HomeMy Public PortalAbout10-26-2009 Workshop MeetingTown
of
Hills
SIe 175
gh MINUTES
Board of Commissioners Monthly Workshop
Monday, October 26, 2009 — 7:00 p.m.
Town Barn
PRESENT: Mayor Tom Stevens, Commissioners Frances Dancy, Mike Gering, L. Eric
Hallman, Evelyn Lloyd, and Brian Lowen.
STAFF PRESENT: Town Manager Eric Peterson, Assistant Town Manager/Public Works
Director Nicole Ard, Town Clerk/Director of Administration and Human Resources Donna F.
Armbrister, Budget & Management Analyst Emily Bradford, Planning Director Margaret Hauth,
Town Engineer/Utilities Director Kenny Keel, Police Chief Clarence Birkhead, Police
Lieutenant Davis Trimmer, Police Lieutenant Brad Whiffed, Finance Director Greg Siler, and
Town Attorney Bob Hornik.
1. Open the Workshop
Mayor Stevens opened the Workshop at 7:00 p.m. He did not read the public charge but noted it
would be followed. He noted for the record that Town staff had joined the Commissioners at the
table because the main topic of discussion for the Workshop was the Balanced Scorecard.
2. Agenda Changes & Agenda Approval
3. Committee Updates and Reports
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7:00:43 PM Upon a motion by Commissioner Dancy, seconded by Commissioner Lowen, the
Board moved to approve the Agenda as submitted by a vote of 5 -0. The motion was declared
passed.
7:01:16 PM Commissioner Dancy said for Chief Birkhead's information, the bikers would be
in Town for their events on November 13 and through the 14 She said she understood that
that group had booked most of the available hotel rooms in Town.
Commissioner Dancy said to Ms. Hauth that regarding the potential hotel/motel tax, Creston
Woods at the Carolina Inn was a key person that would be able to offer a great deal of help.
7:02:04 PM Commissioner Hallman reported that the TAC had changed the way the TIP was
accumulated from the three different DOT divisions, and had asked that they all get together to
get a list that crossed all divisions rather than having a list per division. He said they had done
that, and he was happy to report that three of the projects on the top 25 list were Hillsborough
projects and were ones that would help address Churton Street issues.
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7:02:55 PM Mayor Stevens remarked that he had met with the County representatives, the Eno
River Association and others to look at projects including an alternative to Elizabeth Brady Road
and how to expedite projects as a way to help mitigate traffic.
Commissioner Hallman said Commissioner Gering had pointed out repeatedly that before they
proceeded too much further they needed to hold a public hearing 011 that issue.
7:03:45 PM Commissioner Gering said regarding the Intergovernmental Parks and Recreation
Work Group, they had recently met and the selection of the Mountains to the Sea Trail was still
in process and still waiting for Orange County Commissioners to make a recommendation or
approve the State's recommendation. He said there was some discussion about the lack of an
alternative or the fact that the primary route for the Mountains to the Sea Trail did not go through
Carrboro and Chapel Hill. Commissioner Gering said the discussion was that it would likely be
unwise at this stage to try to convince the State to change the primary trail, but it might be
reasonable for the County Commissioners to suggest an addition as an alternate to the primary
trail that would have a spur that would go down to Chapel Hill and connect with Carrboro. He
said he believed that would go forward to the County Commissioners and believed they would
be making a decision on a final recommendation in January. Commissioner Gering said he
believed they should be careful to at least protect the primary route going through Hillsborough.
7:05:14 PM Mayor Stevens said he had scheduled a meeting with Orange County
Commissioner Valerie Foushee tomorrow, and he would add that topic to the list of discussion
items.
Commissioner Lowen said the Solid Waste Advisory Board had met recently and had discussed
the consultant's final recommendations that would eventually go to the County. He said one
issue of discussion was the desire to have a "pay as you throw" program throughout the County.
Commissioner Lowen said that he and Ken Hines had attended, and that County Commissioner
Barry Jacobs was also present. He said during that open discussion, they had strongly said that
pay as you throw was not going to happen in the County due to the cost to citizens in the current
economy. Commissioner Lowen said they understood the rationale behind the suggestion, but
the consultant was now charged with coming back with other recommendations.
7:07:02 PM Commissioner Lloyd arrived at the meeting
Mayor Stevens said he had had the opportunity to meet with Congressman David Price Monday
after he had spoken at a Chamber meeting, and they had toured Hillsborough to look at several
ongoing projects. He thanked staff for putting together a map and information of key points.
Mayor Stevens said they had toured the race track, noting Congressman Price had never visited
there, and had also driven through Town to look at the Highway 70 corridor in terms of the
Cornelius Street project, had gone over to Tulip Tree to look at the Habitat project, and then
down Nash Street to Gold Park. He said he had emphasized how they were tying projects
together in efforts to reduce crime in various areas and to promote safe neighborhoods and
increase connectivity. Mayor Stevens said they had also discussed the Mountains to the Sea
Trail in terms of the park. He said the Congressman had been pleased with that, and they had
ended their tour at the Collins property and talked about the possible rail station.
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7:09:25 PM Commissioner Hallman asked if Congressman Price had any influence on the
distribution of stimulus funding.
Mayor Stevens said yes, to some extent, noting Congressman Price had said the second round
would be even better than the first round. He said having the Congressman see the projects
seemed to get him more excited about the Town's prospects, and speculated that hopefully that
would translate into having his influence to help the Town.
Commissioner Lloyd thanked the Mayor for his efforts, noting to have the Congressman actually
see what the Town was trying to accomplish should serve them well.
7:10:40 PM Police Chief Clarence Birkhead stated that the Police Department continued to
work with certain communities where they were trying to create a partnership to house an officer
and become entrenched in selected neighborhoods. He said they would continue to pursue
options and hopefully they would be able to identify a community that would support the idea
and work with them to create a housing opportunity for an officer. Chief Birkhead said they
would then identify officers who were willing to participate in that program, noting the program
also came with a commitment by the Police Department in terms of higher visibility. He said he
and the Manager had discussed having a vehicle available so that an officer in that program
would have a vehicle that would be parked in the identified neighborhood to announce a police
presence. Chief Birkhead said the program would also encourage officers to live in Town rather
than out of Town, and to be committed to the neighborhoods that they served.
7:12:01 PM Commissioner Lowen asked how they were working to identify housing or
particular neighborhoods for that program. He said that one of the things he believed might
happen was that when an officer was present in a neighborhood that it would run others out.
Commissioner Lowen said the owners of property were looking at dollars, so his concern was
that those owners might see some fluctuation and wondered if Chief Birkhead had taken that into
consideration and was perhaps talking with owners about that possibility even though the police
presence was for the overall betterment of the community. Chief Birkhead said that had been
considered, and to this point owners and management had been very receptive to the idea and
they were in the process of trying to work out some of the legalities. He said he believed they
understood that a police presence would be beneficial for everyone in the long run, so they were
trying to focus on that long term picture. Chief Birkhead said at present those owners and
managers had vacancies they could not fill because of the perception of crime in their
neighborhoods, so he believed the program would be beneficial to them in the long term.
