Remarks by Karen Hiller
86 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 4
Thank you. That was really good. I have not done a deep dive into this, but I've been around, as my colleagues have, when people have asked for it. And so I want to ask you a couple of questions about how it's being used right now. The first one that I remember was when people started running red lights at 6th and Topeka. Could we just have cameras out there to catch those people so they don't run red lights anymore so that we can catch them. People were kind of thinking about the police force being a little short and using cameras instead or whatever. Are we doing that now? Are we using for…
Okay. Another place that came up, I represent downtown and people wanted cameras to watch the homeless folks behaviors in downtown. We do now have them up in downtown. How are those being used? What are we getting out of those?
Okay. And those were with the city cameras. A lot of people have their own cameras as well.
Just wanted to check. I think one of the, also thinking back to the ways rules get broken because there seems to be a good reason to do that. And so if, for instance, you had a serial killer, you don't necessarily know, you don't begin to build the case for that person and wondering where they were, sometimes for a couple of months, let's say, is people can break the rules and say, you know, this got used by somebody to catch someone who'd been on the road for two months. Maybe we should keep our stuff for 90 days after all. Something like that. Maybe it's too early to know if...
Well, thanks for the answers. The anxiety that people have done a good job of describing, it's like, well, but if you could put it someplace else and just do it, it's scary. I get that. Thanks. Thank you.
Thank you. I, too, agree with the comments that have been made so far. Respectfully, I would point out that the four-fifths cent is not really four-fifths of a cent, it's four-tenths of a cent. And so for credibility, it's important to get the numbers right. So for next time. As far as the affordable housing and homeless services, I think that's the name right now. I'm actually comfortable with getting that going. I think people have waited. If there's enough of a general consensus that that's where the money should come from, we're eager to get started. But I don't know if it's cost…
Thank you for that clarification. I still think that in part, whether we have staff, whether it's a full-time staff or contracted out that the contracting out especially would put us in a position of having to decide what it was we wanted to see audited as a body in plenty of time to get the person
Thank you. to your discussion that it's in the budget, we're also holding a lot of positions vacant. And I think the internal investigator was one of them. And so, you know, if we could start to step-by-step finalize some of those things, that's why I brought it up again. Thanks.
Question out of that point. Apparently it would cost us somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000 to do this special election in March.
Okay. If we wait until August, which is a broader election, then do we have to pay at all?
Thank you, Mayor. I've got a lot to say on all of these things. For one thing, we should have had this conversation two months ago because all the things about considering what we're going to do with the budget or what we would do with any special taxes, needed to be figured out. And here we are at the last minute on the budget. And I don't like being in a position to say that this way here. But it's been very frustrating. And to not just be, we've talked again and again about looking from a management perspective program and department by department on what we do and is it critical? Are we…
32. But that one has always been collaborative with the county to do big street projects as well as other capital projects and so you know, for us to be thinking out 10 years, that's not even 10 years, to kind of have those things in mind. I think I'll go ahead and stop right now, but I really appreciate what everybody's been saying. I don't know how fast we can work this budget if we have to, and Mayor, you and I talked about it a little bit, if we have to get this passed because we have a deadline, I think there needs to be language in the motion that we make that says we understand that we…
Just one thing I thought maybe I could clarify a little about the half cent street tax before and the term existing. We had the same kind of conversations that we've been having today about using homeless and affordable housing instead of market rate back when we did the first half cent sales tax as well as the renewal. And the reason that the word, she's right, the key word was existing and that was because at that time we had lots of plans, at least on paper, to turn this street into five lanes and this street into five lanes and mega streets and growing and the citizens said, no, we want…
Well, and that's why I asked because we are, I've thought maybe once a year was too often, but we're spending money to get the streets rated on their PCI level every year. So we might as well be able to see where they are.
Every three years. But at the same time, when they were done matters. You know, something that as much as people fuss about this and that, that we don't do well, this city has always been really good about geographic diversity, about parity and getting streets done in different parts of town. And so when you look at the dates on the streets when the last time they were done, that gives you an idea of what that rhythm has been as we've gotten to this point. And then looking at the PCIs, no matter when they got done, you know, may provoke some conversation, but then you can see the ones that…
Before we continue we just had this discussion if if I heard you right we are capped at 0.5 For a special funds correct right now and 0.5 For general
We already have a 0.5 half cent sales tax for streets. So does that mean we're already at the cap and we can't be talking about that?
So we've still got 0.5 to go. Correct. Thank you. That's it.
Thank you. Carrie, I've got a specific question about the project on Tyler. Yes.
Let's say it was a million dollars. I just want to throw it out to this group while you're here that, you know, I hope that we move into having a housing summit and getting a master plan for affordable housing in this community so that we've got some help in targeting money and efforts. But meanwhile, if anybody knows an individual or maybe a faith-based denomination or some source. A lot of times when really good affordable housing projects develop, they come from unlikely sources that have not been involved before. If there's a way, 817 Tyler's in my district, but if his proposal was to…
Just to her, to some of her points I guess my understanding from when you presented about this before was that it's pretty straightforward that instead of going through collections and handling these things one at a time, you're able to just take whatever was due and just take them, record them as you need to, but just in one block and send them over to the county and that you also have let me not misquote it, a really high pay rate that people just pay it with their taxes and it's done. It's over 90%, right?
I wanted to just support the conversation that I've heard so far. I did do one of the one-on-ones early and what I heard, thank you so much for the time you've spent on this and reading through the list. What I heard in brief was we could probably figure out how to come up with the money and there are some grants and so on. What we don't want to lose is the fact that these are genuinely police officers and that we have a a connection with the department, so instead of calling the front desk if something is happening with one of our kids, we've got this connection. That was their description…
I'm sorry because I thought that they were going to go ahead and continue a force with their own funds. Either way, I appreciate that.
Because I remember when they first got them, there were people that I knew that worked in 501 that were concerned that the teachers and the principals needed to have that role and didn't need to have somebody step in. I just remember their comments about being able to connect with the department and get action quickly, and it sounded like we'd offered that, and that was comfortable to me. not stepping in or being on campus.
Because the item number seven is a decrease in revenue. It's not a cut. I'm not sure we understand what that line is.