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Title : standard furniture richmond va
standard furniture richmond va
>>mr. manager first let me thank you and teamnorfolk for your efforts this week. we had about 77,000 residents without powerand now we are down to about 3,000. the efforts are going very good but thereis still some homes without power. thank you for your preparation. thank you very much. mr. manager we are going to turn it over toyou. >>> thank you, mayor and membersof council. as we follow back up on theretreat, there were three major issues that council discussedthat dealt with education,
safety and housing, but also wehad a conversation, council had a conversation about thelegislative package and the legislative agenda, so wethought that we would start off tonight with having michaeledwards from kemper consulting, and michelle washington atpublic and government relations manager, to give the councilsome key dates as relates to the next year's upcoming legislativepackage as well as to make sure that we understand some of theissues that council would like for us to support during theupcoming general assembly
session. so i think that this ismichelle's first time out with a presentation before the council,so she'll tee it up and mike will tag team it. it's not your birthday today. >> so thank you and goodevening. i'd just like to go over a fewdates with you. on norfolk's legislativecalendar, you've received an invitation to the city council'sannual legislative dinner.
that's scheduled for novemberthe 1st from 4:00 to 6:00 at the slover library. november 30th is a new offeringfrom the virginia municipal league. it's a regional supper inhampton at the embassy suites and you might also want to takea look at january the 25th on your calendar. that's the vml day at thecapitol. that's a chance for councilmembers to go to richmond and
neat with members of our -- meetwith members of our local delegation. excuse me? january, okay. gentlemen, ma'am. -- yes, ma'am. i'm going to introduce to youmike edwards now. he's from kemper consulting andhe's here tonight with joel andress and he's going to giveyou a brief overview.
>> thank you, michelle. it's great to be with you and iwant to start by saying kemper consulting is grateful for thelong relationship with the city. a couple dates before i talkabout the back drop of the december 16th, the governor willrelease his proposed budget amendments and the new revenueestimates. you'll see in the next slide therevenue estimates will be important and set the stage forany possible change, hopefully better news than we heard inaugust, which we'll get to in a
second. that is an election year in2017. the 100 members of the generalassembly, the house of delegates stand for election. three statewide offices,governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and possibly au.s. senate seat and, of course, election year does play out inthe spirit in terms of legislation that's introducedand speeches and reaction to legislation in the generalassembly.
the budget is probably the mainstory line this year. the budget has taken ashortfall, the revenues have taken a shortfall since theadjournment of the general assembly in april of last year. the total shortfall for fy 16,17, and 18 is now pushing $1.5 billion, and that requiressevere action quickly. the good news is in fy 17, twoactions -- good news/bad news -- can help solve most of the 17problem. one is putting on the backburner the pay increases for
teachers, state, locals, andstate employees. i think it's fair to say thegovernor and the general assembly, if there's a will,there's a way. we'd like to come back and finda way to fund those salaries, but today, i don't think that'slikely, again, today in october. the second action that gets onthis, two-thirds of the closing of fy 17 shortfall is use ofrainy day funds, so the governor has taken the additional step ofasking each state agency to bring forward 5% reductions.
he can implement thoseadministratively without coming back to the general assembly. in this first round, it'simportant that we say first round, k-12 programs have beenheld harmless, not department of education, but k-12 programs andthe colleges and yoompts. kemper consulting'sunderstanding the colleges and universe will take targetedreduction in 17, not the baseline 5%. the governor will ask for asecond round of reductions for
fy 18 from agencies and weexpect or guess that's another round of 5% reductions, maybeupwards of 7%. don't think k-12 will be heldharmless in 18 and college and universities should not be heldharmless in 18 based upon preliminary information. fy 18 generally is less clear. when you look at the revenuereductions in 17, the general assembly and the governor agreedto take the forecast from 3.5% approximately below 2% inrevenue growth.
in 18, they brought the revenueproduction -- prediction down, but it's still above 3% and somepeople would say that's optimistic, so 17 will bedifficult, 18 right now will be very difficult. we'll be pleased to give youupdates as we go along. turn it back over toms. washington. >> tommy? >> so all of these school boardsand city councils pass budgets
based off of that projection, sothere's going to be a lot of upset school boards that passteacher pay raises because of the expectation. i think everybody knew, butbecause the forecast was so great, i think people were alittle bit more optimistic on it, so -- i mean, they're reallygoing to hear this. they're going to hear they haveto find that money because every school board across the state isgoing to be short money in next year's budget because the moneyis not there to cover that
teacher raise, teacher salary,and the localities, we're going to get asked to make up thedifference. so it's really us that's goingto end up doing it. >> okay. thank you. >> michelle? >> so next we wanted to talkabout statewide and regional issues. we touched on these at theretreat last month.
some big ones that our partnersare following, virginia municipal league is monitoringthe state budget, of course, along with local authority toregulate short-term rentals. that's the airbnb issue and thatshows up in the planning district commission as well. virginia first cities is workingto preserve k-12 funding gains, and the hrtpo has increasedtransportation funding and what that looks like right now wedon't know. there's talk of a floor on theregional gas tax, but we don't
know if that's what will goforward to the general assembly or not. so norfolk's game plan, becauseof the short session, we're focusing on a short list alignedwith our priorities: resiliency, continued work of the jointcommittee on the coastal state resiliency and recurrentflooding. that's led by delegate chrisstolle from virginia beach and senator mamie locke from hamptonand we're hoping to move forward with their recommendations in2017.
we talked a little abouttransportation, education funding, safety. there's another issue with 599funding. our police department gets about$675,000 from that funding, and then healthy neighborhoods. again, that's short-termrentals. so next we wanted to give you anoverview, some background on the issue of marijuanadecriminalization. i want to be sure we understandthe terms we're talking about.
decriminalization is generallymaking simple possession a small amount of marijuana aninfraction or a civil offense punishable by a fine and notjail time. legalization means thatmarijuana is legal to use and to possess. there are different categoriesof that, medicinal marijuana and recreational marijuana, whichmeans small amounts for adult use is not against the law. nationally, 21 states and anumber of cities have lessened
penalties for marijuanapossession. some states still consider it amisdemeanor, but it carries no threat of jail time. it comes with something morelike a fine. some states have gone a stepfurther and legalized marijuana. more than a third of the countrylives in areas where marijuana has been decriminalized and thisfall, there are ballot referenda in nine states dealing withlegalization or recreational use or decriminalization andmedicinal use.
