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Council Minutes

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE

Monday, October 8, 2001 - 7:00 p.m.

The City Council met as the Committee of the Whole on Monday, October 8, 2001 at 7:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers in City Hall with Mayor Brown presiding. Present at roll call were Council Members Gershman, Glassheim, Burke, Hamerlik, Stevens, Bjerke, Brooks, Kreun, Kerian, Christensen and Klave – 11; absent: Council Members Lunak, Bakken and Martinson – 3.

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

Resolution of Support for those fighting the war on terrorism

Mayor Brown read the resolution adopted October 8, 2001. Council Members Gershman and Kreun moved to convene as the City Council to formally adopt the resolution. Motion carried with 11 votes affirmative. Council Member Hamerlik said he thought it was a very good thing to do and that our thoughts and prayers are with all the military deployed. Council Member Hamerlik moved the resolution with the insertion in the last paragraph to add “and all other military personnel.” Council Member Brooks seconded the motion. Motion carried with 11 votes affirmative. Mayor Brown declared the resolution passed. Council Members Gershman and Kreun moved to adjourn the City Council. Motion carried with 11 votes affirmative.

Thank you from the Fire Department

Mayor Brown said the Fire Department would like to thank the City of Grand Forks and surrounding communities for helping raise over $40,000 for the New York Fire 911 Relief Fund.

Thank you for the Tour de Forks Pink Ribbon Bike Ride

Mayor Brown announced that the bike ride was a huge success and raised over $4,000 for Breast Cancer Awareness and Research before the bike ride began. He thanked the people who organized the event.

Thank you to Ralph Engelstad for The Engelstad Arena

Mayor Brown said the opening was a great event and an opportunity and asset for our community. He thanked Ralph Engelstad and congratulated the UND Sioux for the win against the Bison.

Mayor’s Announcement

Mayor Brown announced that leaf pickup will begin Wednesday, October 10, 2001.

Mayor’s Proclamation

Mayor Brown proclaimed Special Olympics Week October 8-14, 2001 and reminded everyone that we have the state Soccer and Bocce Tournaments October 13-14. Mayor Brown then introduced Erin Baumann to speak to the Council on behalf of Special Olympics. Ms. Baumann said Special Olympics North Dakota is part of an organization that is worldwide but we have to fund our own program. She said they receive no funds from the international headquarters and need to rely on the strength and support of the community. Ms. Baumann said Special Olympics includes both men and women from age 8-88 and beyond. She said that winning and losing a game doesn’t matter – having fun is the key – it teaches people to be better and smarter in a sport such as Basketball, Bowling, Soccer, Track and Field and Bocceball and all the other sports. She said their goal is “Let me win and if I cannot win, let me be brave at the attempt.” She invited everyone to watch the games at Lions and Bringewatt Parks and thanked the city leaders for their time and efforts, saying they can make a difference in our lives. She said they are always in the need for more athletes and volunteers and special partners, so come together with us. Opening ceremonies at 2:00 p.m. Saturday, October 13.
1.2.1 Parking concerns.
Rebecca Graves, 1111 Park Dr. said she has lived here two years and is in charge of initiating a petition asking the city to begin to put up proper posting where parking is illegal. She said the petitioners feel that a manual is inadequate notice – has approximately 100 signatures - people are angry with this law – visitors are having to fight to get them removed – people are wondering how the city can enforce this when they are not properly notified when it is illegal to park – people are not receiving their manuals and don’t know how to get them.

Ms. Graves read from her petition as follows: “The people of Grand Forks petition the City of Grand Forks to properly post no parking signs on all blocks where parking is illegal for whatever reason, including street cleaning days. The people of Grand Forks feel a manual is inadequate notice of when and where parking is illegal. Furthermore, if the city cannot afford the expense of street signs, the people ask that parking tickets no longer be given for violations not properly displayed by a street sign.” Council Member Hamerlik said some time ago he was pushing for a review and the taking down of signs because there are so many - counted 38 on five blocks. He said it would be interesting to know what the cost would be if there were 1-2 signs on every block. Ms. Graves responded that when people are given parking tickets they are very upset that there is nothing on the street to inform them and that there is very little time to dispute it and if you do you have to pay an additional amount of money – an additional aggravation for the people getting the tickets, even though beautification is a concern, people find it unfair and the notice is not adequate.

