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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1994-06-06 - City Commission Workshop Meeting MinutesCity Council Workshop Meeting *Revised 6/16/94 6/06/94/KR *Revised 7/27/94 Page 1 CITY OF TAMARAC CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MONDAY, JUNE 6, 1994 CALL TO ORDER: Mayor Norman Abramowitz called this meeting to order on Monday, June 6, 1994, at 10:00 a.m. in Conference Room #1 of Tamarac City Hall, 7525 Northwest 88th Avenue, Tamarac, Florida. PRESENT: ABSENT: Mayor Norman Abramowitz Vice Mayor Irving Katz Councilwoman Sharon Machek Councilman Larry Mishkin Councilman Joseph Schreiber ALSO PRESENT: Robert S. Noe, Jr., City Manager Mitchell S. Kraft, City Attorney Carol A. Evans, CIVIC, City Clerk ********************************************************** 1. Chartgr Amendments Mayor Abramowitz said he called Jane Carroll's office on Friday, June 3, 1994 and asked them to reserve room for the City of Tamarac for at least four Charter amendments and possibly five. He stated that the indication from her office was that this could be a very busy election and space was not certain. 1.a. Temporary Ordinance #1683, Revision #2 & Revision #3 to place a Charter Amendment on the September 8, 1994, ballot to change the Charter Board from an elected to an appointed board. Mayor Abramowitz said the first Ordinance revision dealt with changing the Charter Board from an elected to an appointed board. He stated these items would come before the City Council at the City Council Workshop Meeting 6/06/94/KR Page 2 *Revised 6/16/94 *Revised 7/27/94 next election and now was the chance to make final revisions and changes. He said the intent of the Council was to put before the public the question of whether the Charter Board should be an appointed body instead of an elected body. Mayor Abramowitz asked the Council for consensus. CONSENSUS OF OPINION: ALL AGREED Mayor Abramowitz stated the second item concerned the method by which the appointed members of the Board were chosen. V/M Katz said in previous years all appointments were done by majority vote of Council. He stated his original intent, when he suggested the revision, was to have appointments and removals by majority vote of Council and to have each district represented. V/M Katz stated he hoped the Mayor would defer to the entire Council for majority vote for an At -Large member of the Charter Board. Mayor Abramowitz said he made a suggestion to the Council to proceed in this manner in order to take the politics out of the Charter Board. He said he had received numerous calls from individuals stating this would only increase the political aspect of what the Council was doing. Mayor Abramowitz said the only way to remove the politics, to the best of the Council's ability, would be to appoint Charter Board by Council action and majority vote. V/M Katz stated his desire to have every district represented on all boards and committees. Mayor Abramowitz stated the removal of a Charter Board member should be done by majority vote of Council. Discussion took place regarding scenarios of appointments. Mayor Abramowitz said a Council person from a specific district would make a suggestion for that district and any other Council 11 1 City Council Workshop Meeting 6/06/94/KR Page 3 *Revised 6/16/94 *Revised 7/27/94 person would be allowed to also make a nomination for that district. Further discussion took place regarding appointment scenarios. Attorney Kraft asked what the term of office for the appointments would be for the Charter Board. Mayor Abramowitz said he did not think one year was long enough. C/W Machek said she foresaw in the future having the Charter Board meet every three or four years and thus one year terms would make sense. Mayor Abramowitz said getting everyone to be finished at the same time would be difficult. He asked for a consensus for three year terms. CONSENSUS OF OPINION: ALL AGREED Attorney Kraft said he would make the revisions. Mayor Abramowitz said three members of the Charter Board would be up for election in 1995. He suggested, if the referendum passed, appointing the first three to a term ending when the other two members' terms were completed in 1996. At that point, all five members could be appointed to the Charter Board and their terms of office would coincide. V/M Katz asked if the members could offer their resignation and then be reappointed. Mayor Abramowitz said there would be people who would not resign. Mayor Abramowitz said if the referendum passed, transitional appointments could be made until the other two terms were completed. Mr. Kraft suggested stating in his revisions that District's 1, 3, and At -Large would be appointed to terms until ending in 1996. C/M Mishkin suggested having staggering terms .to end the transition problem. Mayor Abramowitz said he thought the smartest think to do City Council Workshop Meeting 6/06/94/KR Page 4 *Revised 6/16/94 *Revised 7/27/94 would be to have everyone start and finish at the same time. Discussion took place regarding three year terms. Mr. Noe questioned why the term had to be in the Charter. Mayor Abramowitz stated he wanted every bit of