Regular Council Minutes: October 3, 2007

From City of Chewelah

Minutes
Regular Council Minutes: October 3, 2007
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Nov 5, 2007, 09:48

REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING

OCTOBER 3, 2007

Officials in attendance were Mayor Clancy Bauman; Councilmembers Carra Nupp, David Haskell, Harvey Savitz, Sharon Ludwig, Barbara Mowrey, Roberta McMillin and Greg Rolstad; City Administrator Curt Kelling; City Attorney Pat Monasmith; Clerk/Treasurer Pamela McCart.

The Mayor called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM.

Agenda Additions, Deletions, Changes:

· The C/A added a written request by Luke Jeanneret Construction to the end of New Business.

Audience Comments:

· Police Chief Troy Anderson introduced patrolman David Watts who is expected to graduate from the academy in December.

· Jessica Roberts asked for Council support regarding her Senior Project – organizing a walk-a-thon to take place on November 3^rd – all proceeds will be given to the Stevens County Family Support Center Programs of Rural Resources. Motion by Councilman Haskell to support November 3^rd walk-a-thon as organized by Jenkins High School student Jessica Roberts, seconded by Councilwoman Mowrey. Roll call vote taken with all in favor. Motion carried.

· Linda Norris and Lennie Smith, volunteers with Family Support Center and Kids First, stated that the Center serves victims of domestic violence and/or sexual assault. Services provided by the Center include a 24-hour crisis line, crisis intervention, safe shelters, community education and personal/legal advocacy. They expressed their gratitude for the long and supportive relationship with City staff and requested financial assistance in the amount of $3,000 for the 2008 budget.

Mail Received and Announcements:.

· Mr. Monasmith read request from Jim Hill, St. Joseph’s Hospital Blood Bank Supervisor, for the use of the civic center at no charge for community blood drives. Motion by Councilwoman McMillin authorizing the use of the civic center for community blood drives at no cost, seconded by Councilman Haskell. Roll call vote taken with all in favor. Motion carried.

· Mr. Monasmith read correspondence from Welch-Comer Engineers stating that it has assisted the City with the preparation and submittal of a grant application to TIB for $704,300 to complete the Segment “B” improvements to Main Street. As agreed, these services were donated to the City at an approximate cost of $5,000.

· Mr. Monasmith read a letter from WA State Department of Natural Resources thanking the City for allowing the department to house camp in the City park for the Wrights Valley Fire.

· Mr. Monasmith read notification from Charter Communications of price adjustments in cable service and products effective with November billing statements.

Consent Agenda:

· Motion by Councilwoman Ludwig to approve the Consent Agenda consisting of the September 5^th Regular and September 22^nd Special Minutes; payment of claim vouchers # 55704 – 55842 totaling $525,542.17; payment of pre-authorized debits to BPA totaling $120,672.00; and payment of payroll warrants # 18272 - 18336 totaling $130,131.70, seconded by Councilwoman Nupp. Roll call vote taken with all in favor. Motion carried.

Public Hearing on Petition to Vacate Portion of North Bernard Street:

The Mayor opened the public hearing and set forth the format that would be followed. There were no objections to the Mayor participating as chairman. There were no objections to any Councilperson’s participating in the proceedings. No Councilperson acknowledged any communications outside of this hearing and no Councilperson acknowledged any gain or interest with regard to this matter.

C/A, Staff Report: Looking at the City’s history with regard to street vacations, clearly in the early 90’ there was an orally declared policy that the City “did not vacate”. I’m not sure that it was ever written because I can’t find anything to back that up -- and then in 1997 when they updated all the City codes they actually wrote a brand new process to do just that. What you really want to look at before you would give up an asset that belongs to the City is if that piece of property has any useful life or any use for the City. This particular street is a short stub north of Valley Avenue which dead ends at the railroad tracks. Essentially right now it’s a weed patch between the Brashlers’ and the Blairs’ property because it’s not maintained. So you have a house on either side where the lawns are maintained and this strip of City right-of-way in between. Talking to Gary in the Street Department and looking at all the things that we have under the comprehensive plan there isn’t any future development going on over there. There’s no plan on the City’s behalf to cross the railroad crossing there for any reason. From a staff perspective there isn’t anything that I’m aware of in the future that would be coming down the pike for this piece of right-of-way that would be used to serve anything around it -- and certainly not for any transportation purposes. The two adjacent property owners would like to clean up this piece of property for aesthetic purposes. They can of course do that without the property being vacated but this is the process for a vacation and they’ve brought it before you for consideration. If you decide to move this forward you will ultimately get an ordinance at the next Council meeting. The City would reserve the right for an easement of any type of utility service. Under a street vacation you’re not required to charge a property owner for the property but you may. In the way that the law is written it can’t be vacated and given to anyone but the adjacent property owners -- 50% goes to the adjacent property owner on one side and 50% goes to the property owner on the other side. The Council could make the determination to recoup 50% of the fair market value of the property which is an unopened right-of-way between two other pieces of property so I don’t think it would have much value. Councilman Savitz inquired as to the possibility of the railroad leaving the City. The C/A responded that anything is a possibility – they’re trying every means possible to bring container traffic from up in BC into Spokane and that rail line is one of the options that they have. Short term I don’t see anything as far as volume on these tracks going anywhere. Actually, trains are coming back in fashion due to the price of fuel. Mr. Monamith added that the property is approximately 6,000 square feet and the minimum lot size is 7,200 square feet so a legal lot could not be created without some kind of variance.

