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10102013CouncilMinutes CITY OF AMMON CITY COUNCIL MINUTES – WORK SESSION THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2013 AGENDA: CITY OF AMMON 2135 SOUTH AMMON ROAD CITY COUNCIL AGENDA – WORK SESSION THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2013 – 4:30 P.M. DISCUSSION ITEMS: 1.Backflow Prevention Program and Requirements 2.Sanitation – Illegal dumping 3.Fair Housing Resolution – Request from Idaho Housing Authority 4.Noxious Weeds – Bonneville County Spraying 5.Planning & Zoning Commission Site Plan Review 6.Misc. EXECUTIVE SESSION: 1.Personnel Evaluations - Idaho Code 67-2345 (1-b) 2.Real Property Acquisitions - Idaho Code 67-2345 (1-c) 3.Pending Litigation - Idaho Code 67-2345 (1-f) MINUTES City Officials Present: Mayor Steve Fuhriman Councilmember Dana Kirkham Councilmember Brian Powell Councilmember Sean Coletti Councilmember Russell Slack Councilmember Brad Christensen City Attorney Scott Hall City Clerk/Administrator/Planning Director Ron Folsom Deputy Clerk Rachael Brown City Engineer Lance Bates Public Works Director Ray Ellis Building Official Charlie Allen City Officials Absent: Councilmember Rex Thompson DISCUSSION ITEMS: Mayor Fuhriman opened the meeting at 4:30 p.m. at the Ammon City Hall building located at 2135 South Ammon Road. 1. Backflow Prevention Program and Requirements: Ron said the point of the matter is, we have spent a lot of time talking about backflow prevention and have never done anything with it. Ron said DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality) does require backflow testing, the State of Idaho requires testing, and the State of Idaho says that the purveyor is responsible for making sure the testing happens on an annual basis. The City’s ordinance says that it will be tested every year, but we don’t have a mechanism in place to track it or to send notices out to say that it is due. Ron explained that in Caselle there are mechanisms to track backflow prevention testing. Ray said the biggest concern he has and the biggest threat to our water system is a backflow event. Earlier this year 1,100 people in Boise got sick from a backflow event. Last week in the process of de-winterizing some sprinkler systems we think we had a backflow in our parks fail and it injected a lot of air in the system. We can make a lot of people sick if we have a backflow event. Ron said he and Rachael had talked to Jim McNall at ICRMP and used this example. Jim said absolutely if we have an event, the City will be liable and the insurance will be affected dramatically. Ron said we are not looking at how the Council wants us to proceed with backflow inspections, but rather that you understand that we should be doing the inspections even though nobody in this area has been. Ron said he would like to start out working with Ray about how we will be handle backflow inspection, next summer 13 City Council Minutes 10.10.2013 Page of have an education process, and then implement the enforcement of backflow inspections in 2015. Ron said when he and Scott Hall talked, Scott agreed that if we went that way, it wouldn’t be as bad for us to have an event if we have something in place that we are working on, although we would still found liable. Ron said we do expect the office staff will receive some complaint calls about it. Discussion ensued regarding enforcement of backflow prevention testing and inspections. Councilmember Powell said he would like to see the City do this in house. Charlie Allen explained that the Building Department is requiring the homeowner to obtain a letter from the certified backflow tester confirming the system passed inspection. Scott said the City could send out an RFP (Request for Proposal) and company “x” says they will do it for $40, at that point he may call the people who do his landscaping and ask them how much they would charge, and they may charge less. Can I do that? Scott said under that scenario it may be more economical for the homeowner to have the inspection done at the time their system is turned on or off. Discussion ensued. Ray said it boils down to how much risk the City is willing to take. Councilmember Kirkham stated we have some research to do, and asked Lance if he had some time to contact other cities our size to see how they are handling backflow inspections. Lance said he can certainly do some research and talk to some other cities. Scott said if we can do the research and mid-winter prepare a cost analysis, then next summer we could go through the education process and implement it the following summer. Councilmember Kirkham said the bottom line is, it is mandated by the State, and it behooves us to have the numbers so we can say to the public this is why we are doing it, this is how we are doing it, this is the best price we can get, and we are not just trying to add a new fee. Scott said this would be a good article for the spring newsletter. 2. Sanitation – Illegal dumping: Ray said we have had three serious instances of people putting propane tanks in the dumpster. A propane tank was crushed and exploded; luckily he wasn’t standing where it could hurt him, and since then we have fished two others out of dumpsters before they were crushed. Ray said we were very lucky that no one was hurt. Councilmember Kirkham said we need some teeth in our ordinance. Scott said there are two or three things that can be done; 1. Require the dumpsters to be fenced so that it is more difficult for people to illegally dump. 2. Decals to be placed on the dumpster stating the violation if caught illegally dumping. 