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HomeMy WebLinkAbout03/22/1994 COW minutes MINUTES COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE MARCH 22, 1994 L CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order by Mayor Gerald Farley at approximately 6 12 p m Present at the meeting were Trustees George Clowes, Paul Hoefert, M~chaele Skowron, Irvana W'dks, Tnnothy Corcoran and Pachard Hendncks Also present at the meeting were Village Manager Michael J'anoms, Asszstant to the Village Manager David Strahl, Finance Director David Jepson, Asszstant Finance Director Carol W~dmer, Fire Chief Ed Cavello, Inspection Services D~rector Chuck Benc~c, Human Services D~rector Nancy Morgan, Jeff Wulbecker, Dan Jakes, Robert Rods, Lonme Jackson, Del Ulmich, Steve Dumowch, Ruth Maychszak, Jan Abernethy and Human Services staff H. MINUTES Acceptance of the M~nutes of March 8, 1994 was made by Trustee Wflks, seconded by Trustee Hoefert Trustee Wflks requested some revisions of her comments and of revisions of what a resident stated at the end of the meeting The minutes were approved as re,nsed Trustee Clowes and Trustee Hendncks abstained III. CITIZENS TO BE HEARD Trustee ltendrieks stated that he had been requested to s~gn a letter rejecting the SRA Route 83 IDOT proposal at the March 16 Village Board meeting He refused to sign at that t~me because he felt ~t was premature to send a letter rejecting a plan prior to hearing from the c~tizens of the Village which was scheduled at a meeting on March 19th He also stated that he objected to the letter because them was no mduct~on ~n speed hrmt as requested, and there was no rer0~utmg of Route 83 as requested by some of the restdents at the March 19th meeting However, he would s~gn the letter but he feels that the letter has already been sent to ID~O~T. Mayor Farley sa~d that the lowering of the speed hrmt and the rerouting of Route 83 are ~tems which need to be d~scussed by the entire Village Board prior to commumcating that to IDOT He also felt that Trustee Hendncks' comments should be made under the section of "Any Other Bus~ness" and not under "Cmzens to be Heard" Trustee Clowes stated that he feels Trustee Hendncks xs bnnging up some addmonal points which need to be commumeated to IDOT based on the czttzens input from March 19th The questxons presented include the rerouting of Route 83 and putting a full ~nterchange at Arhngton Heights Road, also some consideration on the ~mpact on traffic level due to the ~mproved road surface needs to be addressed by IDOT He felt it was important for the Village to enforce the speed hmits on Route 83 The V~llage should dictate the items to IDOT and not be in a reactionary mode to IDOT's revisions He also stated that it was important to commumcate residents' comments to IDOT so the comments can be made part of the record Trustee Wilks asked if the recommendations from citizens w~ll come back to the Board for approval Village Manager Michael Janonls stated that follow-up commumcatton with the Board is expected Now the original proposal from IDOT has been rejected by the Board No other options are available at the t~me from IDOT At this point we are setting parameters mtemally in order to deal with IDOT based on residents' concerns He expects the discussion to continue and the Saturday meeting was only a beginning There may be add:t:onal meetings if necessary to finalize our postt~on He reminded the Board that this issue wdl not be resolved in the tlurty-day window for pubhc comment He stated that czt~zen comments will be commumcated to IDOT IV. 1994-1995 BUDGET DISCUSS, IONS Mr Sanoms responded to the three questions that had been received at the prevmus meeting Ouestion No. 1. Why not hire back pohce officers on overtime instead of luring three new officers? He stated that lure-backs of officers is somewhat hrmted due to the fact that they are for special details, and special detmls have beginnings and ~nds I-bring police officers back on overtime ~s meffic~ent in relating to a long-term sustmned pohce enforcement effort Ouestion No 2 Vdlage Board had made a commitment to address the problems that were identified in the special semce area which was defeated Is the Board stdl committed to prowd~ng the resources necessary to address these problems7 He stated that resources are be'rog committed with additional personnel, V~s~ons fundtng, and Crime Prevention funding Ouest~on No, 3, The c~t:zen was opposed to the hinng ora traffic engineer and felt the serwce could be contracted out The dects~on as to whether to lure the traffic engineer ~s yet to be approved and still under dtscussion by the V~IIage Board Mr. Janonls stated that this is the tlurd m a series of budget hemngs the departments that will be presented tonight are F~re, Inspectton Serwces, and Human Services Departments There will be