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Councilmember Thorne referred to the long-range strategy and he asked if this would include actual strategies or simply numbers. City Manager Fialho said this was a 10-year fiscal forecast based on the City's general plan. The general plan includes various policy objectives that the Council and community have laid out for implementation from a project perspective. All of it will be incorporated into the fiscal plan and staff will see where the numbers are. He said Bay Area Economics has suggested that preliminarily, everything looks balanced, but it needs to be revised with tonight's numbers. He noted there would be strategies in the long-range plan to help achieve additional revenues, contingent on having a land use element that speaks to residential and commercial planning, and the document will be a fluid document subject to change on factors and impacts beyond the City's controls. Councilmember Thorne noted there was a TOT increase in the budget and confirmed this did not include a rate increase. Mr. Culver said they met with the Director of the Visitors Bureau, discussed upcoming occupancy rates for the future, and modest increases in room rates would be seen as well as a modest increase in the occupancy rate. Councilmember Thorne said at some point he suggested a discussion be held on local emergency preparedness within the community. He said he was not sure their emergency service organizations understand what the City Council's expectations are of where the community should be. Mayor Hosterman questioned when the City hosted the last seminar on emergency services and Economic Development Director Pamela Ott said staff has been in contact with those businesses that are part of the LEED program and have continued to solicit new businesses. They were in the process of planning for the next seminar for those businesses. Mayor Hosterman confirmed with Ms. Ott that there was an opportunity to also include representatives from Livermore Pleasanton Fire Department and the Police Department and invite the Council. Councilmember Thorne questioned the level of preparation efforts and funding and suggested the Council give direction to staff on how to do this. City Manager Fialho said in September, staff would bring National Incident Management System (NIMS) training for the Council which is a requirement once every two years and staff can also allow time for a discussion about expectations at that time and revisit the Emergency Management Plan. Councilmember McGovern wished the budget workshop could be televised, said her biggest concern was that the City faces fiscal challenges as the cost to providing services to the public continues to rise, compounded by costs that have grown at a greater rate than inflation. She cited dramatic escalation of employee pension costs, changes in benefit levels, and market losses in CaIPERS, long term decisions about labor agreements, pre-funding retire medical benefits, user fee cost recovery, and inadequacy of water and sewer rates. She said GASB 45 reporting was due in 2009 and hoped this could be done earlier so she could review it before it gets to the point where it has to be reported and these issues can be reviewed and dealt with. Councilmember McGovern requested what the pre-funding retiree medical benefits and the current debt was. Mr. Culver said this was approximately $100 million. He said the two-year budget will bring the reserves up to $45 million, which is not quite 50% of this yet. Councilmember McGovern said two years ago, the City's percentage of the amount of debt they had reserved was higher than this and it seems like the City was going backwards, and Mr. Culver said the City's liability has grown because the number of retirees has increased and the cost of health insurance has increased and people are retiring at a younger age and living City Council Minutes 11 June 19, 2007