Remarks by David Leinweber
89 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 4
“So there was, on page 57, where it kind of talks about operational budget requests, and I imagine these are requests that were made but were denied, but they're listed, right?”
“Because some of these things kind of look, I mean, there's a graffiti machine, there's a couple, I mean, they kind of feel like they're capital improvement projects. On 58, there's some lists that are kind of in the parks area that, Some are staffing, but then other things seem like, I mean, a graffiti machine, that doesn't sound like, that's not a staffing thing. So I was trying to understand why were there things like that here. So there's requests made here in this page on 58, and then in the back of the book, On page 563, there's like four pages of park stuff that's listed out. That…”
“So how does something get like on the five-year plan? There just isn't any mechanism that gets them there or?”
“Okay, I'm just trying, I mean, I'm just, again, when I see a number that's 310,184,700 in requests, and there's no plan. There's no, I mean, those are just hanging out there. that's kind of a challenge, and that doesn't include the ones that were actually put forward in the first part. I think they are separate because they're not listed twice.”
“Well, I guess my thinking is that if you get on the list, like for the next five years, you kind of can plan. And so all these other departments have gotten on the list.”
“yeah i just want to just confirm i mean um the way this kind of works like this summary that we have on page 57 it's the summary of uh general fund operation budget requests okay yeah those were unfunded requests yeah but these are all the requests uncle so some of these did get to make the list”
“But that's what I'm trying to, I'm trying to understand the process because the potholes didn't, they weren't on this requested list.”
“But I've seen other ones like in the parks, all the park stuff that made the list did go over. I'm not sure I answered that. And several of the other ones too. So I just didn't, it suggested that it wasn't on the original list. Oh, okay. I just didn't know the process of how did this pothole thing come up when we, like to Risley's point, when we had all these other things that was probably maybe your first priority.”
“It came in from another list. It's not on this list.”
“And I understand that entirely. I have obviously been looking at parks with a microscope, right? the two things that are getting funded, the master plan and then also the Wilson Ranch are on this list. So that led me to assume that that's the way it was, that this was the request list and then off of this list is what actually made the funded list.”
“Yeah, I wanted to hear from... if this is acceptable to him is is us locking in this april date something that you can work with uh good morning thanks for having me um again i i do think”
“Well, I just want to do whatever we can do to help you succeed. Thank you. And I certainly understand the viewpoint that we just can't extend this forever. Agreed. And you just stated yourself that you just can't go on forever either without it operating. So you're incurring a financial burden. loss every single month it's not open and so i think that's kind of obvious but um i'm i'm not really opposed to this idea i also heard our city attorney says that council can always change its mind so um although we put this in here i think there's still wiggle room. So anyway, thank you. For sure.”
“I think I just wanna revisit the idea that we hired these employees with an agreement of what they should be paid. And they've set out a budget for the year, they've planned where they can live, they plan how much food they can buy, they plan what kind of car they can afford. And then the city turned to them and said, we're gonna take away five days of pay from you. They didn't really have an option. This was a financial withdraw from all of our employees. It was a thing that I guess happens in government. But in business, I just never have heard of something like this in business. I mean,…”
“Well, then I would like to craft a motion that we take the date, what is the date? We take November 25th as a paid day off for all city employees. And how we do that can be worked out through HR and all that kind of stuff, right? I don't know all those things.”
“yeah for the so let's re i'm not very good at making these on the spot uh type deals and certainly would love some suggestions if other people are looking um i'd like to make a motion that for those employees that were impacted by the furlough particularly on november 20 that we make that a paid day off for them to no consequence to using any of their paid days or anything like that. I think that's all I need to say. Is that, you got the idea, Sarah?”
“How does that work? Okay, I'm looking for a second.”
“Yes, I think it's important to strike the right balance and that is we took 5 days of work and pay away from our employees 7 days for several others. So we've already fiscally. took money that we had agreed in our employee contract with them for them to work for the city, we took out of their personal finances four days I'm asking of the five days that we return it, so now it's just four days. So we're still taking four days. So there's four days of pay that a minimum of our staff is gonna be losing. Six days for several others. The idea is this is a partial, I think this is more than fair…”
“Yeah, I just wanted to reiterate again, we're not talking about a single day. I know that this initiative, this amendment that's before us is talking about a single day. My consideration is that we've already have taken four days away from our, four days of pay out of our employees' budget. So they've lost this year four days of pay. at least. We're talking about remedying it so it's not five, which is great. But they lost four days of pay. They still lost four days of pay. And so that's my concern. And then other employees have lost six days of pay. So I'm looking at, you have to look at the…”
“Yes, I'm just kind of intrigued with Councilman Risley's questioning about do we really need to amend the budget? And so I'm willing to entertain a discussion that maybe we do a second amendment that says without amending the budget. Or what would you suggest, Councilman Risley?”
“Well, I mean, would you be willing to put that forth in some kind of amendment language? Because I would love to second that motion. I think that we should just find the dollars within what we currently have. I think we could. That's what you're suggesting.”
“But then we don't get to vote for the city employees getting a benefit of getting at least one of their days back. the piece that I'm looking for is to say thank you employees for giving us part of your salary so we can overcome our financial loss.”
“Can we make any kind of, well, you've made the statement, but can we make any kind of official statement? That's what I'm asking. Is there any, I mean, we have to do a proclamation to hold them to doing something, right?”
“Well, I mean, I actually, I support that, but I would hope that our mayor would keep to his commitment and find a way to make this kind of happen. Right, and to what you've stated and what we've heard from Shanae, that that's very conceivable and very possible. I mean, again, I think that we've talked about striking the right balance, right? Do we really need to increase the budget to compensate for that? I guess I would ask Chief of Staff if he'd like to weigh in on this and,”
“And I could see this being a problem because two-thirds of our staff didn't get a furlough today.”
“Okay, I thank you for that answer. And I think I agree with it. I do agree with it. And I think that we probably should move forward on this. We just always need to provide, we are the control of the budget and spending. And I think we always should be aware of how we spend our dollars. In this motion, we're clearly stating that we had to take money from our employees in order to meet the budget this year. And I think we just need to give some back. So, all right, thank you.”