DAUPHIN COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
WORKSHOP MEETING
SEPTEMBER 20, 2006 10:00 A.M.

MEMBERS PRESENT

Jeff Haste, Chairman
Dominic D. DiFrancesco, II, Vice Chairman
George P. Hartwick, III, Secretary

STAFF PRESENT

Chad Saylor, Chief Clerk; Marie E. Rebuck, Controller; Robert F. Dick, Treasurer; William Tully, Esq., Solicitor; Bruce Foreman, Esq., Solicitor's Office; Randy Baratucci, Director of Purchasing; Tom Guenther, Director of IT; Edgar Cohen, Director of Facilities Maintenance; Faye Fisher, Director of Personnel; Carolyn Thompson, Court Administrator; Kay Sinner, Personnel; Dave Schreiber, Personnel; Diane McNaughton, Commissioners' Office; Leila McAdoo, Solicitor's Office; Bob Hawley, Deputy Court Administrator; Eileen Carson, Area Agency on Aging; Julia E. Nace, Assistant Chief Clerk; Lena Martinez, Commissioners' Office; Jena Wolgemuth, Commissioners' Office and Richie-Ann Martz, Commissioners' Office

GUESTS PRESENT

Garry Lenton

MINUTES

CALL TO ORDER

Mr. Haste, Chairman of the Board, called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m.

MOMENT OF SILENCE

Everyone observed a moment of silence.

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

Everyone stood for the Pledge of Allegiance.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Mr. Haste: We have three sets of Meeting Minutes that will be considered for approval at next week's meeting.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

Mr. Haste: We are at the point in time in the meeting for public participation. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to address the Board? (There was none.)

PERSONNEL

Ms. Sinner: I do have a few items. The Prison is requesting to create a part-time Teacher. It is an interim fill position.

Mr. Haste: You are going to track that?

Ms. Sinner: Yes.

Schaffner is requesting to create three part-time Youth Program Specialists I. Right now they are using a lot of overtime. This would reduce overtime. Court Administration is reclassifying a position. MDJ Zozos has a vacant Legal Clerk 2 position, which they would like to reclassify as a Legal Clerk 1. When it is determined that one of their 1's would be ready to be promoted to a 2 they would reclassify a 1 and create another 2 position, because the complement actually calls for a second 2 position. In Solomon's Office they have a vacant Legal Clerk 1 position and they want to eliminate that and create two part-time Legal Clerk 1 positions. The total number of positions will stay at 85.5. Are there any questions?

Mr. Haste & Mr. Hartwick: No.

Ms. Sinner: I have some changes to make to this. I'm going to pull Items #10 and #11 under New Hires. In Personnel Changes Item #14, the effective date is changing from September 25th to October 9th. There are only two items that I am requesting a vote on today. That would be New Hire #9 and Change #13.

It was moved by Mr. Hartwick and seconded by Mr. Haste that the Board approve the following Personnel Actions: New Hire #9 and Personnel Changes #13; motion carried.

PURCHASE ORDERS

Mr. Baratucci: You should have received your packet yesterday. As usual there are some budget issues, which will be resolved. Otherwise, the packet is there for your review. If you have any questions now I will try to answer them, otherwise it will be there for your approval next week.

Mr. Hartwick: Did we get some kind of deal on chairs for the MDJ Offices or is this just replacement of chairs or what is the reason for all of this?

Mr. Baratucci: My understanding is that it is replacement of ones that have been heavily used and abused over the years. It is just time for replacement. My understanding also is that as they come towards the end of the budget year, they check and see what monies they have available and then they replace the oldest or worst ones and this is their step on that and some files are also in there. All of that is reviewed by Bob and Carolyn. They make the determination based on the money that is available in their budget.

Mr. Hartwick: I have no other questions.

