Council Minutes

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE
Monday, September 23, 2002
(following special city council meeting)

The city council met as the Committee of the Whole on Monday, September 23, 2002 following the special city council meeting 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 during the past week and upcoming events:
1) the Public Works Department 2nd Annual open house was a great success on Saturday, between 400 to 500 people attended and were treated to demonstrations of equipment; and thanked everyone who made this a success.
2) the Grand Forks Police Department will be holding an awards ceremony tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. in the lower level of the police building. The department will be presented a variety of awards including appreciation awards to 7 citizens, life saving awards to 6 citizens and 10 officers. The North Dakota Law Enforcement Officer of the Year award will also be presented.
3) Congratulations to everyone at UND who helped make this a record-breaking enrollment semester and hats off to everyone for their hard work.
4) Congratulations to UND's Crisis Coordination team for winning the NASPA award for their positive approach to working for a safe campus; that this is a regional award and their model is already being incorporated in other campuses.

COMMITTEE DISCUSSION ITEMS

3.1 2003 CDBG funding.
Terry Hanson, Urban Development, stated the year 2003 funding City anticipates $1.750,000 available for distribution for the CDBG Program, that in 2002 the City established a Citizens Advisory Committee who met and reviewed the applications and based on their recommendations, staff brought forth recommendations for funding to the
Finance/Development Committee on September 17 and findings are included in the staff report. He stated that today they are opening a 30-day public comment period that will end November 4 at the council meeting, during that time they will receive public comments from anyone that is interested in having comment on the recommendations; and stated that the committee of the whole meeting on October 28, he will be bringing some comments and recommendations for change in funding regarding the administration of this program, that he has staff working on some information and data he would like to present for consideration. He stated this item will not be on next week's council agenda and not until the last committee of the whole meeting in October. It was noted that there were no changes to the recommendations of the Citizens Advisory Committee - that Finance/Dev. Committee reviewed the recommendations of CAC and with staff discussed funding levels for each of the projects.

Council Member Gershman stated that in looking over the members that were recommended by the city council and appointed by the mayor, and in trying to find more people to get involved with city government, that one of the individuals that he
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recommended called him and stated that this was one of the finest experiences she has had since she has been in Grand Forks and that is a compliment to the staff and the quality of work, and that these people will continue to want to be interested in city government, and thanked staff.

Council Member Christensen stated that this is proposed funding but information sent to them also have a change to the 5-year action plan and if that was an amendment of the 5-year plan. Mr. Hanson stated that annually the annual action plan is an amendment or change to the 5-year action plan. Council Member Christensen asked when will they be updating the LMI area, that we are using 1990 census data and when do we get 2000 data in our LMI areas and overlay that on total CDBG plan. Mr. Hanson stated that the census track data has not yet been released by the Census Bureau, when that information is released HUD will compile that data and provide us with the census tracks and block groups that are considered LMI - expect that will happen towards the end of this year. He stated that he has been assured by HUD that until that time and even for 2003 funding, we can go by the data we have available today, and 2002 data probably won't take effect until the 2004 funding.

Council Member Kreun thanked the Advisory Committee for time and effort, that several indicated to him similar to what Mr. Gershman stated - that they had quite an experience and thought a lot of business people should be on these committees to find out how the government actually works and how much money is out there to help with these kinds of programs. He stated he has a comment that on the applications not ranked, he worked very hard with the Chateau Condominium people (fire alarm safety code project) to get on this particular list and were not ranked, and asked if there was a possibility at some point in time if there were some monies left over or available, that they could be considered at that time.

3.2 Request from Flood Rental Rehab. loan recipients.
Council Member Hamerlik stated that rather than requiring quarterly payments so it becomes more flexible for the landlords (not requested by any landlord), that extending it 12.5 years requires more administration, couldn't they require if amount due less than $200 or $50 to give some flexibility to those that may want to pay monthly, this motion requires them to pay quarterly no matter what the amount is, but give them the option of paying monthly, easier for them to budget. Mr. Hanson stated he wouldn't have any problem with that, and that their recommendation is most liberal format they could repay and if someone wanted to pay on a monthly basis, would take that and would change the "required" payment - he would discuss with staff.

Council Member Kreun thanked Mr. Hanson for work they did with these individuals, knows there are certain landlords who are having a difficult time in cash flowing some of these and want to be flexible and usable as we can to these people and still not change the actual conditions of the loan that was made.

Several members of the committee stated the solution is one the community can accept, and that citizens working with staff and this worked out well.

There were no comments from the committee members.

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3.3 Affordable In-fill Housing Proposal.
There were no comments.

