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HomeMy WebLinkAbout07-14-1998sp CITY OF AUBURN SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION REGARDING CAPITAL FACILITIES PLAN JULY 14, 1998 4:00 PM Auburn City Hall Council Work Area Minutes I. INTRODUCTION Mayor Booth called the special meeting to order at 4:00 PM in the Council Work Area located in the Mayor's Office on the first floor of City Hall, 25 West Main Street, Auburn. Councilmembers present included: Rich Wagner, Jeanne Barber, Sue Singer, Gene Cerino, Pete Lewis, and Trish Borden. Councilmember Fred Poe was excused from the meeting. Staff members present included Finance Director Diane L. Supler, Grant Accountant Joe Guinasso, Parks and Recreation Director Dick Deal, Assistant Planning Director Lynn Rued, Public Works Director Christine Engler, Assistant Fire Chief Russ Vandver, Assistant Police Chief Bob Almy, and City Clerk Danielle Daskam. The purpose of the special meeting is to review the Capital Facilities Plan, including projects and financing. Finance Director Supler explained that the consulting firm of Henderson and Young was hired to develop a Capital Facilities Plan for the City. The Capital Facilities Plan is one of the elements of the Comprehensive Plan that is required by the Growth Management Act. Ms. Supler explained the process used to identify and rank the capital improvements. Some of the projects related to existing assets were subjectively moved upward in the ranking system. The Capital Facilities Plan is a document that will be evaluated and amended if necessary. II. CAPITAL FACILITIES PLAN (1998-2003) Mr. Randy Young and Mr. Bill Henderson of Henderson & Young were in attendance to review the details of the Capital Facilities Plan (CFP) and answer questions regarding the processes used in developing the CFP. The process was dependent upon the involvement of City staff and involved the inventory of existing facilities, identifying level of service of facilities, and identified needs for facilities. Lists of potential capital improvement projects were developed and prioritized using a prioritization form for departments to use in evaluating Special City Council Meeting July 14, lgg8 Page 2 projects. Each project was evaluated against ten criteria. Mr. Young displayed the evaluation form and scoring guidelines using an overhead slide. The ten criteria included level of service, legal requirement, public health or safety, environmental protection, scope of benefits, Comprehensive Plan, quality of public services, related projects, future operating budgets, and public support. Mr. Young advised that the scoring guidelines will be included as part of the final Plan document. Councilmember Wagner suggested including guidelines and criteria for generation of jobs and the general fiscal health of the City. He also suggested criteria for quality of life. Mr. Young explained that the evaluation forms were provided to the departments, a workshop was given to staff to explain the use of the evaluation forms and guidelines, and the departments scored their own projects. Mr. Henderson then met with each department to review their scores. Mr. Young described the resulting scores as reliable and defensible. While the score was a significant contributor to the final ranking of the project, the score was not the exclusive driving force behind the final decision making process. Other contributing factors included availability of funding and how the project related to the community vision. Mr. Young also worked with Finance Department staff in preparing a revenue forecast for the projects. Mr. Young reported that the Plan in its first review draft is within approximately ten percent of a balanced budget or approximately $21 million out of balance. Council guidance is needed in order to balance the Plan. Council will need to determine whether unfunded projects need to be funded or should be dropped from the Plan. Mr. Young also encouraged the Council to review the funded projects and express any concerns with proposed projects. Mr. Young presented replacement pages for pages 2 and 3. He briefly reviewed the organization and contents of the Plan. The Plan was developed based on existing city limits. Page 2 includes the overall cost of the capital facilities and page 3 includes the financing figures for the capital facilities. Mr. Young referred to page 5 of the Plan, Level of Service Consequences of the CFP. He noted that the category of Community Parks should be removed from the first table on page 5. Mr. Young then reviewed the analysis of capital facilities requirements for Community Parks. The bulk of the Plan document is contained in Chapter 3. Chapter 3 is devoted to individual types of public facilities projects, their financing, and summaries. Mr. Young referred the Council to Chapter 2 which contains the goals and policies related to capital facilities. Chapter 1 of the Plan contains introductory Special City Council Meeting July 14, 1998 Page 3 material and explains the'methodology of the Plan. Chapter 4 contains summaries of the implementation programs. Mr. Young then directed the Council in a walk-through one type of public facility, reviewing current facilities, levels of service, capital facilities projects and financing, impact on future operating budgets, and concurrency. Mr. Young cautioned that the Council would need to review "new revenue" projects to determine whether the proposed new revenues are acceptable. Council must also address the "unfunded" projects to determine whether they should be funded or dropped from the Plan. Mr. Young referred the Council to the corrected page 3 which contains revenue sources, both existing revenues and proposed new revenues. He then directed the Council's attention to the charts reflecting the impacts on future operating budgets. He stressed that following the capital costs to construct the projects, there is an impact on the City's operating budget to maintain the projects. Some of the operating costs are considerable. The City must decide whether each of the public facilities contained in the Plan is subject to the concurrency requirement of the Growth Management law. Concurrency means that facilities that are needed to serve new development have to be available concurrent with development. State law clearly requires concurrency for transportation. Concurrency is required for water and sewer as well, The Growth Management law allows cities to choose to apply concurrency to any public facility. If the City chooses not to apply concurrency to a public facility, the City