Sister cities, farming city parks, BREWD grant for Royster Clark, Development Review Process Report, undergrounding utilities (who pays and how the work gets done) and more cops? Ooops, the Development review process and setting lawsuit has to be in part III after I go buy a new damn laptop, frustrated beyond belief with my HP and the mouse pad and keyboard. Otherwise, the computer is fine!
SISTER CITIES
Cnare moves and Verveer moves approval of item 23.
Satya Rhodes-Conway wanted to say for the record glad they are doing the it (getting the money to the Sister Cities that was in last year’s budget), the way they treated Sister Cities over the years is shameful, we lost complete and total faith of a number of them. They are not even interacting with us cuz they are so frustrated. She hopes we can do better by them in the future and that the money we do allocate could be delivered on time in the future.
Mayor Paul Soglin says he didn’t realize it was that bad, did we lose Oslo?
Rhodes-Conway says no, they just stopped talking to us.
Mayor says they will take a look at it.
Bridget Maniaci says they dissolved the committee, re-formed as working group, they re-prioritized and put the committee back together again, a number of sister cities through size or past experience with the city are not interested in coming to the table to be a part of the committee.
Lauren Cnare says that one of them talked to her over the weekend, they are going to a worldwide sister city conference and they went to 20 places around the city to get the information that they needed. We should not just write checks, we want to be true sisters and have an equal relationship and they need more than just money. She hopes they can work better to keep the international relationship.
Maniaci says they had an extensive discussion about resources in the city, its very frustrating to the groups that they see a kimono that is a $2K that a sister city gave to us and we give a $30 book and pen and basic information. One of questions the committee put forth is about having a press shop liaison to put the materials together, right now IT is doing that, we need to think about how to put best foot forward with economic and cultural development, efforts are large for simple things, how we present ourselves is important.
RENTING LAND FOR FARMING
Cnare moved approval of items 26 & 27, Verveer seconds.
Rhodes-Conway asks Kevin Briski, Parks Superintendent what they are doing? This is 5th addition property in Cherokee.
Briski says they have other farming operations, they decided farming and activity was better than letting it go and having invasive species.
Mayor asks what the long range plans say.
Briski says there is not a master plan. It is under consideration.
Briski says item 27 is Door Creek. They also want to keep it active. This area is master planned for athletics, but they don’t have the money yet and they want to keep it active and farmed.
Rhodes-Conway asks about restrictions on the type of farming or farming practices, esp. near Cherokee Marsh, that is a very sensitive ecosystem and a number of farming practices would harm it. Do they have provisions in the contract to prohibit that?
Don Marx from Real Estate says that herbicides and atrozine can’t be used.
Rhodes-Conway asks if there is an urgency to the contracts?
Marx says just getting the crops in the ground.
Rhodes-Conway is very uncomfortable with 26 without an ecological review, she appreciates the language about herbicide, but tilling practices can create run off. She understands desire to use property and prevent invasive species, and its not that she objects to the agricultural use, but in this case, she;d really like to have at a minimum Russ Hefty put together a recommendation.
Briski says that some of the recommendations are in this. (sorry, techinical issues, missed some)
Joe Clausius says that they have these all over the city. These are just renewals, right?
Briski says this is a new farmer.
Marx says they work with county property next door. They have the same operation, different farm.
Clausius asks if they could get answers before the next city council meeting.
They say yes, they vote and the motion carries on a unanimous voice vote.
ACCOUNTING ADJUSTMENTS
Cnare moves approval of item 29, Verveer seconds.
Rhodes-Conway asks Dean Brasser the Comptroller to explain this “arcane” resolution for new members.
Brasser says that during the year departments enter into contracts that may or may not get completed by the end of the year and carry over to the next year, these are allocate encumbrances. Contracts run over the end of the year, the contracts are still in place but there is nothing budgeted. This “arcane” resolution amends this budget by the amount not anticipated, we put $400K in, in this case it was $453K, so this allocates the $53K and allows them budget authority.
Soglin says this comes out of the contingent reserve, so he asks how much is left.
Brasser says that they allocate $1M each year so this would be down to roughly $950K.
Larry Palm asks if the encumbrances are from previous years and similar to other costs.
Brasser says sometimes its more and sometimes its less. They have added up to $100K. Sometimes they add money back to the contingent reserve. It depends upon which contracts are out. $400K is about the right amount.
Palm asks if its all operating costs.
Brasser says yes.
Brian Solomon asks if end of year when not spent, do the dollars go back to contingent reserve?
Deans says it goes into the fund balance. This is essentially rebudgeting.
The motion passes on a voice vote seemingly unanimous.”
WHO PAYS FOR UNDERGROUNDING OVERHEAD WIRES AND HOW IT IS DONE
Cnare moves item 29, Verveer seconds.
Mike Verveer asks Rob Phillips to explain the substitute from the city engineer. Verveer says the effecitive date is Nov 2 and asks Rob to explain the other changes. He moves the substitute, someone/may seconds.