Council Member Gershman asked if we could we get a report to see what the cost would be and go from there. Council Member Burke said some parts of town are signed and other parts are not. Todd Feland said he will ask Mark Aubol to look into the issue related to the street maintenance signs. He said staff estimated, by using the GIS, that there are maintenance signs in approximately 20% of the city. He added that they concentrate on areas more transient in nature (areas where there are apartments or University students) – concentrate on more of the larger signs in neighborhoods but certainly don’t sign every residential street. He said this particular area we probably will and should have had some street maintenance signs because there are apartments around there – this is an area where we were going to put signs up this fall when we caught up with things. He said on a cursory view they looked at what the cost would be and if we assumed that 20% of the city were already signed and if we were to put a sign on every block on each side of the street, assuming the average cost of a sign is $35 (not including labor), the cost would be about $294,000 to sign the whole city – not every neighborhood wants signs. Mr. Feland said he understands people’s frustrations – we do try to notify either through the Herald, the Public Works Manual, advertising on the radio and they try to notify people as best as possible but we don’t tell everybody. Council Member Hamerlik said why not put this on the agenda, get the report and have some of the people here for discussion to save time and effort on Ms. Graves’ part and others. In response to Council Member Brooks’ question, Ms. Graves said she looked on the website and was not able to find the parking ordinance that allows the police to ticket without proper posting. Council Member Kerian asked if there is anything that could be done allowing people to be forgiven - there isn’t anything on the ticket to let people be aware of that possibility – might that be satisfactory. Kevin Dean said there is a stamp on street maintenance tickets that says if you are a visitor or new resident of Grand Forks, you can contact the Public Information Center about a street maintenance ticket you have received. He said they have established a database and to date have handled over 100 calls from residents/visitors/new folks to town to try to see what we can do to be customer oriented. He said they also try to take the opportunity to point out that we can do some education and informing of the residents, we offer to send out a Public Works Manual and let them know it is available on the city’s website and it is also published daily in the Grand Forks Herald. Mr. Dean said they try to let people know that we are not trying to punish them especially if they are new or visiting in the community and we will forgive the ticket one time. Council Member Kerian asked Ms. Graves if she has had a chance to look at that and might that be satisfactory. Ms. Graves responded that the ordinance is already unfair and by allowing a forgiveness policy you are saying maybe it’s not quite as unfair. She went on to say that ultimately the people feel that the ordinance is unfair and especially so to visitors – it is affecting the citizens who aren’t properly notified – we are saying that a forgiveness policy is not good enough. Council Member Kerian said this is also a notification in that it gives information for a second time – is there some way we can use that process to be a notification to anyone that there are some laws that we want you to know about in a more friendly way. Ms. Graves said they feel that anything less than signs is inadequate notice – you are penalized before notified – standard procedure to notify people with a sign and people depend on that.

Council Member Kreun said he appreciates the concerns but there are also concerns from the other affected citizens as well – if the streets don’t get cleaned and the snow doesn’t get plowed – those are reasons for having parking restrictions in areas – also there is some responsibility that would go with the landlord of the apartment to notify the renters of such things - a lot of people would be upset if we spent $300,000 for signage. Ms. Graves replied that it is an extraordinary amount of money and she is sure that the city should be concerned with that, but for every sign you are paying $35 for, how many people have actually paid for parking tickets.

Mr. Feland said he thinks it would be appropriate to ask the Street Department and other resources to come back with a study of what other communities do and what we could or can’t do in our community and have our debate there – thinks it’s an issue we can resolve. He added that it is important to note that we ticket people either for snow maintenance or street sweeping if we go around the vehicle - only ticket those who impede the progress of cleaning/removal – we do not indiscriminately ticket every street - only those vehicles that are actually in the way of the street sweeper or snowplow.

Council Member Christensen said the type of study to run is the number of tickets given for street sweeping or snow removal as to signed and unsigned areas – have a representative sampling (the last 12 months) to see if this issue is something that warrants $300,000 or not. In response to Council Member Christensen’s question, Mr. Feland said we publish the notice to the public in the first section of the Herald in the left hand column where the public announcements for the day are located beside the weather section. Council Member Christensen said there are some certain select spots in the Herald that get people’s attention and maybe we should find out what those spots are and the cost and do a time-benefit analysis.