3.4 Grand Forks Renaissance Zone Project GF-3.
There were no comments.

3.5 Consideration of salt and sand bids for Street Department.
There were no comments.

3.6 Consideration of paint stripping machine bids.
Council Member Hamerlik asked if they were on a 7-10 year replacement cycle. Mr. Feland reported machine was purchased in 1976.

3.7 Amendment No. 2 to engineering services agreement with CPS, Ltd. for Project No.
5217, 32nd Avenue and Columbia Road reconstruction.________________________
Cindy Voigt, asst. city engineer, stated the amendment is for the engineering R/W for everything improved on the Columbia/32nd project, mostly appraisal costs.

3.8 Consideration of bids for Project No. 5375, District No. 414, sanitary sewer along N.
42nd Street from Gateway to 16th Ave. N. and 16th Ave. N. from 42nd Street to the
terminus of 16th Avenue North Circle.______________________________________
Ms. Voigt reported they received 4 bids, Robert Gibbs & Sons, low bidder had an extension error in their bid ($214,351.00) and United Crane & Excavation did not include certificate of license and recommended returning United Crane's bid unopened; low bid was under engineer's estimate but not as low as expected and did not substantially reduce the assessments. She stated of the 12 property owners only 3 of those owners would have assessments less than $20,000, and others would have to pay over $20,000; that the finance department ran the numbers and have the projected assessments with overhead based on the bids and very high. She stated of the 12 property owners 2 submitted letters and two other property owners stated they were opposed to the project, and 4 of the 12 protesting and recommend not going forward with the project unless council sees urgent need to put the sewer in now.

John Jennings, president of North Dakota Concrete, stated he was here to ask council to take recommendation of the engineering department as they do not want the project, still too expensive for them.

Council Member Kreun stated project was requested by the property owners and that the City went through the process, that project was quite expensive, and noted that the sewer project is not protestable and that they wanted to go through the process to find out the exact cost and with other property owners not to go forward with the project and that is what their recommendation will be; and appreciate comments and work engineering department did to give them the exact costs.

Council Member Hamerlik stated that 4 out of 12 expressed negative but asked what percentage of land those 4 have in comparison to the others. Ms. Voigt stated that ND Concrete is largest property owner and he has 60% of the property.


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Al Grasser, city engineer, stated he didn't have problem with not installing the sanitary sewer but that it is his opinion that until all the underground work is done, they not proceed with looking at plans and specs. and doing road improvements because don't want to put the road in and then try to come in and do major sanitary sewer project. He expressed considerable reservation in the future if platting continues out there or continue to subdivide lots without the full intent of putting in city services, if continue to do that continue making the problem worse, as the situation develops now they can tolerate it, but if plat comes in he would ask that utilities be put in.

3.9 Change Order #2 for Project no. 5295, 2002 Sanitary and Storm Sewer repairs.
There were no comments.

3.10 Variance request on driveway openings on N. 52nd Street.
Cindy Voigt corrected number for property shown as 1653 N. 52nd Street to 1563 N. 52nd Street. No other comments.

3.11 Budget amendment - Public Transportation Department.
There were no comments.

3.12 Consideration of awarding additional funding for interim flood protection.
Council Member Christensen questioned why this was not bid; Ms. Voigt stated they received quotes for this work in the spring as their annual flood fight project, that last year used the quote they received for 2001 and this year proposing to use the quote for 2002 and it is specifically for dike building type of work. Christensen stated it is for $150,000 and if quotes were received from anybody except Nodak; Ms. Voigt stated they received other quotes; and work will be done this fall and get as many areas complete as can. She also noted that last year they asked for $50,000 and spent all but $13,000; and brought to identify the fund and wants to make sure that everyone understood that it was coming out of the permanent flood control project assessment fund.

3.13 Budget amendment - Department of Finance/Administrative Services.
The city auditor stated this is for Base retention and that is the intention of these funds, and carryover funds from that category and as started some of the work on base retention. The total available is $137,000 and for this year amending budget for $50,000 of that.

3.14 FY 2003 curbside recycling service rebidding.
Council Member Hamerlik stated that an RFP would be the way to go rather than bidding where we would have to draw all the specs. and get all the innovative ways to increase the numbers and questioned by bidding it. Todd Feland, director of public works, stated they wanted to set the guidelines of what kind of program we wanted so if did rebid it wanted to do request for proposals, and proposals would be based upon our specs. of what we want in a contract.

