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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1991-09-27 - City Commission Special Meeting Minutes^CITY OF TAMARAC 7525 Northwest 88 Avenue Tamarac, Florida 33321-2401 Phone (305) 722-5900 Fax (305) 722-4509 RECORD OF COUNCIL DISCUSSION/ACTION September 24, 1991 NOTICE OF SPECIAL MEETING CITY COUNCIL OF TAMARAC, FLORIDA There will be a Special Meeting of the City Council on Friday, **September 27, 1991, at 1:30 P.M. in the Conference Room #1, Tamarac City Hall, 7525 N.W. 88 Avenue, Tamarac, Florida. The Council will consider the following items: 1• PR�T&TTON by Municipal Administrative Services (MAS) regarding the review and analysis of City franchise agreements. FINAL ACTION - Presentation was made. Discussion was held. 2• PUBLIC PARTTr.TPATION - Any member of the public may speak to any issue which is not agendized for public hearing at this meeting. Speakers will be limited to three minutes during this item and at public hearings. There will be a thirty (30) minute aggregate time limit for this item, and speakers are encouraged to sign up in advance with the City Clerk prior to their participation. The City Council may consider and act upon such other business as may come before it. In the event this agenda must be revised, such revised copies will be available to the public at the City Council meeting. Pursuant to Chapter 286.0105, Florida Statutes, if a person decides to appeal any decision made by the City Council with respect to any matter considered at such meeting or hearing, he may need to ensure that a verbatim record of the proceedings is made which record includes the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is based. CAE/kj 60_2_� Carol A. Evans City Clerk THE CITY OF TAMARAC IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER AND DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE ON THE BASIS OF HANDICAPPED SIATUS City Council Special Meeting 9/27/91/KJ Page 1 CITY OF TAMARAC CITY COUNCIL SPECIAL MEETING FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1991 CALL TO ORDER: Mayor Abramowitz called this meeting to order on Friday, September 27, 1991 at 1:30 p.m. in Conference Room #1 of Tamarac City Hall, 7525 Northwest 88 Avenue, Tamarac, Florida. PRESENT; Mayor Norman Abramowitz Vice Mayor Dr. Larry Bender Councilwoman Diane Glasser Councilman Henry Schumann Councilman Irving Katz ALSO PRESENT John P. Kelly, City Manager Dina McDermott, Assistant City Manager Alan F. Ruf, City Attorney Carol A. Evans, City Clerk Karen Jackson, Secretary Dr. Guy Rankin, Municipal Administrative Services (MAS) 1. PRESENTATION by Municipal Administrative Services (MAS) regarding the review and analysis of City franchise agreements. FINAL , &QTION: Presentation was made. Discussion was held. V/M Bender said the purpose of this meeting is to update and attempt to stimulate the revenues from the City's franchise agreements. He said the following actions are required to accomplish this: 1. All franchise agreements must be reviewed and updated to comply with all Federal, State and County requirements. 2. Franchise audits must be conducted in order to confirm total compliance with franchise agreements. 3. The City must explore all possible ways that the City can obtain new and additional revenues from all of the City's current franchise agreements. V/M Bender said he reviewed the franchise agreements and could not find a record of any audits during all the years that the City has been in existance. He introduced Dr. Guy Rankin, representative of Municipal Administrative Services (MAS). Dr. Rankin said MAS is a national franchise compliance auditing firm affiliated with Public Technology, Incorporated (PTI), which is a branch of the International City Managers Association (ICMA), the National League of Cities (NLC) and National Association of County Officials (NACO) . Dr. Rankin said through PTI, MAS works for cities in reviewing what assets the City has in terms of their rights -of -way use and if they are being compensated properly. He said utility companies use the City rights -of -way to conduct their business and to generate millions of dollars of profits each year. He said the City then becomes the landlord and the companies that use those rights -of -way are the tenants. Dr. Rankin said the City should not permit the utilities to use those rights -of -way to generate those means of balance and profits without receiving some benefit from those uses. City Council Special Meeting 9/27/91/KJ Page 2 Dr. Rankin said the Federal Government has cut back on the amount of money it gives to the States which, in turn, filters through to the cities. He said the cities have begun looking at their rights -of -way as an asset that is either underused or unused. He said with this being the case, municipalities who are concerned contact firms such as MAS to review their franchise agreements, City Ordinances, State Statutes, the various Public Utility Commission rulings and any current Federal Court rulings which may affect those franchises. Dr. Rankin said he has a preliminary review on each of the franchises tC determine whether or not there are customer coding problems and that th revenue account is not included in the revenue for base calculation. He said that the utility is properly included in