PICKERINGTON CITY COUNCIL
CITY HALL, 100 LOCKVILLE ROAD
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2008
COUNCIL WORK
SESSION
7:30 P.M.
1. CALL TO ORDER: Mayor O’Brien opened the Council Work Session
at 7:30 P.M., with the following council members present: Mr. Fix, Mr. Sauer, Mrs. Hammond, Mr.
Sabatino, Mr. Wisniewski, and Mayor O’Brien.
Mrs. Sanders and Mr. Smith were not present. Others present were: Tim Hansley, Lynda Yartin, Linda Fersch, Jim
Woods, and others.
2. SCHEDULED MATTERS:
A. Discussion of sustainable
sources of income to the city. Mayor
O’Brien stated Council needs to continue the pursuit of sources of income,
whatever that may be. He stated everyone
could hypothesize about why the tax issue failed and everyone has heard stories
as to why it failed, but one of the suggestions brought to his attention that
he felt had merit was why didn’t Council, in addition to the Income
Subcommittee, some sort of Blue Ribbon Panel of members of the community. He stated perhaps a financial person from the
schools, someone from the Chamber environment such as a banker or business
owner to work with us and offer suggestions.
Mayor O’Brien stated he just wanted to throw that out to see if Council
wants to think about that or did they want to go back to work with the Income
Subcommittee, or did they want to tackle it as a group. Mayor O’Brien stated he felt we need to take
the time to do some sort of polling to find out why the tax issue failed and
learn from that to move forward. He
stated perhaps we need to develop a new message and the way it is
presented. Mayor O’Brien stated he did
feel it is important to poll and find out why it failed so we can move forward
from that.
Mr.
Sabatino stated he was not sure about a Blue Ribbon Panel, but he did feel that
perhaps we should hold some public input sessions, which would allow Joe Public
to come in and give their input, rather than Council picking two or three
people. Mr. Sabatino further stated the
comments he has heard is that if the people knew exactly what they were voting
on it might have been easier for them to understand and get behind. He stated with that in mind, he felt if we
looked at going with a renewal of the Police Levy, it would give us about
$800,000 in additional income. He stated
with the economy being what it is, if we ask if the people will or will not
support the police department, that was a question the residents could
understand, and there would be no question about if you work in the City or
outside, but instead will you or will you not support it? Mr. Sabatino stated if that passed it would
give us a little breathing room, and in a year or two the economy would
hopefully be a little better, and would make more options available to us. Mayor O’Brien stated during all of the
subcommittee meetings there was no public input and questioned if that would
change. Mr. Sabatino stated he felt that
just assigning two or three people to something, if you are looking for a broad
based answer, he did not feel that would give you anything other than two or
three more opinions. Mr. Sabatino
further stated he felt Council could not come up with the reason people did or
did not support the tax issue. He stated
if you really want to find out why it did not pass you need a professional
consultant to do it in a way that would give you something more than
opinions. Mr. Sabatino continued in the
feedback he has received people have expressed that if it is something they can
understand they might be more inclined to support it. He stated he did not think most people
understood everything an income tax funds.
Mayor O’Brien stated we could find out that we had the right issue out
there, just the wrong sales pitch; or we might find out we had the right sales
pitch, but the wrong issue. Mayor
O’Brien clarified with a Police Levy we could collect $800,000 additional
funds. Mrs. Fersch stated when we did a
replacement levy in 2002, increasing it back to 5.5 mills; it doubled the money
we collected. Mayor O’Brien stated with
a Policy Levy he felt we needed to make sure the people know they will not be
getting any additional police protection for it, they will be getting
preservation of what they have. Mr.
Wisniewski stated he would question how long that would preserve it because
$800,000 would not buy you much time.
Mr. Fix stated it also would not do what we need to do; it doesn’t pay
down any debt. Mr. Wisniewski stated the
question was if the public cared if we paid down debt or not. He stated the message he got from the
election results is that the public does not care about general services, if we
want to do something it has to be pinpointed and it has to be precise. Mayor O’Brien stated in developing a message
we have to be able to develop a message that says what the General Fund is used
for. He stated what he has heard is we
were asking for money to do with as we wanted, and that is not the case. Mr. Hansley stated another option would be to
earmark a percentage or a dollar amount of an income tax increase for police
services. Mr. Wisniewski stated no-one
knows why the issue failed and how are we going to find out. Mr. Sauer stated he felt there were two
issues, first being why did it fail. Mr.
Sauer stated he did not feel the message was very clear, and people he has
spoken to saw this tax increase as a catchall.
He stated he agreed with Mayor O’Brien that it would be beneficial to
ask citizens what it is they find to be important to them and that could be
dovetailed with a polling. Mr. Fix
stated the bottom line is how we do this polling. Mr. Sauer stated he thought we could send a
poll out asking questions, and Mr. Sabatino stated if we do a poll at all we
need to use a professional. Mr. Sabatino
stated if we really want to know and we plan on going forward again, it might
cost us $20,000, but otherwise we would be stabbing in the dark. Mr. Fix stated going into the election he
thought most of Council was pretty comfortable the issue would pass, and
clearly we missed the boat on how we put it on the ballot or how we
communicated it. Mr. Fix stated he felt
the first answer we need before we talk about moving forward is exactly what
Mr. Wisniewski and Mayor O’Brien have said, why did it fail and why did it fail
so miserably, and he was willing to put some resources toward doing that.
