[MissoulaGov] Committee Update 8-6-08

[Bob Jaffe]

Good Evening,

This morning we started with Conservation.  We had a presentation from the
consultant working on the Fort Missoula Regional Park Master Plan. Several
months ago there was an effort to get a levy on the ballot to raise some
number of millions to develop the park. The council voted not to allow the
effort to go forward. One of the main complaints was that there was no plan
as to how the money would get spent. We wanted to know what was going to get
built and how much it would cost. So we approved the expenditure to hire a
consultant to develop a park master plan. The presentation today represented
the first portion of the work. They had a layout of roads, buildings, and
soccer fields.  The whole thing will be soccer and rugby. No baseball. When
asked about this Donna Gaukler said that in their surveys and studies they
have found that we have sufficient baseball and tennis facilities in the
community. The 'Friends of the Fort' group also said they had made efforts
to bring in the little league folks but they were not interested.

 

What I thought would be the most controversial aspect of the design was the
round-about entrance on South Avenue between Big Sky High School and the guy
with the big "go away city" sign in his yard. I wonder if he is a fan of
round-abouts?

 

In PAZ we covered two fairly simple items. First was a resolution of intent
to annex for a twenty acre parcel David Edgel is developing out in the
Mullan road area.  No controversy yet but we will see how it evolves.

The other was a phasing amendment for Magenta Meadows subdivision. This was
the first subdivision we did when I got on council. It was very
controversial. They had proposed it in two phases. The first phase would
just have a few lots and would be on septic. The second higher density phase
would get built after the sewer came in.  They accidentally missed filing
the first phase so they asked if we would just make both phases expire on
the 2012 deadline. We were OK with that with the condition that the whole
thing go on sewer since it is out there now.

 

In A&F we heard a little about the $250,000 shortfall in our number from the
department of revenue.  There is still some lack of confidence in the
number. We are seeing a slow down in growth right now but the revenue
numbers are based on the situation 18 months ago when things were still
going strong.  They show a very large portion of the growth in taxable value
falling into URD III. That means the money goes to MRA and not the general
fund. The DOR shows a $1.2 million increase in taxable value in URD III. Our
own calculations show that number at $500,000.  So there is still some
uncertainty where the chips will land.

But in the meantime we are working on a budget that needs $250,000 taken out
of it in the eleventh hour.  But that's not all. There is also a $103,603
shortfall due to an increase in our liability and property insurance.

 

The administration proposed a number of places to pull money from. We spent
$46,000 less than budgeted on the Hells Angels weekend.

[Note: I would think it should be Hell's Angels with an apostrophe. I saw on
this one guy's jacket he didn't have the apostrophe. I was thinking I should
point that out but was advised against it.]

We can save $65,000 by postponing PC replacements. We can cut the aquatics
subsidy by $133,000. There were a few other things but the aquatics subsidy
was the focus of the discussion. According to the original estimates we have
budgeted $188,000 per year in subsidy. In FY 08 they only came short
$55,000.  Parks proposed that they use the extra $133,000 on $30,000 tile
replacement for the currents bathroom, $40,000 for a UV filtration system,
and put the rest in a reserve fund.  The administration proposal leaves that
FY08 money intact but drops the FY09 subsidy to the $55,000 level. This will
be OK if FY09 goes as well as FY08 except there won't be any reserve
contribution.

We struggled mightily with trying to cobble together a proposal that moved
$20,000 of impact fees into buying the UV system and then moving $20,000
back out of the subsidy to try to fund some of the parks maintenance budget
that was already routed to make up for the budget shortfalls that were known
from the beginning. We will try again next week.

It is possible that we will postpone the final approval of the budget a few
extra weeks to make sure there is enough time to sort everything out.

The other part of the discussion was about fee increases.  All of our
various fees are set to recover the actual cost of service. The exception to
this is OPG. The planning fees for developers are subsidized 50%. And this
is only after a substantial increase in fees last year. So on the one hand
this is an obvious place to look to raise fees. But on the other hand those
fees just had a dramatic increase last year.

 

In Public Works we met with the consultant working on Parking for the
downtown master plan. I believe his name is Dennis Burns. I can't get to any
of my links right now to confirm but this should work later:

ftp://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/Packets/Council/2008/2008-07-21/Referrals/MPC_PW
referral.pdf

There should be a link to the report on the referral.

There was a meeting tonight to discuss the proposal. They are talking about
how the parking commission could best be structured to serve the community.

 

That was about it for today.

 

Thanks for your interest,

 

Bob Jaffe

Missoula City Council, Ward 3

 <mailto:bjaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us> bjaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us

406-728-1052

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