We started
>> six o'clock. Everybody ready? Dave's
gonna be late tonight.
>> Mayor Dave. Yes.
>> Good evening. It's my pleasure to
welcome you to the Verona Burough Super
Committee workshop meeting of 17
February 2026. Please join me in
standing for the pledge of allegiance.
>> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all.
>> Roll call, please. Mr. Dailyy,
>> Spurland,
>> present.
>> Council Dalis,
>> present.
>> Councilwoman Rodriguez,
>> present.
>> Dr. Carpenter
>> present. Also a council on
>> Councilwoman Provenza
>> present.
>> Uh Councilman Long is absent and
president
>> present. Thank you.
There are no registered comments from
the public. So we will move on to
comments from the public.
At this time council where will hear
comments on public related matters.
Please approach the podium or raise your
virtual hand. State your name and
address and limit your remarks to three
minutes. Comment should focus on burough
business policies or actions. Council
encourages thoughtful feedback on
decisions and performance while
maintaining respectful and constructive
dialogue. Hi Sandy.
>> Good evening.
>> Um Sandy for Vicki Bell. I am um I just
need some clarification on the last
meeting which was last Tuesday regarding
the uh burough managers reports
for 8 C number two which reads garden
code request for DPW hanging basket
watering payment
with a a remark made and I'm not sure
who made the remark that there was a
thousand dollar donation
I'm wondering if that was a dollar a
$1,000 donation from burrow to club or
was it club to burrow.
Uh in addition, I was wondering if the
request is for deep
to both hang the baskets and water the
baskets.
In addition, I was wondering who is
paying for DPW's time and the water.
And my last question there was why
wasn't this put forth as a motion with a
roll call vote? I mean I have my
suspicions as to why but I'd like to
hear from you. You are changing
contractual duties and job descriptions.
Uh if DPW has this kind of free time, do
we really need three employees there?
Maybe not.
What happens when there's a conflict
between DPW's burough responsibility
in a conflict with the club schedule.
What happens if there's an accident?
If the DPW individual gets tangled up in
the hose and falls and breaks a leg or
an arm or ribs or whatever, he can't
work for an extended time within the
vert.
Okay. I understand that Jason consulted
with the BPW and they have time to do
this. However, you are the employer. You
detailed the responsibilities,
not vice versa.
In addition to that, I was wondering has
anyone on council consulted with the
labor lawyer who's on retainer if this
is a throw or not?
I'm just saying council needs to
refer the Pennsylvania ethics commission
instead of making conflict
of interest because there are
representatives of the council who are
also representatives
of the garden club
and it was put to a motion.
Those people you might might have been
able to abstain. It wasn't put to a
motion. just slid through it. It's like
I don't understand.
>> You have 10 seconds, Danny.
>> Whether transparency is
happening here. Thank you very much.
>> Thank you.
>> You're okay if I set my time for you as
well, right?
>> Um Jason, why don't we work on getting a
detailed response together for Sy's
questions? I know we have various pieces
of that, but that way it's a fully
comprehensive reply. Sure.
>> Perfect. Thank you.
Are there other public comments?
Anything on Zoom that you could see?
>> Okay, very good. Without further ado, we
will actually be moving on to discussion
items. The first item, item A, is
committee report on priorities. This
will be a continuation of our earlier
super committee workshop exercises that
we did with our wonderful consultant,
Tracy Holst.
Okay.
>> Thank you, Council, for having me again
and working through this exercise. I
thought it was really fun. I'm just
wondering.
>> Can you turn it on, please?
>> Oh, the mic.
>> The mic.
>> Oh, it off.
>> Yeah, I think so. I forgot to ask Cindy
to turn it on.
Hi.
>> You just put that all the way to the
top.
>> Hello.
>> All the way up to the top.
>> Hello.
>> Yeah. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Okay. Yep. Absolutely.
Um so anyways, thank you for having me.
Um we um we if you recall we did this
exercise with the priorities and
everything like that. And I'm going to
turn it over to Trish to talk a little
bit about
>> it. It's there.
>> It's a delay. Okay. Sorry. Um to talk a
little bit about the super Oh, my fault.
>> Here we go. All right. Here we go. So,
Trish, you want to take it away and you
could start us off and then I'll kick in
after this.
>> Yes. Thank you, Tracy. We'll probably be
picking it back and forth and across the
board. Tonight um I introduced the
committee titles and who is on them at
our last council meeting. Being tonight
is the super committee workshop meeting
and we will be deep diving into the
committee priorities for this year and
beyond. I wanted to spend some time
going over the scope of each committee.
Um so the first committee is a new
committee. It's the executive and
administration committee. This captures
a lot of the sort of behind the scenes
tasks that often fall on the president
in a more formal and transparent manner.
So the scope of the executive and
administration committee which is headed
by myself with the vice president and
the president prom is oversight of
operations and personnel responsible for
overseeing burough operations
intergovernmental coordination and
refining council business procedures. It
also incorporates strategic liaison
roles. it will act um the committee or
the members will act as the primary
connections to regional organizations as
we already often do like the ACBA
hopefully connect eventually um possibly
alam I know Sylvia um also represents us
with that um but also like the COG the
council of government and attending
local municipality meetings such as
attending Oakmont meetings um
periodically um so there's a number of
priorities but we'll get into that a
little bit later um does anyone have any
questions about the scope of that
committee. If not, I'll move right along
to the second committee, finance,
grants, and long-term fiscal planning.
This is headed by Nancy with um John and
myself participating. So, this committee
will encompass long-term fiscal
sustainability, focusing on budgeting
practices, spending efficiency, and
managing the bureau's capital fund as
well as pensions. It will also
incorporate grant management strategy
managing a grant schedule and timeline
to leverage external funding in place of
bureau funds whenever possible and also
ensuring that we have the appropriate
matches for these grants. Um any
questions on finance? I think most of us
are pretty familiar with finance.
The next committee um will be headed by
uh Councilman Gllis which is
communication and community engagement
responsible for transparency and
accessibility. It will oversee bureau
communications and platforms including
providing input for the website, social
media and assisting with text alerts. It
will also incorporate a better mechanism
for resident feedback loops,
coordinating with a new citizens
advisory board to develop systems for
gathering feedback and ensuring our
ordinances are public facing such as
being placed on EC code 360 in a timely
manner.
Um, that one will also have
participation from Kelly and Curtis. Are
there any questions on that one?
Next is committee four, planning and
active transportation. This committee
will focus on planning largely including
connectivity and pedestrian safe safety
investigating sidewalk systems and
community connectivity with a specific
focus on development including our
riverfront development. It will focus on
sustainable growth incorporating
sustainability as a guiding principle
for long-term planning as well as
assisting with the development of a
comprehensive plan and commercial
corridor development.
Just a couple things there. Are there
any questions on that committee? That
one is currently led by Curtis and with
participation from myself.
Uh the fifth committee, infrastructure
and public safety. This one is headed by
Tim with participation from Curtis. Uh
this committee is responsible for core
infrastructure maintenance. Um so
maintaining an active inventory of all
burough owned assets including our roads
and um working towards a road pavement
plan in coordination with um our staff
of course. Um this will also oversee
roads uh road signage um as well as the
development of um
emergency preparedness planning. So
coordinating with emergency management
and public safety staff to strengthen
access routes and safety planning for
the bureau. Um including things like our
most recent weather emergencies. Any
questions on infrastructure and public
safety?
Um the last but certainly not least
committee is committee number six, parks
and recreation inclu inclusion and
quality of life. This is headed by Kelly
with participation from Sylvia and
Nancy. This committee will focus on
community well-being and accessibility.
It will oversee some park and
recreational amenities um as well as
looking at things like ADA accessibility
um and compliance. It will also have a
focus on neighborhood beautifification
efforts, including addressing blight
removal as well as responsible
stewardship to enhance resident quality
of life. Any questions on parks and
recreation inclusion and quality of
life.
>> Okay, thank you Tracy.
>> Thank you. That's a it's a lot of
committees, but some good committees.
Some really good committees. So, and
again, just to put it in perspective,
I'm going to go through the committees.
Um we when we did that one exercise with
the post-its if you all recall we had
the shortterm which was the um 3 to 6
months midterm which was 6 to 12 months
and the long term which was 12 to 18
months. So what I have done is I've
basically taken everything that we did
and tried to categorize it into the
different committees and I did this with
Trish and the executive committee and
stuff like that but again what Trish and
what we talked about is this is still
open for discussion. we'll still kind of
look at it. We'll still kind of review
it. If you are heading a committee and
you feel like this shouldn't be in your
wheelhouse or it should be somewhere
else, again, bring that up. Um, you
know, we'll kind of address that and
we'll talk talk through it and
everything like that because we just try
to categorize what we thought might fit.
There are some different projects from
what we did the strategic planning
session that will be over overlapped
between committees. Um, and that is kind
of like a key thing that we've talked
about too because there will be two
committees touching certain things. So,
I'm going to move to the next slide. I
know there's a delay, so I don't want to
click it again.
You're good. Um, while we're waiting for
that, um, we wanted to have the
committee head or chair read all of the
priorities for the audience if everyone
is comfortable with that.
It's maybe I'm seeing it on the screen,
but it's just not keeping up on here.
>> There it goes.
>> That's okay. Council, you'll also have
this in your packet as well. Oh, there
it is. No, it went too far.
>> Maybe we shouldn't mess with it because
by ready for it, it'll be on that one.
>> Let's see, Chase. Next slide, please.
>> Yeah, what Trish said. So, Trish, you
are the first committee. Um, so if you
notice, like I said, I've broke it down
between short-term, midterm, and long
term. But if you want to go ahead and
like read what was um identified and and
then we can open it for discussion or
whatever you think.
>> Perfect. Um I'll just kind of read it by
Colin as you have it organized. Um so as
Tracy already said, this derives
directly from the postit brainstorm
exercise that everyone participated in
in January. Um again, Tracy compiled it
for us highlighting the items that were
most frequently occurring and this is
how we have our list of priorities. So
now what we're doing tonight is sorting
them into the most appropriate
committee. If anyone disagrees with
things as they are, feel free to speak
up. This is open to evolving and
shifting to where things are most
appropriate. So for our newly defined
executive and administration committee
again with Nancy John and myself the
short-term goals that's three to six
months that we came up with are
hopefully hiring a burough manager
initiating talks with Oakmonts
implementing the super committee
structure. Woohoo check um insurance
renewal renewal looking at the DPW
contract which will come up later this
year. the police pension funding and the
junior council project assignment.
Midterm goals include looking into the
connect program and membership for that
and determining the training
requirements and a process for staff as
well as council members.
And and again just to kind of touch on
this there was right now there are no
long-term kind of in the the bucket but
that could again it's an everflowing
everchanging evolving um type of thing
but at least from the postits and the
the big exercise we did these are the
priorities that we identified. So does
anybody have any thoughts on these any
comments? Um,
>> um, I don't think we talked yesterday
about the HR manual if we want to bring
that back up or maybe table it till we
have the burrow manager.
Um,
>> like that idea.
>> I mean, we could like
>> So, now we're doing a burough manager,
>> burrow manager or burough secretary, TBD
person in that kind of role.
>> Okay.
So,
>> I I personally would love to see us um
finish that up. The employee handbook
>> and with John on the committee, I think
we can
>> I was just going to take it feels like
this
>> the manual. It's
>> been like a year and a half.
>> It's been about a year. It started
around this time last year.
>> So, I think John is the one who's was
handling that.
>> Yeah. Well, there's a lot of stuff in
there that we have to clean up far as
like Well, there was issues with the
vacation time with the bereavement time
and you know the there was the the leave
that we had issues with.
>> Yeah.
>> Deciding on what we were going to do
with leave.
>> Yeah. I think it's a good time to dust
it off and it shouldn't take that long
now. I mean, yeah, because I think again
I see like I mean it's
>> we'll dust it off and share it with the
new council members and get their
feedback and everything like that. So,
>> do other places have theirs online, but
you can
>> the employee handbooks. Um, not all do.
No, but I've worked with a number of
municipalities on their handbooks and
stuff like that. So, I kind of have like
a template that I've used. It just
obviously has to be tweaked for
personnel policies and stuff with
different different um municipalities
and places. So,
>> all right. So, I'm going to move on.
>> Would that be a short term or a midterm,
do you think? I would say knowing
midterm.
>> Secure on the low end of midterm.
>> Yeah, we'll I'll make sure I add it like
I can find because I can actually
finalize this presentation and then send
it out to everybody again so that you
can have it electronically, review it,
look at it again, digest it, whatever
you need to do. So, I'm going to go
against what we said earlier and
interject now that um our goal is for
next month for everyone to come back
with a timeline for these priorities
that we're deciding on tonight. Um, for
example, with the HR manual, I was going
to suggest, you know, putting so many
chapters on per month for four or five
months till everyone's comfortable with
it as a way of moving that forward. So,
think about timelines as we're going
through this.
>> Yep. Yep. We talked about that timelines
and deadlines and really kind of putting
them in. I mean, we have some timeline
here. Obviously, 3 to 6 months, 6 to 12,
12 to 18. So you have a little bit of a,
you know, a a parameter, but you can
really, as a committee head, you can
really think about what's next as far as
dates and deliverables.
>> I'm not going to click it again, Jason.
>> I'm gonna wait. There we go. There we
go. All right. So Nancy, do you want to
go ahead and read the ones for your
committee? This is Nancy and John on
finance, grants, and long-term fiscal
planning.
>> We added me, too.
>> Oh, and Trish. Okay. I'll make sure I
put that on there, too.
>> You're fine.
>> Um, and this is based on from the
Post-it notes that we did last month.
>> You got it. Big strategic planning
exercise we did.
>> And I have a couple things that I did to
complete the assignment that our
>> president assigned us. So, under
shortterm, it says please grant
application
um, which
is within that time frame. Um, but on my
uh what I wrote uh one of the things
that's very short term, Jason, did we uh
contact PML today about the training
that's tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m.?
>> Yeah.
>> I don't know what we can do about that.
>> Uh I try to sign up for it this evening.
>> Okay. All right.
Um, I would like there's a training on
capital planning and budgeting tomorrow
morning presented by Pennsylvania
Municipal League and I was hoping to um
hoping to attend that if at all
possible.
Uh that would be a very short-term
uh goal I have about grant in general
becoming more familiar with grant
process
and uh also looking at uh our pension
plans and maybe forming a pension plan
committee
and uh work with the manager on a first
quarter finance report.
>> Okay. Are those all under your short
term?
>> Okay.
I I took note of them.
>> Okay. I have a couple other things here,
but those were the main ones.
Um midterm address unnecessary spending
to ensure more efficient use of
resources.
Um I think I actually had that on
shortterm is also where expenditures
could be reduced. So that's great. Um
analysis of long-term financial
obligations.
Um,
okay. And I also wrote uh in
collaboration with the manager begin
begin work on the 2027
budget and um
work with the manager on the six and
ninemonth finance reports, quarterly
reports basically. And then long-term on
here it says multi-year capital funding
framework.
