Council Minutes

Monday, November 28, 2005 - 7:00 p.m.
The city council met as the Committee of the Whole on Monday, November 28, 2005 at 7:00 p.m. in the council chambers in City Hall with Mayor Brown presiding. Present at roll call were: Council Members Brooks, Hamerlik, Glassheim, Gershman, Christensen, Kerian, Kreun - 7; absent: none.

Mayor Brown announced that when addressing the committee to please come forward to use the microphone for the record, and advised that the meeting is being televised live and taped for later broadcast.

Mayor Brown commented on various events held during the past week and upcoming events:
He stated he hoped everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving; and reminded everyone to be safe on the streets as we head into this winter season.
He stated he had the opportunity to visit the Public Works Department today and talk with a few of the people running the graders and plows that get our streets cleared, they do a wonderful job and work very hard and if you see them on the road, give them some room.
Tonight we have Boy Scouts from Troop 20 working on their citizenship merit badge.

2.1 Matter of 2005 sidewalk warrants.
There were no comments.

2.2 Bids for Project No. 5534, District No. 288, watermain for 2400 block of S. 42nd Street.____
There were no comments.

2.3 Project Concept Report for Project No. 5703, paving 47th Ave.S. (S. Washington St. to Cherry St.)__
Gerry Nies, 1815 University Avenue, stated he is involved with the greenway and each thing they add to it will make it better, sees this as a safe access to the greenway, that they were going to put the bikepath on the street and that is a concern, and encouraged council to look at that not being an option and letting a bikeway be a safe path for transit to and from the greenway or wherever people wish to bike in the city.

Council Member Kerian stated concern and seems that we are less concerned with making sure that we have the bikepaths, and seems like a policy change; that this is new construction where we have options to build things that are unable to do in older neighborhoods, and paths that we have are safer for people because they are not part of the traffic flow, reasons that you move things off the street and thinks this is a major change and needs more discussion.

Wayne Lembke, traffic engineer, and Dale Bergum, WFW, consulting engineer, stated what went into the recommendation are concerns they received from property owners in the area with bikepath being adjacent to the property, and tried to come up with a compromise that would work for everybody and still provide the non-motorized facility through the corridor, bike lanes are statistically safe, and have had some conversations with the DOT and also feel that we need more public involvement in that. Council Member Kerian stated there will be more public input and this is not a decision; but staff report says we are going to approve the bike lanes in lieu of a bikepath and would like to have that separated from this so we are not making that approval at the next meeting.

There was some discussion relative to the survey taken where 61% of the people favored a multi-use path and why say based on perceived opposition to the bikepath and recommend having lanes rather than a path. Mr. Bergum stated after last time they brought this to council, it was determined that they should hold another public meeting and held that meeting on November 17 and people that attended were very vocal that they didn't want the path. He stated the original concept report did have the bikepath all the way along and what seeing is a quick change in recommendation and after further conversations last week they think they should bring it back and discuss it further with residents. He noted that if we have a bikepath, will have a 5 ft. sidewalk on the other side of the street and if have bike lanes will have 5 ft. sidewalk on both sides. It was noted it is legal to ride bikes on sidewalks in residential areas; and if construct bikepath would only be on one side of the street, 10 ft.

Council Member Kreun stated there were some individuals who were adamantly opposed to the bikepath going through that area, mainly because of alternative motorized vehicles that would be using that and felt strongly that the smaller path would discourage basically snowcats but other motorized type vehicles on those units on that bikepath, and in order to compromise in that area would use the bikeway on the street rather than the bikepath that would increase the usage of those vehicles closer to those homes and that was part of the reason they came up with the recommendation and the other people that were there with not near as much opposition to this type of alternative; that this is still a plan and isn't approved yet but have to go back as part of the requirement to a public meeting and gather input from other residents. He noted we have some of the bike lanes in other areas of the city and is not a drastic change, that this is a little different than what doing but to accommodate the needs of the citizens in that area, but we do have to have some type of bikepath or bikeway in order to get federal pass-through funding from the State; have to have one or other, and that was the alternative that the staff came up with working with the Department of Transportation, that we will want to visit with some of those people yet as there might be some design that we might be able to accommodate that would move it a little farther away from the residences but want to talk with them.

