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10142010CouncilMinutes-WS CITY OF AMMON CITY COUNCIL MINUTES – WORK SESSION THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2010 AGENDA: CITY OF AMMON 2135 SOUTH AMMON ROAD CITY COUNCIL AGENDA – WORK SESSION THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2010 – 4:30 P.M. DISCUSSION ITEMS: 1.Sunnyside – Ammon Road Stop Light (Kirkham) 2.McCowin Pool Presentation (Ken) 3.Connection Fees (Kirkham)* 4.Garbage Rates – More than One in a Single Unit (Kirkham)* 5.Rocky Mountain Power Franchise Fees (Bean/Leslie)* 6.Misc. EXECUTIVE SESSION (5:30pm): 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: Councilmember Dana Kirkham Councilmember Lee Bean Councilmember Rex Thompson Councilmember Russell Slack Councilmember Sean Coletti City Clerk Leslie Folsom City Engineer Lance Bates City Attorney Scott Hall (arrived at 5:30 p.m.) City Officials Absent: Mayor Steve Fuhriman Councilmember Brian Powell Councilmember Kirkham opened the meeting at 4:38 p.m. at the Ammon City Hall Building located at 2135 South Ammon Road. DISCUSSION ITEMS: 1. Sunnyside – Ammon Road Stop Light (Kirkham): Councilmember Bean updated the Council concerning an earlier work session, which some members of the Council had missed. Lennis Tirrell had asked the Council not to assess stoplight fees onto his properties. Councilmember Kirkham asked why there is an assumption that there is an assessment on these properties. Lennis Tirrell, 3195 Molen Street stated that Ron had mentioned that a $90,000 assessment would be placed on each of the three properties as they developed. Councilmember Slack said there was the intention of having it assessed, but there is no lien or any current documentation of the amount. Lennis said when they were going to proceed with the parking lot; he was told that the fee would be assessed. Councilmember Kirkham said she remembered the Council had discussed the small lot on the northwest corner of the intersection and the Council felt that it wasn’t reasonable for the small lot to pay the $90,000 assessment. Councilmember Thompson said there is Council Minutes – Work Session 10-14-10 Page 1 of 5 nothing in the notes explaining all of this. Councilmember Slack said they could develop this small lot, but only with a mobile building, with reduced landscaping of 15 feet, and asphalt. Councilmember Kirkham said she feels we have collected $90,000 from Maverik and put it in escrow with the intent for it to be used for a stoplight when it is warranted. She feels this is a moot discussion and the improvements would have to be upon development. Councilmember Bean said some of this will depend upon what goes into the property. Lennis said this fee is sitting out there and if he tries to get a building permit the $90,000 has been implied. Councilmember Bean said whatever assessment is made will depend on what goes into the properties. The City has typically assessed the fee, per each corner. Councilmember Kirkham said Wal-Mart paid the whole cost for the light on Curlew, so she doesn’t believe there should be the assumption that Lennis will be paying an equal share to Maverik on those other three corners. Lennis listed Liberty Square, the Soccer Arena and many other businesses down the road. He inquired if any of those businesses had paid to the special assessment fund. Councilmember Kirkham said some paid a front footage fee and some enhanced the road. Councilmember Thompson said a lot of it is received through the lot, because the development had to pay it. It’s not a special assessment, but there is a payment there because things are passed on. Councilmember Slack said there will probably be an assessment when those properties that Lennis is concerned about are developed, but as a Council they don’t know how much. It is dependent on the size and scope of the developments. Councilmember Slack said the Council is willing to work with Lennis, as an individual, to try to alleviate as much as we can without the citizens of Ammon subsidizing development. Lennis stated said he had paid $500 twice to bring the car lot to Council and the third time he paid for a variance. He feels each time they were rejected. Councilmember Kirkham said the third time when Roger came to Council the $90,000 had been waived, a mobile unit was allowed and the landscape strip was reduced. Roger said he wasn’t doing it and left. She said she didn’t know if there had been a breakdown of communication between Lennis & Roger. Lennis said Ron had told him he needed to pay the $90,000. Leslie clarified that Ron stated it couldn’t be a permanent building, but it could be mobile and thus not require the fee. Councilmember Slack said it has been solved and if he wants to put a car lot there he can and those are the requirements Council needed to have fulfilled. Council does intend to have something assessed, but the Council doesn’t know how much. Dustin Schmitt, 7010 E. Valverde, Lennis’ son-in-law inquired if this is what they approved (discussing the Conditional Use Permit), are they going to change special condition Number 5 to say no permanent building be allowed without the review process? Council concurred that is what was approved, at the time. From the family’s point of view, after talking with Council, there is no $90,000 fee assessed to these lots. Councilmember Kirkham said she has talked a lot with Lennis and wondered where the number came from. Apparently staff has indicated it to Lennis, but she doesn’t feel that was the intent that there was $90,000 assessed to each corner. Dustin asked Councilmember Kirkham if the Council was going to have anything that says, at this point, what the assessment will be. Councilmember Kirkham said no. She said typically this is done at development with the development agreement. Dustin read a letter into record – the letter is in the “Documentation presented to Council folder with the minutes”. A portion of the letter read in requested a grandfather clause that would permit anyone to be allowed to develop the properties in question without a special assessment. Councilmember Kirkham explained that Council cannot grandfather