Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

The chair without arms?

Yeah.

There always was a chair without arms, and the police department always requested it because of their holsters. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. It is 05:30. We will call the finance committee meeting to order. Roll call. Alder Dunbar is excused. Alder Reckleberg is via Zoom, and the rest of the committee is in person. We'll move on to public comment.

Is there anybody from the public that wishes to address the finance committee this evening? Second call for public comment. Third and final call for public comment. Was there anybody on Zoom for public comment? It doesn't look like it. And any previously received public comment. Okay. Then I will close public comment, move on to the consent agenda. Is there any item that any member of the committee wishes to have removed from the consent agenda? Seeing none, I would look for a motion to approve the consent agenda. So moved. Second. There's a motion and a second. There is no discussion when it comes to consent. So all those in favor?

Aye. And opposed? Alright. That passes. Thank you. We'll move on to our discussion action items. First up is twenty six dash zero zero zero three fourth quarter twenty twenty five claim report from the city attorney's office.

Standard quarterly report. This one shows all claims received by the city as of 12/1825 and ultimately the information and then just, the outcome on there. Any questions to the claims? That's why this man's sitting right here.

Questions from the committee? If not, we would just place on file. Is there a motion to place on file?

So moved. Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. And opposed? Aye. Alright. That is placed on file. Next up is 260004. Claim against the city of Manitowoc for mailbox damage claims against the city. So this is Eric.

I I really appreciate you guys taking the time to to go over this one. It may seem like a small matter, matter, but every time we get a snowstorm, something happens where a mailbox is either placed too close or it's placed just right and we wing clips it and we get tons of these mailbox damages. When I came to the city a little over three years ago, I was told by the city's paralegal that I was authorized to spend up to $50 for any mailbox claim in which the city was, you know, reasonably liable. So I said, okay. Real hard to replace a mailbox for $50.

Last year, given the volume and the amounts and taking a look at Menards and Fleet Farm and other places, I thought, you know, you really can't do it for less than $75 so I just took it upon myself to authorize for up to $75, certainly within the bounds of the law. And I never really talked to this committee or any committee otherwise, so I moved it up to $75. This year, the first three claims that I received, which are part of this packet, were all in excess of 200. This also is not unusual from time to time. And what I just want to bring to the committee's attention is that, look, if someone brought it in a court of law and we damaged property that was worth correctly at $250 we'd have to pay $250 for it.

And what I'm looking for is guidance. I don't care how much I'm restricted in terms of granting these when we owe it. It makes no difference to me if there's a restriction of $50 or $75 or $150 or $1,000 or no restrictions at all. It is what it is just like any other claim that I handle. But I want clear guidance, from the common council on this so that when I'm telling, a resident that all I can pay is $50 or $75, I can say, I just brought this up with the committee. We talked about this with the common council. This is their will, not mine. I'm implementing the will of the common council. I'm not making that policy. So that's why I'm here.

Okay. Thank you, Eric. I guess I'll open up to the committee just for questions on how we got to the $50 or why there was a direction of $50. I mean, I can speak a little bit to that just from why it came to that. Yes.

Alder Reckleberg? Yeah. So my understanding is that the the policy that you're referring to that we'll talk next is actually was from 2016. There was a proposed change in 2016 or in '16. That's what we currently go off of for the $5,000 that the attorney can go up to.

Anything over that has to come to counsel. The mailbox was a $50 recommendation from the finance committee just when the claims were starting to get excessive on the mailbox amount that we saw back when there were just a bunch of claims coming in at the dollar amount. So the finance committee at that time put a cap on the dollar amount for the individual mailboxes. That was quite a few years ago, probably close to six or eight years ago, I'm thinking, if that answers your question. Yep.

No. I understand your question now. So that is completely up to us. So the way the policy is written now and the draft policy is is the policy that the attorney is currently working under, he has authority to settle claims up to $5,000. The one exception of that is the mailbox, which is currently capped at 50 and now $75.

