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HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-03-14 North Seventh Urban Renewal Board Minutes Page 1 of 5 APPROVED minutes from April 3, 2014 board meeting Voted on and approved during June 5, 2014 meeting held at the Stiff Building, upper conference room TO DO List: Everyone attend May 1 board meeting Scott - work up street view graphic for Carl Allyson chat with Janet Cornish about expanding District Attendance: Carson Taylor, Dustin Johnson, Brit Fontenot, Kevin Jacobsen, Wendy Thomas, Carl Solvie, Susan Fraser, Kevin Cook, Allyson Brekke, Andrew Cetraro, Scott Hedglin Call to Order – Carl called to order at 4:38pm. Public Comment – none. Meeting Minutes Kevin Cook made the motion to approve March 6 minutes; Andrew seconded the motion. All in favor. Economic Development office, Brit Fontenot Brit wanted to join the meeting to chat about two items: broadband and convention center. See Attachment A for broadband information. If we’re going to be a high tech community we must have high tech infrastructure. The master plan for adding broadband across the city is on the Commissioner’s list of goals. 12 proposals have been received. Private partners including Northwestern Energy, the hospital, etc, have already promised money towards this project. There is some city money and two grants in the works for broadband – this is a community-driven project. Vendor selection will occur soon and master plan should be done by end of this September. Commission will then have it before them for approval this Fall. The first phase of buildout is estimated to cost $2-3 million. Discussion. Brit is trying to find out if TIF monies can be used for this. Kevin Cook asked shouldn’t we start putting this conduit as we do light installations, sidewalks? The problem is type of conduit required is unknown. Wendy brought up similar solar ‘sleeves’ in house construction for future hook up when solar becomes more affordable as power source. Dustin said we put conduit under Aaron’s sidewalk for future use. Kevin said they are designing for conduit to get across driveways, roads. Discussion continued. Kevin supports NSURB contributing to this work. Discussion. Wendy added to FY15 budget – will vote on this later in meeting. Allyson will work up a support letter for Brit to add to letters from hospital, power company, etc. Convention center is also on the Commission’s list of goals, Brit continued. He has been working with Chamber’s Daryl Schleim on this. Increasing the bed tax from $1 to $2 was on the Commission agenda in May. Talking about what role TIFs can play, i.e. extending districts, etc. Has chatted with state - we must be mindful that blight designation is required for additions, and expansion will sunset at same time as original districts. Discussion. Allyson will look into ways to include area in district. She will chat with the TIF guru, Janet Cornish, in Butte. Kevin said to look at other areas, too, that we might add to NSURD. Page 2 of 5 N7Rehab applications and presentations None submitted. N7Rehab grant language rewrite Open and continued until June meeting. Phase II lighting easements secured, progress reports Kevin Jacobsen passed out the Morrison-Maierle monthly report (Attachment B). Board went around table to report status of easement requests. Carl on GVFCarpetOne – Wendy is working on responses to Dennis’ questions. As for pretty graphics Scott will take Google street view, pop in lightpole and sidewalk graphics; ReCompute – Andrew has been chatting with them all month, empathizing with their concern about how this easement could end up costing them more in taxes; Tom and Cat’s Paw and pawn shop – taking easement documents to his attorney and moving forward; and Susan – nothing yet from UHaul and Debos Pawn. Kevin Jacobsen concluded by reporting he had chatted with Yellowstone Electric and the replacement lights, poles should be up in a month. FY15 budget discussion (Attachment C) Wendy and Allyson went over line by line, noting addition of gateway design as potential next phase. Wendy encouraged the board to do more public outreach this year. Kevin Cook made the motion to approve FY15 budget as presented by staff and including the addition of $10K for the broadband master plan. Andrew seconded the motion. All in favor. Adjournment Carl adjourned the meeting at 6:07pm. Page 3 of 5 Attachment A Page 4 of 5 Attachment B Page 5 of 5 Attachment C