HomeMy WebLinkAbout1992 08 17 City Commission Workshop Minutes
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WORKSHOP MEETING
CITY COMMISSION
CITY OF WINTER SPRINGS
AUGUST 17, 1992
The Workshop Meeting of the City Commission of the City of Winter Springs, Florida,
was called to order by Mayor Philip A. Kulbes at 7:00 p.m.
Roll Call:
Mayor Philip A. Kulbes, present
Deputy Mayor John Langellotti, present
City Manager Richard Rozansky, present
City Attorney Frank Kruppenbacher, present
Commissioners:
John V. Torcaso, present
Don Jonas, present
Terri Donnelly, present
Cindy Kaehler, present
Attorney Kruppenbacher said the Commission has asked for a report on taxing districts,
so he has broken it down into three issues. The first is taxing in the Tuscawilla
Planned Unit Development for the areas currently maintained by the developer, both
public and private areas; second is taxing for street lighting in a particular
private street neighborhood in Tuscawilla and then the assessments for garbage.
The first issue, can the City provide for an assessment method to assess homeowners
who are benefited for the maintenance and upkeep of the areas presently maintained
by the Tuscawilla Development.
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Attorney Bricklemyer explained the issues that have been raised with regard to
Tuscawilla were addressed somewhat in a recent case that clarified a lot of
confusion with regard to what is a tax, what is an assessment, etc. Basically the
case stands for the proposition that a municipality has the authority to impose
special assessments as distinguished from taxes. He said the distinction that has
to be made is the difference between a tax and an assessment.
A Tax is a general obligation without regard to benefit received. Special assess-
ments can be levied in situations where there is a special benefit to the property
being assessed that is over and above the general benefit.
Attorney Bricklemyer said basically the Boca Raton case said as long as the City can
demonstrate that there is a special benefit being bestowed upon the people paying
the taxes and you eliminate that tax issue altogether, no public benefit, there has
to be a public benefit but it does not have to be of paramount importance, and as
long as you can structure your assessment in a way that only those people who are
specially benefited are assessed and in a way that the assessment is comparable to
the benefit that those property owners receive, then you pretty much have free reign
unless there is a specific prohibition in the one question (I do not know the answer
to) with regard to prohibitions in the County charter.
He said as long as you are dealing with public streets, public properties, then the
question is very clear. When you start dealing with private streets, private sub-
divisions, it is not as clear. It is just that case law has not evolved in that
area as nicely as it did in the Boca Raton case for public properties.
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Attorney Kruppenbacher explained there would be two forums by which this could be done.
What is called an independent unit or the dependent, meaning you could go out and have
an independent body created by referendum, and they would do the assessing and managing.
Or the City could actually do the assessments, and then charge everything, and under
either guise, you could put it up for referendum to say do the homeowners want the
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Workshop Meeting, City Commission, August 17, 1992
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City to do it. Attorney Kruppenbacher said if the City wanted to keep the authority
to do the assessments with the Commission, they could ask for an advisory decision
from the homeowners simply by putting it up on a referendum saying we would like
to see how the homeowners vote on the issue, whether or not they want the City to go
through an assessment process for the following purposes.
Attorney Kruppenbacher explained the second issue is whether or not the City could
use an assessment process to assess the property owners on those private streets to
pay for their street lighting. Our answer is we believe that there is a process that
could be worked out. There was one similar used in North Palm Beach.
Attorney Bricklemyer explained the scenario that a very recent case this year,
properties in a restricted access community were specially assessed for a variety of
different improvements, one of which was street lighting. They used the revenue stream
that would have been generated to support some bond financing. They sold the bonds
and the validation of the bonds was challenged. The court determined that the public
entity was providing services, even though it was a private community, they determined
that even though there was a private benefit, that there was also a public benefit
sufficient to allow them to validate the bonds. Attorney Bricklemyer said it appears,
based on these last two Supreme Court decisions, it is going to give municipalities
much more flexibility in terms of levying assessments as long as you can make the
connection that there is a special benefit and the assessment is being allocated on
each property based on the benefit that they get.
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Attorney Kruppenbacher explained the third issue, whether or not we could use the non
ad valorem assessment process for residential garbage, and he said he thinks we could
work that out.
Attorney Kruppenbacher said the Commission is going to have to decide from a policy
standpoint what they want to do, and do they believe the City should be involved in
this, and if so, then realize it is going to cost, and the expenses incurred would be
passed to those people who are asking for this.
FY 1992/93 Budget-Department review:
The first department reviewed was the Police Department. No changes were made, but
it was requested to look for a less expensive typewriter.
The next department reviewed was the Fire Department. The cellular telephones were
taken out. The physical training equipment was discussed and it was decided to leave
it in, but see if this could be cut back a little.
No changes were made in the Public Works Department Budget, the Commission, the City
Manager, and the Commission will review the Building Department again after the report
is submitted and reviewed. No changes were made to the City Clerk's Budget, Finance
Department and Personnel. In Administrative Services, salaries were discussed and
Manager Rozansky said he will come back with a report. No changes were made to the
Purchasing Department, Land Development Coordinator and Engineering Department.
