[MissoulaGov] Committee Update 12-08-09

[Bob Jaffe]

Greetings,
This morning I was feeling like if I didn't just stop and go back to bed I would succumb to whatever illness I've been fighting off. So I skipped all the meetings but Public Works today.

In public works we bought a bunch of stuff including a front end loader for $117,000, a ford fusion hybrid for $25,000, and five new charger patrol cars for $24,000 each.
We learned that the hybrids have worked out real well for the city and have been lower maintenance than expected. The police cars also have a cost of about another third for all the accessories they require.

The next item was a right of way encroachment for the new GLR office building going up on the old Scooterville site.  They are installing ground source heat pumps and need to drill wells. The 200 gallon per minute well was drawing down forty feet. I think he said they only expected it to draw down about fifteen feet. So they needed a new encroachment permit to try again on the other end of their property near the corner of Pine and Ryman.

We also learned about a complication with the contract to replace the sewer line that crosses the river near reserve street.  It turns out that a bidder that was originally considered disqualified came back $40,000 less than the other low bid. They had not participated in some kind of pre-bid conference that the RFP called for. The public works department is trying to decide if they can work with them. The other bidder, who thought they had the job, was not too happy and thinks the other guy should be disqualified. They were going to try to get it all sorted out and bring it back next week.

We also talked about a detail in the parking/sidewalk ordinance that sets the default financing for sidewalk SIDs. Sidewalks can be financed with 8, 12, or 20 year financing. When we send out the assessment letters we ask people how they want to pay. If we don't get a response we default to eight year financing. The request was to change that to 20 year.  The committee was not too fond of this idea. Many assessments come in less than a thousand dollars. It would be absurd to finance that out twenty years.  We asked for language that made it switch to twenty year when the assessment was over $5000.  We set a public hearing for the second week of January.

Thanks for your interest,

Bob Jaffe
Missoula City Council, Ward 3
1225 South 2nd West
Missoula, MT 59801
(406) 728-1052


Messages and attachments sent to or from this e-mail account pertaining to City business may be considered public or private records depending on the message content. The City is often required by law to provide public records to individuals requesting them. The City is also required by law to protect private, confidential information. This message is intended for the use of the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this transmission, please notify the sender immediately, do not forward the message to anyone, and delete all copies. Thank you
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.cmslists.com/pipermail/missoulagov/attachments/20091209/83120bdb/attachment.htm>