attitudes about marijuana havechanged over time. about half of adults now admitto marijuana use at some time during their lives, and hamptonroads, according to a cnu study from 2016, about 77% ofmillennials support decriminalization. the cdc did a study on legalpenalties for marijuana use. more than a third believe a fineshould be imposed. in virginia, misdemeanor forsession of marijuana, a first offense for less than half anounce, is punishable by a
maximum of 30 days if jail and a5 -- and/or a $500 fine. those are typical dismissedafter six to 12 months if you meet the court's conditions. that's often community service. penalties go upward from there. for a subsequent offense, themaximum the 12 months in jail or a $2500 fine and for a felony,distribution of marijuana, that's amounts of more than halfan ounce u but less than five founds pounds, it's not lessthan a year in jail nor more
than ten years in prison andthere's a fine attached as well. >> is that first categoryconsidered a first offender type program? >> yes, and if you're a juvenileand you're adjudicated in juvenile court, judges therehave discretion to make first offender findings more than onetime. >> andria? >> so the penalty reads maximum30 days in jail and/or $500 fine.
is there a minimum? >> i don't know. i can find out or maybe there'ssomeone in the room that can answer that. >> guessing, i would think not,but they're atypical that a sentence will carry a minimum. >> martin? >> and it could be dismissed. the judge has the last(inaudible).
so. >> so it falls on the judge,martin? >> it does say for a felony, notless than one year, so there's a minimum in that regard, but notfor -- >> do we have data locally onthat? >> mamie, go ahead. >> michelle, where do we lie asfar as in connection with the drug court? because i know that the city ofnorfolk does have a really good
drug court. i mean, they do phenomenalthings with citizens here. how -- what is our relationshipwith the drug court partnership in reference to marijuanapossession? >> i would need to research thatfurther, but if my memory serves me, misdemeanor possessionoffenses going to the general district court. i believe the drug court is inthe circuit court and it's for repeat offenders with drugoffenses or drug-associated
offenses that the underlyingcause is addiction. i would want to verify that withthe courts, but that's what i recall. [ inaudible comments ]>> what i was going to ask is can we just contact the clerk,george schafer, and ask him for data on how many cases have comethrough our courts at the different levels of this so thatwe can get our own -- i haven't seen it. nobody's provided actual dataand whether or not that number
has gone up or down and what thefinal decision is by the judge on each one of those or eachyear, so what percentage of them end up with a minimum ordismissed. is is it somebody that's with areally good lawyer like martin that gets dismissed all the timeand then others are not? >> good commercial. >> i helped andy out for awhile. it would be interesting to seeour own city's data on that in court and how that's handled.
[ inaudible comments ]>> and we have requested data from the state office of thesupreme court. we do have some numbers, we'restill working to analyze them to show what we have and how itapplies to norfolk as well as our sister cities in the region. we can provide that for youshortly quickly, i would think. >> all right. >> so possession arrest rateshave varied over time. in virginia, the marijuanaarrest rate increased 39% in the
ten years between 2003 and 2013. in norfolk, marijuana possessionarrests rates are down 48% between 2012 and 2016. so we looked at some of theimpact of current marijuana policies. there are racial disfairs inthose policies -- disparities in those policies. blacks and whites use at roughlyequal rates, but nationally blacks are nearly four timesmore likely to be arrested for
possession. blacks are ten times more likelyto go to prison for drug offenses, that does not specifymarijuana, but to drug offenses. there are costs associated withmarijuana policies. less year norfolk police made537 arrests for first offense, so there's a cost for lawenforcement time. sheriff mccabe said at a recentpublic gathering that there are 86 people in jail for marijuanapossession times $58 per day per inmate, that's $1.8 million peryear.
in a study in massachusetts in adrug policy forum sowed there was a possible savings of$24.3 million annually to law enforcement and courts followinga study for decriminalization in massachusetts. there are also impacts that arenot measured in dollars. a criminal record can affectyour job prospects, loss of a driver's license afterconviction can affect your employment if you already have ajob. drug convictions are a bar tofederal financial aid under
federal law and they can resultin the loss of public assistance and public housing and time injail or prison means time away from your family, your childrenand your community. so there's lots of research outthere, some of it conflicts and there are differing opinions onthe impact of decriminalization on marijuana use on harmfulconsequences and arrests. there's research that shows thatmarijuana use can impair judgment, coordination andreaction time. there is some research that saysmarijuana is a gateway drug.
there's some research that saysthat it isn't. there is also an argue to bemade that topic and alcohol can be considered gateway drugs. [ inaudible comments ]in reaction time. >> correct. so there's also the possibilityof positive impacts to decriminalization fordisadvantaged communities, particularly for the reasons wejust mentioned. loss of financial aid affectspeople in disadvantaged
communities more than it wouldin other communities. so a few of the options, manystates that have looked at this topic have taken all kinds ofapproaches to it. you can shift possession fromsmall amounts of marijuana, from a criminal charge to a civilviolation. you can leave it as a criminalcharge, but eliminate jail time. you can remove the criminalpenalties and add social service options for repeat drugoffenders. some states have looked atexpunging past convictions
following decriminalizations, soif you were convicted of possessing marijuana, amisdemeanor in 2010 before the law changed, that charge wouldbe scrubbed from your record. in new york state, they treat itlike an open container, so if you have it in open view, that'sstill a crime. so some of the history,decriminalization bills have been introduced in virginiabefore, dating back to 2010, and as recently as the last session. delegate steve harry tick fromportsmouth and mark lever
convenient from alexandriaintroduced bills along with senator adam ebbin inalexandria. they died in committee, sosuccess would require a broad coalition of people to supportit. they'd need to have support fromother cities and localities as well as some of our partnergroups that have statewide support. and with that, i turn it over toyou. >> mr.
riddick? >> first of all, thank you,michelle, for, you know, that presentation and mr. mayor,thank you for the information that you gave me from thegeneral assembly in regard to different committees, and ithink that -- i spoke with michelle today and there are acouple options that we will probably bring back to theentire council for them to consider at a later date.
