Remarks by Doug Weiss
427 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 9 of 18
- Play at 2:48:07
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 2:48:17
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 2:51:18
“All right. Thank you, Tracy. All right. Council, this is to discuss and consider action. Do we have any questions, discussion related to the budget? I know we've been through it several times.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 2:51:32
“All right. Melody, what questions do you have?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:11:11
“One of the challenges that we've had, I don't know if you remember the pool bathroom.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:11:22
“Which we had an opportunity to pursue that, and I think it was $650,000, and that seemed like way too much to spend, and so we pushed it off for a year. What a good example. And I think we ended up spending $1.2 million.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:11:43
“Yeah. But. I don't know what the square footage is of that.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:11:58
“If there is that much contingency in there, then that tells me that we will have funds available for the uh extended renovations at the animal shelter let's uh let's expect we should we should allocate that now and what is i mean if all we if all we want to do is take the you you said 15 is normal we're at 58 you're saying it's 1.2 million in contingency somewhere around there somewhere around 1.2 million in contingency at 58 roughly 60 so if we move 850 000 of that to the animal shelter You're cool with the budget?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:12:48
“You're looking for the... What's the impact to the median homeowner at that rate?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:13:03
“I believe I calculated that out to about $24 a year. Does that sound about right?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:13:13
“No, no, no. Sorry. No, the difference between the no new revenue and voter-approved rate, I believe, is a difference of $24 to the homeowner. Now, I will also say one of the things that I undertook, because I asked the question, but then I also like to check my work, right? So I pulled every parcel in the city. I looked at everyone who had a homestead exemption last year and everyone who has a homestead exemption this year. I looked at their assessed value for each year, and I looked at the rates to see what is the impact, not just to the median home, but to... most people in the city, and I…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:14:34
“Frequently we'll hear, oh, no, my value went up, but the rate went down. Well, why did my value went up? My value went down, but the rate went up. Well, that's bad, too. What I believe matters to our homeowners is dollars. not rates, not values, but dollars that they pay in taxes.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:14:58
“And if 70% of our homeowners are paying less at this rate, I think that's a very compelling story.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:15:58
“No, no, indeed. I mean, I saw your post online and I wanted to do the math as well. So you posted from 2008 to 2026. And what was your annualized increase in your taxes?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:16:25
“Okay. Well, when I did the math, it was 2.8% per annum with a CPI of 2.5. So it certainly has increased over the term that any of us have lived here. Which is the expectation. But has it?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:21:38
“Tracy, real quick, could you remind me, how much do we expect to collect in total from property tax? I believe it's about $30 million.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:21:52
“In general fund. And our public safety, our police department, that budget alone is over $25 million, right? I think that's always an important thing to remember. It's in the budget.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:28:13
“Tracy, I had a couple questions. I know Melody went through all hers. Real quick, there are a couple that caught my attention. I just wanted to see if we could get some quick clarification on it. The bond contract, the contract for bond services, was that included in this year's budget or was that in last year's budget?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:28:36
“Okay. And then there was a mention of market rate adjustment. Is that specifically the police department market rate adjustment, or is there a separate market rate for adjustment for general employees?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:29:04
“during the year and then there's the market adjustment that's built into the budget for the sworn officers okay and then the uh the the cola is three percent correct all right so how much is the how much is in the budget for market rate adjustments i believe we added the language i believe it averages like 2.8 not for police but for general uh employees”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:29:40
“Everything else is COLA. Okay, that's not what I had heard in the question, so I wanted to clarify that because I had that same conversation down at CapCog related to the CapCog budget here a little bit ago. We have zero market adjustment, zero merit adjustment. It's strictly COLA. cost of living adjustment in our budget for personnel other than the sworn officers. Thank you for that clarification.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:30:45
“All right. Council, do we have any other questions related to this item? All right, this is to discuss and consider action to approve an ordinance on first and final reading. As I mentioned, this is, I was glad to do that math that showed 70% of our homesteaded homeowners will pay less. I'm also super excited that this includes the master fee schedule, which adopts a reduction in our water and wastewater rates, also providing dramatic relief to our residents. Council, do I have a motion to approve the ordinance?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:32:09
“I believe that impact fee motion would be out of order. Mike?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:32:31
“I'm sorry, is that a motion for approval with that amendment?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:32:38
“Okay. Does that get you on board? Well, let's see what happens to the amendment.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026