That would be good. And it's so funny
because I didn't see this before I wrote
mine. And I had final development of
five-year capital improvement plan for
long term.
>> What did you say? Final development of
capital.
>> A fiveyear capital improvement plan. Um
that's why I was hoping to go to this
training uh tomorrow because it's all
about capital planning and budgeting.
So
those are mine.
>> So good work adding those. Um prior to
your additions, I was feeling that this
sounded a little general.
Obviously, we want to address
unnecessary spending. Obviously, we want
to have a better analysis of long-term
financial obligations, but what does
that entail? pensions come to mind.
Definitely capital projects and better
funding. For example, can we um plan for
a firet truck replacement instead of
doing a loan? Um but that's also
captured by multi-year capital funding
framework. Um,
>> so I don't know.
Does that feel general or do you feel
like you have a
>> Oh, no. With
becoming more familiar with the
budgeting process, capital budgeting and
dealing with the quarterly reports and
the budget itself for 27. I think
there's plenty there to keep in
>> Definitely. I was frustrated. I'm not
worried.
Does anybody else on council have any
thoughts, perspectives you want to share
on the finance? And again, it's it you
don't have to. It's time. If you want
to, you can. If not, we'll just move on
to the next committee.
Well, the only thing I would have to add
uh on on that um
end of it and I think it kind of ties in
with my committee is that uh just to
stay transparent in terms of where we
are with the budget on the website
uh and provide if we can I don't know
about real time information if we're
able to do that but if we are capable of
providing real time rimination. It would
be wonderful. I've seen Monroville.
Well, Monroville has a very large staff.
Of course, I don't know if we have the
capabilities they do, but
um if if we're able to somehow have u
you know a better
way of communicating where we're at
budget-wise to the president. Yeah, I
just want to make a comment about that.
I believe and I don't know if you've had
time, Jason, I know you're very busy,
but um as we generate finance reports, I
know they generally go on the website
within the next few weeks or something.
So, that information is there. Right.
>> I also wanted to comment I think this is
a beautiful overlap between your roles
John as a person on finance
communication because remember Sandy
brought up that great point about having
visual representations or a snapshot of
a of a financial picture. The reports
are great but I mean even to us as
counselors are kind of cumbersome. So
having like a
>> pie chart
>> easily digestible or
Yeah.
>> Okay.
And then the one thing I know we talked
about is the police grant application. I
mean obviously that is a perfect one.
That's an example that is going to
overlap with infrastructure and public
safety too. So it's going to be
initiated with the finance committee but
then obviously the infrastructure and
public safety will have to be involved
in it at some point.
>> Yeah. Perfect.
>> All right.
Communication and community engagement.
John, you are the lead, so do you want
to take it away?
>> Sure. I I made a couple additions to
this too, Ray. But uh so the first uh
short-term goal would be to establish a
citizen advisory board. What that would
be uh is
as far as the makeup and methodology,
how we would select them yet to be
determined. But the idea would be to
have a a a board of just citizens that
would give us feedback
as to how we're doing.
just a neutral outside party that would
just give us a uh an idea of how we're
doing and what we should be doing or
give us advice, you know, and and um
and I think it'd be a wonderful a
wonderful thing to have sometimes an
extra voice on some decision making, you
know, especially when we're we're faced
with some some real critical issues. Um
so and as far as the makeup of of this
committee, how many people you know how
you know how they're selected,
>> you know, yet to be determined. We're
not we're not even there yet.
>> But to your point,
>> we're going to work on
>> Yeah, you can work on the plan the plan
for it in the 3 to six month period and
then you know what I mean and then even
implement it in the 6 to 12 month period
or something of that nature. But uh so
that's what we're going to look at short
term and and develop that. Um so that's
on our on our short list. Midterm update
codification in ecode 360. I know we
have a lot of things uh out there that
people have said that well you know I
looked in EC code 360
>> y
>> didn't see it. you know, we we have
actually we also have some conflicting
uh
I think ordinances as well, things that
we've we even noticed last year that
um
we have to update language on
>> stuff that we have to research.
There's a lot of work to be done in that
respect.
So it it is something sort of
uh what you would probably term as a
sort of a an ordinance committee if you
would call it that but sort of that
somewhat in that respect where we would
>> yeah not like the ordinance writing but
definitely the ordinance
>> but we would review
>> keeping
>> organize
you know the the ordinances and try to
get everything updated keep everything
up to date.
>> Mhm.
>> Yeah.
>> Um
the other thing um that we would like to
do midterm
is to try to get more and and I don't
have it listed unfortunately here, but
um get involved in more community
outreach engagement through cooperation
with local uh organizations.
And I'm not saying that we you know
we're going to be uh you know I I I'm
just saying that we we need to be more
involved as as council people uh within
the goings on in the community myself
included just to take a deeper dive in
around here
>> and and we need to we need to be more
active I think and uh and in order to do
that you know find out
you know, what's chamber doing?
what's, you know, what what are some of
the local events going on, you know, and
um and I think it's it's it's very
important for us to uh be engaged with
with some of the folks around here and
get noticed and and and that's why we
can understand uh and and when we when
we do that, we're we're out talking to
people and that's how we kind of uh
get a uh better understanding of uh what
what what their pain points are. When
we're up here all the time, I don't
think it we're able to really uh we
don't we don't get to go out and talk
with with everyone all the time. You
know, we're all so busy and we have our
lives, they have their lives, you know,
when these events are what bring us
together sometimes.
So
um
also
the other uh item midterm
receiving quarterly reports from other
committees on their projects to create a
council's corner in the Verona
newsletter. Mhm.
>> So, another uh item that, you know, I'
I've had was, you know,
sort of a I don't want to say complaint,
but one one a uh
a uh an observation someone made last
year was like, you know, why why isn't
why isn't council putting something in a
newsletter as far as what they're doing
and what projects they're working on,
that kind of stuff.
And I was like, "Yeah, that's a good
point." You know,
>> we should be doing that.
>> Yeah.
>> So, I think that we should all have our
committees every quarter. We'll make a
just a brief summary. What have we
worked on? What are we doing? What have
we done? And what are we planning on
doing? Just three things. Send it off.
We'll write it write a, you know, we'll
write a little article. We'll send it
off to the the newsletter,
>> you know, just to keep everybody
informed of what we're doing. Um,
long term,
>> there was nothing. There's nothing.
Yeah, that's not
>> anyway.
>> There's nothing posted for long term.
>> I have something for long term.
>> Okay, perfect. Wow. Maintaining the
burough website, message boards and
social media pages with need to know
information on a timely basis to ensure
transparency.
Okay.
And of course m obtaining feedback
through the advisory board and
slashpublic.
>> Good. All right. I capture that.
Yeah. Yeah. And I know we talked about
too, you know, some of the other things
like this again the communication
committee is going to be responsible for
is again like you said and you you
captured it collecting information from
other committees, social media website
and sharing information with communities
and you you identified it,
>> you know, and we've already created the
the uh citizen complaint form which is
>> half the battle there, but that's just
for the complaints. The the other half
is just getting the feedback on some
policy stuff that we maybe we should be
doing or you know having the public
engaged in the decision-making process.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> I love that you have the form ready as
your foundation. So now it's just
getting it out there and getting people
to use it. That's great.
>> Yeah. Okay. Any feed? I'm sorry I moved
too quick, but any feedback on
John's committee from anyone?
Okay, we'll move on to planning and
active transportation with Curtis as the
lead and Trish. So, and I want to I
actually do want to put in perspective.
So, like when when we went through this
exercise and we did all the post-its and
stuff like that, these were the
priorities. Like I can't like I don't
and I know Trish and I talked about we
don't want one committee to think oh
well this committee has like a hundred
things to do and this committee has only
like three things to do because things
there's going to be ongoing things that
are going to be involved with the
committee and there's going to be things
that come up during the year. So I think
that I don't because even this looks a
little small but like Curtis you're
going to probably have your hands full.
So go ahead. You want to read what we
kind of identified and take it from
there.
>> Yeah. uh midterm goal um address blight
in the community and then a long-term
goal riverfront development and a
comprehensive plan I'm still working on
um some short-term goals so
yeah to be continued on that
>> but I think like the blight in the
community like we talked about it was
going to overlap with you know the parks
recreation and quality of life but like
your committee is really going to have
to develop like what's going to be the
plan like what's going to be the plan
and then it's going to be handed over to
another committee.
>> But let me ask you a question. But why
is his then six months and mine's three
months? Why would his should be
>> Sorry, I got that backwards, Kelly. I'm
so sorry. You're going to be working
your committee might work on the plan
and then hand it over to him or again
and this is this is literally open for
discussion and
>> No, you had it right. Yeah, we were we
were saying we have the longer term plan
for blight um mitigation. So, yeah, that
shouldn't be in 6 to 12. I would say 6
to 12 like earlier is like the timeline
for putting together what we're going to
how we're going to develop a plan for
that. But obviously a plan won't be
written in that period of time. I mean
I'd be thrilled if it was but um so that
one should definitely be probably
the plan in that period but that's more
of a longterm goal much like riverfront
development
>> which will probably be on beyond the 18
months that you're talking. Yeah. So
guesstimates and there's a lot of
overlap and I think the idea of us being
a super committee is that we are working
all together and we're just trying to
figure out how to pigeon hole some of
this stuff but it'll all become apparent
as you know as time moves on and things
people find their
>> their niche of what they want to do and
then you know so nothing's uh what am I
trying to say? Nothing is exact. Yeah,
>> stone. Exactly.
>> Yeah,
>> I was going to add that. Um, I think we
had it in the postit, but probably
didn't rise to the top um because maybe
only one or two of us knew about it. But
regarding the 25 MTF, the multimmoal
transportation fund for Jones Street
improvements and streetscape, uh, Rep.
McAndrew does want to do a walkthrough
with residents and business owners who
may be interested of Jones Street. So
scheduling that Kurt I'm gonna add to
you and the committee
>> for short term
>> short term
>> for short term and for short as well as
long term um Rep. McAndrew has offered
to assist us with catalyzing the VA
project by pursuing a feasibility study
for an offi connection.
So, we will want to look at funding in
the short term to fund.
>> Thank you.
>> The feasibility work for an alternative
to compare apples to apples.
>> Okay. I put that under longterm for now
feasibility study.
>> Yeah. It's one of those weird things
where it's like we would have to apply
for funding late spring, but
then it would be long term.
So then it might go into mid and long
term both.
>> Let's just put it everywhere.
>> Next year and a half.
>> The feasibility study would happen after
the the grant basic.
>> And the other nice thing um Kurt um we
do have an active transportation plan.
It's um our only burrow plan in recent
years. So we should sit down and take a
look at that together because I'm sure
there's some lowhanging fruit that we
could tackle with with the committee.
Um, and did you did you apply for
something? I forget. I sent you that
information about the walkability um
institute. I I couldn't remember if you
applied for it
>> at the um through the health department.
>> Yes.
>> Was that what is that what that was?
>> Yeah, I think I sent you two. Anyway, we
may be pursuing additional training and
resources. Okay.
>> Apologies in advance for all the emails
I sent.
>> No.
>> All right. We're going to move on to um
infrastructure and public safety. I know
Tim is not here. Um
Curtis or Sylvia, do you want to read
the slide?
>> This one is just um Kurt and Tim, so
we'll go to Kurt.
>> Okay.
>> Sorry, I think we might have tweaked
these later.
>> Okay. Sorry, I will take Sylvia off
there. Yes.
>> Thank you.
>> All right. Um
shortterm we have a police grant
application
and a salt pile.
>> Midterm cameras and continued
development and maintenance of parks,
roads, and general infrastructure. And
then long-term um to begin a paving
plan.
>> Any thoughts on that? Comments? Any
adds, additions?
Um, well, Sylvia, if you wanted to be on
the committee, I didn't mean to exclude
you. I wasn't sure if that was aligning
with your interests and your other roles
as liaison, but
we could we could have two or three. You
can think about it. Um, yeah.
>> I was wondering if beginning a paving
plan
might want to start earlier than a year
from now.
Well, really? Because we have to do an
updated road inventory because since the
robotics thing, we've done a ton of
paving, so we don't have an inventory.
>> Well, the information, Isn't the
information still in the office from the
robotics assessment?
>> I'm saying it's fairly out of date
considering the amount of paving we've
done since it was done what, three or
four years ago. So, we probably need an
update inventory. I don't know if
there's a robotics equivalent that can
do that. Well, the message is just
stamping it.
>> Yes.
>> So,
>> going into next phase.
>> Yeah. Think about that.
>> That's awesome.
>> Okay.
>> And the salt pile. We've been talking
about that for a long, long time. I
don't know if we can move it in six
months, but I sure would love to do it.
>> Back to your point about the paving
plan, Nancy, though. think we could
minimally identify what robotics called
the red or number five roads that are
still outage.
>> Yeah, we could probably capture the
worst pretty readily ourselves and with
community input
>> on the old.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah, that's good.
>> Do you want to move that like do what we
did with the other ones? Like put it
maybe 6 to 12 months and 12 to 18.
>> Love that.
>> Okay.
>> Okay. Sorry to move topic.
>> No, you're fine. You're fine. That's
This is what this is all about, right N?
I mean,
>> oh, you guys are going to be working on
police grant application. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Well, remember you're going to
initiate it and then it's going to go to
the infrastructure and public safety
committee. So,
>> um but yeah, back to the salt pile.
>> Yeah.
>> I don't know what the answer is. We've
tried and failed and tried and failed,
>> but we really don't want it next to the
river where it's at. So, we need to see
if uh Tim and Curtis and maybe Sylvia or
anybody else
>> Yeah.
>> Uh citizens, whoever has ideas of what
we can do with this old pile.
>> We also identified a volume issue
through the last snowy. So, we need to
increase the capacity for our future
site.
>> Increase.
>> Yeah. So, we need a bigger storage area
somewhere other than by the river. like
20 what? 20% was recommendation.
>> 120
>> 120. Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
>> Okay. Moving on.
>> All right. The last one um or is the
parks and recreation inclusion and
quality of life. Kelly, do you want to
go ahead and read them?
>> Yeah. response is the same thing that
Trish just
>> you said it
address plan for bllight community
um 6 to 12 months ADA compliance swings
in the parks fixed law 12 to 18 months
social worker police
any thoughts comments
>> we were discussing that we did complete
a sidewalk inventory circa 2021 one. So,
if we can track that down, that's a
useful foundation for some of the
sidewalk planning efforts, including ADA
compliance. Last meeting, we had a
resident, Kelly Collins, offered to
donate in ADA compliance swing, but we
need to develop a process probably with
the parks and recreation board for
donations of playground equipment. We
haven't had that before, but similarly,
they developed a process for unifying
donations of park benches. We were
having people donate a wood bench and
then a plastic bench. So they developed
a set of standards. I'm
>> we can find the policy we can we can
>> is working on that. We will find it. Um
but similarly I'm hoping that who knows
maybe this will happen in the future
where we have people who want to donate
things to enhance our parks and so we'll
have some kind of guidelines for how
that can be done what are the
requirements for selection and other
things. So yeah probably parks and recck
board probably Matt I don't know if
there's others
and then social worker for police. I
know a number of us were excited about
this. Um Curtis, I don't know if you
might have the most to say about that
right now.
