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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council - 09/04/2007 - Workshop APPROVED MINUTES CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP & OPEN FORUM/OPEN PODIUM TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2007 CITY CENTER 4:00—6:20 PM, HERITAGE ROOM II 6:30—7:00 PM, COUNCIL CHAMBER CITY COUNCIL: Mayor Phil Young, Council Members Brad Aho, Sherry Butcher, Jon Duckstad and Kathy Nelson BUDGET ADVISORY COMMISSION: Katherine Kardell, Chair; Don Uram, Vice Chair; Commissioners Mark Kantor, Richard King, Jon Muilenburg, Richard Proops, Gwen Schultz CITY STAFF: City Manager Scott Neal, Police Chief Rob Reynolds, Fire Chief George Esbensen, Public Works Director Eugene Dietz, Community Development Director Janet Jeremiah, Parks and Recreation Director Jay Lotthammer, Communications Manager Joyce Lorenz, Assistant to the City Manager Michael Barone, City Attorney Ric Rosow, and Recorder Jan Curielli Heritage Room H 2008-2009 BUDGET Mayor Young noted the Council made a decision to move up tonight's meeting time to 4:00 PM to afford additional time for the Budget Advisory Commission (BAC) to explain their report before the Council begins their discussion. I. BUDGET ADVISORY COMMISSION PRESENTATION/DISCUSSION A. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION (VICE CHAIR DON DRAM) Don Uram, Vice Chair, said the BAC's report is the culmination of a lot of work with staff over the past few months. He said tonight the Commission plans to let the Council know how they came to make their recommendations. He thanked staff for the great effort in providing information to the Commission members. Each Commission member processed that information and then made their individual recommendations on how to alter the budget. They submitted those recommendations to Ms Kotchevar. Commissioner Proops compiled and Kotchevar reviewed the recommendations. Uram said there was discussion at the last meeting about each of the 20 recommendations. The results of the voting are presented in the recommendations. City Manager Neal had broken down the budget into core mission, supplementary missions and mission support services. The overall strategy was to sharpen the focus and limit the growth and scope of the core missions, to decrease the scope and the size of the supplementary mission operations, and to limit the growth in scope and size of the mission support operations. Uram said Chair Kardell forwarded a statement thanking the Council for the opportunity to participate in this budget review process. He noted one of his own CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES September 4, 2007 Page 2 goals when he left the City staff was to encourage additional participation in the budget process and he thought this is a way to do that. B. SUMMARY OF AGREED UPON RECOMMENDATIONS (VICE CHAIR DON DRAM) Uram said the BAC came out with 20 recommendations, 14 of which the City Manager agreed with in concept so the discussion tonight will cover the other six recommendations. Different members of the Commission will give the presentations on these points. C. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Wages & Benefits (Rick King) King said the Commission assigned Don Uram, Gwen Schultz and himself as a subcommittee on wages. They spent a lot of extra time talking to City staff before making their recommendation for 2008 and 2009. Their recommendations are more in the area of wages because benefits are either contracted on a long-term basis or, in the case of PERA, are contracted through the State. Version 2.0 of the budget called for a 4.1% total wage increase for 2008 and a 3.8% increase for 2009. The 4.1% increase for 2008 breaks down to 3% for the base wages and 1.1% allocated for step and performance. The 3.8% increase for 2009 breaks down to 3.2% base and .6% step and performance. King said the employer's share of the PERA contribution will increase from to 6.5% (from 6.25 %) for 2008, which is out of the City's control. He noted the City did a good job in the health care contract because there is a large reduction from the cost of the previous contract. King said their recommendation for the 2008 budget remained the same as Version 2.0, but they recommended a 3.4% increase for 2009 with a goal of trying to edge ourselves down towards a 3% increase. He said Mr. Neal responded that he was concerned about competition and proposed a 3.6% increase for 2009. The view of the subcommittee was that we greatly believe we have good employees in the City and it is important to keep them here. The language used when talking about wages suggested we want to be more exemplary. We want to be an outstanding employer but also want to bring the wages back a little, especially in view of the increase in the employer side of the retirement benefits. He said four members of the Commission supported the recommendation, one voted against and two were absent. He noted the Commission member who voted against felt we did not go far enough in the reduction. King said they looked at and measured the turnover rate and then recommended we watch to see if people are being picked off by competitors. We have escalating benefit costs and our attrition rates are very low, CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES September 4, 2007 Page 3 therefore they felt this modest adjustment would be fine and would not cause us to lose employees. It would also set a tone and direction for the future. He noted that wages are the single biggest cost in the budget, so a little bit of reduction goes a long way. Councilmember Duckstad asked if he