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Minutes of Council Workshop dated Feb 12, 2014 WORKSHOP MEETING OF THE AGAWAM CITY COUNCIL The following are the minutes from the: Agawam City Council Workshop Meeting Wednesday, February 12, 2014 at 6:30pm Agawam Public Library – Peirce Room 750 Cooper Street Agawam, MA. 01001 The meeting was attended by nine of the city councilors with Councilor Mineo and Councilor Rossi absent. The meeting was called to order at 6:30pm. This meeting is a workshop of the City Council to discuss Boardpaq software; FY15 budget request; the role of the Auditor; potential Rule changes and Goals & Objective of the City Council Board Paq software/FY15 Budget Request Chris Johnson gave a brief overview of the free app, Boardpaq, for the iPad. The advantages of utilizing this software are (1) it stops the paper chase, (2) stops the delivery of packets costing the town less money on time and gas, (3) can use your home wi-fi and (4) iPad is so user-friendly. There would be a monthly fee of $99 per 15 users which would include eleven councilors, Barbara, the Mayor, the Solicitor and possibly the Auditor. Jeff Hulbert has already looked into this and said he could help and that it would be a very simple transition. Each iPad costs $500 along with a case-folio. The Council could do an in-house transfer from Professional Services to Equipment to cover the costs however the first step would be to request that Jeff pay for this out of the Comcast money which is currently spent off budget. Each user would be required to sign a release to return the iPad as it is public property. Chris asked if the Council was interested in pursuing this and there was no objection. The budget request will have to be re-formatted to include the monthly fees. The topic of getting rid of verbatim minutes was brought up and it was agreed that this was no longer necessary especially since if there ever were a lawsuit, the verbatim minutes would be inadmissible in court. The courts would require the DVD This item will be brought up on the Agenda to change our Rules. The Mayor is no longer willing to pay for the Auditor’s annual certification with MMA so we will also have to adjust the FY15 budget request to include this annual amount. Councilor Bitzas also brought up increasing the amount of money that the video personnel receive for our meetings (Ray Moreau and Marjorie Katsoulis). Chris and Barbara will look into this and will work on the revised FY15 budget request. Role of the Auditor There was discussion about how little information the Council receives from the Auditor and her reports during the Council meetings only report figures of how many bills were paid, etc. An example of this is the hybrid cars – by the time we heard about it they were already purchased. The Council should be informed of things on a timely basis. We need to get more precise information and reports from Cheryl. The Council would require the Auditor to provide Budget financial information on ANY financial analysis. The only report they get from Cheryl is a year-to-date expense report. She should be able to provide a number of analysis reports showing if a department is over-funded or under-funded. West Springfield has a part time budget analyst to look at the budget, line item by line item. We should redefine the Auditor’s role to be something other than a bill payer. Currently she receives close to $100,000 to pay bills? We are wasting her talent and she is capable of providing us much more information. We should redefine the Auditor’s role as currently she is looked upon with contempt from other Department Heads. It is important to receive more information from the Auditor as we currently get so little back up information from the Mayor’s Office. Redefine the role of the Auditor to include: Analysis Background information Provide alternatives Cash flow projections Inform the Council on expenses over a certain dollar amount The School Budget Finance Committee discusses their line items and sees backup for those line items. Council President and Vice President will discuss these changes with the Auditor. Rule Changes (1) Making President and Vice President ex-officio members of the sub-committees for purposes of establishing a quorum. This was discussed and agreed upon. (2) Delegating the approval of Automatic Amusement Device Licenses to the Administrative Sub-Committee. This was discussed to have these licenses be approved at the sub-committee level instead of going on the Agenda. Chris will verify that this is allowed by state statute. (3) Requirement for scheduled monthly meetings of sub-committees. There was discussion about whether or not this should be a rule change. We currently are a reactive Council waiting for items to be placed on our Agenda. We need to be a proactive Council. These monthly sub-committee meetings would allow the Council to be proactive and work on our goals and objectives. We need to agree to move forward. For instance, Games & Lanes - is this something the Council wants to look into? A sub-committee could be working on coming up with something rather than just let it