It's budget time

This morning Mayor Louras came into the Herald for to share and explain with Editor Randal Smathers, Managing Editor Alan Keays and myself his fiscal year 2011 general fund budget proposal. That interview (just shy of an hour) was taped and will soon be broadcast on PEG TV, so watch out for it in the coming days.

Later in the day, we also received a copy of the document I'm attaching below. It is a letter to the Board of Aldermen that touches on the major points to be made about this budget and it's accompanied by a one-page spreadsheet comparing department costs for FY'10, proposed FY'11 and percent increase/decrease. At the bottom of that page you'll also see the mayor's "initiatives" - which are the major expenditures, above hard costs, that he felt were important to get into this budget.

Also important to note is that this budget doesn't include COLAs for any non-union employees or employees subject to union contracts. He does, however, ask that the health care contributions for the same employees be kept untouched.  

(This file is a PDF. To download it or open it in a new browser window, all you should have to do is click the link.)

Download: Mayors_budget_info

 

Today's column

Another budget season kicks off tonight, when Mayor Christopher Louras presents his fiscal year 2011 proposal to the aldermen. Louras said last week he will touch on some of the highlights of the budget, but as always, the real in-depth discussion will happen in a series of committee meetings in the weeks to come.

One point worth mentioning is that Louras has broken out the budget into about five individual budgets — which he said he is hoping can be placed on the ballot in the same form, giving voters the opportunity to make clear with what they take issue.

Although the agenda going into the meeting is light, there is at least one other issue that will be introduced during the meeting.

On Thursday, Board President David Allaire told some of his board members during a Finance Committee meeting that they can expect to find on their desks tonight his draft of a charter amendment that would give the aldermen the authority, if they had a supermajority of the board's vote, to add to line items in the mayor's budget. As it currently stands, the aldermen can only cut from the proposal presented to them.



School lawsuit

The city was in court for a hearing last week in the lawsuit brought against it in 2008 by the Mountain View Community School. The defunct school, which was on Church Street, filed a civil suit against the city last year arguing that, for the purpose of the property tax statute, they're a public school.

Last October, the city was preparing to take the property to tax sale because the school had allowed its property taxes to go delinquent. Ultimately, the school's landlord, Joe Giancola, foreclosed on the school before it could go to tax sale, according to City Attorney Andrew Costello.

According to Costello, the school and city have been given 10 days to write and file briefs. Costello said he expects the judge will make a decision within a month after that.

Mountain View's attorney, Ted Robare, did not return a call seeking comment about the lawsuit.



Another town signs on

RRA Executive Director Tom Macaulay told his board last week that Proctor was the latest town to unanimously vote to sign a letter of intent to participate in the Rutland Telecom initiative.

With Proctor on board, that makes 11 municipalities. The others are: Poultney, Fair Haven, Castleton, West Rutland, Rutland City, Rutland Town, Mendon, Killington, Pittsford and Middlebury.

The RRA board is set to meet again this week for a hard look at the RT business plan, through which Macaulay will walk the group.



Committee lists

The aldermen's weekly schedule of committee meetings continues Tuesday with a meeting of Alderman Dave Dress' charter and ordinance subcommittee – one of two – looking into the city official selection process. With two meetings already under their belts, this group appears headed toward recommending, at the very least, that the city move toward hiring a city manager. The other group won't meet again until Nov. 10.

On Wednesday, the Public Works Committee will discuss flooding problems at 39 Nichols St. For Thursday, Dress has also scheduled a charter and ordinance meeting to talk about term limits for all elected city officials. This is an issue that has been on Charter and Ordinance Committee's to-do list since Dress referred it there in July. Dress has long been one of the few proponents of term limits on the board; recently, Rutland United Taxpayers has also brought the issue back to public consciousness as they circulated a petition to have the prospect of 10-year term limits placed on the March ballot.



Outside of City Hall

The Rutland Area Food and Farm Link will hold a somewhat novel event Wednesday: A casual mixer for new and aspiring farmers.

For those who might fall into this category, the event will run 6 to 10 p.m. in the Brick Box, and will feature a period for mingling and enjoying local beer and snacks from Table 24, as well as a screening of the film "FRESH" about the future of sustainable agriculture.

Anyone looking for more information or to RSVP can e-mail india@rutlandfarmandfood.org or call 417-7331.

Louras puts his distaste for RT into writing

For the second time in as many weeks, Mayor Christopher Louras set his sights - and his letter writing abilities - on the Rutland Redevelopment Authority. The following letter went out to the RRA's Board of Commissioners and the Board of Aldermen on Friday in regard to the Rutland Telecom initiative.

I'm working on getting a response from the RRA. I'm also curious to see if the letter will come up at tonight's BOA meeting.

( Note: Please click on the image of the letter below to open it in a new window, or right-click and save it as an image to your own computer. It is much easier to read that way.)

 

Another piece of flood-related news

And another good one, at that.

Three Tomatoes Trattoria on Merchants Row will reopen at 5 p.m. tonight, so go enjoy a nice Italian meal and support downtown business at the same time.

FNL will happen this Friday

Just got off the phone with Karen from the Downtown Rutland Partnership. Last week's rained out finale of Friday Night Live will be made up this week, she said.

Friday Night Live makeup a possibility

Friday's weather may have forced the cancellation of the last regularly scheduled Friday Night Live, but Mike Coppinger is hoping the series won't fade with a rainout.

