City Council Report /w Gordon Basham; Public Parking, Salaries, Pay Raises

[speaker 1] And this is the City Council short report number one, City Council short report number one to air on 10/30/1990. the first item on the council's agenda today, which drew the most comment, was what to do about the city hall parking garage. Last June, a strong wind blew down the west wall of the garage causing about a half a million dollars damage to the police department's property room. When a structural analysis of the rest of the garage showed the building was dangerous, the Public Works Department was asked to come up with alternatives to solving the problem. During today's meeting, Public Works Director, Steve Lackey, offered six different alternatives, ranging from repairing the existing garage to replacing the new structure to replacing the facility with both a new garage and surface parking. The council passed a compromise resolution proposed by member Frank Ojile which authorized tearing down the old facility and getting estimates on how much it will cost to replace the building. Once the estimates are in, the council then decide whether to go ahead with replacing the garage with a new one

or resorting to a parking lot to solve the city's parking problems. The council also discussed the city's recycling goals through the rest of this decade. The agenda item, brought up by Mayor Bob Knight, calls on the city to adopt a goal of recycling 25% of the city's solid waste by the end of 1993 and 50% by the end of 1999. The council agenda item though, which prompted the most comments, both public and counsel, was Vice Mayor Rip Gooch's request to study increasing the salaries of the council, vice mayor and mayor. Currently the mayor is paid $12,500 a year, the vice mayor $10,000 a year, and each council member, $7,500. Additionally, each gets a $200 a month car allowance. Gooch proposed a citizens' taskforce be set up to study the levels to which the salaries should be increased while at the same time having the city's staff draw up an ordinance allowing the pay raises. Council member Greg Ferris opposed Gooch's plan to have the Wesley Foundation's Cramer Reed chair the taskforce, saying Reed's

stated position of supporting such a pay raise for the mayor should disqualify him. Council member Sheldon Kamen also objected to the task force, saying the council should work out the issue itself. Kamen also said he supported limiting the term of the mayor to 2 terms. When the final vote was taken, the council voted 4 to 3 to set up a task force which will report back to the council by December 1. Included in Gooch's proposal is the provision of that any ordinance should state no pay raise would go into effect for this council, but after each present council term expires. For KMUW, I'm Gordon Basham. [Speaker #1] And Council short reports number two for airing on 10/30/90 The council item which brought the most comment during today's session was the issue of whether the council, Vice Mayor and the Mayor should get pay raises. The matter was brought up by Vice Mayor Rip Gooch, who pointed out the city's elected officials haven't been given a pay raise in 15 years while other city employees during that time period have been given

raises in excess of 160%. The history of the issue considers the fact that when the present salary levels were set for the then City Commission, the positions were historically part-time. Gooch's argument, and one supported by Mayor Bob Knight, is that the jobs have grown in responsibility and therefore should also grow in salary. Gooch proposed setting up a citizen's taskforce headed up by Wesley Foundation official Cramer Reed to study proposed salary levels for the city's elected officials. Additionally, Gooch proposed the simultaneous drafting of an ordinance which would allow for the pay raises to take place after the current council terms expire. Council member Greg Ferris objected to Reed's being appointed to chair the task force because of his past support of a higher salary level for the mayor. Council member Sheldon Kamen objected to the concept of the task force, period. Saying the pay raise issue is one which should be decided by the council itself. Furthermore, said Kamen, the mayor's term should be limited two terms. That brought a rather pointed response from Mayor Knight who referred to

Kamen's 12 years on the bench. When the vote was taken, Gooch's proposal passed 4 to 3 with Kamen, Ferris and Willis Wall voting in the negative. A measure which passed unanimously, though, was a recommendation to tear down the city hall parking garage and get bids on building a new one. The garage was damaged in early June when a strong wind blew the west wall onto the police department's property and evidence room. Public Works Director Steve Lackey presented the council with 6 alternatives, including repairing the existing garage, building a new and larger facility, and building one the same size as well as adding more surface parking. It was the third alternative the council selected, at least in part. Rather than committing itself to building a new garage, the council voted unanimously to get bids on building that new garage, but reserve until later its decision whether the garage should indeed be built. Finally, the council voted to adopt a community recycling goal, an issue brought before the council by Mayor Knight. That goal states the city will work toward recycling 25% of the city's solid waste that goes into the

