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COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - MINUTES - 9/9/2004 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE – CITY OF MUSKEGO Approved 9/16/2004 MINUTES OF MEETING HELD SEPTEMBER 9, 2004 Mayor Slocomb called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. Also present were Ald. Buckmaster, Ald. Borgman, Ald. Madden, Ald. Melcher, Ald. Patterson, Ald. Salentine, Ald. Schroeder, Finance Director Gunderson, Chief John Johnson, Information Systems Director Sommers and those per the attached list. All in attendance recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Mayor Slocomb noted the meeting was noticed in accordance with the Open Meeting Law. Ald. Salentine moved for approval of minutes of meetings held August 12 and August 19, 2004. Ald. Schroeder seconded. Ald. Melcher asked for amendment on page 2 of the August 12 minutes; change Alderman Melcher has a concern about vacant commercial buildings to Alderman Melcher has a concern about commercial development in general. Upon a voice vote, the motion to approve the amended minutes of August 12 and the minutes of August 19 carried unanimously. Unfinished Business Further discussion on 2005 Historical Society Capital Budget requests - Ald. Buckmaster referred to the last meeting when it was requested that the Muskego Historical Society provide a written explanation of what benefit the citizens and the historical society receive and what currently has been paid and what future payments can be expected. He asked that a formal letter to the historical society be written asking for this information as this would help the aldermen to better understand where they are going. Ald. Melcher recommended meeting with the officers to see what they envision and to see where this is going if people are concerned about the amount of money going into it. Mayor Slocomb clarified that the money for the Old Town Hall was from the landfill monies. The rest of the ground, the city has contributed very little. Ald. Buckmaster said a meeting with the leaders might be best. He wasn’t aware that they would be funding and repairing the other buildings. He would like to know the historical society’s responsibilities and the city’s responsibilities; what the historical society envisions for the future use of the site and the Old Town Hall. He would like to see a proposed plan for the site. Where it will be in two years and how they are going to get there? Ald. Salentine stated the Parks and Recreation Board has pledged to use park dedication money for the restoration and in turn that department would have priority for the downstairs, has the historical society been made aware of this? Mayor Slocomb said they have been advised it does include the downstairs to use it for part of their programs and they will work around what the historical society is doing. He explained the areas of the building and how the society would be using the building. Ald. Buckmaster stated that tax dollars are not being used, but landfill monies and park dedication fees. It would be nice to know where we ought to go as the park dedication fees could be used in other areas. Mayor Slocomb said the Parks and Recreation Director is excited about getting the additional programming space. The dollars from the park dedication fund is going to make that happen. Ald. Patterson commented the park dedication funds are only for the Old Town Hall. It’s up to the Muskego Historical Society to fund the other buildings. Finance Director Gunderson said the historical society has asked for $75,000 cost in other projects. Ald. Schroeder asked not to move forward with the grading, paths and installation until you see the plan. The first request for the new barn roof needs to move forward as it will cost more in the future. We need a decision this year. Ald. Salentine stated they were to get costs for the vapor barrier and three-dimensional versus cedar shake but not received from staff at this time. Ald. Schroeder said the city needs to move forward even if we don’t find out their goals and purposes. There are no other structural problems that need to be addressed. Ald. Salentine stated it was never intended to do concrete paths at the site. This would be only for handicapped accessibility in the area. Finance Director Gunderson said the costs were for paving paths from building to building. Further discussion on 2005 Planning Dept request - GIS Planimetric Data - Interim Planning Director Muenkel sent a memo to the committee. He had revised the GIS capital budget to reflect payment for the planimetric data to happen over two years. This option will allow the payment for 2005 to be paid in full without having the account dip into the negative after the year is through. Successive years, although shown as a slight deficit at this time, should be in surplus once the monies received in the rest of 2004 are obtained. He provided a new data sheet showing the cost spread over the two years. Ald. Schroeder had asked if it could be moved over two years? In the meantime, he requested from Finance Director Gunderson what the GIS land record fee revenues were in 2003 and up to date for 2004. Finance Director Gunderson stated $17,000 budgeted for each year and then he had relined it to $10,000. In 2003, received $4,100 for a partial year. In 2004, to date, was $6,200. He thought the $10,000 could be Committee of the Whole Page 2 Minutes of Meeting Held 9/9/04 met but it was questionable. The city did purchase the $7,700 web GIS server which had only $4,120 in 2003; actually $3,600 short. Finance Director Gunderson said that was not right. 