The Emporia Gazette

February 13, 2012

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The first city commission goal-setting session of 2008 made it clear that many of last year’s primary goals will remain high-priority goals this year. Also certain is that, thanks to the events and activity of the past year, the commission’s order of priorities will change.

At Monday night’s session in the conference room at the Emporia Water Treatment Plant, Mayor Julie Johnson led the city through a list of each of last year’s goals. The commission discussed what had been accomplished since those goals were set and talked about whether each goal needed to remain on the list.

The 2 1/2-hour meeting touched on issues ranging from the 2009 budget to looking at ways to beautify Emporia. City Manager Matt Zimmerman jotted down the main points of the discussion on a large Post-It pad, then stuck each sheet to the wall as the session continued.

The commission kicked off by discussing the issue named as last year’s number one priority, the motivation and development of city staff. That issue was kept as a high priority, but the commission decided other issues were now more pressing. The city decided it had addressed part of those concerns with the wage and compensation study it commissioned, as well as the ongoing look at city employee health insurance.

The process for planning the 2009 budget was an extensive topic of conversation, with commissioners making clear that they once again wanted public input to be a part of the process. In fact, commissioners decided they wanted more public hearings on the matter, as opposed to one hearing just before the budget is adopted in August.

“I’d rather gather all the input before the decisions are made and then try to make decisions,” Commissioner Jeff Longbine said, “instead of putting a plan 90 percent together and then having a public hearing and having to go back and start over.”

Johnson said she would prefer one public hearing at the beginning of the process, one in the middle and one near the end, an idea that other commissioners agreed with.

Longbine asked Zimmerman about the city possibly looking at fund allocation percentages by department in order to improve city efficiency.

“I guess I struggle a little bit with allocating so much money to police and fire, and then their capital budget is so much more,” Longbine said. “The place where I struggle is fully funding the whole operation and giving them that big a percentage, and then funding all the capital that they want, too.”

Zimmerman said that to him, that decision is something to be re-examined each year in the budget process, because those priorities change each year. He said it was dangerous to set limits on allocation percentages for different departments, because the situation can change.

“Because particularly with the emergency services being 24/7 operations ... it’s hard to start saying, ‘You’re asking for too much or too little,’” he said. “And all it takes is one fire in which three little babies are killed because we didn’t have the right kind of ladder, and all of a sudden, it doesn’t matter what you said; politically, you’re gonna blow your budget, because the pressure’s gonna simply be too great to go buy that ladder.”

When last year’s high-priority goal arose of creating a multi-year investment fund for the city’s Capital Investment Program, commissioners decided it was unrealistic to do so right now.

“In my opinion, I think it’s something we need to do, but I don’t know how we’re going to do it,” Longbine said.

The impact of the Tyson layoffs was a factor in several of the discussions, and Zimmerman said Wednesday’s city study session will include a report on what the city thinks the impact of the layoffs will be. The report will be based off economic models provided by Emporia State economics Professor Rob Catlett, Zimmerman said.

“I really don’t want to use the term worst-case scenario, because we don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “A lot of it is going to depend on how many people end up leaving the community. The good news is, we’re hearing a lot of them don’t want to. But the impact on the city is significantly different if a thousand people leave than if 2,500 people leave.

“We just don’t have any way of gauging that, other than Professor Catlett’s economic models that he’s given us.”

One controversial issue last year was rental inspection codes, with many landlords reacting negatively to the Human Relations Commission’s proposal to introduce rental inspection fees. Commissioners decided to leave rental inspection codes as a high priority, move forward on better enforcement of housing codes already in existence, and take a look at implementing a more aggressive program in the future.

The commission agreed to move forward with the HRC’s efforts to get Emporia recognized as an inclusive community by the National League of Cities. The HRC wants to introduce a specific program designed to promote inclusion.

One of the last few issues discussed was improving Emporia’s aesthetic beauty, particularly at the entrances off highways. Zimmerman said that issue had been a high priority for the Building Futures committee, and the commission decided it wanted to collaborate with Building Futures in the next year to see how the entrances could be made more attractive.

Commissioner Kevin Nelson recalled being at a Kansas City Chiefs game last year, talking to someone else at the game and telling her he was from Emporia. The person said, “Yeah, I used to come to that town a lot, and man, you guys need to do something with your entrances. It is just horrible.”