If we don't do anything and we take away the cap on the mailboxes, the city attorney would have the authority to go up to $5,000 for a mailbox just as any other claim to for the Okay. So back to the specific of the mailbox. Did you have anything for the specific of the mailbox, Alder Recklenburg? Okay. Thank you.

Any other question?

No questions. I would just I did some of my own price shopping online the other night in regard to this, including Amazon. I mean, they even have breakaway mailboxes now that you can get. However, if they take out a breakaway mailbox and the post and the box actually survived the hit, the kit to remount it is $80 So I think we should cap it at $100 unless there's some type of extraordinary circumstance. And they better have extraordinary evidence as to why they're asking for more than 100.

So I would just note that legally, we do damage to something and it's our fault. Under the law, we don't have any special exceptions. We have to pay for what that damage is. Mailboxes don't receive any special thing under the law. This committee at some point made a policy decision to say, we don't necessarily place that as value.

The legal ramifications, we're going to undersell that no matter the cost. You may have spent $250 on this mailbox and it may cost you $250 to replace it. But we're gonna cap it at 50 and then like I said last year, I just decided it had to be 75 based on the numbers I was seeing. What I want direction from is whatever you guys feel comfortable or if you don't want to cap that, and I just proceed as if it's any normal claim. Just just as I would a car accident or a trip and fall that we were responsible for or whatever that it is.

Okay? And I would proceed up to the, you know, I I you can cap it. Happy to do that. That's fine. Just understand that if someone sues over that, say somebody's got a $400 mailbox, they just decide to bring it to small claims court. I can certainly see if if if if, one of my attorney friends has mailbacks like that. I would tell them that right now it's $75 and they'd bring in action for the $3.25 and they'd ask for court costs and the whole thing and I go through it and I lose it and I have no authority there. And I'm not going to bring these sorts of things back to you. So I just want to know if we want to continue it and then at what cost. If you don't want to continue it, that's fine.

Then I just operate under what we're going to get to next. So that's sort of the gist of it. I don't want extraordinary circumstances. I want clarity to be able to this or that. And then I can just make my decision. Now, if you say it's a 100 and they're only asking for 78 because they were able to do it for 78, I'm not going to give them a 100. I'm paying the claims out like I would. It's just capping it. That's something. So

how much time would you spend on a claim for a mailbox to because you you wanna I mean, obviously, you wanna make sure the claim is legitimate. Right? Like, compared to an accident or other aspects of it, right? But there's also a threshold of how much time are we gonna invest to make sure that the mailbox was installed correctly from the curb, not that it was installed incorrectly and through no fault of our own did we take the mailbox out because it was too close to the curb. So how much time do you think you'd actually take to investigate a mailbox claim?

As long as it takes me to get to the limit. Right? So if I when these come in, we immediately send them out to Streets. Streets either knows about them already and has done the investigation and filled out a form that we have, trying to figure out if the mailbox was installed correctly. If the mailbox was not installed correctly, specifically if it was too close to the curb, I deny those, every single one, because there's no reason they they can't prove that the city was negligent because their mailbox was too close. Now, if their mailbox is illegal and it's too far away from the curb, well, then I still pay that claim. That happened once because we still are negligent. We're with Mhmm. Yeah. So but I don't do that.

It's it's a piece of paper in front of me. Right? And then and then it's just a matter of, okay, here are the photos. Is it a plain Jane metal mailbox like I have at my house that's all beat up and 25 years old? You know, that that kind of a thing. Or is it, you know, I I I've got a neighbor who, you know, has a hand carved high fighter mailbox which took him time or whatever, painted real nice, and that's blown up. Alright. I can believe a little extra on this. Sometimes they send receipts. Sometimes we get receipts on these things. This is the amount that we paid to have this replaced. This is what we paid at Menards and they have everything highlighted for me. And I can see that. And it's, you know, $400 or a $130 or whatever it is. Okay.

Well, we got to 75. And I always call them. I call every claim that I that I that I'm going to deny in part or in whole because I wanna explain to the citizens why we're denying in part or in whole. If someone makes a claim for a mailbox for $48 and they don't need to do anything, we just send out the paperwork saying it's granted. Bing bang boom. So it varies, I guess, is the answer. I wanted to give you a flavor for

it

without wasting your time.

