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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2009-05-12 Government Operations Committee Minutes Government Operations Committee May 12, 2009 Minutes Councilor Attendance: Wheeler, D’Errico, Blanchette, Gratwick, Nealley Staff Attendance: Farrar, Dubois, Willette, Yardley, Nicklas, Comstock, Irwin, Shaw Others: Ms. Pottle 1. Ordinance 09-155 Amending the Code of the City of Bangor, Chapter 278, Taxicabs, Section 278-1, Definitions, to Allow Taxicabs with a Capacity of Nine People Nicklas referred to a past state law that prohibited more than 6 people allowed in a taxicab. That law is no longer in effect and, after a meeting with the Taxicab Advisory Committee, it has been suggested to allow taxicabs with mini vans or SUV to have a seating capacity of up to 9 people. Responding to Nealley, Nicklas said that the Ordinance only deals with taxicabs and not stretch limousines. Responding to Blanchette, Dubois said that the registrations for limousines and taxicabs are different. The distinction between the two is that taxicabs are a metered vehicle where a limousine is not a metered vehicle. This was moved and seconded and this Ordinance Amendment will be forwarded to the Council with a recommendation for approval. 2. Ordinance 09-156 Amending the Code of the City of Bangor, Chapter 278, Taxicabs, Section 278-3, Taxicab License, to Conform Insurance Requirements to State Standards Nicklas stated that currently the City insurance requirements allow certain kinds of split insurance or a unified insurance. The unified amount is much higher than the split insurance number. In order to keep the cost down for insurance, it forces insurance companies to buy coverage of less than what they would otherwise get. The State does not require such a high amount and in fact only requires half this amount. This amendment would put the insurance requirement in line with the State requirements. This was moved and second to recommend approval of this Ordinance Amendment to the full Council. 3. Records Management/Disaster Recovery Plan Dubois stated that she has worked diligently to develop a Record Management Plan for the City since the City Ordinance designates her as the Records Manager for the City. She was unaware of the types of records that were kept in the various departments, how they were being stored and whether or not they were being retained for proper periods of time, etc. Over the last year Dubois has been meeting with the various departments to insure that they are adhering to the State rules for disposition of local government records. She checked to insure that the standards were being met, such as how long the departments were keeping the records, if there are records that are permanent or historic in nature being properly protected. She looked into whether records that were not required to be kept or beyond the retention period are being properly destroyed. Often times records that are permanent in nature only have one copy and if the City had a fire, for example, and did not have a plan in place, the City would be potentially liable and those records would be lost. Dubois was hoping to develop a plan to utilize the vaults located in City Hall to help protect the permanent records rather than use them for storage areas for things not needing protection. There are also off site departments that do not necessarily have access to vaults and need storage for records that are permanent in nature. The recommended preservation method would be fire proof cabinets or digitizing those types of records so that the City can have an electronic copy that can be retrieved in the event of an emergency. There are other types of disasters that can happen, for example, flood or leaks from roofs and air conditioners that may damages records. This is why the City needs to designate the records that are Mission Critical. Dubios has indicated to the individual departments the need to budget fire proof cabinets over a period of years in order to protect these records. The Health and Community Services has a large volume of Mission Critical Records that are also confidential in nature. The cost to secure those records in either a vault or fire proof cabinets is so expensive and it is not feasible to spend 2 or 3 thousand dollars per file cabinet. Dubois suggests digitizing those records. Another good example would be the photos of the past Mayors in the hall on the third floor of the City Hall. If there was a fire or water damage those photographs could be lost. Digitizing these would be suggested as well. Dubois has provided the individual departments with the Disaster Recovery Plan and has established relationships with the local venders in order to be prepared if a disaster happened and to be prepared with the steps necessary. Responding to Wheeler, Dubois stated that most departments have at least one type of Mission Critical Records. If the City did secure funding for a scanning program, she would not anticipate that all the departments would jump on board immediately because there is hardware that is needed. For example, the City would need at least one or two decent scanners in order to digitize records. The City does not currently have the ability to purchase those scanners for each department. She is proposing that the City buy a couple of them and have them available in the City’s network so that staff could unplug them and move them to another location where once they are plugged in they can be found on the City’s network. Nealley asked if there would possibly be any federal grant money associated with that data which seems to be Mission Critical Data. Dubois said she was aware of some state grants that are available for records management but she stated that it does not apply to the technology piece or capital purchases. She said that she is not familiar with the funding that is available through Homeland Security. She has spoken to the Fire Department and is being told that there might be some funding available but it is not currently in place. She is hoping to secure the funding for the $20,000 to at least get the software in place and then as the City moves forward they can look for funding. Dubois responded to Nealley’s question that some departments are backing up