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Regular City Council Meeting Monday,August 19,2013 Page 23 Councilmembers Laliberte and Etten spoke enthusiastically about such models from which to work in addition to this draft. Councilmember Etten opined that this would provide an option versus operating in a vacuum; even though expressing his appreciation for the draft created by Mayor Roe and trigger mechanisms. Councilmember Etten opined that his intent was to see if there were other options that may be more successful. Mayor Roe noted that this was the first discussion and that it needed to continue. Mayor Roe advised that his intent was to determine if there was consensus by the body to continue looking at a version of this draft along these lines or not; or con- sideration by the majority to consider such a draft policy. If that consensus had not been evident, Mayor Roe noted that then that the discussion need go no fur- ther. McGehee moved, Roe seconded, that the City Council continue to consider a Compensation Policy based on the Roe draft dated August 19, 2013; with addi- tional input as requested by Councilmembers. Public Comment Gary Grefenberg, 91 Mid Oaks Lane Mr. Grefenberg stated that this proposed policy bothered him as it made the as- sumption that those ten or eleven other cities were actually Roseville's peers. Mr. Grefenberg opined that he didn't see that, as those cities were mostly larger geo- graphically or in population, few were inner ring suburbs, and few compared to Roseville's senior population, nor did they consider the ability of taxpayers to pay higher wages, since those peer communities had a higher average household in- come than Roseville did. Mr. Grefenberg opined that if Roseville employees wanted to receive wages comparable with those in the City of Edina, they go to the City of Edina for their employment. From his perspective, Mr. Grefenberg opined that the City of Roseville's higher proportion of limited income taxpayers could not afford to pay wages similar to Edina; and questioned if Roseville faced similar challenges to Woodbury or Maple Grove. Mr. Grefenberg opined that the question remained open as to the identity of Roseville's peer communities. Mr. Grefenberg opined that he would feel more comfortable in comparing with the Cities of Maplewood, New Brighton and Little Canada, all communities with comparable equivalencies and abilities to pay. Mr. Grefenberg further questioned whether the study was actually fair and impar- tial, or provided an equitable solution, since Roseville taxpayers had less ability to pay than the majority of other communities, noting that the average household in- come from 2000 to 2010 had shrunk, but the City of Roseville's levy budget had increased by 32.6%. While property taxes have increased by that significant per- centage, Mr. Grefenberg advised that his wages had only increased by 6%.