City Council 20-Jan-2015 Impact Fee Work Session, Youth Council, Audit, Park Maintenance Building Location

Please note the council meeting on Feb 3 will include a discussion of updates to the 2014-2015 year budgets. I put a copy of the Dec 2014 YTD financial statement and the proposed mid-year adjustments online so that if you are interested you can look at these. Just click on the links. You can download them into your local computer if you want to play around with them using Excel or Open Office. We will be starting the next year budget process soon and reviewing these will help if you want to participate in the discussions. You can look at last years budget info here.

Impact Fee Work Session

A work session was held 1 hour before the council meeting so that staff could provide an update to the impact fee assessment. No exact figures were provided. The point of the discussion was to discuss changes in state law with respect to impact fees and the potential impact to the city’s finances.

Impact fees are defined by Utah State Code “means a payment of money imposed upon new development activity as a condition of development approval to mitigate the impact of the new development on public infrastructure.”. Public Infrastructure is limited to the following facilities that have a life span of 10 or more years:

1. water rights and water supply, treatment, storage, and distribution facilities

2. wastewater collection and treatment facilities;

3. storm water, drainage, and flood control facilities;

4. municipal power facilities;

5. roadway facilities;

6. parks, recreation facilities, open space, and trails;

7. public safety facilities; or

8. environmental mitigation as provided in Section 11-36a-205.

Impact fees can be collected based on maintaining the current level of service (fees cannot be based on operating or maintenance costs . Parks provide a good contrast in the difference to the city in defining level of service. The impact fees could be assessed based (1) on the additional cost required to provide the same number of acres of park land per resident or (2) the average amount the city has spent on park improvement and expansion over the last N years (I am not sure what N). If the city chooses method 1 then funds from impact fees must be spend on acquiring and developing park land to maintain X acres of park land per resident. If method (2) is used then impact fees can be used to acquire and develop additional park acreage or improve existing parks.

The net of the discussion was that if impact fees need to be reduced then the city can still collect the total amount but it will take a longer period of time. In the case of our park bond for example this would mean that while we still need to make a $527,000 annual payment the amount collected from impact fees may fall below that amount on an annual basis creating a financial gap for the city. Currently we collect slightly more than the payment amount.

Once we know how are revenues will be affected by the changes to the impact fee regulations we will need to work out how to mitigate any gap that is created.

Council Meeting

Presentations

1. Oath of Office: Highland City Youth Council.  There are 48 members of the Youth Council this year. Their names are:Curtis Bassett, Danielle Kemp, Paige Modersitzki, Brynne Shelton, Fernando Salazar, Quinton Strom, McKenzie Platt, Tara Bullinton, Emily Jensen, Dallin Whitlock, Richard Westwood, Jenny Westwood, Matthew Herron, Cynthia Beck, McKenna Martin, Kaitlin Strickland, Lyndsey Draper, Jaden Hall, Abby Wakefield, Mykel Godwin, Tanner Wakefield, Ben Koeber, Adrian Perez, Brittney Jones, Madison Murdock, Ashley VanWoerkom, Cami Christensen, Matt Jamison, Eric Jamison, Lindsay Gardanier, Taylor Siri, Kelsey Hadlock, Josh Burton, McKaiden Carruth, Alyssa Clark, Madeleine Arnold, Kelsey Busby, Jacob Busby, Malonie Withworth, David Quist, Nicole Smith, Abby Christensen and Mary Alice Jackson.
   The Youth Council Advisors are: Shannan Busby, Jodie Jamison, Jennifer Christensen, Lisa Shelton, Diana Wakefield, Marci Moderdrsitzki and Lisa Bullington 
   

Appearances

1. Public Comment:

   • Mayor Thompson noted that the West Park Road location for a park maintenance building had been removed from consideration due to time considerations and the possibility of the cost of an environmental impact statement.

   • Terry Melendez: Recognized the importance of obtaining neighborhood feedback on projects like the maintenance building which was obtained by two council members meeting with the neighbors. He expressed concerned on how state approval for the approval of a maintenance building was achieved. When he spoke with the state regarding the building he said they expressed surprise at the intended use. Below is what the mayor sent to the state plus links to the two attached files:
     
     
     
     Planned location and size of maintenance building:
     50-14-031_C-SP_Bldg-Concept-C-104_GLEN PARK_11-07-14.pdf
     Overall map of the park: Highland Glenn Park.pdf

   • Nathan Whiting: Shared a couple of thoughts on collecting additional money for the roads.

Reports:

2. Audit Report: Steve Rowley of Keddington and Christensen presented the 2013-2014 audit report. There was only one negative finding and that was the the council was not receiving monthly financial reports. This is being rectified. There were no other issues. Gary LeCheminant made the comment that pages 17 (Statement of Rev, Exp and Changes in Fund Net Position) & 19 (Statement of Cash Flows) would be important for council members to review (scan of pages 17 to 19).

Consent Items

3. MOTION: MOTION: Approval of Minutes for the November 18, 2014 Regular City Council Meeting. The council discussed this separately. Jessie Schoenfeld wanted the minutes to reflect word for word her discussion with the Mayor regarding getting approval from the State on the West Park Road Maintenance Building rather than having it summarized. A somewhat lengthy discussion ensued. My position was that we often state things badly when expressing them in the heat of the moment. The summarized version more accurately reflects the intent of the discussion. We hare not hiding anything because anyone can listen to the audio online if they wish to hear the full discussion. [Note, anyone can also look at prior agenda’s for the original and summarized statements]. Please refer to the notes following the Terry Melendez comments in item one to get background info on what was discussed. Mann, Irvin, and LeBaron voted to use the summary whereas Schoenfeld and Braithwaite voted to go with the word for word language.

4. MOTION: Approval of Minutes for the January 6, 2015 Regular City Council Meeting. Approved unanimously with minor changes

ACTION ITEMS

5. MOTION: Approval of a location for a Park Maintenance Location. With the West Park Road location removed from consideration the two remaining locations; Community Center and Town Center site were discussed. I asked if we could eliminate the need for the a building by contacting park maintenance again. Brian pointed out that we would still need to store the maintenance equipment unless we wanted to sell it. I didn’t feel there was enough time between when we would start maintenance and now to get bids, in along with the other items on the table so that was dropped. The council unanimously decided to make the Town Center location the top location and asked staff to put a site plan together and provide cost estimates. The need for a nice building with a wall to shield areas used to store mulch etc. was discussed. Personal note. I have doubts that we have the funds to build the kind of facility that would fit in this area so I expect that the next step will be to look at a medium term solution that we can afford. This would be smaller and might be able to be located at couple of other sites.
   
   

    

MAYOR/ CITY COUNCIL & STAFF COMMUNICATION ITEMS

7. I asked for council approval to direct the staff to look at deposit and/or fee changes for the community center and come back to the council with any recommendations. The council concurred. Note, the city recently re-carpeted the facility and made other improvements.

9. Jessie expressed concern about trail signage for bikers leaving West Park Road and getting on to SR 74 (Alpine Hwy). Since it is a State Road we don’t have the right to modify existing signs or add new ones. Staff will speak the appropriate county or state officials to see if they will change the signage.
10. The council moved to executive session for the purposed of discussing the sale of real property.

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