Committee Minutes

Minutes of the Grand Forks City Council/Service/Safety Committee
Wednesday, August 23, 2006 - 4:30 p.m. - Council Chambers

The Service/Safety Standby Committee met on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 at 4:30 p.m. in the council chambers in City Hall with Committee Chair Kreun presiding. Present at roll call: Council Member Bakken.

Others present included: Lonnie Laffen, Fire Chief O'Neill, Police Chief Packett, Don Shields, Rick Duquette, Todd Feland, Greg Hoover, Brad Gengler, Earl Haugen, Wally Helland, Todd Hanson, Roxanne Fiala, Maureen Storstad, Candi Stjern, Saroj Jerath.

1. Public safety training/mosquito control facility presentation.
Lonnie Laffen, JLG Architects, gave a presentation on the proposed facility and reviewed the following:
Goals presented by the departments for the public safety training/mosquito control facility including saving initial and ongoing costs, train with multiple disciplines, increase storage capacity, usable training tower to work at heights, secure permanent long-term facility for mosquito control program, improve security, enhanced communication between agencies, establish outdoor shooting range, move out of former civic center.

Training Space: Facility would provide 28,475 sq.ft. of space subdivided as follows: 1,730 for police vehicle storage; 12,530 for fire apparatus storage and fire station; 7,300 for mosquito vehicle and chemical storage, office, lab and service stall; and shared space for the 3 departments: including toilet/showers, break room, training rooms, work room, exercise room, storage, etc. :

Site Training Facilities: including training tower, training building, trench rescue prop, burn props, outdoor shooting range, canine training field, with future expansion for training facilities: railroad spur prop. bicycle training course, and expansion of vehicle operating training area.

Copies of the site plans (land is owned by the City in the Industrial Park), floor plans in the proposed facility were reviewed as well as public safety training elevation study.

Mr. Laffen reviewed massing studies but don't have a lot of detail yet but the base of this building would be concrete or concrete masonry and most would be metal buildings on top of the concrete, inexpensive construction that would fit in the Industrial Park setting.

Estimated cost of the proposed facility were also reviewed: Building & Structures with subtotal of $3,480,000, including mosquito control operations building, office and support, fire department storage/apparatus building, and police department storage facility with furniture; and equipment training grounds with subtotal of $1,131,000 including training tower, training house, range/canine shed, canine training field, shooting range; and site construction at est. cost of $1,160,000 for a total construction cost of $5,771,000. Mr. Laffen noted these costs are for building the project at one construction phase. He stated they also looked at splitting the project with est. costs.

COUNCIL MEMBER GERSHMAN REPORTED PRESENT

Mr. Laffen noted efficiency of co-locating entities and if they were to split and each one of the entities needs to build their own facility somewhere someday , would have to add in additional space, 1) fire department would need additional storage, mechanical room, toilet and showers would have to be added for the fire department; 2) mosquito side would need toilet and showers, more mechanical space, break room and storage area. This adds up to approx. 2, 580 sq.ft., only about 10% but adds to about quarter of a million. He stated he didn't include anything for additional land - that even if built 3 separate ones could all be on this one site; but if needed additional land, about 3 acres needed to building on 3 separate sites. with acquisition of about $300,000 at today's prices; additional overhead at about 5%, additional wall, and site work, parking to a total of approx. $1 million worth of savings by joining these 3 entities need in one building and site.

He reported they looked at building facility in phases; Phase A - the mosquito portion including parking (Phase B) at est. cost of $1.189,320; second phase would add training areas incl. burn tower and canine training ; third need fire department apparatus storage base and fourth piece would be to add the shared functions; and last phase would add response bays to link up the whole facility, over a 10-year period. Cost would be for mosquito control, $1,190,000; and prices go up in all portions and went from $5.7 million to $7.2 million for difference of $1.5 and does include inflation over the 10-year period, about half is inflation and inefficiency of building 5 times.

