Thread by @AndyHS

At City of Fresno’s Budget Meeting June 11,2019! On the agenda is budget reports for:
City Attorney’s Office City Clerk’s Office
General City Purpose (Includes Retirement) City Council Offices
Mayor and City Manager’s Office

All Councilmembers present except @GarryBredefeld City Attorney Douglas Sloan presenting budget. His 6th Budget Hearing. Provides legal services to all Officials. Better economy results in more work for Attorney Oftice. Most cases settle for nominal amounts. 45 bankruptcies.

@GarryBredefeld is now present at dais. Attorney Office has 6000 appearances in court last year. ASET (anti slum Enforcement team). It is an inexpensive way to solve Code Enforcement problems. Use law students to help. Have hired some of those. Bredefeld asks how many receiver-

ships: 45. Mostly single family homes. Sometimes occupied but often vacant/squatters. Bredefeld asks about apartments run by slum lords. Sloan says receivership is a hammer and that most owners comply before that. Bredefed thinks it should be expanded to large apartment complex.

Sloan: if we hear about them we will investigates. We do need more resources to investigate more. @D7Esparza made a motion the other day that may help. City Manager Quan has reservations of moving neighborhood task group over to Attorney’s office. Sloan says 1300 requests for

legal services in 2014 but now 2300. PRA (public records) are especially high with SB 1421 and AB 748 has allowed more police records to be released. Each paper has to be individually looked at so confidential papers are not released. Municipal codes; specific plans, General

Plan MEIaR update, Election , campaign ethics etc ( need to be done quickly). Contract counsel costs:$2.1 M in 2019. Rates can run from $360 to $616 per hour. If we can do it in house it is much better value. Budget : withdraw Transaction Attorney. Fund four law clerks $75,000.

Options for 2020 budget : Fund liquor inspections. Important: hire PRA personnel at $81,000 each. Increase Contract Counsel to $200,000. @Esmeralda_Soria thanks for entire attorney team. Motion: cost saving by in house attorneys. Fund CLA training, office supplies, paralegals,

Retention of current attorneys so they are not lost to private firms. Chavez Seconds That Motion. @MiguelArias_D3 does attorney office charge other City departments for service? A: YES. Q: police is largest liability for city. Does PD have own attorneys? A: NO. Arias: Council

had to absorb increased costs for IT, rent etc. Does attorney cost absorbed too or is it different ? Arias makes motion to add C,E, G. Chavez Seconds. @D7Esparza thanks for Power Point. Motion to approve A budget analyst. Which is more useful:Legal investigators or Paralegals?

Esparza makes motion to approve two more legal investigators. Second by Chavez. Chavez asks about page regarding 2019 #’s A: Sloan says they are prorated for rest of year. @PaulCaprioglio says City Attorney Staff would be a top firm if they went into private practice. Bredefeld

says staff does a superb job with great challenges. Moving on to City Ckerk’s office. Yvonne Spence presents: clerks office helps to provide a system of checks and balances to ensure democracy. Elections official, ordinances and municipal codes , campaign finance , records&

Archives, Public inquiries as well as Agenda. Progress: added Granicus e-comments , Future: working with County Clerk on California Voter’s Choice Act. Videos are posted to website by Friday after Thursday meetings. Electronic Kiosk allows quicker posting of notices. Over 400

PRA (Public record requests). Requests for Mayor’s budget didn’t fund most of what Clerk requested. Arias asks where costs for special election were paid from? Q: top priority? A: Records Management. Management Consultant is $50,000. Are certified and knowledgeable in private

and public. Q: what is liability if we don’t have adequate record management? A: Sloan says not much Q: arias asks if each department could absorb their costs for records management? Why wasn’t audit done on records management? A: Assistant Jane Sumpter says financial costs.

Arias: makes Motion to approve Management Consultant. @PaulCaprioglio coujdbit Be Records Supervisor instead? A: one is permanent. Moving on to General Purpose items: Budget Director Henry Fierro leading this part. It holds most of the debt service for City. Continued funding

311, Granite Park, Fresno Fair, Homeless , Public parades , Youth Leadership Institute are within this Department. Soria : asks how many historical preservation projects are served with the $50,000? Quan says not all $50,000 was spent but program is picking up. Single family

residential. Began as mitigation for Fulton Street. It is on DARM website. Soria: animal control contract update? Quan: this will be on Council agenda this Thursday. Staff Laura Romero says contract extension for Thursday. RFQs is out but need extension until those are vetted.