information that the public should know included in the Charter before they make a decision. Mr. Noe stated he thought the thrust should be to clean up the Charter as much as possible and make it simple like the U.S. Constitution. Mayor Abramowitz said he felt anything that could be put into the Charter to make it more understandable to the public belonged in it. CONSENSUS OF OPINION: ALL AGREED 1.b. Temporary Ordinance #1684 to place a Charter Amendment on the September 8, 1994, ballot to eliminate Charter Board appointments to the Redistricting Committee and to reduce the number of Redistricting Committee members. Mayor Abramowitz asked Mr. Kraft what the Charter said about the number of members on the Redistricting Committee. Mr. Kraft stated the Charter currently provided for nine members, four appointed by the Council, four appointed by the Charter Board and one appointed by the committee itself. Discussion was held regarding the number of Redistricting Committee members. Mr. Kraft stated, with the revision, the number of members of the Redistricting Committee would be reduced from nine to five and the number of votes needed to adopt a report would be reduced from five to three. CONSENSUS OF OPINION: ALL AGREED Discussion took place regarding who had the final say on the Redistricting Committee. 1 Ll- LI City Council Workshop Meeting 6/06/94/KR Page 5 *Revised 6/16/94 *Revised 7/27/94 1.c. Temporary Ordinance #1654 to place a Charter Amendment on the September 8, 1994, ballot to change the method of determining Mayor and Councilmember salaries. Mayor Abramowitz said there were graphs available showing salaries of elected officials in other cities. Discussion took place regarding the job and age of Councilpeople. C/W Machek verified Mayor Abramowitz's statement about her financial structure being limited. Mayor Abramowitz said he felt the method used in the proposed Ordinance was fair and intelligent. He stated as the City grew the responsibilities of the Councilmen grew and their work would get longer and harder. V/M Katz said the formula the proposed salaries was set up on was formed by the State Legislature and used by County Commissioners and many other cities to fund salaries. He stated the amount of time he spent doing the City's work averaged approximately thirty hours per week. Discussion took place regarding salaries. CONSENSUS OF OPINION: /_1IW_1011:1aa11 1.d. Temporary Ordinance #1 f $9 to place a Charter Amendment on the September 8,1994, ballot to change City Council to City Commission and Councilmembers to Commissioners. Mayor Abramowitz said he received calls regarding the expense that would be incurred by changing from City Council to City Commission. He stated the Council would not throw everything away that said City Council but would probably change the name plaques in the Council Chamber. CONSENSUS OF OPINION: ALL AGREED 2. Cable Television - Customer Service. City Council Workshop Meeting *Revised 6/16/94 6/06/94/KR *Revised 7/27/94 Page 6 Mayor Abramowitz stated, in a letter received from Mr. Liebowitz, he indicated that when a new franchise application and/or Ordinance came into effect in this City and there were service agreements or mandates in the new Ordinance, anyone who held a franchise would have 90 days to meet the specifications of the service part of the new Ordinance. Mr. Kraft agreed with Mayor Abramowitz's statement. I-r_uo W Mayor Abramowitz asked the Council to review the proposed Ordinance and decide if the proposed mandated services would be commanded of Continental if the Ordinance was passed. V/M Katz asked if a new franchise agreement would be more stringent than what currently was in place, why would it not be in everyone's best interest to enforce it. Discussion took place regarding stipulations of the proposed Ordinance. Mr. Kraft stated he gathered comments of staff as well as his own and sent them to Liebowitz for input and review and will meet once they have had a chance to read them over. Mayor Abramowitz stated there was another party interested in a cable franchise in Tamarac. Mayor Abramowitz stated he did not feel a $3,500 non-refundable application fee that would be credited towards the franchise fee was enough. He said if a prospective franchiser was not legitimate they would not come up with $3,500. Discussion took place regarding an appropriate amount for an application fee. Mayor Abramowitz said the City Council needed to determine how much a franchise was worth. Mayor Abramowitz said he hoped the next workshop could be aimed toward the proposed Cable Television franchise agreement. V/M Katz expressed his hope that the workshop would be held when all members of Council could attend. City Council Workshop Meeting 6/06/94/KR Page 7 *Revised 6/16/94 *Revised 7/27/94 Mayor Abramowitz said he understood V/M Katz's point but Council meetings and workshops were always held on Mondays and he hoped all Council members could make the meetings. City Manager Noe said the City was always looking for new revenue sources. He said the application fee should be just an application fee because processing each application would take money and would be done whether the applicant got the franchise or