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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Committees - Operations - 06/16/1998 OPERATIONS COMMITTEE MINUTES DUNE 165 1998 COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT Leona Orr, Sandy Amodt, Tim Clark STAFF PRESENT- John Hillman, John Hodgson, Brent McFall, Carolyn Sundvall, Tom Brotherton, Cheryl Viseth MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC: Linda Johnson Council President, Leona Orr, filled in for Judy Woods, Chair. The meeting was called to order at 5:35 PM by Ms Orr. A note was made of additional agenda items: The 1998 Final Budget, Letter to Sound Transit Board Citizens Oversight Committee, and Approval of Vouchers. Approval of Combined Check-Detail Vouchers Dated June 15, 1998 Tim Clark moved to recommend the approval of vouchers dated Monday, June 15, 1998 The motion carried with a vote of 3-0. Kent Downtown Partnership Quarterly Report Linda Johnson presented the quarterly report of the Kent Downtown Partnership. Ms. Johnson showed a list of the incoming Board of Directors, an in-kind donations list, and a 1998 computer list. She stated that the Partnership is growing and people are continuing to give more and more funding with a gain of about 40 new contributors over the last year Ms. Johnson extended an invitation to the community to attend the 1999 Planning Session. Salt Air Vista Park John Hodgson, Parks Director, presented an amendment for a street vacating agreement. About two years ago, a company building a shop had requested that the street be vacated that bordered the Salt Air Vista Park and the back of their building. An agreement was reached that required them to do bulldozer work for the park development. The work did not happen and since then improvements have been made to the park, such as building a playground. The business has finally opened and they want an occupancy permit. The Parks Department is asking for a change in the conditional use permit that will allow the business to pay money instead of doing the bulldozer work. The business is agreeable to this. Sandy Amodt moved to authorize the acceptance of cash payment in lieu of bulldozer work in order to fulfill necessary street vacating conditions and place the $1,524 in the Salt Air Vista Park account for park development. The motion carried with a vote of 3-0 Renewal of a Rental Agreement to the Way Back Inn Foundation John Hodgson informed the Committee that for the last few years the City has leased a house in Campus Park to Way Back Inn, which is an organization that provides temporary housing for families. The City allows this organization to rent the house free if they make improvements to the house. City staff has met with them and decided what the improvements need to be and Way Back Inn has agreed to do them in lieu of rent. The Parks Department is asking the Committee to continue to allow it to maintain the same program that it has in the past. The Way Back Inn organization has been very successful in placing folks out of that house into permanent housing. The City is very pleased to continue the agreement with them. Tim Clark asked about donation of goods. Mr. Hodgson responded that citizens can call if they have excess housing goods and The Way Back Inn will pick them up. These goods are used to restock the houses. He encouraged those listening to either contact that organization, the Parks Department, or the Human Services Department in the City Carolyn Sundvall, planner for the Human Services Division, said that as families are able to move out, they can take their furnishings with them if they need them so the organization is continually looking for replacements Ms. Sundvall listed a message phone to call, 206-682- 7382, for those people who have donations, or people may call her office at 253-859-6100 and she will put them in contact with the Way Back Inn people. Tim Clark moved to authorize the renewal of the agreement for another five years with the Way Back Inn Foundation requesting their signature on the residential agreement. The motion carried with a vote of 3-0. Saturday Market Payoff and Budget Change Brent McFall expounded on the process of getting the building that was purchased for the downtown Saturday Market ready to be transferred over to the Public Development Authority which the council had created. When the building was purchased, a short-term financing was done out of other funds of the city. In preparation for transfer of this property off of City books into PDA's ownership, there is the necessity to long-term fund those capital costs accrued from acquiring the property. John Hillman, Asst. to the Finance Director, explained that it was a 3-year utility fund loan, which was the maximum obtainable, that was used for acquisition. He said the need is to take it over into a more general capital fund of long-term finance by cashing out that interim borrowing, plus fulfilling the commitment for the remaining balance. Along with title to the property, the remaining dollars in the fund, which is $191,350.63, will be transferred to the Public Development Authority to finance renovations to the market building. The balance, along with loan proceeds and any donations or grants that they can obtain, will be used to fund the actual renovations. PDA will, as owner of the building, do the renovations or cause the renovations to be done and then will be responsible for leasing the facility to the master tenant. Tim Clark moved to authorize payment of the short term Saturday Market loan of$524,777.29 to the equipment rental fund and authorize transfer of title to the 212`h Railroad Avenue land building and remodeling cash balance of$191,350 16 to the Public Development Authority as approved by council on March 3, 1998. Also to authorize a budget adjustment of$524,778 with the transfer of$392,000 from existing projects and the balance of$132,778 from CIP undesignated fund balance. The motion was seconded and carried with a vote of 3-0. Budget Change for Parks Maintenance Replacement Tractor John