Brooks Landfill by the end of 1993 and 50% by the end of 1999. ninety-nine. For KMUW, I'm Gordon Basham. and council long reports to air on 10/31/90 during Morning Edition. Those council items which promise to draw the most comments, what to do about the damaged city hall parking garage and the issue of pay raises for council members, lived up to their expectations. In early June, the west wall of the garage was damaged by a windstorm causing that portion of the garage to collapse onto the police department's property and evidence room. That caused the city staff to look at the structural integrity of the garage itself. Engineers and consultants later said that the garage was unsafe, forcing the city to decide what to do about the structure. At Tuesday's meeting, Public Works Director Steve Lackey presented the council with several different options. [Speaker 2] The first alternative would be to rehabilitate the current structure as originally planned, but have to add additional

support, uh, to, um, insure that we have a facility that would last. We'd have to add additional reinforcing and, and the structural members for that to occur. That project would run about $2,600,000. million dollars. The second option is to build the same size facility we have today which would run about 4.2 million. The third option is to build the same facility that we have today and try to solicit some additional surface parking and that project would run about 4.7million. Fourth option is to build a new garage, uh, with what we're calling expanded parking, which would be a 600 space facility, which would be two hundred spaces more than we have today and that project would run about 5.3 million. The fifth option is a new garage with 600 spaces, which with additional surface parking elsewhere. And that project would run about five

5.8 million. And the sixth option is just to tear down the parking facility as you see it today and turn the entire area, Third Street and Wichita St and our current property west of City Hall into a surface parking lot. And that project would run about $2,000,000. [Gordon Bassham] The city staff presented the council with a resolution recommending tearing down the old garage and building another one of the same size but adding more surface parking. That option, option number three, would cost just under 5 million dollars. Council member Greg Ferris,though, had some reservations about that proposal. [Speaker 3] I support designing a parking garage. I'm not so sure that surface parking, uh, it would not be adequate given some situations that may exist in the near future. Across the street, there's an enormous vacant lot - who knows whether that might be available - and some other things that could be available, so I think you do limit your options by passing a resolution that says that we're going to tear down a parking garage and build another one.

[Gordon Bassham] It was council member Frank Ojile, though, who offered a compromise on the issue. [Speaker 4] I myself am ready to move on this today and I think that I've come with some kind of a compromise here that would satisfy Mr. Ferris into not locking us into just a parking garage. But..just exploring parking at all, to where the resolution to be amended by just deleting two words. Um, where it says "whereas the proposed demolition and construction is to replace the existing city hall parking garage and adjoining maintenance garage deemed structurally unsafe and abandoned", I would delete the word "the" and "garage" out of the second sentence- or second line- to read, "Whereas the proposed demolition and construction is to replace existing city hall parking and adjoining maintenance garage deemed structurally unsafe and abandoned.." and I think that would sufficiently be vague enough to leave that open for future councils to decide whether or not they want to explore the garage or the surface parking, but I think we should take the action today and, uh, move forward so can at least

get the design going. [Speaker 1] The council voted unanimously to support Ojile's motion on the garage. An issue brought before the council by mayor Bob Knight was that of getting the city's recycling goals set for the rest of the decade. [Bob Knight] The goal of recycling 25% percent of the solid waste stream by the end of 1993, and 50% by the end of 1999, which enters our landfill. That has, if we're able to accomplish that as a community, has profound consequences. It's Mr. Lackey's estimate that today we have around fifteen hundred fans of solid waste entering Brooks Landfill. It's also my understanding that the landfill is open 362 days a year. So we are, uh, I think, collecting at the landfill in excess of 500,000 tons of solid waste a year. If we are successful in

accomplishing what I believe the community can accomplish in the next several years, you'd see by a quick calculation that would reduce by a significant amount- well over 100,000 tons a year. [Gordon Bassham] The council voted to adopt Mayor Knight's proposal. The issue that drew the greatest comments was that of pay raises for the city council, vice mayor and mayor. Currently, council members make $7,500 a year; the vice mayor earns $10,000 a year and the mayor $12,500 annually. It was Gooch who brought up the issue and Gooch who proposed action on the issue. [Rip Gooch] I would like to see this handled in a manner that could be as fair as possible and would leave as little as possible to the pressure of the bench. And for that reason, I would like to move that we assign the

