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HomeMy WebLinkAbout07/08/1995 Council RetreatII. III. Vo CALL TO ORDER By Mayor Ed Honea PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Led by Mayor Ed Honea ROLL CALL COUNCIL Ed Honea Sharon Price Tom Clark Ora Harn Herb Kai Cheryl Millner Bobby Sutton, Jr. Mayor Vice Mayor Council Member, excused Council Member Council Member, excused Council Member Council Member STAFF Hurvie Davis Sandra Groseclose Dan Hochuli Town Manager Town Clerk Town Attorney APPROVAL OF AGENDA A motion was made by Ora Harn, seconded by Sharon Price and carried unanimously to approve the agenda as written. GENERAL ORDER OF BUSINESS Informal discussion and action of overall direction of the Town and Council relating to pending and future issues and growth. Topics will include short and long term goals, Department and Staff goals, future Staff/Council meetings, Town's General Plan and annexations, present and future space and building needs and necessary purchase of land, brochure/packets for newcomers and businesses, future fire protection for Marana, revenue, costs and future. Mayor Honea: This is an interaction and a time for Council Members to get to know each other better. There are two things he wants to do to get things started today. He would like each person to give a brief synopsis of themselves. He started with himself. He was born in Tucson at St. Mary's Hospital July 1947. His family had land in the Marana area before that time. When he was two years old he moved to Marana. He went twelve years through the Marana school system, which he thinks is a good system. He has two children, Whitney, 24 and Tiffany, 20. He is very politically active and has been for many years. He was involved in carrying petitions to have Marana incorporated in 1976. Was on the first elected Council in 1977, along with his father. Mayor Honea is married to Jan Lawson, Director of the Chamber of Commerce. Ora Harn: She came to the Marana area in 1960 from Pittsburgh, PA. She has three children and six grandchildren. She has always been very active in the Community and has also been involved in some of the work of establishing the Town of Marana. She has a great interest in social services. She has worked as a volunteer and held many other positions at the Marana Health Center since the mid 60s, she now se~ves as the Executive Director. She is married to Jerry Harn who is retired from ASARCO. Sandy Groseclose: Sandy was born in Iowa and moved to Arizona when she was eleven years old, where she was raised in Phoenix. She graduated from Phoenix College with an Associates Degree is Business. She has two children and one grandchild. She was involved with Marana 4H and also the Little League. She left Bank One and drove a school bus for a few years. She started volunteering for the Town and came to work for them. Bobby Sutton~ Jr.: Council Member Sutton is from Louisiana. He graduated high school in 1987. He came to Arizona with a company he was working with. The first week he was in Arizona he met his wife. When they moved to Continental Ranch he got the feeling what a Community was all about. He was introduced to the option of being a Council Member and thought about it, decided he would love to do it. He is very happy to be in the Town and wants to do his part. Dan Hochuli: He was born in Wisconsin, his family moved to Arizona when he was two. He grew up in the Oro Valley area and went to college at NAU to be a disc jockey. He was a broadcaster in Tucson for a while, but discovered he was not very good. He became an advertising salesperson. His wife's name is Susan and they have been married for sixteen years. He went back to school at NAU and then onto law school at the U of A. He has two children. Cheryl Millner: She was born in Glendale, California but has lived all over the world. She was very active in the school systems in England and Germany and she believes that the future of this Country lies in the educating of our children. She is married and her husband will retire in January after 26 years in the military. They decided to move to the Continental Ranch area partly because of the Marana School District. She is working on an Associates Degree and should obtain that in the next two years. She has one daughter who lives in England and another who is in no hurry to leave home. Sharon Price: She grew up in Maine, where she worked very hard as a child. She met her husband at the Bangor, Maine Fair and they were married twenty eight years. While she was married she did a lot of moving around. She fell in love with Tucson and felt at home in the Continental Ranch area. She has four children and four grandchildren. She graduated high school with honors but never went to college. She started attending the Council meetings to see what was happening on the Community for about a year. She was appointed to the Budget Committee and then into Planning and Zoning. She was appointed to Council and had to run for her first re-election. She