a new source of revenue in the base calculation and they look at a number of different ways to increase the revenue from the franchise agreements. Dr. Rankin said a secondary requirement that MAS has is to look at the Waste Management scenario in the State and in the City and try to make a determination of how the City could improve on those agreements. Dr. Rankin referred to the report on FP&L by MAS. He said MAS determined on their analysis that the company revenue accounts are included within the franchise payment. He said it has not been determined as to whether the customer codings are correct or not and the only way to know is to do an audit. He said MAS has found throughout the cities that often a City will have an accounting firm review the revenues to determine whether or not it is getting the money it should. He said the problem with this is that most accounting firms say that the City was to receive a certain amount of money which was deposited; therefore, everything is alright. Dr. Rankin said this does not take into account customer coding problems, annexation or any other large user of the utilities, such as electric, gas or telephone. He said there has been no testing of customer coding. He said one of his clients stated that he had just received $190,000 in back franchise fees from a selected utility and the reason for this example is because that City is approximately the same size as Tamarac. He said this was a simple matter of miscoding customers and that was a result of annexation and population growth. He recommended an audit in terms of FP&L. CABLE FRANCHISES Dr. Rankin referred to American video of Tamarac and said that one of the problems MAS finds with cable television is that the technology is continuously increasing. He said most of these franchise agreements are 10 to 30 years old and the technology has changed so rapidly that there is usually a problem with exclusion rather than any malicious attempt to defraud or to cheat the City. Dr. Rankin said MAS had recently examined a municipality's basic cable service franchise agreements which did not include HBO, Showtime, Shopper's Channel, ESPN and others. He said all of those revenues were excluded from the monies that were paid to the City. He said the only way to determine whether or not all revenues are being calculated is to do an audit. He said most cable companies are very cooperative in allowing MAS to audit their books to determine whether or not all of those revenues have been included. Dr. Rankin said MAS wants to look at the excluded revenue sources as advertising and the shoppers channels. He said the City should be aware that there now exists wireless cable and the City should be concerned about what its air rights -of -way are worth. He said cable is easy to determine but the City needs to determine what the air rights -of -way are and to be sure to place this in the franchise agreements. Dr. Rankin said the other concerns are annexation, customer coding and the definitions in the franchise agreements. Dr. Rankin said in 1984 and 1985, the FCC allowed a 5% cap on the franchise fees to be received by cities. He said Tamarac is receiving 3% but could have a 5% cap if desired. City Council Special Meeting 9/27/91/KJ Page 3 Mayor Abramowitz asked if an escalation occurs, can it be passed on to the customer and Dr. Rankin said in most cases, an increase in franchise fees means a pass through or a partial pass through to the customer. V/M Bender said when the Federal Government went from 3% to 5%, it was stated that there are three ways in which the increase can be absorbed which are by the cable company, by the City or equally by the City and the cable company. Dr. Rankin said it is clear that the cable company is going to want to increase its fees to its customers in order to cover. Mayor Abramowitz said the cable company has indicated that it would be a pass through to the customer. He asked what the Law states. Dr. Rankin said he has not examined the State of Florida Law regarding this. Assistant City Manager McDermott suggested the agreement where Continental Cablevision took over be discussed. Dr. Rankin said in most cases, when this is done, the new company is not excused from the franchise agreement unless it is specifically indicated in the franchise agreement. TELEPHONE FRANCHISES Dr. Rankin said MAS is very concerned about the Southern Bell franchise agreement. He referred to Southwestern Bell in Houston because he is more familiar with that company. He said Southwestern Bell owed the City of Houston 80 million dollars in underpaid franchise fees. He said Southwestern Bell came to Houston with an agreement that if the City could give the 80 million dollars, Southwestern Bell will no longer pay the City a percentage of the gross receipts but will pay a flat rate and will escalate by the cost of living over the next 20 or 30 years. He said Houston has pretty much signed off on this agreement. He said Dallas was offered the same agreement and has not accepted it at all. Dr. Rankin said if Southwestern Bell states that they owe Houston 80 million dollars but a settlement of 60 million dollars is agreed upon and they will pay the City over a period of seven years, escalating by the cost of living each year. He said if there is any annexation or any new industry move in