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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes CC - 10/12/2009 - MINS 10 12 09 WS (Migrated from Optiview)Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 1 of 19 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 October 12, 2009 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 Tina D’Aversa and Councilmember Alan Tart Mayor Lockwood • Welcomed everyone to the meeting. • Work sessions are a more informal setting to update the Council on business items. • No vote will be taken on work session items. • There are 5 items on the agenda. • Item number 3, Discussion and presentation on a Transportation Management System along Highway 9, has been removed. • Public comment is allowed that is germane to an agenda item. • If you wish to speak, you are required to fill out a public comment card and turn it in to City Clerk staff. • Public comment will allowed for a total of ten minutes per agenda item and no more than two minutes per person. • Public comment will be heard at the beginning of each item. • Once the item is called no other public comment cards will be accepted. • Allowed Councilmember D’Aversa to introduce a special guest. Councilmember D’Aversa • Introduced Katie Stokes. • She is running for class president in the third grade at Cogburn Woods Elementary. • She wanted to come and see how the meetings are run. City Clerk Marchiafava read the first agenda item. Discussion on the Historic Preservation Ordinance. Senior Planner Robyn MacDonald • This is an update since it was deferred at the September 21, 2009 meeting. • With the deferral it was to go before the Planning Commission for further review and recommendations. • After deliberation on the Ordinance along with 4 members of the Historic Preservation Committee, they wanted to call a special called meeting the following Monday to finish the review of the document. • The second meeting occurred a week later with the presence of the four Historic Preservation Committee members. • The document given to Council has the recommendations of the Planning Commission which is shown in red as well as some questions for staff and the City Attorney. • The City Attorney has reviewed the proposed changes recommended. • This item will come before Council on October 19, 2009 for vote. • The major change to the Ordinance is the deletion of the prior use recognition clause. • Many of the edits are ensuring that the document is consistent with the state ordinance as well as tailoring the ordinance to the City of Milton and its specific needs. • The Planning Commission asked staff to look at the state law on page 11, 4 through 8. • These are the processes required by the state for adopting an ordinance for designation of historic districts and historic properties. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 2 of 19 • Staff realized that the state law requires at least three notices to be put into the newspaper prior to the hearing so that will be corrected. • On page 13 where it says the HPC shall issue certificates of appropriateness for the above proposed actions if those actions conform in design, scale, building material, setback and site features and to the United States Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation and guidelines for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings, this document is published by the US Department of Interior and is 185 pages and there are guidelines and standards, it does not appear that we have to use them but she thinks it would behoove the City to do so. • There were some questions about the Penalty Provisions and Article 29.2 addresses all violations to the Zoning Ordinance and the maximum fine is $1,000 per violation. • The Planning Commission felt this did not have a lot of teeth to it in reference to the fines if there were issues of not keeping historic properties up to code or a demolition of a historic property. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Asked about the makeup of the committee in terms of different options. • One option was the Historic Preservation Committee and other discussion about integrating the Design Review Board. Senior Planner MacDonald • The makeup of the committee was thoroughly discussed. • Page 4 of the document talks about it. • The HPC shall consist of seven members appointed by the Mayor and City Council with each appointing one member whose term will be concurrent with the appointing Council member’s term. • All members shall be residents of the City of Milton and shall be persons who have demonstrated special interest, experience, or education in history, architectural history, or the preservation of historic resources. • Each appointee shall reside anywhere within the city and not be bound to a Councilperson’s respective council district. • Two ex-officio members may be appointed by and serve at the discretion of the HPC who do not own property in the city limits, and who are not residents of the City of Milt, but have expressed interest in the surrounding communities and are regarded as valuable sources of information by consensus of the official members of the HPC. • An additional ex-officio member shall be a member of the HPC serving as a member of the City Design Review Board and appointed by the City Design Review Board. Ex-officio members of the HPC shall not have voting rights, shall not hold office in the HPC, and shall not be counted for the purpose of determining whether a quorum of HPC members exists at any meeting. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • She does not think we have ex-officio members in any of the other committees and that may be something they want to think about. • As a thought they might want to have one or two members of the Design Review Board on the committee. • Part of the concern is that we have the DRB represented at every meeting and would we really want them to be a nonvoting member since the goal is to have consistency between the two entities. Senior Planner MacDonald • They had a discussion about making it a voting member but it would create an impossible tie situation in a vote. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Another thought could be to have two ex-officio members that were voting members and that would take it from seven to nine. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 3 of 19 Councilmember Tart • Asked about parts of the ordinance that either does or does not provide incentives for historic structure homeowners. • He thought that was the intent behind the prior use designation. Senior Planner MacDonald • That question was brought up by the Planning Commission and is an area that needs to be worked on. • She thinks there are other documents down the line that would address the incentives more specifically. • She needs to do more research to find out where the appropriate place for those incentives and what they should be. Councilmember Hewitt • There are some members of the committee present that put the ordinance together and asked if they wanted to weigh in or if they were comfortable with this. Travis Allen, 13095 Region Trace, Milton Georgia • Gordon Hunter, Mark Hancock, Norman Broadwell, Bob Meyers and he worked with the Planning Commission to develop a lot of this. • They were asked to do some more research into penalties and incentives. • The incentives he found are not clearly defined. • A lot are tax incentives. • The penalties were more severe and broad. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Asked if he could send them some of his research. Travis Allen • Yes. Councilmember Thurman • Her concern is to get as many people that have historic buildings and want them to be classified as a historic structure. We have all of these penalties, but no incentives. • If a building is not usable as it currently is and they have to pay to keep it up we have to have something to incentivize them or none of them will come in and ask to have it classified as a historic structure. • Asked what they could do as an incentive. Travis Allen • Looking at the tax incentives that are out there, the City’s millage rate is so low that it really is not an incentive. • The commission was empowered to go out and seek grants and research them for someone who has historic property which will go a long way. Councilmember Thurman • She thinks we need some benefit for people to request their property be designated historic because as it is now the penalties are greater than the benefits. Councilmember Tart • He agrees with Councilmember Thurman. We need to build ways to incentivize them to hold the structures and take care of them other than just punitive action if they do not. • He thinks a good way to handle it rather than to hold off on creating the Historic Preservation Commission and rather than to assume that they will quickly work to provide those recommendations to Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 4 of 19 us. When we do approve the Ordinance, we could include as a time table for a time line to provide recommendations to include incentives into the program. Councilmember Hewitt • Asked Mr. Allen if he felt comfortable with some minor modifications to the document. Travis Allen • The prior use clause which they thought was valuable was already removed but it only affects a limited amount of properties so at some point in the future if they could work something similar to that back into it, they would like to see that. • As it stands between them and the Planning Commission they are pretty happy with it. Councilmember Lusk • In section 6b entitled Failure to Provide Ordinary Maintenance or Repair, what comes to mind mainly addresses structures but included in this ordinance are historic sites and historic sites may be in a variety of conditions. • This addresses penalties or police actions to maintain historic districts or buildings, he is concerned if a site is heavily wooded or overgrown, asked how they address that aspect in the ordinance. Travis Allen • Really the commission could be able to direct forming a society in the area creating more interest. • There are some people that are members of the Cherokee County Historical Society, the Alpharetta Historical Society and perhaps the commission can focus their efforts on a historical society for Milton and promote that the sites need to be cleaned up. • To encourage the commission to indentify the sites and advertise them, might help. Councilmember Lusk • He envisioned a combined Alpharetta/Milton historical society, asked if there was any inclination to head in that direction. • Certainly, the history of Milton does not stop at a political boundary of Alpharetta. • It is all one history. Travis Allen • He agrees and is a former board member of the Alpharetta Historical Society that had an old Milton County map. Looking at that map, 70% of it is now the City of Milton so it is a shared history. Councilmember Tart • As far as the sites and buildings and structures etcetera, one part of preserving our history is cataloging the families of the area and that type of thing and he does not see where that is mentioned. • He asked if that is something the society does or if it is something the commission should be charged with. Travis Allen • It has been done to a limited amount before. • There are a lot of families still here and he thinks it would be a vital part of our history to collect old stories or even written stories. • He thinks one of the first things the commission should do is re-inventory the area. • We have had structures demolished after the last survey and addresses have been changed to align with Fulton County’s 911 structure. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 5 of 19 Councilmember Tart • He asked if they should add a paragraph to the purpose under section 1 that addresses cataloging historical families and stories etcetera. Travis Allen • He would not be opposed to it. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • She would certainly support capturing oral histories as part of the forever history of Milton. City Clerk Marchiafava read agenda item #2. Discussion and Preliminary Recommendations from the Transportation Master Plan. James Fowler, Kimley Horne & Associates • Presented the following Power Point Comprehensive Transportation Plan Scenario Concepts Project Schedule y October 17th - Public meeting #2 Milton Roundup/Crabapple Town Hall Meeting will include an opportunity, jointly held with a community event, for the public to comment on needs and draft recommendations as well as the Crabapple recommendations. y Nov. 5th - TSAC meeting #6 / Public meeting #3 (Meetings possibly combined with TSAC or sequential in one evening) Present CTP recommendations. y Nov. 9th - City Council Work Session Discussion of final recommendation y Dec. 14th - City Council Work Session Presentation of Final Report y Dec. 21st - Council Adoption of CTP Equestrian Improvements y Focus on Milton Trail Plan in the NW section of Milton y Opportunity for equestrian trail along the AGL utility easement in NW Milton y Provide equestrian facilities at Birmingham Park y Create information page on City’s website Cyclist Improvements y Create information page on City’s website y Increased signage and striping - Share the road signs - Sharrows - Bike boxes y Bike racks at locations around the City y Include paving of shoulders or bike lanes with other roadway improvement projects Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 6 of 19 Improvements for the Disabled y Improve specific sidewalk /intersection location s identified by Milton Disability Awareness Committee - Crabapple Crossroads (ped signal timing and missing sidewalks / crosswalks) - Add sidewalk near the senior center on Cogburn Road - Signal timing at SR 9 & Bethany Bend and SR 9 &Webb Road - Add sidewalk on Webb Road between Cogburn Road & SR 9 y Possibly expand paratransit service Pedestrian Improvements y Expedite Milton Trail Plan around schools and commercial districts - Build on Safe Routes to School work y Crosswalks at intersections where sidewalk is discontinued Bridge Improvements y 4 Bridges identified as structurally deficient - Bethany Road over Cooper Sandy Creek - New Providence Road over Cooper Sandy Creek - Cogburn Road over Cooper Sandy Creek - Landrum Road over Cooper Sandy Creek tributary (currently in the short term work program) Transit Improvements y Possibly expand paratransit service y Dedicated bus lanes along GA-400 Additional Studies y Pavement Management Evaluation and Recommendations y Access Management Guide y Impact Fees y Crabapple Crossroads Christina Pastore, Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc. • In the month of August they held a Crabapple Charette with many members of the community to discuss some of their preliminary analysis as well as to understand and get feedback from the community on things that are important to them in the Crabapple area. • We had a stakeholder meeting for the Crabapple area to talk about what they heard from the community members as well as some of the additional analysis they did and some refined concepts for the area. • One thing they heard was the need for bypasses around the Crabapple Intersection. • They are hoping to take some of the traffic that is going through Crabapple and move them to other roadways that are more logical. • The focus is they want Crabapple to be a destination, not an area for cut through traffic. • In addition to some of the recommendations as part of the CTP, they also wanted to look at opportunities to make the intersection at Crabapple work a little better. • They heard over and over again opportunities for bypasses. • There are conceptual opportunities for bypasses around the intersection. • The want to find opportunities on the west side to formalize those connections and allow people to understand those connections exist. • Of course they would have to work with the residents of the area because those are redeveloping areas with new residential development. • There are no pre-existing opportunities on the east side so they looked at new opportunities. • On the northeast side, connecting from Bentworth to Charlotte and creating a new connection. • On the southeast side, connecting from Mid Broadwell to Broadwell somewhere in the vicinity in the south area. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 7 of 19 • By being able to make those connections around the intersection they have the opportunity to divert some of that traffic that is trying to turn and go elsewhere outside of Crabapple to get them away from the Crabapple intersection. • Approximately 30% of the traffic is coming through that intersection. • Another thing they heard is there is a lot of traffic at the school in the morning. • There was divided opinion about whether or not they should be adding new connections to the school. • They are concerned about security if new connections are added. • Understanding that they have not moved forward with recommendations to connect to the school. • They did do some observations during the morning and afternoon peak at the school. • There is a lot queuing going on particularly in the mornings on Birmingham and Freemanville with people trying to get into the school. • By widening the road and providing a little extra storage they can remove the cars that are currently causing congestion on the north/south roadways and bring them into the school area faster therefore getting rid of some of the congestion. • They discussed widening, adding turn lanes or even a through lane to help to remove that traffic. • They also heard about pedestrian connections and difficulty with crossing Crabapple Road. • Because of the discussion of Crabapple potentially becoming a village or town center and with all the retail development and residential development occurring, there is bound to be crossing traffic. • They took a look at Crabapple as it exists today. • This is a GDOT facility and as that you normally see quite a few turn lanes to help people get quickly into and out of the development. • In some sections there are three to five lanes of traffic which could be as much as sixty feet. • There is really no safe place to try and cross. • They took the same five lane cross sections and talked about thing they can possibly do there. • They have maintained the two travel lanes in each direction and the left turn lanes are very important. • The question is if the right turns are as important. • Some of them are very large and sweeping and there has been a lot of comment that people really fly in and out of the development and it makes it easy when you have a very large turn. • That talked about considering on street