02 City Council (4/14/03) - Laserfiche WebLink

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Regular City Council Meeting April 14, 2003 Page 14 of Cities is the largest municipal organization in the nation. Mayor Pro Tem Manning said they had a long and very informative meeting with Congressman Max Sandlin. They attended a session featuring a presentation by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and received a lot of information from him. They also attended a session with Acting Director Rob Ridder on Early Childhood Development, which was very interesting. Mayor Pro Tem Manning advised that the President's budget package did not cover the unfunded mandates, especially those in the Homeland Security Package. Of those, the Cops Grant in Paris may, in the near future, lose funding. He felt this should be addressed before it is too late or there may be a loss of officers from the grant or the taxes will have to be raised all at once. He said that they found out that the National Highway Budget has been cut by one billion dollars, which will also affect Texas. Mr. Ridge spoke about the possible entry and exit visa system for the U. S. and portable radiation detectors at the borders. Manning said that they were also told that every billion dollars spent equals 42 thousand jobs. Mr. Ridge expressed interest in and said he would like cities to seek out mutual aid in their fire departments and neighboring cities for equipment in case of a terrorist attack, which would mean that one city might own one piece of equipment and another own a different type of equipment. Mayor Pfiester called for consideration of continuing participation as a member of the Texas Municipal League. City Manager Malone advised that this item was placed on the agenda because the city is being billed by the Texas Municipal League for membership for next year. He said he had enclosed information in the packet to give the City Council an idea of some of the services available through TML. TML represents the cities interests at state and federal levels concerning legislation along with providing legal and technical information as well as a variety of training sessions and conferences. He said that TML also maintains a lot of information in their files which is accessible by the city and they sponsor group risk pool programs that produce large dollars savings for TML member cities.