a need for a spectal Committee of the Whole meeting on March 29 for a budget wrap-up and discussion concerning the refuse contract Fire Chief Ed Cavello provided a general overview of the Fire Department budget He lughhghted the recommended 17 man sluft, the purchase ora new p~ece of equipment (Quint), the ehminat~on of the volunteer fire fighter stipend, the ehminatmn of the funding for the ESDA volunteers, and the ehrmnat~on of the trmmng academy He stated that the response t~me has been reded by automatic responses of other departments Reciprocal md agreements -2- of Mount Prospect and Prospect Heights have necessitated a serious consideration for the 17 man sbat~ The reason for a 17 man sbaft is to prowde the same number offirefighters on a piece of eqmpmant which would respond in an automatm md response in e~ther Mount Prospect or Prospect Heights Therefore, it would be an equal exchange of personnel for fire services, regardless of where the response originated from A general &scuss~on followed in which numerous Trustees and the Mayor &scussed the various hne items in the Ftre Department budget Among the items d~scussed were a detatled explanation of mutual and automatic aid agreements, details of the benefit of bare-back to create a 17 man shift and what the total number of days such bare-backs would occur, the manning of emergency ambulance vehicles, the transportation procedures for residents being transported by a Mount Prospect ambulance, the detmled cost of the volunteer firefighter stipend and the ESDA stipend, the cost detmls ofpnvatization of ambulance serwce and the accounting procedures to show reahstm expenses w~thin each department and all associated personnel costs Chief Cavdlo responded to the specific operational fundxng level questions by describing the service prowded including the defimt~on of automatic aid, wbach ~s md that is d~spatched to a specific zone by another commumty and mutual aid, wbach ~s called on as needed to supplement firefighting act~wt~es for a large incident The bare-backs to maintmn a 17 man sbaft would only occur less than one-half of the days of the year, therefore, it would not be an excemve cost There would not be a need which would require a hire-back every single day of the to provide the service He further stated that ~n order for automatm year necessary md agreements to work, it is ~mportant to respond with in-k~nd serwces For example, ~fwe expect Prospect Heights to respond w~th three men on an engine, the Vdlage must also respond to three men on an engtne to ~ts designated zone He also d~scussed the ambulance transportation pohcy to which hospitals the V~llage has an EMS relat~onsbap with He also outhned the detmls of the cost sawngs of ehrmnatmg the volunteer firefighters stipend Extensive d~scussion of the pa~d-on-call volunteer firefighter stipend ensued The &scussion also touched on items which are prowded by the Village, such as, clothes, training, etc wbach would be ehminated therefore, the prod-on-call participants would then have to purchase eqmpment out of their own pockets Therefore, the number of prod-on-call volunteers would decrease over time due to the cost outlay of the partmipants It was also discussed that paid- on-call firefighters do not supplement full-time firefighters and there ~s hm~ted use of paid-on- call firefighters Their use typically is hmited to participation w~th firefighters on large incidents and supplement training with the full-t~me firefighters Some Trustees stated their support for adding the pard-on-call firefighters back ~nto the budget and suggested that the Chief find another ~tem to cut However, tbas opinion was not a majority opinion Overview ofthe Inspection Services Department: Inspection Services Director Chuck Benclc prowded an overview of Inspection Servmes h~ghhghting the cross-training of all inspectors necessary for overall enforcement of Vdlage Codes, the future use of computers and the replacement of radio equipment Computer usage will be necessary for proposed permit tracking He stated that the level of~nspect~ons has increased over t~me based on the -3- number of reinspections and the focus of the proposed additional new inspector will be for multi-famaly inspections Another capital item that he ~s requesting is the replacement of the Topographical Maps The current maps were completed m 1978 and are badly outdated He also stated that the budget of his department includes an increased resurfacmg program General discussion followed in which numerous Trustees and the Mayor d~scussed various line items in the Inspection Services budget Among the ~tems d~scussed was the funding of the Traffic Engtneer and the necesmy of hiring an additional employee compared to contracting out such service, the funding for the sidewalk hazard study, and general overview of the resurfacing