Finance Comm Minutes 08-13-2019 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Finance Commission Minutes August 13, 2019 Page 5 of 9 reserves every year to pay for $150,000 of that program. If that was going to be a plan, he thought that should come through the Parks and Recreation budget and be a planned implementation through their budget and not just planning on taking cash reserves out every year for that purpose. Mr. Brokke noted that if the Finance Commission authorized the use of the Cash Reserve fund for this program the funds would be set aside in for EAB and would be placed back in the Parks and Recreation budget to be used over time for this program. Commissioner Harold wondered if the Finance Commission was ready to recommend taking $634,000 from the Cash Reserves and moving it to the Parks and Recreation budget. He could not see recommending taking money in excess of the minimum in the General Fund. Chair Hodder thought the Finance Commission is going to have to make a lot of decisions regarding the 2020 budget. He asked if comments could be taken from the public. Ms. Cynthia White, explained this spring she was house sitting for a friend of hers and a very large branch came off of her Ash tree into the boulevard and the house across the street also had a branch come off his Ash tree a few hours later. It completely blocked the street and was unexpected. Everyone was very lucky that a car was not passing through at the time or that a child or adult was not walking when the branch fell off. She was not sure if the city would be liable in that circumstance or not. She suspects that a lot of these trees are accidents waiting to happen. She noted the city responded extremely fast and she suspected it was more expensive to get someone out to clear the tree on that kind of a notice then it would be in a planned kind of way. She did not think a price could be put on being able to have no one hurt, not car or house destruction, etc. She would think this plan sounds very sensible to her and was not sure why the Council sent this back to the Finance Commission to review but thought the Commission want to provide some reasoned logic to Mr. Brokke’s approach. It seemed to her that the city just cannot let it go. She also wondered if a resident did not want a replacement tree in the boulevard would that be an option. Mr. Miller indicatedin regard to liability, if it is a tree on private property and it happens to fall it would not necessarily create a liability for the city. The city’s liability would come in when the city would demonstrate some sort of negligence. If through nature a tree or limb were to fall and alling, he was not sure it would nothing to suggest to a reasonable eye that it was in danger of f create any liability. Park Commissioner Hoag stated it depends on where the tree is located and if a tree should be there in the first place. Commissioner Lee asked how this would compare to trees the die from old age and what is the budget for that.