7:13:39 PM Mr. Peterson said the interim next step would be to talk about some of the
strategies to addressing crime statistics, which they would address during the discussion of the
Balanced Scorecard.
4. Review the FY 09 Annual Balanced Scorecard Report and Citizen Survey Results.
Discuss ideas, concerns, and possible changes to future strategies to improve the town's
ability to implement the town's strategy map. Direction from the Town Board will allow
staff to start working on possible changes to departmental scorecards for consideration
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at either the January /February Budgetary Planning Retreat and during the May budget
workshops. The Town Board may also wish to discuss possible formats and /or key issues
to discuss during the upcoming Budgetary Planning Retreat in early 2010.
7:14:12 PM Mr. Peterson said he believed everyone understood that as far as the Scorecard
and the budget they set their strategies and goals and then implemented them. He said that the
report compiled the results, and the next step tonight and even entering into the retreat and
budget stage would be to review the results and determine if they were getting the results they
wanted or did they need to change their strategies and do things differently. Mr. Peterson said
just because the numbers reflected that they were doing well did not mean they could not
improve, so having a dialogue and digging deeper on the key issues was important.
Mr. Peterson suggested they could look at the Scorecard department by department or they could
use the summary although it did not contain as many of the details. He said the Board could
provide any questions or observations and discuss if perhaps some of the strategies needed to be
changed or if something new needed to be tried. Mr. Peterson said they could do either the
Scorecard first or the Citizens Survey results.
7:15:57 PM Mayor Stevens suggested discussing the Scorecard first and go by the summary or
the objectives, and then discuss specific departments as necessary as they looked at the strategy
map.
Mayor Stevens said this was actually the first summary the Board had received, and thanked staff
for providing it in a way that the Board could look at the overall report card as to how the Town
was being managed. He said they were now three years into the Balanced Scorecard and
believed it was one of the most important things they were doing as a Town, and thanked the
staff for the hard work and attention they had given to it and for making it more than just an
exercise. Mayor Stevens said as they had ideas and constructive criticism, he hoped it would be
taken into account that overall the Balanced Scorecard was actually remarkable work.
Mayor Stevens said the first category was "Strengthening Citizen Involvement and Access," and
asked for comments.
7:18:02 PM Commissioner Hallman asked when the new Website had gone on -line. Town
Clerk/Director of Administration and Human Resources Donna Armbrister commented they
were about half -way there.
Mr. Peterson remarked that the Town's government access channel had come on -line recently.
Commissioner Hallman said he believed the response to the survey itself was a testament to
strong community involvement. Commissioner Gering agreed.
7:18:42 PM Commissioner Lloyd said there were people who did not use the Website and
wondered how they would get the information. She said she believed the press releases were
helpful, and asked if they were placed in both local newspapers. Mr. Peterson said the press
releases that the Public Information Officer sent out went to all the news media, and it was up to
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each individual agency to print them or not. He said he believed the Board may have noticed
that the larger newspapers had been forced to cut back their staffs, and if the press releases were
not being sent those papers would likely not be reporting on as many issues. Mr. Peterson said
fortunately the News of Orange continued to report on Town issues more so that other media.
Commissioner Lloyd agreed, noting she believed the Website and the government access
channel had helped as well. But, she said, they had to remember that not everyone had access to
computers.
Ms. Armbrister pointed out that not all press releases were placed on the access channel, and
those that were placed had to be condensed to the point that much of the information in the press
releases would not fit on a page and people would have to watch the station for a period of time
to see them all. She noted that at present she believed they had 54 bulletins playing, so you
would have to watch for a couple of hours to see them all.
7:21:36 PM Mayor Stevens said it was important to remember that they could not respond to
every comment that had been included in the survey, and there were times that citizens had said
the exact opposite of each other. He said what they really looked for were trends in comments.
Mayor Stevens said he believed that now that they had three year's worth of data, they could
respond to any fluctuations. He said for instance, if they got the same responses three years in a
row, then that would mean they had established a benchmark. But, he said, if they saw
fluctuations then that would need to be addressed. Mayor Stevens said another issue was to
determine if there were any of the graphs that they wanted to move or were they happy with
where they were. He said even more, they should look at whether the data would be helpful if
they kept getting the same responses or were there other data that would be more useful.
7:23:32 PM Commissioner Hallman asked could they be provided with the standard error rate.
Commissioner Gering said he believed Commissioner Hallman was asking for the deviation rate
or standard deviation on the percentiles.
Commissioner Hallman said that would tell them if there was really a difference in some of the
data.
7:24:11 PM Commissioner Dancy said if the information was random and not a repeat, then
hopefully they would be getting a feel for what citizens really thought. She said she had heard
people say they had not gotten the survey or knew nothing about it, so hopefully every citizen
would eventually get the chance to comment. Budget & Management Analyst Emily Bradford
said they had sent the surveys to one quarter of all households in Hillsborough, so hopefully
every fourth year everyone would have the opportunity to respond.
Mayor Stevens said one of the things he recalled that was important about citizen involvement
was volunteerism and working on advisory boards. He said he was not sure what that
measurement would be, but that was a part that was not showing up in the data. Mayor Stevens
said he wanted to see that as a measure.
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7:25:45 PM Commissioner Gering agreed, noting he was curious about how deep was their
applicant pool at any given time that they could pull from when vacancies occurred. He said the
depth of that pool could be one way to measure.
Mayor Stevens said even something as simply as the number of people who were newly
appointed, that is, the number of new volunteers coming onto the advisory boards each year,
would be helpful to know.
Commissioner Gering said the turnover rate on advisory boards might even be helpful. Mr.
Peterson said that geographic representation might be possible to track, noting that would allow
them to make sure they have representation throughout the Town.
Ms. Hauth said that was one of the measurements that had been added to her department for next
year. She said she had noticed that they had a number of volunteers serving on multiple boards
and did not believe that was necessarily what they wanted to see. Ms. Hauth said she would use
the park districts to track that representation, noting she believed the Police districts were too
large.
7:27:05 PM Commissioner Gering said she could also track the average months served across
all the active members on advisory boards, in that longer months served would mean more active
members and lower months served would indicate higher turnover.
Commissioner Hallman said he understood they would want to have representation throughout
the Town, but he was a little hesitant to track that because he believed among the boards they
had people that were active representatives of parts of Town they did not live in. He said if they
were not careful, they could fractionalize the Town. Commissioner Hallman said they could just
as easily do young vs. old, or east vs. west. He said once you start divvying it up, there were
sometimes unintended consequences. Ms. Hauth stated she was attempting to track it just as an
indicator of distribution, not force representation. Commissioner Hallman said he appreciated
that, but he had wanted to show the other side of the coin.