Council Member Gershman stated they did not receive any minutes of the meetings, but it makes it easier if have minutes so they know what the discussions were - and asked what was the reasoning to not go to voluntary pickup, households that would wish to be charged would be the only ones charged. Mr. Feland reviewed what the committee discussed: that the task force discussed what they wanted in a recycling program, whether curbside or not.
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One of the issues discussed was that they have an on-going landfill EIS and that they needed some form of recycling program to demonstrate that we are doing something to divert whether that is recycling-- One of the issues of the citizens survey report was that people do want recycling, majority wanted curbside program and others were satisfied with a drop-site program. The committee decided that curbside recycling not the most economical way of picking up recycling and more expensive than drop services or landfilling. They also looked at programs and included Fargo's program which set up sites and are now moving into a curbside program but is a voluntary program and their curbside program is different than ours, that Fargo does the collection and drops off at a private wholesaler, they did set up a voluntary program in which individuals could sign up for a curbside program at $3.00 per household and billing appear on their utility bill. He stated the drop site service which is part of their basic fee that everybody is charged in the city of Fargo, and additional service level is charged extra on utility bill. He stated comparisons between Fargo and Grand Forks that drop site services more economical than curbside recycling on cost per ton. He stated he also included what it cost us to recycle newspaper at a drop site - $22.19 vs. $243/ton curbside recycling, less expensive to pick up at centrally located areas and Fargo at $103/ton vs. our $243/ton for curbside vs. drop site. He stated they looked at trying to make service more cost effective knowing that many cities are debating the effectiveness of recycling programs - State of California has had state mandates but cities haven't been able to meet the mandates and they are also relooking at what they are doing. He stated they also looked at what it would cost to do the collection service and perhaps get a contract for somebody to drop it off, similar to what Fargo does, and tried to use estimate of $245,000 for us to do collection of materials and would have to bid out having somebody do the distribution and marketing. He stated the task force recommendation is that they wanted to see that we maintain the every other week collection service but rebidding it, knowing that there are probably more contractors today that are interested in rebidding the service and perhaps get more competitive quotations. He stated that part of the thinking is that we need to promote the service, by providing incentives to the contractor to do it themselves, and to provide incentives is to bid it on a per ton basis - that group cardboard and paper together at 1 per ton cost, and also plastics and metals in another category, and bid on a per ton basis, and if too expensive to bid on curbside, have the ability not to award that bid. He stated the second way is to do it on a per residential or per unit basis and try to provide a bonus or incentive system to get beyond what we've normally got which is around the 1400 tons per year, and was to bid the process and marketing separately in case the City wanted to do the collection but still have a source to take our recyclables. He stated that once the bids were in, the City could determine what was in the best interest and the goal tonight was to have some discussion so that he could go back and do some finalizing - had many ideas - planning to put in couple collection sites, one at Kelly Schroeder and one at the Public Works facility and perhaps build out more of those and make curbside voluntary so have best worlds - basic service and have service for people who want curbside and would pay for it.

Gershman stated he would be interested in seeing what the voluntary would look like and what percentage of households recycle now; Mr. Feland stated they have done surveys and in 2000 around 70% of people said they recycle in some shape or form - he stated that Fargo found out when going voluntary have 7% and goal was 10%. Gershman stated percentage seems high in certain areas of town and those residents are used to recycling and like to do it, and if convert to a voluntary system might be fairly high and might be worth trying. Mr. Feland stated the current program was set up in contract with Vern's and then
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with Waste Management was that all residential, single family owners were automatically enrolled in it and City was billed accordingly whether you use it or not and that's where a lot of the contention came in. Gershman stated that maybe best thing is to go voluntary, would like to explore that.

Council Member Kreun stated that during their discussions those concepts have been brought up and would like to hear from everybody to find out if those are viable options; the reason they made this recommendation is from information they had and studies that were taking place and cost effectiveness; and recycling not cost effective measure, and want to do it in the best method possible so they can reduce our costs and still maintain as high a level service as the citizens want - they looked at some of the youth scenarios and how do you train youth to become user friendly and recycle. He stated they wanted to look at other programs - voluntary was one. He stated they are concerned about the EIS study and how that relates back to our landfill issue, and numbers that came out, about 54%, to retain the existing program; they want to hear from council members, from staff because this is only a recommendation and took information they had at the time to utilize this information and bring it forward; one of the things he thought about that might come up that might help them is to take and separate or break out the products -maybe cardboard and newspaper because that is one of the higher cost items - maybe look at voluntary issues but recommendation came from existing information and can meet again if necessary with information that is brought forward to look at other options.