No, and I think part of the if I recall, obviously this conversation of the mailbox policy was quite some time ago. Trying to pull the memory blanks here is I believe part of it was to reduce some of the bureaucracy around a $50 mailbox claim. Right? It it sounds like we're spending quite a bit of time doing a thorough job of determining a mailbox claim, right, From the streets labor documenting, going through the investigation. Mean, we're spending several $100 investigating the mailbox claim of a $50 claim. Right?

I I would say that there's a lot of man hours involved in this. Yes. And, you know, I I think that there's an an element that you have to balance between, well, you don't want any fraudulent claims. Right. So you have to verify. And that takes time. And so they are small claims relatively. So I I'm not pushing back against any of it. Just again, I'm just looking for direction at what the council thinks is wisest. Well,

taking that information into consideration, is there any recommendation? I mean, hearing what the attorney has to say

It was initially Yes,

Alder Reckleburg? Okay. So, that's a motion. Is there a second? I will second for discussion purposes because I want clarification on the motion, if I may.

Alder Reichenberg, you you kinda said two different things, and I just wanna make sure I understood it. So you did say that the attorney has authorization up to a $150, and then you said if they don't like it, they could take us to small claims court. And then you repeated it, and you didn't say the small claims court. You said that the attorney would have authorization up to a $150. If, yeah, if they don't take us to small claims court, the attorney would treat that as any other claim.

And if he was unable to settle the claim for a $150, it would come to counsel or finance committee for action if we wanted to authorize over the $150 because that's what the settlement would be unless it was denied. If it if there wasn't just like any other claim, if it didn't come to resolution. Okay. I just want to make sure that

Can I Alder Eckleberg and I apologize? Can I just ask that it be simplified to the the city attorney's office has authority up to $150 to settle mailbox claims and just leave it at that?

Okay. So there's a motion to approve up to a $150 through the attorney's office for mailbox claims. And there was a second. Discussion on the motion.

I'm less concerned knowing that over $150 would come back to finance.

General. Okay.

So that doesn't bother me?

Yeah.

Assuming that we've already determined that the mailboxes, it was our fault. It wasn't where it wasn't supposed to be. We screwed something up. We broke it. We should fix it.

Yeah. What this just means is if I determine that we are legally liable, I have up to $150 per claim to settle a mailbox claim. Does not mean I won't spend $150 on each mailbox claim. It just allows me to do that much like I have a $5,000 limit on other types of claims. Doesn't mean that I spend 5,000 on every claim that I approve. It just means up to that before seeking further approval.

Alright. That was great. Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. And opposed? Do you need official on that or just guidance?

That's fine. Just guidance. That's fine. Yes. Thank you.

Then our next item is the draft policy 26 dash zero zero zero five claims against the city of Manitowoc policy draft. And again, this is the current proposed effective date of February '16, which is what we currently are under?

Yes. Kind of if we rewind a year, year and a half ago, this came up as well when we were just reviewing some metrics on how the process works. And we we discovered this draft, recently, over time. And, we cannot find where it was actually approved by council. So we don't know if it just never went through.

And then we've had about a year ago, we had the clerks look to to see if we could find something, you know, on there. But so but it's been the way things have been operating. We're just looking kind of with the mail in conjunction with the mailbox a good time to bring this back up and kind of like a based on the read through if there's anything that the committee wishes to revise, and ultimately just get a a true authorized approved policy in place. I do I'll let Eric speak on one part of it of this kind of the process that makes it a little bit of redundant. And then the other question is if the 5,000 I think a good question would be, would be is 5,000 still the limit we want to keep as of authority?

And that would be my question right back to you before you even speak is, since this is the policy that we've been living under, if we're not sure that it even codified. Right? How is it working for us and what would we change in the policy?