sit there and have nothing done about it. Is there future thoughts regarding zoning and zoning ordinance changes? Something should also be done regarding Used Car Licenses and a check list requiring the Building Inspector to follow through on which was proposed by Councilor Rossi and his Administrative Committee. This committee should continue to work on that and by having regularly scheduled sub-committee meetings, this could happen. Nothing has been done in years by the Council other than being Agenda reactive. Councilor Letellier was not in favor of having yet another scheduled meeting every month however was not opposed to attending meetings when there was something to discuss. The Master Plan for CPA was also discussed. It would be nice to start to work on this as well. We haven’t done anything with the historical funds, affordable housing or open space. These are all things that are not currently Agenda items and could be chipped away at during regularly scheduled sub-committee meetings. The Park & Rec currently controls the CPA in essence and everything seems to be piecemealed. We should identify desirable parcels to purchase for Open Space and we should also prioritize the parks in town. City Council should work on the CPA Master Plan jointly with the CPA Committee. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel; we just need someone to drive the car. If the Community Relations Sub-Committee met with the CPA Committee, they could invite the Agawam Little League, Agawam Soccer Association and Park & Rec to develop a Master Plan of the parks. Aldo did something similar with Borgatti Field and got the project done. There are so many zoning issues in our zoning ordinances. Regarding sub-committee minutes, there should be a secretary designated to take minutes during sub-committee meetings. Goals and Objectives Finance Sub-Committee Budget Analysis, work with Auditor on various reports Legislative Sub-Committee Zoning By-laws and PVPC Report Community Relations Sub-Committee Work on a 5-year CPA plan, Games & Lanes issue Administrative Sub-Committee Building Inspector to have unannounced inspections of car dealerships, evolve the licensing process and checklist; decide once and for all if town wants to pursue the sewer issues. Discussion of Goals & Objectives Councilor Calabrese suggested consolidating precincts however it is federal law that dictates the number of voters and areas. There has also been criticism of the current ZBA that it is personality-driven and they can be very critical and rude. These positions are appointed by the City Council and maybe we should find more knowledgeable people to be on this board when the positions come up for review. There was some discussion about whether or not the Council wanted to revisit reorganization. Would like an analysis of salaries and how many Department Heads are truly necessary? We shouldn’t affect our current Department Heads however after they retire, their salaries should be adjusted. We need to make the departments work more efficiently and maybe when a new town hall is built, then the departments can be looked at and combined for efficiency. The Council could be proactive with more efficient organization and look into designing a new town hall along with the reorganization. Every department is staffed for peak work volume instead of cross-training personnel. There are many like areas that should be joined together and all clerical staff should be cross-trained as well. Ideally, one department head should oversee 4-5 areas not as it is now with 4-5 department heads overseeing only a few employees. It would be easier to make these changes now so when the department heads retire, these changes could go into effect. Do we have the power to cut salaries? We could establish these by ordinance and we could also use our Professional Services to hire someone to do an analysis of reorganizing the town to streamline for effectiveness. Council President we should just approach the administration instead and jointly evaluate what we currently have and base the new town hall on joint findings. We need to be smart about using our Professional Services line item. An attorney has been retained at $175.00/hour to review the contract items. Councilor Letellier also asked if we are actually going to ever do the sewers/mandatory hook up and Council President said we should decide once and for all, one way or the other and then be done with it. Are we going to put mixed use district back on the Agenda? It needs to be a different proposal. Councilor Bitzas and Councilor Cichetti would look into this. Any other matter that may legally come before the Council Councilor Suffriti brought up another issue regarding Ridgeway Drive. The Becket Academy Group Home is on that street and the neighborhood is very concerned. There is probably nothing the town can do about this however it would be nice for the Group Home to do an outreach to the affected neighborhoods. Community education is always a good thing. The workshop was adjourned at 8:28pm. Respectfully submitted, Christopher C. Johnson President cc: Full Council, Mayor, Solicitor