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Charter Review Meeting
May 6, 2005
The meeting started at 8:07 a.m. and was attended by: Karen Pletz, Ricardo Herrera, Alice Ellison, Mary Jo Longstreth, Don Porrevecchio, Kelley Martin, Aggie Stackhaus, Terry Ward, Mark Tolbert, Carolyn Vellar, Jim Rice, Phil Snowden and Calvin Williford.
Staff members present were: Greg Williams, Bill Geary, Mark Funkhouser and LaTrisha Underwood.
Guest speakers were: Council members Charles Eddy and Bonnie Sue Cooper; and Sandra Aust, President of the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners.
Terry Ward updated the meeting schedule for the public hearings to be held at various community centers around the city. He reminded the commission that their presence was critical at the meetings.
Councilman Charles Eddy was the first guest to speak. He expressed his appreciation for the commitment that the commission had shown regarding their task. The City had been through several charter change processes before. The last charter change attempt was not approved by the citizens of the city. Too many questions got wrapped up into one issue that did not pass. Too many controversial items were put under the one issue and the voters said no. He suggested separating out the issues that are controversial from the rest of the changes and allow the voters a chance to vote on the items individually. The council will have to work at making the wording more voter-friendly. And the voters need to be educated on what is being voted on.
Terry Ward stated that the commission would work at putting forward a basic proposal with maybe six items. The last time there was one core issue with two or three items attached. The commission would take Councilman Eddy’s proposal under consideration. The goal is to have six or fewer items on the ballot.
Alice Ellison stated that she was in favor of separating out the issues. She also asked if Councilman Eddy had a preference on term limits.
Councilman Eddy said he had mixed feelings regarding term limits. He suggested putting the issue before the voters. The question is how many terms are people serving. The first term you have people running against each other and the voters decide who they want to represent them. In the second term the incumbent usually has no one to compete with. You may end up with a non-motivated representative. Because of term limits an individual wanting to run for office will usually wait for the incumbent to leave office before electing to run. With two term limits you lose a lot of experience and history. Three terms seemed to be better.
Ballot language should be put before the citizens in smaller doses. If you try to give the voters too much to think about at one time they get discouraged and disinterested. He referred to the ballot language on the 2001 Charter change proposal. The wording was almost two pages long. By the time you got to the end of the question you forgot what it was that you were voting on. Limit what you put on the ballot. You can always come back to the voters later with more issues that need to be addressed.
Terry Ward thanked Councilman Eddy for appearing before the commission.
Mark Tolbert made the observation that some people still won’t vote for changes because they think that items not shown on the ballot are hidden within the text of the ballot issue.
Karen Pletz stated that all the items should be put before the people at one time but as separate issues.
Mark Tolbert suggested conducting some type of surveys during the public hearings to get a feel of what people want.
Councilwoman Bonnie Sue Cooper stated that she had three issues to discuss.
Municipal Court judges and who had control of them: The state legislature recommended three branches of courts with all of them under the control of the State Supreme Court Division. An amendment changed that to exclude the Municipal Court Division because the City was a Charter and Home Rule City. So it was put into the Charter to leave the decision up to the City. The retirement age of municipal court judges should be 70 and that needs to be clarified in the Charter.
Term limits: While in the State Legislature she was for term limits. But term limits changed stated government drastically. When you limit terms with regards to your representatives you don’t limit terms in the departments that run government. All the knowledge is with the staff. All the development going on in the city right now it takes months to complete. When you lose the knowledge you lose the momentum. She can now say she was wrong about term limits.
Form of government: She cautioned the commission to keep in mind that the City has a council/mayor/city manager form of government. We have to be careful whose hands we put power in.
Jim Rice agreed with Councilwoman Cooper. It all had to do with power. It has to be about accountability.
Phil Snowden talked about term limits. The commission had discussed options of 12 years total. What was her preference? 12 years or take it off completely?
Councilwoman Cooper said that she would prefer none but could see a compromise of 12 years.
Dan Porrevecchio stated that the commission was trying to resolve the issue of “it takes forever” to accomplish anything. Did the councilwoman think that it was a balance of power issue?
Councilwoman Cooper answered yes. Who do you want to be responsible?
Calvin Williford asked about the Municipal Correctional Institute and if the councilwoman thought that the City should maintain a municipal jail?
Councilwoman Cooper thought not. The City should be in charge however. The service could be contracted out to a provider in that type of business. The facility needs to be looked at closely. You have issues that should not be there and the City should not be trying to handle them. You also have Domestic Violence going through City Court. There needs to be a State system to handle that. At the municipal level you don’t get the attention needed to handle these types of cases and all the things that go along with them. The Municipal Court system can’t handle the problems that occur with domestic violence.
Commissioner Sandra Aust, Parks and Recreation Board President, introduced the Board and staff members who came to lend support. She thanked the commission for the opportunity to appear before the group. She then referred to a newspaper article in the local newspaper regarding Ward Parkway. Ms. Aust explained that the Parks Board received money for endowments to be strictly used for the purposes stated and intended by the donor. There are several hundred partners associated with the parks system. The Park Board is responsible for maintaining trust accounts and none of the money goes into the General Fund.
Ms. Aust also stated that the City of Kansas City, Mo. owned park property that was not a part of the Parks system.
The Board of Parks Commissioners looked at previous draft language and came up with some recommendations on what they felt the Parks Department needed.
- There was a revision to the funding wording. They wanted to try to get “more bang for their buck.”
- They would like to see the East and West Park Districts eliminated. Division should be eliminated. People should have the opportunity to enjoy all the park areas. At one point only a certain section of the city was considered the East Park District. All other areas fell in the West Park District. Roughly 1/4th fell in the East District with 3/4th falling in the West District.