as i said when i initiallybrought up this, i think it's something that council needs tosupport, nothing i'm trying to push, but i think we needsupport from the entire council. >> and there was discussion, mr. riddick, at vml yesterday. councilman smigiel moderated,and -- how many was it? six of us there. >> we voted you and terri offcouncil while we were there. >> do i have to stay william[ laughter ]
>> no, good show of support. >> but it was great discussionon how we compare to other states as well as, mr. mayor,making suggestions how we could possibly as far as committee andprogression of what we wanted to do. >> there's an interestingdiscussion at the very end of the last question was actuallymore of a statement from a councilman from wise county whois a war veteran, and he had
post traumatic stress, and hewas discussing it personally, how he could use it and all ofhis fellow veterans and the need for that, so it was very robust,good discussion, although there was, you know, a council personfrom -- i forgot where he's from, but even after listeningto everything on the presentation, just had made uphis mind that this was a bad thing, but i think that thesession really opened up his eyes and a lot of counsel peoplefrom around the state and it wouldn't surprise me if there'sother localities that now will
be discussing this at least, soit was good. i know charlottesville isinterested and roanoke, two other major localities invirginia have taken an interest on this topic as well. >> after spending tomorrow timethis afternoon with mike edwards from kemper and michelle, it'san uphill battle. i had no idea that it was -- andwhen i say had no idea, there's so much community support, i hadno idea that the general assembly, you know, the way it'sconstructed now, should be a
tough fight, but i think it's afight that if we all think should happen, we should embarkupon it. >> martin, and then dr. whibley. >> thank you, michelle, foreducating us on decriminalization andlegalization. i do have a question, bernard. what can we as the city ofnorfolk do with regards to decriminalization andlegalization and any of this
kind of stuff here today? >> we don't have the sameauthority as the general assembly, so the state laws aregoing to apply to us and there's nothing we can do about it, buti thought that the statistic that contrary to the increase inthe commonwealth in arrests for possession, over the recentdecade, that norfolk's arrests have declined and so that i maybe miss reading that stack, but -- misreading that stack,but i would conclude from that that our police have exerciseddiscretion different tan what
has been occurring across thecommonwealth and so that we have that sort of discretionaryfunction. so beginning with the police,beginning with -- and following by the commonwealth attorney andthen our judges, and so i think that is the extent of our legalauthority is in that area in exercising that discretion, thatwe can't change state law. >> i appreciate thatexplanation. i wanted to make sure thateveryone at home understood that we can't sit here and make thedecision, say, to decriminalize
or legalize. we don't have that power. >> dr. whibley and then andria. >> so it struck me from all ofthe comments that we've heard, both in the newspaper andcertainly on email, that there's a lot of confusion about whatdecriminalization means. for instance, i'm interested,tommy, with you talking about this gentleman with the posttraumatic stress disorder.
you know, there's also medicaluse of marijuana, so that would seem to me different from thedecriminalization. many people are confused,decriminalization means legalization, that we wouldbecome colorado, so i really think it's incumbent on us, ifwe are going to push this and i think penny has mentioned thatwe might push for a study to be done to clarify this, but we tryto do some information or education to the citizens onwhat this actually means, that it doesn't mean that noweverybody gets to walk down the
street smoking weed, so --anyway, i mean, i don't know about you, but i've been struckby the diversity of the comments and the confusion. >> do you want to respond to it? >> just that they did say in oursession, and kenny, you can verify this, that medicinal mayhave a better chance of making it through the general assembly. there seems to be morerepublican legislators now that are starting to sympathize withthat and there may be an
opportunity through that routeto start the conversation and you have to legalize in orderfor medicinal purposes. so -->> but you have to legalize it totally? there are states that have legalmedical use, but not -- >> no, but you would have to --it would start the conversation. >> sure. >> based on the earlier part ofyour presentation and making sure we send this informationup, whatever our standard
legislative pargetion i thinkyou said -- package, i think you said december 1st, was that thedeadline for that? realistically are we -- okay,the question i have gets to this. i've gotten 25, 30-plus emails. >> we all got them. >> everyone, everyone, not onewas against decriminalization. everyone was strongly in favorof decriminalization and on the record, i supportdecriminalization.
what can we do, though, there isanything that we can do before this general assembly sessionthat might -- >> no, the likelihood of a billpassing this general assembly, 2017 general assembly session isslim to none. so i think councilman riddickputs the pathway forward, is that we build coalition, try todraft a model, the counsel person in wise and other partsof the state would have to simultaneously offer thelegislation in the same year, maybe the 2018 general assemblysession and get into it the
posture where we look at all ofthe things that michelle addressed. the cost, the economic impact ofcriminalizing individuals for the small usage of marijuana. you may want to have to look atthe medical use. right now it's a schedule isubstance. it's not used for medicalpurposes. the distribution, where is itgrown, who regulates it? and taxation.
bernard made it very clearearlier that if there's any taxation to realize, the state'sgoing to grab that, so it's not ready for prime time, but weshould contract conversation, and as mr. riddick noted, it'san uphill battle as related to the general assembly structure. the goal is to come to termswith what we want to see and then share it with vml andothers and maybe in the 2018 session, simply would be readyto be introduced.
>> just to follow up on that,because initial sent me some -- michelle sent me some links fromvml yesterday with great information. philadelphia and orlando havepassed individually legislation for decriminalization, butbecause we're in a dillon rule state, the state of virginia, iwant people to understand we don't have the authority to dothat, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> what's the penalty for alocality passing something?
>> can they kick us out of thestate? >> it's easier to ask forpermission than forgiveness. >> ask for forgiveness than thepermission. >> they could file a lawsagainst the city of norfolk -- lawsuit against the city of fortnorfolk for passing -- i'm just asking. >> we would subject our citizensfor being in jail for distribution, for growing, forsession. we don't want to go down thatroad.
we would put our citizens indirect conflict with state law. >> that would be an option, thatthe attorney general could bring action and there could be otheractions in the court. what the general assembly hasdone on other occasions is where, when a locality is notfollowing the line, is to pass fiscal measures. for instance, if our retirementfund is not providing at least 66% of the benefit of vrs, welose certain taxes and so they're not without weapons, butthere's not any answer off the
shelf. there's no existing provision topenalize us for the passage of an ineffective law. >> can we do the minimum then? you said today in the articleabout why couldn't our council at least ask -- we have twodelegates that are interested in sponsoring legislation, hereticksaid he would do it again and dawn herber said she would carrylegislation. i know general assembly is morefavorable toward studies as
opposed to action on actuallegislation, so would they support something like that? >> well, i think individualcouncil members, individual members of the house and senatewill introduce, again. i don't think that we shouldtake any action. i think we should tane to dowhat we're -- continue to do what we're doing, gatherinformation and when we build a coalition with model legislationthat we think meets the goals and objectives, then we wouldget behind it, but if steve
heretick or delegate hester orsenator ebbin will introduce legislation, i know certainlymembers here will lend their voices and their support, but ithink the posture we find ourselves in contiguous to whatwe're doing, in this particular session, the 2017 session,anything that we present now will not have been fully vettedand we don't have the perfect or the model legislation that wethink will get us to having a bill passed or even getting thebill into a study or getting to the crime commission.
the person who chairs the crimecommission right now is running for attorney general, ralphbell, and the co-chair is mark obenshain, so the likelihood ofgetting it in this general assembly session is verydifficult because of the atmosphere in richmond. >> you're saying even a studywould have to be approved? >> a study isn't likely to beapproved in this 2017 session. it's an election year. >> but every year is an electionyear for somebody.
