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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes CC - 03/22/2010 - 03-22-10 S.C.W.S. Mins (Migrated from Optiview)Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page I of 25 This summary is provided as a convenience and service to the public, media, and staff. It is not the intent to transcribe proceedings verbatim. Any reproduction of this summary must include this notice. Public comments are noted and heard by Council, but not quoted. This document includes limited presentation by Council and invited speakers in summary form. This is an official record of the Milton City Council Meeting proceedings. Official Meetings are audio recorded. The Work Session of the Mayor and Council of the City of Milton was held on March 22, 2010 at 6:00 PM, Mayor Joe Lockwood presiding. Council Members Present: Councilmember Karen Thurman, Councilmember Julie Zahner Bailey, Councilmember Bill Lusk, Councilmember Burt Hewitt, Councilmember Joe Longoria, Councilmember Alan Tart. Mayor Lockwood: • Work Sessions are an informal setting to update Council on business items. • No votes will be taken during these sessions. • There are two (2) items on our Agenda tonight. • Public comment is allowed that is germane to an Agenda Item. • If you wish to speak you are required to fill out a comment card and turn it into the City Clerk staff. • Public comment will be allowed for a total of 10 minutes per agenda item and no more than 2 minutes per person. • Public comment will be heard at the beginning of each Item. • Once the item is called, no other comment cards will be accepted. Interim City Clerk Gordon read Agenda Item #1. 1. Presentation of Revised Financial Model results for the Comprehensive Plan. (Presented by George Ragsdale, CPA Chair) City Manager Lagerbloom: • At the last meeting where we talked about this financial model, one of the questions that we had was largely around the anticipated savings that we believe we have after the transition. • We estimate that at least the savings in this first fiscal year to be somewhere around the $1.3M mark. Then some additional reoccurring costs that won't be needed in the future budget years we just don't have to re -buy. • We won't have to re -buy new software every year or new computers every year. • The question came up as what of the $1.3M or the million dollars on your number two and three, what portion of that might be potentially reallocated by the Council in the form of your budget amendment? .� • What is actually going to be reallocated to other projects whether they are capital projects or other needs of the city? Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 2 of 25 • It becomes kind of an interesting thing to figure out where you get that number. If the number .. even exists, and what direction you can provide to somebody like George with CPAC to say "okay, this is what I think the financial model should include." • We have talked individually about this model and about what some of the different options are. I think from what I understand from our staff today you are going to see a couple of different options tonight that probably span all ends of the spectrum. • I don't know what that number is. I can tell you that when we go through a mid -year budget process we will drill down as to what that exact number is. • Pavement management is one of those things if you go by the pavement management plan that we have as the city. What is the right number? • George has a couple of different models to show to you tonight. I will take responsibility for asking George to say of the 1.3 million dollars that Council would likely allocate a million. The way that I got that number was to know that we funded pavement management this fiscal year at 1.4 million dollars while knowing very well that the plan needed to fund it at 2.25 million per year. • If you intend on funding that at a 100%, it is going to require an additional roughly $800,000 of allocating money to it. I am sure there is something out there that Council will want to fund. I just don't know what it is. Maybe you don't intend on funding any of it and leaving the funding in place with where we are today with the approved budget. • I asked George for one of his models to be a model that showed that we appropriated a million dollars of that 1.3M in year one as well as then saved $300,000 in year two and then in year three, etc. • There is going to be a model where you see 1.3M in the first year, and a million in the second year and then you will have one that is less than that and is the middle ground. George Ragsdale, CPAC Chairman: • The first few pages are the same graphs that were presented at the last meeting. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 3 of 25 • The reductions that we shared with you the last time were based on 1.3 million in 2010 andl million in 2011. We have retained one of those models but the other models have different assumptions around how that savings could be reallocated. • The idea that there will be no extraordinary onetime expenses, were saying is we didn't try to make any decision about where any savings should be spent, all we did was reflect on the savings in the budget. We have the same assumptions for the population growth. • The direction that we got last time we met with you was that you wanted us to try and look at what the financial situation would look like per the model if we built everything out in accordance with the current FLU plan. • We took a bunch of different scenarios and tried to look at that with the current FLU plan retaining a full $2.3M of savings that we had talked about last time. • We looked at an example at the other end with the FLU plan and assumed that we spent that entire amount so that is zero savings. Impam • We used a middle ground the one with $300,000 savings in 2010, another $300,000 in 2011 for a NOW total of $600,000. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 4 of 25 • Just to see what kind of an impact we have, we took that same model with the $600,000 saving and said what if we increased the millage rate by $500,000? We recognize that that is not something that we have the discretion to do. From a modeling standpoint we thought that might be something worth looking at. • Lastly, we took model A and adjusted that down to the $600,000 level of savings. The only difference between the last two was that previous model A which was based on building out what had already been zoned but not been built as opposed to the comprehensive land use plan. • With the FLU plan, there are a number of variants where it is growth in the FLU plan that will require some significant rezoning but the direction that we got last time was use that plan. • If we look at the FLU plan this is just to try and give you a sense that the chart and the graph are the same. • The chart indicates the total number of acres in each of the areas and the total number of acres that are available to be converted in each of those areas per the FLU plan. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • When you said to be converted, do you mean converted to commercial or residential? Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 5 of 25 George Ragsdale: • These are the ways that they were converted in each of the models. MDR is medium Density Residential, C is commercial, L is low density residential, and H is high density residential. • For example, in Arnold Mill the FLU plan only called for an additional 1.5 acres to be converted to commercial, %2 acres to be medium density residential and so on down the line. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • Talking about Arnold Mill for a moment, the prior FLU plan that we had adopted which identified that as a neighborhood, maybe we can talk a little more about this later, is it contemplated that the six acre were the six that would be part of that neighborhood activity known? George Ragsdale: • Those six acres are in that area. If you remember though from the models we talked about last time, and we used Arnold Mill as an example, the amount of acreage that is being converted in this case is significantly less than what we had talked about last time. We will see the impact of that as we look at these. The amount of commercial as you can see going down here is relatively small in terms of total acreage that is being added compared to what we talked about last time and it will show up in the models. This is the FLU plan as is, with the savings projection at the $2.3M that we had talked about before, so its analogous if you will to the model A that we talked about last time in that respect. What you will see is that the revenues are just slightly ahead of expenses through about 2016 and after that the expenses -will exceed revenues by a slight margin. In all cases with what we have done is make sure that the FLU plan matches the population model in every case so that the population model projection is about 43,000 in 2028. Every one of these models will hit that population projection by adjusting whatever it is, low density, medium density, or high density residential to try and pick that up. FLU Flan $2.3M included Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 6 of 25 Councilmember Lusk: • In the previous slide where you identified the character areas, are those all of the character areas? Where is highway 9? George Ragsdale: • Yes, there are 8 of them. Highway 9 is primarily in the Deerfield area. When we look at that graphically, you can see up to about 2014ish where were ahead and then we start to fall off. This is with the $2.3M of savings built into here. • We looked at the same model for the FLU plan and it is exactly the same. All we did was adjust for the $2.3M. We took it out completely and assumed that we didn't have any savings and spent it on something and as a result, revenues never exceed expenses. The red line is the expense line, the green dots is the revenue. FLU plan, in this case what we assumed was the $600,000 of savings, $300,000 this year and $300,000 next year then carried that out. FLU Plan $o C=Ii1wWost"M �Ca*ftwm Fins &W Faf aura ®ChwQsslw $" V icaa s� LUNws No PsnNa sI §Uskw" Tari ss�s Funch" Fon C=NONNAo1M 1"" r-� "at Tssq s Prs/wd Tsws ^TOTAL UPENSIS • TOTAL REVENUES Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 7 of 25 • The revenue does not cover expenses basically after this year and the graph will reflect that. This took exactly the same thing and all we did was add in a half million increase in the tax base and the assessment rate and what you find is that same graph carries about to about 2014 so you get about three years, plus or minus four years, before the breakeven point occurs. • If the millage rate goes up more, that line would extend further out. The reason that this thing is flattening out here is because we are looking at a 20 year horizon so we kind of cut it off. We didn't really deal with what was going on out thereafter that period of time. • Model A was what we had recommended at the last session based on taking everything that had been currently zoned but not built out and then converting some portion of that as needed to achieve A the population growth model, and then B to try and match revenue and expenses. • If we look at that one, this is the conversion plan that you can see as an example, and if I remember the other one it was about an acre and a half that was being converted in Arnold Mill. • The significant difference in terms of the amount of commercial that is being converted in those two areas, the two that are in red, in order to achieve the revenue. • The reality of this model is that if you take the millage rate out of the equation, the only lever we ...-. have to be able to increase revenue is really increasing the amount of commercial because the residential carries cost with it that is directly proportional to the amount of revenue that we are ,. getting from the residential side of the equation. All of these cases achieve the growth model on the population side. This is the lever that we have in the model to be able to increase on the revenue side. We have not done anything to reduce expenses; all of these expenses are built into there and then escalating over time. It is assumed that these expenses are going to escalate as the cost of living goes up. Councilmember Tart: • Could you give an explanation about that last graph, you said that is what the graph looks like versus expenses and versus revenues, where does that get us doing what you just said? George Ragsdale: • Well it is basically all the way up to 2028. There is a little area in the middle where expenses exceed revenue and then it comes back to being approximately equal. It is basically on target all the way out through the plan horizon. • The last one, we took that same model, which is not based on the FLU plans. It's based on what we had recommended before and we adjusted the savings down to 600,000 from the 3.2 million. When we do that, the land use is exactly the same as it was in the other model. What happens is that we break away back in here because we have given up that expense in savings of the 2.3M down to 13M. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 8 of 25 FLU Plan $600k adjusted I don't have a model that reflects this because two things have happened. 1. Everything you see up here is really the product of a lot of discussion that has not taken place with CPAC. We talked about it when we had our last meeting about the $600,000 direction that Chris described early on. A lot of these things had to be created after that. Based on that, I think that what we wanted to do was try and use the FLU plan as a base and we can assume that to have staff transition savings; you're going to have to tell us what seems a middle ground would be like a 3 or a 5 as a good number. Then we have to try and convert some additional commercial in Arnold Mill and Deerfield in order to be able to get at least through the five year horizon. • This plan would be required to be updated again in five years whether 2016 is where we want to try and hit or whether we want to go beyond that through the whole 20 year horizon which is your call. Now" • We need to have some direction going forward to be able to actually lock this down. We can create as many different models and as many different narrations as you want but I think what Now you are seeing is that there is a lot of sensitivity around how much commercial we allow and by the way when we look at the FLU plan I don't want to mislead anyone. The FLU plan includes about 2M square feet of commercial development because you are not looking at what zone it is Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 9 of 25 you're talking about what the FLU plan is. There are 2M square feet of additional commercial .