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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, October 24,2011 Page 11 Bob Bierscheid, 1065 Harriet Lane In an effort for full disclosure, Mr. Biersheid noted that he had over forty-two (42) years of professional experience in the Parks and Recreation field, including a substantial number of years in Roseville. Mr. Biersheid advise that his son was a new firefighter for Roseville, and expressed concern about his health and welfare, with the current condition of the City's fire stations, which he opined were in crit- ical need of repair. In terms of the use of bonds for Parks and Recreation facili- ties and their maintenance, Mr. Biersheid noted that bond funds were intended for major maintenance of existing facilities, which had not been kept up-to-date in the City for some time. Mr. Biersheid opined that the City's risk manager would say that the City had more exposure to financial risk through continuing to neglect this maintenance. Mr. Biersheid opined that he had never seen a more compre- hensive asset analysis than that conducted during the Parks and Recreation Master Plan process. Mr. Biersheid brought forth an old adage that seemed applicable to him in this situation: to bring things up to standard now, or in a few years, pay more to board them up, tear them down, or patch them up. Carol Koester, 1739 Eldridge Avenue Ms. Koester referenced the 2012 Budget Fact Sheet, opining that the potential negative impacts to Roseville residents, many suffering from joblessness, loss of retirement income, or mortgages currently under water, would be catastrophic. Ms. Koester stated that, while dreams are nice, the reality was that parks im- provements needed to be deferred for 3-5 years until the economy improved; and also that the fire station plans needed to be reviewed and scaled back. Ms. Koester opined that many Roseville residents were not able to afford much more than they were already paying. While recognizing that the City needed a new fire station, she questioned the need for an $8 million fire station; and questioned if other alternatives were considered to scale things back. If, at that time, it was de- termined that the entire $8 million was not actually needed, Ms. Koester suggest- ed that the budget request be reduced, as well as reducing the cost for park im- provements. As an example, Ms. Koester questioned the need for a sprinkler sys- tem in various parks, opining that this seemed to her to be an extravagance that the City could do without. Gary Grefenberg, 91 Mid Oaks Lane Mr. Grefenberg noted that he and Ms. Koester had been the requesters of the 2012 Budget Impact Fact Sheet prepared by staff, and thanked Finance Director Miller for compiling that information and provided it to the public, in order to provide a comprehensive look at the cumulative impact on bonds being consid- ered, along with the proposed utility fee increase. Mr. Grefenberg encouraged all Roseville residents to seek out a copy for their personal review; and opined that the number of residents in attendance at tonight's meeting could attest to the fact that many residents had previously been unaware of the totality of the impact. Since so many residents had apparently been unaware of these impacts before,