>> not for statewide. >> the house of delegates. >> the governor, the lieutenantgovernor, the attorney general. >> do we have any information onwhether any other commonwealth have done this? have we looked at the other -->> there's four commonwealths that -->> only one other. >> just because they'recommonwealths doesn't mean they're dillon.
there's dillon and there'scommonwealth. i don't know who the other --there's three other dillons. >>mr. manager first let me thank you and teamnorfolk for your efforts this week. we had about 77,000 residents without power and nowwe are down to about 3,000. the efforts are going very good but there is still some homeswithout power. thank you for your preparation. thank you very much.mr. manager we are going to turn it over to you.>>> thank you, mayor and members of council.as we follow back up on the retreat, there were three majorissues that council discussed
that dealt with education,safety and housing, but also we had a conversation, council hada conversation about the legislative package and thelegislative agenda, so we thought that we would start offtonight with having michael edwards from kemper consulting,and michelle washington at public and government relationsmanager, to give the council some key dates as relates to thenext year's upcoming legislative package as well as to make surethat we understand some of the issues that council would likefor us to support during the
upcoming general assemblysession. will tag team it.it's not your birthday today. slover library.november 30th is a new offering from the virginia municipalleague. your calendar.that's the vml day at the capitol.that's a chance for council members to go to richmond andneat with members of our -- meet with members of our localdelegation. excuse me?january, okay.
gentlemen, ma'am.-- yes, ma'am. >> thank you, michelle.it's great to be with you and i want to start by saying kemperconsulting is grateful for the long relationship with the city.a couple dates before i talk about the back drop of thesession. second.that is an election year in 2017.the 100 members of the general assembly, the house of delegatesstand for election. assembly in april of last year.the total shortfall for fy 16,
17, and 18 is now pushing$1.5 billion, and that requires severe action quickly.the good news is in fy 17, two actions -- good news/bad news --can help solve most of the 17 problem.one is putting on the back burner the pay increases forteachers, state, locals, and state employees.i think it's fair to say the governor and the generalassembly, if there's a will, there's a way.we'd like to come back and find a way to fund those salaries,but today, i don't think that's
likely, again, today in october.the second action that gets on this, two-thirds of the closingof fy 17 shortfall is use of rainy day funds, so the governorhas taken the additional step of asking each state agency tobring forward 5% reductions. back to the general assembly.in this first round, it's important that we say firstround, k-12 programs have been held harmless, not department ofeducation, but k-12 programs and the colleges and yoompts.kemper consulting's understanding the colleges anduniverse will take targeted
reduction in 17, not thebaseline 5%. preliminary information.fy 18 generally is less clear. very difficult.we'll be pleased to give you updates as we go along.turn it back over to ms. washington.>> tommy? the expectation.i think everybody knew, but because the forecast was sogreat, i think people were a little bit more optimistic onit, so -- i mean, they're really going to hear this.they're going to hear they have
to find that money because everyschool board across the state is going to be short money in nextyear's budget because the money is not there to cover thatteacher raise, teacher salary, and the localities, we're goingto get asked to make up the difference.so it's really us that's going to end up doing it.>> okay. thank you.>> michelle? issues.we touched on these at the retreat last month.some big ones that our partners
are following, virginiamunicipal league is monitoring the state budget, of course,along with local authority to regulate short-term rentals.that's the airbnb issue and that shows up in the planningdistrict commission as well. or not.so norfolk's game plan, because of the short session, we'refocusing on a short list aligned with our priorities: resiliency,continued work of the joint committee on the coastal stateresiliency and recurrent flooding.that's led by delegate chris
stolle from virginia beach andsenator mamie locke from hampton and we're hoping to move forwardwith their recommendations in 2017.we talked a little about transportation, educationfunding, safety. then healthy neighborhoods.again, that's short-term rentals.so next we wanted to give you an overview, some background on theissue of marijuana decriminalization.i want to be sure we understand the terms we're talking about.decriminalization is generally
making simple possession a smallamount of marijuana an infraction or a civil offensepunishable by a fine and not jail time.legalization means that marijuana is legal to use and topossess. use is not against the law.nationally, 21 states and a number of cities have lessenedpenalties for marijuana possession.some states still consider it a misdemeanor, but it carries nothreat of jail time. decriminalization.the cdc did a study on legal
penalties for marijuana use.more than a third believe a fine should be imposed.in virginia, misdemeanor for session of marijuana, a firstoffense for less than half an ounce, is punishable by amaximum of 30 days if jail and a 5 -- and/or a $500 fine.those are typical dismissed after six to 12 months if youmeet the court's conditions. that's often community service.penalties go upward from there. program?>> yes, and if you're a juvenile and you're adjudicated injuvenile court, judges there
have discretion to make firstoffender findings more than one time.>> andria? fine.is there a minimum? >> i don't know.i can find out or maybe there's someone in the room that cananswer that. sentence will carry a minimum.>> martin? >> and it could be dismissed.the judge has the last (inaudible).so. >> mamie, go ahead.>> michelle, where do we lie as
far as in connection with thedrug court? drug court.i mean, they do phenomenal things with citizens here.how -- what is our relationship with the drug court partnershipin reference to marijuana possession?>> i would need to research that further, but if my memory servesme, misdemeanor possession offenses going to the generaldistrict court. recall.>> tommy? seen it.nobody's provided actual data
and whether or not that numberhas gone up or down and what the final decision is by the judgeon each one of those or each year, so what percentage of themend up with a minimum or dismissed.is is it somebody that's with a really good lawyer like martinthat gets dismissed all the time and then others are not?>> good commercial. court and how that's handled.[ inaudible comments ] >> and we have requested datafrom the state office of the supreme court.we do have some numbers, we're
still working to analyze them toshow what we have and how it applies to norfolk as well asour sister cities in the region. >> all right.>> so possession arrest rates have varied over time.in virginia, the marijuana arrest rate increased 39% in theten years between 2003 and 2013. between 2012 and 2016.so we looked at some of the impact of current marijuanapolicies. those policies.blacks and whites use at roughly equal rates, but nationallyblacks are nearly four times
more likely to be arrested forpossession. massachusetts.there are also impacts that are not measured in dollars.a criminal record can affect your job prospects, loss of adriver's license after conviction can affect youremployment if you already have a job.drug convictions are a bar to federal financial aid underfederal law and they can result in the loss of public assistanceand public housing and time in jail or prison means time awayfrom your family, your children
and your community.so there's lots of research out there, some of it conflicts andthere are differing opinions on the impact of decriminalizationon marijuana use on harmful consequences and arrests.there's research that shows that marijuana use can impairjudgment, coordination and reaction time.there is some research that says marijuana is a gateway drug.there's some research that says that it isn't.there is also an argue to be made that topic and alcohol canbe considered gateway drugs.