Council Member Christensen stated that the area staff is recommending goes from Belmont to Cherry, and from Cherry to Washington would resume the 10 ft. wide strip, so it is only from Belmont to Cherry (between 3 and 4/10ths of a mile) and the plan staff is recommending is on each side of this street will be a 5 ft. sidewalk, and he had asked if the sidewalk could be a bit wider than 5 ft. but not 10 ft. because when it snows the snowmobiles move, and that was their main concern, but to keep this moving staff came up with 2 plans and staff would go out and talk with individuals who were concerned about the 10 ft. wide bikepath on the south side of the street, and staff had some ideas as to not making a straight run but make it non-linear, and are asking that they have another public meeting otherwise could delay the bid opening (which is scheduled for March), final decision hasn't been made yet. He also pointed out that south of here (52nd) where have long bikepath along the drainway, have a 10 ft. wide bikepath that runs from the dike to the School and moves behind the School and connects behind Hansen Ford and moves to the west), not really deviating but in this area it probably wouldn't be 10 ft. wide in their backyards.

Council Member Glassheim asked what kind of right of way with the different plans, and difference in amount of land used for the bike lane, bikepath - it was noted that it is in the right of way. Mr. Bergum stated there is room either way for 10 ft. path and about 15 or 20 ft. between the path and the back of the berm, plenty of room to fit either way. He stated if you maintain the current recommended 3 12 ft. lanes, have to add 10 ft. of street but that could be reconfigured with different options. Mr. Glassheim asked if we have 10 ft. bikepaths, sidewalks anywhere else in town. Mr. Lembke stated the last one they constructed was on 55th Ave.S. between Belmont and Cherry Street and that was a federal aid project. It was noted there is an existing lane by Century School along 17th Avenue that is a bikepath. Mr. Glassheim stated he sees snowmobiles going wherever they want to go and it is an enforcement problem and doesn't feel this a legitimate reason for building or not building a bikepath, that we say we are accommodating citizens which is a good thing but accommodate some citizens and not accommodate some other citizens - and not enough reason to change policy.

Council Member Kerian asked what is city policy on sidewalks - and noted they need to be constructed and depends on whether collector street which needs to be put in when the street gets constructed - 5 feet wide. It was noted that 10 ft. is minimum recommended for bikepath, if go in existing neighborhood where restricted can possibly reduce down but anything less than 8 ft. is not really acceptable, basically say 10 ft. or wider, the one in the drainway is 12 ft. wide because of access for vehicles for stormwater. Council Member Kerian stated the 5 ft. should be there and shouldn't be mixing bike and pedestrian traffic in narrow lanes, and two sidewalks should stay as they are but expanding one to be a bikepath makes good sense and doesn't help if construct it part of the way and then go to lanes on the other part, and that this would be a poor precedent to set across this city.

Council Member Gershman stated that some of the bikepaths would go very close to some of the homes, and snowmobiles a problem. Mr. Bergum stated it would be sideyards or backyards of homes, and other than one , and would like to do more work with that resident and trying to move it a little farther away from that residence.

Council Member Christensen stated this is a collector street and policy passed was before those residences there; the federal policy dealing with federal money, federal pass-throughs, etc. permeates getting money from the State, and that is the issue; the consultant stated they probably could get 8 ft. and is something should talk to the State about. He stated we don't have too many collector streets to be built up, this is one of the last collector streets in a designated residential area, going from Washington to Columbia, that will be 10 ft. wide because not residential there now, going south on Columbia there will be 10 ft. wide bikepaths if not already when going south from 47th to Kings Walk, that should be looked at as we continue our policy regarding bikepaths where we have collector streets.

2.4 Bids for fire command vehicle.
There were no comments.

2.5 2005 holiday bonus hours.
Council Member Brooks stated he has two concerns he would like considered before
voting on this next week, the time frame from the time we pass this to February 1 is short time period and may be hard for department heads to manage and perhaps could stretch this out to 6 months, and would like that the bonus hours only go to employees with satisfactory performance evaluations.

Council Member Gershman stated he thinks management has done fairly well the past few years and one thing that was suggested to him today was that perhaps that we should make this a regular thing, comes up every year, seems to be something the employee likes and perhaps consider putting it into permanent effect since do it every year.

Council Member Hamerlik stated they did some checking each year for the last few years and a two-month deal worked well, there is a tracking system so that those hours are keep separately from regular vacation or sick leave hours; that in 1998 extended it to September 1. He stated when they looked at this that possibly thought included that a year ago or 2 years ago and looked up specifically whether or not this was on-going, and has been on-going, and rather than commit further council's to it, go year by year and may wish to delete it or may wish to extend it.