7:28:18 PM Mayor Stevens said his point was well taken. He said regarding the summary and
the Scorecard itself, it did not always capture big things that had happened in a particular
category that were real achievements. Mayor Stevens said an example would be under Citizen
Involvement the K -9 demonstration which was a great success, as well as actual events the Town
had sponsored and the number of people who had attended. He said another would be expanding
recreation and walkability, noting they had opened two parks. Mayor Stevens said one of those
parks could have been listed under Preserving Cultural and Natural Resources, which was Kings
Highway Park which in many ways was designed to help protect the Eno River. He said his
point was there were some big achievements that were not reflected in the Scorecard. Mayor
Stevens said he understood the Scorecard was somewhat different, but if they were using the
Strategy Map to identify what the Town was achieving, then those items he had noted perhaps
should be incorporated in a summary.
7:29:49 PM Commissioner Gering said he had thought the objective of the exercise was to
identify what needed to be improved or highlighted as they went into their planning sessions. He
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said rather than patting themselves on the back for accomplishments, he believed they should be
parametizing what they were doing and finding ways to measure improvement. Commissioner
Gering said what the Mayor was suggesting was a good thing, but not what they were trying to
achieve with this exercise.
Mayor Stevens said he believed it was yes and no, noting they should be guarded about patting
themselves on the back, but on the other hand if they were achieving elements of their vision
then that was a mark of progress.
Commissioner Gering agreed, but he believed they were trying to determine what to do in the
future.
Mayor Stevens said a part of that was communicating in measured doses, but Commissioner
Gering's point was well taken.
7:30:46 PM Commissioner Hallman said he agreed with Commission Gering, noting he
believed there should be metrics. He said he was looking in particular at the Planning
Department and realized they were struggling to set metrics to that. Commissioner Hallman said
a lot of those measures were things that were out of their control because of a shift in priorities
that were not really metrics that measured their day -to -day performance and did not give them a
chance to achieve a real measure. He said the metrics, or outcomes, were not on the Scorecard
and should not be, but what should be included was how to achieve better performance.
Mayor Stevens said he was not suggesting including accomplishments in the charts, but that
perhaps it should be included in the report in a summary so that the progress made would be
known.
7:32:06 PM Commissioner Dancy remarked that was a good idea, noting the Balanced
Scorecard was a report to their citizens and they would be more interested in what the Town had
achieved and how it benefited them rather than how it had been achieved. She suggested adding
those things to the report as a separate page, noting she believed citizens would be more
interested in what the Town had done, not how they had done it. Mr. Peterson said he believed it
made sense to take the data and extrapolate it to the next level, for instance saying that Part I
crimes had dropped to 89.6 over the last two years did not explain what that meant. He said he
believed that type of explanation could be offered in a summary so that citizens would have a
clearer understanding of what the data showed. Commissioner Dancy agreed.
Mr. Peterson said what would be helpful to him and to the staff would be while going through
the budgets if anyone saw an area of concern that it be brought forward. He said that would
provide them an opportunity to address areas of concern or to improve in specified areas. Mr.
Peterson said an example might be that crime was going down, but the Board might feel it should
be going down even more. He said at that point they could discuss it and perhaps identify what
could be done differently and how to support the Chief in those efforts. Mr. Peterson said it may
be that they stayed the course or that they made some modifications, but the point was to have
the dialogue to give staff a head start so when they came back to the planning retreat that those
modifications could be included in the budget.
Commissioner Dancy agreed that discussion should take place at the retreat.
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7:34:26 PM Mayor Stevens said he believed there were perhaps measures, particularly on how
the community was doing, that were measures of the community but were perhaps outside of
their control. He said for example, there might be a measure on economic development where
they noted how many applications they had for new commercial or residential, and although that
was not under the Town's control it might give them a measure of how well economic
development was doing.
Commissioner Dancy said especially dealing with expanding recreation, the average citizen did
not care whether something was County or Town, noting Fairview Park was a prime example.
She said what they were concerned about was the park itself, not who owned it or operated it.
Commissioner Dancy said her point was getting the information out and getting citizens to
understand it was what was important, although getting citizens to think about County and Town
amenities separately would be a very hard thing to do.
7:36:51 PM Commissioner Lloyd said it would be nice if the Board could interact with the
department heads about exactly what they might need or problems they might have. She said she
wanted to be more concerned about what the department heads needed, noting that a cost of
living increase next year would be important. Commissioner Lloyd said there were likely
general things those department heads might need that the Board would not necessarily get from
the Scorecard. Mr. Peterson said he understood what she was talking about, but believed that
was more a discussion for the retreat because they were budgetary in nature. He said if they
started talking about such things as a cost of living raise, for example, then they were not
thinking strategically tonight. Mr. Peterson said what Commissioner Lloyd was saying was
important, but did not think tonight's discussion was the time for that.
7:39:23 PM Commissioner Hallman said obviously they needed to continue looking at the
Scorecard and updating the questions they asked and the measures they made. But, he said, if
they began changing them too much from year to year they would not benefit from those
historical trends. Mr. Peterson said he was less concerned about getting bogged down in
measures and believed what would be the most productive was discussion. He said that
discussion should be about anything that was of concern or any area where the Board believed
they may be underperforming. Mr. Peterson said in particular, were they implementing the
strategy map, which would be the details of what they were or were not doing. He said if
something was identified, then now was the time to talk to the department head about the nuts
and bolts of what was being done and to determine if the strategies needed to be modified to get
the results they wanted.
7:40:42 PM Commissioner Gering said under Serve the Community, the measurement about
the percent of nuisance complaints resolved within 60 days, the target was 75% which had been
increased from the previous year but the result was actually less than the previous year. He said
that concerned him and he would like to understand it better, noting he believed it was a
reasonable measure and wondered why were they moving in the wrong direction. Ms. Hauth
said it depended in many cases on what nuisance complaints came up in any given year. She
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said if it was something simple like mowing yards or junk cars, they could routinely be handled
within the 60 -day timeframe. Ms. Hauth said if the nuisance was Minimum Housing Code
complaints that got out of control or were extreme cases, then there was a very real difference
between someone who would not mow their lawn and a Minimum Housing Code complaint and
its resolvability within 60 days.
7:41:58 PM Commissioner Gering said then that was not really a meaningful measure, or they
needed some prequalification of how well they had done in previous years.
Commissioner Lloyd asked had they experienced more or less calls. Ms. Hauth said they had
lost their Zoning Inspector during the year but he had been present during the reporting period.
She said the phone calls being received regarding nuisances were not large, and most were
routine Code violations. Ms. Hauth said they could make the measure more specific to have
uniformity across the years.