files in the computer currently. As the City moves forward different programs will be purchased and used to take a complex series of steps and make it more digital. This process will take several years to accomplish. Gratwick commended Dubois on her research and presentation. He also commented on the economic times and stated that if it were any other time he would be happy to approve this request. Farrar commented saying that in the budget process there was a request for about $60,000 in capital funding to begin this process. He stated that Dubois has since revised this number down to about $20,000 based on some additional information she has received. He also stated that the Capital Fund comes from non-property tax revenues and is primarily funded ½ of the PERC revenue that comes back to the City. Wheeler commented on the size of the change and asked how Dubois was able to cut the amount by $40,000. Dubois said that initially the software was budgeted for about $40,000 and that was the quote received from the vendor. She expressed her concern over that amount to the vendor and asked them to re-evaluate the amount. They came back with a $20,000 cost and in addition Dubois cut out hardware purchases for this year. She had requested funds for scanning equipment but has cut that out and will only plan to buy one scanner with the existing money left over in this year’s budget. The City had budgeted for $5,000 this year and only $1,000 has been spent on Disaster Recovery Kits. If the City purchases one scanner that will deplete this year’s budgeted funds. The City can move forward if granted the additional $20,000 but, if not, there will be no way to begin the backup of these critical records. Responding to Nealley, Farrar stated that traditionally ½ of the PERC distribution flows back to the Capital Reserve Fund specifically for Capital projects and items that come forward from our various departments for funding. This is a way for us to fund these projects without impacting the tax rate. Wheeler took a vote to see if Council Members would like to see Dubois proceed in this direction when and if these funds become available: Nealley yes D’Errico yes Gratwick no (with the extraordinarily difficult times coming up, he feels keeping personnel is more important) Blanchette yes Farrar stated that there are three actions that the City Clerk was looking forward to receiving tonight. The Committee’s vote was one of them and the others are adoption of the plan as presented by the Clerk, with or without Amendments as the Committee might see fit and the third item was to authorize Dubois to engage Record Management Center to actually restore the records when and if that time should come. There is no cost at this time. It is just engaging them so that they would be on board and immediately available should the City have some type of disaster in the future. A motion was made for the whole package and seconded without objection. Farrar responded to Blanchette stating that the Committee has the right to adopt the plan. If the Committee would feel more comfortable bringing this to the full Council to air and for final adoption, Farrar noted it was certainly an option. A motion was moved and seconded that this be given a recommendation to full Council. 4. Health Promotion Program Update and Initiatives Comstock began by saying the she wanted a chance to update the Committee on the work that is being done and what the Healthy Maine Partnerships does. This is one of 28 Healthy Maine Partnerships in the State and works to ensure a collaborative Public Health System in the Greater Bangor Region. The other piece is health promotion in broad categorical areas of tobacco, substance abuse prevention, physical activity, and nutrition promotion. Work is also done in chronic disease prevention management and identification. The work is population based in the public health model and occurs across the life span. The work is focused on policy and environmental changes and promotes healthy behaviors and discourages high risk choices. This is the same type of work that occurs across the state in all of the Healthy Maine Partnerships. The work is beginning to establish smoke free and tobacco free community events. The Healthy Maine Partnership will be working with the American Folk Festival this summer to sponsor some messaging to occur between acts. Right now the message that is being asked to be played is “fill the air with music not with smoke, remember, we all share the air”. There have also been some conversations with the Parks and Recreation Department about the issues they see around tobacco use in the Parks and Recreation areas. Bonnie Irwin, who is the District Tobacco Coordinator for the Penquis Public Health Region, explained more about the efforts that she is engaged in. One of the initiatives being worked on is smoke free housing. Penquis and the Coalition is planning th a conference in Bangor on June 16 to create awareness for health professionals and housing professionals on the dangers of second hand smoke in multi-unit housing. This all started in Southern Maine in 2002 and was a request of the citizens of Maine who called the Partnership for Tobacco Free Maine looking for apartments that were smoke free. Comstock stated that the City of Bangor assumed a leadership role in making smoking in vehicles with children against the law and the State took hold of that. Irwin spoke about the law that will pass on Wednesday for all state parks and beaches common areas that will be smoke free. Bangor has more parks and recreation sites than the City of Portland. Shaw is a Youth Liaison and works to connect the efforts of the youth in our 12 town service area with the work that is being done with the Healthy Maine Partnership. He is also the Overdose Prevention Specialist for three counties th (Washington, Hancock and Penobscot County). He spoke about an event on May 29 at Paul Bunyan Park at the Skatepark from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. There will be a group skaters come from all over Maine. This competition will be organized by the YMCA in Old Town and there will be six bands coming from all over Maine. There will also be community service providers such as the military, colleges and universities. This event is