3. Change the ordinance to make it a misdemeanor. 4. Give businesses six months or twelve months to fence around their dumpsters so that it isn’t a burden; it is unfair to require the new businesses to have dumpsters fenced and not the existing businesses. Discussion ensued regarding fencing around dumpsters. Councilmember Coletti suggested locking the dumpsters. Ray said he has done that in some areas. Locking the dumpsters is an improvement, but also a hassle for those that are sharing a dumpster. Scott said it becomes a time issue when the driver has to unlock the dumpsters. Councilmember Christensen suggested having a dumpster at the Public Works building where people could dump items that are too large for their containers and may be hazardous. Ray said we have tried to do a community wide pickup a couple of times, and it has proven to be too costly. Ray said it is doable, but at a significant cost. Councilmember Christensen said we will make the labels, and pass an ordinance making it a misdemeanor to illegally dump in the dumpsters. 3. Fair Housing Resolution – Request from Idaho Housing Authority: Ron said he put this on the agenda, but he wanted the Council to know that it is only a fair housing resolution that has been requested by Sand Creek Apartments because they are undergoing a big refinance and a major renovation to Sand Creek Apartments. It came down to not being able to get the loan if the City didn’t have a Fair Housing Resolution saying that we are non-discriminatory. As long as the Council is ok with it, he will add it to the agenda for October 17th. The Council is fine with the Resolution. 4. Noxious Weeds – Bonneville County Spraying: Scott said weed control this last year was exponentially better than it has been in the past. Shawna has been working with the Weed Department whenever issues have come up and he has given her some guidance and he went to Jeff Pettingil at the County to try and get the two of them to work together, and he feels the issue has been handled. Ron said the City doesn’t receive funding to spray noxious weeds and there is funding that comes into the County for spraying noxious weeds. Scott explained he sat down with Jeff and the Commissioners and explained to them that that is why they receive this funding and when the City calls about noxious weeds they need to assist us. 5. Planning & Zoning Commission Site Plan Review: Ron explained that right now when a site plan comes in we have to take it to Planning and Zoning for approval, but don’t bring it to City Council anymore. As our site plans have evolved from a review of parking and landscaping, staff spends sometimes months working with a developer. Ron used an example that occurred today; we had to call a special Planning and Zoning meeting because we have a site plan that Lance has been working on with the developer, it was not ready to come to the Planning and Zoning Commission in October, but if we made them wait until November they wouldn’t get this building built this year. This happens on a regular basis; somebody will come in a week after a Planning and Zoning meeting and will want to get a building permit, and we can’t let them because they have missed that one step. He would like the Council’s approval to make a change to Title 10 so that site plans are reviewed at the staff level. Staff signs off on them now, and the average site plan review at Planning and Zoning is about three minutes. If the Council feels it is important for the Planning and 23 City Council Minutes 10.10.2013 Page of Zoning Commission to see all the site plans, he can make sure to submit a monthly report to them. The Council is ok with making the change to Title 10 with regard to Site Plans. 6. Misc.: Ron said at the November City Council meeting the Council will have a hearing for a new lighting district. Scott said on that issue, when we did Lighting District #1, we had to create the documents first time around. Those documents are in place now and Ron has all of those and Scotts firm is under retainer now, and it won’t be a separate fee. The new lighting district is in Bridgewater Divisions 3 and 4. Scott said the Cottages pool club house will be coming back for a hearing; Scott cautioned the Council about talking to anybody about it prior to the hearing. Scott explained that the water rights the City received recently have been held up at DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality). They are the rights the City is in the process of purchasing. Scott said they had a problem with their mitigation plan and are trying to work through that yet. Scott said technically it has been long enough that the Council, if they wanted to, could go back and say you are no longer interested. Discussion ensued. Councilmember Coletti reported that he attended the Bonneville County Dispatch grand opening tour. He said Keith Banda was also there and they talked to the staff at dispatch about some recent issues. Councilmember Coletti said that Keith said he felt the issues had been worked through. Councilmember Coletti said he can’t see the benefit of the City of Ammon doing dispatch ourselves. Ron reminded the Council that on October 21st Bruce Patterson is hosting a VIP Reception for the Broadband Fiber. Scott said he would encourage the Councilmember’s to invite any legislators they know to attend. The meeting adjourned at 5:32 p.m. _____________________________________________ Steve Fuhriman, Mayor __________________________________________________ Ron Folsom, City Clerk 33 City Council Minutes 10.10.2013 Page of