parking. • Some people are for it and some against but they thought it should be considered and would have to be a conversation with GDOT. • With the discussion of pedestrians trying to cross the street, they looked at potential for crosswalks in certain locations. • With crosswalks in addition to just striping them they should also consider things like asphalt crosswalks, asphalt paving. • It is a different color and it is also textured so it looks like brick pavers. • Additionally, we have also shown a median here just to talk about opportunities for pedestrian refuge. • Finally what we talked about after we were able to divert some of the traffic, were some opportunities for the Crabapple intersection. • We have aligned to the west and widened just to the west to avoid any impact on historic properties and by actually realigning a little further to the west we may have an opportunity to reconstruct the porch on the southeastern corner of that historic property. • We saw there used to be a very attractive porch on the front, realign the road a little bit may give us an opportunity to reconstruct that. • Additionally we have eliminated the southbound left turning movement and can potentially discuss relocating that to that northeast connection, that diversion, so creating opportunities for a median there and additional opportunities for pedestrians to have refuge crossing the street. • Additionally in the eastbound direction we have looked at removing the right turn lane that is there now because it is rather large and we also do not think it is as necessary and instead use that pavement to potentially add a left turn lane which we think is a more important use than the right turn lane. • We heard some people say they still wanted us to look more at the roundabout option. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 8 of 19 • There are some issues with the roundabout. • You would have to divert quite a bit of traffic in order to really make the roundabout work and that concerns us a little bit because roundabouts can break easily if you really overload it with too much traffic so we would need to make sure that the traffic was really and truly leaving that intersection. • Additionally there are some right-of-way impacts because the roundabout is a lot wider and would have some additional impacts to some of the properties. • Also with it being a very large pedestrian connection and with some of the children coming from the schools, roundabouts are a little harder to navigate from a pedestrian perspective so that is something else to consider with the pedestrian traffic. • Those are some of the considerations, we have left those both out on the table and are looking for public comment on those but in this point in time we are moving in the direction that we feel more comfortable with a standard intersection for a multitude of reasons. Councilmember D’Aversa • Asked if they had anticipated prioritizing these areas where the roundabouts are recommended. Faye DiMassimo, Kimley Horn & Associates • We are waiting to get through the next few comment opportunities. Joel Stone, Kimley Horn & Associates • As far as funding is concerned there is nothing new in that. • Every study he has been involved in ends up at the same place which is how to fund this program. • Most of the time it is the stumbling block, if it stops our plans, unless we have a package that you can say to others and to yourself, here are a small number of projects that we want to put our weight behind, political, social, technical, otherwise to get them done. • If in fact we were to go to the state, federal government or anyone else with a large package then they are just going to look at you like ok, you got to be kidding. Councilmember Lusk • Regarding funding, understanding that there is a discreet fund out there with the state and federal also and everybody is fighting for the same pot of gold to improve their transportation programs, what sets one application apart from another? Faye DiMassimo, Kimley Horn & Associates • The focus is that these broader improvements benefit everyone. • There are a few things that set aside any successful project application to GDOT in particular. • One is that your really do have a lot of the information that we have been developing here are very well thought out and very well articulated and anything and everything that could possibly play into that need whether it is congestion or safety, whether the safety relates to schools, whether you have high accident locations, whether you can talk about an environmental benefit that you are achieving as part of implementing the project, whether there is economic development associated with the project, any of those things that you can think of. • You really have to throw your full arsenal of anything and everything that is real that you can articulate about that project. • The other thing and this is just as critical as any piece of technical information that you have, and that is having someone who “owns” the project and is persistent, this is not a short process, it is not an easy process but they stay there and they get it. • The last thing that is critical is if you do have some resource commitment to make to the project, whether it is matching more than is required or anything where you can demonstrate that resource commitment. Joel Stone, Kimley Horn & Associates • The improvements have to benefit more than just the City of Milton. