Yesterday's Budget Meeting

I was discouraged by a few things regarding yesterday's budget meeting. First off, there was no press notification. I published it in my blog, but assumed any notification would be properly handled by our Chief Administrative Officer as usual. Having the entire board at a meeting without press notification is not only unethical but illegal. I'm meeting with Bryan Hawkings from the Starkville Daily News today to give him an update on what was discussed at the meeting.

The purpose of the meeting was to give a preliminary outline of the upcoming fiscal budget. The good news was that so far this year we had budgeted for a 3% increase in our sales tax revenue and we ended up with 3.9% which amounted to around $50,000 extra. The bad news is that our ad valorem taxes came up shorter than expected. Budget committee chairman Matt Cox stated he believed the housing issues affecting the nation could be affecting us locally. Regardless, so far we projected a shortcoming of roughly $200,000 for the next budget year without considering any outside contributions (Red Cross, Boy Scouts, etc) except for the ones we have a legal or emergency obligation to, which include the library, Heritage Museum (because we own the building), Humane Society, and ambulance services for our police/fire departments. Given this budget year isn't over, these numbers could change over the new 2 months; however, there is a chance the board may have to make some difficult decisions for the upcoming year.

I'll scan and provide some of the documents given in a follow up post.

Next Up: Sanitation Department

I wanted to share the progress each department has made and so today I wanted to touch on our sanitation department. Sharon Boyd is our department head, appointed during our first year of this board. Previously sanitation was under the public works department.

Sharon recently presented her goals for the upcoming year in a power point presentation to the board. Click here for a copy of the presentation.

The biggest change out of the department this year was the Solid Waste ordinance. This cleaned up some of the confusion with the previous ordinance as well as requiring that garbage be both bagged and in a can and got rid of the unsightly open corral's where people would collectively dump their garbage.

Although it was done earlier in our term, you may also recall the change of the city dumpsters to maroon with dog prints on it. That was Sharon's idea and one that I think made the dumpsters look a lot better and very little cost.

One purchase that the sanitation department is requesting is a new rideable device for collecting litter. Our street sweeper is limited to the street and therefore is unable to get around to where garbage is left after the many numerous events held around the city. Sharon was able to figure the cost of the device into her budget without requiring any sort of cost increases, which I think is admirable. This device would make it much easier to clean up after our big-name events.

It was previously called the MadVac 101; however, it's recently had a design change and is now called the LR50. Click here for a pdf showing the device. Also, you can go to http://picasaweb.google.com/apollmueller/LR50Final?authkey=keuS2xnt-ic if they would like to see additional pictures of the device.

In closing I would like to thank both Sharon and her department for the work they've done this year. They've done an outstanding job.

Preliminary Budget Meeting Scheduled

It's getting to be that time of year again where the board of aldermen are tasked with compiling the budget for the '08-'09 year. The budget is due in mid-September and goes into effect on October 1st. A preliminary meeting to discuss some of the aspects of this year's budget has been scheduled for the conference room of city hall at 8:30am on Monday, July 23rd.

Park Amenities

Back at the Mississippi Municipal League conference down in Biloxi, MS, I met a representative of Playworld Systems. They were demoing their line of products for parks. Of particular interest to me were two amenities they sell: equipment for skateparks and exercise stations that can be placed along walking paths.

I think the exercise stations could be a great addition to our parks. One idea would be to have a walking path around the Sportsplex and provide the stations for parents to use while their children are playing at the fields.



The other product line, concerning skateparks, could be of help in getting one off the ground in the area. There have been some who would like to see a skatepark. I remember that some people were going to try to start one in Caledonia, but I'm not sure if they were successful or not. They also recommend some communities do it in phases so it's not such a financial burden to purchase all of that equipment at once. Here is a link to a pdf of one of the skateparks they did. The outline shows how the skatepark was assembled in three phases.



My next step is to facilitate a meeting between the park commission and a representative from their company to see if there is interest in pursuing either of these ideas and whether they would be feasible in light of the park's budget.

Building Department Presentation

Below is the power point presentation by Ben Griffith, our city planner. In it, he reviews how our building department is structured, the amount of work they've done (467 trash violations alone), and where they would like to go from here, such as bringing our building standards up to the latest specs. It's worth a look through, especially if you have questions about how that department is set up.

Building Department Goals '08

Cotton Mills Marketplace Video

So apparently Comvest Properties has come out with a video showcasing the proposed Cotton Mills Marketplace development. As you may recall, this is the outdoor mall development that's been talked about.

Click here to see the video and let me know what you think. I'd be interested to hear your comments on this one.

Tech Committee Update

Our committee met last week to discuss 4 matters.

1. Update on 311

We have been waiting for a while now on the actual implementation of the 311 system, a non-emergency number to allow people in the city and county a way to phone in problems that aren't life threatening. Right now the additional panels needed are being installed in the local 911 office and so we hope to have that up and running soon.

2. City Clerk Software

We're still in a situation where the city clerk's software is outdated and often causes more harm than good. The best software solution we heard from was a bit pricey (actually they all were, I guess that goes with the territory of custom software). Since the software package that looked the most promising included modules for handling building permits, we may look at a lease agreement with payments to come from both city clerk and building departments.

3. Bandwidth

We were previously looking at using Telepak to handle our internet needs at city hall. Telepak leases bandwidth from the fiber optic cable built by MEGAPOP. However, it was brought to our attention that Metrocast also leases from the MEGAPOP fiber optic backbone, so we are getting figures in from them and are going to be with the best option as far as price is concerned at our next meeting.

