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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSSN101711CITY OF CENTRAL POINT City Council Study Session October 17, 2017 I. MEETING CALLED TO ORDER Mayor Williams called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. 11. ATTENDEES Mayor: Flank Williams Council Members: Bruce Dingier, Allen Broderick, Carol Fischer. and Kay Harrison were present. Ellie George and Kelly Geiger were absent. City Manager Phil Messina; Parks and Public Works Director Matt Samitore; Assistant City Manager Chris Clayton; and City Recorder Deanna Casey were also present. 11I. DISCUSSION ITEMS A. Event Accounting Parks and Public Works Director Matt Samitore presented the Battle of the Bones 201 1 review. PROS for 2011: • Great Community Event. Free parking, free entry, and free kid zone. • Great publicity for Central Point and Twin Creeks Park. e All funds are raised for the Parks Foundation. e Music on Saturday was good. • Kids Zone had lots of activities all during the event. • Good variety of food booths available. • Lines to get into the event moved smoothly, no long back up. • Wine sales increased with the options that were available. CONS for 201 I • The best of the bands competition on Sunday was not family friendly as agreed to in the rules. • Ran out of meat on Saturday night and people left early. We sold out of a]I the rubs in under an hour. • Switching tastes was confusing and didn't benefit the event, next year will be one meat per day. • BOB Bucks take a long Yime for finance to count • Punch tools were hard to use on the tickets • Need specillc instructions for volunteers and what to do with a "Lost Kid" • Our TV advertiser announced on Saturday evening that the event was over. We need to stress with our major sponsors to correctly report information. Things we would like to improve on: • Sanction the BBQ competition. This will relieve some of the work from our staff. The sanctioning body will take care of enforcing the competition rules, running the judging booth and distributing awards and prize money. • provide more signs in the microbrew area to direct public to both ends of the trailers. Council Study Session October 17, 2011 Page 2 • provide ribs on both days sold from the Foundation Booth in order to control the pro fi 1. • Plan on alternate transportation ii the vacant lots in Twin Creeks start to develop. • cut back on the live music events. That is a big part of the budget. We may look intojust one event each day. • have an organized group to take over the Kid Zonc. • Find an alternative to punches for the tastings. • Provide more space for the 1313Q booths to work in. 20 x 20 spaces would be great wish an option for smaller competitors. • Require a minimum of five people on each BBQ team to keep up with the public tastes. Staff will be recommending going away from B013 Bucks and using cash only. The 130[3 bucks are difficult to count and cause issues with some of the citizens when they leave but haven't spent al I their bucks. Vendors will pay a fee for the booth space and sell their items with cash. No percentage fee will be expected. There was discussion regarding the amount of Staff time these types of events take. Most city employees are expected to work at (east one day of the event. Finance staff is required to work both days and are allowed to have a day ol`I'during the week prior or after the event. This becomes an issue with Easter, Community Christmas, DARE Cruise, 4`~ of.luly, Friday Night Festival and the Rodeo. Do we consider the staff time as donated or account for them. The Battle of the Bones and the DARE Cruise events arc both fund raiser events and should be treated the same. Council was not sure how to direct staff regarding employees working the events. Not all employees get paid the same. Mr. Samitore stated that he would review the numbers and return with a recommendation to the Council at a later date. B. Pacific Power & Light Franchise Agreement Assistant City Manager Chris Clayton presented a proposed Pacific Power & Light Franchise Agreement which expires at the end of 201 I .Some of the recommended changes are: I . Consider a shorter agreement of 5 years versus 10 years 2. Consider a `favored nations" clause, which would allow the city to consider raising its franchise tee if the utility agrees to pay any other city in Oregon a higher fee. 3. Include language allowing the city to attach and maintain traffic signals, wires and control boxes for police & fire, wireless facilities, etc. to utility poles free oP charge. 4. Limit utility use to public rights of way, and exclude other public places, including parks. 5. Include requirements for information from the utility about the basis upon which compensation is calculated. 6. Audit authority. 7. Require City Council approval before franchise is transferred. l J n Council Study Session October 17, 2011 Page 3 8. Require electric mapping of electric facilities. 9. Utility permit requirements. 10. Increase franchise fee percentage from 5% to 7%.. Mr. Clayton presented a list of local Cities that have increased their franchise fee to 7% and stated that the power company prefers all the cities to be the same and recommends that Central Point does the same. The last increase for PP&L was in 2008 when we increased it from 3.5% to 5%. The impact to citizens would be 2% of their bill. In most cases they would pay less than a $ I a month. There was discussion about what this could mean for [he General fund and how we would use that increase. The city pays for street lights out of the street fund. Staff would like to use the increase to cover that cost. Franchise fees are deposited into the general fund and then distributed where they are needed. Some Council members do not want to increase any fees on the public at this time. Council Member Broderick doesn't see the difference between a utility fee and a franchise increase. "hhere was discussion of postponing the increase for a few years until the economy turns around. Mr. Clayton explained that citizens have control over how high their power bill is, and can adjust accordingly. A utility fee would be a flat fee that would not be adjustable. Mr. Samitore explained that if we do nothing with the franchise fee staff will be asking for a street utility fee within three years. 1-le stated that the Council has not wanted to implement a street utility fee because of the economy for several years now. "fhe street fund is scraping the bottom of the barrel and will not survive for much longer. 1-le explained the services that ~a~ill need to be cut if we do not find a funding source. If we take money from the Ceneral Fund to cover the Street Fund there will be cuts in the general fund. Staff will return with options at a future Council meeting for a Final decision. The Council will need to make a decision on the franchise agreement before the current one expires at the end of the year. C. RVSS Storm Water Quality Discussion Mc Clayton explained the law suit between the City of Phoenix and RVSS regarding a franchise agreement. The City of Phoenix has requested that the RVSS pay a franchise fee because they use the right of ways for their infrastructure. When they go in and make repairs they do not do a good job oP fixing the streets they have torn up. They damage the streets and expect the cities to repair them. Our Street Standards say they must do a half street over lay instead of patching, but RVSS has not been following those standards. Most of the local cities would like RVSS to pay a franchise fee to help cover our costs of repairing streets they work on. The City of Phoenix has prevailed in the law suit but they are waiting for the appellate court to issue a ruling. If they prevail most of the local cities will do the same thing with RVSS. Mr. Samitore explained the difference between the Storm Water Quality vs quantity. The city contracted with RVSS to do our water quality management and report to DEQ. When the contract began the city did not have a qualified person to oversee the requirements for Council Stud~,~ Session October 17, 2011 Page 9 water quality. RVSS monitors the water that was being released into the creeks and reports to DEQ. The city would like to end the contract with RVSS for water quality. We have not been satisfied with their management of the program and it is now a compliance project rather than a construction project. We also have staff that is qualified to manage this program for the city. There would still be a $I fee but it would be transferred from RVSS to the City. We are not asking to increase or implement a new fee. It will only be switched from the RVSS bill to the City water bill. If we take over the entire program we will have more control and the information we need to ensure the water being released into the creeks is as clean as we can get it. The City has to approve a Storm Water Master Plan before DEQ will allow us to take over the management of the program. Staff will return with a recommendation in the spring. IV. ADJOURNMF,NT The Study Session for October 17, 201 I, was adjourned at 735 p.m. n fl