Commissioner Gering asked was there some other way to measure citizen satisfaction with how
complaints were handled. He said his only idea was after a complaint was resolved that they
solicited feedback to see what the level of satisfaction might be. Mr. Peterson said he believed
there were a couple of purposes to doing the measure, and one was to do exactly what had been
done which was to raise the question. He said in that particular measure they would have some
ups and downs based on the types of nuisances reported, so if they determined based on this
discussion that something needed to be changed such as changing the way the service was
provided, did they need a extra person, or did they need to devote more time to it, then any
changes could be incorporated into the measurement. Mr. Peterson said they had been
measuring nuisances for three years, and suggested given it another year or two and see what the
numbers looked like. He said most important was having an eye on whether they were
responding appropriately when people brought nuisances to the Town's attention, and if they got
an indication they were not doing a good enough job then they needed to figure out how to do it
differently.
7:44:51 PM Commissioner Hallman said he was happy to see as many blanks as checkmarks
because he believed it showed they had set their goals high and they had not hit some of them as
yet, meaning they had not chosen easy goals. But, he said, in looking at the different groupings,
running the operations and managing the resources they had a higher percentage of checkmarks
because it was something they could control and something they had experience with, as well as
having a great staff that knew how to do that.
Commissioner Gering said maybe that was reflected through the citizen survey, but responding
to nuisance complaints seemed like a very important thing to track and make sure they were
continually improving.
Mayor Stevens said if they were talking about measures of resolution of complaints or
responding in a timely fashion, then perhaps that was a better measure.
Commissioner Gering said perhaps they were two separate measures.
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Mayor Stevens suggested they could track whether responses were made within 24 or 48 hours
as the start of the process, rather than just measures at the end of the process.
7:46:11 PM Commissioner Hallman said they had some control over how quickly they
responded, but did not have control over when those complaints were received. Ms. Hauth said
one of the things they were planning to implement during this measuring period, but had been
unable to do for the entire period so they could see an impact, was the proactive inspections
looking for nuisances rather than reactive inspections once a complaint was received. She said
one reason was they did not get many call -in complaints because people did not want to
complain about their neighbors, and the Town really did not want to hear anonymous complaints
because they wanted to know who it was they were responding to so they knew it was a valid
complaint and not a neighborhood dispute. Ms. Hauth said they would take the anonymous ones
but did not like to do so because they could not get back to the contact person to report what the
outcome of the inspection was. She said they intended to do more of the regular routine
inspections so they would have a larger pool of the simple things and hopefully would see better
tracking over time.
7:47:25 PM Commissioner Gering said then another measure would be the number of months
all neighborhoods were patrolled for nuisance violations, which would be the proactive measure.
Ms. Hauth agreed, noting they had been able to do that only 3 months out of the year rather than
the whole year.
Mr. Peterson said one of the sacrifices they had to make to get the Zoning Ordinance rewrite
accomplished quickly was not being as proactive on Code enforcement during that time period.
He said once the rewrite was completed and they were able to get a Code Enforcement Officer
on board, or some other method was determined, then they could get more aggressive on their
regular patrols.
7:48:14 PM Commissioner Gering said regarding the measure regarding the percentage of
water and sewer bills as a percentage of median house income, he asked if that included both in-
Town and out -of -Town. Ms. Bradford said she would have to check to be sure, noting that
measure was tracked by the UNC School of Government and was available on its Website. She
said the Website allowed you to look up any water service provider in the State and allowed you
to see how a provider was doing compared to others in the State. Ms. Bradford said she would
be happy to get some additional information on that.
Commissioner Gering said additional information would be helpful, adding it would be even
more helpful if they could get the figures split between in -Town and out -of -Town because the
measure then would be very different.
7:49:16 PM Commissioner Hallman stated he had looked at that and his memory was the
numbers were for in -Town only.
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Commissioner Lloyd asked about the $75 late fee charged to water customers. Mr. Peterson said
the staff was looking at conducting some research so that they could come back with an entire
package of information for the Board to review.
Commissioner Lloyd said under Expand Recreation, Walkability and Connectivity, she
suggested they not push that because of their efforts to obtain grants to get what was already
planned accomplished rather than trying to start something new. She said she saw no reason to
increase that for the coming year until they were somewhat caught up with other projects, noting
they could only do so much each year.
7:50:47 PM Mayor Stevens said he believed that for FY 09 there was no money for sidewalks.
Assistant Town Manager/Public Works Director Nicole Ard responded that actually the funding
had been encumbered, and if you walked around Town you would see the areas on Tryon and
Church Streets marked in orange where sidewalks were being surveyed for replacement or
repairs. She noted they had found it less expensive to have a firm come in and actually cut
through and make sure the sidewalks were level rather than pouring new sidewalk. Ms. Ard said
that would be less expensive, less disruptive, and more quickly accomplished. She said that
work should begin in the next week or so.
Mr. Peterson said one of the most important measures when talking with citizens was to make
sure the Town was a safe place to live. He said the good news was in comparing 2007 to 2009
for Part I crimes which were the most serious, that number had dropped from 127.3 to 89.6 in
just two years, which was about a 30% drop. Mr. Peterson said for Part II crimes, that figure was
somewhat the same so they may want to talk with Chief Birkhead about doing some things in a
different way. He said one thing he had been pleased to see in the measures was that this last
fiscal year a police officer had attended 100% of all Community Watch meetings. Mr. Peterson
said he personally believed that was important as did Chief Birkhead, adding that those officers
acted as the Town's liaisons and built relationships with neighborhoods. He said he believed one
reason the Part I crimes had decreased was because of that good foundation the Police
Department had been working on.
7:53:46 PM Mayor Stevens said one specific measure he was interested in was on page 33,
Safety and Risk Management, under Run the Operations. He said the measure was to ensure that
employees were following proper guidelines and procedures, with the target goal of 95 %, but the
percent achieved had been zero. Ms. Bradford said she had spoken to Safety Officer David
Moore about that, and the response was when conducting inspections he had found at least one
safety violation at each facility. She said something as simple as leaving a can of paint sitting
out would trigger a violation, but it was still a violation, so that was why the actual number was
zero. Mayor Stevens said he understood, but that may be something where more attention
needed to be focused. Ms. Ard said Mr. Moore had indicated that all sites had the handbook on
the proper procedures.
Mr. Peterson said he had asked about that measure as well, and it may be one they would need to
adjust because basically if you were not perfect you got a zero. He said they wanted to be
perfect but did not know if that was realistic, so that was a measure that may need to be reworked
so that it more accurately reflected what they were trying to accomplish. Ms. Bradford said she
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had talked with Mr. Moore about possibly tracking the number of violations resolved within a
certain time period, or something along those lines.
