Notes From Initial Meeting

[Brent]

Here are my notes from the 03/24 initial meeting. Please post any additional comments/observations.

Citizen Budget Review (“The People’s Money”)
Initial Session 03/24/2004

Attending:
Mayor Ernie McAlister (briefly)
Council Member Michael Joyce
Mayor Pro Tem Jack Smith (briefly)
Robin Joyce
Adam Arnold
Mike Dodson
Matt Danielson
John Finn
Kat Haney
Daryl Baker
Josh Mills
Ray Czarnecki
Bynum Walter
Matt Walter
Tom Woodard
Ken Elowitz
Darryl Black
Tom McCuiston
Cathy Heath
Don Hyatt

Opening Remarks (Mike Joyce)
· This is about citizen involvement
· This is not about politics (we have a mixed group of parties and ideologies present)
· Intended to help elected officials represent the people better
· This is not affiliated with the Town; not a Town initiative
· Cathy Heath (citizen of Cary ETJ, not citizen of Cary) has offered to assist with helping to determine the actual cost of annexation (budgetary aspects of annexation)

Opening Remarks (Mayor McAlister)
· Not about politics/parties, but about money
· Ernie & Mike are about to go through their first budget session themselves
· They want to hear what we have to say
· Thanks to Mike for putting this together
· Challenges: aquatics center, SAS Soccer park, etc. – consider long-term trends (current trend is revenue isn’t exceeding expenses like it had)

Remarks (Jack Smith)
· Applaud what Michael is doing
· “Days of group think” on Council are gone – healthy to have split votes
· Like the idea of direct citizen input outside of bureaucracy
· Budget numbers are so abstract ($180M), and public input asking for special programs ends up being a trivial amount of the overall budget, so are we really getting meaningful citizen input?
· A lot of different eyes looking at a lot of different things can help council prioritize and determine value
· Much of what the Town does is beyond what the law requires and has to do with values, and values differ among people

Discussion/Questions
· Who’s paying for this? Not the Town! Mike is paying expenses from his Town Council salary. Mike will make additional copies if necessary.
· Logistics: what resources might be available for meetings? Mike will assist us with getting meeting space if we request it.
· Can we get help with data, etc. (from Staff, etc.)? Yes, but it would be best if we formulated questions and requests as a group, rather than peppering staff with individual questions
· How should we organize ourselves? Group decided to continue to meet as a group, as well as people making individual recommendations. Brent agreed to facilitate the group, because he was foolish enough to take these notes and be observed taking these notes. J
· How will the findings be reported? Would like all the recommendations to be compiled into a report and presented to Council. Want the “uncensored input”, some items may be group consensus, some may not.
· What significance will be attached to the group’s input? Mike will hear us, at least, and Council is likely to pay attention, especially on consensus items from such a diverse group of citizens
· When should we have some conclusions? See “Important Dates” in notebook (May 12 capital budget work session; May 25 operating budget work session; May 27 draft FY05 budget presentation to Council; June 10 public hearing on budget; June 24 budget adoption)

Random Comments during Introductions
· On-line issues surveys
· Development concerns/growth/subsidizing developers
· Spending concerns
· Two mentions of Ft. Lauderdale, several of Northern Virginia/Washington, DC (past residence) going from “nice town” to “crowded mess”
· Cary/NC is a great place
· Concerns with taxes, spending
· “Value for taxes paid”
· By 2006, Wake Co. will have higher population than 6 states
· Would like to focus on long-term items/trends/directions

Ideas Going Forward
· Set up a Yahoo group or private forum on carypolitics.org for this group to interact electronically – Don Hyatt has set up a private forum on carypolitics.org (thanks Don!)
· Need to try to get information (preview?) of FY05 budget so we have some idea of what Staff will be recommending – will be available to us when it is presented to the Council work session in early May.
· We should consider focusing on long-term items, bigger ticket items that influence general direction, although all suggestions/recommendations/ideas are solicited.
· Might want to try to brainstorm innovative specific ideas within each department of Town government

Next Steps
· Don Hyatt will set up a forum for communication among this group (only!) – DONE.
· Recruit/discuss with others we know; invite them to participate
· Meet some number of times (next meeting in 3 week – see item below; we may meet more frequently as the important budget dates get closer
· Look at actual spending vs. budget (can we get 2004 actual spending? We have a copy of the 2003 year-end report).
· Next meeting April 14 Wednesday 6:30 (Barry’s Café, Copeland’s have separate rooms with no charge – Josh Mills will try to get the room at Copeland’s). Agenda to include “mission statement”/goals & objectives as well as general thoughts/positions about budget/fiscal issues in town (everyone to share his/her perspective, pet projects, ideas, etc.). Homework is to review the budget that was distributed at the meeting.

[Cathy]

Thank you Brent for the excellent synopsis of the meeting.
And thanks to Don for the 'speedy delivery' of the forum for discussion!

Hopefully we will begin to see some comments and questions begin to be posted after participants have been able to digest some of the budget items. I'm looking forward to a productive discussion!

Cathy

[Wuptdo]

Good work Brent. I am a little concerned that so far only "CP regulars" have made comments. Hopefully, the e-mail that Mr. Don just sent will get some of the new folks use to this format.