that is a heavy user of phone service, the City will not benefit at all by this, because they are locked into this flat rate agreement. Dr. Rankin said if Tamarac has had any growth in the past 20 years, an audit of the telephone system must be done. He said there is no way to determine how much money the City is going to get back but even if there has only been 10% annexation, a tremendous amount of money will be found in the telephone and electric audit. WASTE HAULER FRANCHISES Dr. Rankin said the legal department of MAS reviewed Tamarac's existing waste haulers agreement, which was found to be a very basic agreement. He said it was felt that this agreement did not address the needs of the City, especially based on the current environmental problems the world is having. Dr. Rankin said MAS would like to see the new agreement have the following items included: 1) Current environmental laws, 2) Define customers, 3) Define gross receipts, 4) Define recycling, 5) Define solid waste, 6) Define storage, 7) Define transfer station, 8) Define landfill. Dr. Rankin said one of the key problems in the current agreement is that Tamarac does not have a lot of tonnage. He said these trash companies make billions of dollars around the world and recycle this trash for which they get paid for this recycling. He said he feels it is only fair that the City receives a portion of this profit. He said the only way to do that is to have someone to account for the City's tonnage of recyclables. City Council Special Meeting 9/27/91/KJ Page 4 Dr. Rankin said the City needs to be sure that the new contractor complies with all of the EPA Laws and the laws that deal with medical and hazardous waste to be included in the contract. Assistant City Manager McDermott requested clarification on which garbage franchise agreements are being discussed and Dr. Rankin said this refers to commercial franchises. Mayor Abramowitz asked if a determination could be made on commercial tonnage, could the same determination be made on residential and Dr. Rankin said, yes. Assistant City Manager McDermott said the residential aspect is part of the cursury review. C/M Katz said the priority was for commercial franchises due to the contract being due at the present time and the City still has one year until the residential contract needs to be renewed. V/M Bender said he does not feel that the City is protected with the liability in some of these agreements and Dr. Rankin said MAS addresses that in the review. COMMERCIAL RECYCLING Dr. Rankin said MAS would want the new contractor to have a recycling program. He said many of these contractors are small waste haulers and the City might encourage them to have a joint recycling program. He said in a few cities where MAS put together a waste management program, it was promoted by coloring books for children which addressed the recycling problems, posters and other such activities. Mayor Abramowitz said Tamarac does not have recycling for the commercia aspect within the City. He said all of the recycling is done by the residential hauler. Dr. Rankin said if a commercial hauler picks up 60 tons of paper in Tamarac, the City needs to receive a portion of the money for their recycling of the trash. He said it appears in the franchise agreements that he has reviewed that none of the commercial haulers are required to account for the monies that they make off the recyclables. MEDICAL WASTE Dr. Rankin said the City must be sure to keep in compliance with the Federal Laws. KEEP AMERICA BEAUTIFUL PROGRAM Dr. Rankin suggested that the City request the commercial waste haulers support this program. QUALITY OF EQUIPMENT Dr. Rankin said this refers to liability. He said MAS has been in some cities where the commercial waste haulers are complete operations and some of the equipment is in dangerous need of repair. He recommended that there be a type of inspection of the equipment required and certified that the equipment is in safe, operating condition. 11 MISCELLANEOUS FEES AND RATES Dr. Rankin said Performance Bonds and Surety Bonds are of the greatest concern for the commercial waste haulers. He said at the very least, a Letter of Credit should be obtained from a bank or any other institution. He recommended that the City require a minimum of $350,000 bond for a City of this size. Dr. Rankin said the franchise agreements for the commercial waste haulers should allow the City the right to review their collection rates and to audit their customer billings on a regular basis. He said the cost of this audit should be paid by the contractor, which would be a City Council Special Meeting 9/27/91/KJ Page 5 pass through fee to the contractor.,He suggested this be done annually or bi-annually. Dr. Rankin said the regulation of collection containers should be standardized for the City. He said health and sanitation should be maintained and reviewed by the Health Department and the Contractor shall be required to maintain at its sole cost and expense the safe and sanitary condition of these containers. He said the City should reserve the right of inspection at any time regarding these containers. INDEMNIFICATION Dr. Rankin said the Contractor should indemnify the City with a hold harmless clause in the franchise agreement and maintenance fee. He said the Contractor should be required to have an amount of insurance of general liability. He said the City's Risk Manager can determine what the minimum requirements should be for this. He said the Comprehensive Automobile Liability should be not less than one million dollars. He said the Contractor should have a local agent to receive customer complaints and to respond to any of these complaints received by the City. He said the City has a right for periodic review. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Mayor Abramowitz said there are representatives from the various franchises present for questions of Dr. Rankin. C/M Schumann asked from whom the City would get title of the spectrum for air rights referring to wireless cable and Dr. Rankin said the City gets this from its own police powers. He said these police powers are obtained by a pass through by the State to the City and the City Charter should be amended to include this issue. C/M Schumann said the Federal Communications Act of 1934 controls the spectrum in the United States which indicates where broadcasting is permitted and not permitted. Dr. Rankin said if there is a cable company that is delivering cable service to 10,000 residents and they state to the City that they cannot pay 3% of this batch of residents based on not using the City's rights - of -way, the City needs to determine a method to charge the cable company or else the City will be losing revenue from the franchise. C/M Schumann asked where the City gets this authority when the Federal Government controls the spectrum. Dr. Rankin said he cannot answer that question except that one of his clients has a franchise agreement that includes all cable service, including wireless cable based strictly on gross receipts and the City receives 5% of those gross receipts. V/M Bender said the objective of this is to charge the Contractor for doing business within the City. Assistant City Manager McDermott suggested that Dr. Rankin review the residential waste management and referred to Page 8 of the Preliminary Review. RESIDENTIAL WASTE MANAGEMENT Dr. Rankin said the residential waste management contract expires in 1992. He said MAS examined the payment provision and the other informative data. He said a standardized waste management franchise agreement should be developed to assist the City. Dr. Rankin said his Project Manager stated that what the larger waste haulers normally do is to draft a proposed agreement and share it with the provider. He said MAS can create the RFP and the pre -bid package for the City. Assistant City Manager McDermott said the concern at present is what revenue sources does the City need to review and is the City missing any franchise information. City Council Special Meeting 9/27/91/KJ Page 6 Dr. Rankin said the only area that MAS has a concern with is the recyclables. Mayor Abramowitz said the City has been trying to find out for years the amount of tonnage picked up in the City of Tamarac. He said the answer has always been that the routes go from Tamarac to Lauderhill and they cannot weigh the garbage at the end of the Tamarac routes. He said he would like more information on the residential trash collection in Tamarac. Dr. Rankin said there are charts that show what average cities of Tamarac's size have in tonnage. He said he does not know of a method as to how this problem will be addressed. He asked how a method is developed with which the waste haulers will agree for assessing the tonnage. He said MAS tries not to let any of their recommendations be too adversarial. He said MAS wants everyone to make a lot of money to allow for a fair percentage of their gross receipts. Sal Coniglio, representative of County Waste, Inc., asked what the purpose is of knowing the tonnage. He said the franchise fee is based on the weight and there are so many ways to figure this. He said the County just did a survey of the unincorporated area homes with trash of 1.80 tons per year per home. He asked if the City is being paid on the tonnage. Mayor Abramowitz said the explanation of the escalation of fees is that they require a number of trucks and personnel to pick up a particular quantity in Tamarac. He said Tamarac is generally an older community with two people in the house, which would mean the City disposing of less trash than in other communities. He said the trash hauler escalation was predicated on the escalation of the tipping fees. He questioned how much they are actually tipping and said he does not want the City to pay for trash from other cities. He asked how much is being tipped at the landfill to justify Tamarac's fee increase. Dennis Urbanski, General Manager of Southern Sanitation, said their trucks do cross over City boundaries to pick up in communities adjacent to Tamarac. He said if a restriction is placed in a future contract that the City wants the trucks to pick up exclusively in the City of Tamarac, this is an added cost and is a reduction in the ability for Southern Sanitation to run routes efficiently. He said this can be done but there is an added cost for this service which is then passed on to the consumer. TAPE 2 Mayor Abramowitz said Southern Sanitation recently raised the rates on the garbage fees. He asked how an evaluation was made as to how much to raise the City of Tamarac if the specific amounts of tonnage were not available