2003 was only a partial year. If we reach $10,000 in 2004, you’ll have $14,000. Interim Planning Director Muenkel is projecting $2,780 carried over for the two years. He may have more in 2005 than what he is projecting he would have carrying into 2005. Ald. Schroeder commented set this up to purchase GIS purchases out of GIS fees and going into the negative and borrowing is not the purpose for which they set it up. He needs to be careful in the future. Further discussion on Tess Corners/Janesville Road Street Lighting—Ald. Schroeder shared that he had talked with Director McMullen on what engineering information he needed to bring and he was informed none. This is an important item to define the historical area and was talked in length at a March meeting. This is very important and the business owners and homeowners feel the same way. He was discouraged on some conversation last month about the stamping. Clarification as to how the city got to the point that the second intersection got stamped. In March, they decided for $400,000 get the project done in one year and for that, only do the Tess Corners-Janesville stamping and for pedestrian, safety reasons, to do away with Durham-Janesville stamping. Mayor Slocomb stated that by the time it was brought up, the contract for the item had been let. He will get back to Ald. Schroeder on it. Ald. Schroeder referred to the March 7, 2004 Committee of the Whole meeting on the stamped intersection. Some correspondence from the Mayor’s office that it was or was not going to occur if they could get a change order done. Nothing came back and the assumption was made that it wasn’t going to occur. In speaking with the county, they could have changed that week before putting the forms down. Mayor Slocomb stated that what the county says and what happens are two vastly different things. Ald. Buckmaster commented on the issue of the Tess Corners walkway, his understanding was that they had come to a consensus that one walk was not going to be done mainly to appease various aldermen and that money from that were going to be directed to the street lighting and that much less borrowing that would be done for that as they were not able to be included in the TID. Where else could they get the $72,000 for the Tess Corners street lighting? He thought the lighting was more important than the stamped, concrete crosswalks. Need to look at where to get the $72,000. Ald. Patterson stated they would need to take the $72,000 from something else. If we need to spend this, they need to make up the $72,000 some place else. Ald. Schroeder said with the stamping going in at Durham, is the county going to have issue or police department to have an issue of safety pedestrians crossing? It looks like a crosswalk and do we need some type of signage out there for pedestrian crossing or yellow lights and what is that going to cost? The county will probably put in expecting the city to pay for the stamping as we are requesting it. Ald. Buckmaster shared that the Mayor was speaking to the county and suppose they are looking at options for the walk area. He has asked for Gary Evans to prepare some options to be brought before the Public Works Committee. Ald. Schroeder would like this discussed at Public Works Committee as soon as possible. This needs to be discussed with the lighting program. This should be on the Public Works Committee’s September agenda. Ald. Melcher will review the March 11, 2004 Committee of the Whole meeting minutes. New Business Approval of Agenda After what transpired at the last Committee of the Whole meeting, Ald. Schroeder requested approval of agenda for future meetings. He did not know if this was an answer to the issue after his 2-1/2 years and numerous meetings and taking the liberty of taking items out of order and now could not request an item be taken out of order and it was not. As the meetings are sometimes very lengthy, taking items out of order to accommodate those citizens in attendance was discussed. Mayor Slocomb noted that with the advent of the meetings being aired on the local channel, citizens are watching at home to see how the meeting is progressing and then come to the meeting when their particular issue will be coming up for discussion. Committee members spent some time discussing adding this item to future Committee of the Whole agenda. Ald. Schroeder made a motion that in the future, for Committee of the Whole meetings only, including the budget, we have the approval of agenda items on Committee of the Whole meetings only starting at the next Committee of the Whole meeting. Ald. Melcher seconded. Ald. Madden offered the option of dividing the agenda so the budget items are separate from the other Committee of the Whole issues. Ald. Buckmaster mentioned there are different levels and who sets the agenda for the meeting. If an alderman puts an item on the agenda that needs to be discussed, the decision to bring the issue forward for discussion is up to the chair. As the Committee of the Whole is Committee of the Whole Page 3 Minutes of Meeting Held 9/9/04 an aldermanic meeting, he doesn’t have a problem with the approval of the agenda but would request that items not be stricken. He would not want aldermen to have problems with getting an agenda item discussed at the meeting. Ald. Schroeder amended his motion to add with the limitation that it is only to rearrange certain items, not to strike any items. Ald. Melcher seconded the amendment. No