Hazelwood City Council Discusses Hot Button Issues at Work Session

At their June 8 work session, Hazelwood City Council members didn’t hold back their concerns. The meeting began with a brief introduction and discussion of the agenda.

Proclamations

First up, Councilman Robert Aubuchon brought proclamations to the table, suggesting that the council should set guidelines for issuing proclamations.

“We get sort of out of control with the number of proclamations,” he said. “St. Louis County only seems to do like 150 proclamations a year, and we seem to do way more.”

Aubuchon suggested that the council should set specific guidelines, such as a specific age for birthday proclamations or number of years in service for retirement proclamations.

“If we give everyone a proclamation, it sort of degrades the idea of getting a proclamation,” he said. “And when we give a proclamation, they should have some tie to the city of Hazelwood.”

Aubuchon said that not just anyone who turns in an application should be granted a proclamation and expressed his concerns on the demand it creates among the city staff. He noted that while other cities require the applicants to complete a lengthy application that includes all of the details necessary to make the decision, Hazelwood’s application is simpler and requires city employees to do a lot of research on each one.

“That’s a lot of background checking they have to do on these people,” Aubuchon said. “It’s costing the city money.”

Councilwoman Mary Singleton said that she thinks guidelines are a good idea, especially considering that it cheapens an award if too many people receive it.

“There should be guidelines for each of us to go by, but if one of us wants to give a proclamation to someone in our ward, I think that should be our guideline,” she said. “I would trust any of you to make good judgment on someone in your ward, and I would support it.”

Singleton added that in order to avoid conflict, the new guidelines could require at least two council people to agree to the proclamation before issuing it.

Councilwoman Rosalie "Ro" Hendon disagreed, saying that she felt the majority should agree, not just two council members.

“I will always vote for any of you who want a proclamation, how’s that?” asked Singleton.

Hendon said she wouldn’t do the same, and the council erupted in laughter.

“I also agree with Mary that it should be up to the council people, but I agree with Ro that it should be a majority vote,” Councilwoman Carol Stroker said. “But as Mary said, there are special things that need to be considered.”

Singleton recalled a proclamation that had been voted on by the council and turned down, and later was re-thought in light of the surrounding circumstances.

“Can you imagine what would happen if someone proposed a proclamation for a national children’s organization and not everyone supported it?” she said. “None of us are heartless but these proclamations are totally out of control.”

Mayor Matthew Robinson said that St. Louis County doesn’t currently have guidelines for acceptance of proclamations, only for those it turns down.

“I don’t know the final approval process on that, but they don’t turn hardly anything down,” Robinson said. “The guidelines they do have are designed to save staff time and money.”

He went on to say that the county has an application that gives them the bio information and everything else they need to create the proclamation, so they don’t have to do the research.

“So our application process might be changed,” he said. “I’m sure there would still be conditions and research involved, but it would help to have the information up front.”

Robinson also said he was concerned about having too-stringent conditions.

“The age part is going to be a cases by case basis—we’re not going to turn down someone’s ninety-third birthday because of age restrictions,” he said. “You’ve got to have some leniency whether it’s retirements, birthdays, wedding anniversaries—whatever.”

Hazelwood’s Municipal Pool

Council moved on to its planned discussion with the city manager, Edwin Carlstrom regarding an update on Hazelwood’s municipal pool.

“It’s pretty obvious that this is  a great summer for owning a pool and also a great summer to have a municipal pool for the first time in years,” Carlstrom said. “The first day of operations hit over $6,000 in revenue, so that’s a record.”

Carlstrom said that the pool had served more than 700 residents on the first day, and that it has continued to be very successful since then.

“The reputation of the Hazelwood pool must be good,” he said. “We did have a power outage on Saturday and people wanted refunds, so we offered them passes or refunds.”

He noted that the police were called out due to the concerns some pool visitors had, but that otherwise, he was impressed with the pool’s results from the first two weeks of June.