has enjoyed the opportunity to learn that she has been given by working with the Town of Marana. She is very youth and family oriented and would like to see the young people in the area succeed. Hurvie Davis: He was born in a farm house in Virginia. After he graduated from high school he went to work for a building supply firm as a truck driver and clerk. He became the assistant manager of the company in 1956. He worked for Coca Cola in Washington D.C. as a truck driver and delivered to the White House. He applied for a job at D.C. Transit and worked for them for about seven years. He went to work in San Diego, California in transportation. After a short time in Oregon he moved to Tucson. He obtained a position with the City of Tucson as the Director of Transportation. He left the City and dealt for a while in real estate. A position came open in Marana and he applied for it and was selected as the Town Manager, he enjoys his work. He has less than three years until he will retire. He has three children and is happily married to his second wife. Mayor Honea: He would like each person to express their goals in the position they hold with the Town. What that position will do in the future and also if changes are needed now. When the Town first began there was no money and the Council ended up being 2 the Staff. He feels the Town needs to redirect some of its energy. Mayor Honea would like to see written policies and guidelines for everything the Town does. He would also like to see the Town's Personnel Policy redone. A lot of the Personnel Policy lean more toward the employees than the Town. This Policy should protect the Town not everybody else. It should be put in the Policy that anyone who works for the Town works for the Manager. This is one of his primary goals, to set up structure. If you surround yourself with intelligent, bright people who do their jobs they will make you look good even if you don't know what you are doing. Ora Harn: Her goals are kind of winding down. She is planning on running for the Board of Supervisors. One of the reasons she wants to do that is to further some of the goals that she had when she came to the Town. If she runs for this position and she wins, she can increase Marana's ability to grow and develop. There are a lot of people in the area that have difficulty with the County and she wants them to be represented properly-. The Town has made some amazing progress and she has had the opportunity to learn and grow with it. She cares about the Town of Marana and that will never change. Right now her greatest goal for the Community is Bank Protection. She intends to spend the next few years of her life working as hard as she can to see that Marana gets Bank Protection. Sandy Groseclose: The position of Town Clerk is to keep the records of the Town. And this still needs to be upgraded more than it is. We currently are putting files on a Clerk's Indexing system. We have a few more boxes to go through to put in the current numerical filing system. She is planning on upgrading the recording and P.A. system in the Council Chambers. She thinks it would also be good for the Town to go back and get old photographs and newspaper articles and make up an album. We need to bring professionalism to the Town Hall. She is looking for a Clerk who will be professional and can do an excellent job. Bobby Sutton, Jr.: Everyone says that Marana is in a transition period, from a small town to a small City. He does not feel that the Town gets the respect that it should, especially from Tucson and the County. He believes we need to let people know that Marana is a force to be reckoned with. The reason a business will not put a Marana address on their business right now is that if someone looks in the phone book, they think they are on the other side of the Interstate, over the mountains somewhere. He feels it is our responsibility to let businesses and people know where we are. We have a public image that we need to work on. He also has a real interest in setting up some type of industry council. Tucson has something similar, but Marana needs to be able to get in the playing field when a big industry would like to come to the area. If we had a group of people or a person that would go and promote Marana to these industries, the Town has a lot to offer. He is really interested in getting the Town Council meetings televised. There are a couple of reasons for that. Not very many people normally come to the meetings and maybe people would watch it on television and know what was going on. Possibly something could be worked out with Jones lntercable. He is really excited about being appointed to the Business Advisory Committee, he will be able to use his experience working with them. Dan Hochuli: The Mayor was talking about everybody working for the Town Manager and he thinks that is interesting. Under the current organizational chart he works for the Council. Other than accessing the Legal Department for the Town he thinks he has access