7:55:37 PM Mayor Stevens said the number of violations and the number resolved in a certain
timeframe would be worth tracking.
Commissioner Hallman said regarding the Customer Service training for employees on the
bottom of page 23, was the low percentage a time issue or something else. Finance Director
Greg Siler said it was more an availability issue, noting there were just not a lot of opportunities
and the training was not always scheduled when the employees had the time to attend. He said
as a result, most of their training was done in- house. Mr. Siler said fortunately the training this
year was a joint training with other municipalities, including Carrboro. Commissioner Hallman
said then it was not a lack of willingness to attend. Mr. Siler said by no means.
7:56:42 PM Commissioner Gering said on page 17 towards the bottom regarding the
Annexation Study, either they should do it or decide not to do it. Mr. Peterson agreed, adding
that part of the problem was that there was so much going on they found it difficult to devote the
time necessary to complete it. He said it seemed that once they began working on it that some
other issue deemed more important at that time came forward that demanded their attention. Mr.
Peterson said he continued to contend that it was an important issue and they needed to do the
study and raise the issue, and believed in the future they would regret it if they did not complete
it. He said he believed it important to go to the communities outside of Town and at least get the
numbers so they could decide if it was worthwhile to have a dialogue with those communities.
Mr. Peterson said if the communities responded they had no interest in being annexed, that was
fine but at least the Town had opened the door for discussions. He said the short answer was it
was important to do it but the issue was figuring out how to find the time to do it, which might
mean having to come back to the Board to suggest a reprioritization of tasks.
7:58:08 PM Commissioner Gering said it may also mean identifying reasonable candidates to
approach and deciding if there was enough interest to continue a dialogue regarding annexation,
and if there was not enough interest then the efforts could cease.
Commissioner Lowen said that was a good point, noting he had been approached by a man who
lived outside the Town who expressed an interest in being annexed, and it may be that contacting
such neighborhoods and determining interest was the key before a lot of effort was put into some
other kind of survey. He said if the Town approached an area and found enough interest then
they could study just that particular area.
Commissioner Gering agreed, noting they should take it one area at a time.
Commissioner Lowen said that was correct, noting some areas were larger than others that might
benefit the Town more or be worth pursuing. But, he said, he believed that approach would be
better and at the least they would be accomplishing something
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7:59:30 PM Commissioner Gering said it would also be good to do that before the new State
law regarding annexations went into effect. Mr. Peterson said they would put a schedule
together and perhaps change the process and come back to the Board at a later time.
Commissioner Hallman said going through the measures provided by the Planning Department,
he had been struck by the number that was out of their control completely or were at the whim of
the Board as far as priority. He said he had no suggestions other than there may be more useful
ways to measure some of those things Ms. Hauth said other than just measuring simple
workload, she could always provide information about the number of permits, the number of
plans reviewed, and the number of CO's issued, but that information may not be particularly
useful information. Commissioner Hallman agreed, noting that perhaps they could come up with
better ideas at the retreat.
Commissioner Hallman said on the bottom of page 18, he looked forward to seeing the number
of supervisors that had taken a management supervisory course within the last five years
improve.
Mr. Peterson asked the Board if they had any thoughts or comments for Chief Birkhead as far as
strategy on crime issues went. He asked Chief Birkhead if there were any strategies he and his
staff would like to implement but were restrained by money, support, or anything else.
Chief Birkhead stated that they actually were doing pretty well although there was always things
they needed such as additional vehicles and the personnel to drive them. He said one of their
initiatives was to get officers located in housing in particular neighborhoods as had been
discussed previously. Chief Birkhead said they had actually talked today about how to adjust
some of their measures so that they knew they were on the right track, particularly as to how it
related to their clearance rates and how they spent their time out patrolling. He said there was a
measure regarding the percentage of time officers spent in aggressive patrol, and they knew that
that activity was a deterrent to crime and they wanted to be more proactive and not just driven by
calls. Chief Birkhead said some of that was driven by manpower, and at the present time they
were okay on manpower but that may change in the near future. So, he said, they were looking
at ways to measure the officers' downtime to make that time more productive through stationary
patrols, property checks, and the like. Chief Birkhead said the most recent conversation was
about how to put more cars on the street.
8:03:46 PM Mr. Peterson said one thing they had discussed was if money was no issue they
believed citizens wanted to see more police officers live in Town for a variety of reasons, and
that was reflected in the citizens survey. He said they wanted the presence, the relationship, the
extra set of eyes, and involving members of the community. Mr. Peterson said one prototype
they had thought about was what if they had a program where the Town was broken out into
perhaps six zones and officers could apply to live in a particular zone. He said if an officer
purchased a home in that zone then the Town might offer "X" dollars to that officer to assist in
the purchase of that home as well as provide them with a take -home vehicle, and it may be
enough of an incentive to prompt officers to purchase that home. Mr. Peterson said if that officer
was living in Town then you had the advantage of having a patrol car in the neighborhood
indicating a police presence. He said there may be some conditions attached, such as if an
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officer took advantage of that they would have to sponsor an event once a year, or they served as
the Community Watch liaison, or something of that sort that made sense to go along with the
program. Mr. Peterson said if they did only one of those over a five -year period, then five years
from now they would have five more officers in different sections of Town and they would be
more engaged in the community because they were living in Town and had a patrol car at their
residence, which was a bonus for the officer and for the Town. He said the cars stayed in better
condition when they remained in the hands of one individual, you got better mileage from them
and maintenance costs would go down, which in turn would provide them more flexibility with
their operations. Mr. Peterson said he had wanted to put that concept forward and get feedback
from the Board to determine if more details should be obtained and a draft of such a program be
brought back to the Board for review at the retreat.
8:05:59 PM Commissioner Lowen said he would definitely say please come back with such a
proposal at the retreat. He said he totally supported the Police Department and anything they
could do to encourage employees to live in Town would be of benefit to the Town. He said from
the standpoint of crime and increasing visibility by having a patrol vehicle in a neighborhood,
that would be a win for everyone.
Commissioner Lowen said as an example, Ms. Hauth had three Town employees that lived on
her block, and he believed they would have less problems in a neighborhood where Town
employees lived because they would be more aware of what was happening in their
neighborhood. He stated that another example was neighborhoods where different
Commissioners resided, because they took notice of what was going on in their neighborhoods.
Commissioner Lowen said if they could encourage more employees to live within the Town that
would create a whole different atmosphere, and if there were things that could be done in
apartment complexes to encourage a reduction in rent to Town employees then they should
pursue that. He asked the Manager to bring back a report that covered a broad spectrum of such
ideas to encourage Town employees to reside in Town. Mr. Peterson said he would do so.
8:07:25 PM Mayor Stevens said he believed the Board had given its support when that had
been discussed earlier in regards to officers, and suggested they should begin with a pilot project
to see how well it worked.