>> correct.so there's also the possibility of positive impacts todecriminalization for disadvantaged communities,particularly for the reasons we just mentioned.loss of financial aid affects people in disadvantagedcommunities more than it would in other communities.so a few of the options, many states that have looked at thistopic have taken all kinds of approaches to it.you can shift possession from small amounts of marijuana, froma criminal charge to a civil
violation.you can leave it as a criminal charge, but eliminate jail time.you can remove the criminal penalties and add social serviceoptions for repeat drug offenders.some states have looked at expunging past convictionsfollowing decriminalizations, so if you were convicted ofpossessing marijuana, a misdemeanor in 2010 before thelaw changed, that charge would be scrubbed from your record.in new york state, they treat it like an open container, so ifyou have it in open view, that's
still a crime.so some of the history, decriminalization bills havebeen introduced in virginia before, dating back to 2010, andas recently as the last session. support.and with that, i turn it over to you.>> mr. riddick? presentation and mr. mayor,thank you for the information consider at a later date.as i said when i initially brought up this, i think it'ssomething that council needs to support, nothing i'm trying topush, but i think we need
support from the entire council.>> and there was discussion, mr. riddick, at vml yesterday.councilman smigiel moderated, and -- how many was it?six of us there. >> no, good show of support.>> but it was great discussion on how we compare to otherstates as well as, mr. mayor, making suggestions how we couldpossibly as far as committee and progression of what we wanted todo. on this topic as well.>> after spending tomorrow time this afternoon with mike edwardsfrom kemper and michelle, it's
an uphill battle.i had no idea that it was -- and when i say had no idea, there'sso much community support, i had no idea that the generalassembly, you know, the way it's constructed now, should be atough fight, but i think it's a fight that if we all thinkshould happen, we should embark upon it.>> martin, and then dr. whibley. i do have a question, bernard.what can we as the city of norfolk do with regards todecriminalization and legalization and any of thiskind of stuff here today?
or legalize.we don't have that power. >> dr. whibley and then andria.>> so it struck me from all of the comments that we've heard,both in the newspaper and certainly on email, that there'sa lot of confusion about what decriminalization means.for instance, i'm interested, tommy, with you talking aboutthis gentleman with the post traumatic stress disorder.you know, there's also medical use of marijuana, so that wouldseem to me different from the decriminalization.many people are confused,
decriminalization meanslegalization, that we would become colorado, so i reallythink it's incumbent on us, if we are going to push this and ithink penny has mentioned that we might push for a study to bedone to clarify this, but we try to do some information oreducation to the citizens on what this actually means, thatit doesn't mean that now everybody gets to walk down thestreet smoking weed, so -- anyway, i mean, i don't knowabout you, but i've been struck by the diversity of the commentsand the confusion.
>> do you want to respond to it?>> just that they did say in our session, and kenny, you canverify this, that medicinal may have a better chance of makingit through the general assembly. totally?there are states that have legal medical use, but not -->> no, but you would have to -- it would start the conversation.>> sure. >> andria?>> based on the earlier part of your presentation and makingsure we send this information up, whatever our standardlegislative pargetion i think
you said -- package, i think yousaid december 1st, was that the deadline for that?realistically are we -- okay, the question i have gets tothis. i've gotten 25, 30-plus emails.>> we all got them. addressed.the cost, the economic impact of criminalizing individuals forthe small usage of marijuana. and taxation.bernard made it very clear earlier that if there's anytaxation to realize, the state's going to grab that, so it's notready for prime time, but we
should contract conversation,and as mr. riddick noted, it's an uphill battle as related tothe general assembly structure. information.philadelphia and orlando have passed individually legislationfor decriminalization, but because we're in a dillon rulestate, the state of virginia, i want people to understand wedon't have the authority to do that, is that correct?>> that's correct. asking.>> we would subject our citizens for being in jail fordistribution, for growing, for
session.we don't want to go down that road.we would put our citizens in direct conflict with state law.>> that would be an option, that the attorney general could bringaction and there could be other actions in the court.what the general assembly has done on other occasions iswhere, when a locality is not following the line, is to passfiscal measures. shelf.there's no existing provision to penalize us for the passage ofan ineffective law.
>> can we do the minimum then?you said today in the article about why couldn't our councilat least ask -- we have two delegates that are interested insponsoring legislation, heretick said he would do it again anddawn herber said she would carry legislation.i know general assembly is more favorable toward studies asopposed to action on actual legislation, so would theysupport something like that? the crime commission.the person who chairs the crime commission right now is runningfor attorney general, ralph
bell, and the co-chair is markobenshain, so the likelihood of getting it in this generalassembly session is very difficult because of theatmosphere in richmond. it's an election year.>> but every year is an election year for somebody.>> not for statewide. >> the house of delegates.>> the governor, the lieutenant governor, the attorney general.>> do we have any information on whether any other commonwealthhave done this? they're dillon.there's dillon and there's
commonwealth.i don't know who the other -- there's three other dillons.kentucky is a -- >> i think maybe looking at whoelse as dillon and a commonwealth might help ifthey've gotten anything passed to look at what the legislationlooked like that went to their legislative bodies.>> are there dillon states that are commonwealths?>> mm-hmm. >> andria is willing to admitthat she's for it. anybody else around the table?>> i support it.
>> we all do.>> okay, there's 39 dillon rule states, by the way.it's four commonwealths, 39 dillon rule, and some of themhave passed legislation. >> okay.so maybe looking at what they've done and how they crafted it.to me, there's no reason to reinvent the rule or -- reinventthe rule. rei'd like to.reinvent the wheel here and look at what they've done and howthey worded things and see if we can take from that and works forus and use it.
>> as part of our gathering ofinformation, angelia and our fact finding, that's what we'llcontinue to do and i think, again, i agree with mr. riddick.i think michelle and kemper, i think you did a great jobbringing this information, detailed, and i think we shouldcontinue the conversation. yes, dr. whibley.>> what are we doing actively to garner other support?what are we doing with our neighboring cities?has anybody approached them? >> i think tommy probably did atthe presentation yesterday.
it was -->> did you directly talk to them regionally?>> we did afterwards. >> and they're in favor of it?>> well, one council member can't state on behalf of thewhole council, but i think they're willing to ask for aconversation. >> was this a discussion at hrtat well? >> mr. manager?>> well, dr. whibley, so we started this discussion inaugust. we brought it back up during theretreat, so i understand your
question about the coalition,who else we talked with. tonight is the first time wehave overwhelming direction from the council, this is somethingyou'd like for us to pursue heavily, so what we'll deucetake our resource -- do is take our resources and get as muchinformation as we can to bring it back to you in terms of whoelse out there would be interested.>> seems like a national fit for the city.>> terri, that would have been probably been a part of thediscussion, but it was cancelled
at the vml, so we have a phoneconference that's going to take place in the next couple weeks.so i'll bring it up. >> tommy?>> i just wanted to add, we had a little bit of success at thevml in getting our road maintenance, highway maintenanceissue added to the policy, actually vml policy, so it's inthe policy statement. excuse me, the legislative,which is better because that means it's short-term that wecan attack, and also something that was interesting that wasadded this morning, which is a
neat idea for getting morerevenue, i think it was -- was the danville or dinwiddie?it was a d locality that -- >> the lottery?>> the lottery yes. it was krewe, the town.think it was dinwiddie or somebody that added it on, totax the lottery, to add a 5% tax on to the lottery.virginia lottery officials are opposed to it because they saidthat it would lower the pool of prize money, but thoselocalities that have already looked into it have found thatit would not, and it met
significant amounts of money forlocalities to go towards education.i think maybe it was danville that said they would get$1.2 million back on that, so if you can compare norfolk todanville on how much we could end up getting with that, butit's money that's basically sitting there in the prize pooland it was just an interesting conversation and an idea with ageneral assembly that has failed to find other revenue sources,but knowing that lottery, everybody has always beendisappointed with on you lottery
proceeds have never comedirectly to schools the way it was intended and it filteredthrough that, that this may be an interesting opportunity toraise some additional funds for education.and something that we should probably support if it ends upcoming through. >> all right.thank you, michelle. >> thank you, michelle, greatjob. >> mr. manager, you want to gowith the annual audit plan or -- >> that would be great, mayor,since we have john here.