Mayor O’Brien stated when it comes to finding out why the tax issue failed; it was his experience that when you do a paper survey or a web site survey you are looking at about a seven percent response. He stated if we went with a professional polling they will develop the questions and they will call until they get the specified number of responses. He stated that may involve calling everyone in the City as opposed to sending it out and seeing what you get back. Mr. Hansley stated what the professional pollsters will tell you is that all you need to do is change 16 percent of the people who voted. Mr. Fix stated the question would be if we can find someone who does this for a living and get some kind of estimate as to what it would cost us to have them find out why it failed and also help us figure out what makes more sense going forward as far as the timing issue and how we publicize it. Mr. Sauer stated he felt we should find out why it failed first. Mayor O’Brien stated we may also want to get some consulting advice just to find out what to ask the consultant. Mr. Sabatino stated he felt we should have the City Manager check out a few different potential consultants and get some recommendations from them on what would be the proper way to proceed. Mayor O’Brien stated if we decide to proceed down that road, the next question would be how we would pay for it. Mr. Sabatino stated he would like to have Mr. Hansley just talk to some people initially, find out what they would suggest, and get suggestions from two, three or four people, and them come up with a projected range of what this would cost.
Mrs. Hammond stated she did not see how we could justify spending money when we have cut the Fourth of July fireworks and the Violet Festival and everything else. She stated we talked about spending this money last year when we were beginning the campaign and nobody wanted to spend it. Mr. Sabatino stated he would not say that no-one wanted to spend it, and Mr. Fix stated no-one but Mr. Sabatino and Mrs. Hammond wanted to spend it. Mr. Wisniewski stated besides that, would we be looking for them to provide what the issue is going to be and, if so, what is that going to be based on. He continued that everyone on Council has a different idea as to what a want or a need is and how much the City needs. Mr. Wisniewski stated Council has had discussions on this right up through the election. Mayor O’Brien stated Council needs to accomplish two things; it must come out with a unanimous vote and that it meets the requirements of the staff for the 2010 budget or whenever we run it. He stated when the money comes in it must meet the requirements financially, but it also has to be with a united front from Council with no apparent dissention. He stated if Council doesn’t agree, then it would be hard to sell it to the residents. Mr. Sauer stated he felt it was the wrong idea to start a poll asking what tax rate the residents liked because he did not feel we would get any information out of that. He stated he felt we should get the residents to rank their priorities in the services the City provides such as infrastructure, road paving, snow removal, etc. Mr. Sauer stated when those results come in and we know how important they are, when we create a tax increase that it is in line with those priorities. Mr. Fix stated that is why he felt a professional would be able to help us define that.
Mayor O’Brien stated the other issue to determine is the timing of the issue. He stated whatever was decided would not make the ballot in May because it would have to be filed with the Board of Elections by February 19, 2009. He stated with hiring a consultant, conducting a survey, and passing legislation that date just was not feasible, so it probably could not be on the ballot until November. Mayor O’Brien further stated by having quarterly budget workshops we would have current knowledge of what we needed. Mr. Wisniewski stated what he understood was that Mr. Hansley was going to look into some consultants and get back to Council with that information. Mr. Hansley stated he understood Council would like to have him get a few RFPs from different firms and he felt the range would go from $20,000 on the low side for a survey. He stated Westerville spent about $80,000 for their surveys and running the campaign, and he thought the school spent about $30,000 on their last successful campaign. Mr. Hansley stated the costs could range from a low of $15,000 to a high of $80,000 to $85,000 and he felt we would likely end up somewhere in the middle for the pre-work and running the campaign.
Mayor O’Brien stated, to summarize, Council would like Mr. Hansley to get some RFPs and bring them back to Council and at that time Council could meet again and look at them to see what action they would like to take. All of Council concurred with Mayor O’Brien’s summary. Mrs. Hammond stated assuming we do not get a tax increase she felt Council should also start looking to see what else could be done. Mayor O’Brien stated the major way to increase revenue would be to reduce or eliminate the credit currently given to residents on their income tax. Mr. Fix stated that would be a desperation action, and Mr. Wisniewski stated he felt one other option to increase revenue was to look at our monthly stormwater fee. He questioned if we raise that fee, how much of it could be applied toward Diley Road because a huge portion of the cost of Diley Road was drainage related. He stated further we could look at doing a Diley Road debt realignment by changing it from a ten year SIB loan with a great interest rate to a 20-year bond where the interest is not so great. He stated these are things that should be looked at now, because we can’t just hope the income tax issue will pass. Mrs. Fersch stated we will be going out on our note issues in January, so that will give us an idea of where the interest rates will be. Mr. Fix asked if Mrs. Fersch would like to have the Diley Road financing discussion on the January 2009 Finance Committee agenda and she stated she would request that. Mrs. Fersch stated she would have our Bond Counsel, Dennis Schwallie, attend that meeting to he can answer any questions that Council may have on this refinancing. Mr. Sauer further clarified that the stormwater fee could be used toward the Diley Road debt and Mr. Wisniewski stated we need to find what portion of that fee could be legitimately directed toward that debt.
3. ADJOURNMENT. There being nothing further, the Council Work
Session closed at 8:35 P.M., December 10, 2008.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:
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Lynda D. Yartin, Municipal Clerk
ATTEST:
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Mitch O’Brien, Mayor