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Home My WebLink About06/05/2006 Adjourned Meeting / Study Session 62 ADJOURNED MEETING /STUDY SESSION JUNE 5, 2006- 8:30 A.M. - 10:00 A.M. COUNCIL CHAMBERS - YAKIMA CITY HALL • 1. Roll Cali Present: Council: Mayor Dave Edler, presiding, Council Members Ron Bonlender, Micah Cawley (via teleconference), Norm Johnson, Bill Lover, Neil McClure, and Susan Whitman Staff: Dick Zais, City Manager; and City Clerk in Training Moore Mayor Edler called the meeting to order at 8:34:26 a.m. He told the audience that this is a study session regarding the proposal to hire 22 additional police officers. The first session on the topic was held a week ago and we were able to just skim the surface of the information. Council is suggesting we move through the process slowly. Mayor Edler said the media is already taking strong positions on this and he asked them to be patient, as we intend to go through the proposal very thoroughly in order to make the best decisions. 2. Presentation regarding the.Yakima Safe Community Action Plan ➢ Prosecution request Cynthia Martinez, Assistant City Attorney, gave a recap of her presentation at the last _ study session. She said that the Police are just one leg of this race; they arrest the people and then pass them on to the prosecutors. It is the prosecutor's job to make sure the judge is aware of all the intricacies of the case. The larger the caseload, the less time they have per case. When the caseload gets too large, they have to make choices to not prosecute some cases. They are pleased with the level of service they are able to handle at this time, but if the police hire 23 officers, it relates to a 30% increase in caseload. They are asking for a 30 %. increase in, staff to handle it. Mrs. Martinez then spoke about public defense, noting that whenever resources are allocated for prosecution, public defense should also be a consideration. There is a constitutional mandate to provide public defense for indigent defendants at municipal court (about 77% of the cases). Right now each prosecutor is handling almost 1200 misdemeanors and the public defenders are handling about the same (compared to the state bar and American bar recommendation of 400 -650.) There was discussion about the impact the additional officers will have on increasing the County's caseload as well with the prosecution of felonies. City Manager Zais noted that the County gets the lion share of the .3% sales tax and property tax, nearly $4 million from the sales tax alone. Council Member McClure emphasized that we need to look at this as a partnership with the County. If we're moving forward as a community, we need to get them involved. City Attorney Paolella advised that we don't have jurisdiction over the felonies and cannot prosecute them. What we can and will do is find a way to process the low level felonies through our court that the County is declining to prosecute 63 ADJOURNED MEETING — JUNE 5, 2006 because they don't have the resources. Council Member Johnson suggested a roundtable session to talk about this topic with the County and make it a county -wide effort. Mayor Edler said that, although it wouldn't be appropriate to put funding in a package like this for the County, it would be appropriate to have a dialogue with them, and the state, regarding these needs. > Public Safety Communications and Information Systems Wayne Wantland, Public Safety Communications Manager, advised that they have proposed increasing dispatching by two positions over the four -year proposal. He described their primary responsibilities and City Manager Zais pointed out a future goal of a complete county - wid consolidation of dispatch resources between city /county fire and law enforcement. There was a brief discussion on whether the potential future consolidation should be considered in this proposal. City Manager Zais spoke about the Information Technology support required. Approximately 40% of the IT budget is dedicated to public safety support. This has been factored into the proposal. Rick Pettyjohn, Information Systems Manager, noted that every new person requires computer support. It is also being proposed to add fifteen cars to the fleet. We currently support 35 cars. The computers in the cars are extremely difficult to maintain because cars are not a good computer environment. In effect, it would require adding at least 30 computers, as there are two in each car. Law enforcement is probably the most intensive technically supported area in the city. The City's technicians are currently supporting 140 computers each, which is far above the national average. With the addition of 25 new office computers and another 30 police computers, adding just one technician would be a stretch. In this proposal, Information Technology receives 1.6% of the entire proposal. Although this is not generous, it may be appropriate. The police and public safety functions are 24 hours and are more intensive over the weekend. The help needed by officers is a right -now need requiring us to have people on -call. Discussion ensued. Council Member Lover's position was that this portion of the proposal is too large. City Manager Zais gave a Power Point presentation on costs (copy available in the City Clerk's office). He pointed out where the three - tenths percent sales tax revenue money is currently going. He also noted the expected rises in jail costs whether this proposal goes forth or not. Jail costs were discussed in detail as well as revenue sources. Mr. Zais admitted that this is ambitious, expensive, and extremely aggressive in terms of total costs. New resources are needed to be able to pay for it as we could not absorb the costs within our existing resources. He reviewed each chart in the presentation including the limited list of new revenue options; e.g. property tax, sales tax, local B &O tax option, gambling taxes, and a tax on our own utilities. The only viable option that would fund this package, would be removing the current cap on our utilities. A 1% increase in that tax, as it currently exists, requires voter approval and raises about $1 million, along with higher fines. He referred to the last chart highlighting how the tax would be imposed, subject to a vote of the people; 1`)/0 in year one, 1.5% in year two, 1 in year three, and .5% in year four, for a total of 4% increase over four years, equaling an increase in revenue of $4.5 million. He then presented how it affects household costs. Based on an average, if a household was paying $250 a month for telephone, power, and gas, the proposed tax would add less than $10 per month to those costs. Discussion continued �n the impacts of removing or raising the current tax cap. 2 64 ADJOURNED MEETING — JUNE 5, 2006 At 10:08 a.m. Mayor Edler suggested closing this meeting and scheduling a future one. He requested showing the Gang Power Point presentation at that time. Council Member Johnson also requested the opportunity to discuss the proposal among Council members. This will presented to the community following Council's discussion and agreement. 3. Audience comments (8:45 a.m. — 9:00 a.m.) No one came forward. 4. Adjournment McCLURE MOVED AND BONLENDER SECONDED TO ADJOURN. The motion carried by unanimous voice vote. The meeting adjourned at 10:12 a.m. READ AND CERTIFIED ACCURATE BY `CO CI E ,/l ` DATE !X COUNCIL MEMBER DATE ATTEST: /e/ 1 . /1 CITY CL ' " i A D EDL R, MAYOR Minutes prepared by. Linda Watkins. An audio and video tape of this meeting are available in the City • Clerk's Office • • • • 3