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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Committees - Planning and Economic Development Committee - 11/03/1992 CITY OF CITY COUNCIL PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES V7nvTk NOVEMBER 3, 1992 4 : 00 PM COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT OTHER CITY STAFF Leona Orr, Chair Norm Angelo Jon Johnson Mary Berg Laurie Evezich Bob Hutchinson COMMITTEE MEMBERS ABSENT Alana McIalwain Tony McCarthy Jim Bennett Larry Webb Don Wickstrom PLANNING STAFF GUESTS Lin Ball Sharon Clamp Steve Burpie James Harris Don McDaniel Rachel Johnston Paul Morford Margaret Porter Raul Ramos Fred Satterstrom GROWTH MANAGEMENT UPDATE L. SATTERSTROMI Planning Manager Fred Satterstrom informed the Committee that at their October 26 meeting, the Planning Commission formed a subcommittee to work on the wetlands ordinance. The subcommittee is chaired by Ed Heineman, and committee members include Ted Knapp, Paul Crane, Joe Miles, and Sharon Rodman. They will meet weekly and had their first meeting on Friday, October 30. The Planning Commission instructed the subcommittee to submit a recommendation to be reviewed at the December 14 workshop. A public hearing on the recommendations will probably be held in January 1993 . The City of Kent submitted its nomination for an urban center and manufacturing center one month ago to the Growth Management Planning Council. The GMPC also received nominations from Bellevue Federal Way, Renton, Sea Tac, Tukwila, Seattle, Redmond and Issaquah. On or before December 1, 1992 the GMPC will convene to consider the nominations and select 7-11 centers. An urban center designation is important because the cities chosen will receive regional dollars for transportation improvements to include rapid transit dollars. If selected as an urban center Kent will propose a streamlined permit process within the urban center and will consider an area-wide environmental impact statement which would subsequently streamline the SEPA process for subsequent development CITY COUNCIL PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES NOVEMBER 3 , 1992 PAGE 2 permits. If selected, Kent will have other incentives to consider to promote development inside the urban center. HUMAN SERVICES ROUNDTABLE UPDATE (L. BALL) Lin Ball, Manager of the Office of Housing and Human Services, reported that the Roundtable has decided to put the housing information and referral project on hold due to limited available resources. This project addresses individuals at risk of being homeless with the goal of keeping them from becoming homeless and looking at how to improve the service. The Roundtable's main priority is child abuse, and they decided that there are not enough resources countywide to fund another regional system at this time. Ms. Ball also distributed a report, Roundtable-Sponsored Regional Systems, Are they Cost Effective?, which shows what the Roundtable has been able to do as a group to address issues on a regional basis that cannot be accomplished at individual local levels. The report focuses on three areas. The first is the domestic violence regional systems. The DAWN confidential shelter opened August 1992 and to date has provided 736 bed nights and 2,300 meals to women and children. Training money has been received for domestic violence training of emergency room nurses, police officers and others in the legal field. Six of the 28 families DAWN has housed in the confidential shelter are now in permanent housing. The report also talks about the child care resource and referral networks located in Seattle, the east side and in Kent. These networks provide parents better access to child care and training for childcare providers. The third item the report addresses is legislative advocacy. Planner Rachel Johnston distributed a report comprised of information taken from the first and second quarterly reports of the Domestic Violence (DV) Client Information System. Proposition 2 funds pay for the cost of this data collection system and pays for Kent's community advocate. The reports are based on information provided by 47 City of Kent and 1, 034 county victims who received face-to-face services from 12 DV programs which participate in the King County DV client information system. The Kent clients received services through six DV programs. In order to show a comparison between the Kent and the County DV client statistics, twelve categories were looked at. There are a greater percentage of Kent victims that are low income and a greater percentage of Kent victims who have a physical disability. There is a higher percentage of emotional issues among the abuser of Kent victims. Children in Kent households were abused or neglected on a greater level than the children in King County households. Kent had a higher percentage of children in trouble with the justice system, who had emotional issues, and children who were physically abused in general. The Kent client received a smaller number of police referrals for DV assistance but received a higher percentage CITY COUNCIL PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES NOVEMBER 3 , 1992 PAGE 3 of referral support from social service agencies. The report concludes that the Kent DV victim overall is more disadvantaged than the King County counterpart. Lin Ball also noted that the data shows that the greatest percentage of victims countywide are from South County. PERMIT PROCESS REPORT Chair Orr announced that no action will be taken on this item today due to the fact that another meeting between the Chamber of Commerce and department heads is planned. Fire Chief Norm Angelo presented organization charts of the fire department and code enforcement division to show the relationship between the permit process and the department's overall responsibilities. He then reviewed the department heads proposal in detail. Chief Angelo also presented the Committee with a memo addressing key items which are needed to fully implement the department heads proposal. He stressed that