No RFQs has been received but most come in last days of the 60 day window. Asking a one year extension with another year option. Soria:has concern with one year extension. Doesn’t seem to be any improvement. Quan: there is no back up option. Arias: minimum wage increase but most

of staff has been there long enough that most are not at that lowest level. Soria: Homeless Assistant At $50,000? A: H Spees says it is city’s contribution to Street to Home Initiative. HEAP has already been dedicated. Public and Private connected have a better success rate

Street to Home is a new non profit. Kaiser and Housing Authority among those that helps fund. @MiguelArias_D3 Location of petty cash in General Purpose Department. Staff Kelli says City goes to trade shows etc. Arias asks why this isn’t in Economic Development who got $50,000

Staff Will says they responded to 60 Leads that came to the office as well as Team California. As largest entity in Fresno County most come to City. Example a Chinese owned company moved here after a lead in 2017. Takes multiple years to go from lead to fruition. Arias would

EOC can provide written paper on what results were generated with $100,000. @MayorLeeBrand says City doesn’t have resources to go after companies directly but we profile companies that come to trade shows. $100,000 is a bargain. Arias: what is Fresno Fair $25,000 used for?

@District5Chavez helping with green space at Maple and Butler. $25,000 for maintenance and operations. Arias jokes that will it be used for statue of Chief Dyer. 😀Arias Asks what parades are funded with the $50,000? A: Pride parade, Veterans, Chinese etc. 8 total. Arias: Food

Expo is $68,000. This is is their 9th one. Are they supposed to be independently now? A: it is now expanded to be California Expo and so needs support still. It is 10% of total budget. Arias: Granite Oark appears here. Why not Parks ? A: this is a pass thru for administrative

purposes. @GarryBredefeld asks about Youth Leadership Institute. A: they advise Council. Q: what do they advise us on? Do other cities do this for free rather than $100,000? Chavez says they did advise on liquor stores, tobacco, clean up, cannabis locations. Bredefeld thinks

that is all good but does it have to be funded? Soria: unless Bredefeld staff will take it on full time then it is necessary. Work hand in hand with City and help trains next leader. Bredefeld says let’s cut $100,000 and he will find someone to run that program. Makes Motion to

do that. Soria: says she cannot support. Bredefeld says money can be used for 911 etc. No second comes forward. Bredefeld asks H. Spees about $50,000 for homeless A: comes from carryover from last year. Doesn’t include $3.1 M that has been awarded but dedicated. This is for MOU

for organization that will help drive down homelessness. 10% of patrol officers time is spent with homeless issues. This will create the will between these entities that will make up the organization. City is a small item among those groups and this will give us leverage. Chavez

says several projects have come to his district from Economic development. Motion for Historic Preservation for 100 anniversary. Motion: $40,000 for Cesar Chavez mixed use project on Kings Canyon Blvd. @PaulCaprioglio Food Expo: does that cost factor into exhibit hall rent? A: NO

A: There is a separate cost Food Expo pays as a credit (?). Arias wants lost of all credits. Caprioglio asks if Food Expo helps create jobs in Fresno. Is that true? A: YES. They can provide those numbers. Q: Land Acquisition? A: rollover. Parking lot that County partially owns.

Maybe purchase for an Economic or housing reasons at Parking Lot #2 Would go back to General Fund if not used. Arias will buy Quan coffee to discuss this. Arias makes Motion to cut state lobbyist from Budget. Bredefeld Seconds @PurpleR74875827

Is $3.1 Million all for HEAP? YES. Caprioglio asks about Comcast franchise fee to CMAC. Sumpter: it is a pass thru and contractual. $1.6 million to Amazon, Ulta for 2019. City receives $400,000 back. Sumpter says program ramping up. Tax revenue from sales tax and property tax.

Twitter acting up. This photo is what I was trying to send.

City Manager Quan says the Council has been given 50 requests for information so just to be mindful. Soria says if we need to bump final budget until June 27th they may need to. Moving on to Mayor and City Manager’s Office budget presented by Henry Fierro. Comes from General Fund

Have added two new positions. @MiguelArias_D3 asks about last year to this year budget. Would like memo on how Departments percentage went up. Council budget includes health care cost but not staff raises. Are those costs absorbed by Council’s base budget ? @D7Esparza what is the

Positions added to mayoral office ? An executive assistant to City Manager is one. Esparza would like his discretionary budget moved into base budget of Council. @MiguelArias_D3 Motion: public safety memorial Infrastructure :Budget for each Council ($1.4 M to trim trees in 2

neighborhoods per Council :$200,00 per Council) and $500,000 for Immigration Task Committee that was recently created. Bredefeld questions the cost. Arias says maybe no proposal will be brought forth or cost neutral. This ends Budget Hearing for today. Next is tentatively sched-

uled for June 18th and then the 20th. The 27th is tentatively reserved too. @threadreaderapp unroll

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