There was consideration of cost if mosquito control operations stayed where they are at, purchase of building at cost of $350,000 with bringing building up to Code requirements, and additional items to make the building work for them as follows: fire sprinkler, fire alarm and detection system, security system, chemical storage room with spill containment; upgrade electrical system, upper level office area, provide storage and operational space, toilet facilities up to handicap code and add lockers/showers, site clearing, fence, vehicle access gate, pave parking area and driveway with curb and gutter, remove septic system and connect city sewer system and storm drainage to est. cost of $947,000. In comparison to the free standing mosquito building, $1,190,000 and $242,000 savings if stay in same building and renovate it but if mosquito is a part of the joint shared use facility, their cost is only $925,000, and new facility co-located with is $25,000 less than staying where they are.

Council Member Gershman asked if they stayed where they are and continued renting. Mr. Laffen stated they wouldn't do some of the City requirements, the biggest issue for them is that they are not in the city limits. Gershman stated there are 3 alternatives: continue renting where they are, as looking at the options. Mr. Laffen stated leasing or owning this building can't compare location and safety factors and operations. It was noted if leasing and landlord having to do those things as comes into city limits, lease would increase at that point.

Maureen Storstad pointed out Mr. Schmisek's plan for financing the facility, the mosquito portion of the facility would be handled through a revenue bond paid by mosquito fees, there is money available in the infrastructure fund for site work and plan was to spend the cash down so the general obligation bond portion would cover the cost for the police and fire portions out of the Public Building Fund. Public Building Fund is 3.09 mills existing, no additional mills.but believed he moved from the Special Assessment Special Revenue Fund half a mill into the Public Building Fund. Kreun asked if we are going to sell bonds and add to our debt, how do we come out even. Ms. Storstad stated in 2006 in Public Building Fund cut 1.77 mills and in 2007 are going to put .5 mills back in the Public Building Fund from Special Assessment Fund; there was a notation from Mr. Schmisek that there may be a need in 2009 to find one more mill but that will also come from another area so don't have an increase in mills. Kreun stated it is important to find out that funds are not going to create an additional expense, but having the same level of expenses or funding at that point. Rick Duquette, city administrator, stated that before Mr. Schmisek left he indicated that there is no increase in new mills to do this.

Kreun stated they have good building for mosquito control program and what would happen if they just went with police and fire and not mosquito program at this point. Mr. Laffen stated that it might be a good building but have some issues - operational issue there as have group of young people driving ATV's on Hwy. 2 when they exit that building, have County fire protection coming from Emerado rather than city of Grand Forks (Gershman noted that they could take care of that and have City of Grand Forks do that), and suggested that they work out with the mosquito control people the operational issues, looks like very similar money in the long run but new facility much better safety-wise, would have higher standards, and would be a 50-60 year building, typically metal buildings are 30-to 40 year buildings.

Mr. Laffen handed out program benefits to the committee, he had asked each department to list reasons and benefits.
1) Chief Packett stated the police department currently utilizes the EGF firing range or the County firing range for outdoor shooting and have to schedule that through them; neither range
has the electronics and baffling, the ability to move vehicles and equipment in to do tactical shooting or night shooting, etc. The indoor range has been brought up to EPA standards with the ventilation system, etc. but all stationary targets, does not allow for tactical shooting nor for bringing vehicles or equipment, etc. and currently utilize the kitchen area, classroom area adj. to our squad room downstairs for training purposes, limited to 20 to 25 people. He noted that they will be provided with some of their comments from staff re. needs for storage areas that they will be losing when the civic is transitioned to other use. The outdoor range and the tower usage for specialized units is of value to them; and that is capitalization of their needs right now.

Kreun asked how often our people leave town for training that could be held in Grand Forks. Packett stated that at any given time they may have 10-15% of workforce outside of the city and would assist their budget if could do training locally and recoup some of their costs by charging some costs for admissions from the neighboring agencies. SWAT team trains 10 hours per month at a minimum, and are at Camp Grafton doing outdoor and tower training because facility is more conducive; and would be able to do that here as well as the bomb teams, canine teams, crisis negotiation, etc., that federal agencies come in and do joint training with us.