>> john sanderlin.>> good evening to everyone. afternoon, rather, lateafternoon. we're here to present to you aswe normally do annually the annual plan fort city auditorsoffice of actually scheduling a planned audit and that's theemphasis we'd like to place on that, it's just a plan that'ssubject to change. what i'd like to do first, i'dlike to give you an overview this evening and then we'll goto the agenda that we have pertaining to our audit and alsowe'll go to development of the
plan itself.and then we'll also go to the details of the audit schedule aswell as the timeline. starting out, i'd like toemphasize, starting the overview, that the auditfunction play and key role as part of -- a critical role inthe operation of the government as we work together with citymanagement, administration and building a well-managedgovernment. the audit function is part ofthe team of norfolk in building a well managed government.and folks keep forget tag we are
part of the team, although a lotof folks don't like to see us coming, but one of the reasonswhy we part of the team because it's our role to evaluate,appraise, review, and set, analyze and assess governmentservices programs and operations.and as a result of that, we provide feedback that weconsider important feedback to recommendations and suggestions.as a group of independent professionals, what we do inenhancing the city's trust among the citizens and confidence isimportant because we add value
to, as a team, by the act thatconfidence and trust comes through the audit function.therefore, the audit function has a great importance and i'mtelling you all things that you already know, in making teamnorfolk a discuss and promoting accountability and transparencyat the council vision prior to it implement we wants to giveyou that overview that we are part of the team.also the audit plan as instrument we use and isimpacted importantly by our fraud, waste and abuse hotline,management requests and other
unforeseen needs and priorities.this year's man that we present to you today is a combination ofassessments at the operational level, which we mean in terms ofdivisions and bureau level as well as at a practical levelwhere we're looking at specific initiatives or programs of thecity. we're presenting to you 13audits for which five are rollovers from the prior fiscalyear and four anticipated to roll into our fiscal year 18.each plan is built -- each year we build in the plan a surplusnumber of audits in case we have
our workload is reduced ordecreased as relates to investigations or other demandwork decrease. the plan objective, what we tryto do is establish the framework where the audit to be conducted.also the plan is used to guide activities of the office of theauditor for the year, and outlines the areas of focus thatwe have for audited schedules for the year and allows theflexibility and what we mean by that, that the schedule is justthat, a plan. if something comes up that wehave other priorities, demands,
then we will move in thatdirection. you pay ask a question of how wedevelop the plan and every year we do go through this matrixhere. we develop the plan throughaudit leads. those normally come from fryerodd mitts, cops also from our investigations, complaints, cityfinancial odd dis. then also, internally, the auditstaff as well as the risk assessment we make concludesthat certain areas need to be reviewed.externally, citizens, current
events, trends, otherlocalities, state and federal government, we'll actually seewhat's going at those levels to make a plan.our hotline that we have established, the hotlinecomplaints from citizens as well as employees also attributes toareas of the focus of the plan. key to the plan also, managementconcerns. we try to coordinate with cityadministration as much as possible and city departmentsand city agencies to see if there's concern, areas ofconcern that they feel like we
should look at.then, of course, there's you all, the government body, thecity council can establish priorities that you want us tolook at speck requests and those -- specific requests andthose will be considered really the priority for the plan.what i'd like now to present is the actual audits.as we said, 13 audits that we are considering.we present this to you by quarter.the first quarter, july, august, september, will includeassessments of the
administrative hurdles fornorfolk interagency consortium. i mentioned to you, this wholequarter, a carry-ons from the previous fiscal year.they're at various stages and we'll see that when we presenttoout timeline in the next slide.also, the evaluation of the challenges and effectiveness ofmanagement controls of citywide contract administration.evaluation of the challenges and effectiveness of managementcontrols for the maintenance process.challengeses an effectiveness
for the management of thedetention center, and assessment of the controls for summaryoperations. on -- cemetery operations.on this timeline, you'll see how the projects are spread and theanticipated dates of completion. we have two, the administrativehurdles for norfolk interagency consortium, that audit isbasically completed and we're in prois ses of submit -- theprocess of submitting and sharing the draft.also the contract administration audit, we should be completingsomewhere in the quarter we're
in now, october throughdecember. we're right there preparing ourdraft report. the next three audits will bedone by the end of december to include our draft report.if we move to our second quarter, we come withcontinuation of some of those audit from the previous -- fromthat first quarter which ended in september and we add on twonew engagements, assessment of effectiveness and administrationof the city's homeless and poverty initiative, evaluationand challenges and effectiveness
of management controls of thedepartment don't this slide shows our rollover audits fromthe previous quarter, the first quarter, which i've indicatedearlier, contract administration, citywidemaintenance process, detention center, cemetery operations.on this next slide, the second quarter, these are new auditsthat we're bringing to you this evening, challenges andeffectiveness of the city's homeless and povertyinitiatives, and the challenges of management controls relatedto the department of
development.our third quarter, january, february and march, we proposethree additional audits and two carry-forward audits which willbe the assessment of the homeless and povertyinitiatives, the department of develop the, and we would addthree. effectiveness of theadministration of city's water production and distributionprocesses. also the city's procurement,material management process, and the city's energy and greeninitiatives.
