[MissoulaGov] committee update 10-29-08

[Bob Jaffe]

Greetings,

This morning Donna from Parks gave us a general update on a number of
projects.

Pineview Park:

The bids came in too high. So the project is being broken up into small
pieces for individual bids. This opens it up to all the smaller
contractors in town. The bonding requirements for the big jobs limit the
pool of potential applicants so it is no longer competitive.

 

Lafray Park:

The contractor graded out too much soil so now they have to replace it
(contractor's cost). Carter court lot which is part of the revenue for
the park has not sold yet. We had one interested buyer who came in with
a bid around $40,000. It appraised around $60,000. We countered with
$50,000 but they didn't take it. 

 

White Pine Park:

Phase one will be grass and perimeter trees. Phase two will be walking
trails, playground equipment, and some more treatments buffering the
park and the city maintenance facility. Phase one should be done summer
'09.  The money for the project is about $50,000 park impact fee,
$50,000 CDBG, and $50,000 donation from the Watkins family(zip
beverage). Bretz RV is donating the topsoil. The College of Technology
is donating a bunch of heavy equipment work.

 

Fort Missoula:

Work is going into design and phasing. We have a credit with Knife River
for the gravel they pulled from the park in the area of $300,000 and the
College of Technology heavy equipment school wants to help with the
work. 

 

Milwaukee Trail between Russell and Reserve:

Negotiations for right of way almost complete. In general have gone very
well. When we started this we hired WGM to negotiate right of way. Some
of us questioned why this was necessary. Couldn't a parks employee do
this work? Donna feels that having a third party between the city and
the property owners has been essential to the success of the
negotiations so far. There are also lots of technical details involved
with the federal funding that will go into this project. Appraisals have
come in according to budget and negotiations are generally ending up at
less than half the cash value from donations. They are hoping to wrap up
negotiations by year end and start construction in '09. The neighborhood
leadership team has been very helpful with a few of the difficult
properties.

 

Grant Creek Trail:

Still working through right of way negotiations. 

 

Rose Park:

The Fire Department and the 1% for art committee are proposing an
installation for the area near the corner of Mount and Brooks. This will
be a test of the new plan and review committee.

 

Aquatics:

The pools are still way ahead of the original estimates for income. We
had another good summer. The 50 meter pool cost an additional $48,000 to
operate. This was right about what was expected.  New tile is being
installed in the bathrooms at Currents.

 

We also learned that our urban forester is taking a position as the
first urban forester of Anchorage Alaska.  We are looking for a
replacement.

 

Instead of PAZ we had our quarterly meeting with the commissioners to
discuss OPG. This quarter we had a two hour presentation from the Crime
Victims Advocate office. The CVA office provides support for women and
children who are victims of domestic violence.  They run an extensive
program providing all sorts of services.



In public works we set a public hearing to consider changing our
ordinance regarding deicer for the roads. The magnesium chloride
solution we currently use is just too expensive. We sprayed something
like 350,000 gallons of the stuff last year.  Brian Hensel has been
looking into some other products that look like they will be less
expensive and more effective. The problem is that our ordinance is
pretty specific. Mainly it says we can't use anything granular and it
has to meet a very high corrosive standard. The new stuff is granular
and a little more corrosive than Mag Chloride. The health department has
done extensive research on the products and is supporting the change.
If you want to look into it the stuff is called superblend or quickstart
from ice slicer.

 

 

In Budget Committee we heard a presentation from the mayor about the
outlook for the next year. It isn't so good. Every department is being
asked to find about 3% of savings. Our fund balance (savings) is going
down about $1,000,000 dollars this year.  Next year's budget will be
planned around no growth.  Here is a link to more info including lots of
detailed spreadsheets:

ftp://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/Packets/Council/2008/2008-10-27/Referrals/BC
OW-Mayor'sFY08Year-EndReportRecommendationsFY09.pdf

The conservative block was enjoying an "I told you so" moment and was
asking why this discussion didn't happen during the budget process. The
answer was something like the finance staff just hadn't caught up with
the numbers at that point so the situation wasn't really known then.

 

Kaila was taking all sorts of notes on this one so I'm going to spare
myself from getting into all the details and wait to see what she puts
in the morning paper.

 

Thanks for your interest,

 

Bob Jaffe

Missoula City Council

Ward 3

406-728-1052 

 

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