Bid Award for the Dauphin County Prison Renovations

Mr. Baratucci: You should have received an email from me. Actually we opened two bids last week. The one here for the renovations at the Prison, we have an email from Norm Benfer of Crabtree Associates, where he is recommending that we accept the low bids. We do have the Solicitor's Office reviewing it. I don't know if you want to take any action today. If you would take any action today it would be intent to award, pending review by the Solicitor's Office or we could just hold it and you could take the action next week. Norm explained all of this in his email about the costs. Do you have any questions?

Mr. Haste: It can wait until next week.

Mr. Baratucci: We will put it on the agenda next week for approval. By then I'm sure the Solicitor's Office will finish their review as well.

Mr. Haste: It came in a little bit higher than what he anticipated, but between what we have in the Prison, we have it covered.

Mr. Baratucci: Warden DeRose was going to get with Mr. Yohe on that to make sure that it was covered. I assume they have. I haven't heard anything different.

TRAINING PACKET

Mr. Haste: Chad, I assume we have to take action on Item #2 of the Training Packet.

Mr. Saylor: Yes, the conference is today.

It was moved by Mr. Hartwick and seconded by Mr. DiFrancesco that the Board approve Item #2 on the Training Packet, which is for George Huntington, Sr. of the Controller's Office to attend a SCDU Conference on September 20, 2006 in Harrisburg, PA at a cost of $5.34; motion carried.

ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Authorization of letter of support to Pennsylvania Department of Aging on behalf of grant application of Rutherford House Senior Center. (**A VOTE IS REQUESTED 9/20/06)

Mr. Haste: We have Item A. I know I had a discussion with Mr. Burns. Did he talk to you?

Mr. DiFrancesco: I got messages. Yes.

Mr. Hartwick: I understand that this is going to be the first in several other senior centers who are going to also try to apply for some additional funding that has been made available through the State Department of Aging. This is one of the first that we will see out of maybe a couple more.

Mr. Haste: The Heinz Center would be a good one.

Mr. Hartwick: We are already helping them prepare their application.

Mr. Haste: Good.

Is there a motion to approve Item A?

It was moved by Mr. Hartwick and seconded by Mr. DiFrancesco that the Board approve Item A, authorizing the submission of a letter of support to the Pennsylvania Department of Aging for a grant application on behalf of the Rutherford House Senior Center.

Discussion:

Mr. DiFrancesco: As I understand this grant application, we would be committed to 20 years of having a senior center, technically in that location, though speculation is that we would not be held as long as we have a senior center. The speculation is that there is no hard anything/agreement to show that the State would necessarily not require us to pay the money back. I have a real concern with this because as far as I'm concerned, I guess I'm looking at it as a long term agreement, a 20 year agreement and while some of the issues that they want to address like the roof and things of that nature, structural changes, are certainly immediate and important. There are other considerations built into this and I'm not sure of the exact breakdown in terms of how much costs go to what items, but things like curtains on a stage and things that I'm looking at in saying no that should not be part of it. It is almost like buying a new stereo system as part of your 20 year mortgage for your house. I understand that the roof and things of that nature would make sense, but there are things in this grant application that I do not agree with in terms of the long term commitment that we would have to make to have a senior center in this location. I certainly want to support and I understand that this is a County asset that we want to keep putting money into, but again I don't know necessarily that the County is driving a plan on a building that they own in terms of looking at the future needs for this building saying okay as part of a capital plan we need to address this, this and this. Here is our two year plan or five year plan for that building. It is more of the senior center making decisions basically while these are things that need to get done and we are making a list of priorities and submitting for the application. To a degree, my concern is that I think the project is still backward and that is not a criticism of the senior center. They are being aggressive in trying to make the center better every day, but I think it is backward because I think we should be driving the investments in that building and how we improve it. The other concern I have is, it is basically a long term agreement and I'm not so sure that I am satisfied with agreeing to a 20 year commitment to replace some of the items that are in this agreement. At this point, based on what I do know and what I've seen, I'm not supportive of this grant, but in a more broad sense I'm not necessarily supportive. This Board has talked about this before. The Rutherford House, generally speaking, is not an asset of the County that we are very proactive in planning for. It sort of sits out there and whatever the senior center does to it is kind of what happens out there. It is a building that the County owns that we should be planning for like all our other buildings. I'm just not in favor of this grant request at this point, because I don't know that enough thought has been put into it on the part of us and again that whole 20 year commitment. I just don't agree with that.

