RULES COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL

CITY HALL, 100 LOCKVILLE ROAD

WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 2010

REGULAR MEETING

8:00 P.M.

1. ROLL CALL. Mr. Fix called the meeting to order at 8:00 P.M., with roll call as follows: Mr. Fix, Mr. Wisniewski, and Mr. Blair were present. No members were absent. Others present were Mayor O’Brien, Lynda Yartin, Trisha Sanders, Tony Barletta, Brian Sauer, Cristie Hammond, and others.

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF March 3, 2010, Regular Meeting. Mr. Wisniewski moved to approve; Mr. Fix seconded the motion. Roll call was taken with Mr. Blair, Mr. Fix, and Mr. Wisniewski voting “Yea.” Motion passed, 3-0.

3. SCHEDULED MATTERS:

A. Discussion regarding establishing criteria for naming purposes. Mr. Fix stated the Committee has been reviewing this and now in addition to the naming of a park. a street, etc., there is the issue of considering the selling of naming rights as a part of this legislation. He stated the law director had provided a memo on this issue that the Committee members received this evening. Mr. Wisniewski stated he felt the language in subparagraph b) under Naming Rights Restrictions should read “promote alcohol and other addictive substances” and not include the remaining language. The Committee members concurred with Mr. Wisniewski. Mr. Wisniewski stated further that he felt sub paragraphs b) and c) could then be combined.

Mr. Wisniewski stated he questioned if there was a way to restrict this based on the name of the proposed sponsor, and Mrs. Hammond stated she concurred and she could not support something like “Sam’s Tattoo Parlor.” Mr. Fix stated as he read it, ultimately City Council had final approval on this process and had the right to reject proposals. Mr. Sauer questioned if this should be something handled administratively by the City Manager as it would take time to go through the legislative process. Mr. Wisniewski stated it would still have to go through Council to accept the donation and Mr. Fix stated he felt the final approval should remain with City Council. Mrs. Hammond stated she felt this policy seemed to cover all of the questions that were raised in Safety Committee. Mr. Fix stated he would then request the law director prepare legislation that combined this policy, with the changes just recommended, and the draft ordinance on a policy for the renaming/honorary designation of streets and a policy for the naming/renaming of parks and city facilities that was provided to the Committee for review at the June 2^nd Rules Committee meeting. All Committee members concurred.

4. CHAIRMAN:

A. Review and discussion regarding potential changes to the Administrative Code. Mr. Fix stated this includes cleaning up some things that Council changed anticipating an expedited Charter review process that did not occur. Mr. Fix stated he had provided a proposed restructuring of committees as a result of our strategic plan and a strong recommendation from the group that took us through the strategic plan that we align our committees with that plan. He stated he had broken up projects according to the seven core areas of focus and then looked at the personnel that currently report to various committees of council and who it would make sense for them to report to under a restructured committee program. He stated he had looked at what we currently do and put that into the seven committees. Mr. Fix stated he understood that seven committees were a lot and it has already been suggested that recreation is covered by our Parks and Recreation Board and we could continue with our current representation there and limit the number of council committees to six. Mrs. Sanders questioned if the suggested Infrastructure, Planning and Development would be P&Z and Mr. Fix stated that would be Service. Mr. Wisniewski questioned if the committees were outlined in the Charter and Mr. Fix stated he had checked with the law director and the committee structure is in the Administrative Code, not the Charter.