>> I'm still exchanging uh some emails back
and forth. So I'll follow up on it
though.
>> Yeah.
>> That's exciting.
>> Yeah.
>> But as I said before LA two years ago at
local government academy, John, I'm not
sure if you were there for that
particular presentation,
but the woman from Hampton
Is her name Amy? Remember her? She came
here in the middle of the presentation.
Amy DS.
>> She's from Dormore.
>> She's from where?
>> Dormore.
>> I think I was
>> what?
>> Dormmont.
>> You said Dormmont.
>> Amy's
>> Oh, then I'm thinking of a different
person because this person was from
Hampton.
>> Okay.
>> They were talking about their social
worker.
>> Yeah.
uh program
and that there are people who are coming
out of school who are interested who
would be like an intern. It would be
basically free. So that's something to
look into. I pretty sure that can that
can be looked into through Joy Re. That
was also brought up about having
somebody come out of college to do
skills Jason's doing
on a job training types. So have to pay
them $90,000.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. I know. I know it's usually a
grant that but if it's going to
get in the way of us getting another
grant then obviously I mean you know we
might want to weigh the pros and cons of
you know what we want what we don't.
That exact discussion would be excellent
for a future super committee discussion
because I think we are uniquely situated
with our finances
um yet our visions and goals that we
want to capitalize on opportunities such
as looking for an apprenticeship so to
speak where we can pay less but have
someone who's growing and developing for
that and probably a number of other
things that we want to do
>> because we were going to have well her
last show remember they said she said
that she wanted to have the people that
were volunteering do her code book and
update it.
>> Oh, the LGA intern. Yeah. Unfortunately,
I don't think we got one this year.
>> But I I like how you guys are thinking
because if there are citizens that want
to help with some of these efforts, we
don't have a process yet, but we can
certainly develop one to catalyze some
of these projects. I like it.
>> Yeah. No LGA intern,
>> right?
>> Any
>> we just went back and forth this year.
>> Okay.
>> We had one two years in a row and so
maybe they thought some other town that
hasn't had one, they you know got
priority.
>> Um Nancy will touch on this later, but
we will have officially soon a junior
counsel. So think if there's pieces that
we could
>> two
>> probably two. Yeah. Um, so if there's
pieces that they could help with, keep
those in mind.
>> Okay.
>> I think my uh my ordinance is lost
because I was told to bind it, which I'm
not going to do.
>> Your what is lost here?
>> My ordinance I passed a few years ago.
>> Okay. So, uh, it's not lost, but there
is definitely some confusion. So and
correct me, but it's like not legally
required to update an e-code 360. It's
just a best practice. So it's like we
pass it, it exists, but it may not be
there.
>> Yeah. So we
>> how is he supposed to enforce it as
>> correct?
Yes.
>> So So
>> still an issue.
>> Yeah. The e code is really just the you
know the library of where all of the
ordinances are. But then what also
happens whenever you go through
codification is is that you know when
when an an ordinance does get adopted
they compare it to other ones that have
been adopted previously to determine if
there's any conflicts with it and um you
know updates that might be needed in
another ordinance. Um and so when you
don't do that you just have this big
list of ordinances that are at the
beginning of the of the ecode when you
log in. You'll see that now in the
index. There's like maybe four or five
ordinances that are there currently just
sitting there waiting to be codified. Um
and then once you request that there's
there's a fee to that which we did write
for in the stamp grant as well. So it
would be good to kind of wait to do
these all at once. Uh because there you
know it can be a pricey project to you
know to do that. A lot of communities
will try to do that if you adopt a lot
of ordinances once a year, but honestly
here you don't adopt ordinances all the
time, so it's not as pressing.
What was the one that we found last
year? Vinc's
telling us about we had to we we have to
I think we still have to fix it.
I can't remember if there's a conflict
or just some ambiguity between what the
two
>> Yeah, there was a the the language
needed to be
>> Oh.
>> Uh
>> 154 and 174.
>> Remember the number?
>> It had something to do with the
commercial buildings. the um
>> oh did um
>> uh
I got to go back and look at but the
language the language there something
regarding the language on but that's
just an example
>> of that where you there's a lot of them
in there that we have to push
>> I think had to do with blight a little
bit. Yeah, it was a Yeah, blighted but
blighted commercial buildings.
>> It was vacant properties versus vacant
buildings.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> But it Yeah, but it was more toward
geared towards
on the commercial side though from what
I understand.
>> Tom, did you have any recollection of
that?
>> I don't. I do want to ask
you
have them.
Oh yes, we don't
>> I I don't understand how
things have come up.
>> So you're saying do a party now.
Actually,
we
>> the general sense
>> under the disorder
noise, you could get that, but we could
be more restrictive like past 10:00. You
can't do this that that's very
encompassing. Um just generalized,
>> you know, ever since ever since we went
digital with the ordinances, a lot of
them have been misplaced, lost, or
whatever. I I went through and went back
to 90s. I couldn't find them.
>> But we did. I thought we did at one
point because we had a we had a uh uh I
there was a I remember there was a an
issue with a a long time ago was a a
tenant that was very disruptive in a
neighborhood. We had to
>> I went back to 91 when
Capio signant was the mayor. I couldn't
find anything. I saw two of them at one.
>> Yeah. I have no idea what happened to
them. Could it be under the um ordinance
where um you have to start at 7 o'clock
to do any type of work?
>> 6:00 rather
>> because we we had a problem with the
garbage companies coming in at 4:30 in
the morning.
>> Right. Like the grass cutting wasn't
like 7 a.m.
>> Right.
>> Oh yeah.
>> I don't know if they combined it since I
I know we have
>> there might be something in there. We
have to maybe we have to look. I'm not
doubting you. I'm just saying
>> there's nothing tangible.
>> You know, I ask,
you know, we have to go with the
criminal charges of conduct
>> versus what would it be?
>> It would be this would be a state crimes
summary offense compared to a burough.
Basically, anytime money goes the state,
we give up small things compared to our
ordinance fol.
>> Okay.
I added it to your short term,
>> glorious
>> to mine, right?
>> To yours. Yes. Yes. Yeah.
>> Although I do want to uh mention again
like I don't want Kelly's committee to
be an ordinance committee. So feel free
to take the lead on it if you want to.
But as things come up if they are
relevant to other committees, we will
share that burden because it can be as
those of us who have been on the former
ordinance committee know like very
laborsome.
>> Yeah. Another easy way to
get familiar with the concepts of what
would be in an ordinance is just to look
around on the ecode 360s of other towns
and if there is one, it'll be there.
>> But to Tom's point, you might even want
to think about like do you have certain
areas that are zoned light industrial
and stuff like that because I know that
was a big issue even in Oakmont
>> where Felinos is and everything like
that. So, we had to pass ordinances on
light industrial not being noise and
being over certain decibels and stuff
like that.
>> Yeah. That would count for I guess
the what is it?
>> Dailies,
>> right?
>> It's that
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. And we would we we actually like
because they would we actually had to
involve sound people to come out and
measure the decibb and stuff like that.
So,
>> decel meter.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Get a little complicated then.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And it has to be like over a
certain period of time and stuff like
that. But that that to Tom's point, not
only do you have the residential, but
you have the light industrial.
>> No, but she was just talking about
specifically about a commercial,
>> right?
>> Regular household stuff. Absolutely.
>> Yeah.
Anything else, Kelly, on yours?
>> Um, no.
>> Okay.
Okay. So, Trish brought this to my
attention and I love it. So, it's this
is the Eisenhower principle and what
we're going to do is we're going to
actually have um I'm going to make a
like a print out of this and all the
committees can kind of like utilize it.
>> Hey, Tracy.
>> Yes.
>> Um sorry to interrupt. Um but really
quickly, I'm gonna John started us with
the visual that was on the first slide.
I'm going to um add a few things like
contact information. I'll work with you
on it. Um, but I also don't want to
leave out that we have a couple liaison
and we may be adding more like we
mentioned connect. Um, Nancy, I'm
putting you as the COG leazison,
although John and I are happy to trade
off attendance. Sylvia will continue as
the AOM, the Alagany League of
Municipalities liaison, as well as what
I'm calling basically the community
partnership liaison between um the
community and faith-based organizations
that you um are the go-between with us
on. Um, and again, as others come up, we
we can add this. This is basically
evolving document. So
>> yeah. No. Good. Yeah. Good. So okay. So
Trish brought this to my attention. Um
it's Eisenhower principle and then it
actually is evolved in like Stephen
Cubby the seven habits of highly
effective people. But what it basically
is is when you're going to be outlining
all of the things for your committees.
You're going to look at these quadrants
and you're going to look at different
things. And you know most of the ones
that we're talking about tonight will be
goal planning. But if there's something
that comes up to your committee, where
are you going to classify it? Are you
going to classify it as a crisis that's
going to actually require some urgent
attention? Or are you going to classify
it as a distraction that may not be that
important and may be non-urgent or
interruptions, which obviously are not
important, but technically sometimes can
be interruptions that might be something
from a resident or something like that.
So, we're going to have these available
for all the committees so that you can
utilize them as you continue down the
path of like organizing your committee
and really trying to keep on path with
everything that you're tasked with,
which is a lot um as a council member.
Trish, did you want to add anything to
that?
>> You are so good, Tracy. Um do you mind
if we do perhaps an example applying the
Eisenhower principle? Um, we could talk
about the noise example that was just
brought up or another one.
>> Yeah, whatever. What um let's talk about
or um yeah, the noise one just came up.
So, let's talk about that. Okay. So,
where where would you classify that? The
noise ordinance.
>> Well, it depends on what time of year.
Not not that you can not that you can
just produce an ordinance overnight, but
getting close to July 4th, it gets
pretty noisy. So, I don't know if that's
a crisis or an interruption or a
distraction, but it's in that time of
year, the first week of July or so, uh,
it's a little tough to just be a goal.
>> Okay. Well, it could be in the goal
planning, but then Fourth of July comes
and it's got to move a little bit to the
crisis or whatever, you know. And then
obviously I interrupted you by saying
that there's business ones, too. So,
that's like a little interruption. and
it's not it's not really important, but
it's going it can't you know, it's
definitely something that needs to be
addressed maybe in the future or
something like that. So, that's part of
the the noise thing. Um, what would be a
distraction?
Somebody saying, "I want to like I want
to cut my grass at 6:00 a.m." Like, and
that's not part of the ordinance. Like,
and you have a resident that's beaten
down your door because they want to cut
their grass at 6 a.m. Is that a
distraction?
>> Well, I don't know. You can't just not
deal with it,
>> right? I mean, if we don't have an
ordinance, it's hard to then you have to
get creative.
>> Yeah. But the majority of the people
want the ordinance, you know, if there's
just one off that person, I mean, I
don't mean to be like, you know, yes,
you have to address that person and you
have to address that issue, but is that
>> a a distractor from what your main goal
is is what?
>> That's an interesting point. Yeah. as we
may categorize something as a crisis,
but embedded there could be distractions
related to that. But I was thinking of a
true distraction being more like things
that have come up that um it's like Pen
Hills is doing this thing and we're like
we're Verona, but you need to do X Y and
Z. We're Verona. So that's one example
I've encountered of a distraction.
>> Well, or Oakmont does it this way.
>> Oakmont does this.
>> Yeah.
>> Right.
>> Yeah. Yeah. That that's a distraction
because you have to focus on your own
community. That's a good that's a good
that's a good example. or depending on
what it is sometimes the school's issues
we may or may not have anything to do
with.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. Is everybody like so you're going
to have one of these that you can kind
of just play with like you're going to
get it like with your slideshow and
stuff like that and play with it and you
know utilize it and everything. And then
the next slide is just real quick that
we talked about disk and we talked about
next steps. Um so I shared all of your
profiles with you. Um, you know, I found
again I I know Trish finds this very
interesting. I find this fascinating and
it really does help people work better
together. Um, so we're going to do like
more of a work another workshop to try
to address different styles working
together and everything like that. And
the end of my presentation is just like
I think you guys honestly I'm seeing
this from an outsider and I told Trish
this. I think you guys as a council are
really coming together and doing really
good things and I think that it's um I
can see a world of difference working
with you from like last year to this
year and how things are just kind of
coming together. So I think kudos to all
of you. I think it's um you're doing
well working together. So thank you.
>> Thank you Tracy.
>> Are there any questions or comments for
Tracy before she heads out?
Just want to reiterate our thanks and
gratitude again.
>> No, thank you. Thank you for allowing me
to have this fun stuff.
>> Yeah.
>> Um, moving on to item 7B. Tracy already
mentioned the scheduling of the disc
part two. Um, I just wanted to have a
check-in. I heard from a few folks that
there is interest in doing a part two. I
just kind of wanted to throw that out
there to the whole board. Um, so part
two would be taking what we learned in
part one and applying it in between
different styles. So for example, if
you're a DT type person, a very dominant
person, how do you interact with a C, a
very conscientious, detail orientated
person and so on and so forth. Thank
you. Um, so does that still sound like
something that would be a worthwhile
pursuit for council?
>> I don't partial.
>> I'm just not.
>> Okay. So, Kelly, you're not feeling in
favor of it. Okay. Again, this would be
like on our own time utilizing the
existing services that Tracy has. So,
there wouldn't be an additional cost.
Um, but it is still time. So, I don't
want to force anyone to do something
that you don't feel is worthwhile. Um,
>> if everybody was here, it might be wild,
but there's no point if everybody's not
here.
>> Sure. Um well, why don't we just go
around and say whether or not we'd like
to um do you guys on there want to weigh
in
>> on what?
>> Whether or not you'd like to do a second
disc workshop,
>> a followup.
>> A followup. Yeah.
>> On how to like how to utilize what we
learned from the first one in terms of
um
working with one another, communicating
with one another.
I mean it's one thing to know what we
are but then what otherwise it's to me
sorry for you surfing but it might help
if um at least my understanding is to uh
to have
uh that
information is fine but unless we figure
out what we do with that information I'm
not sure what the point of having the
information is
like how we actually like if I'm a C
type and I want to talk to or
communicate effectively with an S type
or an I type, how do I do that?
>> You could probably use that.
>> Well, I hear what Nancy is saying. So,
right now we have some preliminary we
have some preliminary information, but
it's sort of like it sits on a shelf
like how much can we use it? like it's
great to know about our style, but um
yeah, how do we apply it when we're
interacting with one another or even
members of the public? Um sometimes you
can tell one person's style right away,
but um
>> so does that help, Curtis?
>> That helps. Um
>> I'm also not offended if you say no. I
just I want to get your feedback so that
it's a worthwhile activity.
>> I I feel like I'm in training all day
whenever I do it, so I am going to say
no on it.