Council Member Brooks stated he thinks it is nice to give supervisors and department heads more time to work with this as something may come up, and sometimes smaller offices may have some problem; and that he thinks it is good for the council to reassure or reinvest in the employees by giving that each year.

Council Member Hamerlik stated it maybe a little more difficult for a smaller department but the biggest problem was finance department because of all the year end reports and that is why we went to February 1.

2.6 Transient merchant license exemption for First Night Greater Grand Forks.
Council Member Gershman questioned why we would want to waive the transient
license fees for one event, that in the Special Events Committee they talked about trying to get organizations to become more self-sufficient and generate revenue so they could wean off the special event money so could start additional special events, and perhaps not give an exemption unless there is a good reason. The city auditor stated that ArtFest has been given waivers for transient merchants and for other public spirited groups that bring in community groups and have had these requests before.

Mr. Swanson stated that the Park District will sponsor events in the park and their activities are exempt from transient merchant licenses, a transient merchant license requires the transient merchant to post a bond and to pay a fee to the City, the most difficult part is that most of these groups simply aren't bondable but most of the larger sponsored events have made requests over the years for that waiver.

2.7 An ordinance amending Section 19-0103 and adding Sections 19-0123 thru 19-0127 of the Grand Forks City Code relating to a general contractor license.________
A revised draft from the city attorney of the proposed ordinance had been placed on the
council members' desks which really impacts Chapter 21 of the City Code.

Council Member Hamerlik stated this goes back to some of the concerns we have had with how penalties are added and asked if there is an opportunity to prescribe a minimum penalty as well as up to. Mr. Swanson stated council can establish a minimum penalty, maximum penalty is set by law and in some instances $1,000 but in this case looking at $500.00. Council Member Hamerlik stated he thinks there should be a minimum on this.

Council member Christensen stated should make sure that homeowner doesn't have to buy a contractor's license also, and when issue building permits and if in part of the issuance of the building permit on the application ask the person who is going to do the work, and how enforce it.. Ms. Collings stated there is a requirement for a bond and a State license for general contractor and when someone applies for a building permit they ask who is doing the work for you, if relative is the same as if doing it yourself. Mr. Swanson stated reason ordinance before council because in the fees ordinance passed a couple months ago you included a general contractor fee but didn't have the ordinance, that he provided a draft today, and that he looked at the definition out of State Code and if concerned that there should be a further exclusion for self work done on your residence can add that type of exclusion but would question whether homeowner doing work on his house is in the business of doing contracting.

2.8 Five-Year Intergovernmental Transportation Agreement with the City of East Grand Forks.____________________________________ __________
There were no comments.

2.9 Stormwater and Flood Protection/Greenway Operation and Maintenance Fees.__________________________________________________________
Council Member Glassheim asked what current rate is for residential units; Mr. Feland
stated the minimum charge is $2.90 and in the Stormwater rate of $2.90 have included flood
protection fee and are trying to identify what is strictly stormwater related - stormwater stations
have in town, storm sewer lines and separate into two fees, and inform customers what they are
actually paying for in the $2.90 - residential rate is not going up but broken out - have it separated
on the utility bill but all goes back to the Stormwater Utility Fund as revenue source but break
apart so people know they are paying $1.15 for flood protection and greenway maintenance and
$1.75 for stormwater maintenance and operation. He noted that about 10% of lots were larger
than minimum lot size and were charged little more on the stormwater side and to make it easier
because now separating stormwater and flood protection greenway maintenance fees, is to have
one residential rate, in looking at floodway and greenway those aren't related to the size of your
lot and to have only one residential unit rate whether family of four is an apartment unit, or
whether in a condo unit or residential unit, to only have one flat fee for all residents.

Mr. Feland stated they looked through the data base and found that a condo association might be
charged per number of meters, found some units that had a few meters, and found in other cases
charged based on stormwater runoff, how many sq. feet they had, and to tried to clean all those up
and treat everybody equitably and fairly decided to go to the per unit basis in charging everybody.
Apartment units are charged like a family; and owner of the apartment building will be charged
per unit as a single family unit.

Council Member Hamerlik stated that all family units will be paying the same, $2.90, and based
on your starting point of the standard single family home which was $2.90 and will continue to be
$2.90 but broken out differently, paying the same fee. Mr. Feland stated all residential units will
pay $2.90; no increase for homeowners.

2.10 Budget amendment request from Office of Urban Development Promenade
infrastructure._____ __________________
There were no comments.