understood correctly that the City's portion of the PERA contribution would be 6.5%. Kotchevar said it is increasing from 6.25% to 6.5%, or an increase of 0.25% for the employer's portion. She said the employee's share is also increasing 0.25% from 5.75% to 6.0 %. Duckstad then asked if those payments are mandatory. King said that was true, except for the Police and Fire personnel. Duckstad asked if he gave a percentage on the health care costs. King said he did not. They chose not to deal with it because it is in a long-term contract, and that will be covered when the contract is up. Councilmember Butcher asked if there was ever an opportunity when they were reviewing the data to look at what other cities are doing in terms of wage increases. King said City staff did furnish information on wage ranges for the last period for nearby cities so we could see how those compare. He said the information showed some cities that are at our level and some that are below. Most of the Minnesota League of Cities (MLC) cities that we would compare to are slightly below us. 2. Combining the Community Centers (Dick Proops) Uram said this recommendation is to transfer the programs from the Senior Center to the new Community Center and to divest the assets of the Senior Center. Proops said it is apparent that the new Community Center will be primarily an athletic center which is a little bit in conflict with the concept of community. Many of the offerings scheduled at the Senior Center are not particularly oriented towards seniors. There are five multi-purpose rooms in the Community Center that will be used primarily for rental by corporations or individuals. He said they were concerned why we are operating two facilities since both centers have to have phones manned and doors opened. They knew that advocating combining them would bring some opposition. Proops said there are some disadvantages in that the Community Center is larger and the access is harder. There is an elevator and the space they are talking about is on the second floor. There are also advantages to the new facility. They did not do an analysis of where the seniors are located but they are probably further from the Senior Center than from the Community Center. While they did not discuss scheduling of events, that should just be a matter of juggling times and facilities required. The new Community Center offers greater opportunities to create community. The committee visualized having a room dedicated for exclusive use of seniors and the rest of the CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES September 4, 2007 Page 4 rooms would be used by whatever activity is scheduled there. Proops said they are recommending we go ahead and combine the facilities. The present Senior Center would be available for sale for redevelopment or replacement, and the property would then come under real estate taxes. Butcher asked if we receive revenue from the cell towers on the Senior Center. Kotchevar said we receive $10-15,000 per year. Butcher asked if that is used to offset any of the costs. Kotchevar said it goes into the Capital Improvement Fund. Nelson asked if they considered the zoning for the center, noting they mentioned possible office use. However there is limited parking, and it is adjacent to and across the street from single family homes. She thought we generally do not place commercial or office into an area like this. Proops responded they did not get into that kind of depth and did not analyze the space use. Uram said he looked at it quickly, and he thought the building would have no value to a developer. The appropriate land use would probably be some kind of multi-family development. 3. Housing & Community Services (Dick Proops) Uram noted this item generated some discussion among the Commission members and in the local newspaper. This item received a unanimous vote by the BAC, and it did modify the recommendation the City Manger made with the Version 2.0 budget. Proops said they looked to some extent at the operation of the Housing and Community Services. In his email distributed last night he pointed out there is a question of whether the City should be providing these services, and he thought the question still remains. He has no strong recommendation as to eliminating or leaving it alone. The services are essential to many of the people using them. Any disturbance of our participation should happen only after a careful analysis of what will happen to the clients. The most flagrant examples are PROP and Meals on Wheels, and we can't discontinue those. Each item has to be carefully analyzed to determine how we get to where we want to be without just dropping the service. Proops said there was a lot of discussion about this in the newspaper and this is one area where you have to listen to what the public is saying. If we do something to upset many clients, we are going to hear about it. His email described all of the services that are offered and presented four alternatives to help make a decision. The four alternatives are: 1)proceed with the Version 2.0 budget cuts in 2008; 2)proceed with the proposed budget cuts with no established time frame and only after extensive discussion and review; 3) review the contracted services with a goal to delete those that duplicate availability from other services; and 4) make no immediate change to the operation, review the duplication of services and evaluate the work load of CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES September 4, 2007 Page 5 the staff to see if there is room for additional duties. We need to decide a course which will at least partially satisfy the