>> That's fine. And we can also like
revisit down the road too. Um, John,
>> I'm okay with it as long as everybody
else says I'm, you know, I'm whatever
the rest of the council decides.
>> Great.
>> You know,
>> and I know you and I are interested in
it.
>> Um, Dave, did you find it a worthwhile
pursuit?
>> It was worthwhile, but I don't um
foresee to have another one, so I'd have
to say no.
>> Okay. Okay.
>> I mean, that's my opinion.
>> You're welcome. You're entitled to your
opinion, though.
>> I like that you have an opinion. That's
what we're here for, not to all say the
same thing.
>> Yes. Correct.
>> So, thank you.
>> Yes. Thank you. And thank you, Kelly,
for saying that. Um, Sylvia, where do
you fall on wanting to do more disc?
>> I'm a yes and a no.
>> Okay, that's fine. when
>> yeah, I mean I think we table it for now
and we could revisit it maybe in the
fall when schedules are different or
maybe different um things have emerged
that may make it more or less helpful.
So
>> that is that is good. Moving on to
discussion item 7 C.
We it has been brought to our attention
that there uh is a means to have some
assistance um potentially with managing
the zoom so it's not always falling to
our burough manager as well as minutes
which may um streamline energy effort
and potentially cost on our um wonderful
admin Teresa um as far as the minutes um
we will be gathering more information.
We just want to introduce the concepts
and I know I um said more than I
intended to. Would you like to add
anything, Nancy?
>> Um, only that, um, there is a woman that
we've contacted who does this work for
Oakmont and, um, we are attempting to
contact her about meeting with us on
Friday to see exactly what she'd be
willing to do, when she'd be willing to
do it.
>> Um, I haven't heard back from her yet,
but
>> Okay, I have a question about that. Yes.
Why do we pay people to already do that
and we're going to pay somebody else?
>> Yeah. No, fair question. Um, so
essentially this would reduce cost
overall because it would free up Teresa
who has more knowledge and expertise
that could be applied in other ways. So
like overall it would reduce that
financial and other burden. Like for
instance,
Teresa will work a lot of extra hours
because doing the minutes takes up her
time in the office and then she doesn't
have time to do the other things.
>> Is that why we use this video?
>> Yeah, but it takes time.
>> Are we talking about her watching the
video and taking the thing down?
>> It depends. That's what we need to find
out on Friday. I think some of the time
she could do it live
>> and then and then it, you know, it would
be whatever that is. But
we can do a cost analysis of it. It It's
just that it does take up Teresa's time.
So then instead of her working her usual
number of hours,
uh
>> which is presumably a higher rate than
hiring someone to do it for
>> there is technology for that
could take the minutes. And in fact, I
ordered my own technology that's coming
in tomorrow.
to take my own minutes at work.
>> It's called Plot and I'm not pitching it
or anything here for here.
>> Um,
>> but I'm using it. It's an AI thing that
I'm using going to be using it at work.
I'm going to try it at work.
>> So,
>> but it's it takes down notes. You could
take down notes. It It literally records
the notes in a meeting. It transcribes
the notes and puts it all down on paper.
Saves time and you can go.
>> I love this idea. If you want to play
around with it,
>> man. If I can monkey around with it, I
see what I can do.
>> Yeah.
>> But if it can if it can save money and
time,
>> but then you're going to send your name
to an AI something. I mean, I talked to
Springfield manager that you going to be
in charge of that.
>> Also, the lawsuit.
>> Yeah. Um because when I've mentioned
>> the idea, I'm just saying
>> totally. When I've mentioned this,
Jason, maybe to you or casually to
Theresa in the office, she says that
taking notes for the meeting isn't the
same as just taking notes. That you want
to make sure you capture actions and not
other things like expressions and
emotions and all the kind of noise that
is also there. And so I'm curious if
there's an AI specific for municipal
meetings question mark.
>> Um because that would definitely be
worth pursuing. Um, but these posted
>> I don't know if other townships have
used that technology at all, but
>> I I know a few that are using, you know,
Zoom does that as well. Zoom has an AI
companion right now that um I think is
still being developed. I mean, a lot of
this AI is, you know, you have to load
up a few examples of what your minutes
look like. Now, it starts to learn, you
know, what type of data are you retrie,
you know, are you capturing from
meetings and things like that. Um, I
think it's still being developed. Uh,
I'd be curious to see what you've got,
John, though, as far as that goes. I've
actually tried recording, um, and using
the AI companion on here, and it just
captures way too much stuff that we
don't normally put in our minutes. Um,
so I, you know, there's a lot of
deleted.
>> I have to do some editing, right?
>> So, by the time you finish editing the
AI, you're almost spending the same
amount of time. maybe not quite as you
do um just doing the notes. The idea
would with this woman if she would be
doing it live would be that she could be
taking the minutes as it's happening and
when the meeting's over the minutes are
done and then to we don't have to pay
extra for Teresa to do the minutes. It's
a lot less stressful on her. That
particular
um what's the word I'm that particular
uh
task
>> is is something she doesn't have to do
anymore. But this is not a done deal.
We're just looking into it because other
towns are using people who provide this
service to do their thing.
>> Yeah.
>> I love all of this.
>> Yeah.
>> Feedback, information, ideas. I'm We
should still get the information from
Bianca. But I'm almost leaning towards
doing experiment, John. If the one
you're looking into checks out with
Jason and legal things, we should do an
experiment. See how long it takes if we
do.
>> Yeah. I don't want to implement. I mean,
look, I'm going to see how it works
first.
>> A pilot. Yeah, like a pilot.
>> If it works for me and see I don't know,
but maybe maybe I don't know. But
>> Cool.
All right. If there are no other
questions or comments on AI and meeting
assistance, um we'll move on to 7D.
>> Josh, I think something I would just add
though, when we think about, you know,
the need for, you know, additional
support from the minutes and just
meeting management in general. Um I
think that, you know, from my
perspective, you know, I mean, I've been
sitting here with multiple screens. you
know, you're trying to monitor people
that are raising their hand. You're
trying to adjust volumes in the back.
You're, you know, you're you're putting
powerpoints up. And I think, you know,
when folks are you you're doing all that
stuff, I am there's no way I'm engaged
in the meeting.
>> Yeah.
>> There is no possible way that you can be
doing all of that stuff. And and I think
really I I think thoughtfully being
engaged. So, I'm not saying that that's,
you know, the ultimate solution, you
know, with all that. I'm just pointing
out the fact that the person who's
sitting in this seat right here is is
juggling a lot of things that are going
on on through that platform and then
when you're asking questions I'm
sometimes able to pay attention
sometimes I'm just listening right but
you're you're really not able I think to
be fully engaged. So I there there does
need to be some consideration I just
think for what is happening with all of
this technology. It comes at a cost. It
really does and and I think some of that
cost is what this position can give to
the meeting and what they you know and
what they're going to offer. So it's
just it's just what I'm what I've
experienced in my role playing around
with this right now.
>> Yeah.
>> Yep.
>> Thank you for adding that context.
>> Yep.
>> Um so we will report back with more
information on that. Um item 7G, update
on junior council person. Um as most of
you are aware, we are developing a
process for a new program. We haven't
had it in Verona before with a junior
council person. So, a current Riverview
student lives in Verona who's interested
in local government and getting involved
um having a
--- PART 2 ---
Anybody?
>> All right. Thank you. Um, I'll take a
motion to come out of recess.
>> Motion to come out of recess.
>> Do I have a second?
>> I'll second.
>> Questions or comments? All in favor?
>> I.
>> Are there any opposed? Motion carries.
Back in recess. Thank you everyone for
your patience. Um we were beginning to
introduce our development of a junior
council in person program which is the
first for Verona bureau but we're very
excited to have some interest from
Verona. Um Nancy did you want to add any
more background on that topic?
>> Not too much. I think that during the
break you were talking to them. Uh it's
new for us. We're we are coming up with
the process of what to do. So, we're as
much in the learning curve about that as
you might be, but welcome. And there's
also another person who may have not
known that we were having the meeting
tonight because we changed the schedule.
So, I will endeavor to make sure that
everybody knows when the meetings are
and we'll be in touch. Um,
>> yes, thank you for being the liaison
with um the new program and for
everyone's patience with our process.
Um, I did mention to John and his mom,
Danielle, um, that we would like to have
John kind of look over the priorities
and committees that we went over tonight
and, um, sort of think of things that he
would be interested in working on. And,
um, feel free to pass on that
information, Nancy, to, um, Ally as
well.
>> Yes.
>> All right. Um, there are no other
comments on that. I'm going to actually
skip to item 7G. Bear with me. Um,
update on signage for alleys. Um
Tom, would you like to share any updates
on that to kick us off or any
background?
>> The uh names to assist. So fire EMS and
police is unnamed alleys are named now.
So
>> y next step would be to for signage. Um
I can't remember I had on street
>> something like that. Yeah,
>> I was suggesting third years to minimize
cost
and a list of ones that would be more
higher
call such as of that nature that should
be signed.
>> Would you be able to determine those
higher priority ones? I have those.
>> Oh, okay. Thank you.
That's great. Um, yeah, if if you
haven't already, can you reforward the
list with your prioritization
>> and we'll move forward with those
highest ones.
>> I just counted 15, so it' be five a year
or so. Yeah,
>> sure.
>> That is very good to be moving forward
on that. Um, if there's no other
questions or comments on item G, we will
now uh skip back. Um, thank you Kelly
to 7E.
So, we talked about this
in brief a number of times, but most
recently at our February business
meeting. So, the multimodal
transportation fund for 2024 is for art
street paving and includes design for
traffic calming measures. Um so our
engineer Matt Pitch presented updated
drawings that were made in consultation
with um the Silven Canoe Club um Steel
City Rowing and others along that
stretch.
Um fortunately many of the things that
we would hope to incorporate are a
matter of paint. So they're pretty low
dollar amounts. Some such as speed humps
are higher dollar amounts. So we have to
um carefully consider whether or not the
grant can encompass that. Um thank you
Jason. So here are the diagrams that
were shared in brief last meeting. So I
wanted to allow some space for us to
review this more closely together
tonight. Um, and also I wanted to point
out that um,
we welcome feedback on what we have, but
we are uncomfortable with the section
which is adjacent to Riverbank Park,
which has been a reoccurring issue over
the last several years in regards to if
there are lines for parking, which side
of the street should it go on? Should it
go on the park side, but potentially
where children may be coming out from in
between parked cars and an oncoming car
may not see them, or shall we continue
on the side that is opposite the park,
but has been known to have many, many,
many neighbor complaints because of
people parking in the grass or blocking
people's driveways. There is no clear
winning solution that we can come up
with. So, after our December
walkthrough, we did reach out to LTAB,
which is the free PED. Local technical
assistance program. they have us in the
queue to come out to give us free
technical guidance um from a traffic
engineer on this situation and really
the whole stretch. However, um this is
the time of year where they don't have
funding for it. So, we have to wait a
few months until that can happen. The
risk of waiting is that this could push
the paving into 2027, which is fine as
per the grant, but I just don't know as
a council and a community if that is a
timeline that we are um amendable to. So
feel free to click through the various
diagrams and say anything you wish.
>> So you're saying while we're deciding on
humps or not, Arch Street would not get
paved.
>> Humps, particularly the financial
mechanism for doing those, but mostly
the parking at Riverbank Park,
>> but that we can pave the road and then
figure out how to paint it later.
>> Maybe.
>> Maybe. Yeah,
>> you'll have a whole bunch of Arch Street
residents here if we don't pave that
road in the next three or four months.
>> Yeah. No, I think that's a good point. I
don't know if for safety reasons there's
a reason we need to do certain markings
at the time of paving, but we can
certainly forward that question to Matt.
>> I mean, we're worried about a street and
I'd love that, but there is a girl with
she's impaired with her her seeing and
we still haven't fixed that.
I I'm baffled by this conversation. I'm
sorry. It really irritates me that the
girl h has a walking I don't know that
what is the term this is correct.
>> And we have I have even spoken about it
seven or eight times and I'm just saying
like we're talking about a street. We
should be worried about a safety of a
girl trying to get through her school
bus.
>> We are we are worried about that, Kelly.
Absolutely.
>> It's been a year. So,
>> um, well, we we can't correct for some
of the things last year, but Susie did
bring that up and Matt was able to
provide an updated timeline, which is
contingent on the weather, but we're
hopeful for believe it was March as long
as the weather complies. So,
frustrating, discouraging, not
disgusting,
>> right? Um, but we're working to fix
that. In the meantime, we do have a
whole lot of money to make Arch Street
as uh accessible and better for
residents of all abilities. So I think
we also need to keep our focus on that
on that planning.
>> It does look like I mean at least on
this fifth and final um design drawing
that this would probably be the one that
would need to wait on paving just
because of the fact that it incorporates
a speed hump. Okay.
>> Um so all the other ones just had
signage and markings. So, this one looks
like this would probably be that driver.
And you can kind of see right here.
>> I don't know if my cursor moves on the
right right here is where the
>> the hump would be located at right
there. So, um but all the other ones are
just markings and signage is what it
looks like.
>> Okay. I think that
>> is it that is is it that portion that's
holding it up or the or where the
>> or the other area where the
park
>> I don't is
>> No, I don't think
>> I don't think the park's even
incorporated. Oh, yeah. It's right here.
I mean, it's this would be the
>> Yeah, this is the first Yeah, this is
the first section here by the park here
that I think there's probably still some
discussion on whether what side
everything's going to be on. Uh, but
it's that last section that probably has
more the structural.
>> Yeah, the hump is at the other end. This
end is the the end by the pickleball
court. And I guess the way it's drawn
there, the green line
is where the parking would be.
>> Bike lane.
>> A bike lane.
>> Yes.
>> Where the car is going to park,
>> right?
>> Oh dear.
>> Yes.
>> Yeah. Oh no. Right.
>> No, Bike lane would be on the other side
or going another street because people
are parking where that green line is.
>> The bike lane is actually a pretty
important component of this grant and
why we were awarded it. I know Rep.
McAndrew feels very strongly about this
being a important component of our
riverfront redevelopment.
>> Um, so hence the complexity involved
with this. I suppose this super
committee meeting
part of the point of it is for us to
talk about it now and try to come closer
to a decision
>> discuss. Yes.
>> Well, I say hit the bike lane on the
other side and park the cars where the
green line is and don't
>> that was your home. I bet you'd be
really mad if they parked in your yard,
though. They are.
>> Well, they can't park in the yard. We'll
make sure.
>> They will. Well, they they
>> they park in my yard and I live I live
on board.
>> They need to have tickets then or
something. I don't know.
>> I mean, I'm just telling you, I
experienced it with those people next
door to me and it
>> in their signs that the DPW I get that.
But we also don't want to run over any
children.
>> I agree. I think it's very dangerous
this whole setup. What else?
>> Yeah.
>> No, I don't have really any suggestions.
I'm just saying it's both. They're going
to sketch.
>> I I agree with you, Kelly. I don't have
any suggestions here either. That's why
I'm leaning on the side of wait for the
best possible.