2.11 Budget amendment request for FTZ bond.
There were no comments.

2.12 Rental Rehab Program.
Greg Hoover, urban development, stated this program was put together early last spring, went to the finance/development committee last summer prior to the discussion they had about whether would have apartments on the ground level in those areas, and was initially set up where we were going to restrict the units to those on the second and upper floors as a way to protect that commercial corridor, and at this point they have had that debate and have talked about not allowing rental units on the ground level on those particular streets, 3rd and 4th and DeMers, and would recommend to you that we go back and make this consistent with that policy where we would restrict the use of these funds to the upper levels on those three streets and for the rest of the downtown or renaissance zone that they would allow units on any level consistent with that policy discussed earlier.

Council Member Gershman stated it doesn't make any sense to eliminate the first floor outside of the core and that he wanted in the core that was passed that the first floor be allowed to be developed also for housing but lost, that he doesn't know why they want to restrict it to just rental, that if somebody owns a home on University and live on the first floor and rent two floors upstairs that they would allow the first floor but why restrict it to just rental units.

Mr. Hoover stated this came out as a rental rehab program for couple reasons - first and foremost is already have an effort going on for single family new construction, which is being exhibited by the Elite Brownstone, and think that they will be able to continue that with the Fannie Mae program but question comes about, what to do about single family homeowners tht are already there, the council approved the CDBG budget for 2006 which includes $300,000 to Red River Valley Community Action Agency for rehab of single family homes in this area and more extensive area going from the city limits on the north to 17th and over to Columbia, and dealt with that part of the population for 80% and below, and have currently submitted a proposal to financial institution to deal with homeowner rehab for 80% to 120% and hope to hear back from them within the next several weeks and believe we have that covered. The other impetus was to make the program as simple as could, that we have two pots of money, first is CDBG and that was through a grant through the State and we are required to continue to use repayments from those loans to do other rental projects so CDBG portion has to be restricted to rental; that we had another old Rental Rehab Program through the Department of Housing & Urban Development, that program has ceased to exist, and that we can use this money for anything we would want to in the housing arena and that we put that together and we are using that money for the market rate units, there are people who either want to either fix up units so they can charge market rates or convert non-residential space into market rate facilities, and trying to make it as simple as possible they put the two programs together, that we could accomplish that by doing the rental rehab program for the upper floor with rental rehab and bring in Red River Community Action to do the lower part as far as funding - the project would be put together by going in and pulling off an ala carte menu.

Council Member Gershman stated with Red River Community Action is that single family rental or owner occupied. Mr. Hoover stated they would do the portion for the homeowner occupied and with Rental Rehab Program the upper floor but because we do the entire project and take money out of this fund and money out of that fund; and starts first of the year.

Council Member Glassheim stated we talked some coming out of that committee to look at the downtown and they can see rates in office space vs. they can see rates in apartment and would this money work for conversion from office to rental units or is that a different program that is coming down the line. Mr. Hoover stated that would be available through this program, conversion of an office to a rental unit upstairs would be available through this program.

Council Member Christensen stated the $525,000 is market rate projects and can lever this to about $1,050,000 because this is 2 for 1 and this money can be used to build out the floors above the commercial on 3rd Street, and that was discussed when they had their committee two years ago and trying to figure out what going to do to finish the downtown, and Mr. Hoover and Mr. Lund brought forward this $525,000 and that gives us the ability to put it to the public that this money is available for the owners of those buildings and would also give the people the ability who want to convert whatever can be converted for residential on the main floor in the corridor if they chose using that money. Mr. Hoover stated the $525,000 for the market rate is to fix up existing rental units and convert non-residential space into residential units. Mr. Christensen stated that this will be a good project and the $1.75 for LMI can be doubled and have about $1.5 million that we can put to work in our renaissance zone and in the housing area.

Mr. Hoover stated at the direction of council we are looking to recycle money and as these repayments come in will be able to expand this program outside the Ren. Zone in the future.

2.13 Grand Forks Renaissance Zone Projects GF-38 and GF-39.
There were no comments.

2.14 Matter of change in money manager in the Defined Benefit Pension Plan.
There were no comments.

2.15 Amendment to the Canad Lease.
Council Member Kreun stated that they wanted to extend the completion date to June 30,
2007 and one of the concerns was that possibly if we could make this a motion tonight in
order for them to complete their financial agreements and even though only one week it
would be their advantage to get in the ground one week sooner, and that there is equipment sitting over there with pipe ready to go, and that was part of the request; and asked if we could vote on that.

