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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOUNCIL STUDY - 2014-02-03 CITY OF LIVONIA— CITY COUNCIL MINUTES OF STUDY MEETING HELD FEBRUARY 3, 2014 Meeting was called to order at 8:00 p.m. by President Brosnan. Present: Susan Nash, Brandon Kritzman, John Pastor, Brian Meakin, Laura Toy, Lynda Scheel, and Maureen Miller Brosnan. Absent: None. Elected and appointed officials present: David Lear, Assistant City Engineer; Mark Taormina, Director of Planning and Economic Development; Don Knapp, City Attorney; Terry Marecki, City Clerk and Jack E. Kirksey, Mayor. Meakin said his neighbor is concerned about the Livonia Community Transit Program. Meakin asked for a report and recommendation from Administration re. the Livonia Community Transit Program policy regarding providing rides during inclement weather. He said that the Livonia Community Transit was also closed between 12:15 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. recently. Toy wished a Happy Birthday to Pastor, February 3rd, City Attorney Knapp, February 4th and Kritzman, February 5th Kritzman wished a belated Happy Birthday to Jackie Higham in the Council Office. Mayor Kirksey gave an update on snow removal in the City. AUDIENCE COMMUNICATION: None. NEW BUSINESS 1. REQUEST FOR AUTHORIZATION TO PURCHASE AN UPGRADE OF BS&A LICENSING SOFTWARE: Office of the City Clerk, re: in order to upgrade the animal and business licensing software to make it compatible with other City departments using BS&A, and provide two days of training from a sole provider using budgeted funds. Terry Marecki, City Clerk, presented the request to Council. This proposal will allow the City to complete this transition with BS&A Software to their new platform. The proposal includes the cost of the new software, the conversion of the existing data, installation of software, and 2 days of training. The completion of this project will allow the City Information Systems Department to retire the old "Property" server. It is the recommendation of the City Clerk Department that Council approve the purchase of the BS&A Animal and Business Licensing Software packages with the conversion, implementation and training services in the amount of $33,085.00 from BS&A Software, 14965 Abbey Lane, Bath, Michigan 48808. 2 Toy offered the approving resolution for the Consent Agenda. DIRECTION: APPROVING CONSENT 2. REQUEST FOR AUTHORIZATION TO PURCHASE A DELL DL4000 APPASSURE APPLIANCE USING A STATE OF MICHIGAN APPROVED CONTRACT UNDER THE MIDWESTERN HIGHER EDUCATION COMPACT: Department of Management Information Systems, re: to increase data back-up and data recovery capabilities for the City's data management system from budgeted funds. Dan Putman, Director of Information Systems, presented the request to Council. He said over the past 15 years, the amount of electronic data that the City uses to operate has grown significantly to the point that they now have over 10 Terabytes (TB) of data stored on 27 servers. Protecting that data, backing it up, and being able to keep it up and accessible has become more and more difficult. They currently do a full backup of this data on a weekly basis utilizing two (2) small servers, two (2) tape libraries and our backup software. The full backups take over 24 hours to complete and utilize six (6) tapes each week. On the other nights of the week, they have to do incremental backups that only capture the changes to the data. On a weekly basis, they have one full copy of the tapes picked up and taken to an off-site location in case of a disaster in order to preserve the data. In the case of recovering data, it will usually take at least 30- 60 minutes to recover a file from the tape backups and it could take anywhere from 4 to 12 hours to recover a failed server. With this appliance, they are able to quickly mount the server back up on this appliance to operate while they do the recovery to the actual hardware. This will allow them to get a critical server back up in less than 15 minutes and they should be able to do a full restore back to the original location in less than 4 hours after the problem is resolved. They can recover files and/or folders in minutes with this device. This quote also provides a secondary server where they will synchronize the backups for offsite storage and if needed they can also place an encrypted copy in the cloud. The Information Systems Department did request capital funding in 2014 to purchase a disk backup solution to protect the City's data. The Information Systems Department is recommending the AppAssure appliance from Dell to address these concerns. The AppAssure appliance provides a solution that is easy to work with, is an enterprise level device designed to be very reliable. This purchase is being done through a State of Michigan approved contract under the MIDWESTERN HIGHER EDUCATION COMPACT. The vendor that is authorized for this sale is NeTech, located in Wixom, Michigan. Dell and NeTech are offering the City this solution, with an additional $5,000 discount, with 3 years of Dell Pro Support if they purchase this by February 28, 2014. A copy of the offer letter and quotation has been provided to Council. It is the recommendation of the Information Systems Department that Council approve the purchase of the Dell AppAssure appliance in the amount of $69,998.00 from NeTech, 48325 Alpha Drive, Suite 150, Wixom, Michigan 48393. 