Council Member Kerian stated they looked at what are some incremental changes that might be made working with vendors in the community, perhaps working with our own staff that could help lower the cost and provide incentives so in the best interest of the business picking it up, to gather more rather than less, and couple ways to incent that
do have the ability to reject all bids, this is to see what we can do with the cost because that would make a difference in a voluntary program, and have some impact on further exploration and hope get something out soon because it is almost October and hear back from some of the vendors and businesses to see who may be interested in giving some response so that we can calculate - what are costs and benefits and how we might proceed.

Council Member Hamerlik stated a good reason for having RFP's is that you might get some outside innovative ways of doing things rather than having internally - that as we reduce services because of cost factors, have to be careful because this is an environmental issue otherwise no need to do it - watch what it does to the environment; that two drop sites will deter people and where located is important - one of the reasons we went to once a week sanitation was to encourage more recycling and not sure that has occurred in addition to some labor savings. If we are paying $2.10/per household now but $3.00 not much more on a voluntary basis - if have to call in if you want it, have less calls and it's how it is marketed makes a big difference on how successful we are.

Council Member Brooks stated the system we have is costly - that where something gets recycled it's not going to our landfill and those dollars hard to identify what we are saving, but the landfill is an expensive system - need to look at some areas of savings for our next budget process. He stated the motion before them on October 7 will be to approve proceeding with rebidding the curbside recycling and need people to come in and talk to them - need people to come down on both sides and want to hear what people have to say about continuing it or reducing service -- want to hear some things.
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Council Member Glassheim stated it would undermine recycling if they went to a voluntary collection, be in a position to save money if didn't recycle and wrong psychology - that we are trying to do now or want to try is education to see if we can bring the volume up and the household usage up. He stated if go with a voluntary system the cost per household will go up dramatically - if half the people in the city opted out, it is going to be twice as expensive for those who stay in, and more because the administrative headache of going to one house, skipping 3, etc. the fewer households you have in it, the more per household it will cost and continuing spiral of lowering the amount of recycling.

Council Member Christensen stated he did some quick analysis on numbers they received from Mr. Feland and would encourage you to explore drop-off sites because they seem to be the most cost efficient and probably generate a greater return, the newspaper recycling for drop-off sites - picked up 610 tons of newsprint and cost us $22.19/ton whereas newspaper picked up in apartments cost them $251.22/ton - big difference and in homes $241.00/ton and if have drop-off sites where people drop their newspapers and cost us as community $22.19/ton and if pick up at your home, costing everybody $250/ton - half of the trash we're picking up, total tonnage, 52.36% is newspaper, 13.87% is cardboard and have 65-66% of total pickup is paper and cardboard - we need to bid picking up newsprint and the cardboard in one, and the other part is picking up the balance of the trash - for aluminum picked up 41tons - 82,000 lbs. and if take to processor, 20 cents/lb. which is $16,400 and nobody is going to spend much time putting a bid together to get 41 tons of aluminum for $16,400 - that glass and plastic there is no market for it and to incent someone to pick up more tonnage that they can't sell because the profit is in the newsprint, isn't going to work.

He stated when looking at the budget - $400,000 item that we're paying for in our Enterprise fund - that's money we'll have available to amortize debt if we don't do this, that we have an issue here where we are going to address policy and have some numbers that don't seem to be working and need citizen input whether you like the service, willing to pay more for it, and before bidding it, may want to come with an estimate for those that use it, chose to go voluntarily, what they pay for it, and if bid this, still have to drive up and down all the streets to pick it up and cost for the collector isn't going to go down and have fixed costs so to defray those costs as an individual who is going to bid this, and his solutions are as follows: 1) bid it separately as far as newsprint and cardboard, 2) encourage more drop-off sites in the community, 3) explore drop-off sites in the community and if have problems policing those, that is something street or sanitation would do to encourage those that allow us to have the drop-off sites in place, those that want to recycle will be given the opportunity and the community can put the drop sites in place is much cheaper and yet accomplish the goal - that we have material available for Waste Mgmt. to pick up, they don't have the same cost that they would have driving up and down the streets, that we are going to have to examine the total cost of this as opposed to elimination and what amount of money we would have to amortize existing debt. - the real question is, do you want this service at $400,000 or eliminate this service and if have that $400,000 will then have that money available to amortize debt for our landfill, wastewater treatment plant, etc. otherwise increase the fees to pick up that debt as we did this year in our budget - finally, the question becomes if those that want it are willing to pay a little bit more, how do we implement that system because the costs are going to be the same to pick it up at your home - we can continue this service but pay more but won't encourage the contractor because he still has the same costs, but others won't have it and what can we do with the newsprint - if we don't spend this $400,000 on recycling we have many more needs and places for this money and if
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continue this and raise your rates for the bonds we're going to have to sell to complete the projects we're doing, going to have this plus increased rates - want both or one vs. the other.

