Group Moderators: Hope, Subar and Battle

Group Overview:
Group I had 16 members, evenly divided between women and men, with Anna Wallace as the city representative. The mood of the group was mixed, and people expressed concurrently: 1) Wishing to voice their opinions and to make choices on how to close the budget gap. 2) A willingness to go along with the process as outlined by moderators. 3) Skepticism and caution about the process. Based on comments, one could infer the group was composed of city retirees, current city employees, a teacher, community volunteers, interested citizens and other retirees. No dissenting work sheets were filed, but the moderators forgot to ask for them.

Low Hanging Fruit: (75 percent or more of the group voted for these choices.)
• Amusement - 4 points
• Parking - 2 points
• Wage /Commuter - 5 points
• Eagles - 2 points
• Fleet Vehicles- 6 points

No Ways, No Hows: (75 percent or more of the group voted for these choices.)
• Police
• Fire
• Library
• Public Health

Shared Pain: (50 percent or more of the group voted for this chose).
• Prison - 21 points

Gut Wrenchers:
• Group didn’t get this far. We ran out of time.

Total points toward closing the budget gap: 40.

The group didn’t get to Big, Hairy, Ambitious Goals.

Memorable comments:
• “Budget workshops are a sham.” “This is BS.” “These numbers aren’t real.” “How can we chose if we can’t trust what’s in front of us.” (These references are to missing choices and some point values that appear to have no factual basis.)
• Tax abatements need to be added to the list of choices that could be used to close the budget gap.
• Ending tax abatements is a strongly felt sentiment held by a majority of the group.
• Amusement - increase ticket price by 7 percent. All amusement should go up to $2 per ticket. Consider raising amusement fees for sports only.
• Tax parking lots more by applying a land value tax.
• Raise parking lot rates or fees. Definitely include multi-leveled garages.
• Eagles -A majority of the group strongly stressed that the city should push to (collect) the $8 million plus Eagles debt in court or drop it (the choice) from the budget.
• “Emergency medics should be contracted out.”
• Cut down on sending fire trucks in advance of fire rescue.
• Computers should be put in recreation centers. Kids are there, and there’s lots of space.
• “Not OK to re-hire officials who have already left (city government),” e.g. Anna Verna.
• DROP - It makes no sense to give input on DROP given that the city finance director said that the $7 million was from 2002, and we (the city) don’t know yet the dollar savings. A is study is in the works.
• Look at DROP and evaluate it based on the original concept … it was for police and fire fighters.
• Chemistry department needs car.
• No mural art on buildings until the budget gap is closed.
• “City Council spending too much.”
• “Unions shouldn’t hold the city hostage.”
• “Arts and façade cleaning … where’re the dollars coming from?”
• “Appreciate reductions, but no changes to police, fire, CLIP (Community Life Improvement Program).”
• “Put Participant Post-Forum Survey form on the Web.”

Observations of moderators:
More time was needed. It took time for the group to get into the rhythm of the work. Many of the participants wanted to express their views and did so. Moderators needed to go slow given the heart-felt seriousness of the evening’s deliberations.