not. He said he would like to separate the franchise and application fees so the City would get both and one would not count for the other. Mayor Abramowitz did not agree with Mr. Noe because if an applicant did not get a franchise, the money they put up would be non- refundable. He stated if the applicant would get a franchise he hoped the franchise fee would be to the point where the City would not have to subsidize it. Mayor Abramowitz stated he did not want to dissuade anyone from coming into the City and providing Cable Service. V/M Katz voiced his concern that the amount of revenue from Cable franchises would be the same even if ten franchises were in the City. He said he did not foresee many more people subscribing to Cable than those who already have it. Mayor Abramowitz said if the price would go up then that was how the City would get it's three percent. V/M Katz said in the future Southern Bell may be allowed to provide Cable Service. He said right now they do not have to pay a franchise fee to the City according to the law. V/M Katz said the City was losing money from FP&L because people had decided to save money by shutting off their electricity for a few hours a day. He stated the amount of revenue that had been reduced from this had to be made up somewhere else. V/M Katz said the same thing would happen when Southern Bell, AT&T or another provider of that nature came in and provided a service and the franchise fee would not be applicable towards them. City Council Workshop Meeting *Revised 6/16/94 6/06/94/KR *Revised 7/27/94 Page 8 He said the City had better start looking for another way to get the money from those providers. Mayor Abramowitz said Tamarac was in serious trouble up until a year and a half ago. He said the lack of development kept the City alive. He stated the Ad Valorem taxes paid 18% of the City's expenses and last year the City lost $27 million in assessed valuation. Mayor Abramowitz said his colleagues could not understand how Tamarac got by with only a 3% tax on Cable TV and no Utility Tax. He said the world had changed and the City was mandated to do services now that they did not have to do before. Mayor Abramowitz said Tamarac had the cheapest rates in resource recovery and garbage in Broward County. He said when the Broward County Commission charges the City close to $1.80 a month for a single family home and about $1.40 for a multi -family home, the public will be upset but Tamarac will be forced to do this. Mayor Abramowitz said a suggestion was made at a Resource Recovery Board meeting that every City in Broward County contribute $5,000 to get the top people in the country to review the arrangement made with Waste Management and with Wheel-A- Brator. Discussion was held regarding sources of waste collection in Tamarac. V/M Katz said the problem was that there were different scales depending on who was pocketing the money. He said Waste Management would dump at their site instead of taking it to Wheel- A-Brator. He said when hurricane debris was hauled from Dade and Monroe Counties, Dade County charged an additional fee to Waste Management's and the total was still less than what the City Council paid. Further discussion was held regarding garbage. C/W Machek asked for information regarding the history of Woodmont Gardens ACLF and Mayor Abramowitz discussed the history. 1 F, City Council Workshop Meeting 6/06/94/KR Page 9 *Revised 6/16/94 *Revised 7/27/94 Mr. Kraft said it was the view of Howard Whitaker that the City could not be held liable for bond default. Further discussion was held regarding the bonds. Mayor Abramowitz said there was a very serious situation regarding the revenue of the City. He stated when the City Manager told the Council there was a surplus he did not state the reason was because there were a number of unfilled positions within the City. He said he felt Tamarac was at its crossroads. Mayor Abramowitz stated he had received a guarantee that when City Council would put a shovel in the ground in Land Section 7, Pritzger would do the same. He said in the event the extension of DRI collapsed he wanted the City Attorney to have documentation available. Vice Mayor Katz said there was no problem with that and the group would forfeit their DRI if it collapsed. Discussion followed regarding Land Section 7. City Manager Noe stated he did not know if any members of City Council had sensitivity towards Hollywood but the person who emerged for the job of Budget Officer was an employee from Hollywood. Mayor Abramowitz said he understood the subject was very sensitive. He said he had confidence in Mr. Noe's ability to pick an individual capable of fulfilling their perspective duties and he did not care where the person came from. C/M Mishkin and V/M Katz said they concurred with what Mayor Abramowitz had stated. Mayor Abramowitz said Mr. Hawthorne, a recent hiree of Mr. Noe's, seemed to be well received in the Finance Department. He said he wanted to form his own opinion of new employees. City Council Workshop Meeting 6/06/94/KR Page 10 *Revised 6/16/94 *Revised 7/27/94 With no further business, Mayor Abramowitz ADJOURNED the meeting at 1 1:30 a.m. Carol A. Evans, CIVIC City Clerk 1 11