Correspondence from Applicant, Denny Blair: Mr. Monasmith read correspondence from Denny Blair stating that he could not attend the meeting. He wrote that it seemed 100% certain that the portion of Bernard Street in question will never be needed as a street and that it would benefit the two adjoining neighbors to acquire that land to improve landscaping.

The Mayor opened the hearing to Public Testimony:

There was no written or oral testimony.

The Mayor closed the public hearing.

· Motion by Councilwoman Nupp to approve petition by Dennis Blair to vacate that portion of North Bernard Street situated between West Valley Avenue and the Burlington Northern Railway, seconded by Councilwoman Mowrey. Roll call vote taken with all in favor. Motion carried.

Public Hearing on Petition to Vacate Portion of West Chewelah Avenue:

C/A, Staff Report: This property is across the tracks on the other side on Chewelah Avenue. This particular street vacation request has been before the Council previously. On 7/7/93 the owner had requested vacation of the property because of a minor encroachment of the existing garage. It was denied by the City at that time. There is some language in here talking about providing some documentation for them so at least the existing garage didn’t get moved -- and it hasn’t been at this point. I think they’re talking about adding to it or doing a different one. From a staff perspective, this is almost the complete opposite of the other one. Currently the triangular property west of this piece – I’ve had at least four different folks in my office looking at that piece of property. My understanding is that it is very close to having been sold in the last couple of days. I think it would be immature to vacate that street not knowing what kind of development may occur on the property to the west. I don’t know what they may or may not propose to add in there but that street certainly has the possibility to be improved to provide access into that property. We also have utilities in that street already. You can also see that the right of way adjacent to it which is the extension of Bernard is not a full street width. So it’s really going to depend on what they might do over there and how they might lay it out. If they lay something out that doesn’t come back into that corner at all or need any access then certainly vacating it could be considered in the future.

Melodee Donner, Applicant, 405 N Victoria: When I bought my property it was my understanding that the storage shed I had was the encroachment, not my house -- which I believe was a garage but they turned that into a bedroom. So my concern is if someone were to put a road through there, would it go through my bedroom? I would like to put a garage and some trees there. By my measurements, I don’t think my driveway I’m using is on my property.

Councilman Rolstad: How was a person able to secure a building permit when that addition was put on the back of the house?

Mayor: Maybe they didn’t obtain a building permit.

Mr. Monasmith: Or if they did it’s always the property owner who is responsible for identifying their lines.

C/A: In 1993 there was a question of whether or not the actual roof line went over. No one went out and surveyed it and that’s one of the things we’d look more closely at for development. I mean we’re not going to bulldoze through anybody’s house. . . And it may be that if we decide to do something there that we’d be talking to the railroad and try to push it over. I don’t have anything that says we’re going to put anything through there – I just don’t know at this point what may come down the road. I think it would be easier to know what’s there first.

Mr. Monasmith: I was at that meeting in 1993 and I know that one of the things we talked about was to provide some type of license to the homeowner such that we would allow them to continue that use and we would oblige ourselves as a City to provide reasonable notice if we ever intended to do anything. We did in fact do something similar to that with the now Zips building where ten feet of their building was into the right-of-way. Just to say if we’re ever going to do anything we’ll give you at least six months notice of what we’re going to do. I don’t know whether that helps you or not but that’s certainly a conversation . . .

Councilwoman Mowrey: Couldn’t we honor a portion of that?

The Mayor opened the hearing to Public Testimony.

There was no written or oral testimony.

The Mayor closed the public hearing.