there is currently an inspection backlog and plan checkers are getting burned out on the overtime they are working to help cover unfilled building inspector positions. Steve Burpie commented that the contact he has had with people regarding permits has not only been developers, but also developers representing existing business which represent jobs and provide tax money. The permit process not only serves safety issues but also serves the private sector in the business community. Don McDaniel commented that in an organizational design change a series of events take place. He feels we need to take the less intrusive way and move the culture along as far as we can. If that doesn't work we need to become more aggressive and make more intensive changes. In order for an organizational change to work he feels there should not only be accountability but also ownership for the cause at the lowest possible level of the organization. If you don't have this ownership, over a period of time, there will always be a problem with the end result. Accountability must be internal in nature. He feels there is external accountability in terms of feedback, and it is important for customers to be involved. He feels one of the most important ingredients is sponsorship. Once a plan has been developed, the Council and Administration need to get behind it and support not only the plan but also the necessary resources that must be targeted to make sure that the individuals addressed are ultimately accountable for performance standards. If there are additional demands or changes there must be a commitment to retarget resources to the high priorities. If you are not satisfied with the results after a six month period, make a commitment to relook at options recognizing the ultimate goal. CITY COUNCIL PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES NOVEMBER 3, 1992 PAGE 4 Raul Ramos stated that expediting permits is only one of the criteria and what the mayor's advisory committee is also trying to achieve is improved public services. Getting permits out on time is a positive result of a well organized permit process system, one that is very structured and focused and not scattered among other functions as was clearly shown by the fact that the permit specialists are also performing other interrelated functions. He feels that an organization set up this way tends to lose focus of the major function of the organization. The mayor's advisory committee report is very structured and very specific about what it wants to achieve, and one of the things it tries not to do is underrate or undervalue the importance of public safety. He pointed out that the mayor's response to the advisory committee's report, a very specific resolution, sets forth criteria and measures of performance which would establish, if approved by the Council, the Council Is interest in processing permits and achieving a level of preferred public service. Mr. Ramos feels we have not even begun to measure what an acceptable level of public service is in this community regarding permits. Right now Mr. Ramos does not feel comfortable that we will achieve that objective. Any proposal that the Council adopts must try to achieve a mythical objective of what is an acceptable level of service regarding issuance of building permits and other related permit applications. Mr. Ramos stated this issue has been discussed for the past ten years, and he asked the Committee to make progress in the area of determining what an acceptable level of public service is in this area and make some hard decisions about structures, organizations, management styles and management direction. Mr. Ramos supports giving the department heads the opportunity to see if they can make some real progress which would be interpreted by an outside evaluation committee reporting to the Council. He feels the department heads proposal need more specific objectives other than just reducing the time to review permits, such as the quality and promptness of inspections. He wants to see a range of criteria on how well the process can be improved over a six month period. He wants the Council to link the progress of the six month experiment, and if it is determined that there has not been an acceptable level of progress made, he would like to see the Council make a commitment to implement the advisory committee's report. Chief Angelo stated he did not want to give the impression that the permit specialists are performing many other duties. He has shut down fire prevention duties and responsibilities to ensure a full commitment to the permit process. It was only during periods when time was available that other tasks were performed in order to fully utilize the permit specialist's time. Chief Angelo believes that the department heads report is more specific in many areas than the mayor's advisory committee's report. If the Council chooses to proceed with the other report, Chief Angelo requested the opportunity to present additional information about his CITY COUNCIL PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES NOVEMBER 31 1992 PAGE 5 concerns of that report. He stressed that no process is going to be perfect and will require some modifications and upgrades. Chair Orr thanked Chief Angelo for his presentation and commented that we are headed in the right direction. She stated that it is her hope that Administration will take a good look at the personnel needed in all the plans and start looking at getting those positions filled. She agrees with Chief Angelo that once a plan is ready to be implemented, a certain number of people are needed or else numbers must be revised. She asked that the meetings between department heads and the Chamber resume and the results of those meetings be brought back to the Committee at the earliest date. Tony McCarthy responded that one of the ways to help the budget crisis is to keep vacant positions frozen. He agrees that we need to fill critical positions but, after recent budget committee meetings, is hesitant and slow to want to jump in and fill a lot of positions. ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 5:45 p.m. PC1103 .92 CITY OF V'Tk7gr_ CITY COUNCIL PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES NOVEMBER 3 , 1992 4: 00 PM COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT OTHER CITY STAFF Leona Orr, Chair Norm Angelo Jon Johnson Mary Berg Laurie Evezich Bob Hutchinson COMMITTEE MEMBERS ABSENT Alana McIalwain Tony McCarthy Jim Bennett Larry Webb Don Wickstrom PLANNING STAFF GUESTS Lin Ball Sharon Clamp Steve Burpie James Harris Don McDaniel Rachel Johnston Paul Morford Margaret Porter Raul Ramos Fred Satterstrom GROWTH MANAGEMENT UPDATE (F. SATTERSTROM) Planning Manager Fred Satterstrom informed the Committee that at their October 26 meeting, the Planning Commission formed a subcommittee to work on the wetlands ordinance. The subcommittee is chaired by Ed Heineman, and committee members include Ted Knapp, Paul Crane, Joe Miles, and Sharon Rodman. They will meet weekly and had their first meeting on Friday, October 30. The Planning Commission instructed the subcommittee to submit a recommendation to be reviewed at the December 14 workshop. A public hearing on the recommendations will probably be held in January 1993 . The City of Kent submitted its nomination for an urban center and manufacturing center one month ago to the Growth Management Planning Council. The GMPC also received nominations from Bellevue Federal Way, Renton, Sea Tac, Tukwila, Seattle, Redmond and Issaquah. On or before December 1, 1992 the GMPC will convene to consider the nominations and select 7-11 centers. An urban center designation is important because the cities chosen will receive regional dollars for transportation improvements to include rapid transit dollars. If selected as an urban center Kent will propose a streamlined permit process within the urban center and will consider an area-wide environmental impact statement which would subsequently streamline the SEPA process for subsequent development CITY COUNCIL PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES NOVEMBER 3 , 1992 PAGE 2 permits. If selected, Kent will have other incentives to consider to promote development inside the urban center. HUMAN SERVICES ROUNDTABLE UPDATE (L. BALL) Lin Ball, Manager of the Office of Housing and Human Services, reported that the Roundtable has decided to put the housing information and referral project on hold due to limited available resources. This project addresses individuals at risk of being homeless with the goal of keeping them from becoming homeless and looking at how to improve the service. The Roundtable's main priority is child abuse, and they decided that there are not enough resources countywide to fund another regional system at this time. Ms. Ball also distributed a report, Roundtable-Sponsored Regional Systems, Are they Cost Effective?, which shows what the Roundtable has been able to do as a group to address issues on a regional basis that cannot be accomplished at individual local levels. The report focuses on three areas. The first is the domestic violence regional systems. The DAWN confidential shelter opened August 1992 and to date has provided 736 bed nights and 2, 300 meals to women and children. Training money has been received for domestic violence training of emergency room nurses, police officers and others in the legal field. Six of the 28 families DAWN has housed in the confidential shelter are now in permanent housing. The report also talks about the child care resource and referral networks located in Seattle, the east side and in Kent. These networks provide parents better access to child care and training for childcare providers. The third item the report addresses is legislative advocacy. Planner Rachel Johnston distributed a report comprised of information taken from the first and second quarterly reports of the Domestic Violence (DV) Client Information System. Proposition 2 funds pay for the cost of this data collection system and pays for Kent's community advocate. The reports are based on information provided by 47 City of Kent and 1, 034 county victims who received face-to-face services from 12 DV programs which participate in the King County DV client information system. The Kent clients received services through six DV programs. In order to show a comparison between the Kent and the County DV client statistics, twelve categories were looked at. There are a greater percentage of Kent victims that are low income and a greater percentage of Kent victims who have a physical disability. There is a higher percentage of emotional issues among the abuser of Kent victims. Children in Kent households were abused or neglected on a greater level than the children in King County households. Kent had a higher percentage of children in trouble with the justice system, who had emotional issues, and children who were physically abused in general. The Kent client received a smaller number of police referrals for DV assistance but received a higher percentage CITY COUNCIL PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES NOVEMBER 3, 1992 PAGE 3 of referral support from social service agencies. The report concludes that the Kent DV victim overall is more disadvantaged than the King County counterpart. Lin Ball also noted that the data shows that the greatest percentage of victims countywide are from South County. PERMIT PROCESS REPORT Chair Orr announced that no action will be taken on this item today due to the fact that another meeting between the Chamber of Commerce and department heads is planned. Fire Chief Norm Angelo presented organization charts of the fire department and code enforcement division to show the relationship between the permit process and the department's overall responsibilities. He then reviewed the department heads proposal in detail. Chief Angelo also presented the Committee with a memo addressing key items which are needed to fully implement the department heads proposal. He stressed that there is currently an inspection backlog and plan checkers are getting burned out on