Past City Council Meetings

Fruita City Council Minutes 1 December 15, 2015 FRUITA CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING DECEMBER 15, 2015 1. INVOCATION AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE The Invocation was given and the Pledge of Allegiance was recited. 2. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Council members present were Bruce Bonar, Mel Mulder, Kyle Harvey, Stacey Mascarenas, Joel Kincaid and Bob Fuller. Mayor Buck called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. Mayor Buck asked if there were any corrections or additions to the agenda. City Manager Mike Bennett stated that there were not. 3. AGENDA – ADOPT/AMEND • COUNCILOR BONAR MOVED TO APPROVE THE AGENDA AS PRESENTED. COUNCILOR MULDER SECONDED THE MOTION. THE MOTION PASSED WITH SIX YES VOTES. 4. PROCLAMATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS There were no Proclamations or Presentations on the agenda. 5. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION Mr. Brad Taylor, Co-Chair of the Riverfront Commission said that he came to the meeting to formally thank the current and past Fruita City Councils for all their support of the Riverfront Trail Project, which has been going on over the span of 28 years. He said the trail system was designed to link Palisade with Grand Junction and Fruita and the Riverfront Commission recognizes the fact that the City of Fruita, Mesa County, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) have worked together to create the Monument View section of the trail, which has now connected the City of Fruita to the City of Grand Junction. Mr. Taylor said the Commission will continue to work to connect to Palisade in the future. Mr. Taylor added that the Riverfront Commission also wants to continue the trail to the west and he knows that City staff and the City Council have been doing a wonderful job keeping things moving in that direction. Mr. Taylor said he was also present to formally recognize Councilor Bob Fuller for his efforts and service as a voting member on the Riverfront Commission for a number of years. He said that Councilor Fuller’s input has been very valuable and the Commission has enjoyed their time with him. He presented Councilor Fuller with a Colorado River rock engraved with the words “Love That River” and a certificate of appreciation from the Riverfront Commission. Fruita City Council Minutes 2 December 15, 2015 Frank Ladd, Director of the Fruita Area Chamber of Commerce approached the Council and thanked City staff and the Council for working with the Chamber throughout the year. He said things have been working really well and he just wanted to show the Chamber’s appreciation. Councilor Mascarenas said that Fruita has a unique situation with the collaboration between the City and the Chamber, especially since Mr. Ladd has been on board. There were no more comments from the public. 6. CONSENT AGENDA A. MINUTES – A REQUEST TO APPROVE THE MINUTES FROM THE NOVEMBER 17, 2015 CITY COUNCIL MEETING B. LIQUOR LICENSE RENEWAL – A REQUEST TO APPROVE THE RENEWAL OF A BEER AND WINE LIQUOR LICENSE FOR THE HOT TOMATO CAFÉ AND PIZZERIA LOCATED AT 124 N. MULBERRY STREET C. BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS REAPPOINTMENT – A REQUEST TO APPROVE THE REAPPOINTMENT OF BILL HOLSTEIN TO THE ARTS AND CULTURE BOARD FOR A THREE-YEAR TERM TO EXPIRE IN DECEMBER OF 2018 D. RESOLUTION 2015-33 – A REQUEST TO APPROVE A RESOLUTION APPROVING AN INTERGOVERNMENTAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF FRUITA AND THE COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION FOR DESIGN OF THE KOKOPELLI RIVERFRONT TRAIL PROJECT E. RESOLUTION 2015-34 – A REQUEST TO APPROVE A RESOLUTION TRANSFERRING FUNDS FROM THE FLEET MAINTENANCE FUND CONTINGENCY ACCOUNT FOR PERSONNEL SERVICE EXPENSES IN THE FLEET MAINTENANCE FUND F. NOVEMBER 2015 FINANCIAL REPORTS – A REQUEST TO APPROVE THE NOVEMBER 2015 FINANCIAL REPORTS AND REVIEW OF THE OFFICE OF STATE AUDITOR LETTER Mayor Buck opened the Consent Agenda for public comments, of which there were none. Mayor Buck brought the Consent Agenda back to the Council for any comments or questions. • COUNCILOR KINCAID MOVED TO APPROVE THE CONSENT AGENDA AS PRESENTED. COUNCILOR FULLER SECONDED THE MOTION. THE MOTION PASSED WITH SIX YES VOTES. 7. PUBLIC HEARINGS Fruita City Council Minutes 3 December 15, 2015 There were no public hearing items on the agenda. 