HomeMy WebLinkAbout05 03 2017 CM Study SessionCITY OF CHUBBUCK
COUNCIL STUDY SESSION MINUTES
MAY 3RD° 2017 — 4:OOPM
CALL TO ORDER: Mayor Kevin England
COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Kevin England, Ryan Lewis, Melanie Evans, Annette
Baumeister, and City Attorney Tom Holmes
STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT: Ryan Howerton, Sean Harris, Paul Andrus, Public Works Director
Rodney Burch, City Clerk Rich Morgan, Deputy Clerk Joey Bowers
AMEND COUNCIL STUDY SESSION AGENDA:
GENERAL BUSINESS:
1 Presentation on "Technology and Automation in City Operations"
Public Works Director Rodney Burch started the discussion, he wanted to present to
the Council what the public works department had been doing to streamline their
processes and be more efficient by using technology. The technologies that would be
presented would allow the public works crews to be notified in a timely manner, and not
have to wait for somebody to make it into the office and pick up a fax off the fax
machine. These technologies will also allow the public works department to track trends
that are taking place around the city and allow the City to catch major problems as they
happen. These technologies will also help us track our actual costs for repairs. Mr. Burch
wanted Council to know that for Mobile 311 we are spending about $500 a month for use
within all departments in the city.
Sean Harris from the public works engineering department presented an in house
building permit fee application map. Engineering designed this map to help stream line
building permits, and fees so anybody within the city can look up to see the status or
availability of a parcel, there are four statuses that each parcel can be classified under.
The four statuses are complete, underdevelopment, available, and active status. This will
help the building department to be more efficient and ensure that no fees are missed
during the development process. Currently this is for in house viewing only but it is
something that the City eventually could make available to the public. Currently there are
26 lots in the city available that qualify for a building permit and 85 that are in one of the
other four categories.
Ryan Howerton from the public works engineering department presented the public
works Mobile 311 system and app. This is a communication device that allows the
maintenance crew to communicate with City Hall while out in the field. This also allows
the office to instantly communicate with city staff. Currently the sanitation department is
the only department that is up and running, but we will be extending this out to all the
maintenance crews throughout the city. This technology allows the city staff to let the
office know if there is a cart not out, cart is blocked, and even a broken cart. Which is
then stamped with a date and time that city staff was at that location. Then if a citizen
calls into the City Hall staff can let the citizen know why their garbage wasn't picked up
and about what it would cost for staff to come back around to perform that service for
them again. If the citizen decides that they want to pay the extra fees. The City can then
immediately send a work order out to staff and let them know to go back for pick up, or
to let them know about a pothole, broken pipes, etc.
Councilmember Lewis wanted to know if the City created these or if they were leasing
these technologies. He also wanted to know if these were available to the general public
or just for city use only.
Councilmember Baumeister wanted to know all the benefits of the building permit
map technology other than just to catch all the fees, if it saved time, etc.
Councilmember Evans wanted to know if Mobile 311 was just for the sanitation
department.
2 General Review of bids for Country Acres Street Reconstruction- CDA project
Public Works Director Rodney Burch presented the bid results for the Country Acres
street reconstruction. Mr. Burch wanted to make sure that the Council and the members
in the audience were aware that these projects are not built out of general tax funds, they
are built with Urban Renewal money and the Chubbuck Development Authority. Mr.
Burch presented that the two year amount that was budgeted for this project by the CDA
was $2.8 million, the low bid for this reconstruction was $4.4 million. Mr. Burch said that
the CDA does not have $4.4 million dollars available for this project. Mr. Burch
explained that 38% or $1.7 million of the bid was for private property restoration,
sidewalks, and gutter installation. Mr. Burch presented that if the City just reconstructed
the streets and some curbing to help with drainage issues that the bid would come in at an
estimated budget of $2.6 million. The CDA will be required to go through a new bidding
process for final numbers. This new bidding process will not include sidewalks. Mr.