to justify the increase. Mr. Urbanski said at the time the contract was signed, a formula was established based on the general tons per residential unit per year being experienced throughout Broward County. He said this formula is in existance in the majority of all residential contracts within Broward County. He said this formula is what drives the increase to the individual residential unit based on a dollar per ton increase at the disposal site. is based on many tons to increase Mayor Abramowitz said contractually, the escalation in fees the escalation in tipping fees from the County. He asked how Southern Sanitation picks up in the City of Tamarac in order the fees. Mr. Urbanski said it is his assumption that a per unit tonnage rate is calculated and City Manager Kelly agreed. Mr. Urbanski said the County's general average drives that number to increase every time there is a dollar per ton disposal increase at the disposal sites plus there is also a franchise fee. C/M Katz said Tamarac may not be average to the County based on the type of households in the City. He said there are residences that are seasonal and there may be 50% to 60% of the residences with two people in the home versus the County average of three or four people in the City Council Special Meeting 9/27/91/KJ Page 7 home. He asked how Southern Sanitation determines that the City should be subsidizing the rest of the average households for the County. Mr. Urbanski said Tamarac is charged the least of any city in Broward County and Mayor Abramowitz agreed. V/M Bender said the result is that realistic tonnage rates need to be established. He said everything deals with tonnage weights on the recyclables, plastic, glass and all others. He said it was mentioned that if the City wants it this way, Southern Sanitation can accommodate the City, but it will cost the City an additional fee. He suggested this be evaluated and that it may be worth the City's efforts and possibly a considerable savings based on the exact tonnage. Mayor Abramowitz said all of the franchises make the statement that there is no problem with an increase because it is a pass through. He said he does not want the residents to have to pick up this increase. Dr. Rankin said MAS has recently completed a report on 14 cities that have different cable companies and many of them were getting 2% and 3%. He said the FCC has allowed 5% since 1985. He said in all of those audits, there is only one instance where the cable company charged the citizen for the arrearages that they should have been paying all along. Dr. Rankin said for the future they passed either all or 50% of it through to the customer. He said there are people who argue that a franchise fee is not a cost of doing business and that it is a tax. He said the people who are concerned about the future of cities consider this to be a user fee and even if it were a tax, it is the fairest of all taxes because it is based on usage. Dr. Rankin said cities have to begin to take a look at protecting and preserving their assets and the only asset at this time that any City has is their rights -of -way. He said too often companies provide service to the public, make their profits and take their profits outside the City. Mr. Urbanski said it is the cost of doing business and should be borne by the people who receive the service. He said if this is restricted, the quality of service that the company is able to render will deteriate. He said the City made it clear that quality trucks, inspections, performance bonds, indemnification and other items are wanted; therefore, an additional cost is necessary. He said if this is not possible, the level of service will be reduced which impacts the customer. Mr. Urbanski said Southern Sanitation does business in the City to provide service and to generate revenue. He said when the cost of doing business is factored it includes insurance and the franchise fees. Dr. Rankin said the retirement communities and other cities must do something to protect their infrastructure for today and for future generations. Walter Rekuc, resident, said he feels the following items are necessary to benefit the City: 1) Need for a procedure to administer and maintain franchise agreements, 2) A cost analysis is needed, 3) Landscape material segregated and handled as a separate item, 4) A franchise for all phone companies, 5) Computer services, 6) Cable service income statements and 7) Franchise on canal water for maintenance and compensation. Bob Steinert, Director of Public Relations for Continental Cablevision, said under the Federal Law, there is an expressed provision which states that cable operators can place on their monthly statements, the amount of franchise fees that are being paid to the franchise and this preempts any other State or Local Law. He said the City is aware of their right to raise the franchise fees to the present statuatory limit. He said the City has been informed that if this were to happen Continental Cablevision would pass this through to the residents as a line item. Dr. Rankin said MAS has dealt with enough cable companies to know that this is a matter of their executive decision and it depends on how the City Council Special Meeting 9/27/91/KJ Page 8 cable company wants to be viewed by the City. He said most of the cable companies