Vern Gourneau, 5003 Golden Gate Dr. said he wished to speak about crosswalk safety and speeding through crosswalks – he has children at Valley and Lake Agassiz – his son was almost hit at the intersection on the south side of Lake Agassiz. Mr. Gourneau said he has discovered that the fine for speeding through a crosswalk is $71 and failure to yield at a crosswalk is $131 – thinks there needs to be more enforcement and requested plain clothes enforcement. He raised parking issues around Lake Agassiz. Council Member Hamerlik said the school district at one time started and has provided a space off the street for pickup in many areas – Lake Agassiz does not have that - parents all park in the no parking area to pick up their children. He said enforcement is the thing but part of this has to do with the school district as much as with the Council because they have some guards - school district needs to get involved but we need to do what we can too. Mr. Gourneau repeated that he thinks it’s an enforce-ment issue. Council Member Brooks suggested that the 6th Avenue side does not receive as much atten-tion as the Stanford side and maybe the Neighborhood Officer could assist. Council Member Klave said sometimes it is difficult to get the officers at the sites - we do have a trailer that monitors speed and does a number of functions and they can determine where some of the bad sites are. Council Member Ham-erlik said he knows the Neighborhood Resource Officer has worked a lot at Lake Agassiz and West School - thought they had the issue solved. Council Member Brooks said he would really like Mr. Gourneau to bring to the attention of the school board because we have to work on it together. Mayor Brown said we agree that the safety of our children is a priority and urged Chief Packett to use this op-portunity to educate drivers by our schools and asked him to put this issue on the department briefings.
2. Committee of the Whole Discussion Items

2.1 Resolution of the City of Grand Forks City Council delegating authority of department heads for extension of existing grant agreements and authorization for approval of attending budget amendments.
Council Member Brooks said some of the budget amendments would be increasing the budget and would they not have to come to the Council. Mr. Swanson responded that they would not if you adopt a resolution - you are delegating that authority to the department head with the concurrence of the Finance Director to increase those budgets. Council Member Bjerke said when he read the resolution (Section 1) it talks about requiring either no or an in-kind match - when you read under Section 2.6, in effect city money is being spent on salary, benefits and mileage. He asked if he is understanding it correctly. Mr. Swanson said what is intended here is that the department head, with the concurrence of the Finance Director will make those decisions. He said the sentence is not particularly well worded and should be reworded to say, “which require either no match or an in-kind match”. He said this was drafted at the suggestion of Mr. Christensen and Mr. Brooks. He went on to say if this resolution had been in place, items 2.6, 2.7, 2.8 and 2.9 would not be on the agenda tonight. Council Member Bjerke said if he is reading this right, the City budget can be increased and the council will not vote on that. Council Member Burke said he has the same concern as Mr. Bjerke for the same reasons. He said if we end up voting on this next week he will make a motion to remove the in-kind portion and strictly have it “no additional cost”- we are looking at these on a regular basis and most come from the Health Department that require some kind of in-kind match and it does end up costing us salary. Mr. Shields clarified by saying that the in-kind match, although in non-real terms you could say would cost you something; but you have approved the in-kind match because it is already built into whatever budget year you have approved. We take the money you have already pre-approved in the 2001 or the 2002 budget and use that as in-kind match so it is not costing anything that you have not already approved. Council Member Burke said it would be helpful to know how many Health Department positions are funded by grants that require in-kind matches – you have built in a cost for these grant programs which is costing local taxpayers dollars – these are not services that are provided by the county but are special projects funded by grants that we end up paying for in portion. Mr. Shields said he did go through some of that during the budget process this past February but we could come back and provide that information again. He said the match they use in many instances is provided by the County of Grand Forks in addition to the City of Grand Forks because the Health Department budget is made up of a combination of both, so as you look at those funds it is all citizen taxpayer dollars.

Council Member Brooks said he is in favor of delegating these items down, but we should not be delegating any budget amendments until we are getting regular financial statements that tell us our status each month – will not vote for it until he sees those regular financial statements. Council Member Bjerke said he reads it as accepting additional grant dollars – does Mr. Shields foresees additional money coming in? He said he understands that he is getting extra money so we have to match with extra money for that grant. Mr. Shields responded that in no case when we do the in-kind match do we increase the dollars that the Council has pre-approved in the budget for a particular fiscal year – there are no additional dollars beyond what has already been approved for those fiscal years. Council Member Bjerke said if we are getting additional grant money and you didn’t think you were going to get it and they say that you will get this money but you have to match it in-kind, how can it be in the budget if you didn’t know you were getting it? Mr. Shields said their budget is made up of a number of things including the salary that the City Council pays him as the director of the department – they quite often use his salary, which is already built into the budget, as an in-kind match – not additional dollars but dollars that are already there and not matched or used elsewhere. In response to Council Member Bjerke’s question, Mr. Schmisek said it is the staff’s intention that if this passes we will continue to provide information as to what budget amendments have been approved.