8. ADMINISTRATIVE AGENDA A. CITY MANAGER MIKE BENNETT 1) RESOLUTION 2015-35 – A REQUEST TO APPROVE A RESOLUTION TO PARTICIPATE IN JUMP START COLORADO, WHICH AUTHORIZES BUSINESS PERSONAL PROPERTY TAX CREDITS TO ELIGIBLE RURAL JUMP START COMPANIES UNDER COLORADO REVISED STATUTES 39-30.5-106 Kristi Pollard, Executive Director of the Grand Junction Economic Partnership (GJEP) gave a PowerPoint presentation on the Colorado Jump Start Program. She said that the City of Fruita has been very involved while GJEP was working on the legislation during the past legislative session. The Governor signed the legislation into law in May of 2015. Mrs. Pollard said she was pleased to announce that the Office of Economic Development has promulgated the rules and so Mesa County is pushing forward to participate in the program. Mrs. Pollard displayed a chart that depicted the job growth across the state of Colorado, which illustrated that Grand Junction’s growth rate is one of the lowest in the state at 5.3% (lagging way behind the majority). She also showed real estate figures across the state and Grand Junction is also at the bottom for home prices. Mrs. Pollard explained that Jump Start Colorado is a proposal to spur employment and economic development in economically distressed areas. The statute defines what an “economically distressed area” is by taking into consideration criteria such as the local Gross Domestic Product, the unemployment rate, number of students on free and reduced lunch and a variety of other figures. Jump Start Colorado provides a tax free environment for qualifying businesses for up to eight years if the local governments opt in to the program. Those different reliefs come in the form of state income tax, state sales and use tax, county business personal property tax, municipal business personal property tax and state income tax for employees. Mrs. Pollard stated that in October of 2015, the Economic Development Commission went through all of the criteria to determine which counties in the state would be eligible to apply for the Jump Start Colorado program. 45 counties across the state of Colorado actually fit the criteria for a distressed county, including Mesa County. Mrs. Pollard noted that the urban core areas of the state are the ones that are booming while the counties on the outskirts are still recovering slowly from the downturn in the economy. The requirements for qualifying businesses under the Jump Start program include that the business must bring in net new jobs. A new job is defined as a start-up, not yet operating business in the state of Colorado, a business based outside of Colorado not currently operating in Colorado, a new joint venture between companies which may or may not be currently operating in Colorado, and/or Fruita City Council Minutes 4 December 15, 2015 a newly created division of a company that may or may not be operating in Colorado at the time it creates the division. Mrs. Pollard went on the say that the new division does not need to have a separate tax ID number or corporate structure from its parent. This is one of the components that makes Colorado Jump Start unique from the New York program, which is known as Start Up New York. Qualifying businesses cannot be operating in the state at the time it submits its application to a state institution of higher education to participate in the program. Qualifying businesses also cannot move existing jobs existing in the state into the rural jump-start zone. The businesses must have a least five new hires over the first four years and those employees must be full time and at 100% of the average county annual salary, which is just a little over $40,000. The business cannot be substantially similar in operation to and cannot compete directly with the core function of a business that is operating in the state at the time the new business submits its application to participate. Mrs. Pollard stated that not every company is going to quality for the program, but there are number of companies that do qualify and there are a whole variety of research and development, start-up companies and high-tech companies that are either here that might be able to create a new division or companies that the program can use to recruit from outside the area. Mrs. Pollard said that another important component is that as a local jurisdiction, Colorado Mesa University and the Grand Junction Economic Development Partnership would work with local municipalities to make sure that a business would add to the economic base of the community; they want to make sure the businesses are a good fit. Types of Qualifying Companies that will be targeted include: • Advanced materials • Manufacturing • Biotech and life sciences • High Tech companies Non-Qualifying Companies include: • Retail • Wholesale Business • Restaurants • Accounting Firms • Law Firms • Real Estate Management • Hospitality • Retail Banking • Utilities Fruita City Council Minutes 5 December 15, 2015 Mrs. Pollard pointed out that the Jump Start Program