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HomeMy WebLinkAbout03/16/1996 Council Retreat MinutesMINUTES OF COUNCIL RETREAT MARANA TOWN COUNCIL MARCH 16, 1996 PLACE AND DATE Copper Queen Hotel, Bisbee, Arizona March 16, 1996 I. CALL TO ORDER By Mayor Honea at 8:45 a.m.. II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Led by Mayor Honea III. ROLL CALL COUNCIL Ed Honea Sharon Price Tom Clark Ora Mae Ham Sherry Millner Herb Kai Bobby Sutton Jr. Mayor Vice-Mayor Council Member Council Member Council Member Council Member, excused Council Member STAFF Hurvie Davis Sandra Groseclose Dan Hochuli Kelly Schwab Town Manager Town Clerk Town Attorney Town Prosecutor IV. APPROVAL OF AGENDA A motion was made by Bobby Sutton, Jr., seconded by Tom Clark and carried unanimously to approve the Agenda as written. V. GENERAL ORDER OF BUSINESS Informal discussion and action of overall direction of the Town and Council relating to pending and future issues and Erowth. Topics will include short and long terms goals, department and staff goals, junk cars, Code(s) enforcement, weed control, futuro Staff/Council meetinEs~ Town's General Plan and annexations. Present and future space and buildinE needs and necessary purchase of land. Brochure/packets for newcomers and businesses~ future fire protection for Marana, revenue~ costs and future budEet priorities, service levels and future sexual harassment and violence in the work place ~=nlnln.~.. Kelly Schwab: Ms. Schwab gave Council a presentation on sexual harassment and violence in the work place. Ail Town employees have received training on what sexual harassment is and what can be done to prevent it. Council watched a video before Kelly continued with her presentation. Hurvie Davis: He told the employees this is no place for sexual harassment in the work place, it's not in their job description. If it happens we want to know about it. Kelly Schwab: We have also come out with a statement against violence in the workplace. We have a Buildings Facilities Security Committee which was meeting to look at the individual buildings and determ/ne how they could be made safer. MINUrES OF COUNCIL RETREAT MARANA TOWN COUNCIL MARCH 16~ 199~ Bobby Sutton, Jr.: At Council meetings we sometimes have irate citizens, has it been discussed what would happen if there was a problem at the meeting. Kelly Schwab: When we know there is a controversial issue on the Agenda we have called to Police Department and had officers available in the area. Ora Ham: Several yeas back there was an employee under investigation and about to be terminated. Council Member Ham had threatening calls being the Mayor during this time. Mayor Honea: We need to make sure that if we receive any threatening calls that they be reported immediately. Sharon Price: She has had this happen and the police were on the situation immediately and she really appreciated that. Tom Clark: When he was getting threatening calls at his home it was incredulous that an officer was there that quickly. Dan Hochuli: One thing we need to be more careful about is consistently at the Council Meetings the buzzer doors are propped open. We ali need to be aware of the security we have and use it. Kelly Schwab: Violence in the work place has tripled in the last ten years. One of the most volatile situations is not employee against employee but disgruntled family members. We need to work with our employees through training and education, to let them know if they are in a situation at home to let their supervisor know. She would recommend that the Town implement a policy where there is no weapons allowed in any Town buildings. Dan Hochuli: We have planned for a metal detector in the future Court House. Kelly Schwab: We are exposed at the Town Hall the way it is, it's real open inside and out. We also need to work on having some sort of crisis management plan in place. One thing that the Police Department has in place is a psychologist who is on call 24 hours a day. Sandy Groseclose: We have looked at putting in a buzzer or a switch for the Judge, this could also be done for the Council Members as well. If they feel uncomfortable or a situation is there they could flip a switch and a light would go off somewhere. Sherry Millner: Is there counseling available to employees. Kelly Schwab: She thinks that counseling is a cheap prevention policy even if the Town had to pay for it. Mayor Honea: Insurance may pay for some of it. Ora Ham: At the Marana Health Center we have services that can be obtained through a sliding fee scale. Sandy Groseclose: The Police Department can require an employee to go to counseling. What about other employees. Kelly Schwab: We need to look at our policies and put that in place. Mayor Honea: He wanted to give each person in attendance a few minutes to assess the last year. He personally has been very pleased this year, it has been a tremendous challenge. Our Council and our Town is probably the most respected government in Pima County. We have made great strides in the last year, we finalized the annexation which makes the Town financially secure. We here a lot of very positive things about our Police Department, they are very