In response to Council Member Gershman’s question of how many thousands of dollars in grant money does the Health Department bring in every year, Mr. Shields responded approximately $680,000 in 2001 in additional grant money to the city with a cost to the city of less than $100,000. Council Member Gershman said we are talking public health and at this time in our country public health is pretty important. He said he wanted to make the point that we are getting a pretty good bang for our dollar.

Council Member Christensen suggested that Mr. Shields take the time to work with Mr. Swanson to draft the ordinance as we all think we want it to be handled, which is we don’t want to see routine things coming to Council and you have the authority to approve those as the department head and with the concurrence of Mr. Schmisek as the Council’s overseer. He asked why would we need the City Attorney’s concurrence. Mr. Swanson said the City Attorney’s concurrence is with regard to amendments of the grant agreements. There are various grant agreements that have significant issues with regard to indemnification and liability – it is often the case that I redraft those provisions because the department heads, although they may have an idea of the problems in the provisions, they don’t know how to solve them. He said his review is not of the budget amendment, but of the agreements being amended. There was discussion about the wording of the resolution and Mr. Shields said he feels very comfortable with the language drafted by Mr. Swanson in that it would accommodate most of the situations in these small dollar amounts. Council Member Christensen said they don’t want budget amendments in front of us. Mr. Swanson said he thinks this accommodates that – he said he met with Mr. Shields before this was drafted – do not know what he is supposed to redraft. He said this resolution does two things - it allows the department head and the Finance Director to make changes in the budget and allows them to enter into grant agreements/amendments without coming to Council. He stated that this is not limited to the Health Department, there are other departments that deal with grants. Council Member Christensen said he would be willing to go with it for the balance of this year and into 2002. Council Member Kerian said that the city needs to know about grant applications and requests that are going in especially as they may not immediately cost the city dollars but in the future that may happen. She said she likes the idea of solving the problem of the smaller items coming forward – but does not want to do anything that would make a department able to move in a direction that is a significant amount that doesn’t cost us anything this year but may in the future. Mr. Swanson said there are no limitations in this draft that addresses that but if you want to limit it to $10,000 and below and if it is the Council’s intention to do that, he asked that they direct him to draft an amendment that would include that. He said this is purely seeking to address the budget amendment and the authorization on the grant agreement. Mr. Schmisek said one of the issues is that this is only approval on existing grant agreements so any new grant agreements would have to be approved by Council knowing what the new strings are, if any. Council Member Klave said he would like to see a dollar figure (maybe $30,000) and that we will get the reports and would have the right to bring an amendment to the Council floor at any time. Mayor Brown said it is our intent to make the reports monthly.

2.2 Award sale of 2001C Bond Issue.
There was no discussion.

2.3 Second reading of an ordinance allowing the sale of Sales and Use Tax Bonds.
In response to Council Member Burke’s question, Mr. Schmisek said we anticipate the bond sale to be between $11-12 million, funded solely by sales and use tax and not special assessments.

2.4 Hear Appeals and Certify Assessments on Flood Protection Project.
Mr. Schmisek said public comments will be taken on October 15, 2001. He pointed out that the Special Assessment Commission did extend the protest period on this so Council may start hearing comments on the 15th and if people wish to show up on this one, you will need to have a special Council meeting on October 22 to actually hear final appeals and take action. Mayor Brown asked Council to be aware of the special meeting on October 22.

2.5 Hear appeals and certify assessments on various projects.
Mr. Schmisek said Council will hear appeals and certify assessments on various projects (there is a listing under Tab B) and those comments will be received on October 15 and Council will be taking action on October 15.