further discussion. Upon a roll call vote, the motion carried 7-0. Review Industrial Park proposed improvements Director McMullen provided cost estimates of the various items that are listed. A. Stormwater retention pond using existing city property This item was covered at the previous COW meeting at a cost of $63,860 for engineering, feasibility for a regional stormwater detention pond for the current existing Industrial Park on Racine Avenue. B. Widen and add turning lanes to road entrances and certain corners of the park; Apollo & Racine Avenue, Janesville & Mercury, and Mercury & Apollo Mayor Slocomb reviewed with the committee the cost estimates as provided by Director McMullen. The asphalt costs include all excavation, removals, trucking, stone base material, bidding and incidentals necessary to complete the work. Also provided were drawings as to what would be done regarding the cost estimates and what is believed to be requested. The Apollo and Racine intersection is the most expensive at $33,000 because the storm sewer would have to be covered. Mayor Slocomb was talking about the entrance to the park. The requirement that the storm sewer be put into hard concrete pipe and this is why it’s expensive for the entrance. Ald. Borgman queried why that was chosen over the busy intersection at Saturn where we have Pioneer and Racine intersecting? Mayor Slocomb responded it was because it was most requested. The Janesville-Mercury intersection has a fire hydrant that needs to be relocated. Mercury and Apollo is not an entrance. Mercury is most expensive item at $55,110 because it is done with a 30’ turning radius rather than 50’ radius. There is a fair amount of storm sewer work to fix that intersection. C. Acquire traffic signals at one park entrance; it was suggested at Apollo & Racine Because this is a three-leg intersection, the Bay Lane intersection could be used as a reference point for an estimate. That was $188,423 for construction. Director McMullen’s opinion was that it would not meet the warrants used by the county. He indicated that the Pioneer/Saturn and Janesville intersection would meet the warrants as there is the additional street. The cost for that section including any turning lanes was $226,500 as it is similar to Moorland Road (New Berlin at I-43). Ald. Melcher questioned the $226,500 as he had checked into an extremely busy intersection at Hillendale and Racine? He checked with the county and the estimate from the county was $750,000 at that intersection. What the city would pay was $375,000. His contact was someone who was with traffic and signals for Waukesha County. He would also like to consider the cost in terms of warrants and the need for the safety of children. Ald. Buckmaster stated that in other areas traffic lights have been requested and they are very close to the warrant and they are not being put there. Alderman Schroeder mentioned that the city is working on Item A current. Realistically Item B and Item C are going to be very difficult to do simultaneously. Their priority one was Item A. He stated that Items D through G are probably things that can be looked into simultaneously with Item A. He recommended that Item B and C be put into the 5-year capital and put off for the following year. To focus on getting one project done in the area initially and not do the other two large projects. He stated there has already been some discussion with the businesses in putting in the signs and for the driveway flare widening and culverts, Department of Public Works would do the work as they always do and the cost being picked up by the businesses. For the additional trees, the city has had a plan in place since 1999 where landscaping and trees would be done inside the industrial park so let’s move forward with that plan. The general clean up seems like a low priority, but it has been a huge issue. He would say that the majority of businesses would wholeheartedly be appreciative of the city telling them to fix it as others are required to do the same. He thought that D through G could be worked into the plan and bring B and C into the plan the following year and the next year. Finance Director Gunderson informed the committee that years ago with the lot sales in the industrial park, a fund had been set up for the government for purposes of improvements. The accounting firm has Committee of the Whole Page 4 Minutes of Meeting Held 9/9/04 been contacted for verification that the funds on hand are $86,000. These funds are free and clear for any improvements within the industrial park. Ald. Salentine inquired if that could be used for the pond? Finance Director Gunderson said it could be used for the pond. Because the storm water detention pond was in the 5-year capital plan, the $60,000 for design work and construction work has been built into the storm water budget. Committee members will consider the $86,000 available in consideration for funding for the requested items. Ald. Schroeder suggested contacting the representative from the industrial park committee and asked them the importance of working on D through G compared to doing B and C. Where would they like to go with B through G? D. Work with the businesses to provide new park signs and directional signs Director McMullen had spoken with DH Graphics & Signs, located on Enterprise Drive in the industrial park. They have done a good number of monument signs and they also use a local mason for all masonry work related to their sign. The cost for a monument sign varies anywhere from $8,000-$15,000 per sign (without electrical). For the mid-price range, the city could get a very nice masonry base concrete-etched lettering, which would last forever and not need maintenance. E. Driveway Flare widening/culverts—only Ald. Schroeder’s comment on this issue. F. Additional trees and landscaping According to Director McMullen’s memorandum, a plan was done in December of 1999 titled Industrial Park Planting Plan. There was a need for an estimated 255 trees at that time. Using an estimate of $200/tree, a total of $51,100 would be needed. G. General property clean up directed by the city to businesses that do not follow city guidelines— only Ald. Schroeder’s comment on this issue. Review 2005 Capital Budget Information Systems--Director Sommers presented the capital budget requests for his department. Replace Phone System— Replacing of the phone system has been in the 5-year plan for 2008. He had spoken with Ald. Madden and they decided to move the plan up to 2005 with the thought that they could save money sooner than later. They have met with a couple of vendors and received quotes. Two vendors looked at combining the telephone lines from city hall and police department and getting a phone system for those locations. The department is looking for a 5-year return on the investment. They are still consulting with vendors and looking into technology. In the budget, they have $65,000 to buy a system. They will probably save between $10,000-$15,000 a year. Once the 5 years is up, the city would continue to save money. The existing phone system was installed in the 1980s and it has been upgraded to SBC Centrex with 239 lines. Although the city currently has centralized administration and a single and simple system for voice, modems and circuits including utility supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), at a certain point it may be more cost effective to add a phone system to consolidate the number of lines and take advantage of what these systems offer in terms of lower rates for dialing local calls. Ald. Patterson inquired if the technology of Internet phones has advanced where it could be of some use to the city? Director Sommers said they are looking at it. They have looked at a hybrid which is partially IP and partially traditional so you could use it with the phones the city has as well as IP phones. He cautioned with a pure IP system there could be latencies and degradation especially for the police department as you can lose the quality of the signal. Ald. Patterson queried is the development such that in a year or two, the city could be looking at total changes, are we changing our system early? Director Sommers stated according to the total market place with January 2004 versus January 2003 numbers, 90% of the systems are PBX and 10% are IP or combined IP with something else. IP market is growing at about 50%-75% a year and the PBX is declining by about 30% per year. IP is gaining, but it is still 10%. If you wanted to wait until IP is 75% of the market, you’ll probably wait about three years. Ald. Schroeder stated that if the system is going to pay for itself in six years, it was a good idea, but he needed to see the projected cost savings written out. Ald. Madden said the cost savings would be explicit but they needed to wait on the solution in order to show cost savings as it made a difference with using a hybrid, it will come out one way and with a PBX system, it will be another way. Ald. Schroeder questioned how they came up with the cost estimate? Director Sommers said it was based on two quotes received. Ald. Committee of the Whole Page 5 Minutes of Meeting Held 9/9/04 Schroeder would like to see what items they are quoting to see the cost savings to help him justify the five-year payback. Based on the quotes received, Director Sommers said he added some reasonable costs if you have two systems rather than one. There will be staff training, etc. You have to go out six years before the return on the investment was positive. Ald. Schroeder was requesting a spreadsheet on how he had worked out the cost savings. Mayor Slocomb advised that it would be wise to move the replacement of the phone system up to 2005. Police Department –Chief John Johnson presented the capital budget requests for his department. Replace 9-1-1 Hardware—The police department wants to replace their 15-year-old 9-1-1- hardware/software system for $120,000. This is the heart of the emergency response system. Because of wireless 911, the system is not capable of receiving data via cell phones. He reviewed the difference between receiving calls from a land phone versus calls from a cell phone. Cell phone calls come in from the county dispatcher, which is communicated verbally, thus there is a delay in the emergency response. With the 9-1-1 wireless, they would not only receive the call but also receive the location. Right now, the county dispatcher has to tell the Muskego dispatcher where the call is coming from after they locate it on the map. The equipment needs to be upgraded. He explained the quote he received from SBC was $98,000. He briefly reviewed the quote noting that some things the department has already such as the printer and the monitors. This would probably bring the quote down by $2,000. Ald. Buckmaster questioned when the city would go with the county dispatch system? Chief Johnson stated about two years but to get the public use to it, he recommended three years to see how that system is working. Ald. Buckmaster asked if the city’s current infrastructure would be the same when going to the