- They would like to lengthen the amount of time the Board can enter into a contract or agreement with a vendor or contractor for operation. Five years is the maximum amount of time now. The Board would like to see that amount of time extended and allow the city to enter into long-term contracts. With the current system it is hard to find vendors or contractors who want to make a large commitment to renovations within the park for short-term periods.
- The vehicle fees (previously under the City Sticker): Currently this is not a problem, but is a potential one for the future. The language needs to be looked at and decisions need to be made. In 2012 the current fee structure is eliminated. Because of wording to legislation and without going back to voters for increased fees, community centers will shut down in 2012.
Mark Funkhouser stated that he would like to work with the Parks Commission on the items that they had presented to the commission as issues needing to be addressed.
Tim Kristol, Board of Parks Commissioners, talked about the Park Levy assessments being on real estate not on improvements. The department has to rethink the way the levy works but it would not generate a tax increase. The Boulevard tax also needs to be addressed. The service residents are being paid for at a rate of $4.00 of service for $1.00 of taxes. Two drafts of the same ordinance went through council at the same time. The wrong ordinance got approved. So in 2012 the assessments vanish.
Aggie Stackhaus said that citizens voted to eliminate the city sticker. She would be reluctant to put something on a ballot that citizens want, and have already voted for. We will have to come back in 2012 for approval.
Ms. Aust stated that the problem of what the department was up against was funding. In 2012, the department would have to start closing community centers because of the lack of funding.
Jim Rice stated that he supported all the recommendations that the Board had come up with. He talked about the marvelous tradition in Parks and Boulevards.
Dan Porrevecchio referred to the packet passed out by the Parks Department. Ms. Aust had made a statement that stated that donations were independent. He wanted to know what percent of the budget was represented by trust accounts.
Ms. Aust stated that none of the trust accounts were included in the packet as well as the number of volunteers that donated their time. Also no donations were included in the packet.
Terry Ward stated that over the last 10 years there had been $81 million dollars in donations.
Karen Pletz thanked the Board for their testimony and for the effort they took in generating the materials for the meeting.
The City Manager moved mowing from Environmental Management to Parks and Recreation. The contracts went into effect on May 1st.
Mark Tolbert suggested the Parks Department partner with churches in the areas of some of the smaller parks in the future to do mowing.
Ms. Aust stated that the department had about 75 partners who have adopted parks and would like to see all parks adopted.
Kelley Martin asked if Ms. Aust supported the current number of Board members.
Ms. Aust said that she did support the number the board has now and that the commission should leave it as such. The number is good where it is. The current number allows more flexibility for board members to perform needed duties.
Recommendations included:
- Keeping park board as it is.
- Address problems with special assessments
- Park Districts
- Number of years for contracts
- 2012 date
City Manager Wayne Cauthen appeared before the commission with information requested from an earlier meeting regarding the organization of city staff. He spoke of an issue in Governess Magazine (Handout on file in the Office of the City Clerk) and stated that it dealt with issues that he has been dealing with since coming to Kansas City. The structure of departments is an issue. The flexibility to make changes to department is needed.
Purchasing is one department that needs to be looked at. Several divisions on Finance need to be looked at. Along with Purchasing there is Risk Management. These divisions need to be moved to other areas.
Design Build needs to be looked at also. He likes the flexibility that enables things to get done quicker. Time is cash. He doesn’t think that Design Build should be used for all projects but would like to have it available. It would help get projects done faster.
Judges want to oversee Municipal Court but he is against that. The court administrator should report to the City Manager. Currently he is looking at staffing problems. They are trying to figure out how to create a step system which they figure would help retain employees and stop or slow down the turnover rate.
Another issue is that the City Attorney and staff can only be removed by an act of the council. He referred to disciplinary actions taken against former attorneys working for the city. The City Attorney is hired by the City Manager. The question is how can the City Attorney represent both the executive and legislative branches of city government?
Board and Commissions – Are they actually needed? There are a lot of power sources in place to keep things the way they are and make them to stay that way. Look at the Charter Commissions. There are some housekeeping situations that need to be addressed. Although the Charter doesn’t need a complete overhaul there are things needed to help make the city become more efficient.
Jim Rice asked if the infusion of power had anything to do with the Board of Parks and Recreation and the Board of Police Commissioners. He also asked about Local 42.
Mr. Cauthen said he had no problems with Local 42.
Calvin Williford asked what his thoughts were with the City maintaining a jail. Particularly since the Police Department was a separate entity. There are mental health issues and problems that are going to plague the City for a long time.
Mr. Cauthen stated that he didn’t believe the City should be in the jail business. However citizens look at the City as a final say. The City sits in four counties and the smaller counties don’t have the resources to deal with these problems and issues but urged them to look at the issue.
Mark Tolbert talked briefly about the turn around in Denver, Colo. If Mr. Cauthen could suggest three areas that he would like to see changed in Kansas City what would they be.
Mr. Cauthen stated that if he could change the psyche of the citizens of Kansas City about what a great city we have. You can’t sell your city to outsiders if the citizens don’t believe it themselves. We are not on the same page but we need to be.
Kelley Martin commented on Mr. Cauthen’s remarks about Boards and Commissions. In a time when the City of Kansas City has to deal with less literally millions of dollars of free knowledge are brought to the table. They can act as agents for the City. There is a high benefit for the City by having these Boards and Commissions.
Mr. Cauthen asked that the commission look at departments with their divisions. He would like to see possibly eight or nine departments with divisions in the Charter. He would furnish the commission with a list of departments and recommendations.
Terry Ward asked if the list of possible department recommendations could be ready in time for the public hearings coming up.
The meeting adjourned at 10:10 a.m.
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