Thank you, mister chairman. So I have a couple of proposed changes. Right? I don't believe that this was ever passed. I think this was meant to be a handout to the public every time a claim was made or put on the website for claims, that sort of thing. I don't believe it was ever passed. I have a couple of just scrivener things that I that I would change if if this is the kind of thing you wanna proceed with towards counsel. I would get this done literally tomorrow and send it out to you in advance of counsel for your review. But, the two main ones that that have or the two ones that I would I would change, that are are actually mechanical and and substantial, are are settling the claims number. $5,000 in you know, ten years ago is about $7,000 now.

I would just suggest make it 10. This is you know, you will one of the many things that I did before coming to the city was insurance defense. I have a lot of experience doing this. I I can figure out whether a $10,000 claim is justified or not. I'm incredibly confident that that's not something I'd have an issue with. And, of course, if I'm concerned about it, I take a risk. That's something that you would review on my performance if I've if I've given something for 9,000 and it should have been 8,000. Right? So and also these to further south the the common council, I work in conjunction with SIPNIC on this too. So we have insurance liability experts that also discuss these claims with.

So I just don't see a need for some of these smaller claims to be coming to finance committee. I don't know that this gets rid of more than one or two claims to finance committee a year, but it does get rid of about one or two claims a year. So it's less that you have to review. My experience here, and again, I'm in my fourth year, the committee has never rejected any of my recommendations yet. I can't see a point in time when it would anyway.

It's more of an awareness thing. You know, there's a claim against this that's an awareness of more than $10,000. That seems to me to be the right number. The second thing is on this this policy, it seems to require the clerk's office to send every claim, to the finance department. I would or to the finance, committee. I would get rid of that. The clerk should not be sending the claims to you. The clerk should be sending the claims to the city's attorney's office, and then I can do an investigation. And once an investigation is made, then we can take the matter up on claims over $10,000. That's the way that I would I would do this.

That's the proposed change that I would have here, the second proposed change in that policy. I I see no reason, as I've done a couple of times, bring a claim to you, say that we have the claim, now I'm going to go investigate it. It seems like a waste of time. And I would just say that my practice would certainly be such that once I've investigated the time, I would never ever bring that to the committee on sort of the last date that it could be brought before we had to approve or deny a claim. I would always give at least enough time for another finance committee meeting in case you have questions or further investigation that you would want me to do.

So that sort of alleviates that issue. And those are my thoughts on this document specifically.

All the rec leburg or anybody from the committee have any questions on the proposed changes? Okay. I I would like to a couple comments is I I agree routing the claims directly to the attorney's office. I'd still would like to have finance looped in to that immediately and finance committee just in case we'd wanna hold a meeting right away depending upon the claim. I think there's a reason partly why finance, they go to finance initially.

So I just don't wanna have that looped out in case finance needs to be aware. It would be up to the at that point, the chair or the finance director to say, hey, we need to have a meeting on this for direction on that specific claim prior to an investigation or during that investigation to the attorney's office just because of some history or whatever with that claim. But I think it getting it to your office quicker is important.

Can I just ask, functionally, would you just like a memo? Claims report document and then any new claim, we just attach the new claims to this document every month. Would that just be a better know, I'm I'm trying to think functionally the way that you want that to be done is all. Rather than have it be separate agenda items eating up the agenda, me not knowing whether I should come or not to the, you know. I'm just trying to figure it out in real time here.

I think, I mean, any substantial claim like you're talking about is usually looped into the the chair of the committees ahead of time just so that there's an awareness. I mean, I I would hate for thirty days to go past before I find out about a claim. That's substantial that cause, a larger claim. I'm not talking about a mailbox claim if it's going to be a litigating claim, if that makes sense.

Sure. There's a number in excess of $150 but lower than $10,000 and if there is a claim for that, you would like to be looped in the email? Or

Yeah. That's fine.

Okay.

Alright. But I'm thinking I'm thinking larger than the 10,000.

Oh, okay. So you're just okay. Easy. I can do that. Yep.

Then getting to that number of 5,000 or 10,000, I can definitely see where and I understand why you you specifically would be asking for the $10,000 number with your your history and and experience in the insurance world. But I don't necessarily always wanna create policy for the person sitting in the chair. I like to look at it as a general of who could be next in the chair or or what have you. Right? So and then my question that you answered it already was how many claims are we talking about a year?