choose not to enter into an adversarial relationship with the cities. Mr. Steinert said in Broward County, every cable company does place a line item on their statement for the amount of their franchise fees. He said Continental Cablevision has not done this at the present time but it has twelve franchises in the area. He said he feels by the Year 200 the company will have to go to this scenario because there will probab be different franchise rates in different areas. He said Continental Cablevision would be willing to work with the City and their books are open for auditing. He said annexations have been included in the franchise fees. Hank Hanson, Manager of Southern Bell, said he will be delivering a check to the City in the amount of $58,000 on Monday which will be the franchise fee for the past year based on 5.8 million dollars of local service revenues collected in the City this year. He said the legislature in 1985 passed a regulation that the maximum franchise fee be 1%. He said the Public Service Commission saw that some municipalities were passing 2% and others, 3%, and they then mandated it to be 1%. He said this is not going to change unless Legislature changes it. Mr. Hanson read, "The company shall indemnify the City against and assume all liabilities for damages which might array the lives or crews of the City for any injury to persons or property doing any work herein authorized." He said Southern Bell accepts full responsibility of any damage or injury that takes place in the City regarding phone services. Dr. Rankin said most of the Bell Telephone companies around the country have been very cooperative with MAS auditing. He said MAS does not believe that there was any attempt for inaccuracies in the coding of t various cities. V/M Bender said this meeting is not intended to go after any particular franchise or company. He said he feels the City was remiss in the past in the franchise agreements. He said the current City map is not 100% accurate, which is being updated. He said the City is obligated to furnish an updated, corrected map showing exactly where the City boundaries are, which will be used by the franchises. Ralph Artanian, representative of Browning Ferris Industries, referred to the billions of dollars for recycling. He said people have had the misconception that there are billions of dollars being made in recycling, when in reality it costs money to recycle. He referred to commercial recycling, which is being done on a voluntary basis in the attempt to divert the waste from going to landfills and most are diverting in order to cut costs. He said if they find that the City tries to put a tax or franchise fee on commercial recycling, it will be costing more for the customers. Dr. Rankin said he would not begin to suggest franchise fees on recycling. He said the City needs to receive a percentage of the profits from the recycling program that the waste hauler has. He said BFI is the leader in a couple of cities in creating a good recycling program where the entire City gets a percentage of the money made from the recyclables, which is commercial. Mr. Coniglio requested the names of these two cities and which State they are in and Dr. Rankin said one of them is in Texas. Mr. Coniglio suggested that the waste haulers have an opportunity to review the recommendations made by Dr. Rankin. He said Florida is different than Texas in recycling. He said newspapers and glass have very little value in Florida due to shipping and other reasons. Dr. Rankin said if an independent hauler receives nothing for recycling, then they do not owe the City anything, but if income is derived, then the City should receive a percentage of it. City Council Special Meeting 9/27/91/KJ Page 9 Mr. Artanian said if BFI needs to maintain all of these records, it must be passed through to the customer and no money will be able to be given to the City. He said detailed reporting is very expensive. Mr. Coniglio said if this is going to be done, then everyone involved should be affected, such as the lawn maintenance crews and others. Mayor Abramowitz said the municipalities are mandated by the State to remove 30% of solid waste by recycling. V/M Bender said the meeting is an attempt to establish a franchise agreement that will be effective for the present and the future to cover any aspect. He said at present, paper is worthless. He said if recycling is to be effective, the market for it needs to be created. He said unless the Federal Government steps in and makes it mandatory that all newspaper published must use 15% recycled paper, the demand will be established. He said the City of Tamarac is anticipating this happening in the future and wants to establish a franchise agreement to be in place for the future. Mayor Abramowitz said Tamarac switched from styrofoam to paper cups for coffee in an effort to achieve the demand for recyclables. He said the City had sent a request to Legislation that they mandate the use of recycled paper. Mr. Urbanski said he feels that the issue in terms of waste collection, disposal and recycling is a very complex issue. He said he would be willing to discuss contracts, terms and any other issue with the City so that when the contracts expire, they can be worked out. He said there are many factors that impact certain decisions. Mayor Abramowitz requested that Southern Sanitation meet with the Recycling Task Force to get the recycling program working. 