public concerns, will not leave clients stranded, and will accomplish the objective of reducing the budget. King clarified the BAC did not recommend cuts, but rather they recommended staff take a look at the potential of any duplicate services. After we made that recommendation, Mr. Neal had Ms Jeremiah do that and we now have extensive documentation. Most of the services are not duplicative, while some need more investigation. They recommended a modification to Version 2.0 and the City Manager's response was to do the investigation and the work and to go with the plan that would impact only those services determined to be duplicates. Uram said he was not at the meeting when this was discussed,but historically there has been a lot of discussion about community services for the past ten years. He would have supported Mr. Neal's recommendations as presented the Version 2.0 budget. Uram said the discussion at this point would turn to Item 6 Capital Improvement Fund before the discussion of Items 4 and 5. 6. Capital Improvement Fund (Jon Muilenburgj Muilenburg said the Capital Improvement Fund recommendation is two separate recommendations rolled into one. The first recommendation is to combine the Capital Improvement Fund and the Economic Development Fund into one fund because that will allow the City Council more flexibility when allocating those funds. Muilenburg said the second part of the recommendation is the spend-down or spending some of that money and having less of a bucket in reserve. The Commission recommended you spend that down to some extent without any recommendation of what that level should be. They recognize Mr. Neal's and other staff member's concerns that reduction in that fund may have some impact on our bond rating. It may be reasonable for us to make some evaluation of that to see if we can maintain lower fund balances and still retain the bond rating. The current balance is $10,600,000 in the two funds combined. If we were to eliminate the $1,000,000 levy in the next budget cycle, we are only talking about reducing about 1/10 of the entire fund at that point. It would then be at$8,600,000 or$6,000,000 for the Capital Improvement Fund by itself. We would then be in the next budget cycle and would be in a position to evaluate whether there has been a negative impact. We would have an opportunity to reinstitute the levy at some level to maintain the fund balances. Mr. Neal made a comment about trying to bring some stability to the levy process and what property owners are seeing in their taxes. We have seen some wide fluctuation in this line item historically. CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES September 4, 2007 Page 6 Young asked if there is a recommendation about the length of time for this process to occur. Muilenburg said if the levy were eliminated the fund would be exhausted in five years; however, if we sold additional properties, those would go in the combined fund to replenish it. Young asked if they recommended the levy only be suspended for the two-year budget cycle. Muilenburg said they recommended a temporary suspension and did not set a time frame because of the possible impact on the bond rating. Uram noted this is one of the few recommendations made by the BAC that was a 3-2 vote so there were some mixed feelings on the Commission. Proops said he felt it is not keeping faith with the taxpayers when millions of dollars are sitting there with no foreseeable application, yet we go back to the tax payers to raise more money. Butcher asked Uram if the idea of an Economic Development fund was his. Uram said staff generated the idea for a number of reasons. It was originally set up because of a lack of funds to use for business or economic incentives, however as he understands it, it hasn't been used that way. He would like to see something done with it because the money should not be sitting out there. He thought the issue of Bury Drive and Midwest Asphalt would be a perfect opportunity to use redevelopment funds. Duckstad asked how long the fund has been in existence and what uses it has been put to. Neal said it was started in 2002-2003. Jeremiah said it has been used primarily for studies such as the Major Center Area (MCA) study and some follow-up work on Town Center to get plans done for the Phase 2 site. It is currently being used for some follow-up studies to get the Comprehensive Plan and ordinances up to speed and for plans on the future of walkability. In 2005 the Strategic Plan for Economic Development identified the highest priority as the MCA and our focus has been in spending for that area. When the MCA report was adopted in 2006, one of the implementing strategies identified was to use the Economic Development fund to jump start the redevelopment. Jeremiah said one of her concerns in combining the funds is that we don't spend a lot of money for studies under the CIP. Kantor said he was one of those dissenting, and he thought Mr. Neal addressed this very well in his response. People are very short in their memory when you take money out and don't charge them, but have long memories when you add it back in. He didn't see any morality problem with a savings plan because you don't know what will be needed in six years. Schultz said she was not at the meeting,but she would also have dissented because it is important to encourage redevelopment. Young noted there are two points in the recommendation: to combine the funds, and to cap the levy. CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES September 4, 2007 Page 7 Uram said at this point he can't comment because he was not on the CIP subcommittee and he hasn't spent enough time on the CIP and the $1,000,000 levy so he can't comment. 