The C/A stated that if the Council was not ready to make a decision, the best thing to do would be to deny the request as it’s currently written which would be the entire right-of-way. You could direct staff to work on other options such as vacate part of it. I’m not totally comfortable until I know what’s back there. When an application to develop is submitted I’m going to end up with a full survey that shows the entire surrounding area and it will branch itself out away from the actual development whereas if I ask her to get a surveyor – it’s probably going to cost her a couple of thousand dollars. If I look at it as part of a bigger project certainly we can come up with some conversations and maybe come back in the future with a different solution or partial vacation or something else that may work to accommodate both.

· Motion by Councilwoman Nupp to deny petition by Melodee Donner to vacate the eastern half of that portion of West Chewelah Avenue between North Victoria Street and North Bernard Street and to direct staff to work with Melodee Donner on an alternate solution, seconded by Councilwoman Mowrey. Roll call vote taken with all in favor. Motion carried

Committee Reports: None.

City Administrator Report:

· Motion by Councilwoman Ludwig Concurring with Award of Base Gravel and Asphalt Bid Portions of Barbour Basketball Court Project to Hansen Logging and Inland Asphalt, seconded by Councilman Haskell. Roll call vote taken with all in favor. Motion carried.

· Mr. Monasmith read Street Department’s list of surplus items with minimum bid requirements. Motion by Councilwoman Mowrey Declaring List of Equipment as Surplus per Request of Street Department, seconded by Councilwoman Nupp. Roll call vote taken with all in favor. Motion carried.

Old Business:

· Mr. Monasmith read Resolution 07-11. Motion by Councilwoman Mowrey to adopt Resolution 07-11 Declaring Approval of and Intention to Adopt the 2007 Shoreline Master Program, seconded by Councilwoman Nupp. Roll call vote taken with all in favor. Motion carried. The C/A clarified that the State still has the opportunity to make changes to the plan. The City passes it by resolution now, the State then recommends changes which will have to be incorporated by the City, and then the City adopts it by ordinance.

New Business:

· Electric Department Manager, David Park, stated that the City has approximately 1,300 electric meters which are read monthly. Seven employees share this task at a cost of approximately 480 man hours/year. Automated meter reading technology is available in which meters are equipped with transmitters and reads are collected with a receiver. He stated that he was interested in converting to a simple collection system called Itron Mobile Collection Light – a handheld meter collection device is mounted in a vehicle which is then driven through town and the meter readings are collected as the vehicle travels. General Pacific Inc. is Itron’s exclusive distributor of Itron electric meters and associated equipment for the municipal utility market in Washington State. Integration of the Itron AMR system would require the purchase of new meters, equipment for the receiving of readings, software, training, etc. The start up costs along with the purchase of an initial 288 meters would cost $35,000 which is in the current budget. The promotional price of $63.15/meter is available to the City until tomorrow after which time it reverts back to $75/meter. Currently there is $142,000 in Electric Reserves. David stated that he would like to purchase an additional 576 meters at a cost of $36,000. By buying now, that would save about $6,000. Then he would purchase the 436 additional meters needed to complete the conversion at a later time. The Council felt that with sufficient funds in the Electric Reserve that all the meters should be purchased at this time. Motion by Councilwoman Ludwig Authorizing the Electric Department to convert to an Automated Meter Reading System to be funded out of Electric Reserves and directing staff to incorporate necessary amendments to the 2007 budget, seconded by Councilwoman Nupp. Roll call vote taken with all in favor. Motion carried.

· David Park stated that BPA is offering a conservation program which is aimed at helping customers with commercial refrigeration to reduce energy use. One of the complaints that we registered with BPA about their previous conservation programs was the amount of time expended by smaller utilities to fill out the paperwork. With this program, Portland Energy Conservation Inc. would do all the work – all the City would have to do at the end is verify that something has been done. BPA pays for everything. If you authorize this agreement, then the City will send all eligible commercial customers a letter indicating that this program is available and, if interested, we would have this contractor contact them. Motion by Councilman Rolstad Authorizing Mayor to Sign PECI Energy Smart Program Service Agreement, seconded by Councilwoman Nupp. Roll call vote taken with all in favor. Motion carried.

· The C/A stated that under Mayor Davidson, the Council had created the structures for three sediment ponds north of the City. The City has been maintaining these ponds under 10-year term agreements which have now lapsed. Speaking with staff at the Conservation District, the City has spent much more time cleaning these ponds than what was originally planned. This maintenance has been funded up to this point from residual FEMA funds. The proposed terminations of agreement retire the City’s and the Conservation District’s obligation to maintain those facilities, reverting this obligation back to the private landowners. Mr. Monasmith asked if the park would be subject to flood again if no one cleaned the ponds out. The C/A responded that he did not think they were designed for flood control but to direct the flow to facilitate collection of sediment that is in the high water in the spring -- with them or without them you would probably still have that risk. Motion by Councilwoman Ludwig Authorizing Mayor to Sign Mutual Terminations of Conservation Easement Agreement and Operation and Maintenance Agreement (Egger, Dunniway & Bean), seconded by Councilman Haskell. Roll call vote taken with all in favor. Motion carried.