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 9 of 19 • If it is just for your residents then they are going to say, you may have to take care of that. Councilmember Thurman • We had heard that there is now federal funding for a roundabout. • She asked if they could expound a little about this new program, timeline, what is required of it and how it is the same or different from other projects. Faye DiMassimo, Kimley Horn & Associates • It is different because it is 100% federal aid and that gets everybody’s attention. • You do still have to have a roundabout study to go along with the project to be able to demonstrate that the roundabout will really work. • That is not like a special program per say, it is just a funding category. Councilmember Thurman • So would we be better off choosing two or three intersections that we felt were the strongest for roundabouts and pursuing those heavily with the federal. Councilmember Tart • The first question has to do with the recommendations that will be coming forth. • Your group knows more than anyone the areas of the city that are problematic and what could be done to fix those areas and you probably know more than anyone what the cost would be. • He asked if it is going to be as plainly put as that, as these are the top recommendations that we think Milton should do and these are the projected cost of making those changes so that we can have something to look at. Faye DiMassimo, Kimley Horn & Associates • We are going to make recommendations as to project prioritization and we are going to give you conceptual cost estimates. Councilmember Tart • In regard to the telephone survey, the City has also had city sanction surveys that we have sent out recently, especially with regard to downtown and where that downtown might be and he is eagerly anticipating the results of that survey so we can get started with that. • One of the questions has to do with residents having a favorable idea of developing a downtown area at Crabapple Crossing with a 78% supporting the proposal and 52 strongly supporting it and it is a scientific telephone survey, margin of error, plus or minus 5.5% and it was 200 residents that were surveyed. • When this question was asked to residents, was the downtown area defined as to what downtown meant or was it an area or a destination area, was it city hall - downtown means a lot of things to different people. Faye DiMassimo, Kimley Horn & Associates • There are a number of different places that are being looked at for the quote downtown Milton. • She thinks the question was phrased if other city services were located there for example the city hall and other court and those kinds of things because one of the things that during one of the Crabapple charette when we had some conversation about that a couple of the participants indicated a concern about well if there were a city hall there for example, if Crabapple just could not handle the initial traffic associated with that so one of the things we did just to help describe that was when we were out doing the observation and counts at the school and other counts and observation in the Crabapple area is we also looked at that Alpharetta municipal building and we took some counts associated with that to see how much traffic that generates because it is not in a peek period timeframe and we looked at that and determined that kind of activity really did not impose a huge additional traffic burden in that area. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 10 of 19 Councilmember Tart • In light of that survey that was sent out to citizens, if there are statistics that come back that are at odds with these statistics, what are we going to use? City Manager Lagerbloom • The question we asked in our survey was simply whether or not a city hall or a town gathering area was important to our citizens, so I do not know that there is necessarily going to be a conflict between the two surveys. • Obviously, I am comfortable with our survey and the fact that it was a valid survey. • We at this point have a preliminary draft in with results. • It will be for presentation hopefully at the November workshop. • The one that the City did with the national citizen survey that we just got the results back on asked for freeform questions that we could specify what they were and our question was simply on a scale of very important to not important at all, how important is it for you to have a city hall town center type environment. Faye DiMassimo, Kimley Horn & Associates • The reason we asked that question was because we were studying Crabapple Crossroads and looking at what all that area could be as a part of looking at the intersection. • We had to look at the land use and development potential, all those kinds of things with regard to the transportation infrastructure. City Clerk Marchiafava read the next agenda item. Discussion on the assumption used to develop the Comprehensive Land Use Plan. George Ragsdale, Chairman, CPAC • When we last engaged Council around the financial model, we talked a lot about assumptions and needing to get grounded on some assumptions that we felt it was important that all of you supported so we did not spend a lot of time developing a financial model on a faulty foundation. • We are in a position where the model is at a point where we are ready to use it but we want to make sure that we have common ground in terms of the assumptions we want to make. • There is no right or wrong here. • The model has the flexibility to change these at any point and time that Council has the desire to do that but in order to make this tool be effective for us and evaluating and recommending specifically where growth should occur as part of the comprehensive plan we have to get grounded in some basic assumptions that are going to help us guide what that growth is going to look like. • Presented the following Power Point. City of Milton Comprehensive Plan Financial Model Assumptions Revenue Assumptions • Baseline will be 2009YTD actual revenue annualized • Revenue will be recorded on an accrued basis – assumes we collect 100% of assessments in each calendar year • L.O.S.T. revenue, post-2010 census, will be equal to what it is today Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 11 of 19 • Escalation of property value assessments will be as follows: - 2009 (10%) - 2010 ( 5%) - 2011 ( 0%) - 2012 ( 0%) - 2013 and thereafter + 3.0% Expense Assumptions • 2008 Actual expenses, escalated at 3% per year • Discreet changes in staffing will be added (e.g. additional public safety personnel in 2010) • Capital cost inflation rate will be 4% per year Other Assumptions • Total parkland will be at target of 10 acres per 1,000 residents • Population growth will be 2% per year • Population growth will be distributed pro rata (a) by character area and (b) within each residential use within each character area • Commercial growth will be added once residential growth/distribution is complete • Number of residents per housing until will be 3.0 for all zoning classes • The value of high density residential property will be $210,000 and the value of multi-family residential property will be $150,000 Councilmember Zahner Bailey • If we can talk about the 2%, I realize you indicated that it is a little less than focus Fulton but what is the basis for the 2% other than it is less than what had been predicted by Fulton County. George Ragsdale, Chairman, CPAC • I think the number of different projections that we have looked at, we felt that they were all higher than we thought was in keeping in the kind of environment that we wanted to try and have. • In order to accommodate significantly more than that again we are about 30,000 now so you are talking about 50% growth over the life of this plan. • That is pretty significant growth. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Are we sure that 2% consistently every year necessarily takes into account the inventory that we already have that has not been absorbed. George Ragsdale, Chairman, CPAC • There is no right or wrong answer to that. • The last five years of growth has been higher than that but if you look at this year, the growth has been very low and who knows what it will be out in the future. • We have to start somewhere. It is just easier from a modeling standpoint to assume that the growth is going to be relevantly linear over time. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • In the first year or two would we not look at a flat rate rather than to assume 2% because again to your point as soon as we start making the assumption that growth is going to kick in now, it forces the perspective that there has to be more density to accommodate growth and if the growth is over stated we might then in turn over state some of the other. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 12 of 19 George Ragsdale, Chairman, CPAC • Do not jump to the conclusion that it means more density. • It will require what is available and zoned to be built out. • It does not mean it is going to be a different density than what is already zoned. Councilmember Lusk • He wanted to reconfirm that the cost projections include incremental cost increases for resources for staff. George Ragsdale, Chairman, CPAC • If there is something more that we need to build in other than the blanket escalation rate then we would need to do that as a separate item. • What we are talking about is building in increases in numbers of staff not increases in staff salaries. • One of the things we have talked about, one of the problems we are going to have with using the 2008 is to the extent that there are significant shifts in the way the expense side is managed going forward. • We have not built anything in to accommodate that because we have no way of knowing what that is or will be. • That can all be changed at whatever point and time you want it to be changed. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • A quick point about CH2M Hill and the fact that we know already that we are going to be transitioning obviously, knowing right now based on what you said is that the expense side includes the fully loaded lump sum and we already know that we are going to transition, based on the estimate of cost savings that we anticipate, would it not make since that these numbers go ahead and reflect some of those cost savings in this first iteration because we already know that we do anticipate some savings. City Manager Lagerbloom • It is a lot harder to reach out there and grab that number as to what that value of since makes but maybe George and I could talk about how we could potentially look at doing some of that to be realistic but conservative. George Ragsdale, Chairman, CPAC • My fear in doing that is that doing it at the bottom line probably has some credibility because you have some since of what savings you are expecting to get but the budget on the expense side is constructed on a line item basis so being able to go in there and say it is going to have this much impact on public works and this much impact on this and this much impact on that, my guess is you probably do not have that much level of detail at this point except as a conjecture. City Manager Lagerbloom • That is correct because what I have to deal with is one large lump sum contract and a portion of it is public works and a portion is community development but your guess is as good as mine as to what each of those departments cost. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • My request would be that we do not assume that we are going to continue to have the same expense level that is currently in there because it will start to impact these growth projections and the impact. George Ragsdale, Chairman, CPAC • When we come back with a model that says here is what this looks like based on these assumptions it will be easy to go in and just change the expense and ratchet it down by whatever that delta is. • You are not going to see it on line item but you will be able to see it in terms of gross revenue versus gross expense to see whether the gap is bigger or smaller. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 13 of 19 Councilmember Tart • His question was related to the anticipated savings from switching away from CH2M Hill and how that would be plugged into this model. • He understands we do not want to go bare minimum conservative on what that might be but at the same time we are going to be asked to approve this comprehensive plan. • He assumes that the model may affect the land use in the plan that is being presented to us and we will not fully know what those savings are going to be until after we approve that plan so even though we can change the model later, but that is after we have already approved a comprehensive plan with certain land uses in it. • The concern I have is that we might be approving a comprehensive plan that is based on assumptions that may be over inflated. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • She believes we are absolutely overstating our expense side if we leave the current lump sum amount for CH2M Hill. • Ultimately this is going to be used to drive what our land use policy should be and if we are going in to it with this first round knowing that we are over estimating our expenses, we are starting at a place we should not begin. • We have more current information and she believes we should use that. Mayor Lockwood • When we have current information they can work with the numbers and see where we come out. EXECUTIVE SESSION Mayor Lockwood • He apologized to those in the audience, but asked for an executive session with the purpose to discuss potential litigation, settlement and claims. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Zahner Bailey moved to adjourn into Executive Session to discuss possible litigation, settlement and claims. Councilmember Lusk seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion. The motion passed unanimously. RECONVENE Mayor Lockwood reconvened the Work Session. City Clerk Marchiafava read the last agenda item. Discussion on City of Milton transition plan with CH2M Hill. City Manager Lagerbloom • Presented the following power point presentation. Human Resources Department Benchmarks Detailed Transition Process for HR: This position has long been Action Steps Personnel Date Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 14 of 19 identified for immediate transition and, along with IT, represents the critical component to a smooth transition. As a significant portion of the City’s budget is personnel related, before bringing on several new public employees, it is imperative that Milton ensures that their HR component is well oriented to attract and maintain the staff the City will hire in the coming months. This transition is driven entirely by the hiring of a Director. There is little if any associated capital expense. 1. Identify Pay Band, Job Requirements and Benefits Lagerbloom/Inglis/Marietta August 2009 2. Draft Job Description, Post Position, Coordinate Hiring Process Marietta August and September 2009 Interviews in early September 3. Identify and Hire Candidate Lagerbloom September 30, 2009 4. Manage all hiring and recruiting for the transition process…. Trager (HR Director) October 1, 2009 through February 2010. Total Project Completion February-March, 2010. • The city has put together a transition plan to move from general government largely being contracted by a private company to that government which is self performing. • It gives a quick snap shot as to what departments transitioned at the beginning of what months. • We have already started some of it. I am going to start with human resources because it is one that we have transitioned at this point. Detailed Transition Process for the Milton Municipal Court: The transition of the Municipal Court is already in progress due to timely turnover in the Court Staff. This represents one of the least complex components of the transition and is driven entirely by the hiring of two clerks. There is little if any associated capital expense. Action Steps Personnel Date 1. Identify Pay Band, Job Requirements and Benefits Lagerbloom / Inglis / Marietta August 2009 2. Draft Job Description, Post Position, Coordinate Hiring Process. Marietta/ Marchiafava / Umphlett August and September 2009 Interviews in early September 3. Transition CourtWare – Umphlett April 2010 4. Identify and Hire Candidates Marchiafava September 30, 2009 Post-Transition – Ensure recompense from CH for N/A Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 15 of 19 unstaffed positions. Total Project Completion October 1, 2009 • Municipal Court has already transitioned. Parks and Recs Department Benchmarks Detailed Transition Process for Parks and Recs: The Director position will be filled as an increase in level of service over what is currently provided by the Contract. In order to alleviate the need for executive staff to manage the Parks program on a part time basis (as they currently do to supplement CH’s part time staff member), this position should be filled and transitioned fairly early, allowing more focus to be placed on the transition by the City Manger and his staff. Action Steps Personnel Date 1. Identify Pay Band, Job Requirements and Benefits Lagerbloom / Inglis / Marietta August 2009 2. CH2M Hill separates consultant. City to seek a short term month to month interim contract. October 3, 2009 3. Draft Job Description, Post Position, Coordinate Hiring Process Trager / Marietta August through October 2009 Interviews in early November 2009 4. Interview and ID Candidate Lagerbloom / Trager / Marietta Offer Letter by November 16, 2009 5. Start Date December 1, 2009 Post-Transition – Coordinate any IT and capital needs for Parks Department TBA TBA (Tentatively, November 2009 through February 2010) Total Project Completion October 15, 2009 • We have 74 applicants for our parks and rec director position. Communications Benchmarks Detailed Transition Process for the Milton Communications Action Steps Personnel Date Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 16 of 19 Department: The transition of the Communications Department is entirely human resource driven. This involves hiring a coordinator to maintain public communication during the transition. 1. Identify Pay Band, Job Requirements and Benefits Trager / Marietta October 2009 2. Draft Job Description, Post Position, Coordinate Hiring Process Trager / Marietta October 15, 2009 Interviews in Late October 3. Identify and Hire Candidates Lagerbloom / Trager / Marietta Offer Letter by November 16, 2009 4. Start Date December 1, 2009 Total Project Completion December 1, 2009 City Clerk’s Office Benchmarks Detailed Transition Process for the Clerk’s Office: The complete transition of the Clerk’s Office represents the mirror of the transition of the Court. Again, it is largely personnel driven, and the bulk of the concern in this project is the recruiting and hiring of two additional clerks. There is little if any associated capital expense. Action Steps Personnel Date 1. Identify Pay Band, Job Requirements and Benefits Trager / Marietta August 2009 2. Draft Job Description, Post Position, Coordinate Hiring Process Trager/ Marchiafava / Marietta October 15, 2009 Interviews in Late October 3. IT Transition Umphlett October 2009 through April 2010 4. Identify and Hire Candidates Marchiafava / Trager / Marietta Offer Letter by November 16, 2009 5. Start Date December 1, 2009 Total Project Completion December 1, 2009 Special Events Benchmarks Detailed Transition Process for Special Events: This transition Action Steps Personnel Date Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 17 of 19 involves hiring a coordinator to manage this aspect of the City’s administrative function. Not only will it involve a selection process, but also an assessment of the roles and responsibilities of the employee in this position based on current City needs. 