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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-14-15 INC Minutes               THE INTER-NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL (INC) MEETING OF BOZEMAN, MONTANA DRAFT MEETING MINUTES Thursday, May 14, 2015 Attending: Jennifer Rockne (SCAN) moderator, Ginny Cowan (BCNA), Kathy Powell (UNA), Kirk Johnson (MarLin), Chris Nixon (NENA), Joe Genovese (NHVN), Gail Mac- Millan and Salal Huber-McGee (BPNA), Bob Wall (SENA) QUORUM Present Deputy Mayor Carson Taylor (City Commission liaison) Chuck Winn (Assistant City Manager, interim Neighborhood Coordinator) Charlie Gappmeyer (Bozeman Police Dept.) Natalie Meyer (Bozeman sustainability coordinator) Craig Woolard, Kyle Mehrens (Bozeman Public Works Dept.) John Howard, Pat Jacobs 4:33 Jennifer convened the meeting Review of minutes from Apr. 9 meeting. Ginny moved to approve minutes. Joe seconded. Motion passed unanimously. Public Comment: John Howard, Pat Jacobs – analyzing neighborhood conservation overlay district. Doing data collection, interviews with stake holders (architects, developers, others). Courtney Kramer will present to INC at June meeting – probably 20 minutes. Next Thursday night at the Baxter will be a preliminary presentation to summarize information that has been gathered so far. Previous presentation had around 45 attendees. Last presentation is online, next one will be posted next Wednesday. Under Historic Preservation section of City web site. Link to NCOD documents. Chris Nixon has stepped down as president of NENA. (Had neighborhood meeting last Tuesday). David Chambers will be next president. 4:45 Bozeman Police report – Charlie Gappmeyer Last Friday was Police Foundation Ball. Raised money for two canine ballistic safety vests, safety suit for defense instructors. Getting community events trailer – donations to put logos on trailer. Will be able to take it to events. Working on Run, Lock, Fight train- ing. Bicycle auction Saturday at City shops. Viewing at 8:00, auction starts at 9:00. Will be inside shop due to expected rain. Bozemanpolice.com has list of bikes. Just finished Citizen Police Academy last night – graduation next Wednesday at 6:30 in City Commission room. Applications for the next session are available on BPD web site. Deputy Mayor Taylor enthusiastically endorsed the program. Preparing for National Night Out against Crime – Aug. 4 at Lindley Park. Proceeds from dunk tank, refreshments go to Bozeman Senior Center, funding Meals on Wheels pro- gram. Announcement of new chief will be made this week. Preparing to develop a volunteer program – other large departments in the state have them. Charlie will travel to Billings to look at their program soon. Mark Carpenter request – don’t leave stuff on the curb. If you see “lawn art”, please re- port it. Also report problems with runaway lawns and weeds. 4:50 Public Works Department – Craig Woolard Streets update – Story St. currently under construction. Straw poll on N. Grand Ave. on SID process – residents voted no. Talking to residents on Wallace – public meeting scheduled June 3. Starting to work on streets based on condition, importance in street network, interest of adjacent property owners. Some can cost over $1M / mile if repairs are extensive. Mill & overlay on N. Montana scheduled this summer. Water line & curb replacement down Willson (10 blocks south of main – to around Grand) also planned for late summer or early fall. College St. is under construction, department is starting design on Kagy. Policy discussion on transportation will be held Monday night with City Com- mission. Also working on designs for major collector roads as well. Sidewalk update – missing sidewalks in several places on west side of town. City is or- dering in sidewalks in several places. In older part of town, a lot of sidewalks in need of repair. Divided town into roughly thirds – surveyed from Willson east last year. Gave owners until July of this year to complete. Request for bids has been released – contract is larger this year. Several companies have requested bid packages. Contractor will repair as necessary, City will bill costs back to landowners. If residents are doing their own re- pairs, they should get permit from the City, and City will provide specifications. Hopeful- ly contractor can start work around first of July – bids are due back the end of this month. Plan for Story and Church – part of bid package for Story included some curb replace- ment on Church. Scheduled for the tail end of the project, toward end of summer. City will send out letters to residents on Church to clarify what will be done and when. Will need to work around the Farmer’s Market. If there are questions on sidewalk repair, contact Andy Kerr in the engineering office. 5:05 Kyle Mehrens, Stormwater Program Coordinator Overview of how program has progressed over the past year. Issues with failing pipes, clogged systems, direct discharges into streams Issue with fresh water quality Issue with regulatory requirements A lot of public engagement has been done – 30+ presentations, feedback from 300+ stakeholders, 2 community discussions 2011 – DEQ and EPA did stormwater program audit. Got dinged 2012 – staff work plan and utility creation 2013-2014 – inventory and condition assessment 2015 – new rate model and program structure approved by Commission Rate model: $450,000 deferred annual maintenance costs evenly distributed across rate base. $750,000 annual utility operations and system enhancement costs charged propor- tional to impact (impermeable surfaces). Credits are given to properties with existing storage and/or treatment infrastructure. Single family calculations – single family residence built pre-1980 without HOA deten- tion pond – base charge $3.23 per water meter. Variable charge: 1 ERU * $2.68 per ERU – total of $5.91 / month. Post-1980 subdivision with HOA detention pond – Credit: 1 ERU * $1.20 credit - total of $4.71 / month. Implementation timeline: May 1, 2015 first bills with new charges will go out Dec. 1, 2015 will implement new variable charge and credit. In the future, there will hopefully be a way for residents to add storage and/or treatment options, but it will take a while before department will be ready to handle that. Maybe can be revisited in 2 years. Already 550 ponds that are in place (the post-1980 housing) – department needs to re- view all of them and make sure they are operating properly or are brought into compli- ance. Residents will be given benefit of the doubt and will get credit assuming the sys- tems are functional. City will follow up to make HOAs aware of deficiencies. As new plans go through development review, they are reviewed for compliance with stormwater requirements as well. A lot of construction is being done with poor storm- water control. Department is starting to work with developers a lot more to resolve this. This is the single biggest culture change to effect in town to make the stormwater pro- gram work better. 