to all the other Departments. Marketing and image is also very important to his department as well as other departments. When people ask him what kind of law does he practice, the first thing he says is he is the Town Attorney for Marana. The biggest goal for him since he took over this job was to make the Town such that every Town problem that comes doesn't open Pandora's Box. Every prosecution file in his office is put into a file and put into the computer database. One of his goals is to establish procedures for as 3 much as possible. Policies and Procedures make things more uniform so that people know what to handle. Personnel is another issue he would like to see handled. He thinks the Town needs a Human Resources Director. The Legal Department should not be handling putting together a Personnel Manual. He thinks the current manual should be destroyed and the whole thing rewritten. The last thing on his goal list is prosecution, he would like to make prosecution less expensive for the Town. Kelly handles prosecution and some months it runs half of the Town's bill for his office. There is not a lot that can be done, the bigger the Town is the more DUI's and that is an expensive case. We can try and get in place where a lot of the garbage that goes on is handled by staff that does not cost the Town anything. He has a new attorney that will start working in his office on August 1st, his name is Dennis Harrison and he currently works in the County Attorney's office with juvenile cases. He wanted to close with some positive notes. This is the coolest Town Council and Town he can image. He has never been so delighted since he has been working with this Town. He recently took a trip with the Town Attorney from Ore Valley and he told some of his stories on what it is like to work with Ore Valley. And when Mr. Hochuli told him what happens in Marana, he could not believe it. One of the amazing things is that he can sit at the Council meetings and see people argue back in forth on and issue, vote on it and two hours later be at the Tumbleweed together patting each other on the back. When it is all said and done seven people, even though they may disagree on issues, they care about Marana and where it is going. Hurvie is the best thing for the Town, he is phenomenal and cares about the Town. The support and respect that Mr. Hochuli gets from the Council gives him the ability to do his job so easily. RECESS Cheryl Millner: She is new at this so she is not real sure what her goals are yet. One of the things that she noticed out here is that there is really nothing for the young people in the area. Some cities have problems with places for youth and they end up turning to gang hang outs. Whether there would be a roller skating rink or an indoor sport of some type in the area. After working in the schools for eight years she has a real strong feeling that kids now days are on a losing track. We need to keep families together and her goals are dealing with the young people of the Community. She also wants to be sure that the communication between Council Members remains open. Regarding the Marana Update, she feels that the information that is put in there must be information that the public wants and is interested in. Does it need to be done monthly. Mayor Honea: Goodyear sends out a quarterly newsletter, which has a lot of neat information in it. Sandy Groseclose: It costs $283.00 for each quarterly to put out with the paper and it goes to 3,000 homes. Hurvie Davis: The newsletter needs m be interesting. Cheryl Millner: She is not sure if she will have the time to do a monthly newsletter, she would suggest doing it quarterly. Mayor Honea: What does Cheryl Millner see that could be done for the senior citizens in the Community. Cheryl Millner: She does not know a lot about what is done for the senior citizens on the north end of Town. Bobby Sutton~ Jr.: The kids need to find something creative and productive to do in the area. 4 Hurvie Davis: This is a very challenging issue. It is really hard to find something that will hold the youth's interest. Ora Harn: When we sit down and think of things for kids to do we usually think of entertainment. What about some projects where they would help people in the Community. Sharon Price: In Continental Ranch there is a Teen Service Project Day. They show up at a certain time and there is something for them to do. It started off real negative and slow, but now it is getting bigger and the teens are coming in with ideas that they want to help with. Hurvie Davis: With the U.S. Home and Westinghouse Projects coming up, that will be all seniors. Ora Ham: There are plenty of older people in north Marana that could use a little assistance. Mayor Honea: He is youth oriented as well, but he thinks that the senior citizens tend to be neglected. Both youth and senior activities need to be developed and some could even intertwine. Mayor Honea: There are a lot of things that could be done. Possibly CDBG funds could be looked