4. Heritage Preservation Uram said the City has done a great job in heritage preservation and has one of the largest inventories of historic properties in the State. The BAC recommends that we don't acquire any more sites,but the Council can do whatever they want as opportunities arise. They also recommend we look at what we do own and see if we can divest ourselves of any of those. The best example is Dunn Bros. which seemed like a great idea in the beginning but at this point apparently is not working out for the owner. Schultz thought the City has done a good job with the properties but if they were to go into a private historic society they could be done even better. 5. Major Center Area Streetscape Wayfindin! Uram said they are recommending we limit the City's share to about $400,000 per project. We feel the development community and anyone else involved should participate in the funding. Proops said what focused them on this was the projection that comes to $8- 9,000,000 spread over four years. If our objective is to limit budget expenditures, you have to have a hard look as to whether you want to spend that much. Jeremiah said the City's share was to have been $500,000 per year, with the rest of$1,700,000 projected to come from the private sector. She thought we are not that far off from the $400,000 per project. King said they saw placeholders a couple of times in the CIP, and this is one that has a placeholder for$1,700,000 each year for four years. We might see income come in or we might not and these have a way of sliding into being. We have put our best numbers forward,but the total cost to the City does not come clear in the CIP. If we start the project and the businesses have not agreed to pay the money, then we are the ones catching the ball. D. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION Uram said the Commission members will stay to answer questions the Council may have. He noted all the Commission members live in Eden Prairie and we would like to see the City remain as a fantastic community. Young again thanked the Commission for all the effort and hard work. He thought they covered a lot of ground and improved our process. CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES September 4, 2007 Page 8 II. CITY COUNCIL DISCUSSION Young said the discussion will conclude at about 6:25 PM because there is a full plate for the Open Podium time. He said the precise item on tonight's agenda is to set the maximum levy, noting we cannot decide to pass a levy greater than that amount at a later date. His inclination is to set a levy that gives us the maximum room. He noted the budget discussion will continue over the course of the next few months, so there will be sufficient time to be heard on all the issues. The final budget won't be passed until mid-December after the Truth-In-Taxation meeting. He suggested the philosophical discussion be centered around the presentation Mr. Neal gave us back on August 21. Butcher said this feels a little amorphous but she thought that is good. She thought it is important to discuss a few of the topics the community is reacting to. From her perspective she would like to consider human services part of the core support and it is important to have a discussion about the human services share of the budget considering the huge response to that item. Butcher said if we are couching things as to the level of importance, then she thought the human services are essential. We have participated in some form of human services for some time and this is part of our tradition and philosophy. As a Council Member who has served on the Human Services Committee she believes those dollars put into human services, whether in funding certain programs or in staff support, need to stay intact. She thought one of the important things is to keep our property tax dollars local so we can see how they are being used. In recent years our federal funding has been cut drastically, so we do not have that stream of dollars to use for this very important aspect of the community. She has had conversations with County Commissioners who have said they don't feel any strong desire to put forth any dollars. She felt the efficiency of delivery would be impacted by the County bureaucracy and would not have the same value for the dollars, yet the money would still come out of the pockets of taxpayers. This represents a small amount of dollars for the community, and she would not like to see us change direction at all in this area. Duckstad said he agreed to the extent that human services are something we have all had in the past and we feel we want. We also have to keep in mind that we only have so many dollars to spend. We talk about providing services for the poor and needy, but we have a number of layers of government. The federal government provides a huge amount of money for entitlement programs and the State also provides substantial amounts of programming. Hennepin County has a lot of resources to help those people. He thought the BAC raised a legitimate issue that we not stop the programs but should review the programs and the sources of funding. He thought part of the problem is access for County residents because we aren't close to offices that can provide these services. He would like to see somebody review the Hennepin County budget and see how much is available and investigate and coordinate the benefits that are available. He said he is familiar with the Meals on Wheels program and that helps a lot of people, as does PROP. He also owes a duty to the taxpayers since we only