2011-01-14 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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MR. HOFFMANN: Well, I must spend a couple of hours a week with residents in my district with the same complaint. The mayor did two years ago, promise that he was going to take a look at that issue. And I think more recently, if I’m not mistaken, there havebeen some efforts being taken within the Department of Public Works to address that concern particularly. I think there’s been some effort to at least try to make that happen. It’s always been a shortfall here. I’m not certain why it doesn’t go down from the Mayor through the Department of Public Works and say fix the darn thing. And I’ll give you 90 days to do it. That’s easier said than done. But I’m of the opinion that some effort is being spent at this time trying to address that long-standing issue. And yes, I will tell you at least for some residents in my district, it continues to be a problem. You’re correct, I do think it would assist. I do think that it would certainly accelerate the process and make it more user friendly. And you would wonder why at a time when we have obviously less building permits than we did say back in 2005 and ‘06,why the process doesn’t accelerate itself. On the other hand, I’m not quite certain that it might be a problem of not having enough educated or committed people working in the department too. And would one or two more people help that process? Or if you put one or two more people there, are we then generating exactly the thing we’re trying to cut down on inflation in staff and so on. Do we have a trade off here? I leave that to you. I haven’t looked at the particulars. I’m under the impression as I say that the mayor is taking some action on this point. MR. ARMOUR: It might also cut down on the unpermitted building that goes on. MR. HOFFMANN: Next question sir. MR. ARMOUR: That’s all I have. MS. NICHOLSON: Any other questions? MS. WONG: I do. First I’d like to thank you for coming to the meeting. I think it’s a statement for a councilman to come in response to our letter. I appreciate that. And I appreciate that you narrowed your points down to two. It makes it simple. I also appreciate, Eileen did such a good job of summarizing where we are. Wow, aren’t we good when she summarizes. MR. HOFFMANN: Until she said that though, Ms. Wong, I didn’t know where you were. Your letter didn’t exactly say except to provide us the questions, where you happen to be of course at this time, or what your direction and purpose was to be. We haven’t heard too much from the Cost of Government Commission in the past, so this is say, a statement I think by all of you, that you’re willing to be much more involved and participate in this problem and this issue which we feel very keenly each time we get beaten up by either the administration or our own constituents. So, we salute you for trying to take the initiative. MS. WONG: Thank you. And that’s one of our concerns that we want to make sure that people know what we’re about so that they can respond and we can do our job. My committee that I sit on is the Operations, Budget and Consolidation. We’ve split up into three separate committees. Knowing that, I’d like to ask three questions that are related to that area. I’m intrigued that you comewith suggesting the attitude of -it’s always 16