county dispatch system? Chief Johnson said some of the equipment would go away. Ald. Buckmaster’s concern was spending the $120,000 now on equipment that will go away. Chief Johnson did not think the department could go three years with the existing equipment. Operationally, as soon as they get the equipment for the wireless 911, they are cutting response time down. It will then be an electronic transfer instead of the human transfer of information. Ald. Madden stated that we are now in a wireless world and this is something that we need now and she wasn’t confident that the city would decide to go with the county’s dispatch system. It’s important that the police department gets the equipment. Chief Johnson stated that the number of 911 calls being made from cell phones is going up and in some metropolitan areas, it is amounting to 50% of the calls. Mayor Slocomb asked if the city bought the hardware and then decided to go with the county dispatch system, is there a possibility the hardware could be sold on the open market? Chief Johnson could not say, but it’s a possibility. Finance Director Gunderson asked if as they worked through the budgeting process, would he be comfortable if they could lower the $120,000? Chief Johnson said he had received only one quote and he will look it over to see what options he can subtract. Replace Emergency Generator—The department is requesting to replace their emergency generator for $40,000. This was in the budget when they remodeled the police building and other unforeseen costs came up in the remodeling. It was put off because they had operated that many years without a full building generator. The current generator provides power for electronic backup and some lighting. It does not provide enough back up for heating or air-conditioning systems. He did mention that since the events of September 11, 2001, there is a possibility that terrorists could take out a power grid, the Point Beach nuclear power plant, or attack Chicago. City of Muskego could be put at risk for a power grid let down. An outage in Ohio could take Muskego down. There was a need to have a building where an emergency government could be set up and function. Committee members agreed that you need to run emergency services out of some building. Ald. Schroeder stated this is an important step to make sure all the citizens are protected in times of emergencies. Connect Police Range Building to sewer and water—Chief Johnson informed the committee that with a leadership change at the school (WCTC), they now want to take a look at providing the police firing range another building with sewer and water utilities at a projected cost to the city of $20,000 for the utilities. He stated that the building would also be available for community groups to hold meetings. He said that if the school uses it, they could look at revenue from usage fees. This would be a good addition of a small classroom building with bathrooms and it would finish up the range. Ald. Schroeder inquired about cost- sharing with the other users to recoup some of the investment. Chief Johnson advised that there are agreements in place with these groups. Milwaukee pays 80% of the maintenance. Finance Director Gunderson stated the school would build the building and the city would put in the bathrooms. Chief Committee of the Whole Page 6 Minutes of Meeting Held 9/9/04 Johnson said the $20,000 is for the infrastructure. The city has a $600,000 facility that is under utilized. It WCTC is willing to provide the building, the city should be willing to pay to hookup to the utilities. (At 9:20 p.m., committee recessed for five minutes.) Tess Corners Volunteer Fire Department—TCVF Board Members Jeff Verburgt, Phil Dibb and Carl Wojonowski presented their capital budget requests. 9-1-1 Dispatch Center Upgrade Phil Dibb expressed the need for the upgrade for their 9-1-1 dispatch center upgrade. If the dispatch software is upgraded, removing the AS 400 system and the map database, the 911 address printer system will require upgrading. This will require a fixed LAN connection and additional hardware to be installed at both firehouses. In 1985, a system was installed that transmitted map data over the DPW frequency to all the firehouses and prints the map at the firehouses. The system works very well except the parts that make up the system are rapidly going obsolete, specifically the printers for the system have to be intelligent printers meaning there is no print driver available to drive them because they are local printers. You need a printer that takes raw data and print it. The second issue is the modems are obsolete and there are problems for using VHF. It is a one-way system and there is no check that the data was received. In some cases, they have received half maps because the data was not transmitted. They have had site surveys done. To put in a wireless Internet, between the police department and all the firehouses, the system would look like a gigantic phone wireless Internet project except that it is significantly more, safeguarding as far as encryption and have more power than the current system. It would allow the printers to essentially be no different than a Windows printer and be tied into the city’s network as any other printer. Because they would be on the city network, they could use some hard drive space for backup of the report database, which would be backed up every night on the city’s mainframe. They could get the maps, locations of fire hydrants, water main information that they need via email. In conversation