have a certain amount of money and have competing needs and interests for that money. He was concerned about the taxpayers because taxes went up a great deal--9% in 2006 and 6.2% in 2007. He would like to see the issue investigated more thoroughly because we have an obligation to make sure we spend CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES September 4, 2007 Page 9 people's money carefully. When he ran for the City Council, he heard from a lot of people on fixed income who said when their property taxes go up they feel they could get driven out of the City. Young said there is a lot of public concern about specifics in the budget such as the reductions in PROP, reducing grant funding by 40%, and the elimination of two staff positions. He asked that discussion be centered on specifics. Duckstad said he would like a little more information and would like to look more carefully at the availability of resources. He was not in favor of drastic cuts in everything and felt he was not in a position to make a decision tonight. He has an obligation to spend people's money with some care, but if we are the only source of help for people in need then he was in favor of funding for that. Nelson thought we need to think long range over this and certainly the core needs of Police and Fire protection, and water and sewer are essential. We also need planning and environmental protection. She thought it did not make sense to eliminate the position that administers the housing budget, HUD money and CDBG money and over$1,000,000 could be up for question if that position doesn't exist. She thought it might be good to add in some other elements to the immigrant services position as part of employee development over the next five to six years. As the immigrant community matures, they may not need the same level of services. She said it is essential that our community welcome diverse populations and we need to be able to work with people to help them get their feet on the ground. She considers both positions not unessential and not the first place to cut. Regarding the services, she thought the City has to do more with less. These organizations are part of a public/private partnership the City has gone into. We put in a small amount of money and that gives some of these organizations the basis they need to go after more money and allows for volunteers to come in. Groups like Cornerstone and Teens Alone are used by the Police Department. She thought many of us may not have used the services but family members may have and any of us may need help as we get older. She thought we take small amounts of money and broker that into five to ten times as much, and that is doing more with less. Nelson thought Ms Jeremiah's report shows we are using our money well. She thought some of the programs for teenagers that have been in trouble or have a potential for trouble is an important means to mitigate problems. We have a safe community and have low teenage crime with no gangs, and she wanted to keep it that way. Aho thought no one would question the validity or use of these programs, and he didn't think need is a question. Everyone thinks we should work with people and help them out when they are in need. What we have to determine as a City is our basic philosophy. We have a population increase that is slowing down and we are rapidly coming to the end of our development cycle. We will have a change in the nature of our funding resources and the ability of the City to grow a budget. If we keep the budget growing at historical rates and see a decline in income, we will be in financial difficulties. He thought programs like PROP are fantastic and are a great asset to the community. The question is whether the City should take taxpayer's money into the City and then determine who should get that money. In some ways by the City taking over the role we are robbing people of making CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES September 4, 2007 Page 10 that decision themselves. He thought the residents know what the community needs, so giving private residents the ability to determine where their donations go is sometimes more efficient. He thought the City should work as a liaison and as a way to let people know what programs are out there and which programs we recommend. It may be that we haven't done a great job of identifying the programs out there and all the sources of funding. Some sources of funding may not be used as well as they could be and that may be because the City has done some of the funding. Regarding the positions proposed to be cut, Aho said we need to look at those positions and determine whom we are serving with those positions. We need to ask if they serve all of the residents that are coming into the City or do they serve one specific population. We need to look at who are we serving and if those services are redundant with Hennepin County, State and federal government services. He said he was not ready to make a decision tonight and he would like to see more information. He thought it is good to review all these things and we need to look at human services across the board to find ways to be more efficient and save money. Young said he agreed with Council Member Aho's comments in that charity begins at home. If the group that is receiving grant funds provides a service which is reasonably related to services which residents can expect from the City and if they were no provided by the non-profit, then it would be appropriate to finance them. He thought all the programs were related to what he considers to be core functions. He didn't want to discuss cutting a certain