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01132011CouncilMinutes-WS CITY OF AMMON CITY COUNCIL MINUTES – WORK SESSION THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 2011 AGENDA: CITY OF AMMON 2135 SOUTH AMMON ROAD CITY COUNCIL AGENDA – WORK SESSION THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 2011 – 4:30 P.M. DISCUSSION ITEMS: 1.City Library Presentation (Ron/Angie Payne) 2.Grader Purchase (Lance) 3.ERU Formula Calculations (Lance)* 4.Rocky Mountain Power Franchise Fees (Bean)* 5.Strategic Plan (Kirkham) 6.Misc. MINUTES City Officials Present: Mayor Steve Fuhriman Councilmember Dana Kirkham Councilmember Lee Bean Councilmember Sean Coletti Councilmember Russell Slack City Clerk Leslie Folsom City Engineer Lance Bates City Planner Ron Folsom City Officials Absent: Councilmember Brian Powell Councilmember Rex Thompson City Attorney Scott Hall City Treasurer Jennifer Belfield Mayor Fuhriman opened the meeting at 4:30 p.m. at the City Hall Building located at 2135 S. Ammon Road. DISCUSSION ITEMS: 1. City Library Presentation (Ron/Angie Payne): Angie Payne, 3180 Carolyn Lane stated that she feels the City of Ammon needs a library. She is not expecting the City to pay for the library or location; however, she feels the size of the City dictates a library is needed. Bannock County has 7 cities each with a library, Bingham County has 6 cities with 4 libraries, Madison County has 2 cities with 2 libraries, Twin Falls County has 8 cities with 5 libraries, Ada County has 6 cities with 6 libraries and Bonneville County has only one library for the entire County. Every household pays toward the library, except the apartments which would amount to $36,000. Idaho Falls library budget is $2.9 million and our contribution is $663,000. She is going to ask them to take some of the existing funds and give it to Ammon. Areas that have City run libraries have not worked, since limited municipal funds usually go to roads and in rough economic times, it is the library budgets that go down. She would like Ammon to be a satellite of the Idaho Falls library, like Iona. The board at this time is an administrative only board and she would like it to be run by a director. The City of Idaho Falls spends $600,000 for books, etc. She would like a levy rather than a fee, so that commercial would also pay into the library. Library use is up since 2005. Councilmember Bean asked her how the City library would be run. Angie said the Bonneville County Library District Board should run the library. Councilmember Kirkham asked for specifics. The County would take the Council Minutes – Work Session 1-13-11 Page 1 of 5 fees and ask the $49 to be a levy. How much would Ammon turn in? Angie said with 4200 households it would be $200,000. Councilmember Kirkham said $200,000 per year doesn’t buy a lot of books and wonders if the goal can be made. Angie said they are considering the entire County. There will also be commercial properties. The idea would be to create the Library District and change it to a levy so the entire County pays. Councilmember Bean asked about Bonneville County and how they contract to administer the library. Do you want the County to withdraw from Idaho Falls? Councilmember Kirkham said no, they would be establishing a Library District. Ron said there is a library board in the County, but they only meet to say we have this much money and give it to Idaho Falls. There are some people who are too far away, so they are excluded. Ron said anyone could challenge the fee. Council said she has their support and asked if she needs something specific to take back to the board. It was also mentioned that the library district could float a bond. 2. Grader Purchase (Lance): Councilmember Kirkham said she has talked to Lance about the price being between $82,000 to $200,000. Lance said Ray has found a lease return for $150,000. She asked the Council if they will spend $150,000. Councilmember Slack asked if the City has anyone who can drive a grader. Lance said yes, we have Andy and he is very good. Councilmember Bean asked if the age matters more or the hours. Lance said sometimes the age isn’t as efficient, since the equipment has been out in the weather longer and is rusted. Ray said the older they get and then the parts are harder to get. Councilmember Bean asked how old. Ray said anything older than 15 years, the parts are difficult to find. He feels 5000 hours is a good breakpoint and feels it would give us a grader that is serviceable. Councilmember Kirkham asked if the grader is more important than a street sweeper. Ray said yes. Councilmember Bean asked if Ray thinks the additional expense for