2. - Any member of the public may speak to any issue which is not agendized for public hearing at this meeting. Speakers will be limited to three minutes during this item and at public hearings. There will be a thirty (30) minute aggregate time limit for this item, and speakers are encouraged to sign up in advance with the City Clerk prior to their participation. Nathan Peretzman, resident, expressed his concerns regarding the renewal of the Medics Ambulance Service contract. TAPE 3 Carl Alper, resident, asked if MAS has conducted audits for the Broward League of Cities or the Florida League of Cities and Dr. Rankin said, no. Mr. Alper said in review of the Continental Cablevision franchise agreement, he discovered that annually the cable company must give the City a certified auditors report of their income and Mr. Rekuc said that was in the old contract but not in the new one. Mr. Steinard said Ordinance 83-39 states that American Cable shall file annually an accounting certified by the Financial Officer of American Cable or a certified public accountant stating the annual gross receipts. Mr. Alper asked if such a report has been filed and Mr. Steinard said there is an annual and financial report filed with the City. Dr. Rankin said MAS has never done an audit in the State of Florida; however, MAS was invited by the Florida League of Cities, to present a franchise audit program for approximately 114 cities. He said most companies have an internal or external CPA firm do an annual report, which tracks the flow of money. He said MAS does compliance audits which tracks the money and checks with the various legislative, public utility and other laws for compliante and whether the municipality is getting the most for its money. Mayor Abramowitz said he had asked in a previous meeting if this report is what the City receives for the amount of money spent and he was told City Council Special Meeting 9/27/91/KJ Page 10 it was not. He asked about the ways that MAS will get a percentage of recoverable money from the audit. Dr. Rankin said the following are ways that MAS receives its payment: 1) Cash and carry, 2) Combination fee/contingency-where a percentage of the cost is paid to the firm and the firm shares by a percentage of the findings, and 3) Total contingency -where travel costs and other accompanying expenses are paid by the City and MAS shares 50% of all t findings. Dr. Rankin said the larger cities, with a population of 25,000 or more, prefer the Contingency Plan, where the smaller cities prefer Cash and carry. V/M Bender asked what the recommendation would be for Tamarac and Dr. Rankin said either the Combination fee/contingency or Cash and carry. Mayor Abramowitz asked if MAS conducts this for recoverable funds that have taken place to date and Dr. Rankin agreed it would be on a contingency basis, which would be payable to date. Mayor Abramowitz asked if the report would indicate recommendations to the City for the future and Dr. Rankin said recommendations would be made. V/M Bender asked if MAS has its own attorney if and when this would go to litigation and Dr. Rankin said MAS has two firms and two in-house attorneys who specialize in franchise matters. V/M Bender asked about certified public accountants and Dr. Rankin said MAS has in-house certified public accountants. Assistant City Manager McDermott asked if the 50% contingency is negotiable. She said there are other vendors who go with 30% or slidin scale and Dr. Rankin said it is negotiable, depending on the up -front costs of doing the audit. Mr. Rekuc said he would like to see someone in the City assigned full- time to work with this firm to complete this task. Dr. Rankin said when MAS sends an audit team in, one of the primary tasks is to identify someone in the City to aid with this audit. C/M Schumann asked if one of the MAS legal firms handles the litigation is that on a contingency basis and Dr. Rankin said, no. Mayor Abramowitz asked if he could have a list of the cities that MAS has done audits for and Dr. Rankin said MAS has clients in Utah, Missouri, Michigan, Texas, California and Oklahoma. City Manager Kelly said there are other consulting firms that do comparable reports. V/M Bender suggested Council review this and hold another meeting for a decision. C/M Katz suggested the City check with another consulting firm for similar services and rates. He said the current waste hauler contract states that in the event that the City does not have a renewed contract by October 1, 1991, that the City continues on the basis of the previou contract and Assistant City Manager McDermott agreed. City Council Special Meeting 9/27/91/KJ Page 11 C/M Schumann suggested another meeting be held for a final decision on this matter. Mayor Abramowitz expressed his appreciation to Dr. Rankin for his presentation. With no further business, Mayor Abramowitz ADJOURNED this meeting at 3:30 p.m. F NO MAN ABRAP MAYOR CAROL A. EVANS Y CITY CLERK "This public document was promulgated at a cost of $161.20 or $3.58 per copy to inform the general public, public officers and employees of recent opinions and considerations of the City Council of the City of Tamarac." CITY OF TAMARAC APPROVED AT MEETING OF 11