Hodgson presented The Parks Department's request for a budget change to acquire a tractor The Parks Department purchased a tractor in 1990 that's used throughout the year for maintenance purposes. The purchase was with the intent of the tractor lasting 10 years. The last couple of years, Mr. Hodgson said, there have been a lot of problems with the transmission and the tractor is in the shop for the second time. As a result, another tractor is being leased for $1700 a month to replace it. It was discussed with Equipment Rental that, rather than paying that much out each month to somebody else, why not pay the City itself back through the equipment rental fund and acquire the tractor two years early. The request is to take the $29,000 that the equipment rental fund has already accrued towards replacement, plus $4,000 extra dollars in the equipment rental fund, and then also transfer$7,500 from the Parks budget, from savings accrued because of a delay in hiring, and use those funds to purchase a tractor now. What that means is that the rental that was paid back to Equipment Rental is the equivalent of about $833 a month versus the $1,700 a month that the City has been paying to a private party to lease their tractor. Staff has looked at three or four different tractors and has agreed on one. There was some question as to whether the tractor would be a year- round tractor. It is, and will be used during the summer for various maintenance issues During the wintertime, it's basically for Parks to remove leaves and downed trees from storms. In February, Parks starts work on the City's 26 ballfields. Councilmember Tom Brotherton was concerned that as the city is growing it would take a long time to transport a tractor to outside areas, and it might be better in terms of having equipment on hand to utilize having two smaller tractors rather than one large one. One could be kept on the East Hill and one kept at the garage. He said that many jobs sound like they don't need large pieces of equipment - things like pesticide spraying and mowing don't require necessarily large equipment. Although there may be some large jobs that require a heavy piece of equipment or more specialized equipment. Mr. Brotherton stated that he would like to see a trade study that would look at some of the alternatives of having two smaller tractors versus the one large one to save transit time, and in the case of one breaking down, for a backup. Mr. Hodgson responded that space studies to determine the needs of the city in terms of space to the year 2010 and location of a park maintenance facility have been done and would be brought to a Council workshop on July 71h. He said this tractor is not very large in terms of spraying fields, but has a boom on the back about 10 feet long that makes sweep after sweep and so really saves manpower. Unless the City can get that manpower on a volunteer basis, it is a savings. This tractor also allows the aeration of thousands of acres of turf. Mr Hodgson said he and Mr Brotherton had talked about trying to get more opportunities for people to have jobs and he was in agreement with that and saw the need for the Parks Department to look at its use of facilities and tractors to that purpose. Mr. Hodgson agreed to ask staff to look into purchasing smaller tractors, but said for this particular issue this tractor is needed because it does a lot of things and is not huge Sandy Amodt moved to recommend a budget change of$40,824 to purchase a replacement park maintenance 545C Tractor using equipment reserve funds of$33,324 in parks budget of$7,500 The motion was seconded and carried. Chair Leona Orr said she liked Mr Brotherton's idea of doing some additional study for future needs and that she would like to see the subject brought back to the Committee. The issue is not so much one of location but whether there is the need for two tractors versus one It really is a matter of functionality of the equipment. Mr. Hodgson said there was no disagreement in terms of having two units at different locations because of the size of the city and the topography, which makes travel times between sites difficult He said it was a matter of properly sizing equipment to do the job and that it was not a good investment to get equipment that was undersized and couldn't handle the job LID 347/348 Combined LID Bond Draft Schedule Brent McFall said he wanted to review with the Committee the schedule for the issuance of LID Bonds. LID Bonds are different from councilmaric bonds and voted bonds in that they are sold and paid off by the collection of LID assessments against a specific property area. They come under a different category of bonds and a different underwriter is utilized for LID bonds. He said the process would be brought back to the Committee with bond ordinances in early August with the bond proceeds payable in mid August. 1998 Final Budeet Sandy Amodt explained that she went to an AWC workshop on 225 Tips for Guarding the Public Checkbook. Attendees were asked to bring their budget reports which were shared with others at their table. Everybody was very impressed with the budget format and the national award. The book has a series of questions for what the budget should have in it, a comparison chart, and glossary of terms in the back. Letter to Sound Transit Board's Citizens Oversight Committee Chair Leona Orr said that Councilmember Connie Epperly had asked her to present a letter to the Operations Committee that had been prepared for sending to the Sound Transit Board's Citizens Oversight Committee. Ms. Epperly requested a recommendation from the Committee to the Council to send the letter. Tim Clark commented that the letter was based on a presupposition that was not well founded in stating that as a City Council we have decided we will not change our comprehensive plan to accommodate the Sound Transit Board's decision. Leona Orr said it was certainly true that the City Council favored the south site, but it is also true that all of the Council looks forward to the train depot as being an asset