RT if you're up and ready for this Quarterly Work Session on the City Budget

https://dmgov-org.zoom.us/s/89634505853?pwd=VlBEdWYrZjNBck5BdnN3ZWNNdHQyQT09

Livetweets begins here

Sounds like Cownie isn't here, and Westergaard is leading as Mayor Pro Tem....she seems confused

The Finance Director is going over the schedule. It doesn't look like the police budget is going to be talked about specifically

"I'm sure the Mayor will be here soon..."

Did Cownie oversleep?

Schedule for the day

We're talking about Housing Services which consists of Section 8 and Public Housing

I will note the city just got rid of 16 public housing units and transferred a fraction of the residents over to Section 8

Nick is talking about the "disposition fund" which is where the money goes when they sell public housing units.

They use that money to maintain other public housing units

Westergaard is asking the obvious question: If we're maintaining the public housing program by selling units, how is this model sustainable

Essentially, what happens when the money runs out?

The answer we got is pretty contradictory from what we heard before

Apparently we don't rely on the disposition fund for the maintenance of public housing, which is the opposite of what was said immediately previous

Mandelbaum asks why the voucher program has less funding. He thinks its a problem that we're not issuing vouchers.

Apparently there is a 2-hour required face to face meeting to issue a housing voucher. This is clearly a problem in a pandemic

It sounds like HUD is to blame

It is clarified that we will get more vouchers with the sale of public housing

Gatto asks how the Housing Services department is staying open when the city is closed to the public. With few exceptions, they are only open by appointment. That is not accessible to the population they need to serve, but it sounds like Covid has also moved through the dept

Budget Breakdowns:

(the orange is public housing)

Poll: Would you prefer the City Government operates Public Housing itself, or subsidizes rent to landlords through Section 8?

I know it's a budget meeting, but there's no discussion of the need for housing. They're talking about managing the money, having previous surpluses cover future deficits...

In a program like this, we should be talking about how much money to spend based on the need

It sounds like other cities/municipalities pay the City of Des Moines to partially subsidize the housing program under 28E agreements

They're talking about adding a new administrator position

They're talking about transitioning a lot of the processes to online, including payments and how this would be convenient for the city

Can we please acknowledge that moving operations online makes services less accessible to those who don't have access to the internet

They're talking about using Covid Relief funds to buy a kiosk to put at the Central Iowa shelter since "a lot of their clients come from there"

Instead of housing more people in an unemployment crisis and pandemic, they're going to buy a kiosk and new software

They're acknowledging that they don't know how much federal funding they're going to get

They're also talking about getting a consultant and a developer to help them at Royal View Manor. Privatizing more of the cities services

It sounds like they want to do a "land lease" on Royal View for 20 years to a private company and then transition all the residents to Section 8

We're talking more about the disposition (sale) of the cities Public Housing Units

Chris Johannsen says residents prefer to transition to Section 8 over staying in public housing. What makes the public housing program undesirable?

Chris is talking again about the slowdown in providing Section 8 vouchers. This is going to be the focus of the next year, and he thinks it's going to take 9-12 months to get back up to their normal numbers of distribution

Chris says when they open up the waitlist for Section 8 they get 3500-4000 applications

Why is there no focus on housing those 4000 people/families?

There are 400 people left on the waitlist, and it is currently closed.

Josh is asking about the Rental Assistance Demonstration discussed earlier related to privatizing Royal View Manor

There is no requirement for the private company to keep the units affordable, but the city could require it

We're moving on to the next section

Now we're talking about SSMID districts (Self-Supported Municipal Improvement Districts). These are areas where property owners (usually businesses if I understand) pay extra in their property taxes to create a fund to update the area

These are the SSMID districts

I know for a fact that the Merle Hay Neighborhood has been waiting for the city to allocate money to update the Merle Hay Corridor and make it more walkable, in the vein of some of these SSMID districts

As Merle Hay Neighborhood gets less white I wonder if this will ever happen

I would also like to note this is a way to prioritize areas that are more commercialized or more wealthy. Certain areas of the city will never get benefits or programs like this. Another way the city prioritizes businesses over residents

These are called "Self-Supported" districts, but are property taxes themselves not supposed to be a form of self support?

