so that we could take maybe a hundred, couple hundred grand off the budget and you can still fulfill your duties? Or is there just no scenario whatsoever where you can tap in, cut your overtime, or freeze the position, or anything to try and help with the taxpayer burden? So I did offer that one our pres that [1:03:06] Unidentified speaker (Fire Chief): that entry-level position, and I would do my best to make it work. However, I think there's a misunderstanding amongst the council about the structure of the fire department and the operation of the fire department, that this is not discretionary spending. I mean, is that I a few weeks ago when we hit when I was here and we were talking about this, I tried to articulate that I'm contractually obligated to have 17 firefighters on duty every day. If there's a vacancy due to sick leave, family medical leave, injury, vacation, whatever it might be, I have to have another firefighter in that spot, and if I don't have a replacement, I'm paying overtime. So it's just not discretionary. I do the very best I can to minimize the sick leave and to have a happy, healthy workforce. But there's some things that are beyond my control. So I'm not sure if there's a misunderstanding there, but you know, if I reduce the over or if you reduce the overtime line, it is entirely possible that at the end of the year there'll be a deficit in that account because when people come to work they need to be paid. I it's just beyond my control that [1:04:23] Bret Martel: that's not optional for me. So please help me understand how hiring for new entry-level firefighters wouldn't be able to offset that. If someone calls out of work, having those additional staff, you can't cover that at straight pay with additional spots and predictably be able to spend less on overtime if you have more staff to be able to fund straight time hours and meet your requirements. Well, that is true, it is cheaper, that's what I'm trying to [1:04:52] Unidentified speaker (Fire Chief): articulate, that having the out person is cheaper, but I have more than I could have five vacancies on any given day. It's not just one person, and I'm going to plug it with the operators. I could have five people out a day. I mean, one per, I'll have one our person available on that ship, but the other four are going to overtime. I [1:05:15] Bret Martel: I'm not, I'm, I'm not able to see the connection here, so I'm just going to stand by what I said. Like, we have to take money off the budget, and it just seems like there's no scenario that's going to be palatable or sufficient for you to meet your requirements. So I mean, what I'm hearing is like, you know, too bad, we need the overtime, and we can't cut more than one guy, and otherwise, like, what we're, the, that's what we've got to deal with. We are making cuts across the board. We're taking people's jobs and I just hear you say that, you know, your willingness to freeze one position, it just, I don't know, I'm seeing a lot of people make a lot of sacrifices. We're seeing people, regardless of what tier or what proposal we're gonna go with, is a lot of people across the city losing their jobs, and I absolutely appreciate, I think you're an amazing advocate for your department. I just, we're, we're charged with a different task up here, and you know, I, it's just difficult to, it's difficult to make two and two plus four equal four. Sorry, but I do appreciate what you do, and I thank you for your service and that of your staff. It's not lost on me. We're just trying to sharpen our pencil up here for the taxpayers, and I hope you understand that. Counselor, did you have something? I did. Thank you. [1:06:48] David B. Chittim: Mr. Mayor, Chief, when you do your calculus for how many people need to be on, I believe you said you need to have 17 people on duty, yes, 24 hours a day, yes. How does that, is that frontline firefighters, does that, how does the administration figure into that? The point I'm getting to is that, does administration factor into that 17-man requirement? Do you have room in your upper echelons where you could distribute work or not do work by cutting out an upper echelon position rather than a firefighter position, so [1:07:28] Unidentified speaker (Fire Chief): the 17 firefighting positions are all union members they're right so it's contractual I can't substitute I can't pick up a shift a vacancy and just you know work on the truck that day so that 's all contractual language the other staff is very is very busy if you're I'm not sure if you have a position in mind that you're suggesting but the fire prevention staff is extremely busy all day long dealing with the unsafe conditions in the city and the blight and it 's an enormous task if you spent a day with them, you would see what they deal with. I'm [1:08:20] David B. Chittim: Not arguing that they're sitting around on their hands. What I'm suggesting is that if that is not a contractual requirement, and I do think we ought to revisit these contracts when they come up, and be aware of the bind that this is putting the financial situation of the city, and having this contractual requirement there may be other considerations as well, such as our bond rating and our fire rating, insurance costs and so on. I fully appreciate that, but I do think we need to look at the contractual requirement. My question is specifically geared at the upper echelons, the administration of the department. And I'm not suggesting that they fill in for the front line. I'm suggesting that their positions, a position be eliminated, and that work either not be done or be distributed to other people. You've just told me that these people are extremely busy all day long. If that is truly the case, and I'm not doubting you at all, Chief Karen, then the work that they're doing would not be done. I alluded earlier to we're paying for services, and if we don't pay for them, we don't get the services. So can you talk to what happens? First of all, how many of your non-union upper echelon members of the fire department are there? [1:09:40] Unidentified speaker (Fire Chief): So there's three. There's myself, my assistant chief, and a deputy fire chief. [1:09:46] David B. Chittim: And does everyone else factor into the 17-person per shift requirement? [1:09:51] Unidentified speaker (Fire Chief): No. So we have a maintenance technician who's part of the pro-tech union. He's not part of the firefighters union, and there's two admin staff. The fire inspectors are covered under the same bargaining contract as the firefighters, and in that contractual language, to eliminate one of those, they would, the last time one was eliminated, he had, he was put on the floor as a firefighter, so it, which would happen in this scenario, that was arbitrated, and so that [1:10:23] David B. Chittim: scenario would repeat. Okay, all right, so given that the constraint is that we require by contract 17 firefighters on three times a day, that boils down then to the three that you've mentioned that are non-union members and the non-firefighting union members who presumably, who may well have bumping [1:10:45] Unidentified speaker (Fire Chief): rights is that correct I'm assuming he would have the probe the maintenance his tech with a bumping rights I don't know but again I can tell you that he's another employee that saves the city an enormous amount of money by working on the vehicles instead of sending them all out to repair for quadruple what his hourly rate so it I mean I would I would be reluctant to let that position go I think I think it would cost the city more money just so we understand each [1:11:20] David B. Chittim: other I'm reluctant to let anybody go as well chief so I fully understand your position so what it sounds to me like is that if there are personnel cut to be made in the fire department it's one of three positions is that a fair statement no [1:11:37] Unidentified speaker (Fire Chief): well you can cut any position you want I mean it just there may be there may be repercussions I mean yeah if you're asking me where the low-hanging fruit is yes it's the non-union but I think I've articulated this in prior meetings that you know that the deputy fire chief you know was position was eliminated back in 2010 and it took up until a couple years ago to get that back and it was very difficult to recruit somebody for that position because everyone said don't don't go work in Lewiston they're just gonna they're gonna get laid off next year they're not gonna fund that position I think it would do an enormous damage to the reputation of the city of Lewiston And I understand the position you're in, and I am being selfish when I tell you this, but I'm also being very honest when I tell you that it's going to stain the reputation of the city of Lewiston to eliminate that position. And he does a very good job trying to tackle all the blight and unsafe conditions in this city. So, again, and I agree with you. Fewer people is, I mean, everybody does something. If you eliminate a position, that's work that's not going to get done. So, you know, again, I think he serves an important function. I think every person on my staff serves an important function. I understand your need to have cuts. I do. I absolutely do. And I respect your decisions. but you know as the chief of the department if you're asking me questions I'm gonna give you honest answers and I think that position is needed thank you [1:13:24] Carl L. Sheline: for your candor chief I appreciate it thank you chief at this point and it's 712 is director Connor I thought I saw you back there do we have the city attorney here perfect okay we are gonna put this workshop on pause we're gonna to take a few minutes recess to kind of move down chairs and reset the house so to speak and then we're going to be coming back with our special meeting coming back to you live here very quickly thank you hello and welcome to a special meeting of the city council here Tuesday, 7 p.m. We're going to kick things off with the pledge of allegiance. Is Administrator Kane Rath, could you please do us the honors? Thank you very much, Administrator Kane Rath. I would like to note that our clerk has an excused absence as she is running an election right now, and Deputy Administrator O'Malley has graciously agreed to fill in. I believe we're ready to begin, Mr. O'Malley. [1:20:51] Bryan Kaenrath: Yes, Mr. Mayor, only one agenda item. Order to secure a dangerous building at 70 River Street. Requested action, to conduct a hearing to determine if the building located at seven the River Street poses a serious threat to public health and safety that requires prompt action within the meaning of 17 MRS 2856. If it is determined that the building does meet the criteria for prompt action, to adopt the findings of fact, conclusions of law, in order to secure the building. Said order shall establish the. Corrective action to be taken, securing the structure from all entry, and authorize the city administrator to take such corrective action if the property owner fails to do so, and to recoup the city's expenses, including reasonable attorney fees and costs, through a special tax or civil action. [1:21:32] Carl L. Sheline: Thank you. We will now begin the hearing. Are you ready? Okay, this evening we will conduct a hearing to determine whether the structure at 70 street, 70 