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06142007CouncilMinutes - Work SessionCITY OF AMMON CITY COUNCIL MINUTES THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 2007 AGENDA: CITY OF AMMON 2135 SOUTH AMMON ROAD CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION AGENDA THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 2007 DISCUSSION ITEMS: 1. Water Delivery Issues – Roger Warner 2. Financial Report FY 2007 YTD 3. Budget Planning FY 2008 4. Misc. MINUTES The work session started at 4:07 p.m. in the City Building, 2135 South Ammon Road, Ammon, Idaho, with the following City Officials present: City Officials Present: Mayor Bruce Ard Councilmember Lee Bean Councilmember Dana Kirkham Councilmember Randy Waite City Planning Director Ron Folsom City Engineer Bill Manwill City Administrator Bruce Rose City Clerk Leslie Folsom City Officials Absent: Councilmember Rex Thompson DISCUSSION ITEMS : 1. Water Delivery Issues – Roger Warner: Roger Warner, Rocky Mountain Environmental representative, explained the water rights to the Council and the objections to the water rights by other patrons. He explained the legal process for handling water right protests. Roger Warner explained by State Law they have to give a 21 day notice. He explained there is a pre-hearing process. Council discussed using Kent Foster for their water right issues as the legal representative. Councilmember Kirkham inquired if there is anyway to separate Well #10 and #11. Roger explained you could but it would not be beneficial. Council discussed most protests are regarding Well #11. Council discussed the area of impact is 1000 feet. Councilmember Bean recommended getting Kent Foster on board, a hydrologist on board, and asked Roger to keep working with them. Councilmember Bean asked Roger to speak to Kent Foster and Tom Wood (hydrologist). Roger agreed. City Administrator Bruce Rose recommended getting Roger under a professional services contract. He asked Roger to bring in a proposal with his compensation rates. Roger stated he would and would get Tom Wood and Kent Foster’s schedules. Bruce asked Roger to get together with him tomorrow so they can get something to IDWR by Monday. Council discussed giving the Mayor the right to negotiate with the council ratifying his actions. st They will schedule this for June 21. 2. Financial Report FY 2007 YTD: Councilmember Bean inquired when someone pays us for an investigation we put it into income. Leslie Folsom said yes. Councilmember Bean left the room to speak to Judy from Galusha and she advised Councilmember Bean that we need to keep proceeding as we do now. Council reviewed the current budget. Council discussed the computer support item and why it was over so much. Bruce Patterson explained the budget was not enough to cover what was needed for IT support. Council discussed the Fire Department budget. Some things were not paid for from last year. Councilmember Bean explained that the general fund in Building will not be transferred this next year. He explained if they spend everything in the general fund, then they will be over budget. Bruce Rose suggested going through the items and deciding which are non-discretionary. Council inquired about the Streets section regarding salaries and employee benefits. Mayor Ard inquired about Water Funds heat and why it is at 362%. Bad debts were inquired about as to Special Work Session Council Minutes 06/14/2007 -- 1 why they are so high. It was discussed that a lot of accounts were cleaned and audited due to prior employee mistakes. Leslie Folsom explained that about 75 letters were sent out to people that were not signed up for services, but we were able to identify they were using our services. Some of them are back dated about 3 – 5 years. Leslie Folsom explained we are billing developers now and then they have the occupants come in to connect. Leslie also explained with apartment buildings they are being billed to the landlord and the landlord can decide how to bill their tenants. Mayor Ard stated he is still concerned about the heat (gas) expenditure and if they are misposted. Lisa Jones stated she will look into this. Mayor Ard commented everyone will have to be focused on their budget this year because this will be a tight year. 3. Budget Planning FY 2008: Councilmember Kirkham explained why we have an I.T. document. It was discussed that software for different departments will still fall under I.T. Council inquired why we need I.T. in the Sanitation department. Bruce Patterson explained he doesn’t know how Council would like the I.T. expenditures to be presented. Council needs to decide how they want it to be used. Patterson stated departments would like connectivity and this will be a substantial cost. Patterson explained the cell phones are in this document and anything concerning data connection is also there. He suggested Council should have a definition of the process for I.T. purchases. Councilmember Bean inquired if Patterson would be willing to be a full-time I.T. person. Patterson stated he would like to see them create some positions for I.T. and when they get to that point, he would be willing to address a full- time status. Councilmember Kirkham suggested we look at this in Executive Session. Bruce Rose explained these expenditures will be spread out throughout the budget. Councilmember Kirkham stated that these figures are what is wanted, not what is necessary or affordable. Councilmember Kirkham suggested putting an I.T. line item in each category so we can see where we are, according to budget. Leslie Folsom inquired if it could be a separate department. Council discussed this would not work. Patterson explained the department should spend the I.T. freely, however, we need to have a policy to show how the I.T. will be used. Councilmember Bean inquired about part of it being buried in cell phones, etc. He inquired as to where the phone cost would be listed. Patterson explained it is on the last page under Support. Patterson stated we will have to figure percentages regarding telephone and computer service usage. Councilmember Kirkham suggested getting together on Monday to break this down so it can be presented in a more understandable matter. Jeannette stated there are two problems, 1) who will make the decisions, and 2) how much will it cost. She suggested that they should write a policy for the I.T.department to have decision making rights in certain areas. It could be just capital purchases or much more. She explained the budget is a whole separate issue. She explained you don’t have to change the way you are posting, but just add an I.T. line item. Departments should not be able to purchase any I.T. type items; it should be handled by I.T. Bruce Rose stated they could draft a one page policy and have it available for presentation to Council. Councilmember Kirkham stated we need to see numbers on the master sheet, not “See I.T.”