percentage of funding,but thought we should go through the grant process and see if they should be continue to be funded. Regarding the staff positions, we should look at the services we have provided and how closely those are related to the core services. He thought the services provided by the Manager of Housing and Community Services are related and that position should not be eliminated. He had mixed feelings about the immigrant liaison and he was concerned with what our role is and what our obligation is. The services provided are largely of a linguistic nature and are used by immigrants to deal with Police Department and help them to understand the rules. He thought such things as INS compliance and citizen interpretation are individual responsibilities and could be handled through friends. Butcher said our Strategic Plan, Vision and Goals create who we are as a City Council. We agreed that we need to have incrementalism rather than quantum change. She thought the deep cuts to human services were flying in the face of what we agreed upon in the previous Council. Having served on the human services committee for years, she knew anyone who wants the City to provide some funding has an opportunity to submit a proposal to the City if it meets the primary criteria of serving Eden Prairie. The committee's process calls for a proposal, an assessment of the proposal, and a determination of the efficiencies of the proposal. She thought it may be necessary to have another City Council member serve on this committee and make reports like she used to do. She noted the committee always looked for redundancy, knowing we only had a certain amount of money available. She said the Hennepin County services do not apply specifically to Eden Prairie, and that is why they have pulled some of the services. Nelson thought it is a good idea to put a Council member on that committee. Our whole social services program is less than 1% of the City's budget and she believes that is a CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES September 4, 2007 Page 11 conservative amount. She said if the human services were reduced by $80,000 that would save the average taxpayer only $3 per year. She thought there are things we can do together what we can't do alone. The expenditure of$3 per household for services is something the City can afford to do but do in a way that we are still being very careful with the citizens' money. We take a small amount of money and magnify that through the charities. She thought we cover the bases fairly carefully and she was satisfied we are being careful with the citizens' money. Young said he had a negative reaction to breaking it down to dollars. He preferred to look at what is our role and then to work to fulfill that role. He thought it sounded as if some things are still undecided and we don't have consensus on the Council. Sometime during our process we will have to move in that direction,but this is a good start. Duckstad said he would like to discuss the CIP fund and combining the CIP with the Economic Development fund. It was his impression that the BAC very carefully looked at figures and thought they came up with a good and reasonable suggestion. The impression he got from the presentation was there was a split among the members of the committee and that when you combine the funds you have $10,600,000 which includes an Economic Development fund which has apparently existed for some time but has not really been used for any specific project. If the funding has reached a level where it was possibly more than was needed and was just stockpiled, then there is a problem because there are people in the City who live on fixed incomes and need that money. We need a balance between the amount of money we take from people compared to what we properly need to discharge our responsibilities, and we need to look at the issue more carefully. He would like to know what money we have, what funds exist, what amount of money is in each fund, and whether we have a detailed objective on what the funds are used for. He would like to see this brought up after the Council has reviewed more information on the overall finances of City so we have a broader picture. Young said he would like to have a discussion about CIP and Economic Development as well as other special funds such as the tax mitigation fund. He thought we could have that discussion in a workshop. Nelson said Mr. Muilenburg said something to the effect that, combined, we are five years to bankruptcy. She was told we use $3,000,000 from the CIP per year, less the $1,000,000 we receive from the liquor fund. Adding $1,000,000 tax levy each year would get us to six years before bankruptcy, and at year seven she did not want taxes to jump up drastically. She was not sure we can afford to think about not continuing the levy because we have an excellent bond rating and even if we cut back on the CIP we still have to do maintenance. Young thought it is a fair part of a more comprehensive discussion. He thought it was a matter of how far in advance do you want the taxpayers to pay. Duckstad said one of the things brought up by the BAC was the expenditures in the Parks & Recreation area. The material said there was $850,000 for recreation programs, but he understood from their report there was $4.7 million allocated for CIP funds. His question is what amount of that money is going to be spent next year. When Mr. Lambert wanted the Community Center and the nine additional projects to go through,he made a statement if CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES September 4, 2007 Page 12 we approve this he thought we