Remarks by Lindsey Seachris
24 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 1
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I was going to see if I could direct a question to Director Fischer as well. And you may have answered this.
Thank you. So North 40 did, it broke out the itemized, the time and the effort that went into this. I believe it was exceeded $600. I'm just going off of memory here, but would the city be on the hook for paying the additional rate to our contractor in this case? Because I don't see why we're decreasing this And we're going to be then paying the contractor for that fee. So if I could get some clarification on that. Thank you.
Thank you very much for that clarification. I don't think that sets a very good precedent at all if we're willing to cover the remaining portion of the invoice for the work that's been done. And the photos that were provided showed a great detail of half the tree was in the sidewalk. As a walker, I know that getting clipped in the head with the tree branch isn't very fun. So this was pretty low to the ground as well. But there was a large portion of this tree that was removed, even if it took a half an hour, an hour to load that into the trailer. And that time, I imagine the work that it took…
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. If I may direct a question to Director Ainslie, please. Absolutely. I'm director Ainsley. Would you be able to just give us a quick overview of this? this amendment and the reason for this and also just maybe your Encouragement in that I guess this seems like a big amendment to now we're we're taking away our owners representative from my understanding and having the the management facility organization provide that service. So I was just hoping we could get a little bit of clarification on this and the thought process behind that, if I may.
Yes, I think so. And my interest in pulling this is just making sure that the city's interests are being protected as we go through this process and just understanding that sometimes having a seat at the table. And it sounds as though we will through a combination of our own engineer team and then also through the sports facility management LLC. So thank you very much for that explanation.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have had the opportunity to connect with the mayor's office staff. And actually, they had followed up with me on some comments that I had made at another meeting. was given a breakdown of the mayor's office positions and the delineation of duties for each of the positions in the mayor's office. And I think it helped open my perspective or change my perspective on this in the original motion that we shared and just understanding the workflow and the balance of job duties in the mayor's office. just want to say we have an amazing professional team that have done a great…
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. If I may direct a question, again, to our finance director, Daniel Ainslie. Sure. Daniel, do we have a line item that just would reflect the amount that included all of our initial changes, just where we were at with any positives that remained in that balance? I saw in our on our attached agenda item with our current budget, it doesn't have any undesignated reserves listed on there. So I didn't know if you could clarify that for us.
so if we could reduce the use of our undesignated cash that would set us up in a better position in the future absolutely thank you very much for that explanation that makes a lot of sense now that you state that um i had just in my mind had thought that rather than um absorbing this into undesignated cash which it sounds like we're just kind of paying that back at this point but rather than absorbing i would like to see this go to the cip for consideration of use in our capital improvements plan um or i mean in our our two million dollars of deferred maintenance for our park system um our…
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I guess I was just clarifying, is this, this is covered through the Enterprise Fund, so it's not technically gonna adjust our overall budget, or this does impact the overall budget? Okay.
And I know in the email explanation it did share that this was gonna be presented to the board next month, so is that something that the board can ultimately decide upon and then allocate those funds?
I guess I'm just curious, I guess, why this wouldn't have been included already or why we're... Okay, and just as the budget was presented from the airport. Okay, well thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And just to start with, I approve this project moving forward with the stipulations as listed. I just wanted to make a note on this, the traffic congestion impacts happening right now on Diamond Ridge Boulevard. I've heard from a handful of constituents in the last couple of weeks alone with the increased construction happening at the Homestead Street area as well as Shepherd Hills area so on both sides of Diamond Ridge Boulevard as our as our connector Street right now since we don't have East Anamosa built out we are having heavy equipment up and down that road semi…
Thank you, Director Fischer. And I have definitely had that on the radar. But to tell people that they're going to be waiting years for this situation to be resolved is disheartening. And it's extremely hard living there in the moment. Is there any way we can restrict semis and heavy equipment from utilizing this road at the very least in the meantime? and I would hope that the city can be looking into what we can do right now. I know we're in design phase, according to, I believe, our director. Tice has updated, design phase is happening right now, and we are looking for a fall of 2020…
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I support a decrease in our council contingency fund. I just would have liked to designate kind of where those funds would be allocated to and maybe looking at like a $200,000 range was my thought on that. completely supportive of decreasing that. I would like to motion that we allocate funding for 1FTE and code enforcement through the funds that were just removed from the council contingency. If I could get a second, please.
And just to speak to that, I've spent some time with our code enforcement manager overseer, John Olson. And I apologize, I probably just butchered your title. But I think implementing that or beefing up that department going to help us respond to not only existing issues but we can also be more proactive and we know that safe communities require that sometimes enforcement efforts be led by the city and so I know that there's a plan in place for that fourth officer just with the the growth in the community and that would allow us to have one officer in each quadrant of the city so for code…
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thought I should chime in on this. First of all, I completely support the city having a marketing division. I think public image and impression to other communities and outside organizations and presenting ourself in a professional, coherent manner is really important for Rapid City. I think historically we've seen all the different divisions kind of do their own things. not have a centralized focus and effort in that area. And I think it's a disservice to us. It's a disservice to bringing in potential investors and things who might be looking at the community. And I…
Well, thank you for that clarification. I think reducing the budget overall and having them kind of sort through where that makes the most sense, I guess, makes the most sense to me. I personally feel like having the chief of staff has been really beneficial for a number of things that I've worked on personally, including the Zadig management updates and just having somebody there to kind of keep us in track and in line. That position, I mean, I'm not, I don't know. I feel like that's an incredibly high paid position as are many of our city employee positions at this time. It seems to be…
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to offer a substitute motion that we decrease the mayor's office budget by $100,000 at the discretion of the mayor's office.
And I think just taking personal shots at individuals, it's kind of crossed the line at this point. I'd just like to keep this at a higher level. Thank you.
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just had a point of clarification, if I may direct a question to Director Ainslie as well.
Thank you. Director Ainslie, I may have figured this out in the time I've been sitting in the queue, but in the budget book, we have four FTEs included that were recommended by the finance division. Can you clarify those were not included in our recommended budget? Is that why we're considering this right now?
Our parks team can use all the help they can get and the amazing work they do and can't speak highly enough about them. So thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess before we conclude this meeting, we didn't talk about any of those savings that we've identified in the undesignated cash. I'd just like to put this in everyone's mind to consider for additional funds to our infrastructure, just that that is such a significant need. And I think every single one of us through this last campaign season heard that overwhelmingly from our constituents that our road conditions are are so deteriorated in so many areas and i know we've allocated some additional funds this year and next year but could we fund another million dollars…