Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout07/12/2011 - Special Minutes City Council MINUTES OF THE CITY COUNCIL RETREAT CITY OF COLLEGE STATION JULY 12, 2011 STATE OF TEXAS § COUNTY OF BRAZOS § Present: Nancy Berry Council: Blanche Brick Jess Fields Karl Mooney Katy-Marie Lyles Julie Schultz Dave Ruesink City Staff: David Neeley, City Manager Kathy Merrill, Assistant City Manager Frank Simpson, Assistant City Manager Carla Robinson, City Attorney Sherry Mashburn, City Secretary Jeff Kersten, Chief Finance Officer Bob Cowell, Director of Planning and Development 1. Call to Order and Announce a Ouorum is Present With a quorum present, the Retreat of the College Station City Council was called to order by Mayor Nancy Berry at 8:41 a.m. on Tuesday, July 12, 2011 in the Wolf Pen Creek Green Room, 1015 Colgate, College Station, Texas. 2. Presentation, possible action, and discussion rejzardin2 a review of the 2011 Stratemic Plan and Council's Prioritized Goals and Actions and development of the 2012 Council Stratep,ic Plan. Bob Cowell, Director of Planning and Development, acted as the facilitator for today's retreat. The intent of the retreat is to build on the work already done. Vision, mission, strategy, and action are the key elements for the discussion. There are four phases: review and context; goals/outcomes; strategies; and next steps. Strategic plans involve the development of long-term vision, clarification of the mission and values, analyzing the external challenges, and assessing RTRT071211 Minutes Page 1 internal strengths and weaknesses. This is used to develop the action plan for projects that will implement the identified strategies. The Council reviewed the Community Vision, Government Mission Statement, and Core Values. Mr. Cowell also highlighted the adopted City plans and policies. A snapshot was provided of the current socio-economic conditions, fiscal condition, trends, and projections. He presented a brief overview of major considerations and external/internal analyses. The environmental scan will look at political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal elements. Council reviewed the elements for the SWOT analysis. Major considerations recommended by staff include: impacts of economic recession/recovery; increased service demands by a growing community; impacts of budget reductions and service cuts; citizen and stakeholder engagement; etc. 3. Presentation, possible action and discussion of the City of College Station Fiscal and Budgetary Policy Statements and how it may relate to the Council Strategic Plan Jeff Kersten, Chief Financial Officer, provided a review of the fiscal and budgetary policy statements. The Statement of Purpose enables the City to achieve a long-term stable and positive financial condition. The budget is prepared by the City Manager and includes personnel costs, base budget costs, service level adjustments for increases or decreases, and revenues. We are required to have a balanced budget. Current revenues, exclusive of beginning resources, must be greater than or equal to current expenditures. Excess balances are used as capital funds or other non-recurring expenditures. The budget process is coordinated so as to identify major policy issues for City Council,. It is part of an overall strategic planning process for the City. Optimum characteristics for revenue management include simplicity, certainty, equity, revenue adequacy, administration, and diversification and stability. Other considerations are non-recurring revenues, property tax revenues, investment income, user based fees and service charges, enterprise fund rates, and intergovernmental revenues. For property tax revenues, the City Manager may, for budget and forecasting purposes, use up to the tax rate in effect for the current year's budget. This policy requires the City Manager to justify a tax rate that is different from the current tax rate. This justification is based on Council direction, needs arising from voter authorized bonds or extraordinary conditions as may arise from time to time. Regarding user- based fees and service charges, for services associated with a user fee or charge, the direct and indirect costs of that service will be offset by a fee where possible. A review of fees and charges will occur no less than every three years. We have full fee support for electric, water, wastewater, sanitations, etc.; partial fee support for EMS and adult sports; and a minimum fee support for parks and youth recreation programs. Staff recommends adding another level of partial fee support. As for enterprise fund rates, the City reviews and adopts utility rates as needed to generate revenues required to fully cover operating expenses. Staff recommends a transition to In Lieu of Franchise Fee capped at 6% of gross revenues; electric will increase as KWH sales increase. They expect to implement this change in Electric in FY12 and FYI 3; and for water/wastewater and sanitation in FYI 4 and FYI 5. Council consensus was to proceed with staff recommendations. 