River Street, poses a serious threat to public safety within the means of sections 2856 of title 17, and if so, whether the threat to the public health and safety requires prompt action. If the council makes either determination, it will then determine what actions the property owner must take. The structures owned by Scott Clifford, the land is owned by. Franklin Property Trust LLC. In the past, the City Council understood Stephanie Clifford was a tenant at the property. She has wrote to city staff that she has not been at the property since June of last year and has nothing to do with the property. I ask that any owner or party of interest, including the tenants, introduce yourself, including your name, address, and position, is an owner, party in interest, or representative present. Does any City Council member know an owner or another party in interest or have knowledge about this matter? That means that you could not fairly and impartially hear the facts and decide the matter based on the evidence presented at this hearing. No consignment. Did you have mask question please it [1:22:58] Scott A. Harriman: looks like from the documentation the owner is currently in jail. Is that the [1:23:03] Carl L. Sheline: case? Do you want to answer that or is that a pertinent question to ask Mr. [1:23:11] Joshua L. Nagine: Kerry, the owner of the building is incarcerated. That's correct. He's been served with this proceeding. Okay, thank you. [1:23:23] Carl L. Sheline: There's there's no one knows an owner or party of interest then among the council. Okay, the hearing will be conducted according to the mayor's procedures for a dangerous building hearing, which I read at the September 3, 2024 council meeting and are included in your packets. I accept into evidence the Planning and Code Enforcement Departments previously provided exhibits A through J. I now ask that the Lewiston Planning and Code Enforcement Department present the City Council with information relevant to this matter before it. [1:24:00] John Connor: Thank you Mr. Mayor. Good evening mayor and members of the council. For the record, my name is John Connor. I'm the director of Planning and Code Enforcement for the city of Lewiston, and tonight I'm joined by code enforcement officer and building inspector Travis Tardif. We are here tonight to present our findings regarding the residential structure located at 70 River Street and to request an order to secure the building under state law. All legal notice requirements have been met and can be found in your binder as exhibits A through I. The hearing notice was recorded on May 8th. We have successfully served the landowner, Franklin Property Trust, and the structure owner, Scott Clifford. Occupants on site were also served and the property has been physically posted with notices of tonight's hearing. Additionally, on May 8, 2026, Lewiston Police Department Lt. Tyler Mishu taped another copy of the Notice of Hearing to the fence on the property that faces River Street. While there, Lt. Mishu saw at least seven people at the property. The next day, Cpl. Darren Jakes returned to the property and confirmed that the Notices of Hearing posted by the Sheriff's Deputy and Lt. Mishu were still posted. Next, in the following slideshow, which is included in your packets as Exhibit J, I'll describe the conditions at 70 River Street that caused the structure to pose a serious threat to the public health and safety that requires prompt action. As you can see from the original slides, there's severe deterioration of the foundation that's compromised the building's structural integrity. Due to this, you can see the side walls are bowing due to the failed foundation. Foundation, the roof ridge line is starting to collapse over that failed foundation area, and the roof fascia is starting to buckle over that foundation area as well. The building sits on a wooden foundation, and the foundation sills have been compromised by rot. There's a large hole in the foundation that exposes the foundation to winter weather, and it increases the amount of deterioration which is exacerbated by the excavation of the ground outside the foundation. These two photos here, the circle parts, the interior of the foundation shows that there's further moisture issues and the bulging. If you're asking where the bulging is, the slide, the photo to the right with that arrows pointing, looks like a black mold stain. It's actually a bulge in the foundation. That's starting to come into the, into the space. This, the photo to the left, that's all wet, moist ground coming in from the massive hole that you see looking out into daylight there. Water has been shut off in the building since October of 2025. There have been people in the property since then, and as you can imagine, with no water it is extremely unsanitary. There is evidence of human waste and pet waste throughout the property. The tubs and sinks and toilets have all been filled and in are stagnant. In the property, when we got to the property, power was on. All of these wires that you see are were completely exposed. The one that concerns me the most is on the right hand side there. That is a RV plug that was connected to an RV in the parking lot, and that picked that connection that was just kind of wired together was underneath a car floor mat completely out in the exposed elements. So CEO Travis Tardiff after the inspection immediately called CMP and explained the situation to them and asked for power to be turned off at the property. So the property no longer has power right now nor water. So the determination that we made the property it's not secured at the present moment. The conditions that the property has shown they constitute a safety and health hazard. Life is endangered in our opinion by the occupation of the property. We believe that it's unlawful for any person to enter the property except for the purposes of securing this property, making the required repairs, removing the hazardous conditions, or demolishing the building altogether. The property poses a serious threat to the public health and safety. The health I'm sorry the threat to public health and safety requires prompt action, and the building must be immediately secured in order to mitigate the threat to public health and safety. So at this time we're seeking that the council adopt the determination in order for things that all occupants immediately vacate the property. Staff shall post the building that it's unsafe, that the owner and land or landowner shall immediately secure the property. If the owner or landowner fails to comply with this order in the time frame set forth, the city staff shall have the authority and direct to carry in direction to carry out this order. If required before the city secures the structure, staff will enter the structure, we'll conduct a complete inspection, and we'll make sure that there's nobody in the building to include animals. During our inspection there were there was an there was a dog in one of the upper rooms. We were told ahead a couple puppies before we entered the property the owners or whoever was in the property grabbed the young two puppies and took off and left the adult male dog in the property. We called animal control officer to come out and mitigate that as well. So we want to make sure that we're going in and making sure that there's nobody in there and no animals in there before We do any securing of the property. If the order is given Happy to Answer any questions, CEO Tardif is here as the as the building expert. He went through the building with a fine-tooth comb and can answer any questions that you may have. [1:29:40] Carl L. Sheline: Thank You director corner at this point I will allow the council to ask questions please remember we're asking questions about the property and there will be a chance for deliberation later do we have any specific questions about the presentation or the property for director Connor and Travis that's [1:30:04] Susan G. Longchamps: our line jams thank you mayor how many buildings are on the side of this building if you don't mind this house is there are there two houses on each side are they pretty close or [1:30:16] Unidentified speaker (Public Works Director): it's one house with [1:30:17] Susan G. Longchamps: two attached garages yeah on do they have neighbors oh that's what i meant yes there's [1:30:24] Bryan Kaenrath: a neighbor to the back on what's the name of that street i forget the name of it 's it's [1:30:30] John Connor: it's a safe distance away it's not like some of the others that we brought before you that are [1:30:34] Susan G. Longchamps: are close together yeah that's what i was concerned about with the fires and stuff thank you [1:30:40] Joshua L. Nagine: counselor neijing if i'm reading this correctly the ownership of the land beneath the property is franklin property trust that is correct does franklin property trust have an enforcement mechanism or an interest in making the properties the question is i understand the structure is owned by somebody else I'm wondering where Franklin Property Trust's responsibly falls if at all so [1:31:09] John Connor: we have been we have been communicating with Franklin Property Trust they know about this and we are trying to you know get them to take care of it as well but not owning the property they can't really go and enter the property and do anything with it they just own the land underneath it so we have been communicating with them and they have a copy of this as well thank you further questions about [1:31:34] Carl L. Sheline: this yes counselor chittum thank you say that if the landowner fails to comply with the [1:31:41] David B. Chittim: order within the time frame set forth do you have a concept of what those time frames would be [1:31:46] John Connor: we are asking them to secure it immediately so if they can't secure it by tomorrow then the city is [1:31:52] Carl L. Sheline: Going to thank you. Further questions about the presentation or the property? Seeing none, do you have anything else to add? I do not, Mr. Mayor. Okay, are we set to close the record? The record is now closed. We are now moving forward to counselor deliberation. May I have a motion to accept the council order as presented? Second. Councillor Chittim seconded by a Councillor Martel. Deputy Administrator O'Malley, did you get all that? Excellent. We now have a motion on the floor. Any thoughts or deliberation? Here questions comments from the council. Councillor Neijing, I just wanted to state that [1:32:48] Joshua L. Nagine: these condemnation hearings I think are very important. We just heard from the fire department about conditions of blight in our in our community and these are the tools that we can use in order to enforce compliance with our codes and either get people to either invest or divest from properties that are that are blighted and create conditions that overtax overburden our public services further. [1:33:19] Carl L. Sheline: Thoughts from the council before we vote? Deputy Administrator O'Malley, are you prepared to conduct a vote at this time? Yes I am. Please call the vote. Council from [1:33:31] Bryan Kaenrath: vote one yes. What two yes. What three yes. What four yes. What five yes. What six yes. What seven yes. [1:33:41] Carl L. Sheline: Passes seven to zero, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much. W