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Mayor Kulbes called a recess at 8:45 p. m. and called the meeting back to order at
8:55 p. m.
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Workshop Meeting, City Commission, August 17, 1992
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Billing System Enhancement/Cash Receipts upgrade:
Manager Rozansky discussed the memo he gave to the Commission dated August
He said we have to do something because we would not be able to do the two
unless something is done. After much discussion it was decided to go with
computer modification as recommended.
17, 1992.
billings
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Greg Kern explained his Information Systems Strategy Outline, dated August 12, 1992.
Mr. Kern explained he wanted to take what Dr. Lang had discussed and take it a step
further. He said Dr. Lang presented a presentation on the overall condition of our
information system as well as proposing different improvements. Some of his recommenda-
tions included centrally coordinate all information systems planning; share computer
and data resources across the City and purchase new PCs; standardize software and
hardware selections; that was about as in depth as he got.
Mr. Kern explained he wanted to take that overall strategy and take it down to the
next level. In reviewing the outline, he started with What is the rationale for
the increased office automation?
He said we have new state mandates from new levels of planning, the Growth Manage-
ment Act of 1985, 9J5 requirements, greater depth and coordination of planning
required.
The second item under rationale redundant data and analysis within the City. Mr.
Kern explained when he was doing the Data and Analysis for the Comprehensive Plan,
he came upon a couple areas where two different departments may have been gathering
similar information, but it was different. There was little coordination there. Why,
because there was no central data base to draw upon. Third, under rationale is the
ignorance of data/information across departments. We simply do not know what other
departments are doing in terms of data collection and data analysis.
He said we are facing budgetary constraints and that really dictates that you can
definitely improve increased efficiency and effectiveness of existing personnel by
helping automate office processes.
Next item, Identify all current information systems needs: the local area network
for record keeping and reporting has been discussed. This would allow multiple users
on the west side to tie into the County system. The Fire Chief said they have a
County terminal in the east side and the west side, which tracks calls, reports
numbers of calls, etc. By installing a local area network you can have separate
computers tie into the same computers so more than one person can access the
information and according to the Fire Chief that would definitely be of great assist-
ance.
The second need as expressed by Dr. Lang was the Geographic Information System. Mr.
Kern said he has attached a list of uses for GIS in the City. The list is a compilation
of what Orlando, Orange County, Seminole County and several other local governments are
doing with the GIS. Basically with a GIS you are taking data that you collect on a
daily basis and you are spatially locating it on a map and building separate layers.
The applications for GIS are immense.
The third item Personnel, currently Mary Wilson has to maintain all her personnel
records on a manual paper base filing system. She has to go through an incredible
array of tasks like individually typing letters and forms that could be pre-formated
on a computer. Also there is no direct link to the payroll system.
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Workshop Meeting, City Commission, August 17, 1992
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Mr. Kern said a final need, sharing resources, sharing data and peripherals. We
have a laser printer here in City Hall and we can share that with any department
if we hook up a local area network.
Mr. Kern said he wanted to assess the effectiveness of our existing equipment and
software across the City. He said the technology is relatively inexpensive to go
from a mediocre system to a great system. Another item he looked at is inadequate
software solutions. Another item, standardization of hardware and software, and
he said he can not emphasize how important maintenance contracts are. We also want
to look at standardizing the software that we use which will assist in training
people. As Dr. Lang mentioned, we need to train people.
On utilizing an outside consultant to assist in design of network. Mr. Kern says
he has many years of experience in computer networks, but he still brought in a pro
to help design the overall network (in his previous employment). He said they can
help you with items like computer selection and make sure you have the right computers.
Mr. Kern explained Workstation/server topology means where are you going to put PCs
and how are you going to link them up.
Installation of network, you have to look at office cabling, linking the separate
buildings, configuration of user groups.
Maintenance of network, user training; as Dr. Lang suggested, maybe an outside firm
might be best for the software training. It would be difficult to try to take somebody
away from their regular duties and do software training. There are many different
companies in the local area. He said you need someone to monitor the program on a
daily basis. You are going to have problems with people accessing the files, they are
going to say, "I need to get into this file and for some reason I can't".
Directory and file structure maintenance; you need someone to create the directories,
to move files around, create the proper structure so people can easily access files.
Finally you can have complete data backups on a daily basis. With a local area
network you can backup all the data on the network on one PC and that is something
that is critical and something that will fall under maintenance of the network.
The next step would be to go out and inventory our existing inventory of PCs,
printers, peripherals, software and get a complete inventory by department. Go out
and talk to the different departments, users, what they need, what type of enhancements
they feel they need then we can outline the network and start building the network.
That would be the final strategy, getting down and talking to the individual users.
Manager Rozansky asked the Commission if we are approaching this the way the
Commission wants. He said this is what Mr. Lang recommended and is it satisfactory.
The Commission answered yes.
Meeting was adjourned 9:50 p. m.
Respectfully submitted,
Mary T. Norton,
City Clerk