The Chelsea Standard
A Heritage Newspaper
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Council acts on video complaints, pay raises
By Edward Freundl, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: June 19, 2008
Viewers of Chelsea City Council meetings on public-access TV may get a clearer picture of what goes on at meetings if funds are approved to upgrade the current system.
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City resident Jim Machnik addressed the council during public comment at the June 10 meeting to ask yet again that improvements be made to the system, which has been a source of near-constant irritation to him over the past several years.
Machnik took the opportunity prior to the council voting to approve the 2008-09 budget.
"I'm here to convince the council to change the budget to provide funds to improve the meetings on TV," Machnik said.
"For four and a half years I've been complaining about it and nothing ever gets done."
Among his grievances are poor picture quality and even worse sound, that meetings are not aired on a consistent, convenient schedule or are repeated for weeks on end, and that the system "works less than half the time, I'd say."
"It would help to keep things out in the open and make for more transparency in government," Machnik continued.
"If the council doesn't do something tonight, it's a sorry day for Chelsea."
The amount needed to make changes to the system would be in the range of $10,000 to $20,000.
"If we decide to invest in equipment to fix this, where would the money come from?," Mayor Ann Feeney asked.
City Manager John Hanifan replied that it would come out of the city's general fund.
"We would just make an adjustment to the budget to reflect that," Hanifan said.
Council member Rod Anderson, who has heard Machnik make the same complaints since joining the council in November, suggested that council take some sort of action while it was still early in the new budget year.
"I'd like us to address Mr. Machnik's issue in the near future," he said.
Both Hanifan and Feeney said they shared Machnik's frustration, and offered encouragement.
"We have been looking at low-cost solutions and have been discussing it with a consultant," Hanifan said, addressing the council.
"If you like, we can have them come in and tape a meeting and see what they think."
Feeney added: "It's not as if we haven't been working on it."
The council approved the action Hanifan suggested, but without a time frame.
Once the council approved the budget for the coming year, it turned its attention to amending the current year's numbers.
City Administrative Services Director Kim Garland presented a list of changes to be made in about a half-dozen accounts, resulting in a reduction in the general fund of almost $188,000.
"These are items that occurred during the (current fiscal) year and were approved by council, but for whatever reason we didn't do a budget amendment at that time," Garland said.
Feeney complimented Garland on keeping the number of amendments to a minimum.
"There are so few this year as compared to other years," Feeney remarked.
Some of the adjustments were necessary to offset higher gas and oil prices for the Department of Public Works and in the Recycling budgets, according to Garland's written explanation of the line items.
The total increase in expenses was also offset by a cash transfer of $25,000 for the Downtown Development Authority.
The net effect was a $187,900 increase in general fund expenses, which the council approved.
Council members also OK'd a 3 percent wage increase for part-time employees.
"This would cover 16 part-time workers, mainly in the police department," Garland told the council.
"Past practice has been to offer them the same increase as union contracts."
The increase, totaling $8,000 for the year, was already figured into the 2008-09 budget, Garland added.
Council member Rod Anderson added a last-minute agenda item to propose a revised funding formula for the Chelsea Area Fire Authority.
The proposal was introduced at that morning's CAFA board meeting.
"We needed to review and possibly revise the way costs are allocated to the member municipalities," Anderson said.
"Right now the allocation is based on usage, which varies widely from year to year; that's why they went to a rolling five-year average a few years ago."
Anderson explained that CAFA Chief Jim Payeur had looked at seven fire authorities similar in size to CAFA to see how they allocated costs.
Anderson explained that his proposal was a "broad-based, experience proven cost allocation plan."
"This has no connection to the CAFA millage, which is based on taxable property values," Anderson said.
The fire authorities studied were Brown City, Frankenmuth, Grand Ledge, Hastings, Oxford, Saline Area and South Kalamazoo.
Each used from one to five out of seven criteria for allocating costs: state equalized value (SEV), taxable value, service area (in acres), population, roads (in miles), dwelling units and usage.
Anderson's proposed allocation formula would use a weighted average of the three most commonly used criteria: SEV/taxable value (50 percent), population (25 percent) and usage (25 percent).
"This a reasonable, top-down way of allocating things," Anderson said.
Under the proposal, three CAFA municipalities - Chelsea, Dexter Township and Sylvan Township - would pay less than their current allocations, but Lima and Lyndon townships would pay more.
"There was no ad hoc attempt to jigger things to come out to the advantage of Chelsea or anybody else," Anderson said.
"Let's just say there was lots of discussion of the various ways of doing it."
The council took no action on the proposal but directed Hanifan to schedule a meeting with CAFA members to discuss it.
In other business:
l In a special presentation at the start of the meeting, Feeney and Washtenaw County Commissioner Mark Ouimet issued proclamations to Chelsea Lumber Company executives Bob Daniels, Dick McCalla, John Daniels and Dennis Bauer honoring the company's 100 years in business.
"We're very proud to be a part of the Chelsea business community," company president Bob Daniels told the council.
"Chelsea is very special to us," he continued. "Thank you very much for everything you've done for us."
l John Hanifan marked one full year as city manager on June 11, which prompted the council to discuss scheduling his performance evaluation.
Feeney asked if council members wanted to continue using a standard form from the Michigan Municipal League that they had followed for several years.
"I'd like a simple evaluation, based on what we'd like to see in his performance," suggested Council member Frank Hammer.
"This has been a tumultuous transitional year, with new council members and a lot of changes."
Feeney expressed her own preference.
"Personally, I think a written comment by each council member would be helpful," she said. "It would give him something to respond to."
Other council members agreed, and set the evaluation for its June 24 meeting.
l Hanifan reminded the council that Chelsea's 175th anniversary as a town is approaching.
"It's next year; I know the year is right, but we're having trouble tracking down the exact date the village was founded," he said.
"I'd like to collect names of volunteers to serve on a committee to begin planning for this."
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