should put the other projects in the Parks Department on hold. Duckstad asked if they really are put on hold and what is going to happen with $4.8 million in the CIP fund that is allocated for Parks improvements. He thought part of the issue of bankruptcy is that if we spend too much too fast we are in trouble. Young said we need a big discussion about fund balances, CIP and what we are committed to build. Butcher thought this conversation needs to take place about all the funds. This discussion made her very nervous and she thought it is dangerous to depart from what the City has done in the past and all the plans the City has made. If we continue to do what we are planning, the fund will be gone just because of what comes out of it. This is a large philosophical discussion and has enormous ramifications. Dialogue is essential and we must understand what we did in the past. Duckstad said he didn't see it as dangerous for us to ask questions about how the City is operating and whether we will remain solvent. We are better served if we are very open and we have the information out on the table. Aho thought it was very important that everyone understand what the fund balances are and what they are there for. We would get a lot of input from residents when we bring that out and then could use that to set a policy. Young said the BAC made recommendations and one of them was regarding the Senior Center and Community Center. He was reluctant to proceed until we have the report that the City Manager agreed to provide. Nelson said there were a lot of good questions raised about the Senior Center, and she thought the programs and the atmosphere there is good. She thought the building has life left in it, and it would be expensive to add to the Community Center. She understands there is a study coming out about combining the facilities,but at this point with the information she has available she was not in favor of doing this. Butcher agreed and thought that the Senior Center operates on a pretty small amount of money, and she wondered if there are other ways to pull in revenue to use to offset the $100,000 need to run the facility. Neal said he has some suggestions. Aho thought it is a very important part of our community especially with the aging population. He was thankful the BAC brought this as an issue and had this as a part of their due diligence. There are potential ways of saving and efficiencies we could make. We may not adopt everything that was brought forward but it was important that it was brought up. In the end he thought the Senior Center is a very good facility and used by a lot of people. Duckstad thought everyone on the Council wants the seniors to have a wonderful Senior Center. As long as the BAC has brought it up and it could in some way be a benefit to the taxpayers, we have a duty to look at the whole picture before we make a decision. CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES September 4, 2007 Page 13 Council Chamber III. OPEN FORUM A. HISTORIC PRESERVATION 1. Historical Society Katie Coughlin introduced herself as a resident of Hopkins and the granddaughter of a former owner of the Smith-Douglas-More House. She read a reminiscence of childhood days spent at the house. 2. Eden Prairie Students A group of Eden Prairie High School students spoke in favor of preserving historical sites in Eden Prairie, and the Smith-Douglas-More House/Dunn Bros. in particular. They said the site is a popular place for teens to study, hold meetings, socialize and learn about the City's history. 3. John Whaley John Whaley said he offered a business perspective on the value of the Smith-Douglas-More House. He offered data on how many people are employed by the coffee shop, the growth of the business, and the current lease terms. He said it would be unwise for the City to walk away from its investment in the building. B. HAROLD MASSEY—BUDGET Harold Massey said he lives on Tanglewood Drive in Eden Prairie. He spoke against proposed cuts to the Housing and Community Services budget. He said the United States has a rich tradition of assisting refugees, who are here at the invitation of the federal government. He asked whether or not staff had explored all avenues of possible collaboration with other organizations. He said fiscal conservatism should be more than trimming services to just one group of residents. C. ABDULLAHI HASSAN—COMMUNITY ISSUE Abdullahi Hassan said he has lived in Eden Prairie since 1998. He has four children, three of which were born in Eden Prairie. He said Somalis in Eden Prairie have never seen a more welcoming or hospitable office than the Housing and Community Services Office. He said that is because Khadra Duale is there to work with them. He said there is common ground where a solution can be found. D. RON CASE—BUDGET Ron Case said as a Council Member he worked on 12 consecutive budget cycles. He said by appointing the Budget Advisory Commission, the City Council created a negative environment. He said all budget comments should be directed at the Mayor and the conservative majority on the City Council. He said there will be long term negative effects if the City Council chooses to use the budget stabilization fund and to budget"on the backs of employees." CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES September 4, 2007 Page 14 Note: Case finished speaking after 7:00 p.m., the start time for the City Council meeting. There was no time for the remainder of the scheduled speakers to address Council. E. JENNIFER URBANSKI—BUDGET F. JODY RUSSELL—DUNN BROS. AND BUDGET G. TRANG NGUYEN—BUDGET H. RUKIA ABDI - BUDGET III. OPEN PODIUM IV. ADJOURNMENT