Mr. Fix stated to summarize, Administration and Operations was basically Rules Committee with a little more, Communication and Collaboration and Economic Development would be new committees, Financial Planning and Management is Finance, Infrastructure, Planning and Development is Service, Police – Safety is Safety and a little less, and Recreation and Community Involvement would be handled by Parks and Recreation. Mr. Sauer stated in looking at this he felt that Administration and Communication could be combined and Safety and Recreation could be combined. Mr. Wisniewski stated he did not even know why there would have to be a communications committee that is Council driven versus staff. Mayor O’Brien stated this appeared to be a tremendous amount of micromanagement of staff. He stated all the economic development is handled by staff and questioned why there would be Council oversight of their daily work. Mr. Fix stated this came out of the strategic plan and Mayor O’Brien stated we did not have an Economic Development Director at that time. Mr. Fix stated one item identified in the strategic plan was to hire an Economic Development Director and we have done that. He stated although we have a Chief of Police we still have a Safety Committee, we have a Director of Finance and we still have a Finance Committee. He stated he did not know why Council would not want an Economic Development Committee because that is one of the most important things we are doing. Mrs. Sanders stated since this can be changed by the Code, she questioned if it would benefit us to just form the Economic Development Committee right now, and then the Code could be revised later to include others. Mr. Fix stated he would think that every two or three years when we revise the strategic plan this would be revised because there might be committees we no longer need or committees that need to be added. He stated the projects he has identified in his memo will come and go; projects can be deleted or added at any time. He stated the process he is discussing tonight is to determine what committees we want to have going forward. Mr. Sauer stated with the Economic Development Committee he did not see that as an intent to micromanage as much as it is in the spirit of our Charter to give direction from Council on which way we want to proceed. He stated in looking at the items listed, Council should have the ability to provide direction. He further stated he felt this was more about direction, what direction did Council want to push with this and without any type of oversight or Council involvement you would have a hard time providing that direction to the City Manager. Mr. Wisniewski stated it seemed to him that this was being broken out to minute detail and it could easily be handled with the current committees. He stated we could rename them or whatever or restructure to a certain extent, but he did not see the need to break out Economic Development into another section and pretend that there is the skill set on Council that exceeds that of our Economic Development Director or to give them direction on what we think we want them to do. Mr. Wisniewski stated he would definitely rather see our new City Manager’s input on any restructuring or possible restructuring after he gets here and understands where we are and understands the direction of Council. Mr. Fix stated that could be nine months from now and Mr. Wisniewski stated we do not have to have a restructuring in order to do everything in this memorandum. Mr. Wisniewski stated he could not say that changing the names of committees and restructuring things around would make any difference. He stated further our new City Manager has more experience than any of Council in city administration and staff administration, and he should have some input into the process. Mayor O’Brien stated in the interim couldn’t economic development, communication, etc., be added as expanded agenda items on existing committees and begin the process of coming up with a management process or oversight without actually establishing new committees yet. Mayor O’Brien stated one of his concerns would be what changes the Charter Review Board would be recommending. He stated whatever the Charter Review Board recommends will be voted on at the ballot and that would give Council an indication for planning. Mrs. Hammond stated in looking at the individual bullet points she felt we could move ahead as much as we want, but we do not have the money to implement much of it. Mr. Sauer stated as he understood it, Mr. Fix was just looking for a way to match the committees with what came out of the strategic plan meeting and to find a way to keep Council informed on what is going on with the goals that were set. Mr. Fix stated that was correct, and in a conversation with our consultant he stated that every time a strategic plan has been successfully implemented it is when a Council has restructured their committees to be in line with the strategic goals. Further, any time it has not been successful it has been because Council tries to jam it into the current structure. Mr. Fix stated he could understand combining administration and communication, and he could understand keeping parks as it is right now, so we are down to having one new committee which would be economic development. Mr. Fix stated he felt there were very valid reasons to put together a committee that would deal specifically with that and offer direction, help, or whatever Council could. He stated if after six months there was nothing going on there, so be it, we could change it again because this is not set in stone. Mr. Fix stated he felt it made sense to add that committee and then ask the chairs of the four committees that would be there to accept the responsibility for these projects that came out of our strategic plan. He stated then with our new City Manager coming on board in July, perhaps next fall we could have another strategic planning session; revise our strategic plan and go into 2011 knowing what would be in the Charter, knowing what would be in the new strategic plan with the City Manager’s input, and refresh this. He stated he did not feel we should wait until the end of the year when all we are really talking about is adding an Economic Development Committee. Mrs. Sanders stated she agreed with Mr. Wisniewski in that since we have waited this long maybe we should wait for the new City Manager, but, at the same time, shame on Council for waiting this long. Mrs. Hammond stated she would question if having a committee with Council and the Economic Development Director would do any good instead of having the Economic Development Council. Mr. Wisniewski stated that was his thought, having a committee of professionals that are business oriented and would have a vested interest would accomplish more. He stated he would rather see representatives from small businesses and larger businesses sit on a committee versus elected officials who weren’t professionals. Mr. Blair stated economic development is on Service Committee and he did not see what would be accomplished by creating a separate committee. Mr. Fix stated it would break it out so there is an emphasis on economic development, including the creation of an Economic Development Council. Mr. Wisniewski stated we hired an Economic Development Director and she has only been on board a little over a month so she has not had the opportunity to come back with anything. He stated he would rather engage her in this and have her let Council understand what she needs from them to accomplish the goals they assign to her. Mr. Wisniewski stated we have the professional staff, we have the plan, and Council can assign projects to her in Service or whatever committee she reports to. Mrs. Hammond stated Council could also schedule a work session to let the Economic Development Director know what Council is looking at because she may not know what Council is looking for. Mrs. Sanders stated we do not want to sit and wait for development to come to us. Mayor O’Brien stated at no point in time when this position was filled before was there a Council committee to oversee this position. Mr. Fix stated it was not to oversee the position, and Mr. Wisniewski stated he felt it would be to oversee the Economic Development Director and Planning and Zoning. Mr. Fix stated it would be to work on the economic development of our community. Mr. Wisniewski stated this started out with a need for seven committees based on how our strategic plan is, and now we are down to five so why couldn’t it be combined into our current structure. Mr. Sauer stated he felt economic development was the second most important thing the city is facing right now with safety being the first. Mayor O’Brien stated he questioned if anyone would consider revenue a top priority because without revenue there is nothing else. He stated he was not trying to diminish the importance of economic development, but he did not feel it was the most important thing we were doing. He stated we need to look at revenue. Mr. Fix stated he had listed under Finance as one of the top four projects to identify potential sources of sustainable funding. Mr. Fix stated he just did not understand why there was such resistance to adding more participation and more emphasis to economic development. Mr. Blair stated everything identified under economic development could be done in Service and he has no problem with the way we are going now. Mr. Wisniewski stated again we just hired the Economic Development Director and the new City Manager will be coming on board, so why don’t we let these two key people get in place and then Council can talk to them about how they want to see things occur. He stated if they want to have an Economic Development Council, then we could do that. Mrs. Hammond stated the problem with the goals that were reached at the strategic planning session is that every one of them requires money to implement. She stated until we determine the way to increase revenue we can’t do any of them. Mrs. Sanders stated she felt after that session that we had a plan, and any successful business has a plan, and you start working on it. She stated she did not agree that we couldn’t do any of it because while some of the goals would take a lot of money, some of them could be done. Mr. Blair stated he just did not know what creating another committee would accomplish. Mr. Barletta stated he thought an Economic Development Committee might sharpen council’s focus. Mr. Barletta stated our current committees have somewhat of an overlap. He stated as an example if Mr. Bachman reports to Service and then says the same thing again at Safety, then we are not being efficient with his time. Mr. Wisniewski stated he understood Mr. Barletta was saying he would like to restructure what we have, and Mr. Barletta stated he would like to see that and then make the agendas agree with the salient points we want to address in the strategic plan and he did not know that you had to restructure the number of committees to accomplish that. Mr. Sauer stated he would like to see us focus on what we came out with at the strategic planning session, and he knew when the City Manager gets on board that should speed things along, but he would like to see us focus on economic development. Mr. Barletta stated he agreed having the City Manager on board would help and he agreed that economic development is certainly something that is very important to the future of the city. Mr. Wisniewski stated he agreed with restructuring what we have. Mayor O’Brien stated he felt Mr. Fix had done a great job of expanding out everything we know needs to be addressed and perhaps everyone just needs to think about it and come back with a counter proposal. Mr. Fix stated he would request this be continued on the agenda for the next committee. Mr. Wisniewski stated he would request the economic development portion of the Service Committee agenda be expanded to include some of these issues. Mr. Fix stated part of what he saw in this would be conversations on things such as what is our policy on annexation; how do we want to work with or against the Township; how do we want to work with the Township on the JEDD; how do we want to co-market? All of those are questions that if he were the Economic Development Director he would want some direction on to understand what Council wanted on these different things. Mr. Fix stated he appreciated everyone’s comments and he would ask everyone to look at it and the discussion could be continued at the next meeting.