well respected. Mr. Davis has done a lot for the Town, when he came on it brought us up a level. Bobby Sutton, Jr.: He is happy and proud to be in a position where he can help the local Community. He also believes that the Council does a great job. The annexation has been settled 2 MINUTES OF COUNCIl. RETREAT MARANA TOWN COUNCIL MARCH 16~ 1996 and we are financially secure, we can hopefully make some good decisions. He doesn't have any preconceived notions of where he wants the Town to go, just when they come around he wants to be in a position to research it and make the best choices for the Town. Tom Clark: He is glad that the annexation lawsuit is settled. He is also concerned about bank protection in the Town. In reference to the MTC facility people have expressed a lot of concern over the administration. He wants the facility to remain the size it is and not expand. He has really enjoyed the way the Council has worked together. Sharon Price: Our employees are grossly underpaid. She is concerned if we try and take in other residential areas that they are going to require more services and more police protection. We aren't really paying our officers or other employees as much as we should be. People are concerned with why we are trying to be so aggressive with annexations. Council Member Price is also very concerned with the schools situation. She would have liked to have seen the over ride go through, it did not pass. Marana Unified School District is a good district despite the over crowding. She would really like to expand on recreational facilities for the children as well as adults. Sherry Millner: She has found this last year to be a real learning journey. She sees both pluses and minuses in the Town. She feels that tremendous growth real fast could cause a lot of problems, schools is the perfect example. Our school system in Marana has a real problem, and she's not sure what the Council can do to help. She sees a lot of exciting things happening in the next year that she is glad she is a part of. Ora Ham: She is looking toward the end of her term of office. Even if she doesn't win the state position she probably won't try again for a Council position. She remembers the first time that Ron Tankersley talked to Council Member Ham about the first annexation which included the Sportspark. She was overwhelmed with the thought of annex/ng way down there. The real concern was were we going to far with the Town. She does not believe she ever worked with one Council Member on the Marana Town Council who really wasn't concerned about the well being of Marana f'n'st and foremost. That shows in what has happened to Marana over the years. She feels very good about Mayor Honea's leadership, he is a person who really cares about Marana. She feels very good about what's happening in the Town. She will always remember with fondness and appreciate how gracious all the different Council Members have been to her and the Staff. Hurvie Davis: He is excited and has been since the first day he came with the Town. He is excited right now because of where the Town is and where the Town is going. He takes pride is his career and what he has done and he would like to leave on a positive note. His term will be up before to all. His primary objective when he came to the Town was getting an economic base, improving the financial condition of the Town. This year our budget is for $10.7 million, it will probably increase some next year. He is pro-business and pro-growth, we need quality growth. In order to provide serv/ces to the citizens we have to have a tax base, we have to get revenues to do that. Ii' you don't have the revenues you can't provide services to the people. We have a lot of challenges facing the Town as it grows, and growth outside the Community that will affect the Town. We need to start taking a serious look at the infrastructure problems. We've talked about flood control, water and sewers and so forth. We also need to talk about a transportation system as well. The worst thing that you can do is lose good staff, turning over staff. He don't care if you get as good a person in, you've lost productivity during the transition period. We need to maintain our Staff. In reference to his leaving the Town, what to do about a replacement. It has been suggested that maybe someone could be brought in as an assistant manager up to a year before Mr. Davis leaves. Or someone could be brought in for the last six months and there would just be a transition period. This is the Council's decision, a year from May of 1997 will be his last year. This is a major decision that the Council will have to face about two years from now if not sooner. Sandy Groseclose: She is very proud to work for the Town and very proud of the Town Council. She loves working for the Town and puts in a lot of hours. Working with Hurvia Dav/s has been very rewarding, she has learned a lot from him. One of the projects she is working on right now are the history of Marana. Lily Grijalva has moved over to Public Works where she is helping Bob Kern. In addition to that she is working on the h/story of the Town. We have some citizens who were here along before