Mr. Hartwick: I have some information. The stage drapes, the things that appear you have an issue with, all the other ones central air conditioning, refinish floor, refinish floor in main building hallway, painting of auditorium, hallway, copy room, office, replace roof over computer room, replace rubber roof over office, sealing and waterproofing of fire escape. All of these appear to be capital improvements that I would be willing to take on.

Mr. Haste: The defibrillator.

Mr. Hartwick: The defibrillator, stage drapes and the replacement of the refrigerator seem to be the only issues.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Even the floors. If it is not necessary to do the floors right now I would take issue to those. The roof is not a question. Obviously if they are having water damage that is an immediate need. That has to be a priority and it would be made a priority.

Mr. Hartwick: There is also a precedent that has been set that if you move a senior center from one location to another location, as long as you keep that senior center under the same charter the money would still continue to be a part of whatever that senior center would be now that it is assembled at a different location. If in fact and I would say that I am one that would not be for in any way disbanding the Rutherford House Senior Center. I want to be very clear with the 160 members that I spoke to last week, they are getting ten members a week and they are the second largest senior center in Dauphin County. I would not be for disbanding them in any way. I hope that is not what you were suggesting.

Mr. DiFrancesco: No, not at all.

Mr. Hartwick: If in fact we were to move this particular group of folks to another location there is precedence to say that we don't necessarily have to pay that money back to the State, that money will be able then to follow that senior center as evidenced to what happened just recently at the Friendship Center. They were in one location and we moved them into another location and the State has not come back after us for any repayment of those dollars. If we move these folks from that location to another physical location, I feel pretty confident that we are not going to be charged back for the money that we are going to be putting into capital improvements for the building. I want to hopefully encourage senior centers when State funding is in fact available for them to go out and try to go after that funding to offset any costs that we may have through our CDBG Program, through our General Fund, even through our Aging allocation to be able to use those monies to be able to provide enhancements and pretty much with the exception of two or three that we mentioned, most of these are physical in nature and are going to go towards improving the overall value of the building. If in fact, the Commissioners after us or this Board decides to either have a better use for that building, which may leave options open, they still are going to have some real improvements as we go forward to all of the other senior center requests. Are we going to be looking for them to be required of putting structural things in the building or are we going to offer them the additional flexibility to be able to do things programmatically or other things inside and are we going to hamper Rutherford House's ability to do the same thing? We need to be fair in the way that we are going to be assessing these applications and being supportive of them as they come forward for our approval to move forward to the State as well. I just want to raise those concerns. I know they have over 350 active seniors at the Rutherford House. There were 160 that they had to limit to this exchange, which I'm going to be doing later on. They limited their participation to 160. There were over 250 people that actually wanted to participate. From numbers that I have seen in senior centers, that was probably one of the larger numbers that I have seen in any other location for a particular event. I would be supportive of this application based upon the merits and based upon the investment in structural improvements to the building, because that is one of the things that I also in my conversations with Bob said I don't want to see this basically about programs when this is a County building lets try to think about ways that we can improve the structure and viability of the building. I think we have accomplished that with the exception of about two or three items. Getting an external defibrillator is a good thing to have in a senior center no matter how you would size that up saving lives for $2,000 is something that I would take on as a cost and expense at any time.

Mr. Haste: I actually was on the exact same spot as Nick yesterday then I had two conversations with Bob Burns since. A couple things, in the lease they are required to do this maintenance work. When you talk about us being more proactive, actually in the lease it is their responsibility. At times, the management out there has frustrated me. We have tried to help them on some areas and they haven't been overly cooperative with us being proactive. We even had an Eagle Scout project back in the Spring, we tried to get in there to help do some painting and because it didn't meet their Executive Director's hours the Eagle Scout project had to move elsewhere.