Administrator O'Malley, we appreciate your service. Thank you for Mr. Carey joining us staff. Thank you very much. This now concludes our special meeting. We're going to take a brief recess so that way we can you know head back into our budget workshop. We'll start back up in a minute. Thank you and we're back to our budget workshop. Thank you everyone for your patience. Did we have any more questions for Chief Karen? He was the one that was up there last. Okay, do we have Director Terrio still available? Director Terrio, thank you for joining us. I see here an HR technician. I assume this is your employee, correct? Yes. And there are besides you there are only two other employees, right? Yes. And so this would be a reduction of 50 of your workforce, is that accurate? Pretty close. Yes. Can you [1:39:03] Unidentified speaker (HR Director): Just give us your thoughts on that or impact. Yeah, so I, it would have a significant impact. Can you move the mic down or something? It would have a significant impact on the HR department. The technician does all of our onboarding, does all of our workers comp input, does all of our OSHA records, does the benefits process, the payroll process. She does a lot of data entry for the department. She's the first face that the employees see when they come to the window. So she handles a lot of crises for the employees that they may have and a lot of their life changes. She's the first one that handles all of those changes. She does all of the DOT random drug testing for our CDL drivers as well as all of the background checks for employees, volunteers, and work fair citywide. So without that position, services are going to be extremely slow in HR and some things just aren't going to get done. And unfortunately, because this is serving employees and not the public, we can't really reduce those services. I mean, I guess at this point what will happen is when the bell rings at the front, sometimes employees just aren't going to get an answer because other HR staff is going to be in meetings. [1:40:29] Carl L. Sheline: Director Terrio, do we have questions for Director Terrio since she's here? Counselor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Silence our cell phones, that'd be great. Thank you, Director. [1:40:44] Joshua L. Nagine: We've added two positions, new program positions, to HR over the past six years, correct? [1:40:51] Unidentified speaker (HR Director): So the safety coordinator has always been in a position for quite some time with the city, but it was under administration, so that position is now under HR. That person does all of the accident investigations and trainings for as far as safety that are required by law for the public works department and citywide. And then the other position that was added is the workforce development position, which was again under administration under a different title and now is support for the HR team. This is also a position that we have previously had under a different title for a number of years that we haven't had in about 10 years that we've been fighting to get back to. Understood. So we had ultimately gone from one person in HR to four in the past six years. So we never had one, we had in the HR director was also the finance director for a number of years, there was a combined job, and then there was an HR tech, and then an HR benefits administrator was Brian, and then when the HR director moved away. from the finance director they got rid of the benefits administrator okay thank you 're welcome [1:42:04] Carl L. Sheline: Any further questions for Dr. Terry? Oh, thank you very much. I just want to speak a little bit about the MIS director position. So, but before I do that, I don't mean to put you on the spot, Deputy Administrator O'Malley, but when we lose a department head, what does that, what does that look like, or what kind of impacts can we see? [1:42:37] Bryan Kaenrath: I've never seen that before, but I'm not sure. You know, as the city administrator said, we'll have to do a reorg. It'll have to be absorbed either by city administration or by another, the department head. [1:42:51] Carl L. Sheline: I guess my concern with losing a director position is that, especially, you know, for, you know, critical,, I mean, all of your departments are critical. There's, you know, we don't have extra departments in the city that are not critical. But when we're talking about I.T., without a director level position there to provide, you know, guidance to the staff and guidance for, you know, and direction for the department, you know, I'm concerned about the long-term health of that department. And it's not that you know, and when we remove a position, correct me if I'm wrong, in the minister, your cane wrath, you know, when we remove a position, we're removing that position. So it's not like administration can turn it into, you know, make somebody else the director or something like that. Director position is just gone. And it can also remain, it can also be a problem if that director position is actually also the expert employee for that department. So that could provide, you know, some challenges as we, as we move forward, I imagine, I had a whole career in IT long ago, and I can imagine if we didn't have the MIS director, there would be some work that would have to be absorbed by other employees, and we might even need to contract out for services, which would then, you know, cost additional money? Yeah, so those are, those considerations as well. Part of my concern is, and why I've been kind of like resistant to allow amendments, because we have, we have councillors who are not in administration, and you know, and everyone here is acting in good faith, and I'm not saying that we're not, and you know, we're trying to do our best by residents and the city and attempt to lower taxes. I guess my concern, our councillors have put forth, put forth amendments, and then cutting positions that are going to be Difficult to absorb, or difficult to deal without, you know, for instance, like the rec department, you know, billing still needs to get done to all the other departments. So either someone else is going to be doing that, so we're going to be taking a higher level employee that we are paying more to now suddenly be doing this, and then all the work that they were going to be doing is now not being done, or you know, they're not going to be able, you know, like David, you put it very succinctly when we lose an employee, we're going to ultimately lose services. We are not going to be able to expect some employees to suddenly work double. Like, that is not realistic under any condition. And so I'm just concerned that some of these positions that are being cut, you know, while they were, you know, well intentioned from the standpoint that we're trying to lower taxes, I think it will be, you know, impair city services and [1:45:58] David B. Chittim: going forward. Yes, Mr. Mayor, you've been asking all of us to restrict our comments to questions [1:46:04] Carl L. Sheline: and I think the same rule ought to apply to you, sir. Yes, so I thank you. I appreciate that. We're going to have another go around from counselors. I did want to bring up department heads. Restrict our questions there. I now I wanted to offer my comments on the overall process, which I've done and appreciate the councillors listening and will now go around to for councillors to offer their additional thoughts and comments. Councillor Nature [1:46:34] Joshua L. Nagine: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So just really quickly. There are some elephants in the room that we haven't addressed. We know that there are expenses and in certain departments that are very high. And I think that it is maybe not the best time at this moment to ask for reorg. Or, I mean, we know that our administration costs are somewhat high. And in this budget season, I'm hoping that we will be talking about reorganization as soon as the budget is done for several departments. And that includes IT or MIS. We're working with legacy programs all over the city. We have co-measure it employees that sit within LPS. We're not working with LPS at all to drive down the cost of the budget. And we're, and it hits the same tax base on both sides. The challenge is that, and it's not about the website, but the challenges that we have with the website are shocking. And at some point, like you would hope that, you know, in a major corporate environment you have a CEO, CFO, and the CIO, they all kind of work together. It is individual leaders of the financial health of an organization. And we're just in a situation where, personally, I feel like the only way to force this reorganization is to eliminate positions. [1:48:16] Carl L. Sheline: we're going to continue going on down the line counselor long champs do you have anything further to add at this point thank you mayor i [1:48:26] Susan G. Longchamps: guess just I would still stand with what I said at the beginning with the amendments that we put forward, unfortunately. But that's where we are, regardless of whether it was this one, Councillor Chittim's, or our leaving it to our city administrator, that's what has to happen, unfortunately. I do have a question for our city administrator. We are at three point what with the councillor in a Jean's proposal to tell me, I believe it's 3.3.3, to get it down to like 3.25, what would that look like in reduction? How much more would we have to are [1:49:22] Bryan Kaenrath: you talking about what we had discussed with council of Chittims? So when you look at the northeast CPI and go back, they have multiple years out there. It, they always rounded up to that first digit, that's why it's 3.3. They don't go out ever, if you look at any of that, and to be consistent, that's what we've used over [1:49:47] Susan G. Longchamps: the years. Is that just that one digit, the 3.3, correct, or 3.2, or so really not a half, right? So [1:49:55] Bryan Kaenrath: there's never, usually it only goes out one. Okay, what if we got it down to 3.2? I can do that calculations while you guys are talking on. Okay, sure, because I'm thinking maybe if we [1:50:08] Susan G. Longchamps: are able to reduce some of these supplies minus salt and, you know, the things that are going to cause real issues, not that they all won't, but more safety issues, if we could get it down to that 3.2, I think would be good. Thank you, Councilor. [1:50:30] Scott A. Harriman: Chairman, thank you. I've had a little bit of time to go over these, and I've learned a lot from the discussion tonight, and I think I will be prepared to vote next Tuesday. Could [1:50:45] Carl L. Sheline: you give us a preview as to what amendment you might be supporting? It's [1:50:52] Scott A. Harriman: kind of pieces of both of them. Oh, [1:50:57] Carl L. Sheline: we'll come back to you. Councillor Roy, I [1:51:03] Michael R. Roy: don't have anything to add. I stick with my first comments. Councillor Noble, [1:51:10] Carl L. Sheline: did you have something to just [1:51:14] Chrissy Noble: need to sit with it, I think, for a little bit, and I don't know. [1:51:21] David B. Chittim: Councillor Chittim, your thoughts. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yes, I'm hoping that this workshop will give us a single budget to vote on when we have to make the decision, so a decision on which amendment or which combination of the various elements of these amendments to give our administrator and our finance director the tools necessary so that when they come back to us with a budget it will be an up-down vote. I think passing amendments at the last minute when that budget comes back to us is not recommended by anyone, so I would advocate that we stay here as long as necessary to come up with a budget that reaches either whatever number we choose in excess of the CPI, which will require five of us to vote, or a budget that gets us to the 3.3 at a minimum. I do want to talk a little bit about the 3.3.2. There's been some confusion, and this is going to get pretty esoteric, and I apologize for that. When I look at that at the consumer price index, those are listed month by month, year after year, to three decimal places. I subtracted the difference between December 2025 and December 2024 and came up with the number three point two five one. That's published on the same website as 3.3, which is the rounding value of 3.251. As an engineer, when precision is available, I like to use it. I understand precedent has been that we've always used the single decimal point, so that's an interpretation of the Charter, and I'm comfortable if precedent has indicated that 3.3 is the target, then I'm comfortable with agreeing that it will only take four counselors to pass a budget at that level, 3.29, 3.3. So I'm sorry for confusing the issue. That's just the pickiness of the man that you've come to know and love over the past three years. The other issue is the question of the interpretation of the charter. I had a conversation with Director Roy prior to this meeting. I had been under the impression that the number we were trying to reach, 3.3 or 3.21, was actually the proposed tax levy. I believe that's the actual language in the charter, but there is room for interpretation in that. I'm informed that what has been used historically is not the proposed tax levy but the proposed tax rate, and there's a difference there. I don't want to get into the differences now. I do want to point out that while we have two amendments to the charter already approved by this council for voter approval in November, a third one is queued up that was brought to our attention by the city attorney. This is a fourth one that Will clarify the language as to what exactly the charter means when it requires a four vote or a five vote majority, and that to me is very important because if we do not have a five vote majority we have to come back with a budget that is below whatever number we interpret that to be. I do now that was a tangent and I apologize for that. I do want to reiterate and I'd like to have a couple of questions for the public works director if that's all right Mr. Mayor, but I will wait until councillor Martell has had his chance to weigh in. [1:54:52] Carl L. Sheline: Yeah, I mean if I would prefer that we you know rather than like have people say like oh I'm going to have questions later it's okay to have questions now and director Gagne if you can take the take the stand and then sorry you're not on court here if you can stand behind the podium please continue counselor Judah thank you and this question also applies to [1:55:14] David B. Chittim: director Starr it relates to the overlap that counselor Nejean was referring to we do not have anybody from the Lewison school department here but my understanding is that we have competent capable technicians in three different positions one in the school department one in the public works department and one in the management information services and I'd like to explore the overlap of those positions and why we have a GIS MIS person and a GIS public works person so if you could address that director Gunny I'd appreciate it thank you yes thank you so at Lewiston public [1:55:54] Unidentified speaker (GIS/IT Director): works we are very map and geocentric we were based on a lot of CAD and over the last 25 years we've we've gone into the GIS realm so our history there has really been about documenting what we're doing out in the streets and out in the world and tying that back to projects and whatnot. So our position when it switched to when it got added really is more of a GIS citywide coordinator. So that person is responsible for working with other technicians in the city to try to deploy GIS citywide and utilize that as it right now it's an ESRI platform. So different silos, and we're trying to break down silos and get data sharing. So we work very closely with the MIS team, both on actually deployment and that information, but also security of that information, cybersecurity critically. We are technicians of the ESRI, and we rely on the IT and the MIS team for their expertise in networking and cyber stuff. So I'll let Director Starr talk about his staff person, but I know that our employee recently retired. We did hire somebody that is, I would dare say, equally qualified as the person he replaced in understanding what a GIS coordinator and overseeing all the different platforms were deploying it. We have internal GIS that's secure for staff, which has confidential information, detailed information, and then we have public facing that's either hosted on our own ESRI platform. We do have some that's contracted out. Sure. [1:57:51] Unidentified speaker (Planning/Code Enforcement Staff): And our person, our GIS analyst, more focuses on the integration with the enterprise licensing and permitting product, which is used for building permits and inspections, for electrical, and any sort of building permits. So that's more tightly integrated with the permitting and code part of the city, and any specialized items that anybody within City Hall needs, like all of the calendars and things like that. Did you have any further questions? Yes, just a [1:58:22] David B. Chittim: color to them. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just to clarify, the GIS person in your department, and GIS stands for geographic information system for folks who are not up on the latest lingo, not that it's the latest lingo, coordinates with planning and code enforcement in terms of mapping and maintaining databases for rental programs. What would happen to those programs if this position were not there? [1:58:51] Unidentified speaker (Planning/Code Enforcement Staff): We have no other person in the department that specializes in those parts of the program that they use for code enforcement and clerks for the rental registration program and some of the other clerk items that they specialize in. [1:59:07] David B. Chittim: So neither of these positions, per se, is forward-facing, not front-line, not standing at the window registering automobiles or sweeping streets or responding to crises in the city. That's correct. These are support personnel to support the operations of the city in both cases. Is that correct? That's correct. Yes, I'd like to pose the same question to Director Gagne. What would happen if the GIS position in the public works department were eliminated? I'd like to point [1:59:39] Unidentified speaker (GIS/IT Director): Out that in any mapping system or any online system of record we've switched, that's our background for our asset management, which is more of our daily tasks and work orders. Trust in the data is really important, so we have a lot of frontline field staff that are updating information, and if they're not seeing it updated the next workday, that same day, that next week, depending on the level of update, we lose trust and you stop using those platforms. We've tried to get out of the paper environment and all the inefficiencies with that, so our GIS person is a citywide GIS coordinator. This person is working with our consultants, they also, that person also does do parcel updates, which is quite complex. This, so we do assist all the other departments, so not this person being eliminated. We do partner with contracted GIS teams, that is for bare bones, minimum integration, for publicly facing and hosted services that real estate developers, taxpayers use to look at their parcels. Any of the parcel viewers you see integrate with that. So that work, you know, that is a very high level, but also a working position that understands updating databases and systems nights and weekends. And our technicians are not at that level, so I have one technician that's a shared GIS and asset management technician that is not capable of doing that work. [2:01:30] David B. Chittim: Do you see that there's any overlap between these two positions? And I'd like to ask the same question of Director Starr. [2:01:37] Unidentified speaker (GIS/IT Director): I would say that it is not as much overlap as collaboration. When we first started deploying it, Public Works was using a lot of the information, right? It was, like I said, we went from doing CAD drawings and putting those out to utilizing the GIS environment for any of our drawings for bids and projects, as well as builds. So at this point, you know, we were looking for champions in each department to take over responsibility of their own data. The utilities did that. We have some field staff that are out there using a, actually collecting the data in the field and updating it, maintaining their own data, and having that ownership, and that's what's happening, I believe, here in public, here in city hall, and you know, with Mr. Star's position in MIS, that position collaborates with the one at Public Works to help deploy and support GIS services in this building. Yeah. [2:02:43] Unidentified speaker (Planning/Code Enforcement Staff): And I concur with what Director Gagne had to say. We don't have a lot of overlap in GIS services. Our position focuses primarily on the code and planning aspects of GIS and integrating it into the system that we use for those items. [2:03:03] David B. Chittim: Thank you both for those answers. I appreciate them. [2:03:08] Joshua L. Nagine: Kelser and Aging, did you have questions? I do. Thank you. Mr. Mayor. I'll start with Director Gagne really quickly if you don't mind. From my understanding, we're still contracting with the with the former employee. Is that correct for GIS service? Yes. [2:03:24] Unidentified speaker (GIS/IT Director): I think it's up to three out three to five hours a week for consulting, for training, for the person that was there. While you may have skill sets in the industry, understanding our log with our logins and our networks and how they integrate and updates is something that he's been advising on. And are there [2:03:45] Joshua L. Nagine: any issues with legacy programming that we're using anywhere in the city that create challenges for somebody to just be a plug-and-play employee for any of these pieces? Also, could you speak to Esri as being either good or bad, just real quick? Those are two very large questions. [2:04:03] Unidentified speaker (GIS/IT Director): On the on the first, we do have legacy programs. What we try to do is make sure that they're not the old version, that we haven't customized them to the point where we can't get the newest updates. So as we deploy, as we've had Esri for over 20 years I think. We've got Esri pushing on 1999 when we started bringing that data in. We had flyovers capturing water, sewer, curb line, and all of the geo features and bringing it