Council Member Bjerke announced that he has some questions on Proj. 5145, Paving of N. 69th St. and asked if it is a future special assessment district and how long does it last. Mark Walker replied that it is and it can be collected over a period of time and as you go on in time there is somewhat of a deprecia-tion that goes with it and it will continue to decline in value to some reasonable depreciation. Council Member Bjerke asked what percent of the project anyone annexed next year would have to pay for. Mr. Walker said it would be relevant to the portion of property they develop in front of. Council Member Bjerke asked what percentage of this road will the landowners pay for. Mr. Walker said he didn’t recall if it was square foot or front foot, but that the cost would be half to one side and half to the other. Coun-cil Member Bjerke said the road was put in for our Baling Facility, lagoons and Wastewater Treatment Plant and if it ever gets annexed we tell them they have to pay for that road? He said it isn’t being fair to those people and that the road was built for us to run our garbage trucks and the Baling Facility isn’t even in the special assessment district. He said from what he knows, the main reason the road was put in was because the City wanted that road and we’re telling them if we annex them they have to pay for it. He said he doesn’t agree with that. Mr. Walker said the intent of the project was to build a roadway to the Baling Facility but he said he is not sure if the Wastewater Treatment Plant was considered at that time. He added that the idea of a future special assessment was that in the event that some facility would like to relocate out there and build, that they wouldn’t go out there and be theoretically given a free street. Council Member Bjerke said he doesn’t agree with this and it should be looked at it before voting on it next week – thinks the road was put in for the specific purpose of the city and every citizen benefits from that and if it stays the way it is he will not vote for it. Mr. Schmisek said staff will provide a depreciation schedule that goes along with future assessments like this - after a certain period of time there is a depreciated amount that these people would have to pay. Council Member Brooks requested that this item be broken out as an agenda item away from the others. In response to Council Member Christensen’s question, Mr. Walker said this land is currently not in the city limits. Council Member Christensen said if not in the city limits and we are creating a special assessment district, how do we get the authority to levy against their property so there would be a lien against the property for unpaid specials. Mr. Swanson said if the property lies outside the city limits you are not imposing the assess-ment at this time, however Century Code §40-23-19 sets up the process where you can identify areas outside the city limits that can be assessed at a future date for benefits of a previously completed project. He said the project costs to be assessed in the future against those properties, if or when they come into the city limits, does have to have a reasonable depreciation schedule to go along with it. Mr. Walker said the scheduled life of a project like this is typically 25 years. Mr. Swanson added that under this statute there is a municipal risk for doing that - the longer it takes for development to occur in the area, the greater the cost is borne by the city – the property owners adjoining the project pay less and less and depending upon the life expectancy of the project and the depreciation schedule, the City Council may have funded 100% of that project and adjoining property owners pay nothing. Regarding annexation soon, Mr. Swanson said the procedure to annex can be difficult – have to establish a number of tests and this roadway is quite a ways away from meeting even the minimum threshold of considering annexation. He said Council needs to understand that the risk, cost or benefit comes into play and should be considered at the time you create the district.

2.6 Budget Amendment for Women’s Way Cancer Prevention and Control grant ($3,575, HL35, 9/26/01, new revenue).
There was no comment on 2.6 – 2.9.

2.7 Budget Amendment (Health $1,260, 9/26/01, new 2001 revenue).

2.8 Budget Amendment for Health Subdepartment HL70 ($13,595, 9/26/01, new 2001 revenue).

2.9 Budget Amendment for Health Department ($5,374, 9/26/01, new 2001 revenue).

2.10 Establishing date for public hearing to consider a property tax exemption pursuant to NDCC Chapter 40-57.1 (New Business) by Western Polymer Corporation, 2250 Mill Rd., for November 5, 2001.
In response to Council Member Christensen’s question, Mr. Schmisek said he did not have an applica-tion. Mr. Carsen was not present and an EDC representative was not present. In response to another question by Council Member Christensen, Mr. Schmisek said the public hearing for November 5 is an anti-competitive hearing – a public notification must be made in the Herald and if there are any like competitors in the community, the applicant is required to notify them by mail of the hearing. Council Member Christensen asked how that information would be gotten to the public. Mr. Schmisek respon-ded that he assumes that Mr. Carsen either has or will be receiving an application that we would have by the Monday meeting and the notifications would be sent accordingly – Monday Council will set the hearing. Mr. Schmisek said Council needs to give it some thought as to whether you are willing to con-sider it before you set the public hearing – if Council isn’t willing to consider it, you won’t want to set the hearing. Mayor Brown said staff would be sure to get the information in the Friday packet.

