1999-10-27 Charter Commission Minutes

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minutes 10-27-99Page 24 of 48 ratio. That’s all I had to say. RAY: Do you have any comment on dealing with the complexity of EPA regulations in regard to something like this? TSUNODA: I leave that to my manager, operational people, to address that part. RAY: Okay. BOUCHER: May I make just one more comment? RAY: Sure. BOUCHER: I’m not going to be able to stay for the rest of your meeting, so I kind of wanted - There was one issue I didn’t bring up in my memo, and it occurred to me while we were sitting here. We have been negotiating with the Department of Health, as part of statewide effort to reduce duplication of services between the State and the County, for the County to take over the management of the individual wastewater systems program, that is managing all the cesspools, septic tanks, and private systems. Just another issue for you to throw into the pot. That would be a substantial expansion of our current responsibilities. It’s also another potential source of revenue, but that’s another piece of the puzzle that should be considered as you discuss this. RAY: Since you brought that up. I was at a State meeting last week, and I asked Mr. Tulang about that, and he represented that there was a pretty wide divergence of - BOUCHER: The dollars. BOUCHER: The budgets to handle that. In other words, what the County would be reimbursed, or however that would work, to take over that, and they were pretty far apart as far as the State vs. the County, so do you have any sense of if that’s going to move forward, or how big of an impasse that is? BOUCHER: The Mayor has expressed interest in it and certainly, the State has always traditionally been very interested in it, and this is their best opportunity to date, to try and transfer that responsibility. I think there would be a certain measure of efficiency gained by this. Probably the reason for the difference in the cost, is we don’t necessarily feel like the State is operating the program properly. They don’t inspect the systems. There’s not as much follow-up. So, if we were to take it over, we’re just kind of insisting we want to do the job properly. As far as can we work it out, that’s really, kind of, up to the Mayor in many respects, and I certainly wouldn’t presume to speak for him. But when both parties feel that it’s in the general interest, you’d think there’s probably a middle ground. RAY: Yes, this is a little bit off the point, but I just wanted to take advantage since you were here. Okay, thanks. Let’s take a five minute break and then we’ll come back and deal with the Police and Corp Counsel. RECESSED The Chairman called a recess at 4:45 p.m. RECONVENED The meeting reconvened at 4:52 p.m. RAY: Let’s reconvene our meeting. On the agenda for Unfinished Business, we have the Police Department, Police Commission, and Corporation Counsel agendized to discuss some items that have file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 10-27-99.html7/1/2011