Burch stated that this year's bids amounts to a 40% increase compared to the last two
years projects. Mr. Burch presented another option could be looked at, which is to extend
this two year project out over four or five years and sacrifice other scheduled projects.
Mr. Burch felt like we needed to weigh the importance of sidewalks, private property
reconstruction, and repairs to key City infrastructure before making that decision. Mr.
Burch also wanted the Council to know that after a public hearing was held, and a public
survey was sent out for public input that the Country Acres Neighborhood had a minor
majority or a 55-45% split in favor of sidewalks. Mr. Burch told the Council that once
they have rebid this project they will present their findings to the CDA board and can
include any other information or proposals that the CDA board fells is appropriate.
Councilmember Baumeister wondered if this is an increase that the CDA and City are
going to be seeing over the next few years. How the CDA and City needs to look at what
future projects are necessary and which projects can be postponed to stay within the CDA
budget. Councilmember Baumeister wanted to know where there could be some
compromise for the citizens that do want sidewalks. She proposed doing sidewalks on
one side, or have the citizens agree to repair their own property after the sidewalks are
installed. Councilmember Baumeister felt like that what was conveyed to the CDA board
was that only necessary things were going to be cut out of the reconstruction to get the
project to the $2.8 million budget. She didn't think all sidewalks were going to be cut
from the project. Councilmember Baumeister was also under the impression that a
majority of the Country Acres community did not want the sidewalks during the CDA
meeting. She was confused that during the CDA meeting that it was discussed that the
citizen would be informed that they could do a citizen's initiative also called a Local
Improvement District to pay for these improvements. But when the letters for the
community was sent out it didn't include any information on a LID. Councilmember
Baumeister felt like the direction that the CDA gave was to go back to the drawing board
see what we could cut, what the citizens were willing to help with, and then come back
with the results before we just inform the citizen that we are just doing the street with no
sidewalks. She feels like sidewalks are important for neighborhoods, safety, and
walkability and that all options should be looked at before the final decision is made.
Councilmember Baumeister wanted to make sure that when it was represented to the
CDA board that the board would have options to either do no sidewalks, partial
sidewalks, sidewalks just around Cotant park, or any other options available so that they
could make the best decision for both the City and its residents.
Mayor England wanted to emphasize to the Council and those present that it had
always been said that this reconstruction project was budget driven. The first priority was
the roads and that they would only be able to add sidewalks, curbing, and gutters if it
stayed within the budget, and that information had been conveyed at every meeting and
public hearing. Mayor England is concerned that even if we move things around within
the CDA that it would not make those funds available now and would take this project
from a 2 year project to a 4-5 year project. Mayor England also wanted to explain that
there had been three different meetings with people and there were some that testified
why they did not want sidewalks. He also wanted to explain the reason that they had not
made the public aware of the LID option currently was because of lack of information.
Mayor England wanted to make sure that he could answer any questions if they came up
before sending that information out. He also explained that as they looked at these
options that they figured it would cost homeowners about $10-12,000 each to make up
the $1.7 million. Mayor England believes this discussion would have to be brought back
to the CDA board because they are the only ones that can make these kinds of decisions.
The present council was receiving this as information only.
Councilmember Lewis wanted to know if it would be better to split this up into
smaller projects to help alleviate the unseen risks, which could potentially help bring
down the price. Councilmember Lewis also wanted the audience to be made aware that
this project was a CDA funded project and that the City council was not that board, so
they could not make any decision to keep or not to keep sidewalks. Councilmember
Lewis also felt like it was important for the public to know that the CDA board is made
up of citizens from across the City of Chubbuck so they were not favoring one
community over another.
Councilmember Evans sees this completely as a budget driven decision.
Councilmember Evans was also wondering if there was any potential to use State funds
to help fund these improvements.