>> Let's Let's ask this. Which what's the
more out of the two options, what's the
safer solution?
>> Parking probably on their on their yard.
>> Yes.
>> Well, yeah. But I mean, I think that in
the beginning they did that a lot more
than they're doing it now. and we opened
up an area on the other side of the
pickle ball courts that you can't see in
this slide
um where we we created what four other
parking places
uh
>> by the old garage
>> concern if you're flip-flopping which
side if your right lane is on the right
>> lane and then on here it's on the left
lane you've created a whole another
issue,
>> right? I'm not sure I'm a fan of that
either. Yeah.
>> Francancy, would you like to introduce
yourself?
>> I'm I'm Francancy Rob. I'm a member I'm
a past uh president of the Silven Club
and so we've been involved. Appreciate
um it's down on the other end.
So change is always difficult and and so
we're just trying to keep our members um
aware. I don't know what's coming down
the page. Thank you. Yes, of course.
>> I have a
>> maybe this I don't know if this would
help, but what if I mean we're they're
paying for it anyways. Would they
potentially put a curve along those
people's yards? Does that help?
>> Solve it right there.
>> See, we've always had a problem down
there with parking.
>> Yeah.
>> Um people would park on their grass.
>> That's why I'm saying if you put a
sidewalk, a little
>> I mean Yeah. Thank you.
>> Did I say sidewalk the first time?
>> Sorry. You know what I meant?
>> You know, I made it a little bit high as
we think and then you know
>> I don't know if that's true.
>> The reason I'm thinking that um
>> those words came out of Matt's mouth at
one point. Something about curbs. Am I
thinking that or something
>> that solves it right?
>> Yeah. It may have. And I think that's a
worthwhile suggestion.
>> Yeah.
>> So, my mind immediately went to curbs
for the bike lane. But you mean a curb
just to delineate their property and you
would still park the curve. Okay.
>> Cool.
>> Then you're going to probably get a flat
tire. So,
>> or you measure up
>> some kind of barrier. I like it.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, let's ask Matt, but we can't wait
too long.
I don't know. Unless we can separate.
The only thing about on the other end
by um Steel City Rowing and Silven Canoe
Club, if we're going to put in a hump,
it needs to be done while they're
paving.
>> Yes. I don't see any reason why we
couldn't do all of this and add a
curbboard markings to the Riverbank Park
section later, but I'm not runners would
be
>> I think that's a good idea.
Okay, so we have some feedback and
questions for Matt, our engineer. Any
other comments or questions before we
move to the next item?
All right, very good. Um,
we are going to move to item 7F
and immediately following item six, the
financial report. Both are with our
wonderful interim bureau manager, Jason
Daly. Mr. Dailyy,
>> bring up the next uh share screen item
here. internet complying I shouldn't
say.
>> Everybody keep saying little prayers.
Hope this stays on.
>> All right. So, so what you'll see there
in in front of you, I included some uh
information. You know, during our last
discussion uh at the last meeting, I
just kind of went over a little bit
about what the differences were between
the manager position and the secretary
treasurer position. And this is in no
means supposed to be a comprehensive
overview of that of that position and
you know and and talking with a few of
you uh who have been down this path with
both the secretary treasurer and manager
you know you have some thoughts I know
as to what those positions did and and
you know what you were able to get out
of the positions in the past but you
know for those of you that that just
need a refresher on this or just a
highlevel review you know the manager
position is is an optional position in
the burough code, meaning that you can
have one or you cannot have one. It's
not a requirement. The secretary
treasurer position is required. So, um
you know, if you do just have a burrow
manager, uh oftent times the secretary
treasurer duties are also assigned to
the burough manager's position, but you
can't not have a secretary treasurer.
That h there there's there is a legal
requirement that that the bureau appoint
someone to that role. some of the
functions, you know, the the bureau
manager's position is is really head of
administration,
uh, heavy in administration. The the
secretary treasurer position is more
records and finance related. Um, they
over, you know, the manage the the
manager overseas staff and direct staff.
Um, the secretary treasurer position
typically does not supervise staff. So
that would fall to you know um you know
you know either you the direct reports
like an like AJ's position would then
report directly to council uh as well as
like the codes office and all you know
those types of things there's no direct
supervision uh under the secretary
treasurer and then and then you know the
big thing is is that there's there's you
know custody of information lies with
you know the secretary treasurer they
they take on a more compliance role they
take ownership of the accounting and
custody of records whereas you know the
manager is more oversight it's more
operational driven uh in that regard you
know from so from a high level those are
some of the the big areas where you know
where they um you know lie um from a a
bigger perspective you know the you know
the burough manager would be assigned
areas of of managing operations
uh I think you taking on a more
strategic uh planning role, working with
council, you know, providing some vision
assistance with, you know, helping to
lay things out with council. Um, you
know, you if you can envision there are
more considered like an executive
management, you know, level. They
implement, you know, decisions of
council whereas, you know, from the
secretary treasur perspective, you know,
by code, they are more, you know, black
and white, nuts and bolts. They keep
records, they manage records, they they
make sure that fiscal policies are being
adhered to. Um, but they they're very
statutory in nature, meaning that the
burough code really is the um is the
driving force there for the duties and
assignments that they're supposed to be
doing. Um, and the reason that I that I
wanted to just kind of, you know, talk
about this from this high level is is
that, you know, when we when we've laid
out the job description and you all have
seen what we've kind of have have have
gone through and our the questions that
we've asked the burough manager um, you
know, candidates that we brought in,
they were very high level. They were
management related questions. They were
executive leadership questions. Uh I
feel that you know I I still think that
from a you know you from a high level
role I still think that this council
does need a burough manager but I also
think that um you know we've seen from
our um you know you know number one you
know from what we've we've gone through
you know council has weighed in on
several different things you know things
like salary things like expectations of
this position um you know the the job
dut duties that we we think this
position should be doing that, you know,
I'm you know, I I thought that it would
be good to just lay out for you what the
differences in those two positions and
for there to be some discussion about,
you know, does does council think that
you still need a burrow manager or
should we be looking more at that
secretary treasurer role and lowering
what the expectations and the job
description is that we've put out there?
Um, so to that end, I'll just open that
up to discussion by council at this
point.
>> I'd like to walk back in time. So
Stephanie was a burrow manager.
Prior to Stephanie, we had Christine,
who was a burough secretary. Prior to
Christine, we had Jerry, who was a
burrow manager, but part-time.
Um, then prior to that, this is where I
need people to help me out. Bonnie
Conway.
>> Was she a secretary?
>> Yes, she was a secretary. Then we
appointed her to burrow manager.
>> You did?
>> Yes.
>> Full-time?
>> Yes.
>> Okay.
>> And she done at that time both. She took
care of everything.
>> Okay.
Um, how long was she employed with the
burrow? Approximately.
>> Oh my god.
>> Oh god. Long time. 30 40 years.
>> Five years. Something.
>> Oh man.
>> Yeah. Somewhere between 30 and 40 years.
Okay, great.
>> Um, so Mayor Dave or anyone up on
council who was still here when she was
here, does your recollection of her
tasks overly with the burough manager
description that Jason has presented?
>> Pretty much. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Okay.
>> It's not how I remember it.
>> She she did a lot of things that she'd
been doing for
>> You were here.
>> Yeah.
>> Oh, okay.
>> Yeah.
>> Towards the end. Yeah. Yeah, as
technology became more part of the job,
um
>> that wasn't her strong suit.
>> Okay.
>> So, there were issues that
>> that arose toward, you know, the end of
her tenure here.
>> Yeah. And you're right about that. The
technology caught up with it.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah. And she had health issues that
prevented her from doing some stuff
also.
>> Did she live in the community?
>> Yes, she did. In front of her.
>> Yeah. she passed away.
>> Okay.
>> So,
>> yeah,
>> Jerry was very part-time.
>> Yes. So,
>> I just wanted to put together the
chronology for everyone here tonight
because I have lived here for 10 years.
So, my memory goes through Jerry. I was
feeling like the bureau manager was a
newer um idea, but clearly it's not
actually. Um
>> well, Bonnie was the secretary. She got
a lot of help from people who were on
the council at the time. Correct me if
I'm wrong, Dave, but this what I
remember. I mean, going way back, Nick
and Tony were helping her out quite a
bit with things like the budget and that
type of thing. Um,
>> Sandy, were you on counsel when she was
here?
>> I love
>> Would you speak to that a bit more?
>> Um,
>> but you need to use the mic or they
can't hear you.
>> I know. Come on. So, you take the mic
with you. Go and sit down. That's fine.
You don't have to stand here if you
don't want to.
>> Nancy just wants you to feel like a
celebrity with the mic.
>> I just want everyone to be able to hear.
That's
>> Bonnie was phenomenal. Okay. She um she
did everything. I think she even cleaned
the toilets.
>> Okay. Uh Annette Bracken worked a lot
with her
>> and um she took care of the budget. She
took care of burrow business, people in
the community, loved her and respected
her. She knew how to treat people like
human beings.
>> Um
maybe you could ask me the questions you
want to know. I don't know. Was she um
did she often work more than 40 hours?
It sounds like maybe
>> uh she put in her time and didn't charge
the burrow anything.
>> Yeah.
>> If I if I may, anytime we had a
disaster, she was down there.
>> Yes.
>> What about community events? Was she
often there?
>> She was at community events.
>> How did we first recruit her? Where do
we know how
>> she was here when I came on at 36 36
years ago?
>> Yeah. Was she on council before
accepting the staff position? She was
not on
>> it was he was never on council.
>> He was burrow
secretary.
>> Okay. Um and do you know to your
knowledge that she have like like a
degree in public administration or was
it mostly learning?
>> She did have some sort of
>> public relations background. Not 100%.
>> Okay.
>> But I mean she didn't deal with this
technology. She had the good
oldfashioned tape recorder.
>> Sure.
>> Yep. And
>> is that right where Jason is? and she
got minutes done and we had those
minutes the following week and it wasn't
two months later for council to approve
it. It was the following week,
>> right?
>> She was on target.
>> And if you remember, we never had a
burrow manager. She was she did it all.
>> She did it all. And I'm not kidding. She
did clean the toilets cuz I came down
the one day to meet with her regarding
finances
>> and she came out of the bathroom with
her little brush.
>> Wow. So um then after that when we
started looking for it we hired a
company to come in came in and that
company at the time said yeah that this
burrow was way too small for a manager.
You didn't need a full-time manager to
>> Oh okay.
>> So that's the reason why Jerry was
part-time but Jerry also did the
finances for
>> right now. Uh was Bonnie assisted by
anyone else in the office? Did she have
an administrative secretary? She had
nobody. We had that bracken with the
police.
>> That's it. She
>> And like I And like I say, technology
caught up with her.
>> Yeah. But she was able to answer that
phone. When you got here,
>> that phone was answered by a human
being. There wasn't any
from what I remember. She was always
Johnny on the spot with the phone and
everything.
>> Yeah.
>> You came down. She had the answer. She
didn't have She got it back to me the
next day.
>> Wow.
>> She was always here. Yes.
>> At I think 35,000. Or was that Jur? That
was Jerry's salary. I think Bonnie was
less than 35,000.
>> Yeah.
>> So,
>> what was the most important part of how
she did her job?
>> Public relation. She knew how to relate
to people. She knew how to relate to
council.
>> Even when you disagreed with her, she
put that aside. She put it aside. Right.
>> Yeah. And it sounds like she was also
very timely with her responses.
Timeliness.
>> She's a nice lady.
>> She's just overall nice lady.
>> Yeah. She was also willing.
>> Everybody liked her.
>> Yeah. Um I'm kind of grouping that in
with like public relations. But also a
third thing I I'm hearing is she wasn't
afraid to roll up her sleeves and get
right into whatever done.
>> Exactly. Whatever needed done.
>> Very personal.
>> So she had everyone's respect.
>> Y.
>> Okay. So, my follow-up question
um is how do we find our next Bonnie?
Technological considerations aside,
everyone's going to have something that
is a shortcoming. Um but it sounds like
those three things that Sandy
highlighted could be accomplished by the
secretary treasurer. So, the big
difference here is the title and the
salary and somewhat the job
descriptions.
Do you agree that the things that Sandy
and kind of collectively everyone
highlighted could be covered by the
secretary treasurer role technically? So
well
>> I I was kind of looking at Jason first
but we'll definitely go around Robin.
Yeah. you know, I think, you know,
there, you know, the secretary treasurer
has that legal requirement, right? That,
you know, I don't want to underscore
that that there's there's boxes that
need checked with that position, right?
I I think that it's the it's the burough
manager piece of it that probably is
more um because I I really do think that
you could find with, you know, not a lot
of of of hard searching, we could bring
the the job description more in line
with what that secretary treasurer
position would require
>> and certainly lower the salary down. I I
think there's no doubt in our mind that
we could find that. I think that it's
whether or not the bureau manager
position is of value to council. Um and
some of those things that you know when
you think about what you what is it
that's not compliance related that's not
um
you know clerical in nature uh records
management you know finance related that
you you value or you have valued in that
manager position in the past that you
know does that outweigh the need to just
have that other position in that role.
Um, I think some of the, you know, that
there are a lot of, you know, because
there's certainly a lot of activity that
I think that that council expects that
position to, you know, participate in
and to be outgoing. And I understand
that you may have had a secretary
treasurer in the past or, you know,
whoever this person was before that
might have performed some of those
duties that might not necessarily have
been required of the position. But um
you know some of those things do fall
under more of a manager related position
that that you would you know you would
need to really you know walk a fine line
with I think but I I think without a
doubt you could definitely write the job
description down to the secretary
treasurer position and really bring that
you know bring the position down you
know a few notches from where we're at
right now.
>> Yeah. Oh, sorry. Keep
>> go ahead. You want to take us off? Go
ahead. Let's go.
>> Well, I just am looking at this list. I
I think that if we had had a burough
secretary, and what I'm thinking of is
Christine because that's our only
official burough secretary
that might have been above and beyond
what this description is saying,
>> right? because
uh it doesn't look like according to
this list that a burough secretary is
running the burough operations or
supervising the staff or coming up with
strategies and and you know operational
roles and executive management and what
do we do if we don't have that?
So,
in my opinion, the way that it's looking
through
some conversations with um Jason and
other people,
we either need to figure out
how to pay a little bit more if we want
the full burrow manager package.
>> We're supervising the staff and
implementing our own decisions. And I
for one do not want to do that. I I just
don't. I'll quit before I have to do
that. I just that's just too much.
Executive management. No, we can't do
it.
>> Jason, can you remind us of the salary
ranges for these two roles
approximately? So I I think for the you
know the secretary treasurer position
you're 55 to 65 you know is where maybe
even upwards of 70 at the at the top
end. Uh I think for the
um manager position you're 75 to 90
and at 75 you're expecting someone who
is in that lower entrylevel
uh type position or possibly a secretary
treasurer who may be looking at a
manager
>> step up
>> you know type position. So, and what we
did with Christine was we hired her at a
lower level. We spent the extra money
that we would have for a burough manager
on someone to train her and coach her
for a year. And then she she with her
degree in public administration and
everything else was able to be a burough
manager actually probably in less than a
year. And um I don't know whether that's
something we could do again. You know,
start out at the lower level and
increase their duties as time goes on.