them in and say that absolutely never will there be a special assessment, but they could say that, at the time of development, there will be a discussion. Councilmember Slack explained the situation, “if you have a developer who had a piece of property on the corner who had owned it for years and wants to develop it, but wants the City to pay for the light that goes there. For the City to take money out of the general fund, to which everyone in Ammon had contributed to, then to subsidize the development of commercial property, a lot of people would be upset. The Council understands how this affects the Tirrell’s, but hopes they can see what the issues are for the City”. Lennis asked Councilmember Slack where the stoplight benefits the three lots. Councilmember Slack said he is a commercial banker and it is all about location. Lennis’ property allows so much visibility and so much traffic to go through there. Lennis’ location is very desirable and he will get a direct benefit from this location. This Council Minutes – Work Session 10-14-10 Page 2 of 5 is why Lennis bought the property. Lennis said the stoplight benefits all the residents and any other travelers who use that road. Councilmember Slack said he doesn’t feel the Tirrell’s would be happy, if the City subsidized commercial enterprise with City funds. Councilmember Slack said they hadn’t determined a set amount and he hopes he is comfortable in knowing that. Lennis’ family asked why a special assessment couldn’t be done. Councilmember Kirkham explained it is called an impact fee. Impact fees in Idaho haven’t been popular or successful in the courts. In order to assess one, it is very expensive and failed in courts, which is why the City hasn’t pursued it. Lennis wanted to clarify a few more points. He asked about the tax issues regarding how federal taxes are paid differently per the person’s ability to pay, however, property taxes are different. He thinks Maverik is spending $3 million on this building. He visited with the general construction manager for Maverik and they have 30 buildings scheduled for next year. Lennis bought the Kelly property April 9, 1984 for the amount of $50,000 – they paid Ethel Pickett $20,000 plus a loan of $30,000 at 12% interest. Councilmember Bean asked which property Lennis was referring to. Lennis said the Ice Shack property. The next one was for a Family Trust which was the old Peterson Farm. They have owned it for 24 years. 15 years ago they had all the deeds turned into the family trust. Councilmember Bean asked about the cost of the northeast corner horse pasture. Lennis paid $60,000 for that corner. Lennis requested a copy of the minutes of this work session. Leslie said she would get the minutes to him, as soon as she has them completed and approved. 2. McCowin Pool Presentation (Ken): Ken presented a new idea for the McCowin Pool area. He turned the microphone over to Cameron Brian who has done a tremendous amount of work on the pool. He would like Cameron to tell the Council what he and his youth group have done. Cameron Bryan, 1355 Newgate Drive said he had approached Ken in August to have his church group help in the aesthetics of the pool. Ken had budgeted $3,000 for repairs. The group has repaired the roof – they removed the destroyed material and they have cleaned out the old restrooms that had been previously filled with trash. They are currently scraping the old paint off and priming and repainting, then installing new shelves in the office. They have a donation of labor from an individual, who has a restoration business, as a carpenter to help fix the interior and make needed usable cabinet space. The current expenses have been $500, but there are still materials needed. They have given over 100 hours of labor to date and more to come. It’s been a good project for the youth and he has had a lot of kids participating. Council stated how much they appreciate his efforts. Councilmember Slack said that Ken has another benefit from this, he is to be able to add in kind labor to offset requirements of different grants. Council requested some pictures for the newsletter. Leslie asked him to explain how the painting will be done with monograms. Cameron said they have a member who will donate pictures on the pool walls to animate the different groups of swimming lessons the City offers. Ken said the City might be into the project $1,100. He is looking at restoring the restroom facilities, instead of using porta-potties. He showed the Council how he would like to propose adding grass areas to help promote other activities with the pool. Councilmember Slack asked the Council if they had a problem eliminating a few parking spaces and turning it into space for parents to sit, while their children were taking swim lessons. Ken said he would allow people to sit on the grass to watch their kids. Ken said the seven parking spaces really don’t amount to a lot, because the area in question is a no parking area with an island. This should help with the traffic flow. The deck space will be left. Moving the fence 25 feet into the parking lot would give the City approximately 6,000 additional square feet. Council agreed that it is fine. Ken said he is looking at doing this in the near future. Ken said the new software program is working phenomenally. The shelters from last year had about $2400 in revenue and we are already over $5,000 for this year. The swimming pool had $89,000 in revenue this year. 3. Connection Fees (Kirkham)*: Councilmember Kirkham decided this issue was not ready for discussion. 