in and then manually standing there and collecting the data for better information. So we've had it for over 26 years. Each of the modules in the industry that we've been able to maintain an annual license, share it and it's used both by the public as a viewer but as the technicians in the background like we're talking about very technical analyzing the data, exporting out the data into tables that are usable for the rest of the staff. So we haven't seen any issues with that on the utility side. The biggest challenge has been going to a utility network and that's more of how the data systems are set up and it's more for water sore and less for the rest of the layers that we use. And then your second question, if you could, it was just generally about whether [2:05:28] Joshua L. Nagine: or not Esri is the preferred platform or the predominant platform for mapping. So most [2:05:33] Unidentified speaker (GIS/IT Director): everything's gone from a network based they want to try to go to cloud based for better user so there are more in other industries there are more people actually were working remotely from home so having a cloud-based system allows you to do that not be kind of in your working out of your firewall and happen and do that 's probably the biggest change I think we've seen is that but I think those are all web-based and we're seeing easier for the users in the field so I have people on the public works crew actually doing maintenance, some of them are using an Esri whether it's a survey one two three or other module and it works very well and it's very friendly. Deploying the Behive module that we did several years ago and that was part of compliance for an EPA mandate and we leverage that not just to be for sure but through the public works department and we've offered it in other departments through the city in this unlimited seats. That one, that one is more for work orders so day-to-day function and logging and complaint and logging how quickly and that's a better platform for that. So those are the two modules [2:06:43] Joshua L. Nagine: that we use. Okay thank you Director Star. I just have a couple of quick questions for you. So one of the things that was brought up was that the majority of the GIS work is actually for planning and code and so I'm curious as to why that's not a planning and code position and why [2:07:01] Unidentified speaker (Planning/Code Enforcement Staff): it sits in MIS. I'm not sure other than it was a very technical position and we had a person that was capable of doing that used to work in one of those departments years ago that kind of [2:07:13] Joshua L. Nagine: migrated to mis over time but that still requires collaboration between two departments correct yes correct okay and the second question that i have and this is just a general one do you have any concept of how many municipalities contract out their security services to third parties i do not okay i couldn't give you that number yeah i understand this is very difficult and i 'm sorry we're having these conversations but thank you very much you're welcome and [2:07:47] Unidentified speaker (GIS/IT Director): it's something further Director Ganya. Yes being the utility person for 24 years in the water, we're a priority sector. So working with Homeland and we did have an event a couple number of years ago where ransomware impacted a close local utility. We have not had those type of events because of our in-house. And that MIS or IT group was outside contractors overseeing that. So I can tell you that I've worked closely with Director Star for over two decades, and cybersecurity has been an outmost priority, and we haven't been in the newspaper because of it. We've recently had several different audits as well, so we did work with the state as well as the, I believe, a federal department that came in and audited our drinking water for cybersecurity, and thanks to the efforts of Director Starr and his team, we had flying colors on that. So I think it's really important to raise that as an issue, that we have seen some, and we have higher incidents coming at us all the time through alerts, through, we use wider water ISAC, and it's part of the homeland security notification [2:09:09] Bret Martel: specifically for water. So thank you. Councilor Martel, we're up to you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Director Roy, how close does Councilor Negean's amendments get us to getting below the 3.3.2? Does it get there so we don't need a super majority? Councilor Negean's is at 3.3 [2:09:35] Bryan Kaenrath: percent, so to get to 3.2, it would be an additional 40 000. [2:09:42] Bret Martel: Okay, well, I would be prepared to vote for Councillor Nejean's amendments and the budget based on that, and take the 40 grand, split it in half, take 20 grand from public works overtime and 20 grand from the fire department overtime, and it's unfortunate, it's going to be what it is, but it's time to get a budget passed. We've spent a lot of hours going round and round, asking department heads to come up here. I know that my fellow councillors have put in a lot of time and effort into this. At some point we're here to make decisions, and we got to stop making the process the goal and make decisions. So that's where I stand. I'd be prepared to vote yes for what I'm looking at in front of me proposed by Councillor Neijin, and then like I said, whatever the 40 grand is, split it in half, [2:10:37] Carl L. Sheline: take it off the overtime. Thank you, Councillor Martel. So I tried to keep notes as best I could as we went around the first time, so we have, if I can just quickly talk to the council members here, so of course Councillor Neijin, you were supporting your amendment, right? [2:10:57] Joshua L. Nagine: after we've gone we haven't actually heard from the hr sorry not the hr but the ga department but one of the things is the director for ga available director bracket are you [2:11:16] Carl L. Sheline: Oh, look at this, Director Bracket, we [2:11:20] Bryan Kaenrath: have some questions from assessing either if we're going [2:11:23] Carl L. Sheline: through departments. Yes. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Director Brackett. Yes, Counselor, and Agent, what [2:11:29] Joshua L. Nagine: Questions did you have for Director Brackett? So Director Brackett, one of the things that you know came through clearly, there are concerns for services for GA especially around some of the group homes or specifically the recovery homes, correct, in regards to the shelter? Is that what you're doing? No, I'm talking about recovery homes. [2:11:52] Unidentified speaker (Social Services Director): Recovery houses, yeah. We've had three new recovery houses that moved into the area October of last year, and so it's kind of difficult to measure the impact, but since October up until today, we've added an additional 69 cases to our caseload. We also anticipate with this shelter once that is up and running we anticipate at least 25% [2:12:24] Joshua L. Nagine: increase in caseload from the shelter and when we're talking about these cases for the most part we're getting reimbursed for the for the 30% that were contributing. Could you speak to are these folks local to Lewiston or are they coming from other communities for these services? [2:12:44] Unidentified speaker (Social Services Director): Do you know recovery houses are connected to the prison so when they're on good behavior good behavior they're released it's it's it's coordinated with the caseworker at the prison to send them out to a recovery house and that's what we're seeing in the Lewiston area so are we building the [2:13:12] Joshua L. Nagine: prison system the 30% the 30% of the city's contribution to GA we get [2:13:22] Unidentified speaker (Social Services Director): reimbursed from the state 70% and the municipality pays the other 30% so if [2:13:27] Joshua L. Nagine: it's a prison system we do get reimbursed I [2:13:30] Unidentified speaker (Social Services Director): can't understand that no we [2:13:32] Bryan Kaenrath: still the city still has to pay the 30% we don't okay from the prison so one of [2:13:37] Joshua L. Nagine: the things I'm trying to drive home here is that we have expanding costs for rate for services that we're providing in our community and some of those services are profitable and so when we have conversations about staffing transferring some of those responsibilities from the taxpayer to the ratepayer is incredibly important and I'm not saying this is not about the GA position but do we what do we charge for recovery homes as far as licensing is concerned how does that even work has anybody Thought about the questions that I have are, when we're incurring additional cost for being a service center or community, how are we defraying those costs instead of passing them on to the taxpayer? I'm not saying we shouldn't have recovery homes in the community. I'm not saying that you don't have need for staffing. What I'm saying is it's challenging when we pass that directly on to the homeowner or the business owner when the services themselves are generating a profit and GA is a state law. [2:14:42] Unidentified speaker (Social Services Director): Yeah, not completely understood, yeah, but they don't re reimbursed for staff. [2:14:51] Joshua L. Nagine: Okay, I appreciate the feedback and also the, could you just speak really quickly to, since immigration enforcement started, how many cases have we seen as a [2:15:05] Unidentified speaker (Social Services Director): drop the caseload that is dropped consistently has been the immigrant caseload and that's a partially down 40% however we're picking up on the flip [2:15:19] Joshua L. Nagine: side with the recovery residents in that 40% do you have a number for that [2:15:24] Unidentified speaker (Social Services Director): by any chance so this is up to the end of April, let's see, we have, are you looking at the number that was granted and we assisted or what are you looking at? Yeah, that's what I'm [2:15:44] Joshua L. Nagine: asking so for 2000 let's say 24 to 2025 what was the drop? Well, from 2024 fiscal year 24, if you're looking at, we would have to go fiscal year 25 I think actually because 24 to 25 [2:16:03] Unidentified speaker (Social Services Director): our immigrant cases were 65 percent, now they're down to 40, 45. Okay, and they're still dropping, understand people leaving the state every day. Okay, I appreciate that. [2:16:21] Carl L. Sheline: Thank you. Yes, questions for Dr. Brackett since she's here, counselor lunches. Thank [2:16:30] Susan G. Longchamps: you, director, for being here. Currently in your department, can you tell me how many [2:16:35] Unidentified speaker (Social Services Director): staff you have? We currently have administrative assistant, principal clerk, we have four caseworkers and myself. Are you fully staffed at this time? We are. [2:16:49] Susan G. Longchamps: And just a quick question about the new recovery homes that are appearing here in Lewiston, it is a requirement to volunteer, right, if you are getting a [2:17:04] Unidentified speaker (Social Services Director): housing voucher? Able-bodied folks are required, it's mandated as part of continuous assistance with the program. They are mandated to look for work and also to perform work, their duties, so they're required to