I think I heard Cownie. When did he get here?

We're on to Public Works

It's just really sticking out to me in this section where jargon and acronyms get more confusing how insufficient the automatic subtitles are as an accessibility measure

Budget Breakdown for the Sanitary Sewer program. It sounds like these totals are similar to the previous year

Another Breakdown without the payments to the WRA:

Voss is asking about the payment to Water Works (DSM WW 8%)

Sanders clarifies this is the result of a negotiation with Water Works, that covers more than Water Works' costs, but is cheaper for the city than running the facility themselves

Bill Gray asks if these negotiations happened when Bill Stowe was still in charge

Scott confirms this

Gray says "I thought that was the case"

Breakdown of Capital Improvement Funding

They're talking about finding places where the city needs to expand the sewer service for development or redevelopment

Westergaard is asking about E 38th on the Northeast side and references people who are using well water, and if there were any plans to expand sewer service to this area

Jonathan Gano says there will be a process to decide where they do construction based on PlanDSM

Westergaard concludes that she needs to continue talks with Water Works to get residents off well water, but that it would be nice to also have sewer

Gatto is talking about ideas for future development, and asking about studies related to these. This is related to some state legislative work they're doing

It sounds like Gatto got an answer he's satisfied with

Sewer Separation projects are being discussed. This is the process of turning dual purpose pipes that carried storm water and sanitary sewer into single purpose pipes

They discuss the WRA approved Captial Improvement Projects. Apparently constitute 50% of the WRA's income. I still don't know what WRA stands for, but these meetings are not meant to be understood by those out of the loop

A summary of the Sanitary Sewer section:

Connie asks when the work will be done to make sure all the areas in the city that need them have sewer

I don't think she's getting a clear answer. They're completely relying on development and redevelopment to determine where they expand the sewer lines

It is clarified that trunk sewers are what the city is in charge of, just getting sewer to the area, but developers are responsible for getting sewer up to a building or residence

We've moved onto Stormwater Utility

Gatto sees that there are 21 full time staff in the Street Cleaning division, and asks if we have 21 street cleaning machines for them to operate

It seems Joe Gatto doesn't understand the concept of a work shift. Gano explains this to him

Budget Breakdown for Stormwater:

They have increased the budget in Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) with intention to complete more projects than in previous years

They're discussing the spike in miscellaneous in 2019 from buying flooded homes after the floods in 2018. Let's keep this in mind as the city continues to allow development in flood plains

Breakdown of Capital Improvement Funding

The largest CIP project is improving flood mitigation over the next 5 years for around $57 million

It looks like levy construction is the primary method of flood mitigation. Maybe an unintended function of the levies is guarding the houseless population from surveillance and persecution, which puts the camps in danger of being flooded. This has not been discussed

It sounds like the city is going to get an award for watershed mitigation. Whoo hoo.

Summary of the Stormwater section

Voss asks about discussion around on the south side of Gray's Lake. This is not included in the current budget, as nothing has been specified yet

We're on to Solid Waste, which includes the SCRUB program

I missed the S but CRUB stand for "Cleanup to Reduce Urban Blight"

What it really is is a program that allows people to throw away their junk in a big dumpster. They hold events once a month

Budget Breakdown for Solid Waste:

Westergaard asks about the 1% private property cleanup, and if that's covered by the homeowner

Sanders clarifies that these are referring to the public nuisance abatements when the city goes in to clean-up

Gray asks how successful the city is at collecting those fees when the city cleans up a property they deemed a nuisance

They don't have a clear number, saying it's not a quick process, and sometimes the property isn't worth the amount they are trying to tax it for

Linda is asking about a school they demolished that is owned by a church in California and if they're going to get their money back.