program Discussion concerning the traffic engineer focused on the justification for such a traffic engineer compared to contracting out for that serwce The need for the traffic engineer ~s based on the need to respond to the numerous SRA. projects which pass through the V~llage and in order to be pro-active instead of reactive to traffic needs so that t~mely responses can be formulated The training necessary for a traffic engineer would include an engineering degree and some spectahzat~on m traffic engineering It is not necessary to hire a Professional Engineer (PE) The hmited amount of staff time which is not dedicated to other projects minimizes the level of engineering which can be done in-house for these road projects However, a review can be performed to determane the ~nternal traffic engtneer costs compared to bidding out the servaces Even though the traffic engineer's function would be to focus on traffic englneenng, the cross-training of the additional engtneer would supplement the engineering staff extensively The discussion concermng resurfac~ng also touched on how streets are rated and then prioritized for resurfac~ng or reconstruction The emphasis on road resurfacing and reconstruction is to not only prioritize specific problem areas but also to spread out reconstruction projects throughout the Vdlage Human Service Director Nancy Morgan provided an overview of the Human Servaces budget She stated her department places special emphas:s on ensunng that all staffare cross- trained so that serwces are prowded to a broad based group of residents, and there is mm:mai need for speclalmng The increases in the budget are due to increased hours for the bihngual social worker Part ofthe justification for the increase ofhours for the bdmgual social worker is due to the semce proxaded to the restdents and the increased demand of services as a safety net Urban problems have been effectmg services prowded and in order to develop and continue a realistic approach to service dehvery the additional staff m this department and other departments wall prowde the expertise necessary to address the needs whtch have been identafied Hopefully, this additional senace will reduce expendttures in the future for services related to the fall-out of such urban problems She also highhghted a major rewslon in the way record-keeping and services are monitored Ttus new means of record-keeping wall assist the department in momtormg the true cost for specific servmes General discussion followed in which numerous Trustees and the Mayor d~scussed various hne items in the Human Servtces budget Among the items d~scussed were the cost of additional staff mainly the bihngual social worker, the Network 50 cost and the benefit the -4- Network 50 Program is providing, and the need to provide a general review of serwces available to residents in order to deterrmne if services provided by the Human Services Department were duphcated by another service provider. Nancy Morgan responded to the questions and comments She stated that there is no detailed information concerning the actual number of residents who have received jobs through Network 50 However, the department is in the process of defimng follow-up procedures to momtor the success of the program She also stated that the department is constantly reviewing its services to deternune whether other sennce providers are more capable of providing the service than the Human Services Department in order to minimize duphcataon She stated that the service the Village provides relates to expediting the ability of receiving services to residents who are in need The department does utilize other sermce providers and provides a large number of referrals to those other agencies as part of its normal daily actlv~ties Mayor Farley stated the next meeting on March 29 will be a budget wrap-up where it is hoped the Board will come to an agreement for all departments Also a presentation concermng the refuse contract is also anticipated V. OTHER BUSINESS Trustee Hendricks stated that he had flied an appeal for the fence on 2 North Edwards and ~t was heard before the Board on March 18 In reviewing the file he has found discrepancies and would like to discuss these prior to the Village Board meeting of April 5 Mayor Farley stated this item is for reconsideration and it is up to the entire Village Board to determine whether a motion for reconsideration will be approved Trustee Wilks asked Trustee Hendricks whether he would sign the Route 83 letter to IDOT if he had the opportunity Trustee Hendricks stated that he would sign the letter ifit was redrafted in order for the entire Village Board to go on record to come out m opposition VI. ADJOURNMENT The Committee of the Whole meeting was adjourned at 10 18 p m Respectfully submitted, / /- ,, DAVID STRAHL Assistant to the Village Manager DS/hg