volunteer. Well, you can call it volunteer, we call it work fair. Okay, work fair, and how many hours is that a week? It's the value of the assistance that they receive is divided [2:17:33] Susan G. Longchamps: by minimum wage. Okay, and do you have one specific person that looks over that or do [2:17:42] Unidentified speaker (Social Services Director): you guys kind of all take that role? And all of the case workers assigned work fam. Thank you. [2:17:51] Carl L. Sheline: Seeing no more further questions for you the director bracket thank you very much and yes thank you for pointing this out administrator keenrath in the interest of fairness director Healey if you could please explain the impact let me see the loss of a senior assessor Thank [2:18:18] Unidentified speaker (Assessing Director): You mr. mayor just to give you a little history the assessing department back in 2012 it was six full-time employees there was four full-time assessors and two full-time clerical currently our assessing department is four full-time assessors and one 60% clerical. The department consists of the chief assessor, the deputy assessor, and two senior assessors. The senior assessor, excuse me, the deputy assessor handles our personal property accounts which keeps her busy year-round all day long. The remaining three of us do all the real estate parcels which equal about 12,000. So the industry standard for an assessor is 2,500 parcels so right now we're all doing 4,000 parcels if you eliminate a position in my department that means we have to do 6,000 parcels apiece well above the industry standard and the other thing that's very important to point out is my two senior assessors just in real estate alone picked up 12 million dollars they discovered 12 million dollars in new value this year which is 400 thousand dollars in tax revenue which more than pays for their positions I believe that cutting a position especially now in what is probably the most important project the city's undertaken in years is irresponsible I can't for the life of me understand why you would consider eliminating an assessor it doesn't make any sense to me as I said they make they more than earn their salaries so they're making money for the city doing their jobs. We've had a real difficult time finding certified main assessors. I've trained three different people who got hired as assessors in other towns. We finally have a full slate of certified main assessors, and thankfully they're still staying with us, but I promise you they probably won't if we continue to treat them the way we do. I feel totally disrespected. I HAD TO ASK TO COME UP AND SPEAK TONIGHT BECAUSE I WAS IGNORED AND MISSED, AND THAT'S UNACCEPTABLE TO ME. I DON'T GET EMOTIONAL, I TRY TO STAY PROFESSIONAL, BUT THIS TO ME JUST DATES, IT PUTS A BURN IN MY SADDLE. I'M HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS YOU HAVE, AND HOPEFULLY CAN RECONSIDER THE POSITION THAT YOU THINK OF ELIMINATING. [2:20:44] Carl L. Sheline: DIRECTOR HEALY, YEAH, IGNORING THE ASSESSING DEPARTMENT WAS NOT MY INTENTION. I apologize for that oversight. Thank you for you and your department service. Questions for yes councillor Neji [2:20:59] David B. Chittim: so the [2:21:02] Joshua L. Nagine: the industry standard for Overseeing part that you're talking about updating parcels on a regular basis or overseeing like correct [2:21:10] Unidentified speaker (Assessing Director): It's so transfers all parcels. So what the assessors do what we do in our office and again personal property is handled by our deputy the real estate parcels we inspect building permits we inspect sales new construction commercial buildings and what-have-you so all of the parcels are inspected by the assessing team of the three as three assessors that do the real estate. Thank [2:21:35] Carl L. Sheline: you 're welcome. Further questions for dr. Healy. Thank [2:21:39] Unidentified speaker (Assessing Director): You director thank you. I do want to just add one last thing if you do have to consider removing the assessing position i'd like to offer that i will retire before the end of the year and you can use my salary to offset it. Thank you counselor [2:21:57] Carl L. Sheline: nee gene we were getting your thoughts do you still have thoughts before we move to counselor longchamps. i have a lot of them but i don't think i'm gonna express them right now. well sorry and what i was sorry it's a lot going on up here so you are still i'm trying to ascertain where we are in terms of support for the various for the two different amendments here at this point are you still in support of your amendment as it is or yeah sorry i'm still sorry talking to [2:22:32] Joshua L. Nagine: councillor nagey in this very moment i would like to see if we could combine some elements of councillor Chittum's with mine. the truth is at this point I'm having a hard time supporting the rec department cut and I'm also having some considerable the senior possession the assessor position seems challenging as well and again you know we've had conversations about some of the some of the management positions that sit above this and it's really challenging. I mean we're going through a reeval the concept that our chief assessor would quit to save a job it's crazy to me simply because we I mean we're going to the reassess the reeval we need our chief assessor so i don't know maybe we can talk about the matching these two offers here and figuring out if we can get to a place where we can maybe save a couple of these positions. the other challenge too is on the supply lines piece you put down three hundred and thirty thousand I don't know what inventories are for any of these departments And whether or not we could, who can eliminate what, right? I also think that talking about overtime, especially within Public Works, I know they're down, I absolutely know that, but scheduled maintenance, for I just want to see some of those numbers drop. And I know that we can't push the fire department at this point because it's contractually agreed and it's, yeah, okay, so maybe we just go through line by line and figure out which ones we all have support for, both of these amendments. Would that be does that make sense [2:24:43] Carl L. Sheline: for everybody? Yes, quite possibly. Okay, well, anything further at this very moment, counselor? [2:24:50] Joshua L. Nagine: Starting aging. Well, I do want to just say that like we do have to get to the to the 3.3, and even that for met, much of my constituency feels like a failure. For much of my constituency there, that they're hoping to see, there's hoping to see a bigger drop than that. I can say that everything is more expensive right now, and the municipality also has become more expensive because everything else is more expensive. It's a knock-on effect. It 's hard, it's hard to run a city of this size with the budgets that we have, it's very hard, and so yeah. [2:25:30] Carl L. Sheline: So if i'm understanding you correctly, you want to add back in some of what you took out in your amendment. Would that be an accurate [2:25:37] Joshua L. Nagine: assessment? I would support the senior assessor position and the rec position being added it back in, as long as we can find those savings from counselor, sorry, council chair Chittum's amendments, or from some other amendments that we're making now that don't involve positions, because I don't think that it's fair at this moment to say hey, here's [2:26:09] Carl L. Sheline: another position, thank you, and I appreciate that, you know, administration spoke with people who might be affected, and so yes, we cannot, you know, right now, like what about that position, [2:26:23] Bryan Kaenrath: what about this position? Yeah, administrator? Yeah, second that if I could. So everyone that's on this list to be discussed has been, we've sat down with and I'm notified. So if we are going to be talking about any other positions, we would need to do the same process and they would have to be notified properly by us beforehand. So if we're gonna get into the discussion of other positions, I would caution on that until they've been properly notified. Understood. [2:26:47] Carl L. Sheline: Thank you. We're coming back to you, Councillor Longchamps, but first I want to talk to Councillor Chittim, since you had the other amendment and your thoughts, please. Well, one of the questions I have for administrator [2:26:59] David B. Chittim: Kainrath is when we went through the tier exercise and we came to tier three that would have eliminated eight positions, and I'm wondering whether the overlap of Councilor Najin's amendment, what the nexus is of the specifics that he's listed and the eight that you had in mind. [2:27:19] Bryan Kaenrath: I can say, sitting here, there was some overlap, but not total overlap in positions. And again, positions that were going to discuss have to be notified beforehand. Hand, so there were positions on that list where people have not been notified. Oh, I see, I thought [2:27:37] David B. Chittim: you had spoken with everyone who had been proposed on either a second or two the amendment offered by [2:27:42] Bryan Kaenrath: Councilman Gene, but not on the two tiers. Right, when we were talking about the tiers, it was, it was back under the system. If you guys are coming up with a bottom line number, then instruct me to sort of go find it, not listing specific positions yourselves. So when we came up with those numbers, honestly, it could be a total mix of different positions that to get to that bottom line number you're asking us to get to. So the positions on a tier three lists are not the same as what you see in Council regents and then there could be some overlap but it's not the same ones I see thank you that 's [2:28:20] David B. Chittim: unfortunate. I believe that Administrator Cain Wrath is in a better position. This sounds like we're booting, I'm booting the problem back to you, and that's certainly not my intent, but I think that the administrator is in a better position to understand his departments. He has a working relationship with the department heads and has a better feel for what positions would have to be cut in order for us to meet the target that we're getting at. So I was under the misimpression that all of the folks who were targeted in the tier three, all eight positions, had already been spoken to. I would go back to the tier three, recognizing that the administrator had done the work that we have hired him to do, and then based on the inclusion of Director Garnier's hundred and fifty thousand dollar savings slash revenue increase from timber harvesting, we could eliminate one of the nine positions that I had proposed. Generically, I did not have a list of specifics. I'm sorry, I only had eight positions. No, I had ten, I had ten. I had eight from the tier three, and then two more on top of that. So one of those two additional ones could be funded, if you will, by Director Gagne's $151,000, which then essentially puts both of our amendments on a par with looking at cutting nine positions. It only remains to be determined which those are. And I do believe that 's Administrator Kainrath's purview. [2:30:04] Joshua L. Nagine: That's that's his bailiwick more than ours, Counselor Naijin. Just really quickly, one of the things that I don't believe is on here is I had a conversation with the with the director