• development that is in the FLU plan. So, having said that that is where we are. What questions do you have? Councilmember Tart: In looking at these projections and keeping in mind that you just said in our FLU plan, we are talking about 2M more square feet of commercial development and your model is showing that if that 2M square feet were completely built out, we would still be running below where we need to be as far as revenues versus expenses. I'm having a hard time figuring out what additional commercial would do if you add that back into the model because the assumption is that we're going to have some come and build 2M square feet of commercial plus all of the additional recommended commercial too. Which I don't think is going to happen. George Ragsdale: • The model is paper and it is based on an assumption that everything that we have put into there is going to be built out on the time frame that we have included in here which is linear and it also assumes that it's going to not only built out but occupied and used. Although the bulk of the revenue comes from the property tax and not from the use tax but none the less, it is still an assumption that it's going to be built out and used which is an average of $100,000 a year for 20 years. Mayor Lockwood: • I would like to make a comment based on where Chris started out, and you know talking about middle of the road numbers and all in savings, I can see where we could easily spend a million dollars more on an infrastructure or paving, parks, whatever. I don't think that is being very aggressive at all. George Ragsdale: • It is a lot easier to talk about the ways you want to spend the money than it is to talk about where to put the money. Mayor Lockwood: • My point is that I would be in favor of being more conservative because we certainly need to get behind our infrastructure and intersections and pavements. Councilmember Thurman: • I think that when it comes to infrastructure when you get further behind it costs you even more to get caught back up. So I think that somewhere we don't want to get behind because it will cost us more in the long run to get caught back up. I feel like personally we have got to have that $850,000 so that we are at least on the plan that we have, I assume approved, based on what has been presented for the next 10 years to get us to where we need to be at infrastructure wise. George Ragsdale: • We should be looking at the $600,000 as a target. Councilmember Thurman: Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 10 of 25 • It would be great if we could 2.3M in the bank but I don't think that will be realistic unless we want all of our roads to be dirt roads 20 years from now. Mayor Lockwood: • Well, to a point it is actually in a way putting money in the bank if you are keeping up with your infrastructure rather than having it crumble and having to spend twice as much to have it repaired. George Ragsdale: • If we lock in the $600,000 that is one thing but we have the FLU plan which is imperative to that plan is a fair amount of rezoning and then we have the other plan that we presented the last time we were here which also has rezoning but very little rezoning. Most of that is taking advantage of land that is in the plan and zoned but not built except for the Deerfield and Arnold Mill areas. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • I know that I inquired about where we are and I have noticed that we have not had our updated budget work session. Beyond the cost savings from the contract, can you speak to where we are? I know that we are doing better than what we had anticipated at this point, but obviously we are also on a month to month assessment and I guess my point of that is we really don't know where we are in the current fiscal cycle at this point. What I would like to think though is that we are being as conservative as we can be and should be which means in theory we could end up with more than that 1.3M in savings depending on where these numbers end up over the next few months, if you could just speak to that please. City Manager Lagerbloom: • I have copies of our February financials and where we are year to date at least for the time period October to February 28`t; our expenditures are less than anticipated by 12.1%. It is hard to look at those financial statements and make a whole lot of sense out of them because of the fact that the tax digest was so late in being released last year and shows that we had collected property taxes at 176% of what we had anticipated in the budget. So it is hard to say exactly where that 176% is versus on paper, it looks like we collected a whole lot of money and saved a little bit which is a great position to be in, but we have to look at the last fiscal year to be able to come up with good ideas to where that is. • We need to be conservative in any spending choice that we make day to day. • When you look at the financial reports and you have a line item that shows what expenditures are, when we look at where we should be year to date you almost take a full line and divide by 12 and incrementally increase it 12 times over the fiscal year. That doesn't always necessarily track funds that are coming in or expenses out because we might have something where we look like we have saved a lot of money but that expense may not be coming until July for example. We are on track. We are being conservative. We have spent less than we had anticipated spending at this time. The number today is 12.1%. ``"r Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • We haven't gotten through that budget assessment, it may be that before we can really say "ok do we think $600,000 is the right number" until we go though that midyear evaluation it's tough Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page I 1 of 25 to say because hopefully we will have been more conservative than for what we had originally • budgeted and then some of that 12.1 % savings will be savings that we can anticipate through the end of the fiscal year. I'm just a little concerned tonight about looking at $600,000 without having full dialog with everyone sitting around this table including Stacie who is not at the table to be able to say what other expenses have we incurred that we didn't expect? What might we expect? How do we combine those savings or additional expenditures with how we potentially prioritize some of the money? I agree that we want to continue to support paving, etc. If we are looking at perhaps that even further reductions in revenue, I think that we have to be smart and get more conservative than what we have been over this next period of time. I surely don't want to be spending every dollar that we are taking in. I'm concerned and I think that we need to go back and see if we can tighten up a little more in some of those other areas before we say that we are going to spend all of the 1.3M or half of that 1.3M. I know we want to keep up with the infrastructure, but I just continue to be cautions in terms of revenue and expenses. Councilmember Longoria: • In terms of my take away from the hard work that you guys have been doing here George, and I really appreciate you guys going