we were, they have been asked to contribute any information or photographs that they may have. She also feels that it in extremely important to be responsive MINLrI'ES OF COUNCIL RETREAT MARANA TOWN COUNCIL MARCH 16, 1996 to the citizens. The Town Hall reflects on the Council, we need to be responsive in a positive way to all the citizens. She is trying to support the youth in the Community any way she can. She works with the Police Explorers and the Youth Group. An area that we need to work on is with the senior citizens of the Town, they need their place in the Community. Dan Hochuli: He has changed a lot in the number of years he has worked for the Town. The growth of the Town has been phenomenal He also has learned many things from Hurvie Davis, both professionally and personally. It will be very difficult for the Town to f'md someone to replace him. As far as working for the Town, the Town has made a lot of progress. We are so much more organized now, there are procedures and policies in place. He is really pleased with the work the has been done on the Town Code, and continues to be done. Another thing he is pleased about is that when he started with the Town there was a lot of outstanding litigation. This year there is only four lawsuits, which for a Town our size is very good. The one problem that he perceives in the Legal Department is the extent of the work they do. We want to improve serv/ces to the Town while decreasing costs, that is really hard to do. One of the ways you want to do that is start training Departments on how to write their own IGAs. Find a way to have the Town draft Ordinances and Resolutions and running it by the Legal Department for review and revisions. Prosecution got very expensive for a period of time, it's been cheaper for the past couple of months and we are working on trying to reduce that as well. If any one has any suggestions or questions he would appreciate it if they would ask. He looks forward to workinE with the Mayor and Council and streamlining proceeds and keeping the Town out of trouble in the future. Hurvie Davis: He still has a number of employees that are on the learning curve. He is trying to get something set up so Staff members learn to write better. Mr. Hochuli has a unique ability to write. RECESS Hurvie Davis: He would like to know what everybody's top budget priority is this year. Staff`has already started putting the budget together. Mayor Honea: He would like to be able to provide a mechanism for the senior population of the Town. In order to do that we should expand the facility at the Park, we had the money from CDBG last year to expand it and we transferred the money to a more pressing project. Sharon Price: Our seniors are the life blood of the Community in Continental Ranch. They do our networking throughout the Community for us, they come up with projects and ideas. What we are finding the need the most is some means of transportation. Ora Ham: There is a program put on by the State which is called a 16B2 project. That is a project that happens once a year where people put in a proposal for vehicles and the Department of transportation will pick up 80%. Mayor Honea: That would probably even be the next fiscal year, even if we applied and were successful at a program like that. We talked about this last year at the retreat, doing something for the seniors and it all fell through. Maybe we should take some steps to start organizing and coordinating some of these things. Hurvie Davis: The 16B2 Program is on the Management Committee meeting this past week. It will be on the Regional Council Agenda in about two weeks. Perhaps we could set up a mechanism of some type to try and get something going. Ora Harn: One of the things we need to do is cooperate more with the school. We have the advantage of having the park and the school in the same proxinlity. We need to work more with the school about having the gym opened. Mayor Honea: He would like to see a senior center where senior citizens could plan activities, this would be their area. Bobby Sutton, Jr.: The recreation center is a fifteen, twenty minute drive from Continental Ranch, some people can't make it up there. If we do something it should not only incorporate the seniors but also deal with the youth. 4 M]NlJTES OF COUNCIL RETREAT MARANA TOWN COUNCIL MARCH 16, 1996 Mayor Honea: We are looking to be able to provide amenities and services to the senior citizens in the Community, having a coordinator would be the first step. A lot of senior citizens are in good health and are capable of doing things, they just don't know where to go. Ora Ham: We need to get somebody who knows how to coordinate programs. Then we may need to help a group form a non-profit organization. A non-profit organization could bring in more funding from the State and federal governments. Mayor Honea: A couple things have happened in the last month that have disturbed him a little bit. One was with a fund raiser that involved the kids from the north end walking to Continental Ranch. The kids told the coordinator they did not feel comfortable in Continental Ranch. We need to do things to really tie the Town together to prevent