Um
that's another option. I guess
>> we'll go ahead and go around. Robin, um
can we go this way? Kelly, do you want
to share your opinions on the roles and
what you would lean towards for us?
>> I mean, I have already said that like
Sandy had a suggestion about
I don't know if you did too. So, I don't
remember if you were involved or not,
but like going to colleges and hiring
them at a school,
>> the apprenticeship,
>> I just don't understand why we're we
don't have meaning for this. Just
doesn't make any sense.
>> I mean, I don't know. I think we just
spend way too much money on silly
things. I mean, this isn't silly, but
chewing off way too much. We don't even
get paid right now. We can't even pay
ourselves and
>> this is a lot. So I think it's insane to
pay that amount for just a little girl.
>> That's my explanation.
>> Yeah. Great. Thank you, John.
>> Well,
you know, it it would make sense to we
could try to go back to having a
secretary treasurer and then train up
again if we if they have the opportunity
to essentially
have a person
become the burrow manager from the
secretary treasurer role. You know, over
time,
>> you know, pick up those skills and
become, you know, more of a strategic
operational,
you know, supervisory
person
um as opposed to just doing clerical,
you know, and and records. But,
you know, we do have the barriers of of,
you know, the finances right now. I
mean, I don't know
where we're at as far as, you know, how
competitive we're going to be, even if
we went up a little bit as far as what
we can offer to get a manager
as opposed to other burrows out there
who are also looking for a manager right
now. and the talent pool.
I can from what we I've you know from
what we've seen I think so far I don't
know
I don't know who's out there. I mean we
haven't really had too many from what
I've seen that have been knocking on our
door. So maybe we could could try the,
you know, the secretary treasurer route
and and see how we
how we can do at this point in time and
and perhaps train that person up.
Yeah, I'm hearing between you and Nancy
and Kelly, feel free to chime in if you
agree, but the opportunity for growth,
>> but but that would require us to become
more operational
as a council and that and I do see
problems with how
>> would we supervise
people
as a council as opposed or usually it's
one person that would be a supervisor.
Are we going to have like seven
supervisors?
How does that work?
We have to find a way to implement
the way we're going to run the burrow
from an operational standpoint.
>> We'd be talking about
>> Yeah.
AJ and Teresa.
>> That's basically it.
>> Yep. Okay. Well, I think and I think to
some degree though, you know, when you
think about some of the projects and
initiatives that you know, it's not it's
not just staff, right? It's you know,
right now there's a contracted service
for code enforcement. You know, there's
some big initiatives that are being
hatched with rental registrations and
inspections that are,
you know, there's those are strategic,
you know, that are going to need to be
developed and implemented. Uh, I do
think that some of that stuff gets
managed up, I think, in a, you know, in
a secretary treasurer role versus in a
bureau manager role. But I was thinking
through what some of those what some of
your initiatives are you just reviewed.
You know, think about how those are
going to get implemented and executed
and then line those up with the manager
or the secretary treasur role just to
see how to who would be doing those.
>> Yeah. Right. Good point.
>> Yep.
>> Um we'll move on to Kurt.
I think it sounds like we've had more um
I don't want to say success, but with a
secretary in the past. I mean,
things got shaken up this year with
council anyway. We might as well go the
extra step and, you know, see where the
uh secretary can take us.
I mean, unless you can get a bur manager
for, you know, what we are willing to
pay them, which I guess doesn't seem
like there's many. So,
>> I just want to point out to everyone
that we budgeted 85 on the budget this
year for for that role.
>> Can I ask you a question about that?
>> Um, and it falls in within the range of
75 to 90.
>> What is the secretary included with
that? Is is she's part-time, correct?
I've never actually met her.
>> Teresa? Yeah, she's part-time.
>> So,
what if she hourly?
>> Okay. I don't I didn't know that she
gets paid as a bit.
So, I mean, if you're going to pay 65,
just go back.
>> Yeah, there's more into it than that,
isn't there?
>> I'm not going to
again, we don't get paid for this. I
don't I don't have all the time to come
over here and boss these people, you
know, I'm not their boss. I don't want
to
>> Yeah.
>> You mean if we were
>> everybody and Yeah.
>> You mean if we were to go the secretary
route?
>> Yeah.
>> So, you're on the burough manager route.
>> Why aren't we looking into colleges
route? I don't understand why that's not
even a topic. I It makes no sense to me.
I don't understand why we're in this big
$90,000. You know what I mean? Why can't
we look at it? Why are we even Again, I
don't It's blowing my mind. This is a
small group. We're talking about insane
money. You're going to have the issue
with even if you do the apprenticeship,
you're going to have the issue with once
these people get experience and move on
and you got other burrows offering
>> because we're growing now. We weren't
like this before. You got to think of it
that way. You know,
>> we got to worry about paying our police
and, you know, protecting everybody. I I
just
>> just think there's other things that we
could look into and we're just
not
>> I like the idea. I mean, I'm all for it.
I just think that you're going to be
recycling every two to three years once,
>> but they could stay because grow and we
would have different money next year and
the year after.
>> Yeah. I mean, if there, you know, right
now seems I mean,
>> I'm just trying to stay on the path that
we're on.
>> Does 90s seem high or low to you?
>> To me, it seems crazy just for this
year. You know what I mean? Am I wrong?
>> No.
>> Okay. Because I feel like I'm the crazy
one. I don't know. I just feel like it
just this year is
>> we need to and I wish you were stay
here. I love you to death, but you're
not.
I'm just going to blame you.
>> Well, if you stay
more than 90,
>> but I just think Yeah. Oh, I know. No,
just 90. That's it. That's it.
>> I just think we should just look into
other things. So,
>> so uh just for
for clarification for uh for everyone um
who may be less familiar with the
process, Jason is not making these
numbers up off the top of his head. It's
commiserate with um salary data that's
provided from I'm not sure if it's Alam
>> from Alam. So, this is like a
compilation of what people are actually
paying, believe it or not. even though
it feels like an astronomical amount. Um
it would be like laughable to ask for a
burrow manager at 60 for example. So
just for clarification, but I hear um
Kurt and Kelly are actually saying some
really interesting things. Kurt saying
the risk of doing an apprenticeship is
we could lose them and Kelly is saying
maybe or maybe we're in a position to
pay them at that point once they've
proven themselves. Do you want to
comment on at all yet about this
apprenticeship idea that you're playing
with?
>> Surely. Yeah. So, you know, we're pretty
fortunate in this market right now that
um well, just, you know, in general in
the Pittsburgh market that we have some
programs, you know, IP has a masters in
public administration program. You know,
PIT has the Gizia program. Um CMU has
its own, you know, you know, M's program
in in public policy. Um and and so you
know every one of those schools is
generating
uh you know graduates every year that
are they're not just graduating and
looking for bureau manager positions or
secretary treasurer positions. A lot of
them go on to you know you know you know
political think tanks and you know all
that kind of stuff in the public sector.
Um you know doing all types of jobs. Um
but some of them are coming out looking
for you know to stay in local government
and to and to get into this management
level role. Um I was recently exposed in
another community that I'm working with
right now. Someone who's coming out of
that program and you know had some
interest in it. Now they were scared to
death. You know they applied for the
position. Um, you know, we walked them
through the interview steps and I think
as it it started to become a reality
that that might actually take place,
they were like, "Oh my gosh, I don't
know what I don't know about being a
burough manager, a burough secretary
treasurer. Um, I don't know if I can do
this right because they don't tr there's
not a school for this, you know, for
this exact job." Um, but I think that
there's interest in that out there. Now
the challenge with it is is that it's
going to take I think you know you know
the salary expectation of those of those
students coming out of there was around
60 to 65,000 with no experience
whatsoever.
Um that's what somebody coming out with
a master's degree is going to to be
looking for even if they don't have any
experience. Right? And so you, you know,
you think, you know, about what that
looks like and what a training that
person up is going to look like, you
know, by if it's a consultant, if it's,
you know, additional training you're
going to send that person to, whatever
that looks like, I would expect that
you're going to put another 15 to
$20,000 into that person over over the
first six months to a year's worth of
time where they're checking in and that
type of thing. But perhaps for the
first, you know, number one, getting
somebody in the door that's sitting in
the seat for 40 hours a week at least
is, you know, that, you know, that's the
first step, right? But then really
developing them, making them into what
you want them to be as your next burrow
manager or secretary treasurer. Um, I
think is something that you could really
work and develop. I think I think
there's a you know as we start to get
into the end of the school year right
now as these as these students start to
graduate I think maybe there's an
opportunity for us to reach out to see
you know hey if you know maybe start
going in into some of these classes and
talking to them about this opportunity
um you know to to IEP or to CMU or
something like that to say this is what
this is this is what a burough manager
is you know we'd love to see one of you
as a possible candidate for this and you
know see if there's some interest in
that. Um, I don't know. It's just it
it's something different. I think, you
know, there's there's, you know, there's
not a lot of communities that are going
that route to, you know, to look for
candidates, uh, you know, I think the
internship is one way to go about it.
But those are usually one projects and
then they're done and then then they're
moving on to their, you know, to
whatever it is that they're looking to,
you know, to do. So, it's it's an idea.
I think it kind of falls in line, Kelly,
with what you're, you know, the path
that you're kind of going down, but it
might also, I think, fill that gap of,
you know, could you still get an
elevated level skill set? Uh certainly
someone who's educated, you know, that's
heading down that path, you know, if we
explore that a little bit more. It is
risky because I I will say that seat
it's not the easiest seat to sit in
because you're dealing with you're
dealing with budgets, you're dealing
with employees,
you're dealing with the public,
you're dealing with disasters, you're
dealing with all kinds of X factors
every day and it's not it and you're
dealing with you know pompous council
people
>> and I you know and and
>> you pompous council person I I want to
make sure we hear everyone who hasn't
spoke first before we That's okay. Um
I'm going to switch gears back then to
Sylvia and then Dave and then if anyone
else wants to weigh in again. All right.
>> Um Sylvia, where are you leaning on this
issue?
>> This is very interesting. You were
talking about colleges. I wish I would
have spoke before you because then
nobody would have said, "Oh, she took
your idea." But Robert Morris College
is an excellent school. much is because
I went there and my sister, but it is an
excellent school. We both graduated from
there and they have a wonderful program
where they find jobs for people. That
that was one of the big things that they
started day one and those people are
going to be ready, as you said, Jason,
to graduate very soon. And they're going
to be looking for work. And these are
people that are trained in the business
world. That's their job. to learn how to
professionally perform what we need.
And we've never thought of reaching out.
And I don't know why I didn't think of
it, but it came to me very clearly as I
sat here that maybe somebody could u
that we could contact Robert Morris.
>> Sylvia, being an alum, is that something
you'd be willing to do once we draft the
new position?
>> Absolutely. I would be glad to.
>> Thank you.
>> Yeah.
>> Thank you.
>> Mayor Dave. Well, I agree with everybody
what they're saying and I understand
what they're saying, but um I think we
got to look at one thing. Um I I I know
when you mentioned Robert Morris, my
daughter graduated Robert Morris for
business and two days later she got a
job over Davidson um design inventions
over in RIC Park. Um but she didn't know
everything. There was a woman that took
her under her wing, so to speak, and she
learned off of her. And I think of, you
know, to get somebody that's just out of
college, yeah, they learned everything
in school just like my daughter did. But
when you're thrown into the situation in
real life, I think it changes a lot of
things. Somebody's going to have to
mentor,
you know, this person on how to do
things. Um, I I kind of look at it like
um when the chief, you know, when
actually when this board hires a like
somebody out of the academy, I mean,
they know everything. They're taught,
you know, to do it the right way, you
know, and so on and so forth. But when
you're out there on the street in real
life, you're not in a controlled
environment.
>> You know, it's the real world out there.
You know, a traffic stop can go bad real
quick. But in the, you know, the
academy, just like, you know, you know,
you graduate college, you know, you were
in a control environment environment
where the, you know, your professor
would say, well, you know, you should do
this is, you know, but now you got all
this paperwork to do. You got to deal
with the public. You got to deal with
this entire board.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, and
I don't know. And and the other thing
too is um getting back to the police
department, we hired a lot of good
people, but they um coming out of the
academy and coming through, but they
didn't stay here, you know, for the
money reasons. They they moved on. And I
don't blame anybody for moving on. And
uh yeah, it is a money thing. But I
think if you and this is once again my
opinion, got a burrow manager that's you
know going to start them at 75 80,000
85,000 or whatever it may be, they're
going to stay a while and they've you
know have somewhat experience in
contacts and what have you. They know
how to do grants. somebody um an intern,
you know, they going to know how to do
big grants and work with this, you know,
the solicitor and the engineer, you
know, but
>> can I ask you a question?
>> Uh we were considering people that
weren't fully capable and they would
have need trained. So then what? You're
going to pay them $90,000 and they still
need the training and
>> No, I'm not saying that. No, I I'm just
saying so to your point
>> not coming at you. I'm just saying like
to your point like
>> they still need trained.
>> They're still going to have to learn on
their own,
>> right?
>> So why would you take a chance on
somebody that's coming out of school and
they're hot,
>> right?
>> But are they going to but are they how
long are they going to stay here? I
mean, once they start getting
>> that $90,000 person is going to stay
here, how do you know? You don't know.
She could quit tomorrow or he you know
what I mean?
>> It goes both ways, right?
No matter where
>> I look at it as a big picture, not being
>> Well, we're all throwing our opinions
in. That's my
>> No matter where you go.
>> No, I understand.
>> Throwing that out there, too, to say
like,
>> right.
>> Yep.
>> There's still
>> they could leave at any time. You're
right.
>> It's always a risk,
>> right?
>> Yeah.
>> No matter where you go, you're going to
have to be trained to some degree.
>> I don't care where you go because every
company has a different set of policies,
rules, regulations, even different type
of job. The only difference is are you
going to pay for the experience now or
are you going to pay for the experience
later?
>> That's the only difference.
>> And if you pay for the experience later,
you are also paying for somebody to
train that new person. So let's say we
found someone out of a school and we
could pay them 65, but then we're paying
someone for that year. I mean, and this
is lowballing it. 20,000, 15, 20,000.
So, that takes them right back up. So,
we're gonna pay the same.
>> Are you gonna do that for the 90,000
person?
>> Well, no, because first of all,
>> No, no, that's her opinion.
>> No, I'm agreeing. Yeah.
>> Oh. uh when we were doing our little
initial um negotiations, let's say for
the person that decided to go somewhere
else because they got a higher salary. I
that's why I wanted to start her on the
lower end, but someone with her skills
or even the other guy's skills would
have learned very quickly and they
wouldn't need to know a thing about the
finance part, which was a big plus. They
just needed to learn maybe I don't know
how long Jason you felt like we would
have had to
>> ask you to introduce them to the actual
burough manager job. Maybe three months,
maybe six months at the most. Um and you
wouldn't have had to be here full-time.