at for some of these projects. Sharon Price: When she got on the Council she was not sure in what direction she was headed. All of us on the Council are sincere in our efforts and what we want to do within our Community. The developers that are applying in Marana seem to have an honest interest in the Town. It is very hard to get any community growing if you don't have jobs, schools and homes, all this comes about through developing. She is pro-development but wants to see controlled growth. She tries to think of herself as wanting to respond to the needs of the people. She does not get involved in the workings of the administration, but when people come to her and they have a problem, she feels she needs to answer that problem. We were elected to go out and serve the people and she wants to go out and be a part of the Community. The Bank Protection means more to her now then it did when she first came here. We need to try to work with the Board of Supervisors on this issue. Another issue is getting more people involved in the Community. Hurvie Davis: When he came with the Town of Marana he thought the Town was poor, there was essentially no tax base and a number of outstanding debts on the books. His first goal was to make the Town financially solid. The [na/Thornydale annexation was in the process, he saw how critical this annexation was to the Community. In order to provide service to the public we have got to have the financial resources to do it. He also feels that a professional competent staff is very important. In order to do that he finds it very difficult to put that in place primarily because of the salaries the Town pays. We don't pay the salaries that other jurisdictions pay. Had it not been for his situation, the salary with the Town would not have attracted him. It is hard to get professional staff if you don't pay a competitive salary. His job as the Manager is to carry out policy which is set by the Town Council. It is also his job to advise and recommend to Council on policy, he has always given his advice, whether it is heard or not. He plans to retire in less than three years, if he is fortunate enough to stay with the Town during that period of time he will give his best. We have some good employees in the Town, not to say that everybody we got is a super employee. He strongly believes in a work ethic and a lot people don't anymore. He has seen a tremendous deterioration in the pride and quality of what we do in America, he hopes it will turn around. He thinks Marana is very fortunate, we are a young and small community. He can see the vision that people have for this Community and it sounds great. His goal is financial solvency of the Community and a professional staff. The Council is elected by the people and when the people have problems they have a right to go to you. Every citizen has a right to come to the Town if they have a problem, it is our job to serve them. Mayor Honea: There were a couple of issues that people hit on that should be discussed further. There are a couple that are very important to him. Bobby Sutton, Jr. talked about public image and Sharon Price talked about attitude. We need to promote our Community, to change peoples attitudes. Possibly a committee could be put together to enhance the Town. We need to come up with some maps that show the Town's boundaries, so people know where the Town ends and begins. Sharon brought up a different angle along the same line. That was the attitudes of other municipalities and entities toward the Town. Public image, attitude and inner action could have a major impact on the Community for many years to come. Ora Harn: The Town needs to put out a positive attitude. She talked with Dan Hochuli regarding signage that could give the Town a better image. Dan Hochuli: If the Town of Oro Valley is filling a pot hole, they have a huge sign that says "Oro Valley building a better future" and other lofty things. Especially in the Ina/Thornydale area, let people know they are in Marana with signs. Bobby Sutton~ Jr.: He is not sure how this would be budgeted, but he would like to see a video done. Marana is not just a couple of houses on the other side of the Interstate. Another thing is public speaking, does the Town do any of this. There are areas that need to be worked on with the Town's public image. He would like to see a committee set up to get the word out. Dan Hochuli: People need to know where Marana is, where are the boundaries. Hurvie Davis: Within the last year he went and got ADOT to move the Town limit signs. Now people that use the Interstate know that this is Marana. There should be signs on all the roads where the Town limits exist. Sharon Price: She would like to know when Council Members can use the credit cards given to them. Dan Hochuli: From a legal standpoint it has to have a tie to Town business. Hurvie Davis: For conducting Town business Council is authorized to use the credit cards. You have to use good judgment in whether it is in the interest of the Town. Mayor Honea: He asked for everybody to get the credit cards. The reason he did that is since all the Council Members are spreading out on different committees. If you are meeting with someone for the Town's benefit. He has been on the Council for eight years and has never taken a penny from the Community, yet he has spent thousands of dollars of his own money. It is getting to the point where each Council Members is going to have times where they are going to have Town business related expenses. All receipts are to be given to Roy Cuaron. l-lurvie Davis: This is a lot easier than having to be reimbursed for expenses through the Finance Department. 