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Post by mikesnyder on Nov 30, 2022 15:04:09 GMT
Looking forward to using this system as a way to legally communicate with each other in an attempt to get many viewpoints out prior to a City Council meeting!
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Post by Randal Clark Place 3 on Dec 1, 2022 0:36:32 GMT
I saw online where several citizens have asked about consent agenda items so I wanted to run down the 8 up for consideration this week.
Item 1: Meeting minutes from last council meeting: An item approving prior minutes should typically be on consent every meeting covering the prior council meeting and it will only will be pulled out if an error or addition is needed to be made.
Item 2: Allowing the City Manager to handle severance agreements not to exceed 2 months pay or 50000 whichever is lower and this is just the second reading. It was also previously discussed as an item on Nov 3rd and first reading was passed on Nov 17th.
Item 3 is to allow the City Manager to engage SGR to contract an interim CFO and to assist with the finding of a qualified candidates for the City Manager to hire. I think it is a good idea to give James the tools needed to hire this very important position that will insure Hutto maintains fiscal responsibility and high ethical standards with a commitment to transparency.
Item 4 is to allow the City of Hutto to add Indigenous Peoples Day also known as Columbus Day to the Hutto 2023 Holidays for Oct 9th.
Item 5 is to update the rates for the Acadian Ambulance Service to the new 2022 rates.
Item 6 is to update the Code of Ordinances to align with current city practice to have work sessions conducted on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays at 6PM and to dispense with the second reading. Thanks to citizen input who noticed this needed to be updated to match work meetings as a best practice.
Item 7 is regarding a property that has an unused easement that should have been removed a while ago and this should be done to help facilitate ROW acquisition needed by Hutto for the Limmer Loop/ 1660N expansion.
Item 8 concerns new budgeting software as we move away from Excel\QuickBooks as a we are maturing as a city. We have seen over the years, Hutto's fiscal transparency has been lax to say the least. This software is the next step towards full transparency for the city finances that will allow more robust budgeting analysis and discussion going forward with the 2023-24 budget as your council continues to move forward in a positive responsible way.
I hope this helps explain why these items are on consent for the public and in my opinion why these can all stay in consent but I would like to find out what the rest of council thinks.
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Post by petergordonplace4 on Dec 1, 2022 1:59:06 GMT
I read through the background information in the packet on all of the consent agenda items and also reviewed them with the City Manager this morning. I have no outstanding questions or concerns with any of the items, but would welcome hearing from any fellow councilmember if there are outstanding questions that need to be considered based on their review of the packet.
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Post by mikesnyder on Dec 1, 2022 3:36:50 GMT
Speaking of item 6, why have work sessions? Why not make them Special Meetings? If one were to come out of a Work Session and want to take action, they would need to wait 2 weeks. If they were all held as a Special Meeting, you can literally do the same thing, but always have the ability to vote on something or make a motion to do something. I won't be supporting the Work Session philosophy.
Item 2, I really think that this council needs to remember what happened with the previous "Separation Agreements". I've always found it interesting that in the public sector, when some public employees do wrong or are not being successful in their job, they when they get let go, they get severance. Most private employers just fire a person. Layoffs, different story. If this is dealing with one particular issue, I really have a hard time understanding why the employee would get a paycheck on the way out. Is this the best use of taxpayer money? Shouldn't it be explained to the public why their tax dollars are better used this way than maybe building sidewalks by Nadine Johnson? Or repairing sidewalks by CVS? You pay one person out and then the next person will want $$. Like I always said to my kids "It's always easier to spend someone else's $$).
Item 4, are City employees not already getting Columbus Day off? I have no problem with Indigenous People's Day being recognized, but the explanation in the agenda item makes it out like that day already isn't a holiday in Hutto. It makes it out like it's a new holiday for Hutto employees. I am of course assuming that Hutto employees get Columbus Day off since it too is a federal holiday.
Item 5, Did we not just approve this item? And, if we did, why are we now updating the rates? Should the proper rates not have been in there in the first place?
Item 7 does not help with the ROW acquisition. Item 7 is correcting a wrong that was done to a land owner. It happens to be the same land owner that Hutto now needs something from. But, Hutto has been dragging their feet correcting the mistake. This is why we should talk about some of these items in public.