They could call you on the phone if they
had a question. That kind of thing. So
that's how I would have handled that. I
would would never I would not have
agreed to 90 anyway. Um
>> Kelly, I want to make sure you had a
chance to finish your point.
I mean, I just had to give up on this. I
feel like there's no You guys are set on
n like I feel like you're all set on
just 90,000
on 90,000.
>> That's it.
>> Nobody's set on 90,000 at all.
>> I understand that that's what they want.
That's what
>> Well, there's a range 75 to 90,
>> but I I don't feel heard and I don't
think anybody wants to hear it. And I
think everybody else gets it.
>> No, I I'm hearing you for sure. You just
feel like I don't understand why you're
not even like look into it.
>> I think that's what we are doing. But
I'm all I'm saying and putting in
>> we're comparing about stuff that could
happen. But you could have it could
happen with the other person too. So
>> agreed. My my point is that
>> we take the person with the lower amount
that we're paying them and less
experience and train them. The money is
going to be approximately the same.
That's all I'm saying.
>> I don't know. I think people that come
out of college are very smart and on top
of things. So I just don't I don't agree
on that. But
>> Kelly, take a vote. See who wants to
know.
>> You have to train.
>> Take a vote.
>> Yeah, if I'm understanding correctly.
>> No, I would not agree to 90.
>> Yeah, I mean wouldn't do that. We
probably should consider worst case
scenarios though. So if we hire someone
at 90, they're still going to need to
everyone's point 15 to 20k of training.
Um, so now we're talking, you know, well
over six figures versus Kelly's point
about finding someone in an
apprenticeship.
Um, we're still looking at like 65, but
that puts us at 85 with training, which
is a more doable figure for all of us.
Yes. Right. Interesting. Look into it.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> I think that's the consensus.
>> I think so.
>> Yeah. Um, coming back to Jason for final
thoughts as well as what action item you
need from council to move forward.
>> Yeah. I mean, I I think what I've what
I've heard from everyone is is that, you
know, you know, think we want to take
another crack at the job description.
Um, maybe lower the expectations that we
have in the job description, lower the
skill set. Um, start reaching out to the
universities with these M's programs
and, uh, start feeling out is there a
pool there for us to, you know, possibly
tap for our next position. I'm not going
to say secretary, treasurer, manager yet
until because who knows, maybe there is
somebody there that would accept a
position like this knowing that they
need to be trained up and uh go in that
direction. But how about if I'll work to
uh adjust the job description um and put
a plan together to re you know outreach
over the next you know two weeks and get
that back to you all for approval and
we'll go from there.
>> That sounds great. Um thank you Sylvia
for being willing to help solicit um
potential candidates from RMU. Do we
have anyone who would be willing to do
the same thing for Gpia?
>> For where
>> Gia Pit
>> or what?
>> I couldn't hear.
>> I'll reach out to Gia.
>> Thank you. Um I'm happy to take CMU. I
don't know if we have a contact.
>> We'll just walk across the street.
>> Well, I think I might have a contact
there. So,
>> and I think I might Excellent. My kids
work there.
Okay, good plan. Um, well, we need an
exact routine now in the next business
meeting.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
>> No matter who we get, they they're going
to have to be trained. I don't care
where you've been, it's nobody runs an
exact pattern. Everybody's got their own
way of doing things. So, you're going to
have training. I don't care where they
come from. I mean, unless we happen to
stumble upon the next Bonnie, in which
case, right,
>> we will have a big street party.
>> She's out there somewhere,
>> maybe. Or he. Um,
>> I'm sure
>> we'll move on then after that. Very good
um lengthy, but very good discussion.
Back to the last uh discussion item uh
which is the financial report item six
again with Mr. Dailyy.
>> Sure. So, I wanted to just take some
time and I I I will try to be brief, but
you know, there's a lot to cover here.
This probably has the most amount of
slides that we you looked at tonight. Um
was really and this is kind of like the
preoser I think to the 2025 audit. Uh
and what I've done here is just to
really present you with a recap of the
2025 finances from the general fund, the
serum water fund, capital fund and
liquid fuels fund. So in what my you
know highlevel review was of this and
you know some immediate things that I I
kind of see that we need to do uh I
think just from just from my initial you
know review here. So you know the first
part of here and I'll introduce every
fund this way which is you know the top
section is what we budgeted the bottom
part is what the actuals were. So, you
know, our budget, you know, we we you
know, we budgeted for a surplus
expectation of $54,92
in our general fund. We actually, you
know, we took in $85,000
less than that. Our expenses were
$57,000
more than that. Um, but overall, you
know, our net, you know, in the budget
was a positive $26,000
mainly because we we budgeted for, you
know, a surplus. Um, so we were we were
to the good $26,000, but we expected to
be to the good $54,000. So that was kind
of how our general fund played out a
little bit there. So some of the reasons
for that um you know just based off of
what I saw here and what I did was that
I provided in this in these upcoming
slides here the actual line item
accounts that I found that were more
likely the culprits for you know all of
the numbers that I'm presenting you with
here tonight is that you know we
overbudgeted
um our state grant revenue uh by
$100,000 meaning we didn't take in that
that amount of grant money and our solid
waste number. Uh we took in $53,000
less. Now, mind you, the report that I'm
looking at is the year end of 2025. So,
we don't get our Oakmont dispersement
for that until our January numbers. So,
there is some correcting that's going to
go on with this particular number. But,
but I'll come back to that minus 53,000
in solid waste. That's our trash number
uh that we we collected you know that
everybody pays quarterly. Um the other
thing was was that we were over you know
we were over budget in some revenues
here. Our our fixed asset proceeds
meaning the sale uh or the the
compensation from losses like insurance
claims and things like that was plus
22,000. We we took in more money than
budgeted in delinquent taxes. Uh and
then also our RAD money that we get from
the county was was to the positive
$10,000.
So these were some of the reasons for
the revenue adjustments that you know
that I saw going into uh you know how we
finished 2025. Some of the expenditure
issues where we where we didn't spend
all of our money uh we had a a capital
project for public works that we did not
spend $168,000
on. Um, our full-time officer salaries
were under by $80,000
uh in the police department. Our health
insurance was $40,000 less uh than what
was budgeted. And you know, there's
there's personnel reasons for a lot of
this stuff. We had a lot of personnel
off and that we weren't paying their
benefits because they were off. So, we
just didn't spend that money. That could
also go into why some of the full-time
salaries weren't spent as well. Uh we
spent a lot on, you know, part-time and
and the, you know, some of the other
ones, but our full-time officer salaries
were were low. Now, where we did spend
more money was in parks capital. Uh we
spent uh $133,000
more than was budgeted. Um engineering
services, we spent $45,000 more than was
budgeted. Then in in you know the line
item called consulting fees. We spent
$36,000 more than was budgeted which
probably accounted more for my fees. Uh
but this was offset also by this the
manager salary not being not being paid
out of that line item. So um you know
just some just some areas. The other
item on this particular one is that I
believe that some of the engineering
fees were um recuperated through the
sewer fund grants that we did receive.
So some of those things, you know, I
still have to look into, but from a high
level, these are the areas where we
were, you know, that we were over and
why I think that, you know, some of the
numbers were what they were. Um, some of
the recommendations that I have here is
that I think that we need to really
focus in on our grant forecasting.
um probably being a little bit more
conservative, you know, rather than
than, you know, calling out that we're
going to receive the whole grant, maybe
lowering the expectation that we might
always might not always get what we, you
know, set out to do. I think that we
need to look at how we uh request our
engineering services um require that
scopes be signed off on and that
communication goes to the manager's
office so that that can be streamlined
and the manager then can understand
exactly what's being requested or make
those requests directly of the engineer
uh you know for that. And uh as we were
going through the budget in for the 26
budget, you know, the solid waste
contract starts in May of every year and
that's whenever we were expecting to
initiate the solid waste increase. You
know, I'm actually going to propose that
we initiate that increase in March uh
next month in order to not have that
same, you know, loss happen uh that we
did to the solid waste fund this year uh
in in 25. So we'll increase that. You
know, the recommendation will be that we
we increase that in March. And then I
think moving forward in future years, it
should just be on an annual basis rather
than trying to wait those five months
and initiate that because I think that
got a little wonky in the revenues and
that's why it looks like the general
fund subsidized the solid waste program.
So, uh, but again, that's that's just a
that's just a high level of thoughts
that I had. As far as our sewer fund
goes,
uh, we budgeted, you know, you know, you
can see what we budgeted here and and
overall, our budget was to the good
69,000.
Uh, however, our actuals was over spent,
$134,267.
Now, this was a direct result of us
taking in uh some additional grant money
that's not captured in the in the sewer
fund. Um and uh and also paying off that
debt. Uh we had debt service that was,
you know, that we were getting to the
front of uh and so those payments, you
know, accumulated and and that's why
that number is as high as it is. But it
still lends, you know, it still, you
know, uh, you know, I think I'll talk
about what what kind of happened, what
my recommendations are there, uh, as
well. So again, just like we did in the
general fund, you know, we overshot
grants that were written for but not
received. So we we estimated a $224,000
was going to come in. You know, that did
not get received, but it it was
recognized in 2025's budget. Um, we also
had some offset charges that we took in
additional $30,000 $362.
Yeah, $30,362
in additional revenue. Uh, that kind of
offset, you know, some of the the
revenue expectations there, but that was
from, you know, usage charges, meaning
people spent more on water. Uh, and so
our sewer charges that we, you know,
received were higher as a result of
that. Um, some of the variances that I
saw at the end was that, you know, our
sewage treatment costs were up over
$110,000 this year. So, that was an
additional cost. You know, we we did not
budget for contracted services using
Oakmont uh to to handle our billing. Um,
there was a, you know, charges around
$43,000 for that. And then just in
general when our our capital projects
occurred later in the year, but we
didn't, you know, receive the funds
until later in the year, you know, it
made it look like we were upside down
$180,000, but in reality, you know, it
was just based on the timing of when we
actually did that project. That money
did get received, but it's just a matter
of of when we got the money that made
that expenditure variance. Don't think
it was it was out of whack to the tune
of 180,000. So, just like I, you know, I
had some recommendations for the general
fund, I think that for the sewer fund,
we need to monitor, you know, we're
we're out of our debt service payments
now. So, we should expect to see our
revenues climb quicker each quarter now
because we're not making those those
debt service payments any anymore. The
general fund has completely paid off
that sewer debt that it was owed. Um, we
need to continue to monitor how we
budget for grants in these budgets
rather than putting them into these
operating, you know, uh, funds. They
should probably be more geared in the
capital fund so that they don't throw
these budgets off like they did this
year uh, in 2025. And then again, I
think that we need to be making these
rate corrections for services sooner
rather than, you know, handling these as
pass through increases. So, uh, again,
we we increased our sewer budget size by
7% because that's what Alpha 10 charges
us, but we didn't really, you know, we
had a lot of, uh, you know, increase in
sewer rates because of how much water
people used in the in the 2025 year that
we just didn't necessarily account for.
So, again, I feel like that budget is
still razor thin. It's it's very tight.
Um but um uh those are those would be
some of the suggestions if you need to
monitor a revenue that fund as well.
Um as far as our liquid fuels fund goes
um we do have some carryover money in
here. We budgeted you know to you know
to utilize those carryover funds and to
have a negative um uh number of 25 you
know of around 25,000 because we were
using um previously balanced unused
money in that fund. um our actual net we
we spent, you know, 2 over $26,000,
which is pretty close to where we
thought we would be on this budget. Um
the the fund is still in in really good
shape, but um again, our paving was
relatively small for 2025 and um but we
still, you know, spent right around
where we thought we were going to be for
this particular one. Um, some of the big
items that, you know, I found that
impacted this fund was that our interest
earnings, we overbudgeted for those by
around $2,500.
Um, we we shot a little high on what we
thought we were going to get in as far
as the funds went by by $1,500.
Our rock salt budget was over budget and
our street lighting was under budget by
about, you know, close to the same
dollar amount. So when you look at
these, you know, these particular
variances, again, they're not really far
off when, you know, in the aggregate. So
I feel like this fund is, you know, was
pretty well uh in budget, but um you
know, some of those interest earnings
and things like that, you know, as we
spent that money down, we earned less
money on what what we thought we were
going to earn. Um and that's where that
ended up.
So again, just some recommendations on
that one. You know, budget a little bit
more conservative on interest. Uh and we
need to you know one of the big impacts
to our spending in 2025 was Roxson
talked about that before about the
needs.
Oh, sorry. It's not you
>> about the uh about, you know, we have a
need to consider a larger salt storage
area because if we if we don't, you
know, if we have to continue to order
rock salt on the fly like we did this
year and like we, you know, we'll more
likely have to do in 2026,
um, you know, we pay more for that. So
if we if we can order larger amounts and
get fewer deliveries, uh not only do we
have the peace of mind that we have rock
salt, but we can also avoid that price
volatility that we did pay uh for in
2025.
And then um lastly is the capital fund.
Um you know, this one was probably the
most volatile um but it also had the
most variances in the budget itself. So,
we budgeted to have to have spent in
this fund, you know, um over 136,000 of
what we anticipated revenue coming in
on. And that was those were some pretty
large capital projects that were done
out of that uh out of that fund. Um we
don't always take in a lot of money in
our capital fund and you know, this is
usually funded through um uh uh fund
balance. So, whatever we don't spend in,
you know, from year to year, we will we
will move money over into this fund. And
this is how we do bigger projects. Um,
but as far as our income went, we didn't
have a lot of income that went into this
fund. Uh, 15,000 that was from a grant
that we that we got issued. Um, we
expected to transfer $257,000
into that fund or for that fund to also
be replenished with grant money. Um,
that did not happen. Uh but we also
expected to spend $388,000
that we did not spend. So, you know, we
actually were, you know, we actually
netted, you know, only a loss of $4,500
in this fund mainly because we didn't
take in money. So, we didn't spend that
money on those projects that uh we
expected we were going to get.
So, some of the big variances were, you
know, the capital works had a project
that was laid out at, and this might
have been more than one project. All I
looked at was the individual lines. Uh,
but capital or public works had a
capital project of $250,000 that didn't
get done. Parks had a a project of uh
$138,000
that didn't get done. And again, our
interest earnings were we overestimated
what we were going to get um uh in
there. So, you know, that that played
out differently in the uh in the 20 end
of 2025.
So, overall, um you know, some things
that we can be doing better, I think, to
to make this a little more clear is that
we can base our projects on funds that
are available rather than projecting
that we're going to get these grant
funds and and then have them sitting on
that on that balance sheet. The other
thing is that we can put a project
together that more tracks the funding
and timing of when these projects will
be done. Um, working more closely with
Matt, you know, with the engineer to to
really help guide how those funds would
peel off of that budget in a in a little
cleaner manner. So, um, again, that was
just from a high level. It's kind of
like a, you know, the pre uh view to
the, you know, what I would consider to
be the the 2025 audit as to where we
sit. But I think it gives you guys a
little bit of a snapshot as to how those
funds performed in in 2025. And that's
everything that I have. Does anybody
have any questions on those items?