3 Meakin offered the approving resolution for the Consent Agenda. DIRECTION: APPROVING CONSENT 3. REQUEST FOR INFORMAL APPROVAL OF PROPOSED PROGRAM AND TENTATIVE BUDGET FOR THE 2014-2015 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT (CDBG) PROGRAM: Livonia Housing Commission, re. so that a second public hearing can be held on this matter, after which time a final program and budget will be forwarded to Council for formal adoption. Jim Inglis, Executive Director, Housing Commission, presented the request to Council. Inglis said he has provided Council copies of a report containing an explanation of the CDBG program and the recommended budget, prepared by the CDBG Committee, for the use of CDBG funds for the 2014 program year (July 1, 2014-June 30, 2015). The CDBG Committee consists of the Housing Director, Director of Community Resources, Assistant City Engineer, Director of Inspection and Assistant Chief Accountant. The recommendations developed by the CDBG Committee are based on requests for funding received from various City departments and local non-profit organizations. The CDBG entitlement grant for the 2014-2015 program year has yet to be determined and appropriated by Congress. Once Congress adopts the HUD budget the City will be notified by HUD as to the final funding allocation. The 2013-2014 CDBG funding was in the amount of$324,936 and the Housing Commission anticipates that funding for the upcoming program year will be approximately the same. In addition to the annual entitlement, $50,000.00 of unprogrammed funds is reflected in the proposed budget. Two long-standing CDBG activities, the Home Improvement Loan Program and Scattered Site Rental Housing Program, generate program income through the repayment of deferred loans and rental income. The importance of the program income is that fifteen percent (15%) of all program income generated in the previous program year plus fifteen percent (15%) of the entitlement grant allocation may be allocated to public service programs identified in section IV of the proposed budget. The recommended CDBG program and budget has been submitted to, and approved by Mayor Jack Kirksey. Subsequent to receiving Mayor Kirksey's approval, the Housing Commission will conduct a public hearing on February 5, 2014 and report any comments to the Council. The purpose of this hearing is to obtain the views and suggestions of citizens regarding the proposed budget, the housing market and the housing and nonhousing community development needs in the community. At this time, they are requesting Council's informal approval of the proposed program and tentative budget so that they can hold a second public hearing on the matter as required by federal regulations. Based on the results of that hearing, a final program and budget will be prepared for formal adoption by the City Council. 4 President Brosnan asked Inglis about the $50,000 of unprogrammed funds, she asked if it went directly back into the Home Rehabilitation Program. Inglis said yes, that was correct. President Brosnan asked Inglis if he has given any consideration to the emergency assistance program. She said they've held steady at $5,000 in that program and continue to hear from people and groups in the community that often times the area that people are often hardest hit is when they are trying to meet their utility bills. She said that is directly where that funding comes from. She said she understands they have a $250 per person assistance available. Livonia is currently involved with a group called Livonia CARES. She said that is one of the primary areas that they are dealing with. She said that she is just wondering, especially given the harsh weather conditions, she would anticipate that those utility bills would grow higher as they get into next year. She wondered if there was room to perhaps allocate more funds for that purpose, perhaps from another area if necessary. Inglis replied stating that federal law limits the amount to 15%, however, they have the ability to divide the funds how they see fit for the different programs that it supports. President Brosnan said perhaps it is something he can consider when preparing their next budget. Pastor asked Inglis if all the funds for the emergency assistance program are utilized each budget year. Inglis replied yes. Toy asked Inglis if all the funds for all the programs supported by the fifteen percent (15%) of the entitlement grant allocation funding for public service programs were utilized each budget year. Inglis replied yes. Pastor offered the approving resolution for the Consent Agenda. DIRECTION: APPROVING CONSENT AUDIENCE COMMUNICATION: None. President Brosnan said the Detroit Water and Sewer Board will hold a Public Hearing on February 26, 2014 at 11:00 a.m. in the Randolph Building in Detroit, re. water rates. As there were no further questions or comments, President Brosnan adjourned the Study Session at 8:22 p.m. on Monday, February 3, 2014. DATED: February 14, 2014 TERRY A. MARECKI CITY CLERK