Bakken asked if they had new facility would that take away their need for the sub-station on 17th Avenue South. Packett stated the Martin Annex on 17th and 20th is still needed as Special Operations group operates out of there, offices, equipment is stored there and gives central location to deploy out of there, that even with the building of the storage facilities at the joint training site still have need for some equipment to remain centralized in the city and next year's remodeling of the mini court spaces and bring the Community Service Bureau back downtown will still have a need for that facility plus use as a substation (officers do reports and interview witnesses, etc.)

Use of training facility for other departments and other cities, and if revenue source for us. Chief Packett stated it could; that Fargo's practice is that they recoup their costs for training they provide, if bring in various companies or agencies to do training and cost charged would recoup some revenue. He noted that within the last couple months they had regional canine training where co-oped with Winnipeg, did training of about 12 different dog teams.

Kreun asked what facilities do we have to that we are shipping out in the region that could be done here and facilitate this building, and if there is a cost benefit ratio within this, that when explain this to the citizenry there has to be a strong benefit and the benefit has to outweigh the cost, and how do you quantify that with training for police and fire and mosquito control and how to tell the public this is a good deal. .

Chief O'Neill reviewed training facilities for his department, that they don't have fires every day and fire fighters are trained but when fires do occur, have to be on top of their game, they don't have those facilities today to do that. Training tower is located on Mill Road, encroached by a lot of junk, built in 1975; that they can't move that building as structure wouldn't handle the move. They do their training for vehicle driving in parking lots, asked local businesses if can use their parking lot and at Alerus, but with heavy trucks do tear up the asphalt; that they test their hose in private areas - at Alerus and on Airport runways which takes them out of their response areas, and need something centrally located where they can train.

He noted they bring other departments in to share cost with them, Thompson comes in once a month to train with them, work with Manvel on a regular basis, and haven't been asking them for any funds, and the residents in the County are better served; and hope they could host regional fire schools, and would be able to recoup costs on those. He stated they need to work with the police department and would do that in this facility, communication between their departments is important. He stated time response to Congressional area, Industrial Park area from the central fire station and Columbia Road station are probably 70% of the time running over 6 minute response and would like 90% of all areas to be responding within 5 minutes. He stated they have to get to these places quickly because of products in the fire and down to 3 to 4 minutes before fire becomes untenable with plastics and construction; Industrial Park is extremely valuable property, and feel can get to those businesses quicker and save jobs that could possibly be lost if there was a bad fire that was occur in those buildings.

Staffing would not be increased at this time for this station but actually relocate one of their engine companies from the central fire station, their training officer would be located out there and would be able to utilize him for response during the daylight hours. They hope to have a closer relationship with Northland Community Technical College where could use students that are riding along with them now, and might be able to work out fiscal arrangement with them. Kreun asked if they would pay for using our facility to train their students; O'Neill stated that would be a proposal to them. He stated they have visited with the UND for some of their industrial type classes and using some of this site. Future staffing - that in 2011 would like to be looking at a fire station in the southeast part of the city with additional staff, wants to keep that on their table so know how to finance that - would be close to $1 million per year additional expense for personnel. He stated their department has not grown since in 1972, fewer suppression personnel now than there were in 1972.

Kreun commented on cave-in in East Grand Forks, Grand Forks fire fighters were called to assist, that is one reason those two people are alive is because we were there with proper equipment and training on how to use; and those are things they have to take into consideration when looking at this. He stated we also have a cost that we have to answer to the citizenry and that goes back to cost benefit ratio

Gershman stated if we have a bond rolling off and we didn't do this, how many mills would that be. Ms. Storstad stated the bond that is rolling off and last payment is in 2007 and is $227,000, which is 2 mills.