back and doing this yet again. What we are looking at is some kind of target window, a window of what is going to happen in the future. Projections like George said, they're just on a piece of paper. We really don't know what is going to happen. We do understand where our revenue could be, we do understand where our expenses could be and that we have potential savings that we are going to realize over the years to come. Armed with that information, we can start dialing in on what we really need to do. I don't know that we have to worry too much about what is reality and what does the future really hold for us because we're not going to pass any budgets unless we review them first and we're slowly over time going to see what the revenue picture really looks like because of what actually happens in terms of development and taxes and things like that. I just think that these are all good pieces of information that they appoint for us to contemplate but the expense budgets will be met easily and the revenue budgets will be more difficult. Mayor Lockwood: • My opinion is that the 12% is being conservative and on a budget and midyear, that may change. • I don't think that it will change much from the 12% and we can always adjust these numbers and plan if we track it later and find that it is way off. Councilmember Hewitt: At some point, we need to draw a line and keep moving forward even if our savings are $100,000 more or less. In the big picture, does it really matter? We need to start this thing and keep moving. I am comfortable with some of these things that we are looking at. George Ragsdale: • Help me with the numbers here just a little bit. Chris and I didn't really talk about percentages, but if we're really looking at year to date 12% if you assumed if you were going to be at 10% just to be a little bit conservative through the end of the year, that is $1.6M, $13M is it not? Mayor Lockwood: 9 I don't know if I would project that out but it is definitely 10-12%. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 12 of 25 VA George Ragsdale: • I think from a planning stand point for what we need to do with the plan, the residential areas is well fixed, the areas where we can support commercial development are pretty well fixed, the question is how much? I think that gives us enough to go ahead if we can lock in on the idea that were going to reserve those two areas, Deerfield and Arnold Mill as the areas where we would allow commercial growth and then commercial growth can take place as it needs to or wants to. • There is around 82 acres of additional space in Crabapple that is converted to low density residential in that Model. We do have a model that we talked about last time did have some portion that was converted to commercial. Councilmember Thurman: • We have to look back at what the real purpose of this Model is. We have to make sure that the comprehensive plan that we approve going forward is fiscally viable with the information with what we have. • I agree with Crabapple. There is high density that has already been zoned that I really think from a planning prospective may be better as commercial rather than high density development. -- • From a master plan it might make more sense. It's what the people in the area would prefer to have. • I believe instead of having all of the high density in Arnold Mill and Deerfield, we need to look at possible taking some of what is high density residential in Crabapple and changing it to commercial or office to make it a daytime population and business population. You have to put that population somewhere else, but I believe that if you just looked at Crabapple itself it wouldn't be what is currently planned or what the future land use plan states it is. • I would like to see maybe some of that commercial end up in Crabapple and get rid of some of the higher density. Councilmember Tart: • Expenses also includes capital improvements, can you speak to the fact that expenses projected in expenses in our budget also include money that we are setting aside for capital improvement? George Ragsdale: • It includes paying the leases on vehicles and things like that. Paying the bills. Councilmember Thurman: • Does it include the amount that we set aside last year for roads for the same amount set aside going forward? 616" George Ragsdale: • If it were set aside in a separate capital budget the answer is no. • If it was set aside as a line item in the expense budget then the answer is yes. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 13 of 25 Councilmember Thurman: W6-_ • Which was it Carter? Carter Lucas: • It would be the capital projects fund. Councilmember Thurman: • We could at least have the 2AM going forward and not an additional $850,000. City Manager Lagerbloom: • For this year's budget we have park acquisition, trails, road repaving, etc. Those were all captured. Councilmember Tart: • How are we doing year to date on reserves? As of last year we were ahead of schedule on reserves. City Manager Lagerbloom: • We are fully funded. • We met our fully funding projection of 16%. Councilmember Thurman: • We based our projections the same level of service we were getting in Fulton County when we started the city. • We need to be on a different schedule than that. • The previous budget was based strictly on the level of service that we had as residents. • We didn't take into account that we would be in an economic recession and property tax and revenue would be decreasing. George Ragsdale: • We can break up capitols to show them separately we can do that so it will be easier for you all. Councilmember Tart: • If we're going to be asked to change the FLU plan to include increased commercial and Deerfield, Arnold Mill, and/or Crabapple, I would like to know what we would get for that. George Ragsdale: • We can show general funds expenses on the model and have general funding shown as a line item for expenditures. • We can put together the numbers from before we were a city and where we are now as a separate exercise. It is not a function of the comprehensive plan. Councilmember Tart: • We have had an economic recession that was not planned for, however, at some point we will be back on track and it needs to be kept in mind when we look at this model. • If property taxes increase to the level they were prior to the recession if we change out FLU plan to include the commercial, we can't go back and change it again. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 14 of 25 .... George Ragsdale: • Every five years the FLU plan will be revised. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • If we change the FLU plan this year the expectations of those land owner is that they have an opportunity for that land to convert. • We need this model as an estimating tool and we need to be conservative. • I don't know if I'm comfortable enough to say that we need to modify the FLU plan by 127 acres in Arnold Mill. • How do we use this as a tool knowing that it has imperfections? How do we use that without changing the entire complexion of our community based on assumptions that aren't grounded? How do we modify those areas without going to a full 143 for Deerfield? George Ragsdale: • The commercial development is linear- we can take the same amount of commercial development and not start it for five years out if that's what we want to do. • We do need to reflect the 20 year horizon and what we think will happen over the next 20 years. We can change that in the next 5 years if we need to. • If we feel that we need commercial development within the next 20 year period, it needs to be reflected in the model plan. ks-d Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • To go from six acres to 133 acres knowing that they are just assumptions seems like we need to have a middle ground to not change the FLU plan so that we set high expectations for land owners. • What are some possible approaches that allow us to plan for the future and also maintain some of the citizen expectations of moderation? Mayor Lockwood: • You have to make a budget. Sometimes you have to start with a reasonable budget and some line items can't be predicted exactly. We have to make an educated guess and as we move forward, we get more details and firm it up. • We just have to pick a budget. We can always adjust it a little. You can plug in some different numbers as we firm it up. • George, what do you guys need from us to move forward? George Ragsdale: • If we accept the growth assumptions and we say that we are going to have 44,000 people 20 years out, in order to sustain that we need to have commercial growth beyond where we are now. • The question is how much and where do you want to put it? How much is driven by the revenue expense equation? • I'm not suggesting we put it somewhere where we don't ultimately want it, but putting it on a map for a 20 year horizon and saying it's going to happen in the next five years are two different things. No one thinks it will happen in the next five years. • The plan itself needs to address the assumption that we are going to need additional commercial in the city in order to support 40,000 people 20 years out. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 15 of 25 Councilmember Thurman: • The concern is if we show something on a plan as commercial 20 years from now we have no choice but for it to be commercial 20 years from now, is that the case or are we better off not showing as much knowing that we may have to add to it or if its shown as possible commercial on the plan, could it go back and be changed at a later time? City Attorney Ken Jarrard: • Yes, it can be changed at a later time. • A lot of property owners will view the FLU plan with an expectation that if they come in to zoning that will be a factor to weigh getting that zoning. • The council doesn't have to give zoning to the land use map. Until it is zoned, it can be changed. Councilmember Thurman: • Can it be shown on a FLU plan not just as current commercial but as maybe future in a different color so that it doesn't automatically look like it's a rubber stamp for commercial? Councilmember Longoria: • Saying that it is going to be residential is almost just as bad as saying is it going to be commercial? We are in a no win situation if we are worried about how it's going to change in the future. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • Is a component of that zoning process has always been and will continue to be what does the FLU plan say? • We also need to be realistic enough to say that putting out a FLU map it steps up the expectations of the 6".M citizens and the legal expectation. • We want to anticipate and plan for 20 years out, but we also know assumptions get much more difficult to predict the further out in time that you go. • Is there a way to look at a shorter horizon? Longer than five years, shorter than 20? • Is there a tiered approach to utilize that minimizes the risks but allows us to plan appropriately for the unknowns? Mayor Lockwood: • Lynn, is there any reason from a DCA standpoint that we couldn't have two future land use plans, one for the first 10 years and one for the second 10 years? Lynn Tully, Community Development Director: • No. I have seen in other jurisdictions where as a policy decision, the council would approve what I would consider benchmarks. They would establish five year, ten year, and 20 year benchmarks. Incremental benchmarks saying this is where we anticipate where we will be in the next five or 10 years in population and commercial growth. George Ragsdale: • Despite of what everyone has said and what everyone wants, the reality is the model is showing us is a tool is that regardless if we look at five or 10, we have an issue with being able to balance expenses and revenues without adding commercial. """" • This may not be what everyone wants, but if you accept what the model is telling us, is that we do need to add commercial to some extent in the next five years in order to make revenues meet expenses or we have a" to reduce expenses to meet revenues. • There has been no effort made here in reducing expenses to reduce revenues. It's been the other way around. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 16 of 25 • If we're going to have revenue meet or exceed expenses in the neck five years, none of these models will +. do that unless we add commercial. Bill Lusk: • In knowing what I see, do and hear in the commercial arena here, I would tend to err on the side of pessimism in projecting any retail knowing full well that we need to add it. • I am on board with taking a shorter term look at commercial development. • I think we are going to see a dramatic change in retail development in going forward. • I think there will be a decrease in commercial retail development. I think numbers indicate already the impact of internet commerce and how it has affected retail. George Ragsdale: • This is all commercial. This could be warehouse, hotel, industrial, or retail. Anything that is not residential. Councilmember Tart: • We still have 2M square feet of commercial in our current land use plan. • I don't see how adding more commercial in Arnold Mill or Deerfield is going to change anything without making it worse from a development standpoint. • If we go ahead in our land use plan and say Arnold Mill will be commercial and then someone comes in and rezones. Commercial will be in the middle of the agriculture. If we reassess it, not only have we said that that would be commercial but now we have commercial in the middle of agriculture, AGI, and that is poor development to be developing residential, commercial, AG1 all together without any vision. 0-4 George Ragsdale: • We are recommending as part of the plan that each area needs to be independently master planned. • We're going to have a master plan that has to be done before anything goes in there. Mayor Lockwood: We have charged CPAC with doing a FLU plan for us. We may need to make changes in budgets. We may need to tighten things up. I think we need general advice to see what the plan looks like and so we can move forward. CPAC Member: • We have been using several different land use plans to come this point. • We have had community input, hearings on it, and your own discussion. • At some point we can't have CPAC say "here is the model, here is the budget". • You have to provide a budget and ask for the models. • CPAC should make a model; you should make a budget, and then see if something works together. Councilmember Tart: • Do we have a model that we think meets our needs? Councilmember Longoria: • We have three options that have revenue at least staying ahead of expenses until 2016 which I think is a critical point since we're going to reevaluate this in five years, which gives us a year's time to make some adjustments. Now • A plan doesn't dictate anything other than giving us some general guidelines on what may be in the future. • Model FLU plan 2.3 savings the model A and the model adjusted all had revenue for staying ahead on revenue over expenses at least through 2016. