Fort Walton Beach Council minutes — 01-16-2010 retreat — reading text

done. He commented unless they get rid of them off the corners and out of the parks, the people will not go down to use the services and if they will not go to the Landing, there is no opportunity to go to the businesses downtown. Mr. Nabors commented the CRA officers downtown are not visible like they used to be and when he calls to ask where they have been they show up for a little while. He relayed when the officer is there the vagrants walking around and hanging out on the street do not hang around as they do not want to deal with a police officer. He thought it is their responsibility to continue to stay on top of the police force on what they expect from the CRA officer, or to define a CRA officer or a downtown officer to walk around as their job. Mr. Holmes discussed the budget process last year that had each department cut 10% which he thought was unfair to Council. He thought this year instead of saying there is going to be a shortfall and the department heads come back to say they will have to get rid of employees that Council look at being more efficient with what they have; not trying to do more with less, do more with what they have. He stated it is going to be a challenge but they have economized and reached the point they cannot economize any more without getting rid of the core staff so then they challenge the core staff to be more efficient. Mr. Nabors agreed with continuing to streamline, that if the department heads do not come to Council with great ideas Council will have to say here is what they are going to do, either give Council a good idea or they are going to pick and choose what they think is best. He thought they have to continue to put pressure on department heads not to come back with some mindless idea. He wants to see them come back with how they can make their department better and if the department heads cannot do that, they should find department heads that do a better job at what they need them to do. The Mayor commented they need to see the alternatives, not just come in with the one thing they are going to do but with a second or third alternative that was eliminated to get to that position. Council Retreat 1 - 16 -10 69 COUNCIL ITEMS coat. Mr. Holmes expressed displeasure over the position Council has been placed in with the police department union and felt it was a slap in the face. He thought Council had been as amenable as they possibly could to give them what they wanted and needed and to date he has not heard their thought process and why they even looked at the option. He expressed when the police department gets unionized they have not seen the end of it and depending on what happens, they may see the rest of the City go in that direction. Mr. Miller commented he heard very little complaints from the workforce when positions were cut and the cost of living raises were not passed. He thought they did the best thing they could to offer the employees subsidies in lieu of raises with additional time off and so forth. He said when the time comes he will be willing to discuss raises again. Mr. Miller then expressed his thoughts that selling the fairgrounds to the county was a bad decision and the City should be getting their money together to buy it back in case the county does not go through with putting an annex there. Mr. Garvie discussed the new legislation on trash collection where by 2020 they are mandated to be recycling 75% of the waste, and right now 86% of waste is going into landfills. He mentioned when the city stopped curbside recycling and went to recycling drop off locations that recycling went from about 400, 000 tons a year to 100, 000 tons a year. He thought to make it easier for people to recycle, make it single stream recycling with twice a week pickup. He said they need to get people used to recycling by forcing the separation of trash so if they continue to put all trash together and have no recyclables they will not be picked up the second time, so it would be to their advantage to separate. He mentioned that Waste Management is willing to work with the city and is looking for a city to try to reach the goal. He also believed they would be able to strike a deal with Waste Management to get paid for recycling and he would like the City to start working toward that. Mr. Nabors mentioned the need for the commercial businesses to have a location to dispose of large amounts of cardboard for Waste Management to pick up. Mr. Garvie agreed with Mr. Nabors idea about the pay raises, he did not feel an employees pay should go down if they are doing the basics of their job description, just the minimal requirements. He considered over and above a pay raise and they should earn that by their exceptional performance, doing more than just the minimum requirements. Mr. Garvie discussed trying to make downtown at Christmastime look a little like Fairhope, Alabama and thought it is time to start thinking about the decorations they want and to start building on that. He mentioned when Fairhope has the lighting of their trees the town is jam packed that night with people from all over. He thought Fort Walton Beach has the same potential to do that and should start working toward that. Mr. Garvie commented there is a distinct difference between panhandlers and actually homeless people. He said the churches and agencies are extremely generous and the panhandlers take advantage of that generosity, they have homeless shelters and places to get food and the word goes out that Fort Walton Beach is the place to go. He expressed the Police Chief is very astute as far as watching different things regarding vagrancy and does what he can so if anyone has other ideas, take them to the Police Chief who will discuss it with the City Attorney to see if it is a possibility without breaking any laws. 70 Council Retreat 1 - 16 -10 COUNCIL ITEMS cont. The Mayor mentioned because it is going to be a late start this year with the budget they need to start getting ready and thinking about the efficiencies they think is important. He thought for the benefit of the new Council members it would be a good idea to pull out the previous study done by the Management Consultant. 26th The City Manager mentioned there will be a meeting on January to discuss the rate study and at that same meeting he will give an introduction to the Budget 2010/ 2011 with some fundamental information in terms of forecast and other information gleaned from the past week. ADJOURN Being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 11: 30 a.m. APPROVED: U/ d MAYOR: ATT ST: an CITY CLERK ddm