free. Responding to Blanchette, Shaw said he hopes that people will learn about services provided within the community that they did not know about before. He states that this is not in any way reflective of the Skatepark itself and is just a cool place to hold a unique venue. Yardley spoke about the H1N1 concern and said it was a good example of how the City is doing the work needed in Public Health. The Health and Community Services held a press conference that was attended by the Superintendent, the Police Chief, the Fire Chief, other staff members as well as five members of the Public Health Advisory Board. This was an opportunity to stand up together and give consistent information which is the most important thing in a public health emergency. Comstock and her staff worked with the City staff to put something on the City website and the Cable Access Channel that gives the information that the public needs to know. Yardley commented that he is proud of his staff . They made the information available to all the area municipalities and he thinks that other communities and agencies took advantage of it. He also stated that there is an incredible web platform called “whatyoudomatters.org” that is being used in our media campaign to really get out critical public health information. The Health and Community Services also puts out a monthly newsletter that is distributed City Wide with a distribution of 9,000. Responding to Blanchette, Yardley said that notice for the smoke free spaces will be appropriate signage to remind people and direct them where they can go. The message is not to judge but to help remind people and allow everyone the right to breathe clean air. Blanchette also asked if Harness Racing will be affected and if so, how. Yardley stated that this subject would definitely need to be discussed. 5. Trail Use Survey – Parks and Recreation Willette spoke about the ongoing concern that the Parks and Recreation Department has had regarding dogs, dog owners and their interaction with patrons that are not so comfortable around dogs. It seems that concerns are becoming more prevalent this season possibly due to the fact that facilities are being used more for all of our trails and especially the Rolland Perry City Forest. The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board have been discussing the issue, developed a draft survey and received some feedback. The Board came together once again and developed the Trail Use Policy Survey Draft. This Draft was patterned after a community in Colorado. The difference between the first draft and the second was the need to gather as much information as possible about our users. The Board would like to proceed with the Committee’s approval of the survey. The first step would be to distribute it, and access and collect the data, and see where the discussion goes from there. Willette stated that he just received a call and an email as recently as yesterday from a user of the City Forest, which is not a dog owner, who had three separate altercations with 3 different dogs and their owners. From this individual’s description, none of these encounters went favorably as far as he was concerned. Nealley commended the Committee for their work and agrees that this is a problem. Blanchette stated that there is a difference in Parks and the City Forests. She said that the forest houses natural habitats and when a dog is not leashed and sees wildlife and will take off and chase them. There needs to be something done about this problem. Willette responded to D’Errico’s question and said that he will distribute the questionnaire by using the local media outlets and the City’s Website as well. It has been suggested by the Board to make hardcopies available and also to make use of other agencies such as the Humane Society and local veterinarians if it is allowable. There has also been talk about making them available at each trail head and at the cabin located near the Orono Board Walk. Gratwick went over several of the questions and feels that the survey should be broken down into three sections. One should be a basic approach of the people that go to the City Park and what they think about dogs, second should be about demographics, such as if you own a dog vs. if you don’t own a dog and a last a section about whether or not people think there needs to be a change and if there should be restrictions. He also referred to #21 that asks if people think there should be a dog park in the City of Bangor and where it should be located. Without any objections the Committee voted to give the Parks and Recreation Department approval to move forward with the survey. The Committee was advised via email this afternoon that a resident of Kittredge Rd. has expressed concern about increased traffic and increased parking on the road as a result of the use of the City Forest. Her concern has been forwarded to the City Engineer. Ms. Pottle lives at 369 Kittredge Rd. and says that this is a deadend road with no turn about at the end. She was told by the Code Enforcement office that it was grandfathered into an old law where there was no requirement for a cul-de-sac at the end. She lives at the end of this road and her driveway is frequently used as a turning point. She has complained in the past and was hoping to speak with Tracy Willette regarding speed that is not currently enforced. Blanchette asked that staff look at this situation. She says that she has a problem with the idea that a fire truck cannot go in and turn around. She commended Ms. Pottle for her patience she must have for tolerating her driveway being a place that people turn around and that she is the one that has to pay taxes and maintain it. Willette agreed to meet with Ms. Pottle. He thinks that the Engineer’s recommendation for more signage is a good first step to try to encourage people to go down over the road to the parking lot at the trail head. He wonders if people think that the road is challenging to get to the parking lot at the trail head on Kittredge Rd. He believes that the Parks and Recreation Department has requested some capital funds to try to improve the road through forestry and hopefully that would alleviate some of that issue the City is having at the top of the hill. Meeting was adjourned at 6:35 p.m.