Staff says they'll check on it

Gatto is asking about implementing a curbside SCRUB day for folks who don't have a method to transport their junk. He says he asks for this every year and wants a number for how much it would cost. Especially if they are instituting a property maintenance ordinance

Staff says they'll check on it.

Staff often does not answer Council's questions, or seem interested in operating things in the way that the elected representatives request. Seems that staff just continues to operate things in the way they have planned

Changes in Budget for Solid Waste explained

Josh is asking about the lifespan on Solid Waste vehicles

The answer is 5 years. They can last longer, but it apparently costs more to run them after 5 years

Josh is asking about the electrification of the fleet (buying electric vehicles)

Josh wants a longer discussion on the options for electrification. Sanders says the plan is to respond to what the market has available. He is talking about the risk of using an "untested product"

Gatto is asking about seeing a comparison of the performance between some trucks they bought a few years ago, and wants to see it before they buy anything new

It seems like council is wrestling with staff constantly, being kept away from information they requested

Voss is asking about renewable fuels instead of electric, referencing Dane County, WI using compressed natural gas from their landfills

Cownie says they looked at the option through the WRA. It sounds like there were logistical problems. But they are generating revenue from CNG

It sounds like compressed natural gas is being sold to natural gas customers, but is not being used by the members of the WRA

It sounds like the city has been looking at biodiesel as an option as well

Gray asks how we dispose of vehicles after they have exceeded their useful life

The city sells the vehicles (to whom?) and the proceeds go back to vehicle replacement

Breakdown of rate changes for the Solid Waste utility: there is an increase of 3% with a subsidized 64 and 96 gallon keeping the price the same

They're reshuffling their recycling contracts, ending their current contract in October and making a decision on how to move forward in the future

Gatto wants to improve communication to the public about what can be recycled and what can't

Gano says the "contamination" rate has grown from 10% to 17% and they have done audits where they open a recycling bin and put a rejection tag on bins that contain unrecycleables

The landfill charges recycling a tipping fee of $30/pound of waste, a "systemic problem" that costs twice as much to dispose of waste that goes to recycling

Moving onto Parking Enterprise

The cities 6 parking garages

They're discussing the 5th and Walnut parking garage and needing to do an assessment as they acquire it

Gatto asks about "the new garage" but Nick says they don't currently own it and are working with ABM on the sale

Sanders explains the debt is payed for by TIF (tax increment financing in the area) and the revenue and maintenance costs will break even

Gatto asks "you think we're going to break even with no one working downtown?"

Gatto asks about selling the entire parking system as it "isn't very profitable"

Sanders says he's "very interested in that"

So the city wants to transfer all of our downtown parking to private ownership

New poll: Do you want the city to guarantee downtown parking, or do you want this to be left up to private companies?

I just want to point out what is being ignored: If we didn't spend so much of our budget on the police, we wouldn't have to worry about public services being profitable. We could just provide a service that the public needed and pay for it collectively (with taxes)

They're talking about Garage Occupancy, please excuse the overlay:

Voss asks if this is total occupancy, and staff doesn't even know what data is being shown in the chat they're presenting

Voss says if this is total occupancy then downtown doesn't have a "parking problem" but a "walking problem"

I don't know what this means

Staff moves on

Revenue breakdown for Parking:

and Expenditures:

Talking about next steps:

Transitioning to multi-space pay stations and pay-by-phone for parking downtown scheduled for 2021-23

They're discussing upcoming facility improvement an maintenance. Money is allocated from Capital Improvements over the next three years

Carl asks about plans to remove snow from downtown to make parking meter accessible

Josh is less concerned about the meters and more concerned about crosswalks and transit stops. Why doesn't the city pay to clear bus stops across the city? Residents have to climb over snow banks

Carl says he's concerned about the next few weeks. Jonathan Gano says after the unseasonably cold weather coming in tomorrow it's going to be a few weeks before they send crews in to haul out the snow (it's a nighttime operation)

It's time to take a break. I need one

Sounds like we're landing on a half hour break. We'll reconvene at Noon, and should wrap up at 2pm