05/18/05 Budget Study - Laserfiche WebLink

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Budget Study Session May 18, 2005 funding plan. Ms. Brungardt responded that she didn’t even believe that it was legal. Mr. Ollendorff replied that a few minutes ago, he was being told that there wasn’t any funding plan and he is that Council knew that there were four funding plans developed. One of them you didn’t like. He hasn’t heard if anyone liked one of the other plans better than the one recommended. What Council was saying earlier is that we brought you a plan without a funding mechanism. Ms. Brungardt responded that what she said was that he brought her a plan without a legitimate funding mechanism. Mr. Ollendorff inquired if she felt any of the plans were legitimate. Ms. Brungardt replied that she felt that it wasn’t alright for the City to have a person who is currently employed by the City to get a pretty sweet deal that we aren’t sure of the success of placed on the backs of the taxpayers. Mr. Ollendorff would like to speak to her at some other time regarding the negative features of the rest of the funding plans. Ms. Brungardt would do so. Mr. Ollendorff wished to respond to her initial questions about why were we doing this in the first place, developing this plan, devoting resources to this plan, where did this come from. The brief answer is that there were five or six different initiatives at Ruth Park coming from different places. The golfers were demanding cart paths; others were demanding treatment of the run-off water; others wanted control on the use of chemicals; others wanted a better storm water handling facility. There actually were a couple of grants that we were seeking. There were five or six different initiatives for different pieces of Ruth Park. He and the Park staff looked at each other and said that Nancy is working on that piece, Evelyn on that piece; we need to have a plan that pulls all of these pieces together. That was the impetus to do that. Mary Hart at the Park Commission meeting said that Frank and his staff had been ‘beat over the heads for not having a master plan and they finally come up with one and you ask them why they are doing this?” Ms. Brungardt replied that she was at all of those meetings and the questions as to why it was being done really were not about what Mr. Ollendorff suggest. They were more about the efficacy of funding one of the four plans. Last year she said that she was blindsided by the fact that there was no discussion whatsoever of this project during the budget discussions, and then suddenly it was really a large project that we were going to be involved in together. Ms. Brungardt replied that for her part as a councilmember, if we are going to be partaking in a project of that nature and there is no discussion of it in budget, then there’s a missing piece somewhere and she doesn’t want that to happen again. She just wanted to make that very clear. Mayor Adams said it could not have been part of the budget study process because it was not completed until will after the budget was done. Ms. Brungardt responded that the budget was done in May and it was June when they came to the first Parks Commission meeting with the first draft of the plan. Mayor Adams replied back that this was correct but that it couldn’t have been put in the budget at that time. Mr. Ollendorff clarified that it was April when the schedule for the master plan and all the elements of the master plan were brought to the parks commission and they massaged it and said you’re going to have to add a public hearing here; you’re Page 6