Council Member Hamerlik asked how the completion date would interfere with the completing the financial statement. Council Member Kreun stated that the financial institution want to know that they won't get stopped in the middle of the project; that they feel we have the ability to stop the project the end of 2006 and want this financial agreement completed prior to their starting the work and they feel confident they can complete it with the extension. Mr. Taras Sakolyk stated they are very confident that ruling now and have equipment on site, that they received their permit today and that this is one of the process things that the more quickly we can get these files closed and return to them the better off they are and is holding up some of the signings they have to get done this week and the more quickly they can get these things out of the way, very confident with the extension will be well within that extension for completion.

Council Member Kreun moved that the committee act on this item tonight rather than wait until next Monday. Council member Gershman seconded the motion. Carried 7 votes affirmative.

Council Member Kreun moved that the City amend the definition of "Completion Date" in Section 1.1. of the Canad Lease Agreement from December 31, 2006 to June 30, 2007. Council Member Gershman seconded the motion. Upon roll call the following voted "aye": Council Member Brooks, Hamerlik, Glassheim, Gershman, Christensen, Kerian, Kreun - 7; voting "nay": none. Mayor Brown declared the motion carried.

MAYOR AND COUNCIL MEMBER COMMENTS

1) Council Member Brooks congratulated East Grand Forks for new council members and also for the tremendous turnout of candidate for the election. They are going into discussion re. smoking ordinance for the city and hope they will keep in mind and be concerned with their businesses over there.

He questioned when they will start process for city planner position. Rick Duquette, administrative coordinator, stated he would like to take time to work with people from Planning and Zoning Commission, city council and MPO and include them in the discussions in that search, and undecided whether we use a head-hunting firm or some other process for a national search; that we do have a planner assigned in the interim and is doing a good job but after he begins to develop that information and makes some recommendations to the mayor, will be bringing that forward.

2) Council Member Hamerlik thanked the trustee for our Pension Fund for the good work they did for the changes that we are going to be making next week, they did a fine job and had a lot of outside assistance from some of their colleagues in the firm.

3) Council Member Glassheim brought up the matter of funding for bikepaths, advance funding and whether that ties up money for next year. Cindy Voigt, asst. city engineer, stated if approve the PCR, work through the bikepath decision and move forward with the PCR and ask the State to fund the second phase, and if they can program that in on short notice, they program this 3 years in advance, and we are asking this for 6 months in advance of when we need the money, and if they don't have the money available, the City can bond for the money and then the State will pay us back over several years, next year being 2007, 2006 is fixed with the money they have, 2007 have programmed $400,000 and not until 2008 do we have several million dollars available.

Council Member Glassheim asked if the advance funding would bump other projects by doing both phases at once. Ms. Voigt stated it would, believes several council members and Mr. Duquette have a planning session on the books to go over our urban role projects, and they will be notified shortly, and will go over all the urban projects, get about $2 million each year in income and have more than $2 million in needs, and that would push something else off.

The city auditor stated if we do advance funded we will sell a bond and those funds will have issuance costs to them and also interest costs that won't be reimbursable by the State money, and that would have to be picked up as additional costs locally through the assessment process that is the other part of this funding.

Council Member Christensen stated that he had asked some time ago to have a meeting to talk about these projects, the high side on the advanced funding is you don't have the mobilization costs, and if did in two stages would have the mobilization costs where you would have an additional cost to the project of $127,000, which would have to be spread, and because there are special assessments involved anyway on this project, there will be a sale of bonds, and only issue is how much is it going to cost you in addition on your mobilization, and as far as finding other sources of money, there is money in various funds in this city and could spend some time at one of the mayor/council work sessions to talk about various enterprise funds that have extraordinary sums of money and talk about whether we can move it back and forth in the form of a loan rather than 27% fee to sell bonds for some of these things, but those would be good issues to discuss when talking about funding projects and have $6 or $7 million bill to FEMA coming due. It was noted we have paid FEMA the $1.5 million and what we have to do is reimburse our Emergency Fund for the additional $5 million that they did not pay the costs for. Mr. Christensen stated we have a cash carryover in some of these funds and would be good to think about these things the end of this year or the early beginning in January of 2006 before we jump into a budget process; but not forget the cost of mobilization if do it in two stages

4) Council Member Gershman asked Urban Development to check on the building rooftop lighting downtown and get that going, holiday season and should e on top of that; and also if Public Works could check some of the welcome flags around town, some broken, etc.

ADJOURN

It was moved by Council Member Gershman and seconded by Council Member Brooks that we adjourn. Carried 7 votes affirmative.

Respectfully submitted,



John M. Schmisek
City Auditor