this. One thing may be the Post Ofiice~ addressing all areas in the Town limits with a Marana address. Sharon Price: There has been an effort to get the new Post Office designated as Marana, and there continues to be. Mayor Honea: With him delivering mall he sees a lot of marl come and go that is addressed as Tucson when it is technically in Marana. Sharon Price: We also need to work on getting Marana all in one district. Mayor Honea: About 50% of the population lives in Continental Ranch and the other 50% live in the north and west ends. The 50% of the people that live in Continental Ranch are in a different legislative district. Sharon Price: That is something that needs to be corrected immediately. Mayor Honea: Another issue that is coming up within the next couple of weeks is fire protection. You have a Northwest Fire District Station in Continental Ranch right now. We're hoping to have one on the north end soon, at least temporarily for the next year. His goal would be by the end of the next fiscal year is that the Town have everything is place to vote that fire district in Town wide. He doesn't think it is fair for the entire Town general budget to pay for fire protection on one end when the other end is paying for it with their property tax. He feels it is all right to at least get it started so the infrastructure can be put in place. If we can't convince the people on the north end that they should allow themselves to be taxed for this protection, then they shouldn't have it. Ora Ham: She agrees. One of the issues that came up was what if the Town wanted to be the municipal fire provider. On the books is a law that says if the Town should want to provide Fire protection they can always do that, as long as it is adequate or better then what the district has. Mayor Honea: Northwest Fire District has been very helpful within the Community and they are a good group of people. He would like to see a ballot initiative on in 1997 to elect the mayor out right, he feels that is a good idea. If it was on the ballot in 1997 and approved it could either take effect in 1999. Dan Hochuli: If two people runs for mayor, one would win and one would lose, that means the loser is off the Council. By design you have removed one good person from the Council. Mayor Honea: We are economically sound enough now that we need to start looking at some monetary payment to the Council. Bobby Sutton, Jr.: If it's looked at as compensation it would not come about, all it is is a reimbursement for expenses. Mayor Honea: We are getting to the point where the people that are running for office are either retired, a spouse that doesn't work or somebody that doesn't have to get up and go to work everyday. He thinks something should be put on the ballot. MINIfI~S OF COUNCIl, RETREAT MARANA TOWN COUNCIL MARCH 16, 1{)96 Sherry Millner: It looks like the average is $500.00 per month for the Mayor and $200.00 for each Council Member. Dan Hochuli: The way it was perceived in Oro Valley was that these people choose for their commitment to society to run for this office. They knew going into it that there was no money. Sharon Price: She feels that $500.00 and $250.00 is a little to much. Mayor Honea: He definitely feels that something should be put on the ballot. Bobby Sutton, ,Ir.: He we substantiate it before we even make it an initiative next year, we should all start putting our expenses down. Mayor Honea: Most of the people that he has talked to feel that they should get some type of compensation. Sherry Millner: Right now we can't claim any of our expenses on our income tax, we are not paid employees. Even if we were paid a dollar a month that would help in the long run. Dan Hochuli: If the goal is to just reimburse Council Members for their expenses, then you ought to just reimburse yourself for those expenses. If some Council Members are going to turn in all their slips for expenses and get reimbursed and also take their salary then it will be odd. Ora Harn: When she would turn in her phone calls to the Town to be reimbursed she couldn't take off the phone calls she made to her business. There are more expenses to your vehicle then just gas, you have wear and tear and maintenance. As far as she is concerned Council Members really need to be reimbursed some how. Council Member Sutton, .Ir. had to leave the meeting. Hurvie Davis: We have gotten a lot of flak in Town for junk cars and Code enforcement that we control. We are starting to crack down on some of those and we want to know if that's what the Council wants Staff to do. Mayor Honea: Junk cars are a public nuisance, he supports Staff. Ora Harn:Shehasbeen working with Waste Managementandtheyhavebeenpu~ingdumpsters tn differentareasofTown, and PimaCoun~ hasbeenacceptingthosedumpstersatnocharge. VI. FUTURE AGENDAITEMS None VII. ADJOURNMENT Meeting wasa~ournedat2:25 p.m. AUDIO TAPES OF THE MEETING ARE AVAILABLE AT THE MARANA TOWN HALL CLERK'S OFFICE. CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are the true and correct minutes of the Town of Marana Council Retreat of the Marana Town Council held on March 15, 1996. I further certify that a quorum was present: ................ ~