snow plowing equipment would allow us to keep the ruts down. Ray said when you have a lot of snow a lot of ruts get created. Every snow storm creates its own set of issues. Councilmember Kirkham asked for a top 10 request for equipment. She would like us to go to bid. Lance said Rigby has already gone out for bid and we can possibly piggyback on the bid. Ray said Madison County purchases graders in bulk and under their purchase agreement; Caterpillar maintains them up to 5000 hours. So these coming back are 4900 hours. Rigby just signed an agreement to purchase 2 of those and we can piggyback our purchase with their purchase at $147,500. Lance said the money is there from the street design th of First Street, or of 17, or the Ammon Road budget. Councilmember Bean asked how much it cost to lease the equipment. Lance said it would be $48,000 per year, plus the maintenance. Councilmember Kirkham said it is for snow removal, shoulder repairs and taking care of our dirt roads. Councilmember Slack said he is fine with what is happening with snow removal and he could even go with less than with what we are giving the citizens now. Lance said there are many who would disagree with you. Councilmember Kirkham said the snow is being removed the best that the City has even done. Ray said the grader costs $80 - $90 per hour. Councilmember Slack asked how much the last cleanup cost was. Lance said $15,000 for the one clean up. Ray said the road grader has helped with ice issues. Councilmember Bean asked how many hours it took to get through the City areas to remove the ruts. Ray said 7 days at 8 hours per day for those 2 pieces of equipment to get through the City. Lance said it depends how warm it gets too. Ray said our grader operator is good enough that the grader has been able to be used in the cul-de-sacs. Councilmember Slack discussed the low-pressure tanks and the grant that the fire department has been trying to acquire for replacement of these tanks. The fire department has lost 22 tanks out of 44. Councilmember Slack said we could handle only one large fire with these 22 tanks that are full, but they won’t be able to be refilled. If the grant doesn’t come in, then they could look at leasing tanks in-between. He brought this up in case the City doesn’t get the grant and thus the tanks would have to be purchased. He feels the cost will be around $50,000. Councilmember Bean said the City will have to put in a replacement reserve for this equipment. Councilmember Kirkham said the City’s Public Works provides basic necessities and her support of the grader comes from their demonstrating how something can be done well and the only way for this to continue being done is to have this piece of equipment. Councilmember Coletti, Councilmember Bean, and Councilmember Kirkham support it. Councilmember Slack is hesitant, since he is worried about the sewer shortfall and old Ammon pipes that are breaking. The City has dealt with snow removal problems for a long time and why should we change direction right now. Lance said our results are better, because we are using a grader. Ray said the City is renting it for one month at the year price, since the City is looking at the purchase. Councilmember Bean said why not look at the strategic plan and see where the City is at this time. Councilmember Kirkham said we will miss the ability to Council Minutes – Work Session 1-13-11 Page 2 of 5 piggyback. Leslie said when you talk sewer and water, the citizens don’t see anything, but they do see snow removal. Councilmember Kirkham said if the Council does develop the Strategic Plan in February she will hold, but if not then they will purchase the equipment. Lance said last year there was a significant amount of money left over. Ray said if this is the direction we feel confident we are going to go, he will call Western States and they will put 70% of the rent towards the purchase. Council concurred. 3. ERU Formula Calculations (Lance)*: Lance showed the Council the examples of individual companies and how the calculations were based. He gave Walker Produce as an example, which averages 29,000 gallons per day; he assumed 90 percent entered the sewer which gave 82 ERU’s. Councilmember Bean asked about Ameritel. Lance said with a 100 person occupancy load, the swimming pool, sleeping rooms and rooms with kitchenettes they are at 100 X .04 ERU’s per person, 78 rooms X .25 ERU’s and 6 rooms with kitchenettes that are rated at .5 ERU’s each and so the total comes to 27 ERU’s. Councilmember Bean confirmed we used Metcalf and Eddy, instead of actual usage. Lance said he used the Metcalf and Eddy table with the City usually going to