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