6 Ora Harn: Roy Cuaron watches the finances of the Town very carefully, if someone comes in with an inappropriate expenditure you will be called. Regarding the Town's image, when you come up to a lot of Towns, the signs will say that the next so many interchanges are for that Town. We really could impress people if the sign said that the next six interchanges are Marana. Dan Hochuli: What about possibly a billboard welcoming people to the Town on the freeway. Hurvie Davis: When this lawsuit is found in favor of Marana for the annexation, we are going to have a billboard just south of the Rillito River that says Congratulations Marana. Bobby Sutton, Jr.: Does the Town have a slogan or a motto. Ora Harn: If we did a quarterly report we could have the public make some suggestions. We could publicly recognize their suggestions which helps create pride in the Community. Sandy Groseclose: It would be nice if we would say "Leaving Marana - Drive Safelf' or something like that. She has heard a lot of good comments about the signs on Moore Road, that it is going to be reconstructed. Hurvie Davis: When he was with the City of Tucson, they put up signs that said "Your Tax Dollars At Work". You need to let the people know that they will be benefiting from these changes. Ora Harn: The cost is very important to have on these signs as well. It lets people know how much these projects cost, a lot of them have no idea how expensive some of these projects are. Municipalities cannot, no matter how much equipment they have, do their own roads, it must be contracted out. Hurvie Davis: There is a force account in State law that you can only do so much value of work by force account. And after that you have to contract it out. Ora Harn: A lot of people ask her why the Town doesn't buy the equipment and do their own roads. Hurvie Davis: A lot people are looking for the money from the annexed area. We have put a lot of money into the north part of Marana, but we haven't done a lot on the south end. Those people are going to be looking for something to be done in their area soon. But until the lawsuit is resolved he is hesitant to go in and incur all these expenses. This is an issue that needs to be addressed in the not to distant future. Mayor Honea: Another thing he would like to discuss is something brought up by Mr. Hochuli that he didn't agree with. He made a comment that individuals should have the right to go an talk to the attorney if their supervisor tells them to do something and they don't think it is correct, he strongly disagrees. We have a structure which says that if you do not agree with your supervisor then you go to the Department Head. He does not think that anybody should be able to come to the Town Attorney unless directed by a Council Member, Town Manager or in direct consultation with a Department Head on a safety or legal matter. Dan Hochuli: The person he was talking of did go through the chain of command. Mayor Honea: If it's a personnel matter, it would go to Hurvie. If it was a legal matter then it probably would be correct. The employees need to follow a chain of command. He is trying to set it up where the Town has some good guidelines. The employee should go to their Department Head who would then contact the Town Manager. And if necessary the Town Manager would contact the Town Attorney. Hurvie Davis: Mr. Hochuli, being a great attorney talks about how it is his job to protect the Town and he agrees with that. But he also sees Dan's job as a way of helping the Town Manager to get things done. Dan Hochuli: Regarding access to the Town Attorney, he really wanted to say that it has not been a problem. In reference to human resources, it is hard to ask Staff to follow the organizational chart when it is hard to understand the chart. Mayor Honea: He does not want to hear from the employees about the problems they are having with their superiors. The employee should go to their supervisor, if not then go to Hurvie. He does not want employees coming to Council Members directly and trying to negotiate. We need policies and procedures to follow. Hurvie Davis: He has had a long standing policy in his career. He has an open door policy, meaning any employee can come in and see him as long as they bring their supervisor. Bobby Sutton, Jr.: On to another subject. He feels that the Town needs to