the low end of the scale. Lance said the schools are based on the years and equalized out. Councilmember Kirkham asked about the churches and inquired if it was based on them only being occupied on Sundays. Lance said most churches have some sort of use during the week also. Lance said everything is documented with the page number and the book it references that is available at anytime. Discussion ensued about how the ERU’s were calculated. Councilmember Kirkham asked about the lift station with regard to Rod Harris, Joe Maughn and the complaints and inquired if we had to treat it with hydrogen peroxide. Ray said in the late summer we disconnected the bio filter and put up a fan assembly and after this was done there has been one complaint. Council thanked Lance for his efforts. Councilmember Kirkham said the whole region will benefit. 4. Rocky Mountain Power Franchise Fees (Bean)*: Councilmember Bean said this is the only franchise that does not have fees attached and wants to know if the Council is interested in it. Councilmember Bean explained to the other Councilmembers about Franchise fees, which businesses have franchise agreements, and what they pay to the City. Leslie said the companies use the City’s roads and easements, so this is the fee associated with that. Councilmember Bean recommended if it is received, that it is designated to a specific line item. Councilmember Slack would like some of the fees to go toward the roads. Councilmember Kirkham said that is why she is in favor of it and we need to move forward and see what we can assess and how much it will bring in. Councilmember Slack said it would be nice to help keep up with the infrastructure. Council asked Councilmember Bean to put a proposal together and have the Council vote on it. Councilmember Slack said the franchise fees are for the streets and it would be nice to put the funds towards this. Councilmember Kirkham will talk with Glen Pond and find out what the procedure is to do this. 5. Strategic Plan (Kirkham): Councilmember Kirkham asked the Mayor about the Council assignments which are included in the documents received at the meeting. They went over the assignments and changes were made. Councilmember Bean said the Mayor is over the office. Councilmember Kirkham said the Mayor is over all of the departments. Councilmember Bean said the assignments are secondary to the Mayor. Councilmember Kirkham stated that in February she would like the Council to identify the short term goals for the City. She would like to know what all the departments will be doing in the next 5 years with suggestions as to how they would get to those goals. Councilmember Slack said his short term goals for the fire department are to replace the masks and tanks. They need to move to a high pressure system and get a filling station, so they can practice with the masks. The Parks Department is not making a lot of changes, but they are going to try to provide concessions inside the pool and in the long term he would like to see the pool doubled in size with the fence being expanded this year. The elementary schools would like to offer one free pass for the student that reads the most. He asked the Council if they have any objections. Council said there are no objections. Councilmember Bean said the police are status quo and he wouldn’t change a thing at this time. Sam has done a good job assisting the City. Councilmember Kirkham said some teachers have talked with Dr. Shackett and he has said there might be some compromise between the City and the Sheriff’s office regarding DARE. Councilmember Bean said Jennifer has really helped and it’s nice to have her coordinate the budget. Council Minutes – Work Session 1-13-11 Page 3 of 5 Mayor Fuhriman said we need three dates for the meeting with Idaho Falls concerning the Hitt Road Memorandum of Understanding. Council said they want to set a date and those who can come – will come and those that can’t, can’t. Councilmember Kirkham said the two Mayors’ should figure when they can come and the Council’s can follow. Mayor Steve Fuhriman said he will let the Council know next week. Mayor Steve said the discussion with Rachael about the Deputy Clerk position didn’t go very well, but after some discussion he believes she is probably ok with it. She is already performing a lot of the work and the pay raise wasn’t the issue. The title was really important to her and he hadn’t anticipated the difficulty for her. He would like to address it again in the future. Councilmember Kirkham asked about the Mayor’s wind farm. Mayor Steve said he has a committee formed. He has been doing this as a citizen, not as a Mayor. The