5:30 Natalie Meyer, Sustainability Program Coordinator 2008 Bozeman Community greenhouse gas emissions City operations are less than 2% of total. 34% residential, 38% commercial, 26% trans- portation. Community working group meets 4th Thursday of each month, 2-3:30 PM in Madison Room at City Hall. Developed www.bozemanclimatepartners.net. One project – Energy Performance Contract. Audit of City operations. 18 energy projects selected n 2014 - $49,600 annual utility savings, $9,100 annual operational savings, 8 year simple payback, 203 tons C02 emission eliminated. Paving the way for LEDs – 190 streetlights to be replaced with LEDs in 2015. 48% less electricity, 65% longer fixture life. Developing community-wide LED design standards for exterior lighting. (First standard of its type in the state) bozeman.wattzon.com – Bozeman “Energy Smackdown”. Can integrate your utility in- formation with this web site. Can compare with your data from previous years, with your neighbors, and with energy efficient homes. Competitions to reduce energy usage. Fund- ing for project came from Northwestern Energy and DEQ. Also working on a business program – launched four months ago. Specifically for busi- nesses – they get an audit from Northwestern Energy, start tracking data through EPA portfolio manager. One-time cash incentive up to $2,500. Access to education and re- sources, support by City staff. Reducing energy use by 10%, city would collectively save $2.6 M annually. Case study on LED lighting retrofit – Altitude Gallery downtown. Seeing 75% reduction in energy use. Coop on W. Main about to do similar project. City Clean-Up Day and Sustainability fair. This year it was snowing. Considering making this a week-long effort. Bozeman Sustainable Energy Workshop – in cooperation with Northwestern Energy. Wed. June 3, 8:30 – 3:00 PM in Library Community Room. Invitation-only event. Salal asked about lighting in the parks and volunteered to help with projects to replace some of that lighting with LEDs. Also asked about education about recycling of the new light bulbs. 5:55 Discussion of the NRO. Definitions section: definition of City Liaison. Discrepancy between the NRO and the specification for the job – is “city liaison” equivalent to “neighborhood coordinator”? Suggested to replace “city liaison” with “neighborhood coordinator”. Should HOAs be added to definitions? Or can they be treated as unrecognized neighbor- hood groups? Suggested that we defer that until subcommittee makes recommendations on HOAs. Authority section mentions that association must be in “any city area”. Should boundaries section be clarified to specify that part of the NA must be within the city? Suggested that the wording is acceptable as is. Some problems were discovered in the timing of neighborhood recognition – need to vote on bylaws, but can you vote on bylaws before you are recognized. The problem is that the goal of a lot of groups is to form for the purposes of being recognized, so it might be dif- ficult for a group to get bylaws drafted without some assurance that the association will be recognized. Membership section – update item B with broader non-discrimination language. (Can probably borrow from other city ordinance or language.) 6:25 Carson’s FYI Budget – article in Chronicle today about the budget process. All property appraised in 2008, used to generate city’s tax base. Some people appealed appraisal after property values tanked. Reappraisal happened in 2014. Commercial property appraisals were down significantly, residential property was down slightly. Figures won’t be available from state until August, but prediction is an 8.6% decrease in city’s tax base. But tax base burden on residences will increase. Current legislature passed bill to do reappraisal every two years instead of every six. Commission has decided to stop deferring projects for such long periods of time (storm water, street maintenance). Fairly committed to getting enough into street fund to do ade- quate regular maintenance. On streets, it will be a three-year phase-in of additional taxes and fees to fund this. $184 increase per average taxpayer (based on median home value, median use for services). Property taxes in proposed budget will increase $96 on median home. 5 mils (around $20) for park & trail bond. 6 mils for medical increase (for employee health insurance). 3 mils for affordable housing. Budget includes full FTE for neighborhood coordinator. Budget is available online. Meeting on general fund part of budget is June 8. Chris Ku- kulski is coming to talk about budget at June meeting, but this will be after June 8. This is the first time in decades that tax base has gone down. May be less than 8.6%. Likely that tax base will continue to grow. Because commercial appraisals went down more, this will affect TIFs significantly. Two street assessments – maintenance (should add around $16/year), another fund to be more proactive about how new streets will be built (around $21/year). Will be used to fill in gaps, be recovered when properties are developed. Water and sewer service fees are increasing. Most of our potable water comes down Sourdough Creek. Hyalite Dam is run by the state – City planning to add additional tank capacity to buffer water that is ordered from Hyalite. 6.6M gallons capacity somewhere past Peet’s Hill. $6M expenditure. At June 8 meeting, we will get some indication whether any Commissioners have any concern about neighborhood coordinator position. If that happens, INC reps should come to final budget meeting (two weeks later). 6:50 FYI from Chuck If Commission approves coordinator position, City will be ready to advertise position immediately. 6:50 Joe moved to adjourn, Chris seconded. Motion passed unanimously. Minutes recorded by Bob Wall.