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 17 of 25 • We have three models that we need to discuss in greater detail. Obviously we don't vote on anything right now, but we have three options that keep revenue ahead of expenses which are the key elements to publishing a plan that makes any sense. Councilmember Thurman: • I don't favor that plan because it shows us getting further behind each year in our infrastructure for public works and roads going back. • We are not meeting what we have to get to a maintained point on our infrastructure. Mayor Lockwood: • This is where I feel that we need to pick up a direction. George Ragsdale: • Out of the three that you mentioned, the big difference is in one case we are starting with the FLU plan. • The other is starting with how we zone. • That would be helpful as to which of those is the right place to start because it makes a significant difference in terms of what there is for us and for you ultimately. • We thought it would be easier to look at what is currently zoned, and then what needs to be rezoned from there. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • How many different variables are there? 10? 20? • Knowing that we hopefully will be looking for some additional expense savings, I would like to think that we are not done tweaking anything in regards to the budget and while. • I think we need to go back in and go from a line item basis to see if there are some additional places that we can reprioritize. • We need to think about saving some additional dollars. Mayor Lockwood: • We may have some dips and we may have to spend twice as much one year, half one year, but I feel like we have to give these guys a direction to go. Is the future plan driving this Model? Is this model driving the future plan? • Are you at a comfort level with knowing everything you have done up until now to kind of see where a trend where you think the future plan is going to be so you can adjust the model plan to it? George Ragsdale: • I think historically these plans have been done. There has not been any discrete connection between the comprehensive plan financial plans for the city. • We can do a plan in a vacuum and say here it is and leave it to you guys to figure out how to make it work. Right now, there are enough issues and its close enough that we think that it's worth investing the time and trying to make sure that we have something on paper that works. • I don't want to speak for the community; I do believe that we wound support going from current zoning instead of current future land use only because again, I think it creates a better platform. • Beyond that, I think we can go back and put together a Model that takes those two pieces to put together our recommendation. Mayor Lockwood: • We need to focus in on a number range of where we will go. Lynn, does that make sense? Lynn Tully: Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 18 of 25 • Yes. I would just like to stress that the entirety of the comprehensive plan is really a policy document. +." This is a tool; this is not etched into stone forever and always. We do have to revisit it every five years. • As a tool, we can put in a lot of other variables that we wouldn't necessarily be able to put into an ordinance. • As a policy tool, this is your document but I think that the committee has come up with some good alternatives that they originally did recommend Model A that was of course without the changes to the savings amount. CPAC Member: • I think we should focus on the three that the numbers do work with and then adjust those. Ken Jarrard: • I agree with George, I never see the financial data put into this decision making. It is unique and necessary. • I do want to reinforce that this is a planning tool; these are just numbers on a piece of paper. • Let this tool from a land use policy standpoint be controlled by those considerations of how you want Milton to look and then add on top of that the financial model and you want it to make sense within the options. • Let the good land use policy be the thing that you really focus on. • Don't let the budget totally control the map. We need to have faith and let Lynn and Chris and your planners and maybe budget be a little bit more secondary. Mayor Lockwood: • We don't have to drive our future city plan based on this tool. I think we should use this plan a something we can go back and look at and see three year from now, two years from now that we are not doing this and see what is developing and what is not so we can adjust our expenses accordingly. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • The FLU plan does change the complexion of the community. • My request to CPAC would be how you perhaps take what Terry was suggesting. • I agree with Joe on us needing to be conservative on the expense side and not presuming that we are going to spend a larger portion of that 2.3M. • We need to go back to our budget and see where we can save some more money. Mayor Lockwood: • I am for saving money and being conservative. • We need to come up with every savings and every dollar that we can. • There are things we don't have budgeted for that we need to budget for. • We need to hit the middle of the road reasonable plan use that as a tool and adjust it accordingly. CPAC Member: • The AGI subdivision will have the bigger impact where we have 2,300 acres that right now allows a subdivision to be rebuilt without any rezoning. Councilmember Thurman: • I think that the 10 year plan is a good idea. • I think we can estimate 10 years in the future. I think 20 years is too big of a guess. • There are a lot of things that can be expenditures like parks and the bike and pedestrian paths. • I feel that we can't have a plan that shows expenses are going to be better than your revenues. 0 Until we get a master plan in place for places like Arnold Mill I would like to see a moratorium. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 19 of 25 • I think we should do a joint plan with Roswell on Arnold Mill. • I do not want to see anything developed until it can be developed the way it needs to. • We can't put a plan in place that shows us getting further behind in our infrastructure. If we continue with what we're doing now, were going to be further behind and it will end up costing us more in the long run. • I would like to know how much of that 2M square feet that is currently slated for commercial, where that is and how much of it is in retail. Mayor Lockwood: • I think that Lynn had a good idea when she said we should put benchmarks. At the five year, 10, year, and obviously 10-20 is more of a guess. Councilmember Thurman: • If the population slows down we don't need it near as quick. That is one variable that if it changes, it changes everything. George Ragsdale: • What is the consensus of the Council in respect with starting with a land use plan or starting with a zoning map? Councilmember Thurman: • I would rather start with the zoning map. It is more conservative. Mayor Lockwood: • I would agree with that. It is more realistic. Councilmember Longoria: • What we have is a zoning map. The future land use plan is something in the future. Councilmember Lusk: • It seems like a waste of two years, does it? If we go the zoning route rather than the land use map? Councilmember Longoria: • It's a starting point. Mayor Lockwood: • This financial model can be changed. If we base this on the current zoning plan, not to waste two years when we have our future plan, it may be a little different. Then you guys can come back and change the numbers in the financial model George Ragsdale: • You have it right. The plan has got to drive the model instead of the other way around. Councilmember Hewitt: • If we go with the current zonings, that takes your three down to two. George Ragsdale: • We can go back to the ones we talked about last time. rrwr • The other piece we need in order to decide which model works the best is what do you want us to assume know it's not going to be exact or right, what do you want us to assume for savings regardless of which like item it goes into? • We have a bracket from 2.3 down to zero. Where do you want us to be on that scale as a starting point? Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 20 of 25 ... Mayor Lockwood: • I would rather be on the higher side to be conservative. Councilmember Thurman: • I would say the 2.3 plus whatever we would need to get us through our infrastructure plan. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • Is there something that allows us to not fund 100% of that and still keep up somewhat? Mayor Lockwood: • We all have the option to not fund a certain amount if we find that we are having some issues. • Everywhere I drive in Milton, the roads are bad. Chris Lagerbloom: • One of the few items that I can actually point to a plan that we have adopted as a city where there is a recommendation from the people that we paid a lot of money to that are experts in the field to make a recommendation. I use that now as my marching orders for the budget to know that this is what is said over the next 10 year to get us to an average PCI 70, that is what we asked them to do. That is the funding that needs to be there to do that. • To not do that, doesn't mean our roads will fall apart. • Holding off for a year on paving might save us in the budget, but we might actually pay twice for what the repair is. Councilmember Thurman: • If in the first year instead of saving 1.3 we add that 850,000 back. That gets us to 2.25 in that initial year for the paving. • Going forward, we still have that 2.25 in there. We don't need to subtract off another 850,000. • If we can get it right the first year, next year we can have that million dollar savings. • What you're trying to do is get your initial budget amount to be the 2.25M and the initial budget right now is the 1.4M. You add 850,000 for the first year so your initial budget for the first year is at 2.25M. George Ragsdale: • You're changing the way the model is being used. Right now, the line items are not being changed. What we are doing, is taking it off of the bottom as an incremental reduction so if you want to say that we are going to spend 850,000 out of the original 1.3 then you are going to have 550,000 in the first year and if you want to spend 850,000 on the million the second year, were going to have 150 in the second year and the sum of those two will carry forward. So you are going to get the 550,000 the first year 550,000 the second year. Mayor Lockwood: • We need to continue talking about concept. • I think we need to start off with the existing zoning map as your tool to start with. • What are our options? '•"" George Ragsdale: • There is 0 savings. 600 • 600K savings • Or the 2.3M savings. Councilmember Longoria: Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 21 of 25 • 1 say we take the middle grounds. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • Is there something that is less than 2.3M but more than 600K? Mayor Lockwood: • I think we should go with closer to 2.3M or 600K than 0 to be more conservative. Councilmember Tart: • I thought the 600K would be more in line with fully funding the transportation plans. Councilmember Thurman: • I can go with 0 or 600K; I can't go with 2.3M. Mayor Lockwood: • So our options are 0 to 2.3M, 2AM. 2.3M or 2AM being more conservative. Chris Lagerbloom: • If we save 2.3M, do you want to spend any of that on anything in the City? • If the answer is yes, do you want to spend it all or just a portion? Mayor Lockwood: • Spend or put it towards our reserves. Councilmember Tart: • I believe of the 2.3 savings, we should fully fund the transportation plan. Anything that is left over from that we can continue to talk about whether that goes to savings or if it goes to buy parks. George Ragsdale: • That brings us to 600K. • Collectively, you have all said that 600K is the number you want. Mayor Lockwood: • With 600K, that doesn't get us anything else for parks or any other infrastructure. George Ragsdale: • 600K is in the middle. If you find additional savings, that will go to something else. You will be fully funding your transportation plan, it's a safe number. It still allows for flexibility. Mayor Lockwood: • George and staff, would you say that hitting the 600K would be a good starting point to go from? Lynn Tully: • As we get further into the process and start mapping out where some changes should occur, we will see how close we are and make some other recommendations. Mayor Lockwood: • I'm going to say that I would be in favor of using the existing zoning and the 600K. Councilmember Lusk: • Yes. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 22 of 25 Now Councilmember Longoria: • Yes. Councilmember Hewitt: • Yes. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • Yes with one question. Councilmember Thurman: • Yes. Councilmember Tart: • Yes. Mayor Lockwood: • That's six yeses. As far as your financial plan, you have direction and what you need George? George Ragsdale: • One thing that we will break out are those one time expenditures that are not usual expenses. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • Are you going to look at a 10 year horizon and not just a20? George Ragsdale: • Personally from a FLU map standpoint that makes sense because it will make sense with what we want to do in the first 10 versus the second 10. Mayor Lockwood: • I do want to say with all sincerity, thank you George and everyone on the committee. I know you guys have worked hard and I know we have been hard to get information from and direction. Thank you for all of the hard work. City Manager Chris Lagerbloom read Agenda Item #2. 2. Discussion of the Milton Trail Plan and Bike and pedestrian Path Committee. (Presented by Cyndee Bonacci, Parks and Recreation Director) Cyndee Bonacci, Parks & Recreation Director: • I will give a brief intro as to why this is up for discussion tonight. • In February, I was asked to sit down with our Bike Pedestrian Committee along with Chris and Carter to talk about the possibly of the Bike and Pedestrian transitioning to Parks and Recreation from the Public Works department. • Three questions kept coming up: 1. Would they support the plan falling under parks and recreation at this point? Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 23 of 25 2. What were the responsibilities of the Bike and Pedestrian Path Committee with regards to the ..t. trail plan and had those responsibilities met to date, if not, what were the ongoing responsibilities? 3. Would the transition to Parks and Recreation allow for the advisory board to serve in a similar capacity as the Bike Pedestrian Committee had served over the last three years? • With regards to the trail plan, we have trail development standards. • A plan is a dynamic fluid document that serves us as a guide to direct us but needs to be reviewed regularly to make sure what is identified in the plan is priorities as we go forward. • We need to consider from a funding standpoint, from a maintenance standpoint, a prioritization standpoint how we are going to implement the trail plan? ` • We have roughly 200K set aside for matching trail funds for this year for implementation. • 100K set aside for sidewalk additions. • Total of 300K that we could begin a portion of trail implementation this year. • Right of way trails will run about 500K up to as much as a million dollars per mile. • Staff recommends if we use that 300K it will go for the stretch near Milton High School up to Philips Circle which is about 2.7 miles. • Based on the previous estimate, we don't have the money to move forward with such a great length. • We could do a segment of that from Milton High School to Landrum. There is a stream that would require a 11Oft pedestrian suspension crossing there which is very expensive to include. WPM • If we were to get from Milton High School to Landrum that would basically cover the costs that we have budgeted for this year. .. * We have looked at doing a survey to begin with. • Issuing a survey as a RFQ type bid process with a design build option. • We could go with another option to use a test strip to connect another area identified in the city. • How do we make this transition? What is in place now? What is needed going forward? Is there a way to combine what we had with where we are going forward? I have come up with three options. 1. Trail Plan implementation and Bike and Pedestrian Path Committee could remain in Public Works. However, Sara Leaders will be leaving in May and serves at the current staff liaison. Also, staff and committee members have reached impasse on how to proceed based on a variety of differing opinions. 2. Trail Plan implementation and Bike and Pedestrian Path Committee could transition to Parks and Recreation. However, the same impasse reached with other staff would remain as the staff's recommendation is the same. Unless the direction of the Committee changes, we will not be able to move forward with a consensus. This would also allow the BPPC to fall under the PRAB potentially or stand alone, but I feel that might be problematic. 3. Trail Plan implementation could move to parks and recreation and the committee be dissolved with their responsibilities now falling under the PRAB. The PRAB is a diverse group of informed citizens who could provide input to staff regarding the trail implementation. One member of the BPPC also serves on the PRAB. The previous BPPC members could be consulted as the need arises. Mayor Lockwood: 9 Does anyone know what the expectations were? Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 24 of 25 OWN wow Councilmember Thurman: • Initially it was set up to come up with a plan. That was the initial. That's what the grant was for. It was to come up with a plan. Mayor Lockwood: • Strictly business, it probably makes total sense having it under Parks and Recreation. • Subcommittee for Parks and Recreation for Bike and Pedestrian Path Committee. Chris Lagerbloom: • There are some on the Bike and Pedestrian Committee who are bringing forward a recommendation that our city staff just is not going to be able to support. • Building public trails in the right of way is not blazing a train on private property. • We're not going to get to a place that we can as a staff that we can support that. • I don't know what we do to break through that. • Where we are right now is stuck. We need to get unstuck if we're going to bring this trail into actuality. • I don't know if our representative that serves on the Bike and Pedestrian wants to talk tonight or not. loom Councilmember Tart: " • When the BPPC was formed they were given the charge of planning and designing that trail. • In terms of efficiency, I think it needs to be all under one classification, in Parks and Recreation. Councilmember Lusk: • The initial charge was to develop a road and design standards. • At the rate to save a million dollars per mile for trails, how many miles did we anticipate? Cyndee Bonacci: • I believe it's between 70 and 80 miles. • Some of that is already counting our gravel road system. Councilmember Lusk: • I appreciate the hard work put into this committee. • The paths are parks and I think they should be included in Parks and Recreation. • Since they are in the right-of-way, they should have guidance in Public Works Department. • If we have the resources in place in Parks and Recreation and the plans and the design standards we should do it. • What work load does Parks and Recreation have at this time? • Would you think adding this duty to Parks and Recreation, it would overload a 7 person board? Cyndee Bonacci: • I don't think that it would overload the board. • I think that adding BPPC would help so that we can have an overview of all that will include trails. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 25 of 25 0 • The money needed identified in the plan in 2007 was around 5.5M dollars that would be needed Now to carry us forward. Mayor Lockwood: • Let's just go around the room and give your thoughts. Councilmember Longoria: • I would be in favor of doing what Cyndee thinks is most appropriate. I don't see having committees staying in existence that don't serve a particular function. • I would see moving that into Parks and Recreations and having the other committee going away. Councilmember Hewitt: • I would agree with what our professional staff thinks is best. • I would like to extend thanks for the Bike and Ped Committee for all of their work. • Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • I support the transition to transfer Bikes and Peds into Parks and Recreation. • I think we should carry some committee members from Bikes and Peds into the Parks and recreation to provide knowledge of the committee until Parks and Recreation gets a full grip on Bikes and Peds. ..., Councilmember Thurman: • I agree that it may be time for a change. • I think as a city we would be okay with one less committee. • Once we determine in Birmingham Park where we will put trails in, maybe they can be used for that. • I agree that we should let our Parks and Recreation take over Bike and Peds. Mayor Lockwood: • Let staff and some of the committees formulate a way to make this happen. • I think it is fairly clear that the council supports your general direction. • We would like to thank all of the members up to this point with what they have done and keep them in the loop with what we will have done. After no further discussion, the Work Session adjourned at 8:21 p.m. Date Approved: April 26, 2010 �X4- Sudie AM Gordon, Inter City Cler two Joe Lockwood, May