4. Website

Continued maintaince of our city website is needed. Given how busy our IT guy, Al, already is with every other technical issue in all of the city departments, we may need to explore the possiblity of hiring a second IT person to mediate some of the issues. This is something we're going to explore more closely as we approach budget time for the next fiscal year, which for us starts October 1st.

Thoughts on the Economic Development Luncheon

I had mixed feelings concerning the luncheon we had regarding economic development in the M-Club building on campus. The University was gracious enough to host the event with several people from the community in attendance. My biggest personal complaint would have to be that it seemed too much like it was patting ourselves on the back. The comments were almost glowing without addressing the pitfalls we still need to overcome. Numerous awards were given out for no real reason. Another criticism arose from Steve Rogers who writes a column for WCBI in Columbus. [link to story, scroll halfway down] His opinion was, given that one of the recurring statements made was our need to embrace regionalism, we didn't have anyone from the region at the event (Clay, Lowndes Counties for example)

On a positive note, I do believe the event was a great refresher course for the county in trying to keep us all on the same page on what needs to be done. Five very renowned speakers gave brief talks about what we should do. To recap some:

Gray Swoope (Executive Director - Mississippi Development Authority) brought up 5 points:
1. Define what determines success
2. Give professionals the tools they need and don't keep changing our agenda for them
3. MSU will continue to play an even greater role in economic development
4. Strategic planning is a must, but useless if its not implemented
5. Teamwork is vital

Phil Paradice (Regional Director, Atlanta - Economic Development Administration) mentioned that investors don't want to go to areas that don't have clear, concise strategic plans and introduced Bobby Dennis who is the EDA representative for the area.

Del Boyette (President - Boyette Levy, Inc.) advised that we keep in mind that Starkville is different from much of the rest of the state largely due to the University and that therefore our opportunities will be different. He went on to say that the state of Mississippi itself loses if MSU/Starkville don't get along because many of the higher tech industries that come to this state will likely want to come here. He also said we should adapt our strategy with the times and economy and that we should focus on the TAP study recommendations. *more on that below

John Bradly (Senior Vice President - TVA Economic Development) suggested we establish a series of benchmarks to mark progress towards our goals.

Blake Wilson (Executive Director - Mississippi Economic Council) also gave a talk towards the end; however, by that time the event had gone overtime and I had to leave early.

At our table was a document outlining the recommendations of the TaP (Targeted and Prepared) study. This was done in conjunction with TVA. When the study is brought up, it's often stated that we were selected out of 47 communities for this. While on the surface that sounds great, in actuality the reason a community is selected for this type of study is because they aren't performing up to their potential, which is something I believe we should be mindful of. The study outlined several recommendations, which I'm including in a PDF format for reading and download. [TaP Recommendations] (And here is another document from a previous event with some notes) [Previous Econ Development Handout]

I like what an economic development group in Tupelo did. They had a series of goals they wanted to achieve, so they printed them out on a large poster size document, framed it, and put it on their wall so they were reminded each and everyday of what they were working towards. I think they even marked off the ones they accomplished. Gray Swoope said it best himself when he said that the best plan in the world won't do any good without implementation, which, given we now have a recommended plan from the TaP study, should have been the theme of the event.

Economic Development Conference / Next Infrastructure Meeting

Today at 11am we had a meeting conducted by the University in conjuction with the Partnership. All of the aldermen, supervisors, committee of 100 members, and several university representatives were invited. We had a good overall turnout and listened to five very informative speakers. I'll have a recap of the meeting in a post tonight or tomorrow along with some of my notes from the event.

In other news, the Infrastructure Committee is having another meeting at City Hall on Monday, July 14th, at 4pm. I guess they didn't wrap up everything on their agenda in time for the meeting next week and want to get those issues resolved.

Committee Meetings this Week

There are three committee meetings scheduled for this week at City Hall. They are:

7/8 - Infrastructure Committee
4pm, City Hall
They're going to be discussing revising the false alarm ordinance after complaints from a number of entities around town. This needs to be done, while the idea of trying to cut back on false alarms is a good one, the particular implementation has resulted in businesses feeling unjustly targeted. A good example is the animal shelter, which got sited for false alarms even when people snuck on their property to drop off animals after-hours. The intrusion set off the alarm and the shelter's defense was that it was a legitimate use of the alarm and they shouldn't be penalized for it.

7/9 - Recycling Committee
4pm, City Hall

7/10 - Technology Committee
3:30pm, City Hall
This is my committee and we'll be discussing the issue of adding bandwidth at city hall (to accommodate increased usage in part through our new police vehicle computer system) and the software used in the city clerk's office. A lot of people don't know that the clerks use 3 different pieces of software, one of which is so old it's on one of the old monochrome monitors. Conslidating the three into one will save time and give them greater flexibility when generating reports and other matters of the city.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Independence Day weekend! I have spent the time with my family in Columbus. The previous week has been a difficult one, my car broke, my phone broke, and I became sick and unable to attend our Board of Alderman meeting on Tuesday. Since then I've been feeling better, replaced the car battery which was dead, and have a temporary phone so hopefully I can catch back up on the activities of the past week. Of particular interest to me is the Beautification Committee's interest in the revitalization of 182. I have heard from enough people who saw 182 as their first sight upon driving into Starkville and that is not the kind of impression we should leave with people new to the city. I plan to follow up with a more detailed series of suggestions to implement the recommendations of the Beautification Committee.