Mr. DiFrancesco: It was very difficult.

Mr. Haste: They have been somewhat frustrating us trying to be proactive, although in the lease it is their responsibility. At least I commend them on one side they have gone out to find dollars to make repairs that they should have been making all along. On the 20 year issue, I had the same concern Nick does that I do not want to commit this or any other Board to having a senior center in this facility for 20 years. Now, should we have a senior center for these individuals, I think we should. I spoke to Bob and he mentioned the whole Friendship Center and he felt that same thing would apply here as long as we provided a senior center for these folks we would be okay. Precedent had been set with the Friendship Center, he thought that we could make a strong argument that this would follow the same suit. With that I'm willing today to support this, whereas yesterday before I spoke to Bob I would not have. I'm supporting it with reservations in just the fact that I want to make it very clear that does not mean I'm committing this Board or any other Board to having the center in this location for 20 years. There may come a point in time where there is a better use for that facility. I do think these folks deserve to have a center. With that being said, the other thing I spoke to Bob about and I think he needs to take an active look at is all the senior centers, not only for these kinds of improvements, but whether some are cost effective. When you have some centers with daily attendance of two or three and you have others with daily attendance of 35 and we are putting very little into the one with 35, part of this I think helps when it is driven by community organizations who partner with the senior center. I think there needs to be a whole look at all the senior centers to see if we could be maximizing our dollars better.

Mr. Hartwick: I don't disagree with that, but it is also frustrating when you have communities that move forward. For example, Susquehanna Township is looking at three different senior centers within the community. We can't tell the local folks what to do. We want to encourage them to try to consolidate. Our message should be we want to fund one center that is a viable center within the Township that helps to promote active living and all the things that are associated with the good works of the senior center. We got three different groups lobbying the County to try to provide program funding in one municipality, which we need to do a good job. Again, we can't tell them not to have a senior center, but we can be very clear in trying to let folks know in the municipalities that we are not going to fund more than one senior center in each one of the municipalities and try to make it even where you join municipalities in making it effective, particularly when the locations present themselves to be close and you have transportation as an option for the senior centers to try

Mr. Haste: Like Steelton-Highspire.

Mr. Hartwick: Perfect example. I won't disagree with taking an overall look, but I also know that I want the senior centers to be going out there and seeking additional funding. It is similar to what we do in the playground. As the Mayor, I know we used to try to go out after money DCNR and DEP to try to get money to renovate the playgrounds. With that comes a commitment for the time that you have to maintain that as a playground. That I think is a good thing. Because you want to keep your recreation and open space, just like the Rutherford House is a valuable senior center. I have seen a lot in the past, the Director was very challenging and extremely frustrating to me, in your face, bold and I didn't care for her. As a matter of fact, I had a negative feel towards the Rutherford House until I started going out there and meeting the members to see how active the Center was. The new Director, I would like people to live in Dauphin County if they work for the County, it is just my preference, but she has done a phenomenal job of encouraging new membership.

Mr. Haste: She is not a County employee.

Mr. Hartwick: She is an employee of the actual center.

Mr. Haste: Right.

Mr. Hartwick: The Board would be responsible for, but it does have Aging money that goes to pay her. We can still encourage Dauphin County folks to step forward to do those jobs. She has done a phenomenal job. It is registered by the attendance that is out there, the activism that I have seen and that has changed dramatically from the last director to this director. I want to commend her on her job as well as being supportive of this application. In my estimates and correct me if I am wrong, this is probably the second largest senior center in Dauphin County. With those types of numbers and that type of membership I want to make sure that remains a viable option for the seniors in that area.

Mr. DiFrancesco: I want to stress a couple points just for clarity. In no way do I want to see the Rutherford House Center close down. I want to make absolutely certain.