Commissioner Gering agreed, noting they should start small.
Mayor Stevens said a lot of what was in the Scorecard, and rightly so, was routine work such as
if bills were sent out on time, the number of patrol hours versus the number of responding hours,
and the like. He said those were all good measures, but there were some measures that were
more project oriented, such as the annexation study, and perhaps what they needed to capture in
the Scorecard were projects that were milestones, such as how to create community safety. He
said he believed there were similar projects that would fit into that category.
Mr. Peterson said part of the purpose of the Scorecard was to create a linkage in their strategies,
so one hypothesis was to make sure there was one Police officer at every Community Watch
meeting as well as to have more officers living in Town with a take -home vehicle and engaging
more in the community. He said if they did all of those things he believed they would see the
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crime rate stabilize or continue to go down as a trend over years even though they may see some
spikes. Mr. Peterson said it would be another tool they could use that they could explore.
8:09:08 PM Commissioner Dancy said people really noticed the presence of patrol cars, noting
people generally noticed when police cars were present and even when new vehicles were out
and about.
Commissioner Hallman said the Scorecard indicated that Part II crimes had risen slightly under
the CID, but what would they have risen to if they had followed the national average. Chief
Birkhead said it was good news that those numbers had not followed the national trend and the
Town experienced only a slight rise. He said Part II crimes were a collection of everything, so it
would not be uncommon to see fluctuations, even an increase, in those figures because it
captured everything that was outside of murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault which they
considered to be real crimes.
Commissioner Hallman said the other side was that Type II crimes were what 90% of citizens
saw if they saw a crime. Chief Birkhead agreed, and he believed it was luck that Part II crimes
had not gone up any higher than they had with the economic situation and unemployment being
what it was. He said they had expected it to rise even more, so they were quite pleased that it
had not gone up any higher.
8:10:56 PM Police Lieutenant Davis Trimmer said that Type II crimes included minor crimes
as well as a lump category of all other calls for service, which was one of the largest numbers in
that Type II category.
Chief Birkhead said that those calls did not fit into a specific crime category. Lieutenant
Trimmer agreed, noting that the percentage might reflect a slight rise in the number of times
people called Police for any reason, whether it be a suspicious car on their street or some other
issue. He said they wanted citizens to report those types of things so that the Police could
respond.
Mr. Siler said if crimes were related to unemployment in their area, then it was 3% below the
national figure.
Mr. Peterson said that was a good point, but it was still up over what it had been a year ago.
8:12:08 PM Commissioner Lloyd said she had noticed recently a police vehicle parked in a
neighborhood, noting she believed it made people take notice and slowed traffic down which
was a good idea. Police Lieutenant Brad Whitted said they used those tactics as a decoy, noting
that the day that people thought there would be no officer in the vehicle would be the very day
there would be.
Commissioner Gering said on page 39 it was noted that there was a 55% increase in traffic
citations, and his question was if that was intentional or were people offending more often.
Chief Birkhead said it was both, noting the increase was in direct relation to the number of
violations they had observed. He said part of what they had done during this third year of
Commissioner Hallman said everyone thought that they did.
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tracking was that the traffic team was becoming more successful, noting that team had been
funded by the State's Highway Safety program. Chief Birkhead said their primary function was
traffic with the goal being voluntary compliance. He said for the past three years their citation
numbers had gone up which was directly related to them paying more attention to traffic
violators and trying to not only stop that but to educate the public. Chief Birkhead said as a part
of that was a measurement of the number of programs the Department had participated in, such
as checkpoints for child restraints and seatbelts. He said perhaps 25% of that measurement was
education programs where they had gone out and tried to encourage voluntary compliance.
Mr. Peterson said part of that measurement was complaint driven, such as in the Fairview
community. He asked if the measurement included warnings only. Chief Birkhead said that
warnings were a separate category and were not included in that number.
8:15:16 PM Commissioner Lowen said it would be nice if the Town received some of the
funds from those citations as towns did in other states.
Commissioner Lowen agreed, noting that he had had people say to him that Hillsborough must
be raking in the money. Mr. Siler stated they actually did receive a small amount of those
citations at about $10 per ticket.
Chief Birkhead said that was true, but those funds did not go to the Police Department and there
was 110 quota that the officers had to meet as far as the number of citations issued.
8:16:05 PM Commissioner Lowen said one of the comments in the citizens survey was that
now that many of the police vehicles had been moved to the Fairview substation, there were no
cars at the Police Station, giving the perception that there were no officers there.
Commissioner Hallman asked why the tours of the wastewater treatment facility and the water
facility had been discontinued. Town Engineer/Utilities Director Kenny Keel noted that there
had been a few this year at the water plant, but there had been none at the wastewater treatment
plant. He said they had placed a hold on those until the upgrade was completed basically due to
liability issues, although if a group expressed an interest before construction was completed they
would make arrangements to allow that to happen. Commissioner Hallman said then it was
primarily the liability issue. Mr. Keel responded yes, noting they would not allow anyone to tour
when construction was actually going on but that was still about a year away. He said they were
basically slowing down to prepare for that.
Commissioner Hallman said those tours were a good way to reach out to the community, because
children on the tours went home and told their parents about it, and the parents got an education
as well. Mr. Keel said many of the tours were teacher driven, noting some teachers wanted to
bring their classes each year and it was not due to any reaching out that the Department had
done. But, he said, it was not a bad idea to do so.
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8:18:38 PM Commissioner Dancy said she had noted that in the citizens survey that one
person had indicated her water had algae and was odorous when first turned on, and asked had
that citizen ever come forward to make a report. Mr. Keel said he did not recall that specific
complaint coming in recently, but from time to time they had complaints of that nature. He said
many times it was because a faucet had not been cleaned well and bacteria was growing, but that
was more of a maintenance issue with individual households. Mr. Keel said he was hopeful that
complaint was an exaggeration, but if it was not he would have expected to receive a complaint
and that the citizen would keep complaining until it was addressed. Commissioner Dancy said it
certainly would have seemed so.
Mayor Stevens asked the department heads if there was something the Board had not yet thought
to ask, or was there something they wanted to draw the Board's attention to in regards to the
Balanced Scorecard. Mr. Keel said they were still adjusting the measures for his department and
planned to make changes to some items this year to try to better capture things that made a
difference. He said they were trying to focus more on the customer and employee surveys and
different measures based on their source water as well as benchmarking they had received from
the UNC School of Government that had established some standard ways of measuring a utility's
performance. Mr. Keel said he did not have the specifics with him tonight, but they did plan to
make some adjustments in what they were looking for to try to make the measurements more
beneficial.
8:21:48 PM Mayor Stevens said one measure that could be included was sustainability, such
as the leakage which was a major measure.
Commissioner Gering asked was he referring to unaccounted for water.
Mayor Stevens stated that was correct.