>> That is an excellent snapshot. Thank you
for preparing that.
>> Very good.
>> Yep.
>> Would you Well done.
>> Would you typically do that just
annually? Could you do that again this
summer?
>> Yeah, I think it'd be good for us to do
it every quarter, you know, just to do a
check-in. And I think working with the
are we calling it a financial
sustainability,
you know, you know, I think it'd be good
to sit with that committee and develop a
um a more deeper dive. This was really
just kind of like that check-in and
snapshot as to how the year ended. And I
only kind of looked at that from the
last four months myself. So uh but I
think it'd be a good check-in to do it.
>> Um sorry, go ahead.
>> I'll just ask one general question. Um,
can you clarify which of the items
related to grants are currently in the
general fund that are causing ambiguity
that you propose moving to the capital?
I heard sewer, but shouldn't we move all
capital projects granted?
>> I think that we should uh you know those
those larger capital projects I think
should be be coming right out of the
capital reserve. And then that that's
also a really good check on the fact
that you know if you don't have it, you
can't spend it either. So if it's not
showing up on that capital budget and
the funds aren't available and it you
can't just pull it from the general fund
then which I I feel like that general
fund because it was budgeted the way
that it has been with that larger fund
you know that was normally moved over
from fund balance to the capital. I
think it was looked at as I'm not going
to say a piggy bank but it was kind of
looked at as hey we have this money
sitting here
>> safety net.
>> Yes. Exactly.
>> Would you include road paving in the
capital projects that move to capital
fund?
>> Definitely. Yep.
Um I just wanted to say that um in the
beginning you were talking about the
solid waste collection disposal line
364.300
because we didn't have the information
from January but we just got it and it
says that we got uh took in 56,720.
So that's actually offset plus a little
extra left over. So that that line item
is okay.
>> Yeah.
>> So um yeah, a couple things I wanted to
note um for people especially wondering
about our bill that's going to come out
uh with an increase in the garbage. If
you recall with the sewer uh bill, we
passed the thing at the beginning of
each year to go up 7%.
because Alka-San is charging us 7%. So
both the the water or all three the
water the sewage and the garbage goes
through the water company and so
anything that isn't paid
uh we pay the bureau pays and so it's
possible and again the finance committee
will spend a little more time with this
with with our burough manager but I
think what happened is we didn't go up
each year on the garbage while county
hauling was increasing our rate to the
burrow according to the contract. I
can't swear this because I don't
remember, but if anybody else here
remembers whether or not we passed a
motion to increase our garbage rates,
then that's one thing. I don't remember
us doing that. I really remember us
doing Alcasan. I remember the
explanation went up by 7%.
Uh, so warning everybody, your outand
part of your bill is going to go up by
7%. I don't know what the percentages
here. I'm not sure what the contract
says.
So, so at some point soon in the next
couple of months, our bills are going to
increase
uh accordingly because of the garbage
part of that bill that we get from
Oakmont water. It's water, sewage, and
garbage. And but we can't continue to
run at a loss. Uh if that's indeed what
we discover when we look at it more
carefully, um you know, whatever they're
increasing our rates, we need to pass
that increase rate along to the to the
people in the community. It's
unfortunately the way that it works. Um
also wanted to point out so the salt
everything is dependent on everything
else. So in order for us to be able to
buy 120% of what we think we'll need in
salt, we need a bigger place to put it
in. which is why finding a new place for
the salt shed is very important because
um uh if we don't find a bigger area to
put it in then we can't order the 120%
which means we spend more on salt. So I
just wanted people to be aware of how um
you know one thing leads to another
thing which leads to another thing which
ultimately leads to us having less money
a lot of times. And the fourth thing was
just I don't know the answer to this. I
just know that there's some way that
you're supposed to put the grant money
in the grant money out. And that's what
I learned about three years ago working
with Stephanie. She put the grant money
in, she took the grant money out. The
grant money out was higher than the
grant money in because it included the
match. And the matches is where we lose
the money. And some grants you get the
money and you just spend it. But a lot
of grants you don't get the money. You
spend it and then you send something to
the grant people and then they send you
some money. Um
uh so it's complicated with grants. it's
very difficult to track how that money
comes in and how that money goes out.
So, um those were just a few little
insights that I have on that and if I'm
incorrect, please correct me. Um let me
know if I got that right.
>> So, so should we going forward just put
that money just into the capital fund?
Yeah, I think that's where it makes
sense to keep it off of your books that
way. Um because it it really threw off,
you know, what I thought looked like at
the year end when you look at the at the
expenditures and revenues, it it really
threw them off because the expectations
were higher than what
>> Yeah. makes makes us Yeah. It makes us
look like we're doing a lot better than
we were. Mhm.
>> And and that money may be coming in in
2026,
but it's very hard to predict
>> Yeah.
>> when the project, you know, like the
weather, it has a big impact on a lot of
these paving projects. And they stopped.
And so if it's the type of grant where
you spend the money, then you send in
that invoice, and then they reimburse
us, then we're not getting that money in
2025, even though we did that project in
2025. Does that make sense? I hope the
people Yeah.
>> Right.
>> All good comments about how to make this
cleaner and smoother and in alignment
with best practices. Other questions for
Jason on the report?
or comments.
I trust that we can follow up with you.
>> Appreciate it.
>> All right.
At this time, this will bring us to
section 8, comments from the public.
Once again, council will hear comments
on public related matters. Please
approach the podium or raise your
virtual hand, state your name and
address, and limit your remarks to three
minutes. Comment should focus on burough
business policies or actions. Council
encourages thoughtful feedback on
decisions and performance while
maintaining a respectful and
constructive dialogue. Hi Susie.
>> Susie Davis 537 Ridge Avenue. First off,
where is Mr. Long? Why
did he report that he had to work or
something?
Because he should have been here. I felt
he's part of this council. He should be
here.
Second, okay, you were talking about the
paving and the speed humps down on Arch
Street. Are you going to put the speed
hump on Seldon this year?
Because you last year, last summer,
early fall when I brought it up, I was
led to believe that it was going in. I
understand the weather played a factor.
It's playing a factor right now, but it
needs to be put down there. Am I
correct? They're still speeding down
there.
>> Yes, they're horrible down there. And my
last thing is with the council um bar
manager, I'm sorry, borrow manager
position. I understand there was one
that was interested in the job and you
guys couldn't pay them because they
wanted a little bit more, but from what
you're saying, it was within the pay
range. I understand that this person
wanted at 85,000
and you're talking you're you're saying
60 to 85,000 possibly 90. So why wasn't
that person hired?
We need to get somebody in here even if
it's a part-time
because I'm sure we're paying Jason a
lot more for his inult consulting than
we would pay a regular burrow manager.
Am I correct or not? Thank you.
Thank you, Susie. I will comment briefly
on item three. Our uh top two candidates
both um took other positions in other
places for various reasons, though it
wasn't an issue about the salary. Um
regarding point two, do we think uh the
speed hump on Seldon should be covered
under infrastructure or planning and
active transportation? Curtis,
>> whatever's best.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you and I kind of I
don't I don't want it to seem like I'm
pushing for it because I don't want to
get involved in something that's, you
know, it makes it look like, you know
what I mean? So, whatever you think's
best.
>> All right. We'll make sure we get that
on our priorities.
>> I do have a question though about that.
I I or a comment. I think we don't need
just one. I think you need two.
>> Yes. One at the very beginning.
>> Yep.
>> And one farther down.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah.
>> On either side of the stop signs.
>> Got it. because they're flying out from
the boulevard onto there from brunch
street on and then they're flying from
yeah
>> the plastics plant
>> and conco down there not so much dailies
because most of the dailies employees go
through the ARB entrance
>> right perfect thank you for citing that
Susie other comments
>> I can just add one more thing to the
thing about the humps my recollection is
that Matt when we were asking about this
before, specifics about road humps
when you're not actually paving the road
at that time. I think he said something
about one hump uh cost something like
$10,000.
And I'm not sure that we had budgeted
for that or had a grant for that. And
the reason we're considering it done by
Silvin uh is because we're going to be
paving and it costs a lot less to put a
hump in when you're paving. So, we got
to maybe find some extra money somewhere
in order to be able to just put a hump
in there.
>> Go on, Sandy. One thing if you're having
to pay front,
>> you got to come up there. If you're
paving from Front Street because you're
doing Front Street because they only
skim coated it last year,
>> right?
>> How much more would it be to add on to
that?
>> We'd have to ask Matt on Front Street or
on Seldon.
>> On Seldon to put the speed bumps, like I
said, they got to come in and pave it
because they tore it up last year. They
put the skim coat on, then the weather
changed and they never finished it. And
by the way, coming off the boulevard
onto French Street, there's some nasty
holes there. I hope the burrow today
when they were out doing cold patch
patch those because they're awful.
>> Yeah.
>> Got it.
>> But yeah, like I said, if you're going
to do that, see Felino or whoever the
contractor was that's going to be doing
front street if they couldn't do it
maybe at a better price.
>> Thank you, Susie.
Just a continuation from my earlier
comments regarding DPW and duties and
responsibilities.
Uh
at some point in 2025, I came down here
and talked to council about the
pet station on Second Avenue and was
told by council that it had to come down
because it wasn't in the DPW's
responsibilities.
to collect that even though they were
collecting the other trash disposals.
>> So when I'm talking conflict of interest
and I mean I I don't quite understand
how they could be responsible for
hanging baskets and watering baskets but
they weren't responsible for collecting
the trash.
>> So if you could look into that as well
I'd appreciate
>> noted um also already drafted a response
to you so we'll have that to you soon.
There's a hand up there.
>> Um, let's let's finish with the audience
members first. Sherry
>> Sharing I Hulivar. I just want to wish
everybody a happy Chinese New Year.
Thank you.
>> Today is the first day. It's a fire
horse year. Um my father and I 10 years
ago we founded the Chinese culture
center and we have been um collab
collaborating with the Pittsburgh
Playhouse down in um what is that
college? Oh my god, I don't remember
now. But we've been you know the culture
center has evolved and putting on some
great shows. But tomorrow we invited
some of those performers to the hoola
bar. It's all age show. It's free. You
don't have to purchase a ticket. So we
welcome the residents here to come enjoy
the show. Bring your kids. We're going
to have drum dances and um Chinese
traditional instrument playing and we
will have um homemade dumplings for
everybody. So,
>> what time?
>> Uh it starts at 7. So, it's all age.
Yeah. If you don't get a chance to go
down to downtown and enjoy the show, you
can come to the hoola, see a little
snipp of it.
>> That's perfect. Thank you, Sherry.
Other comments?
Okay, we'll move on to virtual comments.
Hi Leslie.
>> Hi. Sorry. First time using this format.
Can you hear me?
>> Yes, you're good. Go ahead.
>> Um Leslie Setlog 566 Bruce. This is
really just a a question or need for
clarification about the manager
secretary issue. Um I heard the phrase
train up a few times. I'm confused as to
how that would work because it seems
like it whether it was for a new grad or
for hiring somebody as a secretary once
you train them you would then be
expected to pay them the going rate for
a manager. Um unless the idea would just
be you know to hire them as a secretary
and have them do manager level work but
assuming that we're planning on on
actually making them or training them
into a manager we would still then be
expected to pay the going rate. So is it
possible to explain how that would help?
Thank you.
Thank you, Lizzie.
>> That wouldn't that be that would be
contractual as it as a as it was before,
right? Where would it be under contract
or is it be an hourly
>> employee?
>> How would that how would that work with
the set with the uh
you know the the secretary treasurer? Is
it a is it an hourly position?
>> No.
>> Or would it be a contract contract u
salaried? Uh
>> let's have Jason handle this one if he
wishes at this point.
>> Yeah, I mean I think to that point, you
know, we need to look at both I think at
both of those uh both an hourly and a
salary position for a secretary
treasurer. Um you know, when you're at
around that $60,000 mark, you're in the
30, you know, 28, you know, maybe $29 an
hour range, you know, for a um you know,
for a position like that. Um the
expectation is is that there's there's
not a lot of overtime available for that
position like attending evening meetings
and things like that. You know, we we
would need to look at that. Um but I
think getting to the point of the you
know of the training piece of that um
yeah the you know I think that the goal
is is you you do you bring that you know
and we'll look at this is you know if
you bring that that position in at a
lower rate you know you're able to
increase them incrementally at a slower
pace rather than bringing them in at you
know the 80 80 to 85,000 expecting them
to jump right into the seat know what
the job is and you know in that type of
thing. So I think that you know if you
if you can find number one if you can
find the candidates that are uh
available to you at that at that lower
rate and you can you know bring them
along through you know various trainings
uh you know get a mentoring type
situation or some something along those
lines a peer program or something that
you know they would they would come
along within that six months to a year
uh time frame And then you evaluate what
you're going to do with you know with
their salary after that year to year
like you do you the position normally.
>> Isn't it true if you were to do a
contract with an employee like that the
maximum
uh duration of a contract would be four
wouldn't it be four years
>> on something like that? Isn't it because
it would
>> be in terms of how would it be within
like a council term
>> how that would work?
>> Yeah. So, municipal manager contracts
are only up to two years.
>> Up to two years.
>> Yeah. So, it's every municipal election
year. Um Okay.
>> Yep. And then they have to be
renegotiated
uh renewed, whatever. But they have to
be voted on every reorganization.
>> Would it be the same if you were to do a
contract for a secretary treasur
position similar? I mean, is it is it
the similar makeup if you were to
>> do a contract for for that type of
position?
>> Yes. I have to look into whether or not,
you know, an employment agreement is is
more typical or not for that secretary
treasurer position than it is for the
for the burough manager. Um, you know,
more typically I see letter agreements
that are made with uh like that rather
than full employment agreements that
have severance packages and, you know,
things like that. But there very well
could be those same type of arrangements
out there for the secretary treasurer
position. Uh, I would just need to look
into that a little bit more.
I I can historically say that um with
Christine who is the burough secretary
it was an employment agreement. Craig
will say there's no difference between
the two but it was an agreement and I
honestly cannot remember if it was just
for a year but they were negotiating to
promote her to burrow manager and
increase her salary but it didn't work
out. Um and that was being done when she
was about 8 months into the job. And um
Stephanie's we that was yearly I think
as well cuz I remember we changed her uh
her amount anyway that she was getting
paid. I don't know if that means we
renegotiated other things. I don't
remember. But they were agreements.
I don't know if that matters if it's an
agreement or a contract.
>> Our chief has an agreement as well. Um,
do we have any other public comments?
>> Spence.
>> Those are our only two meeting
attendees. At this time, I will take a
motion for adjournment.
>> Oh, motion.
>> Motion by councelor Carpenter. Do I have
a second? Second by councelor Rodriguez.
Questions or comments? All in favor? Are
there any posts?
>> Sherry, could you open that press?
>> Thank you. Have a good night.