so that's our third quarter.we spread it out in the timeline and you'll see for the thirdquarter, we have two rollover audits from the section quarterand that would be -- second quarter and that won't auditrelated to the city homeless and poverty initiatives, and thedepartment of development. then the new audits would bethree new audits and we see starting in january time frame,challenges related to water production and waterdistribution processes, and also our procurement process and partof this quarter, we'll start
with the audit of theeffectiveness of the administration of energy andgreen initiatives. our last quarter, we carry overfour audits from our third quarter and we'll bring fouradditional new audits on. those four additional auditswould be assessment of the administration of the city'sstreets and bridges maintenance program.also we'll be look at the grounds and urban forestrymaintenance service, and we'll look at the challenges, hurdlesand opportunities for the city's
assessment process.and we have the timeline presented for you showing forthe fourth quarter, starting to carry over the rollover auditsfrom the third quarter, the three there, and then also wehave our new audits, which is the four audits there, themaintenance, the streets and bridges maintenance program, ourcdbg program and our urban forestry and maintenanceservices as well as assessment process.so that's our plan we present to you.in addition, we have a normal
workload in the areas of wherewe do our investigations related to fraud, waste and abuse, andalso we administer the contract with kpmg and we're alsoresponsible for tracking missing and lost and stolen propertyfrom city departments and one initiative we bring back is thecity's disbursement and credit card transactions and also we dothe ethics training and any management council requests thatcome from you as a governing body and other agency requests.last fiscal year, we did have a request to come to norfolkpublic schools which we obliged
and you were informed of that,that we had that request, so we're not sure if any other cityagencies will ask us to do anything, so we leave it thereas an option. so there we have it.do we have any questions? >> you touched at the very end,you mentioned norfolk public schools.they do not have their own audit staff?>> no, they have not had an internal audit staff since 1999.>> so we do financial audits, but is there not an internalaudit?
>> no, we don't have an internalaudit function. the body asked me to liaisonwith them to try to get a status, that was not successful,so what i have done up until probably two superintendentsback, i fleet with the superintendents annually to tryto encourage them to establish an audit function.>> recognizing that's one of our largest expenditures, it seemsto me there would be an opportunity to work with theschool board to identify areas for audit.you mentioned the school board
has requested help?>> yes, they have -- >> what was that, what area?>> that was actually -- it was actually what i said more of animmature area of operations with the vending machines, so they'veasked us to come in and do the vending machines.>> i think of some larger areas that might need an audit, like(inaudible). but we would want to work withour partners at the school board, of course.>> mr. smigiel and then mrs. johnson.>> john, thank you.
it's always good when you'reauditor is not in the newspaper either attacking another auditoror saying something about them or incompetent auditor s weappreciate all the work you do. i'm going to ask you the samequestion i ask you every time you come for this.now, keep in mind we have a different mayor now, okay?different council. do you have the staff and thetechnology that is needed to be the most efficient auditingoffice in hampton roads? i'll just pick hampton roads.and you have a new council, so
this is your once a yearopportunity to let us know if we need to help you with thebudget, so you got to let us know now.>> well, one of the weak areas for us, really, of ourinvestigation, that we have not -- the hotline wasimplemented through the council action.a few of you all were here and went through it.>> you're welcome. >> when we staffed the hotline,we did not hire. what i tried to do, was make theauditors also investigators, so
that's really a critical areathat's taken us away from some of the audit focuses that weneed to do because what's happening is -- and i have twoof my main deputies here and they can tell you, what we dowhen complaints come in, some of those complaints are not what weconsider to be the most important things that come in,but we try to respond to those complaints and they have to stopwhat they're doing to jump on these complaints.sometimes we're chasing our tails with some of thosecomplaints, and we really need
investigators to bill up that --build up that side of the house, so i will say to the council,that's one thing we definitely need to consider.>> what would you say, like a starting salary for aninvestigator would be? >> and they have benefits aswell. >> we got all these college kidsthat don't have jobs. they're coming out -->> well, i would be honest with you.what we would be looking for in that -- in the area ofinvestigations is somebody with
law enforcement background.>> okay, and retired police officers who -->> someone of that nature. >> who get their retirement andthey can get a small salary, part-time.>> i think they could. >> so we have mr. riddick andms. johnson or -- >> i would want to say,mr. mayor -- >> go ahead, go ahead.>> thank you as a body for supporting and working with uson i.t. and the new software that we acquired to move us fromthe paper to automation.
so we will be pulling runningthat system in january. so we appreciate your help onthat. so we do have that now in ourwar chest, if you want to call it that, to brag about and toalso use to move from -- to a more automated electronicenvironment. >> okay.mr. riddick or ms. johnson, who wants to go first?>> i am glad to hear that because that was something thatwe discussed as a body, in particular the carryovers.i was very interested in how
long it's taking us to carryover the assessments each quarter.>> it's taken us, in my view, because i'm the head of theoffice, i'm not comfortable with how long it's taking us.>> absolutely and you shouldn't be.>> so i'm saying that i'm not considering it as -- there'sjustification because of all the other things we do, but i feellike, as my staff probably says, i push and push and push, but wehave a lot of things that come up that keep us from doing whatwe need to do in a more timely
passion to help and in someit -- timely fashion to help and in some cases departments say wehaven't seen you on a year and that's because of a fact we'removing in so many directions on some of these.some things which i consider frivolous, but we must do foraccountability. >> the other question -- well,this is a question. i would really like to know, youmentioned the outreach to norfolk public schools as far asus having the resource that could possibly help them.i really want to know why didn't
it work with norfolk publicschools? >> it's a long story.>> it was a few superintendents ago.>> yeah, that was two superintendents ago and i talkedto dr. boon about -- one of the things that i as the cityauditor was encouraged -- want to encourage them to getinternal auditors because they're such a large schoolsystem and there are very many needs there for them to have anaudit function. back in the day, one of theoptions that was put on the
table, for our office toactually do the audit function and they hire the staff and imanage the staff, or we actually do the work.or another option that they proposed, a counter proposalback at that time was that they would -- based on what they as aboard saw was needed, we contract out and i administerthe contract for individual projects.so there are some considerations that we put on the table andthen it was kind of like, you know, went to the point, can yoube our part-time auditor.