4. Presentation, possible action, and discussion regarding a summary of the current status of the capital projects included in the Citv's Capital Plan and how it may relate to the Council's Strategic Plan. RTRT071211 Minutes Page 2 Chuck Gilman, Director of Capital Projects, reported that future contracts for Council consideration include: Lick Creek Nature Center master plan, Patricia Street Waterline construction, CSU Dispatch Building construction, Barron Road East/Lakeway design, CCWWTP Lab and SCADA building construction, and Fire Station No. 6 at a guaranteed maximum price. Other future contracts include: extension of Victoria Avenue construction, Lick Creek Hike and Bike Trail preliminary design, FM 2154 sewer line and lift station design, Bee Creek parallel trunk line design, and Stephen C. Beachy Central Park improvements construction. Mr. Gilman also provided an overview of the Wolf Pen Creek project. The project was identified by the TIE Board and included in the WPC Master Plan. We are contractually required to spend $1.2 million on a water feature. The current design includes an interactive water feature and festival area. The low construction bid exceeded the project budget, but staff has negotiated the scope/fee to the budget. Council directed staff to look at the options presented, comparing the construction costs plus the required O&M for each, and report back to Council. Bob Cowell led the Council in some planning exercises to identify key strategic focus areas and desired outcomes. Staff took the current five focus areas and re-worked them into six: financially sustainable city; providing core services and infrastructure; neighborhood integrity; diverse growing economy; improving mobility; and sustainable city. They were asked to look at these focus areas and propose successful outcomes. The questions they were to ask themselves were: 1) Is there clearly some chance of success?; 2) Is this a proper role for city government?; 3) What are the specific outcomes?; 4) Does it link to the City's mission/vision?; and 5) What are the assumptions? 5. Presentation, possible action, and discussion regarding a presentation on the real property owned by the City of College Station and how it may relate to the Council Strategic Plan. This item was postponed to the second meeting in July. 6. Presentation, possible action, and discussion regarding the impacts of Senate Bi11100 and its effects on future City elections. City Secretary Sherry Mashburn reported that Senate Bill 100 has been signed into law by Governor Perry and is effective September 1, 2011. This bill was enacted to assure compliance with the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act passed by Congress in 2009 to make the voting process easier and faster for military and overseas voters. This legislation moves the primary runoff election date to the fourth Tuesday in May of even numbered years. This will affect the City's May uniform election date in those even numbered years, which will fall between the March primary and the May primary runoff date. Early voting for the primary runoff begins two days after the May uniform election date. Senate Bill 100 provides that a county elections official is not required to enter into a contract to furnish election services for an election held on the second Saturday in May in an even-numbered year. According to the Brazos RTRT071211 Minutes Page 3 County Clerk, due to overlapping election schedules as provided in Senate Bill 100, there is not enough time, equipment, or personnel for the County to accommodate us. College Station basically has three options: 1. Look elsewhere for electronic voting machines to use in May elections; 2. Move City elections to November; or 3. Cities with terms consisting of an even number of years (two or four) may be adjusted so that all council/mayoral elections are held in May of odd-numbered years. Ms. Mashburn opined that the option that will be the least disruptive to the political process and easiest to implement, will be to stay with three-year staggered terms and to move our election date to the November uniform election date. Councilmembers would holdover six months with this option. Other options the Council looked at were two-year terms or four-year terms. Both of these options would require a charter amendment election. Charts were presented showing the amount of time each Councilmember would holdover in each scenario. Council discussed the possibility of a Public Hearing. 7. Executive Session In accordance with the Texas Government Code §551.074-Personnel, the College Station City Council convened into Executive Session at 4:15 p.m. on Tuesday, July 12, 2011 in order to continue discussing matters pertaining to: A. Deliberation on the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline, or dismissal of a public officer; to wit: • City Manager The Executive Session adjourned at 4:48 p.m. on Tuesday, July 12, 2011. There was no action required from Executive Session. 8. Adiournment MOTION: There being no further business, Mayor Berry adjourned the Retreat of the College Station City Council at 4:49 p.m. on Tuesday, July 12, 2011. Nancy Berry, Mayor ATTEST: Sherry Mash n City Secretary RTRT071211 Minutes Page 4