Commissioner Gering said he had been surprised about the comment regarding the lack of
commitment from other utilities for an employee exchange program. He asked for some insight
as to why there was so little interest. Mr. Keel responded he was not sure if it was fear of
liability or what else might be behind the lack of interest. He said it appeared that other utilities
did not believe such a program would be of benefit or was something they had any desire to do.
Commissioner Gering said that was unfortunate because everyone would loose. Mr. Keel said at
times he wrestled with the training given to employees and what they were exposed to, and even
in that program if they were to exchange employees they might believe it was better at some
other utility and want to switch employment. He said he believed that fear was present and was
considered by any manager when such a program was suggested, but he believed it was better to
have well- rounded and better trained employees even if it meant they might have a higher
turnover.
8:23:50 PM Commissioner Gering said on page 53, he did not recall why they were tracking
the number of items sold on GovDeals.com. Ms. Ard said there had been a concern at one time
about making sure all surplus items were disposed of, noting there had been a backlog. She said
they had caught up on that, and that staff had now been able to dispense with surplus items and
get a return on the Town's investment. Ms. Ard said they would be happy to leave that out of the
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Balanced Scorecard, but it was something they had to do in terms of tracking what was sold and
what was returned to the Town.
Mr. Peterson said there may be a better measure of those 16 items sold this fiscal year, as far as
the value and what that meant. He said if they were tracking the percentage or how often they
were able to sell surplus items so they were not accumulating large amounts of surplus might be
of some value. Mr. Peterson said in any case they would be looking at ways to address that.
Ms. Ard said one issue that had been addressed at the retreat was the Board had stopped putting
up for sale many of the computer items because they were not getting a good return on those, and
instead were taking them to the County to recycle.
8:25:43 PM Commissioner Dancy asked if when each department got the citizen survey and
read the comments, did they then do some follow up to try and investigate those comments. She
said for instance, the crack in the middle of the crosswalk that had been mentioned. Ms. Ard
said in terms of some of the comments on the survey, such as cracks and potholes, they did have
people who would try to make an assessment and then they could try to spread around their
resurfacing resources. She said there was one particular item in regards to potholes that the
Public Works Department had had concern about for a number of years, and that was the
perception that something was wrong with the road and if it was not repaired within a week that
employees were not doing their job. Ms. Ard said this was an opportunity for the public to
understand that you could not necessarily achieve 100% of your goal because of extenuating
circumstances. She said they had had discussion among some staff who wanted to lower the
goal and some who wanted to reach a little higher, but it was a good tool to help figure out what
they were doing and how to keep moving forward. Ms. Ard said it would be impossible to reach
every street every single year, but they could at least keep that feedback in mind as they moved
towards their goals.
8:27:41 PM Commissioner Gering said on page 59 there was a measure for annual street
resurfacing. He said he knew there had been budget issues surrounding that, but suggested that
one of the issues the Board needed to consider was the impact that had on the maintenance
schedule. Commissioner Gering said he was concerned that if they continued to postpone
resurfacing that the maintenance schedule would become useless. He said they had done a very
thorough analysis about how often streets needed to be maintained in order to keep up with the
expected lifetime of the street, but he was afraid they were falling behind without any plan to
catch up. Ms. Ard said the Board had actually funded an update to the condition survey, and in
that survey were recommendations for roads in terms of going back and maintaining them. She
said that had become one of their challenges in terms of how did they spread their resources
around, noting that patching was one way staff used to make up for the lack of resurfacing even
though resurfacing was preferred.
Commissioner Gering asked was there some measure that would provide him an overall
assessment in terms of how far they had fallen behind, or what was the plan to catch up. He said
he understood they would have to make tradeoffs. Ms. Ard said they could look at how the
resources had been divided up in terms of high priority areas and low priority areas, noting they
could do a certain percentage of the high but that would be dependent on the availability of
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Page 19 of 22
resources. Commissioner Gering said he understood that, but when it came time for the Board to
decide what resources to dedicate to that he would need to know how serious of a problem they
had and what it would take to address it.
Mr. Peterson said when the study was first done they knew they needed to spend about $150,000
a year based 011 asphalt costs at that time in order to stay on schedule. He said they had remained
on schedule for a couple of years, but did not know what the number might be now. Mr.
Peterson said they should be able to determine that cost now and would bring that back to the
Board, noting he agreed that the Board needed that information in order to determine if or how
much they had fallen behind in the maintenance schedule.
8:30:54 PM Ms. Ard said if people were to see just the summary page and not see the backup
section for Fleet, it was a low percentage in terms of local vendors and companies. She said that
was not because they did not want to use those vendors, but given the nature of how the fleet had
expanded it was sometimes difficult to use local vendors.
8:31:26 PM Mayor Stevens asked Ms. Bradford if she had any remarks to make to the Board.
Ms. Bradford said she did have a comment for the department heads. She said if there were
measures in the departmental Scorecards that had not been included in the summary and if there
was something that they believed was important, they should bring it to her attention so that it
could be included. Ms. Bradford said it was their intent to provide an overall summary for the
entire Town.
Mayor Stevens said when running the operation and talking about excelling in staff support,
what stood out to him that was strategically important was the staff support to advisory boards.
He said for instance, the information regarding advisory boards receiving their meeting packets
within six days of a meeting gave some indication of how well the advisory boards were doing,
noting some changes had been made based on the function of the boards as well as scheduling.
Mayor Stevens said under Develop Long -term Financial Plans, they had that through the updated
CIP. He said as well was the information provided regarding Fund Balance, and the information
on the water plant and the capacity study.
Mayor Stevens stated that the Nash Street engineering had been a milestone and likely tied into
the State of the Town, as well as projects that included annexation and the project for the new
motor pool. He said having acquired the government access channel and conducting the rail
study were all milestones. Mayor Stevens said how to use the Strategic Plan was also important.
Mayor Stevens said there may also be measures for the Board of Commissioners, in terms of
what projects they wanted to accomplish next year or issues they wanted to tackle. Mr. Siler
stated they were frequently reviewing their measures and asking questions to keep the dialogue
open, noting it was constantly evolving.
8:35:07 PM Ms. Hauth said she likely had changed her measures more than others, but it was
an effort to report something that was useful and not just workload. She said some would drop
off and some would be added, but the Board would see where they had gotten to the idea of
representation on the advisory boards. Ms. Hauth said for instance, whether the boards were
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getting their packets early or whether the minutes were done on time was not very useful
information, so instead she would be developing a short survey for each of the advisory boards to
determine if they were satisfied with the staff support they were receiving. She said tracking the
results of that survey would provide them more useful information.
Ms. Hauth said her only question for the Board was that at this point they did not do a Scorecard
for parks and recreation because they did not have any direct staff that was devoted solely to that.