Mike B-)

[MattD]

First I would like to thank Michael Joyce for inviting me to be part of the Budget discussion. If we are truly working for the best interests of the citizens of Cary, then we could be adding tremendous value in an area that may have been neglected over the years.

As we have only a short window of time to review and discuss the complexity of the Town’s Budget, is it to our benefit as a committee to invite others to participate? It would seem the more people involved in this Budget Committee then the more opportunities for a greater number of “sub-groups” to review/research the issues.

Just so there is no hidden agenda, I do know some people who would like to be part of the Budget Committee but were unable to make it to the meeting on Wed.

So the questions are: 1) Do we invite more people 2) if yes, how many people should the committee have and 3) how do we select the people who want to join?

(Mike - how is that for a first time post?)

Matthew Danielson

[dhyatt]

[snip]

So the questions are: 1) Do we invite more people 2) if yes, how many people should the committee have and 3) how do we select the people who want to join?

(Mike - how is that for a first time post?)

Matthew Danielson

For now, anyone interested should be welcome. If our ranks start swelling to 25+ people, we may need to reconsider but we'll cross that bridge if/when we come to it. Selection should be based on nothing more than interest and desire to help.

[kellyc]

I am one of those people who couldn't attend the Wednesday night meetings. (Im in the civilian police academy). Maybe we could post sections of the budget on this board and people could comment on it by section. It would make it easier to follow.

Kelly

[Brent]

I agree that this should be open to all interested citizens who want to participate (and I think that Michael Joyce indicated this with his initial invitations, encouraging recipients to forward that invitation to others).

I am not particularly concerned with raw numbers, at least up to a point (100 people would be tough to coordinate on a short runway), but I don't think that several dozen people is all that likely anyway.

I would be a bit concerned with adding a lot of people late in the process. My experience is that the learning curve of understanding (1) the budget and (2) what the group has done so far in the process is steep.

So, I think I would say "the more, the merrier", up to a point -- the point being, perhaps something like 25 or 30 people as Don suggests and/or our next meeting April 7, after which we might want to think long and hard about adding other people, at least for this go-round (I'm hoping there will be more things like this in the future).

We need as many good ideas and perspectives as we can get, but we also have to produce something useful in a short amount of time.

[Cathy]

If there are other people who are interested in joining this discussion, who could not make the meeting, I think that they should be invited to join.
The most importabt criteria here would be that those invovled contribute in a educated and positive way on the subject of the budget.
Since this is moderated(?) and invite only, it should be fairly easy to eliminate anyone who is abusive or counter-productive to the discussion.

I would like to suggest to anyone looking at the budget to review the Power Point presentation from the Council Retreat:
http://www.townofcary.org/agenda/councilmin04/retreatppt.pdf

I would also recommend going back through the minutes of Council Retreats all the way through 1999. These retreat minutes give a fairly good history of some budget items like Parks & Rec, and other big ticket expenses that the Town is now dealing with. It is also a good way to see how the various Council members stand on some of these budget items and other goals impacting the Town budget.

[Wuptdo]

In my first pass thru of the budget, I find that there is a lot of detail (where the devil is hiding). My first thought (I'm brainstorming here), is at the first meeting to divided into several groups. We don't have much time to focus on details. However, I believe that if several smaller groups are focused on Operating Budget, Capital Budget and several of the large department (Police & Parks/Rec), more work or better work could be accomplished. I am use to "self-directed" work team approach.

Thoughts or comments?

Mike B-)

[Brent]

Mike, I definitely think that separating capital and operating budgets makes sense, and doing so in groups could be a good way to achieve that. Perhaps finer granularity might even work, but capital and operating budgets, I think, each ought to have their own "focus group".

[DarylB]

So far as opening this up to any and all, it should be as open as we can make it, BUT we should be able to discern the committed (those who will devote themselves to the details and be involved on subcommittees, etc for the long haul), and the uncommitted "drive by" commenters, who like their voice, like to know it's been heard, but really aren't interested in much work or time expenditures. Not that they may not have a good idea, but I just feel we need to get a committed core group before it just goes to any random comment from whatever sector with an ax to grind.

[Brent]

Good points, Daryl. I have heard from Mike Joyce about 4 additional people who are interested in participating. I assume that we ought to add a small handful of people at least up until our next meeting next week, when we might want to formalize a position of some sort.

[Brent]

Just for everyone's information, Mike Joyce asked me to share the meeting minutes of the first meeting with the Town Council. I sent the meeeting minutes posted here to council@townofcary.org, with this introductory note:

-------------------------

Town Council,

Mr. Joyce asked me to share the notes I took during the first
meeting of the Citizen Budget Review Committee that he
launched last week.

Those minutes are attached. Please feel free to contact me if
you have any questions or have any problems with the attached
file (I can't speak for everyone, but I assume that other
participants would be happy to discuss this also).

Thanks.

------------------

[johnb]

I had been unable to attend that night due to last minute work issues.

That said, it's about time someone got serious about the city budget.

[Kat]

Thanks for keeping track of this stuff. Looks good!