4. Garbage Rates – More than One in a Single Unit (Kirkham)*: Councilmember Kirkham said she wanted to start with the businesses where you have multiple businesses sharing a dumpster. Each one of the Council Minutes – Work Session 10-14-10 Page 3 of 5 businesses are charged $45.00 for sanitation pickup, however, they share one dumpster with most being dumped once a week. An example would be the offices by Key Bank where there are two buildings with six office spaces in the building. These multiple businesses are billed $540.00 per month. She compared this with Piano Gallery, dumped twice a week, which pays $125 a month and feels there is an inequity. She suggested not billing it according to square footage and come up with a business park rate that will bill a price per dump to the complex. Council concurred this is more fair. Councilmember Kirkham explained to Lennis that the City will be tracking the costs for commercial, so the fees can be figured accordingly. Ray and Lance are collecting data to help figure out what it will cost to dump per yard per dumpster and then the adjustments can be made. Lennis Tirrell, 3195 Molen Street said he tried to address this last year with Council. In Idaho Falls his family business is dumping three times per week. At their rate of $73.70 for dumping three times per week (3 yd) and Ammon’s charge would be $165 (5 yd). Councilmember Thompson said you can’t compare Idaho Falls to Ammon, because the costs are different. Lennis said the difference is one mile, because it is going to the transfer station. It is just a dumping fee. Councilmember Thompson said there are more expenses than the dumping fee. The City is trying to get the figures, so we will know the exact costs. The home store pays $50.84 dumped three times a week; however they share with the fire station, so they dump five times a week. Kendal Ward, 155 N. 4100 E. Rigby said the City of Idaho Falls shares the dumpster with them, so the City fire station dumps it two more times for free, due to their usage. Lennis has had everybody using his dumpster and has now locked it down. Ray Ellis said the Anderson Street store dumpster is three yards and the Ammon store is five yards. Lennis said Alene Jensen told him if they bought their own dumpster, they would get a better rate. Lennis said he paid around $700 for a dumpster, but doesn’t know if he really owns it or if the City of Ammon does. Councilmember Bean said if you fix the rate to equal the yardage, then the rate would be $123 in Idaho Falls. Councilmember Kirkham said we are more expensive due to economy of scale, but the City is looking into all the costs for better evaluation. Lennis said there are lots of businesses that aren’t picked up by Ammon and shouldn’t be allowed to use outside sanitation services. Leslie said those businesses are using a compactor and we cannot accommodate the sanitation service for them. If the City can accommodate the services, then they still have to pay a minimum charge. Councilmember Kirkham said in regard to the business park rate, she asked the Council if they could instruct the staff to start the ball rolling to make these changes. Council concurred. Ray Ellis said you have to look that the administration cost is 20%, however, you are going to take one rate and bill across 5-10-15-etc and not recover the administration charge. There will be overhead costs that will have to be covered with changing this rate. He feels we should bill one rate, per customer. Councilmember Kirkham said people have asked to make the rate retroactive. Council said no and feels everyone will be happy, if we just move forward. 5. Rocky Mountain Power Franchise Fees (Bean/Leslie)*: Councilmember Bean asked Leslie to move this into the next work session agenda. 6. Misc.: Ray showed the Council a valve that was recently pulled out of Molen and Central Street. In an attempt to close the valve, it was broken. It is 50 years old and showing neglect. There will be issues with money to cover these replacement expenses. The staff is currently trying to exercise all the valves once a year, but there are issues with past handling. Lance said there are thousands of these values in the City. There are usually three valves in every intersection. Ray said when this was repaired, there were two more that went bad. Councilmember Slack asked if this was an issue of just not exercising the valves. Ray said that is part of it, but they are outliving their useful life. Councilmember Slack asked the Council if we were setting aside the capacity replacement fees. Lance the connection fees are gathered and are set aside for later use, but we haven’t been collecting that much in connection fees. Lance said when a building permit is issued part of it is a connection fee, however, some of that can be used for operations and maintenance. Councilmember Bean said that is why in your fee, you have to have a capital improvement cost built into that to replace existing lines. Ray said we need to begin now for a rehabilitation project for Old Ammon that will be needed within five years. Council Minutes – Work Session 10-14-10 Page 4 of 5 Leslie advised Council there is a daycare issue where they are not meeting the child to staff ratio. Health and Welfare went in and found they had 1 person per 25 children. Councilmember Slack asked where the daycare was located. Leslie said its Nana’s Daycare. Stacy had written her up for a violation, during a surprise inspection. Leslie said there will be another inspection and if it finds she is in violation, a misdemeanor will be written. Councilmember Bean said no, write her up now. Leslie said it has to be an officer that witnesses it and Shawna has not witnessed it, at this time. Leslie will be sending Shawna and Stacy in for another inspection, to which, a misdemeanor will be issued if a violation occurs. Scott Hall advised the Council concerning Domingo Torres workman’s compensation. He has not been released by his doctor, but is still officially working for the City. The City can still keep him in a working status until he would normally be released and then workman’s compensation will take over to complete the claim. EXECUTIVE SESSION (5:30pm): 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) Councilmember Kirkham motioned to enter into executive session pursuant to Idaho Code 67-2345 (1-f). Councilmember Bean seconded. Roll Call Vote: Councilmember Kirkham – Yes, Councilmember Bean – Yes, Councilmember Slack – Yes, Councilmember Coletti – Yes, and Councilmember Thompson – Yes. The motion passed. The meeting adjourned at 5:45 p.m. _____________________________________ Steve Fuhriman, Mayor __________________________________ Leslie Folsom, City Clerk Council Minutes – Work Session 10-14-10 Page 5 of 5