start working with the people that want to come into the Town. We need to let the people who are thinking of coming in that we know what the people of our Community want and what is good for us. Hurvie Davis: In the Town's Personnel Policy there is vacation and personal leave. What this really is is one big vacation package. He would like to have vacation and sick leave. As the Town grows this personal leave is going to kill us. It will be abused and we ought to have vacation for people to take one and sick leave for when they are sick. He has personally had employees that have used every day of sick leave they had. You have to find a way to get rid of the abuse. Also we are coming up on an update to the Town's General Plan and he wanted to throw out how does the Council want the Town to grow. Ora Harn: How do people feel about have an architectural plan as part of the General Plan. Hurvie Davis: He tends to like that idea but there are pros and cons. Sharon Pl'/ce: It would be a great idea if it would work, but when you have a community as diverse as Marana it may not work. Bobby Sutton, Jr.: Talked on the Personal Leave issue. The way he sees it is that a lot of major corporations are changing from sick time to personal time. The reason being because everybody lies about the sick time. Once an employee is out of sick/personal time they do not get paid for missing work. The way it was taught to him is that vacation could be taken either half or full days. Personal time could be taken in as little as fifteen minutes. Instead of having people pretending they are sick he likes the system with personal time. Hurvie Davis: The City of Tucson ended up that there was so much pressure that the City resorted to a policy that if you had so many days of sick leave accumulated you could transfer it to another employee. Choryl Millner: She has heard a lot of different plans for sick and annual leave throughout her years in civil service. Hurvie Davis: The City of Tucson has it set up so your sick leave time goes toward computing your retirement. Mayor Honea: There are ways to credit good employees. Hurvie Davis: How do you catch the small percentage that abuse the system. Ora Harn: Is it still the law that if you give so many days of personal leave and sick leave, that whenever that person leaves the company you pay them for the vacation but you don't pay for the sick time. Dan Hochuli: He would have to research that further. He knows you are not required to reimburse for the sick time, he's not sure about the vacation. He was talking earlier about how strongly the Town needs a Human Resources person, if we hire someone with experience they will have a lot of real valuable input on these issues. Bobby Sutton, Jr.: We have all seen different programs work and Marana is unique so it will need its own system. Dan Hochuli: In his office it is sick leave/personal leave. He does not want his employees to have to lie to him. He feels that he has a great bunch of people in his office that are honest. The more we grow the more you may find that the employees are not telling the truth. Then we could have a problem with favoritism within Departments. Bobby Sutton, Jr.: If it's personal time let them use it for whatever and once the time is gone that's it. Mayor Honea: Personnel Policies on many issues need to be looked at seriously. We also need to look into the Town' s General Plan as Hurvie mentioned earlier. Another item mentioned was the youth issues in the Community. He would like to see a youth issue committee, he asked Council Member Sutton to look in on that. And he would also like to see a committee put together for seniors. We could use the seniors to meld our Community together. The youth issues vary depending upon where you are located in the Town. The kids in Continental Ranch have more access to activities and programs. Maybe a position could be created for a Youth Issues/Seniors Coordinator to help bring in funds for both groups. Sharon Price: Continental Ranch has expanded their activities for both the youth and seniors Town wide. Hurvie Davis: Hurvie Davis brought up that the Town has the Contingency Fund so if Council wanted to do something during the middle of the year the funds are available. Dan Hochuli: Regarding the General Plan, last he knew Jerry Flannery was working on a RFP, where does that stand. Hurvie Davis: There has been a draft RFP out that Staff has been commenting on. In a week or so we will have a retreat with the Departments and this can be discussed. Dali Hochuli: What is the plan on hiring a person for human resources. Hurvie Davis: This position was budgeted for half a year starting in December. FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS None 9 ADJOURNMENT A motion was made by Sharon Price, seconded by Ed Honea and carried unanimously to adjourn. 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 tree and correct minutes of the Council Retreat held on July 8, 1995. I further certify that a quorum was present. 10