In response to Council Member Kreun’s question, Mr. Schmisek said this is a new or expanding business property tax exemption – you are allowed to do that up to five years – in the past they have been done on a declining scale of 100-80-60-40-20. Council Member Kreun clarified that it is actually a property tax exemption where we do not collect tax, similar to a housing tax exemption. He added that the Council has a lot to decide as far as what is best for the community in the housing area as well as the business area which could be determined from tax exemption – the housing tax exemption works the same way. Council Member Klave asked if this will meet the timetable of what has to be done. Mr. Schmisek said it is going to be barely met by the occupation date of Nov. 15. Council Member Bjerke said the building is coming, they are opening it up and we are just giving them a gift – it’s not an incentive – it’s a freebie. He said he thinks it’s time that all the citizens share in the bounty of tax cuts instead of the selected few. Council Member Christensen said the exemption has to be granted before they open. Council Member Gershman said this is a state law that every city has access to and he cautioned the Council that if, in fact, this is a business exemption that other communities would embrace with kind rhetoric toward business, that we should do the same. He said they are building the building – the fact is they are building in Grand Forks and he said he is very grateful for it. He said if we are going to be competitive in this region, and you have something in state law that every other community is competitive with you, why would you decline that. He added that the message that you send to the business community and to the public as to the types of programs you will put in is extremely important and also how you say it. Council Member Gershman went on to say he is glad they are here and employing people in Grand Forks, glad they are building a building in Grand Forks and said he will strongly support this tax exemption because it could just as well have gone somewhere else. Council Member Brooks said he wished a representative from the EDC were here to answer questions. Council Member Kreun said he agreed with Council Member Gershman and said he thinks the citizens should have the same ability to look at this type of an exemption as a business.

2.11 Agreement regarding mitigation of Granitoid Pavement adversely affected by City Projects 4648.3 and 4948.2 Transmission Pipelines and Residuals Forcemain, Phase 2, S. 34th St. to Water Treatment Plant.
In response to Council Member Bjerke’s question, Mr. Walker said they do not have a good handle on the cost of saving the Granitoid - don’t anticipate a lot because it is a relatively small area. Council Member Bjerke said he thinks the Granitoid should be destroyed. Council Member Burke said there are five items on the agenda that beg the question how much. He said six months ago they asked that cost be on agenda items and if staff doesn’t know just say so, estimate it or take a stab at it.

2.12 Street Department Salt and Sand Bid
Mr. Feland said we are ordering the same amount as last year.
2.13 Wastewater Department Budget Amendment ($150,000)
In response to Council Member Burke’s question, Mr. Feland said what has occurred, as stated in the staff report, is that the forcemain put in a year ago had a lot of leaks and they are hoping for reimburse-ment. Mr. Walker said they have been keeping track of the costs - believe they total around $80-90,000 - are in the process of preparing a bill to send to the contractor. He said he will be meeting with the City Attorney to see how we send it to make sure we have everything in order to recoup the costs, if not from the contractor, hopefully from the bond. In response to another question by Council Member Burke, Mr. Feland said the estimated cost of the rehab is about $150,000 and a couple other repairs may have to be made so he left $40-50,000 in case more leaks occur between now and December. Mr. Walker said they have a two-year warranty and it will expire in December. Council Member Burke asked if we can ex-tend the warranty until the issue is resolved. Mr. Swanson said we have already made a warranty claim both on the bonding company as well as the contractor. He said he does not anticipate that they will vol-untarily extend the warranty - we have made the decision to move forward with the claim that preserves our right to make the repairs as necessary with notice both to the bonding company and to the contrac-tor. He said we have been doing studying and testing to try to determine the cause of the problem.

2.14 FY 2001/2002 Sanitation Front Load Container Bids
Mr. Feland said they have two rear-load two-person routes (commercial) and are looking at replacements for automating those into front-load one-person routes. In response to Council Member Gershman’s question, Mr. Feland said they are trying to downsize and will make some transfers until the end of next year to transition to the one-person route that will result in the elimination of a position. He said they are looking at meeting with Urban Development and the Downtown Leadership Group to try to work out a system for downtown that requires more efficiency and clears out the clutter in the alleys.