Mayor England did allow for the audience to address the council with any questions
that they might have. City Clerk Rich Morgan just wanted to make sure that Council
wasn't breaking any Public Hearing procedures. City Attorney Tom Holmes felt like that
if the city wanted to get a structured public opinion then the CDA would need to hold a
public hearing, but did not see any problems with the audience being allowed to ask the
Council questions. Tom Holmes also said that a LID is a state bonded project that is
billed to the citizen over normally a ten year period. It's for improvements that the city
can't fund the bill but the citizens are willing to pay to have it done.
The Audiences questions and comments were about who funded the relocation of
power poles, and to move the fire hydrants to make room for sidewalks. Also will these
improved gutters help the areas that have a flooding issue? The audience also felt like not
having sidewalks is a safety issue for children and senior citizens. They also wanted to
know if other projects will get sidewalks when they won't. The audience felt like the LID
was an unfair solution since other communities got sidewalks and didn't have to pay.
They also felt like it was unfair to do improvements on city parks and ignore the safety
issue of having sidewalks installed.
3 General Discussion on CIAWCA decision regarding connection fees
Public Works Director Rodney Burch started the conversation by explaining that the
Council had given him and staff instruction to look at the $5,490 connection fee for the
new sewer line that the City installed. After meeting with the City of Pocatello and
Bannock County the CIAWCA decided to wait to decide on the connection fee until their
next meeting to watch certain development decisions in the future. Mr. Burch said that
we intended this fee to pay for the system and not effect current residents. Currently since
the City has not had any connections the residents are paying $10.90 a month to pay for
the debt. Mr. Burch feels like $5490 is the right number for the connection fee.
Councilmember Lewis said that the intent of these fees was to ensure that the
development would pay for the system.
4 General Discussion on Comprehensive Plan Changes
City Planner Paul Andrus started the presentation on the Comprehensive plan changes.
Paul presented that the mayor had asked for the planning department to take a look at the
comprehensive plan, which is recommended to do every two years. Mr. Andrus went to
the Land Use Commission to start this process two years ago. The Commission didn't
want to completely start over on the current plan, but to make changes instead. With the
help for the Planning Department the Land Use Commission went chapter by chapter and
made the changes that are being presented before the Council.
Councilmember Evans felt like that the Comprehensive Plan needs to be updated to
correlate with and updated City vision. She feels like that even with these changes over
the last 20 years it is outdated and that the City has moved pasted the plan that was
created in 1995. Councilmember Evans is hesitant to waste any time with public
hearings, or any other decisions to be made on this plan.
Councilmember Lewis did not feel comfortable approving the changes to the
Comprehensive Plan until he could study it more. He asked Mr. Andrus if he had a side-
by-side comparison that he could use to understand the changes.
5 General Discussion about Parking at Cotant Park
Mayor England explained that he had received requests to develop the same parking
restrictions at Stuart Park that the City currently has for Cotant Park. Mayor England felt
like the ordinance at Cotant Park causes more problems than it fixes, and that if Council
wanted to do this for Stuart that Council might want to completely create a new
Ordinance for both Stuart and Cotant parks.
Council was curious why the Ordinance was put in place for Cotant Park originally.
Council also felt like that since the current plan was to add 84 parking spaces to Cotant
park that they just needed leave things alone. Council also felt like that they want the
community to be able to enjoy Stuart Park and to not have to worry about parking.
6 General Discussion about the Select USA conference
Mayor England wanted some advice from Council if he should attend the conference.
REDI and the City of Pocatello Mayor highly recommends him to attend. His concern is
that it would cost the City $2,000-$2,400 to attend.
Council felt like it was the Mayors executive decision to go or not. Council
recommended to find out what kind of information prospective businesses would be
asking for, so that the Mayor could have a plan ready to represent the City of Chubbuck if
he went.
GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS:
ADJOURN:
X i �---
Rich Morqan
City Clerk
X�� AII,- I,-
Kevin Enqland
Mayor