Council Chooses Plastic Over Paper; Haulman Makes Committee Appointments

By Desiree Parker Friday, July 09, 2010

Williamsburg city council met Thursday afternoon in the first regular session with two new council members and a new mayor and vice-mayor. They looked at preliminary year-end numbers, heard what committees they would serve on and chose to ditch paper agendas and instead buy iPads for council members starting right away.

Fiscal year 2010 ended June 30, and Finance Director Phil Serra gave council a preliminary report. He told council the city had budgeted revenues at around $32.1 million, and had brought in $31.6 million, about $481,000 under budget. He said this was primarily due to lodging and room taxes, other taxes, and interest earnings all below expectations due to the recession.

Expenditures were $29.4 million, $2.7 million below budget. The savings were thanks to the 911 call center consolidation and other cost-cutting measures, but departments all did what they could to cut spending, Serra said, which helped keep expenditures below target.

Serra also said the operations surplus came in at nearly $674,000, which sounds like a lot but is less than prior years, he pointed out. The surplus is only about two percent of revenues, or enough to cover about eight days of operating expenses.

Capital project expenditures came in about $2.3 million over revenues, due to the municipal building expansion and other projects.

There are still some other revenues and expenses that will come in over the next few weeks, Serra said, that might change the numbers slightly. Council will get a complete analysis in the fall.

Vice Mayor Paul Freiling said in the current economic climate, he believes the numbers “show great care on the city’s part not to be collecting more money than it needs” and also shows great fiscal responsibility on the part of staff.

New members Scott Foster and Doug Pons asked a few questions about the future financial plans for the city, which Mayor Haulman said was a discussion council would have during its budget discussions later in the year.

Mayor Haulman also announced some appointments to boards and commissions during the meeting. Architectural Review Board member Daniel Quarles, an attorney, will be moved to the planning commission to fill Doug Pons’ seat, and City Green developer Demetrios Florakis will take Quarles’ seat on the ARB.

The full appointments to boards and commissions are available here.

Haulman also announced decisions on appointments to various committees in the city, including his selection of Scott Foster to serve as representative with the Greater Williamsburg Chamber and Tourism Alliance. Doug Pons has long been involved in Triangle tourism through his various roles with the Williamsburg Hotel Motel Association and has also long been a critic of the Alliance’s handling of various aspects of marketing the city as a tourist destination, but he was not selected for the committee.

Instead, Haulman appointed Pons to the School Liaison Committee. Haulman will serve on the Williamsburg Area Destination Marketing Committee, another tourism promotion group in the city (it is typical for the city mayor to be the city’s representative here).

Haulman will serve on a total of 12 committees (generally because the mayor needs to fill most of these roles); Vice Mayor Freiling will serve on three, Judy Knudson will serve on two, and the two new councilmen will serve on one each. The full list of committee appointments is available here.

Information Technology Director Mark Barham brought along an Apple iPad (a small, looseleaf paper-sized touch-screen computer) to show council. He also gave a presentation on how the technology works and why he thinks it would be a good idea for council to stop using paper agendas and go to using the iPad.

He said about 34,000 pieces of paper were used each year to print agenda packets for council at a cost of about $2,000. An iPad would run about $614 per council person (including software). These would pay for themselves in about 18 months, he estimated.

The device has excellent graphics, Barham said, is not bulky, has an application that allows council members to write notes and highlight areas of interest in documents, and is a fully functional computer with internet access.

After asking a few questions about lifespan of the devices, battery life and usage, council voted unanimously to stop printing copies of the agenda and start using the iPads.

Other business
Council also unanimously voted on adopting a new ordinance that would allow residents on streets in the city to limit parking by non-residents if a majority or homeowners sign a petition requesting the limitation.

Right now, in order for streets to have limited non-residential spaces, two criteria must be met: vehicles regularly occupying parking spots must exceed 75 percent of available spaces, and the average number of non-residential parked cars should exceed 25 percent of parked vehicles.

Due to a high number of non-resident parked vehicles on non-restricted roads like Goodwin Road, staff suggested the new ordinance so homeowners could have a say outside what already exists in city code. Freiling suggested a slightly lower percentage of consensus for the petition (still more than 50 percent), and staff will revise the language to reflect this in the new ordinance.

Council requests
Due to discussions on the issue among council members, the mayor asked staff to gather information and create an avenue of public discussion on the proposed Surry coal-fired power plant, which both Pons and Foster said they opposed during their campaigns. Staff will have the information ready by next month.

Foster said he had heard from some city residents that council meeting times were not convenient for those who work standard nine-to-five hours, and he asked if meeting times could be changed. Haulman directed staff to compile a list of pros and cons on the change so council could review it.