. Bruce explained he planned wrong, but he will change it for next year. It was discussed we could use older computers for other departments. Patterson explained if you do that, you need to budget for a certain amount of new computers each year. Street Projects were discussed and that expenditures may drastically increase in the following years due to more subdivisions. Councilmember Waite explained the budget item for a snow plow due to the fact that the County will being doing less and less plowing as we continue to grow. Council discussed lease-purchase agreements. Jeannette discussed a Fraser decision that makes it so banks won’t do lease-purchase agreements with cities. She stated we need to be calling our legislatures to get this changed. Councilmember Bean inquired how many plows that will give us. Rick Williams stated we would have three. Bruce explained if we cannot fit the $153,000 in for a new plow, he would at least like to see if they could get $17,000 for a new sander. Bruce explained that they don’t have updated amounts in the items that have (07) next to it. He explained those future street projects are needed to be addressed. They either need to be paid for, financed, or saved for. Councilmember Bean inquired about the Parks line item repair walks and if it should be put under another area instead of capital expenditures. Bruce explained they can be put wherever we need. Councilmember Kirkham inquired if we had decided to hold off on the ball park diamond. Council discussed whether it is needed. It was discussed it would cost approximately $80,000 but they are doing it for $40,000. Councilmember Bean inquired what it would cost to sod the far field in Peterson. Ken stated he thought around $3-5,000. Councilmember Bean inquired how many fields we need. Kent stated we could use about 3 or 4 more and he explained a couple of possibilities of where we could put them. Councilmember Bean inquired as to the weed control and why it was $3500.00. He explained he had to go to other parts to pay for it. Councilmember Bean asked that they put it only in the one line item so we can understand how much it really costs. He asked if they would correct it so it will read correctly. Councilmember Bean asked if that was what happened with the fence also. Ken stated it was. Councilmember Bean asked Lisa to correct this. Special Work Session Council Minutes 06/14/2007 -- 2 Councilmember Kirkham had to leave the meeting due to another meeting she had to attend. Bruce Rose spoke about water and sewer budget issues. He explained sewer doesn’t have any numbers in there yet. It was discussed it would be about $3 million. He explained the Sunnyside-Crowley interceptor doesn’t have a number either. Bill Manwill explained what that project is about. Bill Manwill stated he will get a number to put in there. Councilmember Bean asked Bill what he would estimate. Bill stated he wasn’t sure. Councilmember Bean recommended that we move to a fully automated system for a sanitation truck. Mayor Ard stated if we do then we won’t need the others we have. It was discussed we could get rid of some and put the money towards the new automated ones. It was discussed we have to declare them as surplus and put them out for bid. It was discussed it would fix our man power problem. Councilmember Bean stated we would have to do a rate adjustment. Councilmember Bean asked Bruce to call Pocatello and Shelley for their rates for their cans and to see if we could piggy back onto their bids. The council wants to be sure to get high quality cans so they last. It was discussed the previously bid sanitation truck would still be on agenda, but we could just reject the bids. 4. Misc.: Leslie Folsom explained that there are a few items on the utility resolution that need to be clarified. A clarification on the professional office rate needs to be listed as a Professional Business zone only and the rest would be commercial. She also explained that schools state based on maximum occupancy. White Pines came in and it was way out of line for what they were handling.. She suggested returning to the old arrangement of having schools give us an enrollment number every year. The metered commercial water/sewer rates are actually for anything other than residential so the wording needs adjusted. The monthly charge for per business dumpster rate needed to be clarified also. The sewer line connection will most likely be changed in the future by the building department. st She explained Majestic will be coming on the 21 to dispute how commercial should be based. It is based off on the average business. She tried to explain that it’s very similar to residential. She lives by herself and her neighbor has 8 people but we pay the same rates. Both constituents are at the far spectrum of the figures but the average is how everything is based. He is in Falls Water, so we cannot shut him off, however, we can file a lawsuit.. Bruce Rose mentioned the Ammon Day celebration and stated we need to have someone put in portable toilets. They would like the pool to be open. Jennifer stated she could do it for a free day, but with staff and other costs it will be about $200. We would also need some staff on hand to empty garbage. He figures our total costs would be under $1000. He inquired if we are willing to consider that as a city. Council decided it was. Bill Manwill inquired about funding capital improvements on streets, etc. Bill suggested an exaction fee rather than an impact fee. Councilmember Bean inquired to Bill if he has spoken to Scott about this suggestion. Bill stated he has not. He explained we have basically already been doing it. He explained this catches the little guys, and stops the arguing. He explained it won’t work unless the County works with us. He explained the reasoning behind $10,000 per acre cost. Councilmember Bean told Bill to have Ron run it past Scott and have it for an action item on the next agenda. Bill cautioned that you need to work with the County on this. Councilmember Bean stated he would talk to the County. Councilmember Waite motioned to adjourn. All in favor, the motion passed. The meeting adjourned at 7:00 p.m. ___________________________________________ C. Bruce Ard, Mayor ______________________________________ Leslie Folsom, City Clerk Special Work Session Council Minutes 06/14/2007 -- 3