responsibility of a amount- not the responsibility for whether we make a change- but the responsibility for the amount to a citizen group and I would hope that this citizen group could be shared by D. Cramer Reed, who once before indicated a concern about this particular item. And that he would unite with a committee of not less than 7 people and these people would be representative of the total community, including business, industry, labor and social organization and that they study and prepare a recommendation concerning the salaries of the mayor, vice mayor and the city council on or before December 1, 1990

and, in addition to that, that we direct the Law Department to prepare a charter ordinance for the city council, considering that the provisions that the salaries of the mayor, the vice mayor and the city council will be set by a simple ordinance. [Gordon Bassham] Public comment came first from Wichitan Howard Lane, a resident of Gooch's council district. [Howard Lane] I know you people probably need a little more money for what you do and the time you put in, but [when] one guy's wages goes [sic] up, somebody else's goes up. I think the fellows across the street raised their own wages to what they've got now; they don't hurt 'em. [inaudible] by far, they don't hurt 'em. [Gordon Bassham] Roger Grund of Homeowners Trust and a candidate for the fourth congressional district, also spoke out on the issue. Grund's remark brought a biting response from Mayor Knight. [Roger Grund] There are perks that go with the office; the

visits to the sister cities- $5,000 for a trip to Europe. Hopefully we were going to get some benefit from that, but that's always an intangible. If you decide that you were going to raise the mayor's pay, my recommendation would be: very little. Thank you. [Bob Knight] Next speaker? [pause] The rest of the discussion will be by the bench. I guess we'll have an interesting opportunity a week from today, Mr. Grund, to see how voters react to your points of view on a lot of these matters, since you're a candidate. And I assume if you're in the mainstream, you'll get that kind of support. Any comments by the council? Ms. Martinez? [Councilmember Martinez] Thank you, I would just like to answer that the trip to sister cities is not paid out taxpayers'

money; it comes from Convention Bureau money; from visitors who come here. [Gordon Bassham] Council member Ferris voiced opposition to Dr. Cramer Reed setting up that citizens' taskforce to determine a new salary level for the city's elected officials and Councilmember Sheldon Kamen said he felt the issue should not be decided by such a task force, but by the council itself. Furthermore, said Kamen, he would be in favor of putting a two-term limit on the office of the mayor. When the vote came on the motion, it passed 4 to 3 with council members Wall, Kamen and Ferris voting against it. For KMUW, I'm Gordon Bassham. This is the city council report- short report number one- to air on 11/5/90. The council faces something of a crowded agenda when it meets tomorrow morning. Much of its business, though, will be dealing with items that, while they may not be entirely routine, are not controversial, either. One of the first items of business

the council will deal with will be getting clarification on the city's monthly financial report for September. At last week's meeting, Mayor Bob Knight pullled this normally routine item off the consent agenda after seeing a downward trend in the city's cash balance. At that meeting, the council asked the city's financial staff to explain the trend. Assistant city manager and acting finance director Ray Trail is expected to tell the council one of the reasons for the declining cash balance is a lower than projected income from sales tax revenues. Trail says, though, the city expects to end this fiscal year equal to or slightly better than it did at last fiscal year. One of the ways the city is compensating, says Trail, is to place a hiring freeze on many jobs have become vacant through attrition. According to Trail, the city does not plan to lay off any employees and will continue to hire and replace employees in such critical service areas as fire and police protection. He adds the city staff also plans to defer purchases of nonessential items until they're absolutely needed. The council will

also hear plans by the Planning Department to add 70 new parking spaces in the downtown area east of Century II near William and Douglas streets. Many of the parking spaces will be digonal with the total cost to buy and install the new meters coming to $35,000. Those meters are expected to generate just under $11,000 a year. The council will be asked to implement a courtesy parking program that will issue only warning tickets the first time out to out of town motorists. That program is expected to cost the city over $38,000 in lost revenue. Other items on the council's agenda include a vote to revamp the health plan offered to city employees. Currently the city offers its workers a choice between Blue Bross Blue Shield's Blue Selected and the Equicor HMO. Under the revised plan to be voted on, most costs will go up only slightly with the city still paying 75% of an employee's individual or family coverage. The council meeting gets underway at 9:00 tomorrow morning in the council chambers at City Hall. The meeting