with Information Systems Director Sommers, the site survey brought out that the parks garage has linking phone connections to those computers. This would get rid of the phone line costs for those computers. Basically, it amounts to wireless CAT 5 cables to all of those buildings as well as the parks garage. Part of the $60,000 cost to install the antenna to the Cell One tower. The cost would be for hardware cost for Tess Corners Station #1, Tess Corners Station #2, their Station #3, which is Muskego Station #1 and the cost of parts for the parks garage. Ald. Patterson inquired how much of the cost is per station? Mr. Dibb stated Tess Corners #1 is the most expensive with hardware costs in the neighborhood of $14,000-$15,000. Ald. Patterson question was in consideration of adding Muskego Station #2, if they are interested and what the cost would be? Mr. Dibb said that they do not have a PC at that firehouse so it is purely a printer location, the cost would be $8,000 and adding a PC, possibly another $1,000. Mr. Verburgt asked if the city wanted to consider changing the dollar value to add the fourth firehouse to the request; if so, they would have to add $9,000 to the request. 800 MHz Radio Equipment Mr. Dibb refreshed the committee that last year they split the numbers for the radio equipment because of the shortage of funds for the city. This is the last part of the last phase for purchasing of the radio equipment. The department will replace the remaining mobile and portable units at a cost of $40,750; the mobile units at $3,100 a piece, the portables at $3,500 a piece and $200 a piece for programming. They started the radio equipment with the stations, then the officers and the vehicles, and these additional purchases will finish the vehicles and provide units for first responders. Ald. Schroeder inquired how many spare radios they had for vehicles and walkie-talkies? Mr. Dibb responded no spare vehicle radios and two spare walkie-talkies. This will finish up the radio equipment. Sign for Station #2 At the financing for the building of the station, Mr. Verburgt shared that there were some line items they were asked to take off. One was the illuminated sign for the building. Mr. Verburgt indicated that they did go down to one sign. The one on Loomis Drive was totally eliminated. They are requesting $15,000 for a display sign for Tess Corners Station #2. The sign would be facing Highway 36. In his documents on the facility, Ald. Schroeder had reference to two signs and also a sign priced at $4,000. He would like some explanation of where the other sign went and which is which, $4,000 or $15,000. Committee of the Whole Page 7 Minutes of Meeting Held 9/9/04 Furnishings for Station #2 Mr. Verburgt again said this was a line item taken off during the financing part for the building of the station. Right now they are using milk crates and borrowed furniture. They are looking at furnishing two offices and the conference room with tables and chairs for $10,000. The chairs for the conference room would be stackable chairs. Ald. Patterson inquired if they need both rooms outfitted at the same time? There are some meetings that are sensitive and they want to have those behind closed doors. They do rotate the trainings to other firehouses. The videos and other training materials are in the small room. This would be set up similar to Station #1. RIT (Rapid Intervention Team) Equipment Mr. Dibb stated the biggest item was replacing the infrared camera. The equipment would include two small generators, thermal imaging cameras, ropes, harnesses, bags, etc. for $20,000. He informed the committee that their current ropes and harnesses are passed the service date. The original camera which was helmet-mounted they purchased on fund-raiser has been rebuilt numerous times. The manufacturer has informed them that it is now not repairable. That design is no longer being done. The cameras are now hand held with better resolution of pictures and more features. They paid $47,000 for the helmet-mounted camera and the new hand-held camera is $7,500. They need to replace the camera, they need some portable lights, they need to replace the ropes and harnesses that are passed their 20- year service life. Ald. Schroeder inquired if the camera just came on to the 5-year plan? Mr. Dibb stated that was true as they had no intention of replacing the camera, but the camera is not working now. They are down to one camera. Ald. Schroeder asked if the camera wasn’t included, would the other items be purchased in a different way? Mr. Dibb said the harnesses and ropes were overlooked in needing replacement. The small generator with the lights is a major asset. It’s an asset in not dragging power cords through a burning building. Ald. Patterson questioned how much for the ropes and harnesses? Mr. Dibb said $2,500. They had not intended on replacing the camera that soon and they range from $7,500 to $11,000. Muskego Volunteer Fire Company –MVF Members Edwin Schaefer, Dominic D’Aquisto, and John Magnus gave the presentation on the capital items being requested for their department. Utility Vehicle/Comm and Center For $367,000, they are requesting utility vehicle command center. This would be a replacement for the current truck with added capability to carry additional equipment, manpower, air filling station, RIT equipment and would provide climate-controlled rehab and incident command capabilities. A request had been before the committee for 2004. In changing their request, they took into account some of the feedback and direction