04-07-1997 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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• Memo To: Honorable Mayor and City Council From: Chuck Whiting, City Administrator Re: April 7, 1997 City Council Work Session Date: April 4, 1997 We have a lot of items on Monday evening. I'm adding a time estimate to the items to give some idea to the pace of the meeting. Item 1 -Discussion of Disputed Water Bill: Heidi Cookson is protesting her water bill. Bruce's memo details the circumstances. While we have from time to time written some of these off, there doesn't seem to be any way to justify doing that here. My concern here is twofold, first, water usage is a mental construct for people, there is no way of knowing how much water one uses, only how much one thinks they use. Second, the meter is supposed to be the measuring devise and her meter has tested accurate. This means the only evidence we have of water used is the meter reading. As staff, we could not justify relief for Ms. Cookson, though we have for the second time offered a payment plan arrangement. She is not accepting that and therefor wants to come directly to Council. Time estimate: 15 to 20 minutes. 11111 Item 2-Discussion of Bel Rae Election Results: I expect to have the results tallied by late Saturday afternoon and will notify the media(we are getting a number of calls on this). I will call the Council Saturday as well. As for the next step pending the outcome, first, if the result is affirmative and the Council wishes to proceed on Monday with development of the project, I need to do several things very quickly. One, the building needs to be inspected by an architect in order to meet TIF criteria. This would have to be done next week. Second, the Council will need to agree to a floor plan in order to spec and bid the project out. I remind the Council that the work done to date is conceptual in nature for planning purposes, not final design. Neither City Council has adopted a final floor plan. How much time and effort the Council wishes to put into this is up for discussion. I will have the architect present assuming an affirmative vote on Monday to go over the number of steps that will be needed to move on this project. The need to move rather quickly is based on the need of Children's Home Society to be in the building by September. Also, while I understand the need for discussion on these matters, there is a cost associated with that. Third, I will need to meet with the attorney, the potential tenants and VB Digs to determine final arrangements with them. These will also need Council input, and I would appreciate some thought to these aspects. I heard several concerns from the audience last week about the relationship with Digs and the supposed lack of control the City would have over the recreation space. It is a tradeog but it is not a total loss of control. I also realized that the way the Council asked the ballot to be written, the City can consider having VB Digs build their facility and the City can also build a gym. The Council may want to consider this option as the best of both worlds if it desires. • The second scenario is a negative result to the election. If this happens, I would ask the Council to direct staff to recommend possible alternatives for the Council to consider at a future meeting. Realistically, there is no time constraint the Council has to meet so options can be fully explored.