2.15 Hold public hearing for moving permit application to move the home from 93 Grassy Hills to Lot 5, Block 2, Shady Ridge Estates 6th.
Mayor Brown opened the public hearing. After receiving some gentle ribbing, he closed the public hearing.

2.16 Modify the Existing Night Bus Route and extend the Night Bus service.
Petra Clemens, 401 S. 5th St. said she attended the Task Force meetings and expressed support for the night bus route change and said they need to be given more time to prove that this will be an improvement for the night bus. She gave a brief history about the bus being used for taking people to work but it did not go into the residential areas. She added that people with disabilities did not use the night bus because they found it too difficult to get to the bus stops. She said they need more time to advertise that the night bus is available - people with disabilities and those who don’t have cars should have the opportunity to go out at night also.

Bobby Vogel, 2500 14th Av. S. #11, said he lives close to the hospital/clinic, but if wants to go out to a meeting, dinner or movie, he can’t do it. He said he hopes his transportation would not be taken away.

In response to Council Member Burke’s question, Council Member Bjerke said the Task Force has not set a threshold by when they think the route is justified – they said they would let the Council decide. There was discussion about the counting of ridership and number of people riding. Council Member Hamerlik explained it as unduplicated numbers of people who are using the service. In response to Council Member Kreun’s question, Mr. Foster spoke of the history of the night bus service and said he has been told that the ridership numbers in 1994-95 (when the grant ran out) and present ridership is fairly consistent with an average of 400-500 riders. Mr. Feland said they have not seen a dramatic increase since last week. Council Member Kreun said he hopes we have increased ridership because at this level it becomes very questionable.

Frank Harlow, 110 Cherry # 102 said he would like the night bus to continue because it is the only way people can get here to let Council know what we want. Related to the crosswalk issue, he said vehicles stop right on the crosswalk and impedes people like himself from crossing.

Council Member Brooks said he thinks that if the night ridership ends, the $5,000 being spent on it should go back to help sustain the whole public transportation system - may be more important than how wide we can spread it. He said he feels that if we continue to put more funds and services into the system there will be a backlash and at some point we will be without a public transportation system. He said the night bus service just does not have the numbers. Mr. Feland said that along with the night bus service we run a complimentary para-transit service as well. In response to Council Member Gershman’s question, Mr. Foster said the actual cost per rider for Dial-A-Ride and the night bus is $13 with the cost for the night bus being approximately $5.71 – we are not currently getting any grant money. Council Member Gershman clarified that if we do not have the night bus we do not have Dial-A-Ride at night. Mr. Foster said that is correct and very similar to the same reason we have Dial-A-Ride during the day – it is a federal mandate that anytime you have fixed city bus transportation you also have to have complementary para-transit service and here it is provided by two taxicab services and it runs during the same time. Council Member Gershman said it is clear that if we eliminate the night bus service there is no Dial-A-Ride for people that need it and have no other way of getting around except by taxi or friends/family. Mr. Foster said it was staff’s responsibility at the budget presentation back in May to eliminate this service in an effort to try to be accountable to the city. He said we have done away with the Public Transportation Committee, a form by which representation from UND, East Grand Forks and the ADA community had an ability during the day to voice concerns about public transportation. He said we have taken that forum away during the day and if you eliminate night bus service you cut their legs off, so to speak.

Council Member Burke asked for two years of ridership numbers prior to the cessation of the night bus in 1995 and then a month by month accounting since the service was resumed at the end of 1999 – also an itemization of the reduced cost with the use of the trolley. Council Member Burke expressed that some of the wording in the information provided is misleading. In response to Council Member Kerian’s question, Mr. Foster said Dial-A-Ride numbers would be included as well. Council Member Klave said there are communities who do not have bus service but do have Dial-A-Ride and asked how those programs are run. Mr. Foster said Bismarck has a service that is all-inclusive - they don’t have a fixed route service per se – it’s an on-demand system for all the citizens and covers paratransit as well. He said when you offer a fixed-route service and are not 100% ADA accessible with your vehicles you have two choices – you have to provide a complementary Dial-A-Ride service or you have to provide a route/point deviation service where you can give those individuals access to your service. Council Member Klave asked if the night bus service goes away, can you run a city bus service and Dial-A-Ride during the day and a Dial-A-Ride service in the evening and format it so that it meets the requirements of an on-call basis for anyone that wants it and figure out the cost on that. Mayor Brown asked for the information prior to the weekend so Council can review it.