must explain the reason within the Plan document. Councilmember Wagner suggested that the Concurrency section should include the six year horizon language. Mr. Young presented the Council with a handout of a six-year forecast which contains revenue sources available by law to a city but which may not be feasible or fit the philosophy or strategy of the City Council. He reviewed the revenue sources and the funds generated over the six-year period (1999-2004) of the Plan. He noted that some sources are not forecast for various reasons. Some revenue sources are already used for operation and maintenance and any excess is already pledged to the capital budget. Others depend on specific projects. Mr. Young distributed copies of a handout entitled General Government Unfunded CFP Projects (1998-2003). The handout includes those capital projects that are currently unfunded. Special City Council Meeting July 14, lcJg8 Page 4 Mr. Young then directed the Council through a review of the individual Capital Facilities Plan projects beginning on page 33 of the Plan document. Page 33 - Airport Councilmember Wagner expressed concern that the projects planned for the aiport may be too aggressive for the cash flow realized by the airport. Finance Director Supler spoke regarding a possible Limited Tax General Obligation Bond. The bond issue would be supported by the revenues generated by the hangars, but in the event of the inability of the airport to pay off the bonds annual principal and interest, the General Fund would be a secondary line of security. Ms. Supler advised that it is almost impossible to obtain a revenue bond for the airport or the golf course without security from the General Fund. Councilmember Lewis expressed concern that the income generated by facilities, such as hangars, is not included in the financing plan. Councilmembers indicated that in order to make a determination on whether a project is retained in the Plan, information on the potential operating income is required. A brief dinner break was taken at this time. Finance Director Supler briefly spoke regarding the hotel/motel tax. Based on the potential revenue and the cost to implement the tax at this time, she recommended against implementing a hotel/motel tax. Page 39 - Mountain View Cemetery Mr. Young noted that the Cemetery projects are unfunded by $400,000. Councilmembers instructed that Project 6, Land Acquisition should be moved ahead to the year 2000. Funding for the land acquisition will be through an interfund loan and sale of other real estate. Parks and Recreation Director Deal estimated that the sale of other real estate would bring in approximately $150,000. Finance Director Supler agreed to prepare a separate financial analysis of the operating income. Page 42 - Community Improvement Community Improvement projects are those which renovate or rejuvenate the appearance or economy of portions of the city. Community Improvement projects include $6 million in unfunded projects. Five million dollars in unfunded costs are within the downtown public/private redevelopment. Also unfunded is $1 million in undergrounding utilities. Councilmembers indicated more information is required from the Planning and Community Development Director. Several Councilmembers indicated preference for projects 1, 3 and 5. Special City Council Meeting July 14, 1998 Page 5 Page 47 - Fire Mr. Young advised that a fourth fire station was not included in the project list since the Fire Station Location Study was not yet complete. Mayor Booth cautioned that the operation costs of an additional fire station is $1 million per year. Councilmembers recommended the Plan include $2.4 million for a fourth station with a funding source from councilmanic bonds. Page 51 - General Municipal Buildings Councilmembers questioned the description of project 1 which indicates the expansion of the police headquarters to the Municipal Court area. Finance Director Supler referred the Council to page 80 which provides for the construction of a new municipal jail and court building. Mr. Young pointed out that the po!ice headquarters and the jail/court building are unfunded projects. Assistant Chief Almy indicated that Federal Way may be interested in a joint jail and/or court facility. Councilmembers discussed the cost of building new facilities versus the cost of contracting out jail and court services. Councilmembers agreed to keep the police headquarters project as a line item. Page 56 - Golf Course Projects under the Golf Course Capital Facilities Plan include the construction of a new clubhouse and additional parking. Estimated cost is $2 million. Parks and Recreation Director Deal reported that although the number of rounds played has dropped significantly since the early 1990's, he anticipates the number of rounds played will begin to gradually increase.' He also pointed out that there are approximately 40 acres of golf course property east of the course that could be sold to generate funds. Councilmembers suggested Mr. Deal investigate options for a lease operation for the golf course. Councilmembers indicated Project 1 should be removed from the project list while others urged the Council to revisit the need for a new clubhouse. Page 60 - Library The new library facility is a resolved issue. Pages 72-74 - Parks and Recreation The projects listed under this category are all unfunded projects. Councilmembers suggested that the skatepark listed as Project 2 should be moved to 1999. Parks and Recreation Director Deal explained the categories of capacity projects versus non-capacity projects. A capacity project is required to maintain level of service. Non-capacity projects Special City Council Meeting July 14, 1998 Page 6 consist of repairs at an existing facility. In response to a question from Councilmember Wagner, Mr. Young explained that the White River Trail project is listed as a transportation project for 1998. Councilmembers recommended that any park project under $20,000 should be removed from the project list. The remaining projects will be reflected as unfunded projects. Mayor Booth requested Councilmembers review the remaining portions of the Plan document and prepare questions for another study session on the Plan. Mr. Young encouraged the Council to contemplate the process to cut unfunded projects or support new funding sources. Councilmembers agreed to meet again in special session on July 28, 1998. III. ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 8:05 PM. Approved this/- day of March, 1999. Charles A. Booth, Mayor Danielle Daskam, City Clerk 98m7-14.doc