City Council Operations Committees

Council Committee COUNCIL OPERATIONS DATE: Thursday, April 4, 2024 TIME: 4:00 PM PLACE: City Hall Conference Room 210 N. 27th Street Billings, MT - ATTENDANCE: Mayor/Council: Bill Cole, Kendra Shaw, Mike Boyett Staff: Chris Kukulski ADJOURN TIME: 4:47 PM Agenda PUBLIC COMMENT ON ANY AGENDA OR NON-AGENDA ITEM (3 Min.) TOPIC #1 Status of sale agreement for sale of city hall and surface parking lots and plans for move to new city hall PRESENTER Chris Kukulski NOTES/OUTCOME There have been no issues with the sales agreement according to Kevin Iffland and Joe Honaker did sign the sales agreement. Mr. Honaker is aware that TIF monies can be used for Public and Private funding and that public funding could take priority over his project. The goal is to move into the new City Hall in August of this year. The first move should be planning department which is in the Miller Building as the county wants to move forward with their remodeling. Concerns about the move: Storage of records in the current City Hall haven’t been transferred to electronic. We lost the records person last week. We may have to rent a storage facility or perhaps rent from the new owner of the city hall, Mr. Honaker. The county is still interested in the rest of the 3rd floor of the new city hall. Tax credits are the problem preventing the county from an outright purchase of the 3rd floor. TOPIC #2 Status of May election regarding Local Government Review Commission and possible education efforts PRESENTER Committee 1 NOTES/OUTCOME Conversation centered around: 1. What should the council do? 2. The city can only provide education. Should Victoria give this education? What information can and should she present? 3. Council members can (individually) promote the vote. TOPIC #3 Recap and continuation of February discussion concerning possible policy defining amount and use of discretionary city council expense accounts PRESENTER Committee NOTES/OUTCOME We, the council, have a expense budget of $13,500 for the 10 members. The mayor has his own budget. Bill suggests that we make the budge $15,000 so that the council members would each have a $500 credit card and then have a travel budge of $10,000 or $1,000 per council member. The credit cards would be used for coffee and luncheons. etc. for constituents. All receipts would be given to Wynnette according to the city’s standard practices. Bill Cole stated that he will work on a draft of this proposed policy. TOPIC #4 Review of March 2024 retreat process and recommendations for future implementation or consideration PRESENTER Committee and city staff NOTES/OUTCOME We all thought the retreat was very good. Having Gavin running the meetings was found to be better than having an outsider. We all like the two half days rather that one full day. The BSED building was also a nice place for our meeting. Centrally located and quiet. We all agreed that the council should continue to have retreats and possibly having one each year. Discussion continued about what staff should be given time to speak. TOPIC #5 General discussion of priorities and process to be followed in reviewing and recommending possible changes to City Charter and BMCC 2-211 et seq. governing city council operations PRESENTER Committee and city staff NOTES/OUTCOME At our next meeting we need to review the current city charter. We need to review the process if voters approve the ballot and come up with possible recommendations. 2 TOPIC #6 Future meeting dates and agenda topics PRESENTER Committee and city staff NOTES/OUTCOME We will look at Chris Kukulski’s review material at the next meeting. Mike Boyett will bring the most current updated review. Once we complete a new review, it will be given to the council to approve. There will be a group of people going to Grand Rapids, Michigan sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. This trip will be June 11-14. PUBLIC COMMENT ON ANY ITEM NOT ON THE AGENDA BUT WITHIN THE SCOPE OF THE COMMITTEE: (3 Min.) 3