Board of Aldermen 10-13-2020 Page 58
you have done this if this goes through as proposed, you are never going to get it back. You know, it’s
going to be extremely difficult to do that. So it doesn’t seem to be the house on fire with the issue and |
think it could be referred back to Committee. If we are going to do it, let’s do it right. Let’s do it correctly
because ramifications could be quite difficult. So thank you.
President Wilshire
| am going to recognize Director Cummings who is with us. Director Cummings do you want to weigh in on
this?
Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development
Yes, thank you, Madam President. And I'll keep my comments brief. For the record, Tim Cummings,
Director of Economic Development. And | just wanted to clarify a couple statements; Alderman Laws was
correct in a lot of what he said. But there’s just a couple elements that may have been missed that | think
are very important to make sure that this body is aware of. | think it’s fair to say that we will do everything
that we can to minimize any type of layoffs, that’s definitely something that is true. It’s something that |
know the Parking Department would work hard to make sure doesn’t happen obviously with a significant
loss of revenue | would be misrepresenting it to say that we wouldn’t be laying anyone off or we wouldn’t be
reducing hours of any such, | think that would just be a safe thing that folks should realize would occur, at
least in the short-term until we got a handle on the financial situations and then we could look to potentially
increasing those hours.
And then similarly the other key element that | think is really important is at least for the time being there
would be no more active enforcement of overnight parking. So | just want folks to understand that. That’s
a very key element that would be happening. Of course, we would strive to do it again and we would once
we felt like we could take it on and not have it financially burden the Department. But we would make every
effort to try to reincorporate it back in. But it wouldn’t be like the way we have done it in the past, in terms of
actively enforcing overnight. It would be something ad hoc or when complaints came in or you know when
we could do it because we had the financial wherewithal to be able to cover the costs. | guess the last thing
| would say is the parking department has worked really hard over the last 2 years to turn that account
around.
When the Parking Department took it over it was in the red by something like $25,000.00/$50,000.00 year
over year and you know last year or the year before was the first year that we saw a surplus in that account
by | think $30,000.00 or $50,000.00. And we were starting to put that revenue towards parking related
expenses. With the reduction in revenue that we are talking about now | think the other byproduct that this
body just needs to be aware of is that we would most likely have to see some of those parking related
expenses borne back on to the residential property tax base. So these are just some of the elements that |
just want everyone to be aware of, that as you are voting on this this evening that you fully know and
understand. So anyway | just want to make sure | got those comments out. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Thank you. Alderman Dowd?
Alderman Dowd
Yes, | am going to support Alderman O’Brien’s motion. | said in the committee meeting that unless we
come up with an alternative source for the funding, because we are in the middle of a Budget Year and this
is coming out of 2020 funds. And it’s not a lot of money but it has got to come from somewhere. Is it going
to come from layoffs? You know, that’s going to be up to administration. But you know there’s an issue,
there’s other places it could come from. So | am concerned about that.
The other thing is we are making a reduction of fine across the City when the maker of the motion is talking