The Downtown Rutland Partnership's executive director said Saturday morning that he was already working on coordinating with businesses and city officials to make up the date this week.

"I don't want it to go out with a whimper, so I feel it's more important than ever that we try to hold it this upcoming week," Coppinger said when he was stopped on Center Street on Saturday, having just left breakfast at Clem & Co.

Board will decide antique flag issue

The city's aldermen will take up an array of business at tonight's regular meeting of the full board. Last week, the Charter and Ordinance Committee met with Debby Dubay, owner of Limoges Antiques on Merchants Row, about her request to be able to hang an "antiques" flag outside her store despite the fact that it hangs lower than 7 feet above the ground.

The committee unanimously agreed to change from 7 feet to 5 feet the height requirement in the existing city ordinance governing awnings, shades, flags and signs. Tonight, that motion will be up for approval by the full board.

Clearing the air.

On Thursday, I spoke to Alderwoman Sharon Davis about an article I'd written for that day's paper about the Board of Civil Authority's decision not to grant a hearing to two laid-off city employees, and the lawsuit an attorney for one of the employees promised would follow. Toward the end of the article, I touched briefly on an exchange at the start of the meeting in which Davis made a motion to compel Mayor Christopher Louras, the BCA's chairman, to recuse himself because she felt he had a conflict of interest as the maker of the budget that included the layoffs. That motion was denied by Louras, a decision which Davis and Alderman David Allaire then challenged. A vote on the challenge failed 4-5, with Louras casting a vote.

Both Davis and Louras were quoted in the article. Davis spoke about her objection to Louras' participation in the night's discussion because of the perceived conflict. On top of that, she said that, by voting and debating as the chairman, he had violated Robert's Rules of Order, a widely used guideline to parliamentary procedure that dictates how meetings of a variety of bodies should be conducted when they do not have their own rules that specifically outline those procedures. This last point did not make it into the article because I thought the explanation and an argument about Robert's Rules would become confusing.

A must-read...

With the aldermen likely to approve an anti-shopping cart theft ordinance, today will probably hopefully be my last chance to talk about shopping carts, so I cannot pass up the chance to link to the book Alderman William Notte showed me last week.

The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification

  According to the blurbs on Amazon.com and the book's accompanying Web site, the 176-page book is by artist Julian Montague and was completed over a six year span in Buffalo, N.Y. It's chock full of photos of all sorts of carts in just about every situation or state of being you can imagine, and Montague's developed clever classifications for the variables - for example, plaza drift, alternate usage, bus stop discard, wheel lock stray. It goes on and on.

Clearly, Rutland is not the only place with a shopping cart problem - and that's the point Notte told me last week he was trying to make. 

Another board member, Dave Dress, was thinking along similar lines. When he spotted a couple stray carts while on vacation in Scotland, he stopped to take photos. He brought a couple large glossies, which now hang on my desk, to the committee meeting.

Anyway, does the fact that it happens elsewhere make it excusable? No. At long last, however, it looks like enough people might be working on enough of a variety of initiatives to really affect some change.

A busy week for city leaders

The city's elected officials have a busy week ahead, including meetings of the Board of Aldermen, Board of Civil Authority and an informal review of the structure of the city's government.

Tonight the BCA will meet to map out how it will handle a small number of grievances filed against property valuations on the grand list abstract released in June. Anyone whose grievance was not granted by Assessor Barry Keefe was given a two-week window last month during which he or she could file an appeal with the BCA.

At tonight's meeting, the BCA, composed of the mayor, aldermen and 15 justices of the peace, will elect a president and set a hearing date.

A meeting of the Board of Aldermen is also scheduled for tonight. Treasurer Wendy Wilton is expected to present to the board a rough draft of a final report on the city's major funds for fiscal year 2009. Although general fund figures will change in the coming month as the treasurer's office continues to collect delinquent tax revenue, Wilton predicts the city will see a $120,000 surplus – which has already been accounted for as revenue in the fiscal year 2010 budget.

Other business on tonight's agenda includes final votes on whether to purchase two new police cruisers, grant snowmobilers access to the city forest and enact an ordinance aimed at curbing shopping cart theft.

On Tuesday, the aldermen and mayor will meet as the Board of Civil Authority to discuss whether BCA hearings are warranted for two city employees whose recreation department positions were cut in the fiscal year 2010 budget. According to the city personnel manual, employees are entitled to a hearing if dismissed, demoted or suspended; Mayor Christopher Louras is contending since the layoffs do not fit those descriptions the hearing should not be granted, while some aldermen have argued it's common courtesy.

The following evening, the full board will meet again as the Committee of the Whole to discuss the governmental model used in the city – namely, the benefits of a mayor versus city manager, having a certified accountant in the treasurer's office and employing a Board of Listers instead of an assessor.

A representative from the Vermont League of Cities and Towns is scheduled to run the workshop for the group. The meeting will resume a discussion left off in late May, right before the board delved into budget review mode. At that time, the group was leaning heavily toward forming an eclectically composed charter review committee to tackle the problem.

Deadline day

Payments on third-quarter water and sewer bills for fiscal year '09 are due today.

Ratepayers can either make a payment in person in City Hall or drop their payment in the mail, as long as it is postmarked with today's date, according to the treasurer's office.

Late payments are subject to a 5 percent penalty.