to the City regardless of where it goes. Mr Clark questioned what could be gained from slowing up the process of making the station go forward. The site was not the Council's decision to make, but the RTA Board's because it was their project. The Council made its bid, the Board looked at the evidence and reached a decision. Mr. Clark said the letter is a highly suggestive appeal that says the Council is not trying to work with the Board. He said he did not think that was an accurate statement. The one thing that is clearly stated in the letter is the statement that the Council has made a commitment towards the funding package for the garage. Ms Orr said a concern addressed in the letter that has come up since Thursday's decision was that board members weren't present during any of the discussion, and then walked in and voted on the issue She said showing up after the fact was a lack of responsibility. Sandy Amodt, who was present at the meeting, said at least three board members came in 5 to 10 minutes before the vote, missing an hour's testimony beforehand. Ms. Orr said she had conversations with staff and personal meetings with Paul Price and Bob White, and a phone conversation with Bob Druel. These people stated that either site would work. Their concern was parking and if the City wanted a parking structure at the south site, the City had to fund it. Paul Price said if the City were to fund the south site, they would then recommend it to the Board. His words were that he was confident the Board would accept that recommendation. Then, Ms. Orr said, when the City came up with funding and the Board was notified that there was a funding mechanism in place and the City was fully prepared to pay its share of the parking structure, Paul Price then presented a caveat to his previous statement that staff would recommend the south site by saying he sort of forgot to mention it, but he was thinking about it and he meant to say it. Ms. Orr said that disturbed her. Ms Orr said she did not know if this letter actually said the Council would never work with the RTA Board, but thought it was worth sending a message that the majority of the Council was not pleased with the way the Board had reached their decision. She said there's been too many meetings, too many hearings, too much public testimony to not make every effort to make sure that this decision was made in the best possible way Ms. Orr stated that, in her opinion the decision was not made in the best possible way, and that she felt deceived by the board's staff people and their executive director. She said she had been assured that they would respect the City's comprehensive plan, the downtown plan, and the majority of the City Council, and would make a recommendation based on that. This letter seemed like a starting point to at least let them know that the Council was not pleased with the way this was handled. Tim Clark reiterated that it was the RTA Board's decision and even if the Council didn't like their decision they couldn't change it. The question, he said, is whether the Council will now cooperate with them. Mr Clark asked Brent McFall what the projected cost of covered parking would be. Mr. McFall said that depended upon how many spaces would be in the garage. He said there was a difference of about$5,000-$7,000 per stall to build structured parking as opposed to surface parking. The total bill would probably be somewhere in the neighborhood of$8,000,000. Mr. Clark reminded the Committee that the City committed $4,000,000 which wouldn't come close to building the garage. Mr. McFall said the City's obligation is basically to cover the cost differential between what the Board would have spent on surface parking and the cost of structured parking. He said the RTA Board has a budget, which they are in the process of proposing, to cover the cost of the project with the anticipation that all the parking would be surface parking That money still remains and will be devoted to parking whether it is surface or structured. Ms. Orr said it had been suggested by staff members and members of the public that if the station did go on the north site, there would be more surface parking than structured parking. It had also been suggested that there was considerable room for expansion at the north end because of the Borden Chemical site. Ms. Orr stated that she did not believe anyone on the Council would want to see that site turned into parking for the regional transit station. She said she has a serious concern about that property being eaten up for a parking lot at some point 5 years down the road if Borden decides to sell and leave town. Ms. Orr said it was the responsibility of the Council as elected representatives of people who sent dozens of letters, who testified at dozens of meetings overwhelmingly in support of the south site, to do whatever it could to make sure that the decision was made in the best way possible. Tim Clark said he felt the Committee was dividing itself on an issue that a board had already taken a position on when the need was to move on down the road and deal with all the issues that would follow. He said the all of the Council is committed to improving the vitality of downtown Kent and the station would do that no matter where it was built. Mr. Clark stated that the RTA Board has made their decision and he could see no positive good to be drawn from dragging the issue out when there is no authority to change what has already occurred. Sandy Amodt said she agreed with the letter because Americans have a right to democracy and to review things in government. If that option is given up, then citizens will lose their power. Ms Amodt said that to some people it might seem petty but this is a way for citizens to exercise their voice and be heard. Ms. Amodt moved to take this to the full council that night for review and decision on whether to send the letter or not. The motion was seconded and carried 2-1. Tim Clark dissented Ms. Orr said the item would go to council that night as an added item The meeting was adjourned.