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Home My WebLink AboutCity Council Meeting - Council Workshop - Minutes - 02/18/2003 COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES . FEBRUARY 18, 2003 COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Tim Clark, Connie Epperly, Leona Orr, Julie Peterson, Bruce White, Rico Yingling STAFF PRESENT: Mike Martin,Dena Laurent, May Miller, John Hodgson,Tom Brubaker, Fred Satterstrom, Don Wickstrom, Charlene Anderson, Len Olive, Cyndi Wilbur, Jackie Bicknell PUBLIC PRESENT: Randy Forsyth, Gary Young, Eric LaBrie, J. B. Ruth, Geri Waller,Denise Stiffarm The workshop was called to order at 5:00 P.M. by Leona Orr, filling in for Council President Judy Woods. State Legislative Update Chief Administrative Officer Mike Martin handed out the Week 5 of the Legislative Session report. He said the Mayor had testified concerning the Sales Tax Streamlining bill and that staff thinks they are hearing the message but continue to be very conservative about what might happen in the future. Staff is working on getting other impacted cities to work with Kent on the bill. Tax Increment Financing is the bill that would provide a tax credit from the state to a city. It is trying to make some sort of improvement in an area that would cause an increase in retail sales tax or property tax. Forty- four states have a property tax (TIF) and we're trying to work it so this particular piece of legislation . works on vacant and occupied land. The business industry, the tribes, and the Governor's office are getting very interested and they all have different takes on it. Out-of-State Electricity Purchases: Between $300,000-$800,000 annually is lost on this. The State UTC allowed a rule change to allow Boeing and other industrial buyers to buy their electricity out of state, thus avoiding the local utility tax. There are only a small number of jurisdictions that are really affected by this. Transportation RTID (Regional Transportation Improvement District): They are talking about a 3-5 cent gas tax, and a one half percent sales tax on new and used cars, if the voters agree. Whether we would have certain bonding authority to bond for big projects is being clarified by one of the bills. Another bill would provide certain local optional gas tax authority. Transportation-Street Utility and CTR. This is a bill that would give legislation to assist cities with local road M & O needs via the authority to establish street utilities. We are very interested because it's definitely another tool for us that has been accepted by the community in other jurisdictions. If it passes, it's just another possible way of keeping our road infrastructure where it should be. Municipal Court: King County is shedding as much of their district court services as they can. They believe it costs them as much as $4 million to provide district court services to the cities. What we want to do is say to cities who will be losing these courts, `If you want to contract with us, we're going to do that at full cost recovery', which is something they don't do right now. With this bill cities will have the ability to contract among each other, hear cases, and pay the contract fee to the city hearing the cases. There are three other cities in this area that have talked to us about providing court services. If the Aukeen Court Building comes available to us, potentially we could have some • of those other cities help us pay for the overhead that we would need to retire debt on that building. Julie Peterson asked Mr. Martin to encapsulate Judge McSeveney's opposition to the bill. Mike Martin said that the Judge believes the route of consolidation among the cities somehow limits the Council Workshop,2/18/03 2 • access of residents to the court system (or what he calls the access to justice). He also believes there is a lack of accountability when judges from one jurisdiction are not elected from that jurisdiction. They no longer reflect the views of the community that they are supposed to be overseeing in term of thejudicial system. There are too many unelected municipal court judges. Cities contracting with others would somehow cause people to have to drive to Seattle to get their court case heard. We are at odds with Judge McSeveney on this one. Senate Bill 5808: There was talk that something needed to be done about labor costs and how labor costs are arbitrated. Currently, cities' ability to pay for a contract is not allowed to be taken into consideration. This bill would allow that to be taken into consideration. Doug Levy feels that there is zero chance for this passing. This bill would have attached the COLAs to an implicit price deflator, which is another mechanism that is almost always lower than the COLA and more in line with the way revenue is increased. Rico Yingling asked if that bill could be followed up and information reported back. Council Retreat Facilitator Recommendation Mike Martin said that after conducting interviews with about 12 candidates, staff recommends hiring Bonnie Berk of Berk and Associates as the new facilitator to assist with Council retreats. (He handed out Ms. Berk's resume to the Councilmembers.) He said a retreat is being planned with Ms. Berk and she will be meeting with city staff and Councilmembers to plan the agenda. 2002 Annual Coma Plan Amendments Community Development Director Fred Satterstrom said that permits is the biggest part of . Community Development. It is also responsible for the Planning side, the policy development, the Comprehensive Planning under Growth Management Act, development of regulations, and the conformance with the Growth Management Act. That is where the annual amendments to the Comprehensive Plan come from. State law allows a city to entertain Comprehensive Plan amendments no more than once a year. Historically, we have processed certain public ones at the same time. The Capital Facilities element comes forward from the board under the GMA amendments along with the Capital Facility Plans of the Federal Way and Kent School Districts. Staff has a proposal for future consideration of these Capital Facility Plan amendments as opposed to what has been done over the past several years. Planning Manager Charlene Anderson gave a slide presentation showing the locations of the proposed Comprehensive Plan Amendments and Rezone areas. She also talked about Comprehensive Plan Land Use & Zoning District Map Amendment Standards of Review, the Land Use and Planning Board recommendations, the Federal Way and Kent School District's Annual Proposal of Chronolog, and the calculation of school impact fees. Fred Satterstrom added that school impact fees in Kent are assessed at the time that a building permit is issued. For single family or multiple family units, that fee per unit has been paid since 1996. It is a small part of what any school district uses in order to fund its capital facilities. Councilmember Leona Orr stated that since 1993, $21,000,000 has been collected in impact fees. The school district has used that money to build two junior highs, one high school, and six elementary schools. If the money had not been collected through the impact fees, then the taxpayers, as a whole, would have picked up the tab for the $21,000,000. They came as part of the Growth Management Act. • Council Workshop, 2/18/03 3 • Ms. Anderson went over the City of Kent Finance Department Annual Proposal. Mr. Satterstrom said that, if possible, in the future, fiscal matters which do not have to be reviewed by the Board would be reviewed by the Council only. Councilmember Rico Yingling recommended that the Land Use and Planning Board should not look at school impact fees. Mr. Satterstrom said that if Council passed a motion saying that those fiscal matters shall be handled by the City Council through the budgetary process,then staff would work with the Finance Department to make sure that the public hearing on the budget was also a public hearing on the Capital Facilities Plan under GMA. The existing ordinance would be changed. Leona Orr suggested bringing that to the Planning Committee to get Council concurrence. Ms. Orr asked if the Council was comfortable taking the amendments directly to Council, and the consensus was to take it to Council. She said that if Councilmembers had additional questions or needed more explanation, they could get in touch with Fred, Charlene, or other staff that had worked on the amendments. It was decided to bring it to Council in two weeks. The workshop adjourned at 6:08 PM. • Council Office 2nd Floor,City Hall 220 4`h Ave. South,Kent, 98032 PLEASE SIGN IN DATE: Name Address Phone Number XSY,3) i 124 "'ti'� -7 7 o6 (I G � 1 r S !�° r .Lte�-A t�s `� �' Q-a v-)5-&6 -'7 7 o o Lem LA220 ( p�� > IBus- 772"° Avt S- 9w3z k _ZS( 62z z 13ao3 ��" a��1 eL f��% a03- 630- 39'/0 f llr�ac, -C 'u dodo.3 r��. a �r L" �- zs�� •s�R U3 � ;� LAW Z-