Missouri Bottom Road Project

After a brief discussion of pool policies and guidelines on refunds, Robinson asked for an update on a timeline for the Missouri Bottom Road project, to which Carlstrom said they are down to two property owners who need to agree.

“One of them is willing to sign the agreement, but we’re having a little trouble with the other,” Carlstrom said. “That one is only like $5,000 or $6,000 thousand we’re going to have to pay out, but they don’t think they can sign the papers, so we might have to go to condemnation on that one.”

“The notices are going out today and they have 30 days to respond to our offer,” Carlstrom said. “If they don’t respond, we will probably go into court and we can have the titles within 45 days.”

He said that once the city has the titles it needs, the Missouri Department of Transportation will approve the project and the city will be ready to start construction sometime in 2012.

Hazelwood City Budget

Perhaps the most explosive portion of the council’s work session involved the . Councilman Conley told Carlstrom that he wanted to discuss the events surrounding the budget over the past few weeks.

“I don’t know how many times we’ve asked to get things in a timely manner,” Conley said. “We should be kept in the loop about the budget.”

Conley said that the council is not informed in a timely manner of the changes in the budget, and that it’s causing problems for them as they try to do their jobs. And, he noted, getting the budget information at the last minute is frustrating because most of the council members work other jobs and don’t have time to dig into the budget in just one night—especially because the same budget takes months to create.

“We’re just supposed to be knowledgeable about it,” Conley said. “There are residents in this city who go over the budget and call us.”

Conley said the council members often hear rumors about the budget, and that while sometimes they’re just rumors, other times they’re facts.

“We have to hear about it from either residents or city employees and we’re left hanging out in the cold with no information while we get questioned,” he said.

Carlstrom said that he had heard Conley’s complaints two weeks ago, and that it hadn’t fallen on deaf ears.

“I heard it, and the council can be as involved as the budget as it wants to be,” Carlstrom said. “If you want to set up some kind of process, tell me.”

Carlstrom said that this year’s budget had taken longer than usual. He said that in the last few years, he and his staff had spent a tremendous amount of time on planning the budget. He mentioned a deficit the city had around December of 2008 and that they had spent a lot of time looking at ways to trim the budget and all kinds of other options.

“Ultimately, you are the policy makers, and I totally understand that,” Carlstrom told the council. “If you can tell me how you want to be included in the process, I’m all for it. Just tell me.”

He said that the council members were welcome to attend budget meetings and that he’d even be happy to have a special budget meeting for council members, to which the majority agreed that they didn’t want or need additional meetings. They just wanted to have the information before the city employees and residents so that they could have time to review the budget and answer the questions that the residents in their wards ask them.

Conley brought up the fact that the council had asked for information on the city’s sales tax this year, but hadn’t received it in a timely manner.

“Again, we need this information to be  able to answer our constituents’ questions,” Conley said. “

The heated debate continued between the two men, as other council members spoke out primarily in support of Conley’s position.

Mayor Robinson, Councilmembers Hendon and Stroker were also heavily involved in the debate, which continued to discuss an outside contractor who had been hired to assist the city with the budget.

In the end, Conley reiterated that he can’t make a budget decision when he gets the information one day before he is expected to make said decision.

“That’s what this is about,” he said. “I want information and I want it before city employees get it and before my residents get it. I do not like being blindsided.”

“All I want is the truth,” Hendon said. “I would like the truth.”

Carlstrom said that he would do whatever the council wanted him to do, and asked them again how they wanted to be involved.

“I’m willing to open the system up to you and I can share it with you every time there’s a revision,” Carlstrom said. “I understand that I have a lot of responsibility. I’m trying to get everything to council and put out these processes on time, it just doesn’t work perfectly.”

He suggested that council members decide during the next work session when and how they want to be involved and reiterated that he has no problem opening up every step of the process to members, noting that it’s all public information anyway.

Conley stated again that the important part was that the council members get the information before residents and city employees, and that while he sees no reason for a regular budget meeting with the council, he would appreciate at least a simple email when changes or updates occur with the budget.

“If I’ve got questions, you know I will call you,” Conley said.