is open to the public. For KMUW, I'm Gordon Bassham. And this is the council short report number 2 to air during ATC on 11/5/90. The council's agenda tomorrow morning will be mixed, but lacking in anything that should cause a lot of controversy. Among those items up for consideration will be a proposal by the Planning Department to add 70 new parking spaces in the downtown area east of Century II. Many of the spaces will be digonal rather than parallel with the cost of those 70 new parking meters running $35,000. Counting parking garages, lots and on-street parking, there are 10,000 parking spaces in downtown Wichita. Planning director Marvin Kraut says currently there's about a 60% utilization of those places. Kraut says it's not so much a matter of needing additional downtown parking as it is needing spaces in a particular area. He says the new meters will generate just over $10,000 a year in revenue. Another part of the city's proposed parking plan that will be

revised will be to issue what are called "courtesy parking tickets" to out of town or out of state motorists. Those tickets, which won't generate any money for the city, are indeed expected to cost the city over thirty-eight thousand dollars a year in income. The program will run, if approved by the council on a six month trial basis. The Council will also hear a request by Custom Cupboards for an ad valorem tax exemption. The company located in the twenty-four hundred block of South Sheridan plans to expand its present facility and buy new machinery and equipment. City staff is recommending Custom Cupboards be granted a tax exemption for ten years on the building it wants to lease and for five years on machinery and other equipment it wants to buy. Graphic Systems of Wichita located in the three hundred block of Ida is also asking for an ad valorem tax exemption The company is planning a two phase expansion totaling four hundred thousand dollars and is asking the council for exemptions on both its new facility and the machinery. City staff is recommending that exemption. A revamped insurance program for city employees will be

be brought before the council for its approval tomorrow morning. Currently the city offers its workers a choice of either the Blue Cross Blue Shield Blue Select plan or an HMO from Equicorp. The city presently, and will continue to pay, seventy five percent of both the single and family plans offered employees. The costs of the plans are, for the most part going up only slightly. It's expected the council will approve the plan, although there will be some public comment on the measure. Finally the council will receive the city's September monthly financial report. Last week Mayor Bob Knight pulled the report from the consent agenda when he noticed the city's cash balance had been declining. Assistant city manager and acting finance director Ray Trail says the declining balance is due in part to lower sales tax revenues that fell short of projections. Trail says in order to compensate for the lower revenues, the city will place a freeze on hiring new, noncritical employees and defer buying some non-essential items. Trail says though, the city does not plan to lay off employees, rather letting attrition lower the number of city workers. The council meeting gets underway tomorrow morning at nine o'clock in the

council chambers in City Hall. It's open to the public. For KMUW, I'm Gordon Basham. Council long reports to air during Morning Edition on 11/06/90. The council faces something of a mixed bag this morning. One of the items on the city manager's agenda will be to provide additional street parking downtown. City planning director Marvin Kraut says seventy new parking spaces will be created in the area of William St., east of Century II. [Marvin Kraut] These are areas where we've eliminated some portion of turning lanes, or loading area, or, in at least one case on Douglas, there's a bus stop that would be eliminated to create more parking. And, and on William Street there are parallel meters on both sides of the street now. The proposal, which we are recommending, is to take one side of William Street and create diagonal parking instead of parallel parking.

You can provide a lot more spaces diagonally than you can parallel, and that's a large number of the increase in the proposal. [Basham] Kraut adds it's not so much a matter of needing to increase the overall amount of parking in downtown Wichita, as it is a matter of adding spaces where they're needed. [Kraut] All for all, our studies say that there is adequate parking downtown. There's,uh, over ten thousand parking spaces downtown and the utilization of the lots and the garages indicates that there's a lot of capacity. And I think that, that to a large degree it's a psychological problem. Visibility of those spaces psychologically to people who come downtown, and I think if we can add fifty percent to the total of the visible on-street parking spaces in the very core of the downtown that that will work, uh,um.. help psychologically with feeling that there's more parking. There is good turnover in the short-term parking on Douglas and on William, and I think that that's an area where there's more demand than supply. [Basham] Kraut adds