Rob Phillips, the City Engineer says this allows the Common Council to establish an undergrounding district, property owners would have to underground in 24 months, city would reimburse up to $1K indexed for cost of construction. He says that the change in the substitute is effective November 1 2011 so things in the works before this date are not effected, this is to honor the commitment made prior to the ordinance and make sure those items are not effected, its more fair to properties that we were in discussion with in the last year. The other change is Doren Viste from the city attorney’s office suggested that they allow the city to assess the property owners in the event they don’t do the work on their own. They left that out. It’s crossed out in this version. They might want to bring it back in the future, they want to try it the other way first.
Verveer says he appreciates the explanation – under the current contract they have had success with MG&E who hired the electrician to do the work on private property and it was easily coordinated, with us taking this opinion out is the idea that MG&E would stilll use the same model and work with the property owners, or will it be more like lead service replacements.
Phillips says that the homeowner would be responsible to make the improvements, like water utility lead service and they would be reimbursed.
Verveer asks if there are concerns it would delay city projects if they can’t move quick enough.
Phillips says they are not worried about delay, it’s more burdensome, the real change is property owners have to pay but are reimbursed 50%, that alone makes it more difficult, in the past the city just paid cost, that will make it more burdensome and difficult.
Verveer supports it, but one thing found attractive was that the city could do it for them and he appreciates that if the experience isn’t positive they can look at city coordinating it if they need to.
Phillips says intended to discuss this but if they prefer could handle this at Board of Public Works after more discussion with alders and forward it to the Common Council.
Verveer says mayor should ask if there is more discussion
Cnare asks what the average cost is?
Phillips says $2K.
Cnare asks if there was an office building this large what would it be?
Phillips says in rare instances it can be considerably more and they can grant a time extension, one pole could remain indefinitely, it sounds worse than it is. He says one of the main concerns is trees and they wouldn’t have that concern in that instance.
Cnare asks if there are plenty of electricians available to do it in the time.
Phillips says that has not been an issue in the past
Maniaci asks about central city and this ordinance is pursuant to an adopted policy, that policy only covers commercial arterials. Johsnon will be redone in 2014, can you have an underground utility district there?
Philips says if want to extend to residential segments of arterials, then they should revise the policy
Maniaci says for central city area, the only way to get upgrades would be to change the policy?
Philips Rob says the undergrounding policy would determine where choose to establish underground utility district.
The substitute passes, and becomes the main motion. (God I love it that he knows Robert’s Rules and doesn’t play dumb and ask the city attorney every time he has a question – you’d have thought that after 8 years Dave would have gotten it?!)
Palm asks if it goes to Board of Public Works yes.
Deb Simon, comptrollers staff says Board of Public works is the lead.
Phillips says they meet a week from Wednesday.
The motion passes on a seemingly unanimous voice vote.
DUTCH MILL PARK AND RIDE
Cnare moves approval, Verveer seconds, no discussion, questions or registrants. It passes on a voice vote that seemed unanimous.
FINALLY! A BREWD GRANT!
Cnare moves approval, Verveer seconds.
Rhodes-Conway congratulates the staff on finally getting a BREWD grant our the door and thinks they shoudl come up and celebrate publicly.
Matt Mikolajewski from the Office of Business Assistance says this is the first award (after 2 years?) and it will go to RDC who is working on the Royster Clark property, in accordance with neighborhood plan, the demolition will include all the buildings, there are soil issues and other minor contaminations, over the next 20 years there will be , $30 to 40M in construction on the site.
The motion passes on a voice vote.
MORE COPS?
Cnare moves adoption of item 32, Verveer seconds.
Rhodes-Conway says the COPS grant positions don’t go away when the grant goes away, its hard to oppose this but its good to watch the pattern and think about what it means in the long term.
Verveer says he appreciates the Len Simon memo, did the mayor or Terri (Genin) or Randy (Gaber) have any idea if we would be more successful with this grant in the future.
Randy Gaber says that is unknown, 2005 was last time we got a COPS grant, this is a little different, it focuses on community policing and problem solving. These would be for the special investigative unit, this grant is very much geared toward this, in the past it was for patrol resources. He thinks will be more competitive, depends upon the other applications.
Terri Genin says we were not competitive because based on recovery act, we had to have a fiscal hardship and they are still asking for that data but it is less of a factor as to who gets awarded.
Cnare says Community Services talked about sharing money and people with the police department, about community assistance to quality of life issues, how will you make that hand off? Services are available, but you don’t know who to refer to, how will you make that hand off?
Gaber says that is a major portion of that grant, they will work with United Way and Office of Community Services, with a carrot and a stick. But collaborate with social services who offer resources for childcare, housing and jobs. He says he talked to Clingan and he has seen the presentation and will work with his agencies, this work is based on the High Point model in North Carolina.
And with that, they vote and it passed. Part III coming.