group will be studying the possibility of a Regional Electric District with the District owning the facility. Councilmember Bean said that he is doing this as a citizen, not as the Mayor. Mayor Steve said he has made it very clear that he is doing this as a citizen. It has nothing to do with the City, it is a Regional project. It will take 2-3 years to see if it is feasible. Councilmember Kirkham said there have been no promises. Mayor Steve said there have been no promises. Steve Hart is coming in as an attorney to work with the committee. Councilmember Coletti said in order to get the profits it will have to be on City property. Councilmember Coletti said it is profitable to the persons who lease the land to the windmill companies. Councilmember Bean said the Mayor wants to be a windmill company. Councilmember Bean asked who is on the committee. Mayor said Tom Fisher is an engineer, Kent Morris and Debbie for the minutes, a representative from ISU Research Dept., and Steve Hart as the attorney. Councilmember Bean said the Mayor shouldn’t report on this, since it is being done as a citizen, to keep it at arm’s length. Council said in the future if they need anything; it should be presented like any other citizen. They also recommended that the Mayor not be the one who presents it. Mayor Steve agreed. Mayor Steve said the library is also his desire. He feels the office is running smoothly, but he needs to address the issue with Rachael in a few months. Councilmember Kirkham said this will be a big year for Public Works with the SCADA building finishing by June. She asked Lee about the EIRWWA easements. Lance said the email came from Forsgren stating the easements have been being worked on for months. Husk wants to sit down with Councilmember Kirkham and she wants Councilmember Bean involved. Councilmember Bean asked Leslie to call Husk for some answers and he was pretty sure what those answers would be. He feels Husk is feeling the pressure with questions he has never been asked before. Lance said next week Husk is to come and give us some more information. Councilmember Kirkham said the Public Works issues are the roads, aging water infrastructure and Ammon’s existing sewer system infrastructure. Lance said Ammon will need to take over the maintenance of the sewer lines. Council discussed whether to increase the time on the sewer bond from 20 years to 30 years. Leslie said if you increase the years, then the interest will increase also. Councilmember Kirkham stated she has talked with Dr. Shackett concerning the easement with the School District and gave him a Wednesday deadline for a response. Leslie said Forsgren has sent another bill on the IBSD interceptor line and they are up to $174,000 and she doesn’t know what they have done. Lance said it has been for design work. Councilmember Kirkham said how they can design it when they don’t know where we are going. Lance said they have designed it with the easement through the high school. Councilmember Kirkham said the City will have to pay to redesign it, if the City doesn’t get the easement. Lance said today’s bill for the IBSD line included $18,600 in December, when they hardly did any work. Councilmember Kirkham said they will address it with Husk. Councilmember Coletti said Public Relations just got off the ground this year and he would like to have staff be in charge of generating the newsletter with some Council oversight. Councilmember Kirkham asked who on the staff would do this and wonders if the new IT person could do it. Leslie said she thinks Bruce would probably like to do it and he does it fast and thoroughly. Councilmember Coletti said he does an excellent job. Council agreed. Councilmember Kirkham said February’s strategic plan meeting will look at five year projections of where we want the City to be. Councilmember Bean said he wants invoices to justify the billing from Forsgren. Lance will tell Husk. Council Minutes – Work Session 1-13-11 Page 4 of 5 6. Misc.: Councilmember Slack said there will be a rate book for the Fire Department Joint Powers Agreement presented on a future agenda. Councilmember Kirkham asked Leslie to stay for the executive session. Councilmember Kirkham motioned to move into executive session pursuant to Idaho Code 67-2345 (1-b). Councilmember Bean seconded. Roll Call Vote: Councilmember Kirkham – Yes, Councilmember Bean – Yes, Councilmember Slack – Yes, and Councilmember Coletti – Yes. The motion passed. The meeting adjourned at 6:32 p.m. _____________________________________ Steve Fuhriman, Mayor __________________________________ Leslie Folsom, City Clerk Council Minutes – Work Session 1-13-11 Page 5 of 5