Don Shields, Health Department, reported they brought the lease on the current building last December/January and since then have been working to see what are the different alternatives,
and that the 3 entities, fire, police and mosquito control, can be operated at less costly in operations and maintenance, and less costly in terms of total facility and do it in a safer manner in a combined facility. He reviewed costs of current building with new facility - in the first 3 years of their lease on their current building they were getting it for about $21,000, and their lease this year doubled with no changes to the building, that in working with architects as that becomes a part of the city or have to make other changes to that, will go up as the landlord will pass those along to us. Regardless of whether we lease or build, are going to pay those costs over a period of years or long term and convinced that can do that at lower cost by sharing these expenses.

Benefits beyond dollar cost - now located on Hwy. 2 West and if in a central facility in town their dispatch time to kill mosquitoes would be less and save at least 10 hours of crew time every week. He noted the 19-20+ year old college students they use in their program for operations, travel 25 mph on ATV's on Hwy. 2 when traffic going by at 65 mph and not as safe as he would like to see it. Fire Protection: that in July there was a fire in one of the salvage yards and Emerado responded as well as the City of Grand Forks, that they could come up with a contract arrangement for city fire protection, that they have $600,000 worth of equipment and city assets in the building, not just fire protection for the building for the city but what happens in that type of environment.

Bakken stated a little over 10 years ago one of the issues they were having on council was the fact that the department heads wouldn't work together or help each other, and creating bigger departments and that was one of the major issues going on at that time, and one of the things was to get departments to work together to be more efficient, utilize buildings and equipment, and now have 3 departments that want to utilize a building, share some of the facilities and some of the equipment. He stated he didn't think that any of the citizens of Grand Forks would complain bout spending money for police, fire and mosquito control, but talking about a building that is a long term facilities, well trained personnel and if spend money or mills for anything, if this doesn't quality, doesn't know what would.

Kreun stated only thing we would have to vote on today is to keep it in the budget process to go forward should they want to utilize funds.

Mr. Duquette stated this is an important initiative; that this is an opportunity to bring other public safety agencies into our community to help them train and become better and recoup our costs, that this is supported by the mayor, himself and the city council, and his recommendation is that you adopt a motion from this committee and take it back to the city council asking that this be kept in the city budget.

Gershman stated that we have bonds rolling off, $227,000, plus mosquito fund and those two combined are going to be able to amortize that bond issue. Mr. Duquette stated he understands that the revenue bond for the mosquito be based upon mosquito fees, and some additional opportunities to cover the mutual common areas of the facility through those revenue bonds, and the answer to the question is yes. Bond issue $3.5 million. Gershman stated there are so many numbers floating around over this budget and need to actually show us the roll offs, the revenue bond, how much we are going to transfer, our new bond payments. Mr. Duquette stated they would put that together.

Bakken moved to keep this matter in the 2007 budget for further consideration. Kreun seconded the motion. Motion carried

COUNCIL MEMBER GERSHMAN EXCUSED
2. Matter of MPO Draft Human Services Coordinted Transportation Plan.
Marissa Champion, Grand Forks MPO, stated that Earl Haugen had a Street and Highway meeting at the Alerus and had to leave, and that today would update you on a planning require-ment that they are trying to fill. For the last 6 months she has been working on a human services coordinated transportation plan and the 2005 Transportation bill called "Safetea-Lu" requires a locally developed coordinated plan to be eligible for 3 specific FTA programs, New Freedom funds which are aimed at increasing transportation for the disabled and anything above and beyond ADA is the requirement on that program. Second program is Elderly & Disabled which is a capital grant program and is mainly targeted towards the elderly and disabled; and the JARC (Job Access) is a job access and is targeted towards low income and those under the 150% of federal poverty line, and promoting public transit for job access and increasing opportunities of transportation for job access. She noted that their regular funding sources did not see a significant increase in the 2005 Transp. Bill and this Safetea-Lu is effective until 2009, but instead of putting it in our urban funding programs they put it in new programs (New Freedom, the JARC and Elderly & Disabled funds). She stated these are the 3 grant programs and the clienteles, Seniors, Disabled and Low Income but in order to access and be eligible for these funding sources we need to set up a planning requirement of a locally developed coordinated plan and over the last few months has been working with the agencies on developing a plan addressing what the barriers to transportation are for those 3 target clientele and looking at what type of strategies we could use to reduce some of those barriers and also what type of projects and what are the priorities for the funding. She stated there is a planning requirement for a job access funds where you are supposed to come up with a metro job access plan and that is requirement to work with all your specific agencies and in order to access those 3 funds need to have plan.

