[MissoulaGov] Committee Update 5/20/09

[Eric Taylor]

<<according to my crystal ball there will
be maintenance districts on our tax bills this November.>>

<<Bottom line is that they are proposing to
keep taxes static.>>

If I understand this correctly, the tax bill we receive in the mail this November- the amount we will be required to pay in FY 2010 will go up, but it is not because of higher taxes. It is because of the soon to be referred and approved maintenance district(s).

<<We are
the only major city in Montana that has not structured its taxes this way.>>

Your tax bill will go up, but we did not raise taxes. This sounds like administrative election year magic to me. 

Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 21:59:09 -0600
From: BJaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us
To: missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: [MissoulaGov] Committee Update 5/20/09
















Greetings,

We started the day late with PAZ at ten. Our first item was
to look at a few modifications to the Mill Site project. There were a couple of
minor plat amendments and a phasing plan. The new phasing plan calls for the
bulk of the project to be built in 2012 with the northwest portion being built
in 2015. We also learned that the stadium parking lot will be built this summer
as well as the trail connection to California street. The MRA board is
considering putting the whole park development out to bid for construction this
summer. Bonding and Bidding environments may be good enough right now to
support getting the whole thing done up front. We are going to get a more detailed
update on all that in Conservation.

 

One of the sticking points in the project has been the road
under the tracks connecting to Cregg lane.  Way back when, the bridge was
built to go over a log pond. Not a road. So now that they want to put a big
road with lots of traffic under it, MRL is saying no deal.  They want the
developer to build them a new bridge to the tune of a million bucks.  We
learned that negotiations had progressed to where the developer was on board
with this idea and just needed to figure out how to pay for it. Otherwise the
holdup is just deciding when it is the right time to pull the trigger. 
Once they start they will need to make millions of dollars of additional investment
in infrastructure before they can sell the first lot.  They need to be
confident that the market is ready before they start the process rolling. It
turns out that they are lucky DEQ stalled the project for an extra year because
otherwise there is a good chance they would have poured all that money in right
before the market cooled down and the whole thing could have gone bust.

 

Next was setting the public hearing to consider RLD 4 zoning
for the Gables subdivision in Orchard Homes. We approved this subdivision a
couple of years ago. There was a successful zoning protest and a supermajority
was not there to support the zoning. So it was annexed and subdivided with no
zoning in place.  Then the developer never built the thing and the plat is
scheduled to expire next week. He has indicated that he would like to do
mini-storage units on the site. Last week his attorney, Alan McCormick, sent us
a letter indicating we had no right to try to regulate what he did with the
property since it is not zoned. So we decided to go ahead and zone it.

For now the proposal is for interim zoning of RLD 4 which is
what the original proposal called for. Then we will send it through the formal
process with planning board to establish permanent zoning.

The developer’s representative, Nick Kaufman of WGM
group, was there to explain that they were indeed looking at a mini-storage
project for the site. They intend to work with the neighbors to develop a
proposal and come in with a PUD request.  Dave had some choice words as to
his feelings on mini-storage facilities. I can’t find the quote but it
was something to the effect of ‘vile scourge on the landscape.’
Regardless of the varying opinions on these places the committee members voted
to set the public hearing to establish interim zoning.

 

Our next item was an update from Mike Barton and Roger
Millar on the work plan and work load at OPG. Urban initiatives has pretty much
the same stuff going on next year except they budgeted a bunch of time to develop
an Agriculture lands policy. Roger did a presentation on the OPG workload
through the first three quarters of FY09. The gist is that things are slower
than last year but this last quarter has picked up substantially. Overall fee
revenue is down something like 7%. Not really that bad considering what is
going on in other places around the country. The powerpoint will be attached to
the PAZ minutes and is worth looking at if you are into that stuff.

 

In A&F we took up the maintenance district discussion. We
discussed this on the list a couple of weeks ago. The basic idea is that we
have the authority to set up maintenance districts to tax people for certain
stuff like maintaining the roads or the parks or the trees and a few other
things. These districts can be for very small areas or for the whole
city.  The appeal of maintenance districts is that they are outside of our
mill levy cap. The legislature, in its infinite wisdom, has prohibited us from
raising our general fund mill levy by more than half the rate of inflation.
This of course means that we eventually go broke. Maintenance districts give us
the ability to cost shift a bunch of stuff outside of this limitation. We are
the only major city in Montana that has not structured its taxes this way. There
is definitely some controversy here but according to my crystal ball there will
be maintenance districts on our tax bills this November.

 

There were two good items in Public Works. We set the public
hearing for an SID to finally do some traffic calming on Philips street. 
There will be a few of these things that make you curve right and then left
when you go through the intersection. They seem to work and the fire trucks can
get through them OK. There will also be a bunch of bulb outs near the school as
part of the safe routes to school program.

We also directed staff to come up with some proposals for
reducing the speed limit on Reserve street near the CS Porter school. DOT did a
traffic study and determined that we can set it as low as 30 MPH and they
offered to pay for the various signing facilities. There are a number of
options on how exactly we want to implement this so staff is going to work on
it and bring back a package for us to take through the process. School
representatives were there to encourage us to make the reductions full time
instead of just during specific hours since they have events going on all day
every day. They also offered special thanks to Jim Hausauer and Reggie Bardgett
for pushing this effort forward.

 

In Budget Committee of the Whole (BCOW) the Mayor presented
the administrative budget for FY2010.  Lots of other press on this so I’m
not going to dwell on it too much. Bottom line is that they are proposing to
keep taxes static. It all works because we had a reduction of $450,000 in our General
Obligation bond payments and they are proposing to cut the contribution to the
employee health plan by $500,000. Magic! We pick up $950,000 to keep the
general fund solvent without raising taxes. The administration argues that the
health fund is in plenty good shape without the money but it sounds like the police
union may be feeling a bit more protective about the employer contribution. It
is currently about $680 per month per employee. It would go down $100 per month
with the administration’s proposal. More to come on this in the next few
weeks. Budget details can be found here:

ftp://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/documents/Council_Review_FY10_Operating_Budget/Operating%20Budget/

 

 

Thanks for your interest, 

 

Bob
Jaffe

Missoula
City Council, Ward 3

bjaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us

406-728-1052



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