City Council 6-Jan- 2015: Bond Refinance; Meeting Minutes

Appearances

1. Public Comment:
   No public appearances.

Consent Items

2. MOTION: Approval of Meeting Minutes for City Council Regular Session – November 18, 2014. This was pulled and discussed at length later in the meeting. Part of the discussion centered around what are the legal requirements for minutes. Tim Merrill, city attorney quoted from Utah Code 54-4-203. Of late the meeting minutes have been very detailed (20+ pages). Tim suggested that they could be much more brief as long as they included the substance of what was discussed, proposed or voted on. Extraneous discussions need to be referenced. Shorter minutes make it easier for the public to review what transpired and would significantly reduce the length of time required to produce the minutes by staff. In the end the council unanimously agreed that future minutes should be more of a summary and that the portion of the Nov 18th minutes containing a heated discussion between the Mayor and council member Schoenfeld should be summarized. Note full audio recordings of each council meeting are available online for those who want to listen to the entire meeting at either the Utah State Public Notice website or the Highland City site.

3. MOTION: Approval of Meeting Minutes for City Council Regular Session – December 2, 2014. Approved unanimously with minor changes

ACTION ITEMS

4. MOTION: Utah Valley Dispatch SSD – Approval of Dispatch Building Agreement – Approved unanimously after a lengthy discussion. Dispatch is currently housed in the county jail facility in Spanish Fork. They have outgrown the allocated space. The board approved a new building to house the dispatch center which included equipment upgrades at total cost of $3.5M. Highland’s share of this cost is $196,397 payable in two installments (Jun 30th and Dec 31st of this year). Our choice was to approve the payments or find another dispatch solution for our fire & police departments.

5. MOTION: Republic Services/Allied Waste – Approval of Contract Extension. Republic has offered the city a 5 year contract extension to the contract we have now which will expire the end of June. A resident and employee of a competitor to Republic requested that the city go out for bid on this rather than extend the contract. Republic reviewed their offer and pointed out the offered rates were favorable when compared to other cities of the same size. The council discussed the issue and concluded we would continue the item on Feb 3rd  and that the city manager needed review what other cities are paying and then come back with a report and recommendation.

6. RESOLUTION: Bond Re-finance – 2006 Building Bonds. The council approved a front loaded direct placement finance that would save the city in total about $150,000 ($65K this year, $63K next fiscal year and then reduced amounts thereafter). We had an option to go with a market underwriting of the refinance and potentially reduce the rate further (there is a risk that it could go up). My preference was to take the direct placement now rather than wait ~6 weeks and risk a higher rate.

7. NOMINATION/VOTE: Mayor Pro-Tempore - City Council – Tim Irwin was nominated and approved unanimously.

MAYOR/ CITY COUNCIL & STAFF COMMUNICATION ITEMS

8. Park Maintenance Building – Discussion
   We reviewed the top three options for the park maintenance building. The staff prefers the West Park Road site. The second choice would be the Town Center site and last would be the community center site (see pictures below).
   
   
   
   
   
   

   Note, Brian Braithwaite and I meet with the residents which border the West Park Road site January 13th to review the need for a new building, the selection process, the final three sites, what the preliminary plan for the West Park Road site looked like and get their feedback
   
   All attending residents were opposed to putting the park building at the West Park Road site. The two primary reasons were safety and a general concern of taking beautiful location and putting a “commercial type” building on it.
   
   One of the residents suggested putting the building on the south side of West Park Road and setting it back so that it could not generally be seen by the public. I thought this was an interesting idea.
   
   Click here to view a scanned copy of the meeting hand-outs (Site Pros and Cons plus draft site plan for West Park Road) with my notes.
   
   Below is a short follow-up note that I sent to those who attended the meeting and the two residents who were out of town and could not attend.

“By the way, thanks so much for taking the time to come and share your thoughts.

1. The city does not own any land in an area that already has bins, sheds, ... that is suitable for the needed building.
2. Of the final 3 sites (we've looked at about 10) there is good council support for both the land south east of the police station (provided we can purchase the land owned by a water district) and west park road. I don't think that there is much support for using the Community Center site (old city hall) but that could of course change.
3. The mayor has now spoken with the director of the water district that owns some of the land south east of the police station. We are waiting for a response.
4. At least two people have suggested that if the building "needs" to be on west park road that it be located on the south side of the road.Personally,  I think this is worth looking into as does the Brian Braithwaite and the mayor. I spoke with Jesse Schoenfeld about this but don't have a sense of what she thinks. I haven't spoken to any other councilman.
5. Terry Melendez will be meeting with the state authority that granted permission to the city to build a maintenance building in the park on Wednesday. He is looking to have the permission withdrawn because the building will be supporting other parks. The state is involved because although the park is a city park now it was built using state and federal money that came with some restrictions. If that occurs the decision will be easier for the council because there will only be 2 sites to choose from.
6. You can sign up on the city website to receive via email copies of the agendas for upcoming city council meetings using the following link: http://highlandcity.org/list.aspx. That way you'll know when this will be discussed. Note, you can come to any council meeting and share your thoughts at the beginning of the meeting regardless of whether or not what you want to discuss is on the agenda or not.
7. I write up my notes from city council meetings (http://mannkindperspectives.blogspot.com/search/label/Highland)and send a link to them to those on my mailing list. I also send notes out about other issues and meetings. If you would like I can add you to my list.

9. Dennis LeBaron suggested we have an annual planning session to discuss goals for the year. All were agreed. A date is to be determined.

Pending Action Items

Description	Requested by / Owner	Due Date	Status
Certified Impact Fee – Completed Report	City Council Nathan Crane	1st quarter of 2015	Zion's Bank approved – report in progress
Impact Facilities Plan	City Council	1st qtr. 2015	In Progress
Road Capital Improvement Plan for FY 15-16 Prioritize and Communicate to Residents	City Council	January	November – emailed for clarification.
Determine Park Use For Recreation	City Council	1st qtr. 2015	Staff to make recommendations
HW Bldg. – PW Storage Status	City Council Mayor/PW		In progress – item 8s above
SR74 Median at Pebble Lane Subdivision
Arts Council – New Piano	Arts Council	Feb 3, 2015	Scheduled