Board of Aldermen 03-08-2022 Page 11
appear to some people to be. There are not a lot of large open-spaced buildings downtown. It was a challenge. The
reason that the performing arts center wasn’t suggested until Alec opened up is because there wasn't going to be a place
big enough. So | would say personally none of my motivation was for fire switches or alarm relays, it was because that’s
a hub for the community, not just downtown, but for the entire city and it’s important for us to keep it. Thank you.
Alderman Sullivan
| would like to make a motion to take this resolution and move it back to budget. Could | speak to that?
MOTION BY ALDERMAN SULLIVAN TO REFER R-22-008 TO THE BUDGET REVIEW COMMITTEE
ON THE QUESTION
Alderman Sullivan
The reason | want to do it is 1) for my understanding when | looked at it, Alderman Clemons was the main endorser of this
legislation. Unfortunately, Alderman Clemons wasn’t at the Budget Committee last week to speak to it when we
recommended it for approval of which | did. Second, and not to put Miss Kleiner’s or put words in her mouth, she was
called on to speak to it. | don’t think she was prepared to speak to it but did an admirable job. Finally since it came to
trust funds, | had uncovered some information as far as we have a City Trust Fund now. | just thought that since | had
uncovered some more information, I'd like to move that back to Committee. I’m not saying I’m for or against the
resolution. | would simply like to talk about it more, if there is no time limit on this if we pass it in another month, it doesn’t
do anything.
President Wilshire
Motion is to re-refer. Alderman Clemons?
Alderman Clemons
Thank you. | appreciate the enthusiastic support from Alderman O’Brien and Alderman Lopez and I’m sure others. | had
requested through the Chairman to hold this at the committee level because | was on vacation last week and was unable
to attend that meeting, so I’m not sure why it did move forward but | have no objection to it going back to the Budget
Committee meeting to be discussed further.
Alderman Klee
Yes, thank you Madam Chair. | am going to be very honest with you. When | spoke to Director Kleiner about this, one of
the comments she had made were the leases are coming up. | think one of the key things that Director Kleiner had
spoken to was relative to the good faith that we give to the people who are renting and leasing, etc., and that we are
showing them that we are going to be using it. The trust fund that, | believe, Alderman Sullivan was speaking about is the
City Building Trust Fund. | asked Director Kleiner specifically what is that money used for and she told me it’s primarily for
City Hall, but that at times it has been used to the Hunt, therefore showing that the Hunt is not self-sustaining itself. Public
works as well as Public Health buildings. So we have used the money for other things.
Right now it’s sitting at $269,767.87. There have been building ground maintenance, security equipment that has been
spent this year, so the money does get used. If someone feels that it’s too much money that’s sitting there, well that is
their opinion but | do feel that moving forward with this where we’ve got leases that are coming up and pending, we’re only
going to be putting it further back and perhaps Alderman Dowd can speak to when the Budget Committee would actually
be able to hear this. | think I'll leave it at that. Thank you.
Alderman Cathey
| was also on the Budget Committee and Alderman Sullivan and | had quite a few questions about how the Expendable
Trust Fund works. | believe we both, and | don’t want to put words in his mouth, came from the point of view of “why”?
Why do we need this action in order to take care of this building? Director Kleiner said she would sent us some materials
and she did send us a report based on the expenses and revenue on the building. This action says that we can only put
in the equivalent amount of the revenues the building generates. For next year that’s $40,000. That means we've only
put in 40 which is 80, but the projected expenses are, | believe, $120. So that’s another $40,000 that we’re short. So
we're not even getting up to the maintenance costs to take care of the building which is a far cry from letting the building
be “revenue neutral” if we’re lucky.