· Motion by Councilman Rolstad Authorizing Mayor to Enter into Nine-Party Agreement for Fixed Costs for Operation and Maintenance of Colville River at Kettle Falls Stream Gaging Station, seconded by Councilwoman Mowrey. Roll call vote taken with all in favor. Motion carried.

· Motion by Councilwoman Nupp to Adopt Resolution 07-12 Establishing Rental Rates for Equipment/Hourly Rates for Labor, seconded by Councilman Haskell. Roll call vote taken with all in favor. Motion carried.

· The C/A stated that a grant application to address burning alternatives was submitted to the Department of Ecology through the Stevens County Solid Waste Division and the Small Cities Consortium – these funds have to funnel through the County.

· The C/A stated that employee Tammy Carr has been battling substantial health issues. After talking to her and the Finance Committee a severance package was developed consisting of four months wages and benefits. Essentially, she is trying to bridge the gap between working full-time and how long it will take to actually get through the disability process with the feds. Motion by Councilwoman Nupp Approving Voluntary Separation Agreement for City Employee Tammy Carr, seconded by Councilwoman McMillin. Roll call vote taken with all in favor. Motion carried.

· Motion by Councilwoman Nupp Setting Decision Meeting for Preliminary Approval of Chewelah Crest II Subdivision as November 7, 2007, seconded by Councilwoman Ludwig. Roll call vote taken with all in favor. Motion carried.

· The C/A stated that the property owner of 306 S 3^rd Street had previously hired a contractor to tear down the foundation that was left from the house which was removed. The current contractor attempted to obtain a building permit and found out that anything within 200 feet of the creek has to go through a site review plan process at the Planning Commission level. In his correspondence to the Council you can see that the property owner felt that he had been told by the previous Administration that he could replace the structure after tearing it down with no problem – no definition of no problem. The site review plan process takes a look at where you’re going to put structures in reference to the distance away from buffers, critical areas, and the creeks. In this particular case, they’re putting something back in the exact same spot as it was. It isn’t really addressed in the code as to whether that is a different transaction. Essentially the contractor asked me to waive the site plan review process. I told him that was not my authority but he could ask it of the Council. During a site review process, the Planning Commission reviews where things will go on the site and then approves the site plan with the condition that the applicant must go through the Building Department in order to meet all the relative flood plain development requirements. So the question now is whether the Council would like to waive that piece of the code – he is certainly aware that the answer could be no. If you deny this request, then we would just turn around and start through that site review process. Any engineering required would come into play within the scope of the building permit process and would be elevation driven. The house has been flooded before. Basically they’re going to go right back to the same spot and raise the building site so that the livable space would be at an elevation where water would go around the piece of property and through the crawl space but the living space would be out of the water. The Planning Commission does not determine elevations during site plan review – that is kicked back to the Building Department. The Planning Commission looks at the layout of the buildings on the land, their reference points to buffers and their distance away from the critical areas or the creek - so it’s looking at distance issues and when it conditions the site review plan it’s saying that the applicant has to work with the Building Department and get a FEMA flood plain elevation certification. The reality is that you have to make FEMA happy. Councilwoman Ludwig stated that she thought it was interesting that Mr. Spencer was not allowed to rebuild his garage on the same spot and he’s right across the creek – she didn’t know if he even came to Council but he talked to the City Administrator or Mayor and decided not to rebuild because of all the stuff he was going to have to go through. She added that since there are so many rules it seems that the process is set up for a reason. The C/A added that it could probably go through the process a little quicker than in the past because the PC is currently scheduling two meetings a month. Motion by Councilman Rolstad to deny request by Contractor Luke Jeanneret Construction/Property Owners Judy & John Mehl for a waiver of the site review process for the re-build of a house located in the floodplain at 306 S 3^rd Street, seconded by Councilwoman Nupp. Roll call vote taken with all in favor. Motion carried.

· The C/A stated that the preliminary budget for 2008 was included in the Council packets – it also shows where the financials stand right now. He added that staff would be a little behind with the regular timing of the budget process.

Audience Comments: None.

The Mayor adjourned the meeting at 9:05 PM.

Mayor ___________________________ Clerk/Treasurer ___________________________