from last year. They have taken in trade shows and done some research. This would be a walk through truck. They eliminated a majority of the command portion and have gone to a design that accommodates the equipment they have and there is some room for expansion. It has the capability to carry all of the manpower, which is the most significant portion. They are working with three different manufacturers to bid prices on the vehicle. Ald. Buckmaster asked if it was equipped with a pumper unit? Mr. Schaefer stated it was not as last year, they were asked to eliminate that option, but was equipped with a cascade system and filling station for filling air bottles on the scene of an incident instead of exchanging spare bottles. Also, filling breathing apparatus without removing the pack. Ald. Patterson questioned what other expensive things are on this truck that you would not have on a standard utility type truck? Mr. Schaefer said the cascade system and the station for filling air bottles and the bottles for the air-powered tools. Right now, they have to use individual breathing air bottles to operate the tools and they have to change bottles to get the job done. With the cascade system on board, allows them to hook up an airline directly for the power tools. Mr. Albrecht stated this vehicle would afford them a lot more options so the can save lives which is their first priority and property preservation their second. This vehicle will provide proper rehab for the firefighters; warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Mr. Schaefer continued that the other thing that adds to the cost of the vehicle is proper compliance seating for the number of people they need to carry and a vehicle that is equipped to haul that load efficiently. This vehicle will carry 8. Mayor Slocomb asked if they could get the cost of the vehicle down to $367,000? Mr. Schaefer stated that if they get the $367,000, they would get the truck at that price. He indicated that some vendors have discussed flexibility in making payments for the equipment. They have also discussed tax advantages such as leasing with a buyout where the rates tend to be a little bit better than even what the bonding rate might be at the city because in leasing the vendors are able to recapture tax advantage of depreciation. These would stretch over a six or seven year period with a buyout at the Committee of the Whole Page 8 Minutes of Meeting Held 9/9/04 end. This has been offered as one of several possibilities. Finance Director Gunderson pointed out that they could construct financial borrowing with municipal borrowing. Her concern was short-term, five-year interim borrowing and they may get a rate for that, but what if you do a buyout in five years, what are the interest rates captured at that time versus what the city does in long-term borrowing now. Ald. Buckmaster asked if there was a problem with when the ordering was done? Mr. Schaefer said there is a cost escalation that is going to hit the end of this calendar year going into next year and he assumed there might be some incremental increase in the cost. They would like to get the vehicle as soon as possible. Ald. Schroeder noted that last year the figure was $354,000 and now it is $367,000. He asked with the pumper feature being removed, what made the difference? Mr. Schaefer attributed it to cost escalation as a consequence of the cost of steel, the power plant that was available last year was only available to a certain point and they came up with a new EPA mandate, an environmentally friendly power plant that added significant cost, $7,000-$8,000, for the power plant as well as bidding the vehicle in aluminum versus an all steel frame. Breathing Apparatus Replacement Mr. Magnus reported that they had initially scheduled the breathing apparatus replacement in three phases over the next three years at $40,000 per year. They received their firefighters grant two weeks ago. The total project was budgeted at $152,000 in their grant application, which would comprise replacing all of their breathing apparatus and because they are changing from low pressure to high pressure, it would also replace their compressor. As a consequence of the grant, all that they would be requesting of the money would be the local share of the grant, which is $15,267. In order to draw all the funding, this has to be done as applied. Mayor Slocomb asked what the timing was on the $15,267, is it this year in reality? Mr. Magnus stated that in reality, it would best work with this year. They are working in conjunction with both Mukwonago, Delafield and Oconomowoc to leverage the purchase. All of these have grants. Muskego will go with the brand and type of equipment that they are purchasing. These other departments are about ready to make their purchase and will be meeting with Muskego in the next two weeks to go over the specifications and bid simultaneously with them. Mayor Slocomb will see if the city can cash flow the $15,267 this year to take advantage of the opportunity. He will get back to them on this. He mentioned that if they are replacing their compressor to consider offering it to the other fire department. Mr. Magnus stated they had discussed this at their meeting. They will also be holding on to some of their low-pressure bottles for students to use in their training. Communications and Miscellaneous Business as Authorized by Law—none proffered. Adjournment Ald. Buckmaster moved to adjourn at 10:33 p.m. Seconded by Ald. Madden. Motion carried 7-0 . Stella Dunahee, CPS Recording Secretary