She said she wanted the Board to think about whether they wanted to see a Scorecard for that,
but she was happy not to do that until there was staff that could devote 100% of their time to
parks and recreation. Ms. Hauth said however, if there was something useful or if the Board
wanted them to begin building a few measures on that, they would do so. She said at present
parks and recreation issues were wrapped into the Planning Department's Scorecard.
8:37:13 PM Commissioner Lowen said he believed Ms. Hauth was already overtaxed, but she
had brought up a good point. He said at some point, and likely sooner than they had previously
indicated, they would need to have a staff person on board that was devoted totally to parks and
recreation. Commissioner Lowen said the reality was they would soon need someone to take
care of their parks, and at that time it would become a Scorecard issue.
Commissioner Hallman said that had reminded him about things that were not in the Scorecard
that they might have wanted to avoid either consciously or subconsciously. He said an example
was traffic, and like parks and recreation it was not something that was one person's
responsibility. Commissioner Hallman said also not on the Scorecard were some of the
environmental issues that were more regional that the Town participated in that were more a
measurement of the Board than of the staff.
8:38:35 PM Commissioner Gering said if there was some measure that indicated when the
trigger point was of when they would need to hire someone to be devoted to parks and
recreation, maintenance and programming and other things. He said if there was some measure
that would provide them some indication of when they reached that point and it could no longer
be covered under current responsibilities divided between staff, then that would be helpful. Ms.
Hauth asked if there was some thought that there would eventually be programming duties
beyond reservation of park space. Commissioner Gering said he did not know, but the consensus
appeared to be that they would reach the point sooner than they would have hoped that they
would need to hire additional staff to handle the extra burden of the parks.
Mr. Peterson said there were tangible and intangible things that they could monitor that would
perhaps tell them when they had reached that trigger. He said they could bring information to
the Board regarding when it would be time to hire a recreation person or new police officers, or
when it was time to build a new sidewalk, for examples.
8:39:59 PM Ms. Armbrister said she had nothing to add, noting she believed the measures she
was responsible for were fairly standard. She asked if the Board had any guidance of what they
saw that might need to be modified or addressed in some way.
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8:41:24 PM Mayor Stevens stated much of Ms. Armbrister's measures had to do with
preparation and delivery of Board packets and preparation of minutes, noting the changes that
had been made had been worthwhile. He said one thing coming up would be further
enhancements of the Town's Website. Ms. Armbrister stated that one position that was
desperately needed was an IT professional, noting that did not appear to fall into any one
department's category. She said there were many times that IT assistance was needed quickly,
and now that they had responsibility for the TV station as well as the Website, they needed a
staff person with a great deal of knowledge. Ms. Armbrister said each facility is currently using
separate contracted IT services, with the entire Town not being networked, and did not know
how much longer that patchwork approach would serve them.
Mayor Stevens said in regards to IT, there may be measures they would need to begin tracking
that would provide the framework as they entered into the new budget discussions. He said the
same would be true for parks issues.
Mayor Stevens said the Balanced Scorecard had provided the Board and staff with a much more
detailed look at the everyday operations of the Town at a level they could see and appreciate, as
well as tied that work to the budget. He said the next level, for the Board, would be how to take
those issues involving serving the community and connecting them to the higher level measures
such as quality of life and preserving cultural and natural resources. Mayor Stevens said those
meant preserving things like the Eno, the downtown, and their diversity, but much of that the
Town had little or no control over.
8:42:55 PM Mr. Peterson suggested that as far as the retreat, each year they adjusted what was
discussed at the retreat based on identified issues. He said now that they had the strategy map,
now was the time for the Board to say that was what they wanted or that they wanted something
different. Mr. Peterson said one thought in regards to the tie -in with the budget was that triage
and prioritizing would be very important this year, noting they would likely not see much growth
in revenue. He said one issue would be whether rate increases were to be considered and if so at
what level, and although those questions could not be answered now it would again be a lean
year. Mr. Peterson said one thought was to ask each of the departments to identify their top three
items capital wise or operational wise and place a price tag on it along with a brief explanation,
so that the Board would understand its purpose and its costs. He said there would likely not be
much extra money, noting one question was did they want to go forward with Riverwalk Phase II
or did the Board perhaps want to reprioritize that or others. Mr. Peterson said having that debate
and dialogue and discussion amongst the Board would be necessary, and he did not know if they
needed to begin ranking those issues or grouping the issues into ranks so that they knew what the
top priorities were. He said then when they began work on the budget it would be easier to have
that direction from the Board on those critical issues up front.
8:45:31 PM Commissioner Lloyd said if they were to pick the top three or four things that
would mean that something else would have to wait and that made it difficult. She said she
thought a lot about Mr. Keel and his responsibility for the infrastructure. Commissioner Lloyd
asked if the line that ran to Exchange Club Park was one that caused him trouble. Mr. Keel
responded yes, noting they had closed the road and replaced a part of the line with supplies on
hand even though it was not specifically budgeted. He said they had done what they could in-
5. Closed Session to Discuss Personnel Matters
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house and hoped to eventually get all the way down to Mayo Station. Mr. Keel said it was an old
AC line that tended to break easily, and they were trying to replace it and move on up that line.
8:47:33 PM Commissioner Lloyd said the trouble she had about annexation was that if they
did not have infrastructure in Town then if they annexed additional properties then running lines
would be a problem. She said they needed to get the older in -Town lines fixed first before
putting in more lines outside the Town. Commissioner Lloyd added that she also believed that
"hiding" the police vehicles did not help them any, referring to an earlier comment regarding the
lack of vehicles at the Police Station.
Mr. Keel said there was a water line that ran through the middle of Town that was owned by
OWASA and went all the way to the railroad tracks at Exchange Park Lane. He said they were
talking with OWASA about the potential of the Town taking over part of that line, which would
be a key artery for them to get water down to the south zone and perhaps even putting a pump
station on Exchange Club Lane near the railroad tracks. Mr. Keel said that may be a few years
out, but they were beginning those talks with OWASA.
8:49:35 PM Commissioner Hallman said he wanted to make sure that staff had gotten what it
needed from tonight's discussion. Mr. Peterson said from his standpoint, the one thing he
needed to know was whether they needed to change course on any specific items or in general,
and he believed they had gotten the necessary feedback and suggestions from the Board.
Commissioner Hallman commented that he had found the Scorecard to be really helpful.
8:50:13 PM Upon a motion by Commissioner Hallman, seconded by Commissioner Gering,
the Board moved to go into Closed Session to discuss personnel matters.
6. Adjourn
Upon returning to Open Session, and upon a motion by Commissioner Dancy, seconded by
Commissioner Hallman, the Board moved to adjourn the meeting at 9:30 p.m. by a vote of 5 -0.
The motion was declared passed.
Respectfully submitted,
Donna F. Armbrister, MMC
Town Clerk