[MissoulaGov] Committees 8-13-08

[Derek Goldman]

re, the proposed urban renewal district for the Hip Strip:
Can someone please explain to me how this works? if so designated, would funds for "renewal" projects come from general tax revenues? Would these funds only apply to projects on public property (like sidewallks) or could they fund improvements to someone's privately-owned commercial property? ie: does this amount to a public subsidy of highly-valued private commercial property?
(no offense to the Hip Strippers-- I love that neighborhood! Just concerned about what is the best use of city funds during times of a budget shortfall, and whether this is the most-blighted neighborhood). --Derek 



Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:56:15 -0600From: JWiener at ci.missoula.mt.usTo: missoulagov at cmslists.comSubject: [MissoulaGov] Committees 8-13-08




Bob is on vacation once more. I will be filling in.
 
Public Health and Safety started off the day with an update from the police department. The session focused mostly on the Hells Angels weekend. Chief Muir said that the police "could not have planned for [the weekend] to go as smoothly  as it did." Still, the visit cost Missoula an extra $93,000 in overtime and other costs; savings of $46,000 from the budgeted amount were realized by scheduling training and the like for times when officers were not patrolling. Chief Muir  pointed out that the overall volume of criminal activity in town went down during the weekend, which just goes to show that having an extra 60 some police officers on duty reduces crime. The guiding philosophy of the police during the weekend seemed like to be harm reduction. Other than responding to specific complaints on incidents, the police didn't engage our visitors for surveillance and interdiction. There were federal officers around for those purposes and they were in town and at the Testicle Festival. The main criminal activity seems to be some drug arrests in conjunction with a reported sexual assault (still under investigation) and a concealed weapons charge. To keep the police presence from being overwhelming foot and mobile patrols were limited to 32 officers in downtown at one time. Chief Muir reported no complaints about too much police over the weekend.
 
We also looked at preliminary racial profiling numbers, just the number of stops by demographic group. A citations versus warnings analysis is still being calculated. The counts were required by legislation from the last state legislative session. The results basically follow the population distribution except for African Americans, who were pulled over at a rate four times greater than their representation in the Census population. Chief Muir speculated that the Census data inaccurately represented the number of African Americans in town or that their representation in populations just passing through, but not living in town, was high enough to explain the difference (160 stops of African Americans vs about 40 that would have been predicted). Chief Muir added that if those stops yield high warning rates, as opposed to citations, it might be a sign that the disproportionate stops are less warranted, which would be a troubling set of events. At any rate over 90% of the stops were Caucasians, like our population.
 
The Chief closed with a warning that the department will be short staffed and might not meet all its benchmarks. Right now, they are authorized to have 102 officers but there are 4 vacancies and 7 officers on limited or light duty (2 permanently). Coming soon, a couple police officers will be deployed to Iraq, which will further reduce our local force and hamper the Chief's ambition to do problem-oriented policing, which is aimed at root causes rather than criminal behaviors. This wasn't, he said, a plea for more personnel but a warning that performance might lag because of the shortages.
 
In PAZ, talked about a conflict in the calculation of height regulations on hillsides. The issue arises because of the discrepancy between the natural slope of a hill and the finished slope, after grading and all. All parties seemed to feel like the issue was being addressed in the zoning rewrite and that there was not sufficient urgency to justify amending the existing ordinance ahead of the rewrite, provided that is successful, which we all hope it will be.
 
In A&F, we took up a request from commercial property owners in the vicinity of the Hip Strip to go looking for blight, which would be the first step toward creating an urban renewal district for the Hip Strip. There wasn't a heck of a lot of concern that there won't be opportunities to find blight; see the memo for some suggestions from the neighborhood at ftp://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/Packets/Council/2008/2008-07-21/Referrals/HipStripRequest.pdf. Some of the impetus for the request seemed to be coming from projects in the planning phases that would require structured parking. I have a financial concerns with putting growth in urban renewal districts since the property tax cap makes it so the only way to keep revenues in line with inflation is by adding new property to the tax rolls. If development is happening anyway, we would be causing future budget issues. Ellen Buchanan pointed out the URD revenue can and is often used for public works projects that would otherwise need to be paid for from the general fund so the URD can function complimentarily rather than competitively. One of the catalyzing projects is a proposed redo of the Penwell building, the white three story number on the corner of 3rd and Higgins. The owners may request rezoning to add height. While this is an accepted practice in historic restoration, one person from the neighborhood appeared to register opposition. I think we got some foreshadowing of some resistance from the neighborhood to increased heights and more urban character that might come with redevelopment. We decided to proceed with the blight study since it doesn't commit us to a cause of action but the vote was not unanimous and the full Council won't consider the question until August 25 so Ellen can go on vacation next week.
 
After lunch, we returned to the budget. Because the state has told us that we have grown considerably more slowly than we thought based on building permits and because insurance premiums went up significantly, we are on the wrong side of a balanced budget right now, mostly since the tax base ended up being smaller than anticipated. The mayor's budget included a 3.5% increase in property taxes--1.92% for a general obligation bond approved for the Miller Creek fire station and the balance to cover inflation and new budget requests. The administration said that raising taxes by 4.82% instead of 3.5% would cover the difference, if that is the direction we decide to go. Since city taxes are about 30% of a property tax bill, the increase to what a person pays would be about 1.4% with the voted debt service for the fire station or .88% without that debt service. The total cost would be something like $26 for a $225,000 home; the additional bump would be $7 on that home.
 
Mentioning taxes produced some talk reflecting deep-seated angst about paying for city services. Once the venting was done, we decided to proceed by deciding exactly what needs to be funded and then figure out where that puts us relative to the need for additional tax revenue rather than starting with a revenue number. Next week in committee each Council member will bring forward specific suggestions, which were not bountiful during committee, and we'll seek to whittle our costs down to the bone before returning to the revenue issue. We did dispense with some outstanding expense items, deciding that a raise for the municipal judge and small additional requests from the city band ($1000) and the Missoula Cultural Council ($2500) were not feasible in the current climate. Marilyn also removed her request for an energy conservation officer, which wasn't in the mayor's budget but seems necessary if we are going to seriously reduce the city's energy consumption and CO2 emissions. That's unfortunate because it is a position that could pay for itself with even small efficiencies. Stacy succeeded in persuading us to add $35,000 to the neighborhood parks maintenance fund (now at $125,000 rather than the $250,000 planned for last year) so we can start knocking out bathroom, lighting and trail upgrades that will need to precede replacing playground equipment and the like. We will have to figure out how to finance that increase along with whatever else makes it through committee.
 
We have until mid-September to pass a budget and we'll be spending a few more weeks to wrap it up, I expect.
 
Thanks for your interest,
J.
 
*******
Jason Wiener, Alderman, Ward One
1238 Jackson St.
Missoula, MT 59802
               (406) 542-3232        
jwiener at ci.missoula.mt.us
 
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