1. Draft Special Events Job Description and Establish Nature and Function of the Position. Lagerbloom / Marietta November 2009 2. Assess Applications and Interview Candidates. Marietta / Trager December 2009, offer by December 18, 2009 3. Select Special Events Planner. Lagerbloom / Marietta January 1, 2010 Total Project Completion January 1, 2010 Finance Department Benchmarks Detailed Transition Process for Finance: There are two main components to the transition of the Finance Department: personnel and Software. The personnel issue is eased by the fact that the Director is already a City employee. The personnel hiring process will be managed by the new HR Director with the input of the Finance Director. The IT component will be managed through consultation between IT and Finance Directors based on the immediate needs for departmental operations (including receipting machines and other small capital expenses). Additionally, after the transition and based on issues identified in the IT analysis, a long- term assessment of the IT component will also be necessary as part of the total transition, but is more of an ongoing issue rather than an immediate need for self-performance. Action Steps Personnel Date 1. Identify Needed Positions, IT requirements and capital necessities. Inglis / Umphlett / Marietta October 2009 2. Draft Job Description, Post Position, Coordinate Hiring Process Trager / Marietta October 15, 2009, Interviews in November 2009 3. Bid/Procure needed contracts and IT licenses for necessary access to HTE and other capital support items for Finance. Inglis / Umphlett September through December 2009 4. Identify and Offer Positions to Candidates Trager / Inglis December 18, 2009 5. Reassess software needs. Inglis / Umphlett December 2009 through April 2010 6. Transition Date January 1, 2010 Total Project Completion January 1, 2010 Community Development Department Benchmark Detailed Transition Process for Community Development: This Department represents the largest number of employees to be hired during the transition. It also has a larger potential capital component than Action Steps Personnel Date 1. Identify Needed Positions, IT requirements Lagerbloom / Umphlett / Marietta October 2009 Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 18 of 19 any previous departments. Also, something may have to be done about GIS until IT is fully transitioned. Hiring can be directed by the HR Director and technology needs will be coordinated by the IT Director. Finally, we may have to purchase some vehicles for inspectors and code enforcement during this time. and capital necessities. 2. Draft Job Description, Post Director Position, Coordinate Hiring Process Trager / Marietta / Lagerbloom October 15, 2009. Interviews in Mid November 3. Bid/Procure needed contracts and IT licenses for necessary access to any needed programs identified by IT. Identify and procure any needed capital equipment (vehicles etc) for inspectors/code enforcement as needed. Umphlett / Marietta October through December 2009. 4. Advertise for Subordinate Positions Trager / Marietta / Lagerbloom December 1, 2009, Interviews in early January 2010. 5. Identify and Hire Director Candidate Trager / Marietta / Lagerbloom Offer Letter for Director by December 18, 2009, Start on Jan 6. Identify and Hire Subordinates Trager / Marietta / CD Director Offer by January 18, 2010 • This is the largest department that we have in the building minus the police and fire department. • It is a little bigger than public works today largely because public works has such a big outsource component. • We have this in a staggered transition. • We have a department director transition in this particular department a month before we have the rest of the department. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 19 of 19 Public Works Department Benchmarks Detailed Transition Process for Public Works: This transition will be largely driven by the bid and Procurement process for Public Works subcontracts. Personnel and capital needs will hinge entirely upon the success of the subcontract process. As a consequence, it is essential that this transition be engaged early so that a public option may be stood up at the end if necessary, A PW consultant will ease this part of the transition. All other aspects will be coordinated based on the bid -award process. Regardless, vehicles, IT and other small items may also be required for full performance, and therefore will be addressed similarly to the Community Development transition. Action Steles Personnel Date 1. Begin to identify and Lagerbloom September 2009 through February, 2010 bid potential privatized /Jones 1 sources for PW services 1 Marietta Hire PW Consultant. 2. Identify Needed Jones 1 December 2009 Positions, IT requirements Umphlett 1 and capital necessities. Marietta 3. Draft .fob Description, Trager / December 2009 and January 2010. Post Janui Post Position, Coordinate Marietta Late January. Hiring Process 4. Bid/Procure needed Umphlett 1 January and February 2010. contracts and IT licenses Jones 1 for necessary access to Marietta any needed programs identified by IT. Identify and procure any needed capital equipment (vehicles etc) and finalize all subcontracts 5. Identify and Hire Trager/ Offer by March 18, 2010 Candidates Marietta 1 Lagerbloom 6. Start Date April 1, 20I0 Total Project Completion April 1, 2010 • We have started two of our departments in the transition. • We have started them at the very beginning and they will live the length of the transition as well as be the Iast thing to transition. • Public Works is one of those and IT is the other. After no further discussion, the Work Session adjourned at 9:05 p.m. Date Approved: November 2, 2009 t e e R. Marchiafava, City CIerk Joe Lockwood, a r