Mr. Feland stated they had to go through Denver and were awarded one year and then had to locally find the money which they have had for the last 6 years, these are monies that are available at the State and will have to compete with Fargo and Bismarck and hopefully work together and we will get some of this money, and in lieu of just giving us $825,000 they decided to give us $735,000, and good part is that State DOT is more interested in streets and highways and allow us to coordinate this whole program for ourselves. Ms. Champion stated the FTA changed their discretionary program at a national level and MPO competed with all of their transit operators and they found that nobody wanted job access funds and changed it to a formula program to the state and gave rural areas in the state and for urbanized areas in the state and looking at 2 pots of money, one for MN and one for ND, and she has been working wit the DOT about who would be interested in applying for those funds, etc. and will be competing against Fargo and Bismarck, but right now Bismarck doesn't have any intention of applying for funds in the near future. Kreun asked if we have to adopt this plan. Ms. Champion stated the first step would be to adopt the plan which would make the entire MPO area eligible and then the second part would be to prioritize what projects we would like to do.

She reviewed planning stakeholders and the 5 priorities: 1) continued coordination stakeholder group and is one of the things that FTA is advocating and saying that federal programs fund a lot of transportation whether human services or goes from Grand Forks County Social Services to Medicaid programs to job service and 62 programs that fund transportation, and these funds can be matched with federal funds. Mr. Feland stated statute requires you to have a coordinating committee and trying to have everybody work together and divvy up lump sum of money and want to make sure that all these programs are working together so they can maximize the dollar amounts and that is their national goal and to make sure that everybody is talking to one another, and are going to have a stakeholder group with groups represented and everybody is notified as part of a solution. Ms. Champion stated she was informed to develop this plan to see what they wanted in the plan and it was their priority to work together to maximize our resources and coordinate operations. 2) implemented market plan and rather than expanding service and putting more money into our system, market what we have and increase ridership and use funds little more efficiently and that was their priority; 3) Enhance existing services - keep fares affordable; 4) Expand service; and 5) Uniform Reporting requirements - and getting to the idea that a lot of operations don't know what each other is doing and if have uniform reporting how much everybody is spending on transportation, how much on fuel, maintenance and even customer satisfaction. The MPO would provide technical expertise and reporting requirements by doing an annual survey to get numbers from everybody on operating expenses.

She reported on funding, 2 pots of money in ND and MN and working with ND and do have numbers for ND urbanized areas: JARC $165,554 for 2006 and $175,073 for 2007 and ND is looking to combine 06 and 07 funds and be available January 1 and if looking for a program could access these funds, and is a competitive process but has been working with the Fargo cog on this and they have some projects lined up. She stated as far as the 3 projects and first one would be marketing and in their plan they need to increase marketing a goal of 3% of budget, they are not meeting that right now and would use some funds to do long range short term plans in marketing and do some implementation of that, not sure of how much we would get.

Second would be to split 8 and 9 Routes and that is extending service to 42nd Street corridor, and Industrial Park and this could be a combination of both Freedom Funds or Disabled money and the job access funds.