the overtime they are working to help cover unfilled building inspector positions. Steve Burpie commented that the contact he has had with people regarding permits has not only been developers, but also developers representing existing business which represent jobs and provide tax money. The permit process not only serves safety issues but also serves the private sector in the business community. Don McDaniel commented that in an organizational design change a series of events take place. He feels we need to take the less intrusive way and move the culture along as far as we can. If that doesn't work we need to become more aggressive and make more intensive changes. In order for an organizational change to work he feels there should not only be accountability but also ownership for the cause at the lowest possible level of the organization. If you don't have this ownership, over a period of time, there will always be a problem with the end result. Accountability must be internal in nature. He feels there is external accountability in terms of feedback, and it is important for customers to be involved. He feels one of the most important ingredients is sponsorship. Once a plan has been developed, the Council and Administration need to get behind it and support not only the plan but also the necessary resources that must be targeted to make sure that the individuals addressed are ultimately accountable for performance standards. If there are additional demands or changes there must be a commitment to retarget resources to the high priorities. If you are not satisfied with the results after a six month period, make a commitment to relook at options recognizing the ultimate goal. CITY COUNCIL PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES NOVEMBER 3, 1992 PAGE 4 Raul Ramos stated that expediting permits is only one of the criteria and what the mayor's advisory committee is also trying to achieve is improved public services. Getting permits out on time is a positive result of a well organized permit process system, one that is very structured and focused and not scattered among other functions as was clearly shown by the fact that the permit specialists are also performing other interrelated functions. He feels that an organization set up this way tends to lose focus of the major function of the organization. The mayor's advisory committee report is very structured and very specific about what it wants to achieve, and one of the things it tries not to do is underrate or undervalue the importance of public safety. He pointed out that the mayor's response to the advisory committee's report, a very specific resolution, sets forth criteria and measures of performance which would establish, if approved by the Council, the Council Is interest in processing permits and achieving a level of preferred public service. Mr. Ramos feels we have not even begun to measure what an acceptable level of public service is in this community regarding permits. Right now Mr. Ramos does not feel comfortable that we will achieve that objective. Any proposal that the Council adopts must try to achieve a mythical objective of what is an acceptable level of service regarding issuance of building permits and other related permit applications. Mr. Ramos stated this issue has been discussed for the past ten years, and he asked the Committee to make progress in the area of determining what an acceptable level of public service is in this area and make some hard decisions about structures, organizations, management styles and management direction. Mr. Ramos supports giving the department heads the opportunity to see if they can make some real progress which would be interpreted by an outside evaluation committee reporting to the Council. He feels the department heads proposal need more specific objectives other than just reducing the time to review permits, such as the quality and promptness of inspections. He wants to see a range of criteria on how well the process can be improved over a six month period. He wants the Council to link the progress of the six month experiment, and if it is determined that there has not been an acceptable level of progress made, he would like to see the Council make a commitment to implement the advisory committee's report. Chief Angelo stated he did not want to give the impression that the permit specialists are performing many other duties. He has shut down fire prevention duties and responsibilities to ensure a full commitment to the permit process. It was only during periods when time was available that other tasks were performed in order to fully utilize the permit specialist's time. Chief Angelo believes that the department heads report is more specific in many areas than the mayor's advisory committee's report. If the Council chooses to proceed with the other report, Chief Angelo requested the opportunity to present additional information about his CITY COUNCIL PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES NOVEMBER 3, 1992 PAGE 5 concerns of that report. He stressed that no process is going to be perfect and will require some modifications and upgrades. Chair Orr thanked Chief Angelo for his presentation and commented that we are headed in the right direction. She stated that it is her hope that Administration will take a good look at the personnel needed in all the plans and start looking at getting those positions filled. She agrees with Chief Angelo that once a plan is ready to be implemented, a certain number of people are needed or else numbers must be revised. She asked that the meetings between department heads and the Chamber resume and the results of those meetings be brought back to the Committee at the earliest date. Tony McCarthy responded that one of the ways to help the budget crisis is to keep vacant positions frozen. He agrees that we need to fill critical positions but, after recent budget committee meetings, is hesitant and slow to want to jump in and fill a lot of positions. ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 5:45 p.m. PC1103 .92