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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCouncil Workshop Minutes 08.14.2018MINUTES COUNCIL WORKSHOP AUGUST 14, 2018 6:30 P.M. COUNCIL CHAMBERS A Council Workshop was held in the Council Chambers and called to order by Mayor Tom Nelson at 6:30 p.m. on August 14, 2018. —x Emelie Eaton —x Heidi Sparks _ Bruce McGee x Richard Herr x Scot Stokes x Iry Wilke x Richard Klose Bill Mountsier OTHERS PRESENT: Matthew Lurker, Chief Administrative Officer Forrest Sanderson, Interim Planner Public Input There was none. General Items There was none. Executive Review Ordinance — An ordinance amending chapter 15.70 of the Laurel Municipal Code to update the City's Floodplain Regulations. {PH 8.21.2018} Forrest Sanderson, the Interim Planner, the ordinance passed the first reading on August 7`h. As per the discussion at that meeting all higher standards were removed from the document. The minimum standards were included in the Council Packet. He will be present at the second reading in the event there are any questions from both residents and Council. It was requested that prior to imposing higher standards that the impacts on businesses and those in the floodplain be reviewed. ® Resolution —A resolution of the City Council authorizing the award of grants from the Tax Increment Financing District funds pursuant to the LURA Large Grant request program for eligible applicants and improvements. Through the Large Grant program, LURA can award up to $100,000 to projects within the LURA District. This year there were thirteen applicants who submitted over $400,000 worth of work. Eight of those thirteen applicants were awarded funds. Some requests were very small and would have been better suited using a different grant program and were denied Large Grant funds. As Staff and LURA representative presented this agenda item, there was some confusion on which resolution was being discussed. It was stated that some of these grants were old and this was cleaning up those issues. All grants for this resolution are new, and there was no cleanup. However, that comment was in reference to the next resolution. Council Workshop Minutes of August 14, 2018 LURA representative Don Smarsh spoke to Council regarding some process changes that are underway. LURA is working on having a clearly defined process for their grant applications as well as a grading scale when determining what to award to an applicant. It was questioned how much Council is being asked to approve with this resolution. Council is being asked to approve $100,000 to the eight applicants listed on the resolution. This is the first year that LURA has had this many applicants that all met the criteria. This is also the first year LURA has requested Council approve up to their limit. LURA used a percentage system to decide how much funding to award each applicant. They looked at the total requested amount by each applicant and calculated what percentage of the total request they were asking for. They then used this percentage to calculate what percentage of the $100,000 of funds they could expel this fiscal year. They felt this was the fairest way to divide the funds amongst all the qualified applicants. If an applicant was better suited for a Technical Assistance or Facade grant, they were removed from the Large Grant application pool. Many would receive more funding using a different program. Upon further review, LURA saw a need for a Small Grant Program. This would be a grant similar to the Large Grant Program but on a smaller level. Large Grant Applicants have one year to complete the work to receive a disbursement of funds. Council will be provided a report on LURA's financials in September. The City will also be looking at other ways to use the LURA funds. Such as adjacent sidewalks near businesses. Another item the City is looking into is to improve the streets on the very east end of the district. ® Resolution — A resolution of the City Council authorizing the release of funds from the Tax Increment Financing District fund from the City's TIFD grant programs to improve the Montana State Fireman's Memorial which is located entirely within the Tax Increment Improvement District. Ken Olsen, with the Montana State Firefighters Memorial, presented to Council. He showed Council a three-minute conception video. The memorial still has two more phases until it is complete. The next phases will include adding bronzes to the memorial. It was questioned what the resolution presented for Council consideration is to approve all the amounts shown in the packet. This resolution is a combination of a fagade grant and two technical assistance grants. This resolution will approve all the outstanding balances over the $5,000 amount. The total is $13, 367.35. It was questioned if there will be additional requests made in the future. It was clarified that this resolution is to take care of those issues that were outstanding. The memorial does have future phases. Those future phases were not included in this grant application. The State Firefighters Memorial Committee may apply for assistance in the future; these applications will be within the LURA guidelines. Applicants are allowed to apply for two different types of Technical Assistant grants. One is for 40 hours of work at $80 per hour the other is at 30 hours of work at $80. Council Workshop Minutes of August 14, 2018 These two grant applications make up for just over $6,000 of the memorials request. The Large grant is separate from the Fagade and Technical Assistance grants. It was questioned what amount Council would be applying. Where the figure $52,000 came from. It was clarified that the total amount awarded to the memorial was $13,367.35 the $52,000 was the amount that the Memorial Committee had spent to apply for the Large Grant application. The memorial will not be reimbursed for their entire cost. Council had approved their awarded amount of just over $6,000 with the Large grant resolution. Mayor Nelson stated due to the confusion he will ask Staff clearly identify what Council is approving prior to next weeks meeting. It was questioned if this was one of the cleanup ones mentioned earlier and how many more of these will be coming before Council. It was also questioned how these are being found and if the funds have been distributed yet. It is unclear how many more of these grants are out there, as the Public Works Director is going through paperwork left from the previous Planner these are being found. The Public Works Director is working with LURA to figure out what has been approved. These funds have been approved, but not distributed. LURA is working to implement tools to help track all the approved grants. This should help eliminate these issues in the future. LURA is working to not be so reliant on City Staff in processing these grant requests. These tracking sheets should help LURA keep track of who is awarded grant funds from year to year. ® Council Issues: o Update on 2011 Yellowstone River flooding event The river is starting to come back down for the year. The rock weir will be removed as soon as the river is low enough. This is on track to be removed by the end of September. The contractor expects to be in the area about this time and should reduce the mobilization fees. Staff has met with DEQ about the close out with FEMA that will be coming up once all items are finalized. Looking to be closed out the first part of 2019. It was questioned if there were any other items that were preventing the close out of this project. Part of the project required a lease of property to install the pipeline. There were some damages. Those have been negotiated. There was also a culvert replaced that changed wetlands which required a survey. Other Items Mayor Nelson has added the appointment of Council Member Sparks to Budget/Finance Committee in Council Members Stokes absence. Review of Draft Council Agenda for August 21, 2018 Council Workshop Minutes of August 14, 2018 The appointment of Council Member Sparks to Budget/Finance Committee in Council Member Stokes absence will be added to next weeks agenda. Attendance at the August 21, 2018, Council Meeting Announcements It was questioned where the City and County are on establishing West Railroad as the next Urban route to be redone. The City is still working with the County to move this forward. Council Member Stokes will be gone from Council meetings for the next three months. Council Member Klose will not be at next weeks Council meeting. Recognition of Emnlovees • Matt Wheeler 9 years on August 8th • Thomas Henry 4 years on August 1St • Joshua Sawyer 2 years on August 8th • Amber Hatton 1 year on August 7th The council workshop adjourned at 7:50 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Brittney Mooan Administrative ssistant Public Works WWTP WTP City Clerk NOTE: This meeting is open to the public. This meeting is for information and discussion of the Council for the listed workshop agenda items. 11