of course, i couldn't work likethat, so it fell along the way side, but i did in themeeting -- because i normally meet with the superintendent forthe district annually to just make sure that their serviceshave been provided by auditors up to what they consider asacceptable, so normally in that meeting setting is when i bringup about internal audit functions.>> and when will that happen? >> with dr. boone, i have aproject that i've done, i need to meet with her on, that iprobably have that discussion
with her when i meet.>> they do have audit staff. >> mr. riddick?>> yes, my question was similar to councilman smigiel's inregards to staff, and the direction that i was going inwas because of the complaints that you, you know, thatemployees are going to come to you, and i just want to makesure that you do have the staff for that because our employeesreally need a sounding board, you know, for that type ofthing. >> and they utilize my officeas --
>> yes, so what i guess whatcouncilman smigiel is saying and i'm saying too, as you prepareyour budget, or even before you -- if you have to come to usnow and say you need staff, we're prepared to give you staffnow because what they're doing is very important.just like every time i turn around, mr. fish goes hiring anattorney, so did. >> it's interesting that you -->> that's a joke. >> you know, at our retreat whenwe were discussing what to do with some of the extra money andwe talked about risk management,
handling that, his office couldbecome key in helping us reduce potential risk and lawsuits,which is why those investigators can get involved, particularlywith employee complaints and then lawsuits from employees onissues, it would be helpful in getting that.so i -- i know that we kind of already dedicated some of thatmoney, we're already said where it was going to go, but we playwant to revisit using that for investigation purposes and alsofor efficiency reasons, investigations on efficiencywhere accidents could happen and
things like that, so -- i don'tthink it would be that much to hire part-time retired -- evenif we started with just part-time retired officers orsomething like that. norfolk public schools hired aretired police officer to do their investigations and, youknow, maybe we could help with that sooner than later.>> dr. whibley? >> i do want to make a comment.lori and the manager and i have been in discussions in the lastseveral weeks on trying to establish a compliance program,so we have sent a person from
our staff to a meeting, aconference, actually, to get information on how to developthat, which we went to some of the areas, councilman smigiel,that you mentioned, risk assessment and areas, so i'mexcited about that and to share that information with themanager to see how we can move forward in that initiative.>> dr. whibley? >> bernard, what percentage ofour claims have been from employees complaints?>> you mean lawsuits? >> yeah, i'm interested bytommy's comment because i wasn't
aware of any of them that havebeen generated by employees. >> i think that the majority ofadverse complaints are in the personnel vein, allegations ofillegal discrimination. >> what percentage of the claimswe've seen have been due to employee complaints?>> it would be a small percent. i'm comfortable it would be wellunder 10%. well under 10%.>> i mean, i think when we're justifying whether or not that'sgoing to -- i'm not saying i'm against having more employees,but whether or not we can
justify the money toward -- todefray our risk management claims.i'm not sure we can do that when i think we have substantialworries in other areas. i'm very concerned about ourrisk management. >> but the investigator wouldn'tjust look into -- i'm not talking about an employeecomplaining of a bully department head.i'm talking about also efficiency.for example, we got an email about that the back of thetrucks or whatever, you know,
people can't stand on themanymore, whatever is going on with that.>> the trash truck. >> the trash truck.there's -- you know, i'm seeing things like that on facebook.so as that stuff comes up yoo, -- comes up, your auditingoffice does look at efficiency. >> and when those complaintscome to our hotline, we do pursue those.that's one of the things that i was mentioning that we wouldtake audit staff to address those, and what we are doing forthe last two years, we're
basically issuing managementletters to the department heads basically when things like thatcome up, say hey, this is what we found, you know, you need totrack -- even not a full-blown audit, so they're more what wecall management concerns and we address them from thatstandpoint. >> did we ever have anybenchmarks or evaluations of what actually has occurred as aresult of an audit? i'm not saying that you're notdoing god's work. i don't mean that, but i alsothink it's important that we
look to see if our efforts havebenefited us and to try to chronicle that.is that possible or have we ever done that?>> well, normally when we complete -- i would say on thisside, when we complete a full audit, we normally send surveysback out, but not at the level what you're looking for, dr.whibley, in the sense of -- we should be doing it in terms ofsavings and a lot of times we can't quantify the savings likewe really want to because you really want to say as a resultof an audit, this is how much
you save.>> but for instance, mr. smigiel talking about safety concernsand then you come out and give the manager a report, but i'd beinteresting if that actually changes what occurs.everybody is calling me dr. whibley like -->> call me terri. >> what we do as part of theaudit process is through the recommendations, so when we givea recommendation to management, they respond and they supposedto respond and say this is the action we're going to take, thisis when we're going to do it.
then there's a follow-up processthat we as auditors do on the material things to go back outto see have you may the changes that you indicated you wouldmake. years ago, what we used to dofor this side, my predecessor and i for the first coupleyears, we used to give you all the reports, these are all theaudits we did, here's the 500 recommendations and that is whatmanagement has done. you decided really to go awayfrom that because a lot of recommendations are notsignificant for you to know b so
what we basically do is thethings that are of significance, we do the follow-up or we waituntil we do another audit to basically do the follow-up atthat time. >> mrs. graves.>> i support having investigators for the hotlineissues simply because of the reason you stated and that istaking away from the auditors who are actually doing workbecause it's very difficult to get work done when you'reconstantly interrupted, and i think when you guys do thosemanager letters, do you also
send a copy of those to themanager's office as well, and what is the follow-up procedure?and do you have staff for that? >> i have -- i don't have enoughstaff for most of these things, but we do what we need to do.me and the manager meet twice a month and i go over theinvestigations and some of the stuff he may say, john you haveto go through this or some of it's not that important.we go through it and that's how we basically do that.if it's a significant matter that we consider may haveconsequence citywide, then yes,
the manager would be -- it wouldprobably be addressed and in the past, we have addressed itthrough the city manager. some of the things that we writein the management letters, we basically warning them if youwant to look it that way, hey, here's this one problem, wedon't see it as pervasive, but you may want to think aboutcontrols in this area. so it's not anything that'sreally what i would consider as widespread where we basicallywould need to have the attention of really in the case of thedeputy city manager or the
manager.what we try to do, most of the deputy managers, deputy citymanagers, they like to know what's going on, so what i tryto do is just, as possible, pete with them and say this iswhat's -- meet with them and say this is what's going on in yourarea. >> john, we're going to give yousome help. now it's your turn.how do we do this? >> mayor, members of council,john is exactly right in terms of the relationship -- i thinkyou will recall that i guess my
first paid job was working forthe general assembly, the joint -- the jlarc, so i agreewith john once on understanding the value -- 100% onunderstanding the value of having an audit function.when john comes in, it's notlet's all shut down and try to find a way not to -- it's agreat relationship and also as john said, when we meet twice amonth, the whole objective of that is to make sure that therecommendations are being implemented and i would agreewith john in terms of the
hotline.hotline is a great resource to employees and i believe yearsago when john started the hotline, he did it withoutadditional resources and over time you've gotten maybe bitsand pieces, but we never -- >> we've never had anythingadded just for it. >> he got the additionalworkload without additional resources, and, you know, ithink what the council has been saying tonight is for john to be100% successful, to make sure that he gets resources in linewith his work and we can work
with john on that.>> okay. mr. manager, i think that we'reabout to move into closed session.>> so we have one more item, mayor, and i wanted to makesure. it's time sensitive, so if wecan get that -- >> manager, you have the floor.>> we have one more item tonight and i want to make sure that wedon't run out of time for the closed session, so we'd like tobring that to your attention. >> yes, sir.>> just one.
>> move the members of councilassemble in closed meeting on october 11th, 2016, for thepurposes of discussion of disposition of publicly ownedreal property in the tidewater drive area of the city.ms. graves. >> aye.>> ms. johnson. >> aye.>> ms. mcclellan. >> aye.>> mr. riddick. >> aye.>> mr. smigiel. >> aye.>> mr. thomas.
>> aye.>> dr. whibley. >> aye.>> mr. alexander. >> aye.