A regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Tuesday, June 12, 2018, at 7:30 p.m. in the
Aldermanic Chamber.
President Brian S. McCarthy presided; City Clerk Patricia D. Piecuch recorded.
Prayer was offered by City Clerk Patricia D. Piecuch; Alderman Jan Schmidt led in the Pledge to the
Flag.
The roll call was taken with 15 members of the Board of Aldermen present.
Mayor James W. Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton were also in attendance.
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
Mayor Donchess
First | wanted to mention that the Fiscal 19 Budget is on the Agenda. | know that the action on that may be
delayed for a couple of weeks but because it is there | wanted to thank the Budget Committee, Chairman
Dowd, and all of the members of the Committee for concentrating and spending so much time on this over
the course of a couple of months at least. You’ve made some changes which | think are all good ideas. |
know that there is some thought that the budget should be delayed for at least a couple of weeks to see
what we come up with with respect to the KRT review. That is not a problem, but | think that we will
ultimately find that KRT is not going to have any very firm conclusions about the commercial section of the
real estate tax base before the end of June. It is very obvious that the residential rate have gone up,
residential values have gone up at least 25% on average; commercial has probably not gone up as much as
that. But, as I’ve said before, we are trying to maximize the amount of commercial values so we can extend
the tax base and have the biggest tax base we possibly can.
Overall, the budget is up 1.6% as proposed, the Budget Committee has made a few changes, but that is
basically still the situation. That is less than the cap if the cap were still enforceable, it is around $1 million
dollars less than the cap or $900,000.00 in that range. The reason | proposed, and | think the Budget
Committee has adopted or recommended a budget that is as tight as this, is in part because of the
revaluation that we know is coming and also because we want to be as fiscally responsible as possible with
the City’s money. At the same time, we are trying to deliver quality services, we want to try to keep any tax
rate increase to a minimum. Again, thank you to the Budget Committee, though | think if we do delay this for
a couple weeks it is important that we pass this before the end of June so we can close the books and begin
to work on getting the audit done and the escrows and everything else that takes place after July 1 ina
normal year.
Next Mr. President | wanted to mention the Laton House, there was a fire at the Laton House over the past
few days. It was not a huge fire, it was a mattress fire. The fire damage and the smoke damage is not that
extensive but the sprinkler system went off and therefore there is a lot of water damage. Many parts of the
building are soaked with water. We have met over the last couple of days, a couple of different times, we
are meeting daily and that includes the Red Cross, Emergency Merit Management, of course, NFR, our
Building Department, the Health Department, to plan for or to assess how quickly the building may be
occupiable again. Also, to try to make sure that the people who have their lost their homes that were in the
Laton House have a place to stay during the temporary period of time when we think the building can’t be
occupied.
If the owner acts with some dispatch between now and the next couple of days, NFR and the other people
who are expert in this think that the building can be occupied or most of the building can be occupied within
a couple of days. So we are urging the owner to take the steps necessary to dry out and remove the very
soaked wall and ceiling material so that the building can be occupied again. And then over a period of time,
NFR is going to require some improvements in terms of fire safety having to do with the ceilings and the
separation between floors. NFR and the Fire Marshall’s Office is suggesting that can take place over a
period of time, hopefully as quickly as possible to enable people to live in the building while those changes
are going on.