5. OTHER BUSINESS: Mrs. Yartin stated she would like to discuss a volunteer appointment to the Tree Commission. She stated Mr. Brian Neill had been appointed to the Tree Commission in August of last year, however, he has failed to attend any meetings and this has caused meetings to be cancelled due to the lack of a quorum. She further stated staff has tried to contact him by phone, voice mail, and by letter but he has not responded to any of these attempts. Our current legislation states that three consecutive unexcused absences is cause for removal from the Commission. Mr. Wisniewski stated he felt we should replace him on the Commission and determined that when Mr. Neill was interviewed other candidates were interviewed as well. Mr. Fix requested a brief recess so the Committee could review the applications of the individuals who had been interviewed by Rules Committee.

Rules Committee recessed at 9:00 P.M. and reconvened in open session at 9:05 P.M.

Mr. Fix moved that Brian Neill’s appointment to the Tree Commission be rescinded and that Michael Vega be appointed to that unexpired term; Mr. Wisniewski seconded the motion. Roll call was taken with Mr. Fix, Mr. Wisniewski, and Mr. Blair voting “Yea.” Motion passed, 3-0.

6. ADJOURNMENT. There being nothing further, Mr. Fix moved to adjourn; Mr. Blair seconded the motion. Mr. Fix, Mr. Blair, and Mr. Wisniewski voted "Aye." Motion carried, 3-0. The Rules Committee adjourned at 9:07 P.M, May 5, 2010.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:

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Lynda D. Yartin, Municipal Clerk