Mr. Hartwick: I'm glad you made that.

Mr. DiFrancesco: I don't want to let that hang out there, because that is not what I'm talking about. My greater concern would be again as Jeff said this particular location. That's what we have to keep some flexibility over. Should the needs of the County change or should this building just prove to be more valuable sold, we need to keep our options open. We just have to keep that flexibility out there.

Mr. Hartwick: There is a lot of history out there too.

Mr. Haste: The purpose of this has changed. I mean it has not always been a senior center.

Mr. Hartwick: It used to be a juvenile detention center. I actually had done a pretty detailed study of the history.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Even going beyond clarifying the need to continue to support the Rutherford House as such an important senior center, I want to commend even the past Executive Director, while her tact was probably not the best, I do believe she fought very hard to improve the Center to keep it active and so forth. It is a very active center and I do have a lot of frustration when I see other centers that make a lot of requests, but really don't have people coming out. The only reason I have a concern about that is because the Centers that are operating actively need support to continue to be healthy and to thrive. I not only want to support the fact that group continues to prosper I want to make sure that I praise them too for the work that they do because it is nice to have some place to go where there are plenty of activities to keep you busy and where there are other people to fellowship with and every thing. It is an important part of the community and it is something our Board and past Boards have always supported.

Mr. Hartwick: They are frisky out there too.

Mr. DiFrancesco: They are actually. The times I have been out there it has been a fun experience. As long as we sit here pretty sure and certain that if we do make changes that the Department of Aging would be okay with shifting to another location or whatever it might be, that is fine.

Mr. Haste: I'm willing to move forward with this today, but during the process, I see we have to get the equipment and start moving things within four months. If in fact we get an indication contrary to what Mr. Burns thinks is the case, I will bring this up again and remove my support.

Question: Mr. Haste - Aye; Mr. DiFrancesco - Aye and Mr. Hartwick - Aye; motion carried.

SOLICITOR'S REPORT - WILLIAM TULLY, ESQ.

Mr. Tully: Nothing to add to the report that has been provided, happy to answer any questions. (There were none.)

CHIEF CLERK'S REPORT - CHAD SAYLOR

Mr. Saylor: Ditto for me. (There were none.)

COMMISSIONERS' COMMENTS

Mr. Hartwick: I got a few, but at this time with all the talk of the Rutherford House, I got a chance to join in the ceremony where they presented me with a dollar for the lease payment. They made me do the limbo and I was felt up in the process. I think we should teach sexual harassment training out there, but with that they presented the $1.00 and had a pig roast and it was a great ceremony. On behalf of the Board of the Rutherford House I would like to present this to Marie to officially record it.

Ms. Rebuck: I'll accept as long as I don't have to do the limbo also.

Mr. Haste: No, but Bob would have to when he gets it.

Mr. Dick: I can do the limbo.

Mr. DiFrancesco: I have a great report that in about another hour this room is going to be full of people from the Wellness Committee's inspired Weight Watchers Program. In week 1 I'm proud to report that we lost 95 pounds as a collective group. The program is moving along nicely. There is great participation and I hope that every week we can come back and say that we lost a significant amount of weight as a collective group.

Mr. Saylor: That's funny because Edgar told me this morning that the building is a little taller.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Everyone is pumped up and having a good time.

Mr. Haste: I do know our wellness Commissioner is doing it because I hear him doing his points counts. Last week he was counting his points, these are good points and these are bad points.

We have Prison Board at 1:30 p.m.

Mr. Hartwick: Just so you know we have been notified by the State that Weatherization received an additional $264,121 and we are determining the best way to spend that money in weatherization related projects.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

Mr. Haste: We are again at the point in time for public participation. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to address the Board? (There was none.)

ADJOURNMENT

There being no further business, it was moved by Mr. DiFrancesco and seconded by Mr. Hartwick that the Board adjourn.