Council Member Kerian stated the $400,000 plus $1,000 in the budget, does that cover the drop-off sites; and what about the policing issue as not an 8:00 to 5:00 job, and how that could be improved. Mr. Feland stated that part of the $427,000 includes the newspaper sites, that last year was $13,519 paid for the 6 newspaper sites, mostly at grocery stores, we supply the container and Waste Mgmt. picks them up for us. He stated we didn't want to do a solid waste drop-site but have them because each day or weekend the container is full of garbage that they dispose of and that is a big problem and thought of several different sites but need them in visible areas and either the contractor has to maintain them and be out there 7 days a week monitoring them or the City has to do the same. The other thought is go with one super-site where they maintain it and have it only open certain hours of the day - would like to have in public works area and not affecting everyone else's environment - either expand it or monitor it or make larger site and restrict hours.

Council Member Kerian stated she would ask people to look at the quotation, requests and see if that might give us some additional information that would help make some decisions rather than putting this off.

Council Member Christensen stated another thing he forgot - have to expand the service to your apartment owners, most of the people living in apartments are probably doing a lot of the voluntary drop-off because this contract is only for duplexes and tri-plexes - and only have 3690 multi-family units, that there are 10,000 multi-family units in this community and have a third of units involved - assuming this is number of households, 11,750 with $2.10/houshold per month - and if got 1200 voluntary households, costs go up incredibly, probably 5 times and if wanted it would be $12.00/month rather than $2.10 - numbers are there to work with, the issue is deciding how much the community want to put towards recycling and how much each household should pay for - an money you save now, $400,000, say save $250,000, that will amortize $2.5 million worth of debt - that's the policy issue he wants to get into.

Council Member Glassheim stated that recycling as a whole over the past 10-15 years been thought of as a social issue, rather than an individual preference, and treating recycling as who wants and who doesn't, not the way to think about it - does the City of Grand Forks want to encourage recycling or set up a structure which makes recycling easier rather than harder as part of a social obligation that it has.

Council Member Kreun stated Mr. Feland's idea to bring back several more options to look at and if that is the direction - and to make sure that he has the direction.

INFORMATIONAL ITEMS

The city auditor stated that they will be calling the remainder of the 1989 Valley Memorial Nursing Facility bonds that we issued for them, as they have had refinancing of that issue approved through the County.

ADMINISTRATIVE COORDINATOR COMMENTS

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Rick Duquette, Adm. Coordinator, stated he would like to thank the Grand Forks Chamber of Commerce for inviting the City to participate in their planning summit this weekend, and thanked Mr. Schmisek and Mr. Potter for taking their time to represent the City and participate in that summit. He stated he has noticed a very positive trend over the last few years between the business and government alliance committee and now branching out to inviting us to their planning summit. He stated a brief overview of the summit, which included the economic development corporation discussing diversifying their regional economy and been provided an overview of the 2005 Brac process by the Military Affairs Committee and CVB provided a review of their long term strategies for marketing the city of Grand Forks as a destination community - thanks to them and appreciate being a part of it. Mayor Brown added his thanks as well.

MAYOR AND COUNCIL MEMBER COMMENTS

1) Council Member Brooks presented an item relating to city employees - when they have been somewhat attacked when they have come before the council and not necessary to do that, if people have a complaint against the City - but lashing out and open season on city employees, whether fire department, public information, police department, public works, etc. and if someone has complaint, thinks city employees doing an excellent job, doing what we have set in policy and direct them to do from up here, irritated him this week as he heard a couple things from people and city employees getting lashed out at, and if have complaints, bring them to the council.

2) Council Member Kerian stated when she saw the E-mail in which Mr. Duquette talked about the planning summit, and thought we were going to have one, and looking forward.

3) Council Member Christensen stated as soon as we can get to a planning summit and start dealing with some of the issues that have been put off for 6 months or so, would be good and has an open October and November. Mayor stated that was noted.

4) Council Member Gershman stated he was curious as to what kind of security system we have at City Hall - somebody tried to break in and do we have motion detectors - it was noted we have a system. He stated there was a comment made tonight that some people say that this is a do nothing council, has never heard that and many people say we do too much - that last week we passed a budget, passed a code of ethics and passed an historic wage agreement, etc. and proud of what the council is doing now. Mayor Brown agreed.

ADJOURN

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

Respectfully submitted,



John M. Schmisek
City Auditor