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Current Events
- Elections... If you or people in your area or HOA want to meet and discuss current/future topics related to the city, reach out to me to set up a time to visit. (email, phone call, or in person)
- The new water treatment facility is UP AND RUNNING! If you're on the north central water system you should no longer see discolored, sulfur smelling water. Though... for those of you not using a water softener, you'll still want to look into getting one.
- Many of you are familiar with the phrase "rural look and feel" or "rural character." Dayton residents have said this is important to them and I agree. It's even in our mission statement. We've had a couple work sessions on the topic and I believe it'll result in a list of ideas we will be prioritizing for the future. If you have ideas, please let me know.
Work Session (Long Term Plan)
There are 2 areas where the city sets things up to spend your money (good and bad); budget discussions for the next year and the long-term plan. While the long-term plan doesn’t directly spend money, it queues items and provides an incentive to spend that money with the justification “it’s in the plan.”
Equipment purchase is a frustrating one because it’s hard to know when something is really needed or not. The problem is, trying to determine what’s needed, wanted, and just a dream varies between those spending the money, the council, and likely the residents. The plan is a 10-year plan but for the most part we focus on the next 2 years. As costs go, this next year doesn’t look too bad, but there were a few items that raised some concern. It seems like vehicles get thrown in too easily.
Item K (Community Survey Discussion)
This was an open discussion on the resident survey that was completed a few months ago. It seems like the bulk of the discussion was on the survey methodology. The 2 main themes being the mechanism used (phone calls) and the number of respondents. Both concerns were brought up at the initial survey a few years ago, and the firm we used to perform the survey went into both in detail. Regarding the mechanism, there are only 2 ways to get connected to a respondent; phone and mail. The obvious issue with mail is, you have no idea when you might (if at all) get a response (ask California if they’ve finished collecting ballots yet...). With the phone call, they’re scheduled ahead of time, and if the respondent doesn’t want to answer, the firm will pull another name from the same demographic and try again. With mail, you can’t do that, and your response will be biased because it’s highly unlikely that the non-respondents are going to be spread across the demographics equally. They also split the landline vs. Cell phone numbers consistent with what’s in the city. Regarding the number of respondents (400 out of 12,000), that’s a statistically well-accepted number.
For those that want to hear the firm’s explanation to us regarding these concerns, I could probably hunt it down.
Regardless of the polling design, there were 3 opinions that stood out to me; Dayton is still overtaxed (and even though we're now almost the lowest in the area, I agree with), residents are very satisfied with how the city is being run, and the amount that residents are willing to pay for a 3rd fire station isn’t going to come close to paying for one. Given our recent changes in the way we’re staffing the fire department, I’m not sure I see a need for a 3rd station anytime soon.
Item M (Vehicle Use Policy)
This was to clean up several concerns with vehicles that are used by city employees. It puts in place a tracking system to know where the vehicles are (believe it or not some staff thought that the city shouldn’t be allowed to track its vehicles). It also puts limits on any vehicles that are allowed to be taken home. I’ve never understood how government employees ended up with take home vehicles but hopefully this will help to limit that nonsense.
Item N (Employee Recognition Program Policy)
Last year it was discovered that the fire department had spent a significant amount of money on a party for the department. That led to the creation of this policy. It limits the entire budget to a number ($8,000) which will include all department and recognition events.
Item O, Q (Closed Session Property Negotiation)
This was to discuss negotiations with a property on the south end of the city to get a right of way. It was approved 5-0.
Item P, R (Closed Session Employee Discussion)
This was to discuss accepting the resignation of a police department employee. It was accepted 5-0.
Item S (Employee Resignation)
This item was to accept the resignation of a fire fighter. It was accepted 5-0.
Please contact me for any questions, concerns, or ideas you have.