that it'll cost the city about thirty five thousand dollars to add the seventy-two parking meters. He says are expected to generate about ten thousand seven hundred dollars a year in revenue, so it'll be several years before the city recovers their purchase and installation costs. He also adds that with a plan to issue courtesy parking tickets to out-of-town motorists unfamiliar with our parking regulations in the downtown area, that project is expected to cost the city over thirty-eight thousand dollars a year in lost revenue. That item alone would further pushback the cost recovery of meters. Another item before the council for consideration will be a proposal to revamp of the health insurance plan for city workers. Currently, city employees may choose from either the Blue Cross Blue Shield Blue Select plan or Equicorp's HMO plan. Assistant City Manager Ray Trail explains. [Trail] Right now we have a few more employees in Equicorp than we have in the Blue Select or traditional Blue Cross plan.

Right now, our rates for either are the same. If you're an employee and you can -- you choose which one you want to go into, not based on rate because your...the premium is the same and the employee's dollar contribution is the same. The City contributes seventy-five percent of the cost for either plan, and the employee pays twenty-five percent. Whether, and that's whether it's a family or a single. So, uh, we're paying seventy-five percent of a larger amount if it's a family participant employee and we pay a lesser amount if it's a single. When looking at the rates this year, we started off, of course, for 1990, we had a very substantial increase that came in about 125, or about twenty-five to thirty percent increase from the previous year and we were expecting another large increase. Uh, our preliminary information from the health insurance carriers indicated it might be as high as twenty-five percent. During the course of developing the budget that was reduced to somewhere around fifteen percent increase. And, as you can

see from the rate structure in the table on that second page, what finally came out of it was a rate structure which, uh, generally left about the same rates intact on the Traditional or Blue Select plan however, the Equicorp premiums are going up. [Basham] The various elements of the city's plan were voted on by the health insurance review committee, a committee made up of representatives of each of the city's three employee unions, non-union employees' council, and three representatives from city staff. Trail says because the approval of the various aspects of the plan was close, there's likely to be some public comment on the item before the council. [Trail] It's my understanding that at least the fire union representative plans to appear and speak on this item. You can tell from the split votes that that there was not unanimity. I think that some of the representatives on the health insurance review committee did not want to implement the cost containment items..uh..particularly on Blue Select there

were other members of the committee that did not want to, uh, did not want to switch to HMO Kansas rather than Equicorps and felt very strongly about that. But, I think primarily, what may, if there's any discussion before the council, it maybe on the basis that,uh.. nobody likes to see...uh, I think the perception may be that these are reductions in benefits and coverage. [Basham] Trail adds the council will also receive the city's September monthly financial report. Last week Mayor Bob Knight pulled the normally routine budget report from the council's consent agenda after noticing the city's cash balance had been declining for several reporting periods. Knight asked Trail, who is also the city's acting finance director, to report back to the council why the balance was going down. He told KMUW it's partly due to declining city revenues. [Trail] Those things that would reflects the current state of the

economy, uh, that since developing our budget, uh, economic circumstances are such that we're seeing declines in sales tax revenue collections as a result of some diminishments in retail sales activity. We had been experiencing a, a modest decline in our gas tax revenues at that time, and we wanted to flag the potential to the council for us to undertake some, some cost-containment measures in order to reduce the expenditures in our budget, commensurate with our revenue stream. We, we try to, to ensure that on an annual basis we have enough money coming in from an annual revenue stream to pay our expenses so that we maintain, separate from that, our cash reserves and cash balances. So it's real important to the city to ensure that we protect the savings account for those circumstances that, that may come up in the future

where that may be required. The current downturn in revenues, in my opinion, is cause for concern, but it is by no means catastrophic. It's manageable -- we're talking about declines of one or two percent in collections, and certainly we feel that our cost- containment measures will more than offset those kinds of declines in revenue. [Basham] Trail said the city plans to put a freeze on hirings in certain positions. Departments that will not be effected are those providing emergency services, such as the police and fire departments. Trail said the city plans to defer purchases of non-essential items and let the city's normally ten percent personnel attrition rate help in the process of cutting back the number of city employees. At any rate, said Trail, the city does not plan to lay off employees. The council meeting gets underway at city hall at nine o'clock this morning in the council chambers on the first floor. The meeting

is open to the public. For KMUW, I'm Gordon Basham.