of pub, sorry, the director of the library, and they had offered to accept a removal of half of the contracting service for the monitor position. I it's not a lot of money, I think it's like $17,000, but I'm wondering, could we just check with the director real quick and make sure that I'm trying to push this down any way we [2:30:48] Carl L. Sheline: can. Director Houston, thank you for joining us. Good [2:30:54] Unidentified speaker (Public Works Director): evening. Yes, we had discussed a potential 50% reduction in the contracted security services, so just to be clear, that is not the building monitors, which are staff positions related to safety, but the contracted security services that are third-party service. With the reduction in incidents that we've had since the warming center came online, we had talked, you know, when I did my presentation originally, about the prospect of removing that contract entirely, which I did not support. I if we see this reduction in incidence is consistent, I had intended to sort of wind down this contract over the next couple of years. I was going to propose a 50% reduction in fiscal year 28, so this is really just us accelerating that timeline. It's not what I would advocate for in a vacuum, but it is $17,000 that we can offer without people losing their jobs potentially, so that's sort of the spirit in which we had that conversation. [2:32:04] Joshua L. Nagine: Absolutely, thank you. Thank you for the clarification, and yeah, we should add that to the to the lines if we can, please. [2:32:16] Carl L. Sheline: So let's recap for a second. You want to add back in a couple of positions that you took out, correct? Or we I mean after having [2:32:31] Joshua L. Nagine: the recreation department functions with a very low budget hits everybody in the community, from youth, seniors, working parents. I find it very challenging to if they were like staffed at like 15 people, maybe that would be something that we could talk about, but they're not, so I ultimately worked with Council Long Champs to look at the different departments where we thought that we could make a cut and pretty much hit every department that [2:33:09] Carl L. Sheline: We could, so yeah, and so at this point you, but if we're, if we're taking, if we're adding positions back into your amendment, you would like to see that those same dollar amounts being taken [2:33:24] Joshua L. Nagine: out elsewhere, correct? And I think that we can get there with it, with the council of children's proposal, and I also think again the, we don't have to accept amendment one or amendment two. [2:33:38] Carl L. Sheline: We can modify it, right? Yeah, that's what we're talking about right now, okay. And if there is [2:33:45] Joshua L. Nagine: there is a position that's still to be cut, you know, I don't think we should lose our chief assessor, I think that's not good, so if we're one second and then we're coming to you, [2:34:00] Carl L. Sheline: counselor long champs so if we're trying if we're adding back in two positions and then want to make those cuts elsewhere I mean I mean we're not going to find that in supplies we're talking about other positions correct they would likely be other positions right so you know given where we are right this second you know perhaps you know what counselor chin Chittum you know insinuated that we would need to turn it back to you for ideas about where those where those cuts should be to get us to the same amount. Am I understanding you correctly? [2:34:35] David B. Chittim: Councilor Chittim? Regrettably yes, because I think he's far more of an expert than we are in the operation of the city. [2:34:43] Carl L. Sheline: Yeah, agreed. Councilor Longchamps, yes. You've been waiting a while, my apologies. Oh no, that's okay. [2:34:51] Susan G. Longchamps: I've actually, I have a question now for the library. That position or that reduction that you're asking for, is that in security or? [2:35:04] Unidentified speaker (Public Works Director): I actually, is it, is it insecurity, yes, so that is a security contract we pay to have a third party come in and make sure that everything is safe, so I would not [2:35:16] Susan G. Longchamps: recommend actually a reduction in that area, as we really do not have a warming center anymore, we now have a permanent shelter which only holds 40 people and you're going to have a lot more people going to the library. So I wouldn't recommend that. I would recommend keeping that in there and keeping that security to make sure that everybody can visit. [2:35:45] Carl L. Sheline: Thank you, Councilor Longchamps. Thank you, Director Houston. Yeah, so if we're looking to meet the same amount, I think at this point we have, especially since administration team HAS NOT TALKED WITH OTHER PEOPLE ABOUT THEIR ABOUT THEIR POSITIONS I THINK AT THIS POINT WE REALLY HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO KICK IT BACK TO OUR ADMINISTRATOR AND THEN COME BACK TO US COUNCILOR [2:36:10] Susan G. Longchamps: Longchamps, so if I'm understanding this correctly, we would go with all of the positions that Council and Najean and I propose, minus the rec and our chief assessor, and leave it up to our city administrator to find two other employees that he may have to or will have to unfortunately eliminate their job. Is that correct? That's how I'm [2:36:39] Carl L. Sheline: understanding it. How are you understanding, Administrator Keener? A well, [2:36:42] Bryan Kaenrath: there's something clear. So we would be accepting the need gene amendment minus those two positions, other than there would be direction to administration to find two more positions to eliminate or well, the dollar amount of those [2:36:53] Carl L. Sheline: positions, the dollar amount of those positions, right, find those savings. Counselor and agent, [2:36:59] Joshua L. Nagine: did you have something yeah i was just going to clarify that it's a dollar amount if we can find the dollar amount anywhere and it doesn't involve cutting other positions and that 's what we should probably do but i know that the budget i've gone through every page of it so [2:37:14] Susan G. Longchamps: Counselor Longchamps, so we do have that 40,000 that we talked about with the supplies. Could we potentially unfortunately deduct more from the supplies? So when I said 40,000, that was to get you [2:37:28] Bryan Kaenrath: the amount that we would need to get to 3.2. I wasn't okay. Yeah, supplies, right. So most of the supplies, as I stated, if you do 10 across the board is 318,000. However, like I said, 197,322 would be gas, sand, salt. There's another 30,000 that's contractual for uniforms, so that only leaves like 90,000 to look at. So all of the smaller departments that have small numbers will be losing more, along with the fact that some of that, like HR, it's safety supplies, fire safety supplies, police, it's safety supplies, so there's not much to take unless you take from the smaller departments, which won't get you that much. Thank you. I do have [2:38:25] Susan G. Longchamps: another question for Director Healey. Thank you, Director Haley. That was a very honorable statement that you made a few moments ago, and I would like to go back to that if you don't mind, and I apologize for doing this in public. you made a statement that you would something about your retirement. Sorry, sure, I would be willing to retire before the [2:39:04] Carl L. Sheline: end of the year in order to save. Sorry, can I interrupt this conversation for a moment? Director Tario, are we okay to be having this sort of conversation in open session? We already did. Well, I understand, but like I'm [2:39:19] Bryan Kaenrath: sorry, she said yes, it's his position, he brought it up, so he's made that public. Okay, just double-checking. [2:39:26] Carl L. Sheline: Thank you everybody. Please continue, Director Healy. So again, [2:39:31] Susan G. Longchamps: when you started making that statement, things just kind of went in my mind because I was just felt really bad and all of that. Is that correct? Is that what [2:39:45] Unidentified speaker (Assessing Director): THAT IS, THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I SAID. YES, I WOULD BE WILLING TO RETIRE BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR, WHICH COULD BE ENOUGH OF THE SAVINGS TO KEEP UH THE PERSON THAT YOU'RE LOOKING TO GET RID OF OR ELIMINATE AND [2:40:03] Susan G. Longchamps: THIS PROBABLY ISN'T OKAY TO SAY. UM, THEN PLEASE, UM, YEAH, LET'S, WELL, HOLD ON. I'M TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW WE CAN SAVE, RIGHT, AND WHERE WE CAN, AND I'D LIKE, CAN I INTERRUPT YOU [2:40:17] Carl L. Sheline: for a second? No, I'm sorry. What I wanted to ask, don't say something you shouldn't believe. Thank [2:40:22] Susan G. Longchamps: you. Is, I don't want you to leave early, but if, I guess what I would ask is if you were willing to give that up, you know, was your plan to retire soon, or when were you up for retirement, if you [2:40:37] Unidentified speaker (Assessing Director): didn't mind me asking? I really don't mind you asking. I actually had a March 1st of this year date to retire. I was convinced to stay on through the revaluation, which I said I would do. And when, I didn't realize that this was going to come up, and I just feel now that because I'm where I'm at, my career, that if I can save someone else's job, that I'd be happy to do that. I [2:41:03] Susan G. Longchamps: thank you, and I think we should take that into consideration and unfortunately take what Mr. Healy has said into consideration. Thank you, [2:41:21] Carl L. Sheline: councilor, and Agent, did you have something else? Yeah, I think that's [2:41:24] Joshua L. Nagine: probably a conversation that the administrator and the chief assessors, that should have that isn't public. Like, I'm so sorry for this, but I appreciate your dedication to both the city and your employees. I know that it's been an incredibly rough road that this, with this reavow, and we certainly [2:41:48] Carl L. Sheline: appreciate what you've done for us. So yeah, thank you. Okay, Director Roy, you know the total dollar amount of the amendment to would still require five votes, correct, if [2:42:07] Bryan Kaenrath: we remove those two positions? Yes, because it would bring it back up, well, the above the 3.3 percent. Understood, we are removing those [2:42:15] Carl L. Sheline: positions, but then it sounds like we are charging administration to find those savings elsewhere, which will likely be positions, or we're adding that back in. It's just a question. [2:42:26] Bryan Kaenrath: On process, yeah, go ahead. I mean, Councilor Nagine has voiced support to remove those two positions. Is that, is there other support? Because we're all trying to keep tabs, and there, I think, was initially a support for the Nagin amendment from four counselors, as it stands. So yeah, I think we're trying to get consensus here with this meeting to prepare for next Tuesday. No, I [2:42:49] Carl L. Sheline: understood, and we're coming back to you, counselor. So as, what if we're, never mind the positions, if we're talking about the dollar amount, the dollar amount that Amendment Two represents, that would need five votes right now, correct, if it's above 3.3? Yes, yeah, and then to get it below would require another 40,000, as Counselor Martell asked. No, so currently