SouthsideCentral was LIVE! at the Danville Municipal Building for Tuesday’s Danville City Council budget work session, the business session and the work session.
This article is now complete.
City Manager Ken Larking is now presenting the “Ways & Means” report. That means “We’ve run out of ways, so you know what that means
We’re underway!
There’s no real support for even the 1/2% meals tax increase, so Larking is bringing back proposals that were stomped dead in the past. Like consolidating three fire stations to two, closing the Westover library and cutting out support for the Longwood Small Business Center, the River District Association and the Dan River Business Development Center (and others). Bad things to do. Very bad things.
This entire budget shortfall is coming from the idea of giving a big increase to public safety employee retirement benefits.
I’m getting a bit amused by Ken Larking’s still moderately polite talking style. He’s wanting to snap & yell “JESUS CHRIST, I’VE GIVEN YOU ALL OF THE POSSIBLE OPTIONS AND IT’S NOW UP TO YOU TO MAKE THE TOUGH DECISIONS, DAMMIT”.
Oh yeah, I’ll clean this article up over the next few days.
We’re moving on to the business session now.
River District Association president Diana Schwartz picks up a proclamation of Business Appreciation Week. Former Mayor John Hamlin also is here.
Danville Regional Medical Center SOVAH Health CEO Alan Larson is going to give an update on what’s going on with the hospital.
Delegate Danny Marshall stops by and gives a General Assembly proclamation recognizing his service to the city.
John Gilstrap finally gets what’s coming to him. No, just a General Assembly proclamation recognizing his service to the city. Heh.
Alan Larson is up next. He gives everyone a community impact handout except me. Leslie Smith, handle that for me. 😂
SOVAH Health CEO Alan Larson tells us that the hospital is doing great even if you don’t like them.
Everything is going well for the hospital and all of its operations, so that’s a big “Screw You” to all the Hospital Haters out there. 😂
We’ll move on to public comments now. We’ve got a 17-year old Galileo student up first proposing an idea for a car-free day for the city.
Public comment time!
He goes well over his 5 minutes but he’s nervous and he’s doing a good job speaking. City Clerk Sue DeMasi courteously stops the overtime clock & the flashing red light. That’s all for the public comment section so on to business.
We’re adding an “emergency” item to the agenda giving LifeCare a temporary ambulance permit. That will pass easily.
New business is pretty much all first readings as required by law.
The school system will be able to keep $2 million instead of a $1 million current limit in their budget surplus.
The process for the Danville Track project starts with the release of the reserved funds already allocated. Step #1 is the study to see if it’s feasible.
Madison Whittle mentions something about a $4 million cost for the track and is immediately called out on that by Lee Vogler as nowhere close to that. Ken Larking says “We have no idea what we’re building, so we have no idea of what it could cost.”
Back to business. Airport security upgrades (like anybody has ever jumped the fence while nekkid). Airport hangar rental feed will go up a little. Various city fees will go up about 3% to cover the costs of accepting credit/debit cards.
Now comes the public hearing for the 1/2% increase in the meals tax (that may or may not ever happen). So that happened. Nobody here to speak for or against it. Nobody cares.
Final thing is renewing the city’s moral obligation on an IDA loan for 527 Bridge Street. No realistic risk on this. The ambulance temporary permit passes, but Gary Miller gets all cardiologist on our ass by pointing out that the EKG telemetry needs to continue to be top level. The president of LifeCare says that will happen with full Advanced Life Support capability.
Around the horn time. Festival In The Park is coming up this weekend. The Make Danville Shine expo & event was a success. Lee Vogler throws out Katie Keatts & Tyquan Graves’ names out, but not SouthsideCentral. I’m hurt. Not really, of course.
Work session is coming up next!
Work session starts with naming part of the bypass in honor of Wendell Scott. There’s two sections of bypass that aren’t named for anybody, 29S to 58W & 58W to 360. The family asked for both sections, but there’s some reticence because it would be nice to have one final segment open for someone else notable. It’s a 4-4 straw poll on this with John Gilstrap not voting yet. Sherman Saunders says a 5-4 public vote would send the wrong message to the family and Scott’s legacy. It makes sense to keep one segment open for the future. Jeez. So of course, they decide to name the whole thing.
HR department head Sara Weller is up next talking about minor personnel policy changes.
Sara Weller, Hello!
Some discussion about department heads being required to live in the city. That’s been a policy for a long time, and Weller says no exceptions have been nor will be granted in the future.
Michael Adkins does the financial reports and it’s on to budget discussion. Again.
Gary Miller floats an idea to mandate that the proposed meals tax increase be allocated to public safety benefits. Sherman Saunders & Alonzo Jones agree with the idea.
It’s a stupid idea. The proposed $600K won’t come close to those needs in the future. Fred Shanks seems to agree with me and says so.
The main holdup on the budget is how to pay for increased retirement benefits. Now they’re talking about a general 2% across the board budget cut for each department? Gah!
Oh well, we’ll have another budget work session next week. It’s not like time’s running out.
We’re done here! Thanks for coming back to SouthsideCentral!
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