Mr. Feland thanked MPO for doing all the work in the plan, and thinks the bottom line is - marketing is great but that wouldn't be his priority because the people who are going to ride the bus are gong to ride the bus but should do more marketing, the third one is the mobility manager and if he were the City of Grand Forks would concentrate most is on 2) and what they have done in the Transportation Development Plan are long term planning, have removed the tripper service and gave that to Dietrich and they could run it and some people were afraid that would cause a big disruption but it has come and gone and doubts if anybody has even gotten a call on it; 2) combined senior rider service and dial-a-ride service and contracted with Grand Forks Taxi who received the bid and started that in January and during the first quarter saved about $20,000, and potentially could save up to $80,000 to $100,000 by that one change, plus on tripper service, and goal has been that we don't need to do everything, and our real goal is on fixed route side knew we had the Canad Inn project aquatics center, know not serving the Industrial Park and it has grown quite a bit in the last few years, and if do things right through some savings could look at splitting Routes 8 and 9 which runs on the westerly side of the city between SuperTarget and going north by Congressional housing development, and our goal is to propose to try to expand service so we would have half hour headways both ways on the north end and south end and then serve Industrial Park, Canad Inn and Alerus Center and propose to start small and do some peak times - start small and test it out and should look at doing 8 and 9 and that they don't want to get into reverse job access grant where we get it for one year and next year out, and wants to look at since this is part of the Safetea-Lu and this is good until 2009, which falls at 5-year funding Highway Plan and would be secure with getting monies into the State and would have to work it out with our other partners (Fargo and Bismarck), and what they wanted today was to allow them to continue to complete the plan and work with Bismarck and Fargo and with NDDOT on this project and perhaps at the end have some monies available and as long as can match, use it as a service expansion and while looking at trying to get people to work in the Industrial Park and survey their needs before we start the route, try to coordinate when we do start the Canad Inn when that is finished and would expand service in that way and would check if the money is secure and how secure, what is it going to cost (saying route is going to cost $160,00 and that is conservative) and have to find $80,000 to match that locally and that is a full route running 6:00 to 8:00 for 6 days per week, may not go fully out to 6 days a week or to 6:00 at night and choose during peak times of doing it to see how it works.

He stated that is what they are asking, MPO is speeding ahead and planning for this and submit a report and that these are 3 projects they are interested in - one is the mobility manager, which essentially coordinating all these public service activities. Ms. Champion stated mobility management is 1) having employees look at coordination, look at operators and look at inefficiencies but also mobility manager can look at acquisition of advanced technology systems, ITS systems, and there are some grant programs out there, so mobility manager can do quite a lot, definition is short-term planning and is not running operation but looking at the issues in community or system and looking at how coordinate, how can get more ITS on there and maybe an avenue to have someone look at what other matches you can get, that if putting up 50% local match for an expanding route it could be useful to look at your job service funds to use some of that for the match. It is heavily stressed and the second part of the mobility manager would be this broker system and that is having all of your operators look at using technologies and calling 1-800 number to help customers schedule a ride with such and such operator, etc. and have a lot of demand responsive operations on human service side and that would be another function of the mobility management but the interest on the MN side is mainly because it is a 80/20 match.

Mr. Feland stated he thinks the motion would be to continue with the process, continue with concepts they have identified, options and further refine them and bring them back once have better information, and to keep committee informed in the process. Kreun stated they need a motion to continue the process and bring it back when more defined.

Ms. Champion stated she would be meeting with the same stakeholder group the first week of September and the info. she got from at the last meeting was if they look at some of these project concepts, will there possibly be a local match, will their agency have to put up more money or could actually look at some of these and consider.

Kreun stated they are going to have to explore the funding mechanism along with the plan so continue working the plan and explore funding at the same time to find out if we are going to be a partner in this program. Mr. Feland stated this isn't about the city of Grand Forks taking over the transportation, not about us coordinating or doing more, because we got in trouble with senior citizens, and backed up and made it better which is good - and want to make sure that we don't take over somebody else' problem, where we take something over for a year and if you take it off their hands they like that but don't ever want it back, let us do programs that enhance what we already have because what we have done is get too involved in their parties things and forget our mission and not concentrate on what we should be doing and end up funding things that we never really wanted to.

Motion by Bakken and Kreun to plan and study funding mechanisms to operate it with local matches. Motion carried.

ADJOURN

The committee scheduled a meeting of the Service/Safety Standby Committee for September 7, 2007 at 4:30 p.m. Feland noted he would have a landfill update at that meeting.

The meeting adjourned at 6:10 p.m.

Alice Fontaine, City Clerk