And you said one or two possibly. So if it's to save one or two claim, I don't know if it really matters at at $5,000. If it's one or two claims that we don't see the potential there. So I'm fine with leaving it where it is just because, again, I don't know what's next, and that's what that part's been working well. So I'm not inclined to change that number, but that's my 2¢.

I would agree.

That makes sense. Mr. Chairman?

Yes. Older Rieckleberg? So rework I okay. So taking everybody's feedback, rework the language so it gets to your office as quickly as possible so you can start your process and get it to done so it could come to counsel in two weeks, if that works. Or

I'm sorry. Get what done?

The policy? Did you want the policy yet for counsel? Yes. That that won't be a problem. I I jumped ahead. Yeah. If you wanted it for this counsel, otherwise, we could do it next month.

But That won't be a problem. Okay. Thank you.

Anything else on this? Nothing to act on. We'll wait for that document to come to counsel. Right. Okay.

Then McKenzie. We have 26 dash zero zero zero six, charter ordinance to create section 2.1 of the Manitowoc Municipal Code regarding primary elections. Actually, I brought this to Mackenzie's attention at the last council meeting. I saw actually, I was watching the county board meeting and it came up discussion there about the and then we passed the resolution for a primary election if there was gonna be a primary, and it's something that we do on an annual basis. And I said, well, why do we have to do it if we just did it in a charter? We would never have to do it. And Mackenzie was gonna research it, and she brought this forward. So I guess, Mackenzie, if you wanted to answer any questions about it or give a little shindig.

I don't really have much more to add other than it just eliminates us having to adopt the resolution annually. And we will hold a primary if we have three or more candidates for a city office. I'm happy to answer

any questions. And just the process for a change in the charter?

Here. There is a it just doesn't go into effect until, I think, it's sixty days after the day that it's published.

So it has a little There's a process if if they

There could be a petition for referendum.

Referendum to to pull that ordinance from the charter To against

not have it adapted. Yes.

So which would be kinda interesting since we pass it anyway on an annual basis. But so that that was the rationale behind this change, just to kinda streamline it. One take one thing off the clerk's docket every year that check it off the calendar. So any questions on that? Okay. Then I would look for a motion to approve the ordinance. So

moved. Second.

Alright. There is a motion to approve the ordinance. Any discussion?

Alright. All those in favor? Aye.

Aye. And opposed? Okay. I'll get that written up and pass for signatures. And then we have two last items that are, for closed session.

There are some licenses, so I will read us in the closed. Notices hereby given that the above governmental body may adjourn to a closed session during this meeting as authorized by section 19 dot eight five one a. It was got the statute which authorizes the governmental body to convene into closed session for the purpose of deliberating concerning a case in which the subject of any judicial or quasi judicial trial or hearing before that governmental body. The specific subject matter that may be considered in closed session is 20 Six-seven, seven, two year operator license for z Brehoff, and 26Dash0008, a one year operator license for k Johansson. The motion to convene in closed session was made by alder person.

So moved. Second by

Second.

Bray. A roll call vote is taken. So Sitka with aye. Reckleberg? Aye. Bray?

Aye.

Alright. We are closed. We'll head to the Hearing Room. Alright, Erica. Let me know when you're ready.

Alright. We are back from closed session. The two items we have twenty six-seven, two year operator license for Z Brehoff. Is there a motion from the committee? Motion to uphold the denial. The motion to uphold the denial, is there a second? So moved. There's a motion and a second. Discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor?

Aye. Aye. And opposed? Okay.

We'll pass that one for signatures. And then we have twenty six dash zero zero zero eight, which is a one year operator license for Kay Johansson. Is there a motion from

the committee? Move to approve the license.

And second.

There's a motion and a second to approve the license. Discussion?

Seeing none, all those in favor. Aye. Aye. And opposed?

Okay. Pass that for signatures. That does exhaust our agenda so I would look for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. We are adjourned. Thank you.

See you later Todd.

Take care Todd.