Agenda Packets - 2009/08/24 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Administrator Report August 24, 2009 Page 2 4. Charter Commission Meeting The Charter Commission met on Wednesday, August 12. They briefly discussed Chapter 8 of the Charter regarding Public Improvements and Special Assessments but deferred the bulk of their discussion to a future meeting to give themselves more time to review Chapter 202 of the City Code pertaining to Public Improvements. There was continued discussion regarding the Clerk-Administrator title and the Commission also considered a request from staff to revise the requirements pertaining to the adoption of the Five Year Financial Plan. Presently, the Charter requires that the plan be adopted by ordinance, which seems to contradict the Charter which indicates administrative actions be approved by resolution and legislative action by ordinance. The Five Year Financial Plan, like the annual budget and the tax levy, are administrative actions. The Commission agreed that an amendment to the language might be appropriate and will revisit the matter at a future meeting. The next Charter Commission meeting is scheduled for September 9, 2009. 5. Potential Tenant on the Water Tower As Finance Director Mark Beer has previously indicated, a new player in the Internet service provider (ISP) market—Clearwire--has expressed interest in leasing space on the City’s water tower to locate their equipment. Clearwire is a wireless high speed ISP which also offers digital telephone service as well. According to their website, Clearwire offers a robust suite of advanced high-speed Internet services to consumers and businesses. As part of a multi-year network build-out plan, Clearwire’s 4G service, called CLEAR™, will be available in major metropolitan areas across the U.S, and bring together an unprecedented combination of speed and mobility. We will keep the Council informed as negotiations progress with this prospective tenant. 6. Public Works Intern One of the items on the Work session agenda is discussion of the public works intern position. The present intern, Ryan Johnson, has indicated that he will be unavailable to work for the City after school starts. Public Works Director Nick DeBar credits Ryan for moving forward many projects and coordinating many tasks during his time with the City, but his lack of future availability provides us with an opportunity to revisit the goals of the intern position and to shift its focus more toward GIS (geographic information systems) , an area that the City has been lacking. While the position would still have engineering and public works responsibilities, the desire would be to bring in a new intern who may already have a GIS training and experience. 7. MVTV Playback Difficulties You may have noticed or received calls that the City’s cable channel was experiencing technical difficulties earlier this month. Vanessa reports that there was a piece of equipment malfunctioning at the Shoreview head end which will need to be repaired or replaced. A few days later the CTV playback server malfunctioned causing additional play back glitches. All appears fine now, however.