as [2:43:16] Bryan Kaenrath: AS COUNCILMAN AGING'S AMENDMENT TWO, IT GETS US TO THE 3.3 THAT WE NEED, AND YOU DON'T NEED THE MAJORITY FIVE. BUT IF WE REMOVE THE TWO POSITIONS, THEN THAT WILL BRING IT BACK UP, AND WE'LL NEED TO EITHER REDUCE ANOTHER 163,753 TO GET BACK DOWN TO THAT 3.3% SO THAT WE WON'T NEED THE MAJORITY. [2:43:43] Carl L. Sheline: Or you need five votes, right? And yeah, Administrator Kane Roth and I are thinking along the same lines here. So for this dollar amount right now, it appears that before we did have four votes to support that, because we had Counselor Naging, we had Counselor Longchamps, we had Counselor Roy, if I'm not mistaken, and then we had Counselor Martel, and then Counselor Chittum, Counselor Chittum also seemed amenable. Am I understanding everyone correctly? [2:44:22] David B. Chittim: Counselor Chittum, the discussion that we've had this evening has been illuminating. I was never completely comfortable with the council naming specific positions, as I've said before. The dollar amount works, and as my conversation with Director Roy earlier, the cuts that I had proposed in my amendment don't necessarily have to be as deep now that we have a new understanding of what the target is. So I would go back and argue that if we put the $151,000 from the Public Works Department into Amendment 1, that would meet the target goal, and it would leave the administrator with full discretion as to where to find those personnel cuts. I'll remind everybody, and this is for the public, that our budget has four basic components. Personnel is 52% of that, and that's one of the few that we have control over. Supplies is another. I don't have the percentage on that, but the other two elements of our Budget are fixed costs and contractual services, and we cannot without violating contracts, without not paying insurance or debt service, we can't touch those. So the only places we have are supplies and personnel, and we're focusing on personnel. We've been told that supplies are sacrosanct. I would argue that if we reduce the salt consumption by the public works department by five percent, that's probably a doable and achievable goal. And hearing that salt is 190,000, did you say Director Roy? [2:46:01] Bryan Kaenrath: You so one hundred ninety seven thousand three twenty two was gas and sand and salt. So to take ten percent from the supply line for sand and salt would be fifty four thousand three thirty seven. The rest is from gas. Okay let's abandon [2:46:22] David B. Chittim: the ten percent now because we've got some other moving targets here. My point is that supplies are one of the two areas we can touch. We've already Exhaustively talked about personnel. I do believe that this is Administrator Cain rest responsibilities. So I would argue for my amendment which rests that Chris onerous responsibility on his shoulders. And then I would say that those large public works supplies salt sand and gasoline, if we take a 5% cut in those, that would be a significant amount. My guess is that if we that with the budget that I the amendment that I proposed and add in the hundred and fifty one thousand dollars that Director Gagne has graciously found in his budget we meet our target. We require four votes to pass. We've put the burden of choosing which individuals and positions are going to be cut on the city administrator and we can that would be our direction to the administrator to come back to us on Tuesday with a budget that reflects those things [2:47:36] Carl L. Sheline: understanding that your proposal does not include the police take-home cruisers [2:47:41] David B. Chittim: my proposal does not include take-home cruisers no and I wonder if that's [2:47:48] Carl L. Sheline: gonna be difficult to muster the votes for here on the council councillor yes, Councilor Nijian, your thoughts. [2:48:00] Joshua L. Nagine: Well, we've just gone through a pretty grueling public process, and so I would be happy with accepting the amendment that I've put forward, including anything that you've put forward that isn't included in my amendment, with whatever the gap is, concerning the two positions that I've mentioned, two for the administrator to work out. I mean, the public process, I think, is it is pretty. We're talking about positions, but they're people's jobs, and in some of these positions we know whose people should, whose jobs they are. It's a, we've gone through this piece and like I don't necessarily think that we should go back to the drawing board. [2:48:54] Carl L. Sheline: So counselors, are we, do we have, can I get a thumbs up from counselors if they want to support the Neijin amendment allowing the administrator to find the savings of the two positions that get put back in? Am I [2:49:13] Joshua L. Nagine: am I saying that correctly? Yes, correct. And I think that part of that revolves around a conversation because it's been very public tonight with the chief assessor and the administrator trader and figuring out if that actually makes sense for the city. Do we have support [2:49:33] Carl L. Sheline: for that to move forward? Do [2:49:40] Bryan Kaenrath: we need five for that? No, before, as we're funding the savings elsewhere, we are. Okay, so if we have four, as long as we stay at 3.3 or below, we need four, it appears [2:49:52] Carl L. Sheline: that we have support for that, majority support. And any final thoughts before we call it a night from counselors? Councilman Tell, you had your hand up earlier or are you good? [2:50:09] Scott A. Harriman: Councillor Harriman? Yes, I just wanted to comment on the process, I guess. You know, this would have been a lot easier for me if I had these positions, this list of positions several weeks ago when I asked for it. I just got this when I walked in here tonight, and to be asked to make a decision on these things in such a quick time frame, I don't think it's fair. We're talking about people's jobs here and we need some time to go over the information that's been presented tonight. So I will be prepared to vote on this next Tuesday when we vote on the budget, but I am not prepared to make a decision one way or the other tonight after two hours of SEEING THIS INFORMATION. [2:51:01] Carl L. Sheline: COUNSELOR LONGCHAMPS, ANY FINAL THOUGHTS FROM YOU? YES. [2:51:04] Susan G. Longchamps: I WOULD JUST LIKE TO SAY THAT THE AMENDMENT THAT WE DID RECEIVE FROM BOTH COUNSELORS CHIDDOM AND COUNSELOR NAJEAN, WE ACTUALLY RECEIVED ON THURSDAY. SO WE DID HAVE MORE THAN JUST TONIGHT TO REVIEW THIS. [2:51:26] Scott A. Harriman: WE DIDN'T HAVE THE [Carl L. Sheline: FINANCIAL INFORMATION.] We didn't have the financial information that was presented tonight, so I couldn't make [2:51:33] Carl L. Sheline: an informed decision. Councillor Harriman, you have not been recognized. We're not going to argue back and forth, councillors. [2:51:41] Susan G. Longchamps: Yeah, so my final thoughts, or am I still here? [2:51:46] Carl L. Sheline: Yes, as long as we recognize that we're not going back and forth. [2:51:50] Susan G. Longchamps: I wasn't going back and forth at all. I was simply stating that I received the amendments on Thursday, and as far as part of the process, our administrator asked us counselors to submit any of these any amendments that we should want to administration as of last Thursday, I believe was the deadline. Was that is that correct? That was what we all agreed to at the [2:52:21] Carl L. Sheline: us. Right, so thank you, thank you counselors. I want to avoid us simply trying to be right. Okay, we're trying to wrap up this meeting, counselor. It's not that, it's just correct information. We did not receive this information until tonight. You have not been recognized, council Harriman, you're still not. Thank you, councillor Nagin, I'm recognizing you. [2:52:41] Joshua L. Nagine: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First, just to address the entire council, this is highly dysfunctional [2:52:49] Carl L. Sheline: and it needs to stop. Counselors, stop pickering between each other. Thank you, counselor Naging. [2:52:55] Joshua L. Nagine: The we're already behind the eight ball right now for having conversations about how we fix next year's budget. I have made some proposals concerning in private, and I think in public too, concerning licensing of certain businesses that operate within our city, possibly even looking at the rental registration program as a for-pay system. We need to find the sources of revenue that pay for the services that were providing. We don't want to be in a situation in this city where we're having a conversation about getting rid of a fire marshal while we have buildings that are requiring more service, that you know how many times a fire marshal has been in my house, never. So we're providing services that are getting spread across the entire tax base, and we need to figure out ways to make the ratepayers, the people who are receiving these services, put some of that bills, so that we don't have to have these conversations in the future about where the money is going to come from for an essential service. It's it's a very uncomfortable situation. This was this was not, this is probably the worst council meeting I've been to for several reasons, but we need to we need to find sources of revenue to support our city staff. We know that we, that I know that there are people at home that are saying that the budgets bloated, there are places that do need reorg, 100%, don't get me wrong, there are, but nobody, no department in this city is overstaffed, it just isn't. Thank [2:54:43] Carl L. Sheline: you counselor Meiji. Counselors, I'm attempting to call it a night here. Staff, do you have, do you have a point of [2:54:52] Scott A. Harriman: Order, Counselor Herman. I would like to speak to my experience. I received this information tonight. If other, if other counselors received it earlier, that's their experience. Duly, I received this TONIGHT AND I WOULD PREFER MORE THAN A COUPLE HOURS TO CONSIDER IT BEFORE MAKING A DECISION. [2:55:08] Carl L. Sheline: THANK YOU COUNCILOR HERRMAN. STAFF, DO YOU NEED ANYTHING ELSE FROM US? [2:55:17] Bryan Kaenrath: I'M JUST WONDERING IF WE DO THIS AMOUNT, I WANT TO MAKE SURE WE'RE GOING TO DO THE APPROPRIATION RESOLVE. MY FEAR IS THAT WHEN THE CITY ADMINISTRATOR COMES BACK WITH TWO OTHER positions, if that's going to change on Tuesday on your votes, so that's my fear of not knowing. We don't like doing an appropriation resolve at 10 o'clock at night, it's a lot of numbers, so that's just my fear, not having a finalized [2:55:47] Carl L. Sheline: number. I appreciate you voicing your concern. Yeah, sorry counselor, just to [2:55:57] Joshua L. Nagine: answer to that, I think that the issue that we've run into repetitively is that there are people who are not comfortable with tier three on the council and there are people who were comfortable with tier three in the council. This process wouldn't have happened this way, we just accepted [2:56:11] Carl L. Sheline: the tier three cuts, counselor. Thank you, I don't want to rehash the past. No, I'm simply [2:56:17] Joshua L. Nagine: stating that I think everybody up here knows that we have to stay to the to the northeast CPI. Thank [2:56:23] Carl L. Sheline: thank you councillor and aging. I think we've, we're good for right now. This concludes our budget workshop. Thank you all.