Item 8, should we not discuss with the public that the city has been running on an excel program and part of the reason why our budgets look so rudimentary is the fact that we are not using budget software to write budgets? To me, we should use this time to explain the deficiencies in our process and what we are doing to correct them. That way, the public at least knows that we are doing something.
I hope this explains why we need to discuss items that are frequently on consent.
I talked to the City Manager about this very thing today. Typically, consent is for items that have already been discussed in public before or for something like a plat being accepted, neighborhood improvements or meeting minutes.
Do you all know what the budgeting software is that is being proposed? Do we know how it rates compared to other programs? I'm pretty interested in what we are looking at for the software and I'm sure some of the public would like to know the: how we came to choose this software, why we chose this particular software, what other cities are using and so on.
When important things like this are on consent, then it's a guessing game on to the what, when, where and why.
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Post by Randal Clark Place 3 on Dec 1, 2022 19:38:41 GMT
In regards, Item 6 we have work sessions to allow us to work and receive details about upcoming items in the future. The whole point it to get the city into having had council work in public on items in advance of taking action and the public knows that we won't be taking action on that item that day to allow council to receive timely feedback from citizens after they have had time to hear us discuss and make positions known on issues. I like the idea of this type of expectation given to the public that these big work items have had more than a single council meeting to be decided on. This gives citizens confidence that council is taking deliberate and careful consideration of these big items. Sure we if we need to take quick action then a special meeting should be called but that should be the exception not the norm. My point on item 2 is that it was already debated and voted on Nov 3rd to bring the ordinance based on our motion. It passed on Nov 16th at the first reading so I feel it can stay in consent we don't need to re-debate an already voted on item that has had no material change since Nov 3rd. Item 4 no the city does not already get that day off which is described in the packet this came as a recommendation from the DSI committee to adopt this day and Juneteenth which was added last year. Item 5: We did approve it on Nov 3rd second reading and the company should have provided the rates at first reading but they didn't. So in the future an agreement like this should not come to council until it is complete. Item 7: I agree with you that it does not directly help the ROW but it shows the entities we are trying to work in good faith and that Hutto is now doing things correctly and timely. Still no reason it can't be on consent. Item 8: I still think this can be on consent, we have mentioned in public previously that we wanted our budget software upgraded when you requested many times during the budget process we need this and I agree. The packet answers most of the questions you pose and is available for anyone to read. The software company listed in the packet is ClearGov. They already track public data of cities and you can see how they already created easily readable data of our public data already at cleargov.com/texas/williamson/city/hutto. It was the cheapest of the 3 options looked at by city staff. Finance team was included in picking the option to bring to council as they are the most effected by the choice. The cost was 1/3 of a customized solution and it can be ready for adoption this upcoming budget cycle development. The city of Pflugerville is already one of their customers and it fits the requirements of allowing modeling and transparency in budgeting which was what we as council directed staff to find. I have no concern with this item being in consent and I hope this explains to the public why I support this item. This is why we have this forum so the public can get the why here and still keep items in consent to have efficient and transparent government. I agree we might need to explain or discuss a consent item but at anytime someone can make the request to pull an item out. |
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Post by mikesnyder on Dec 2, 2022 17:24:37 GMT
After last night, when you had some good comments and ideas, are you not seeing why everything shouldn’t be on consent? By sharing 7 viewpoints, we have the ability to make things better.
Like the Indigenous Peoples’ Day, now instead of it being a holiday for one year, it’s a holiday in perpetuity until a future City Council changed it.
Also, I think the public would find the conversation and presentation on the budget software to be great.
If we keep doing how we started last night, then let’s just put everything on consent.
Like I said last night, if we aren’t going to do our jobs, in the public, then there is no reason to get paid and show up. Let’s just disband and save the taxpayer money. 1/2 the time people want to rely on someone else to
Make the decision for them anyway.
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Post by Randal Clark Place 3 on Dec 2, 2022 21:59:08 GMT
I don't disagree with you and it was good to pull the items we did. My point is as we create and drive expectations of discussing items here in full public view it should allow more items to stay on consent. I want to use this as a tool to enhance and streamline the meeting because the discussion and information to the public is happening here prior to the Thursday meeting.
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