Near the end of the City Council's November 18th budget workshop, I suggested (and I think everyone agreed) that Councilors who wished to amend the budget should submit amendments in time to get on the agenda for this coming Tuesday's meeting. I sent the city manager 6 amendments, and they do indeed appear in the hard copy of the documents sent to councilors on Friday. However, I cannot find the amendments online at the city website. So here they are:
Operating Budget Amendments:
1. Eliminate Outside Legal Assistance. Motion to eliminate outside legal assistance for lead negotiation services with all City bargaining groups and to conduct negotiations using city staff up to the point of impasse, unless otherwise authorized by the City Council, and to transfer monies budgeted for negotiations to the City's general fund.
2. Revise Administrative Services Reorganization Plan. Motion to eliminate via attrition the position of Purchasing Agent, remove request for new Communication Coordinator, and restore part-time production assistant in Media Services. Direct salary savings toward tax relief.
3. Council Training Budget. Motion to transfer $4,000 for City Council "Conference and Training" to Department of Community Development to be used to hire interns to assist with sustainability initiatives.
4. Citizen Led Budget Committee. Motion to direct City Manager and Mayor to develop a proposal for a citizen led Budget Committee.
Capital Improvement Program Amendments:
1. Delay the 400 Block East Parking Lot. Motion to delay renovation of 400 Block East Parking Lot (East of N. Main St.) until 2011. Use the $972,000 allocated in the CIP for that purpose for the highest priority street, sewer, and/or city garage needs.
2. Delete Riverside Park Docking Facility. Motion to delete Riverside Park-docking facility from Capital Improvement Budget. Use $244,900 budgeted for that amount for high priority street and/or sewer project.
Deputy Mayor Bain submitted a CIP amendment: Grand Opera House Sprinkler Project. Motion to have the City fully fund the Grand Opera House sprinkler project. Rationale: The city owns the project, and I feel it is our obligation for maintenance and upkeep, and the sprinkler project certainly falls into that category. The Foundation Board should be focused on their projects to enhance the facility. Benefit - The experience that the citizens and patrons have when visiting the building.
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2 comments:
i like the part about participatory budgeting. very green...
Tony:
I wish I had been aware of this post before today. I very probably could have made a much better and more persuasive public comment for Operating Budget Amendment #3, yesterday, if I had been better prepared. As it happened, I had only 1 minute to prepare myself, and it showed. Perhaps you could give me a heads-up next time you decide to put one of my suggestions before the Council for a vote. After all, as you know, in the previous weeks I had lobbied for the allocation of money in the 2009 budget to turn the City's 2 voluntary GHG inventory internship positions http://www.uwosh.edu/es/intern/openings positions, for which nobody applied this semester, into paid internship positions, and to hire the Center for Community Partnerships http://www.uwopartners.org for recruitment assistance.
With that caveat, I thank you. I, for one, appreciate your effort, support, willingness to lead, and your careful diligence in making your reasoning known to the public; that is, your commitment to "public reason" and "public justification," which may be most distinguishing characteristic of your tenure on the Council. IMHO, that makes for good leadership, and the rest of us (me included) would do well to learn from your example.
(For any readers who are not sure of what I mean by those phrases, here's a definition from Peter Singer's book on President GW Bush's ethics, _The President of Good and Evil_:
"philosophical views use the terms "public reason" and "public justification " to describe a broad framework for a discussion in which everyone in a community can take part.")
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