does have a Competition Clause that basically states that a business that is eligible for the program cannot directly compete with a business that is currently operating within the state of Colorado and there will be a public posting process that is part of the application whereby the business will submit as part of their application an “elevator speech” that describes the core operation of their business. The state will post that description (but not the name of the company, which will be confidential at that point) at the state and local levels giving existing business the opportunity to let the state know if they feel like the business will be competing with them. Mrs. Pollard stated that the program is not designed to create an unfair advantage for existing businesses; it is an attempt to recruit new, innovative businesses and jobs here in the state. Mrs. Pollard turned the presentation over to Derek Wagner, Vice President of Colorado Mesa University. Mr. Wagner said he and the university could not be more excited about the legislation and the program because they feel it is a great opportunity for them to interface with businesses when they are first looking at the community and to try to make connections early on between their workforce needs and the school’s academic programs. Mr. Wagner noted that according to the statute, an Institutions of Higher Education are very prominent in the process in terms of a lot of work on the front end by going through some due diligence with companies with the local economic development agency (GJEP) to really go through things like the competition clause and also mapping connections between the company and the role and mission of Colorado Mesa University. He stated that CMU is a regional comprehensive university; they cover northwest Colorado and fourteen counties and they are excited about the Jump Start Program because they have a unique role and mission in so far as they have both a community college built in (Western Colorado Community College) and then four year and graduate programs at CMU. Mr. Wagner said that as CMU looks at being able to make those connections with companies, he thinks there is a lot of opportunity at the certificate, associate, baccalaureate and graduate degree levels to make those connections between the CMU faculty and the companies. He said CMU is really looking forward to moving forward with the Jump Start Program. Mrs. Pollard displayed a PowerPoint slide showing which Institutions of Higher Education will be eligible to apply and be part of the Jump Start Program. In Mesa County, GJEP would work with CMU and in an area like Garfield County, they would also have the opportunity to work with CMU and Colorado Mountain College. In the Montrose/Delta area, they would have the opportunity to work with their technical college in addition to CMU. Mrs. Pollard said it really is a great opportunity to get students into internship programs and mentorship programs and to really keep the young brain power that’s coming out of the schools by providing them with jobs and resources as they go on into their professional careers. Mrs. Pollard said that what is going to happen over the course of the next couple of weeks is that the Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT) is going to select three counties in Colorado to be a part of the Jump Start Program for the first year (2016). The statute calls for the Fruita City Council Minutes 6 December 15, 2015 program to begin slowly during the first year and then starting in 2017, all 45 of the counties will be eligible to apply. Mrs. Pollard continued that what the Economic Development Commission will be looking for is they want to know that the Institution of Higher Education has the resources to quickly launch the program and that they have a point person that’s going to be helping with the administration of it. They also want to know that the county is on the list of eligible counties and that they are willing to participate. The statute requires a resolution from the county. Mrs. Pollard said that the Economic Development Commission will also want to know that the municipalities are willing to participate. She said in some counties, all municipalities might not want to participate, but the more municipalities that do will add strength to the application. Mrs. Pollard said they will also want to know that there is a pipeline of businesses willing to participate. She said that in Mesa County, there are six businesses that GJEP is working with currently; two of them will be ready to go into the application process as soon as they are able, which GJEP has heard will be January 19th. Four additional businesses are finalizing parts of their business plan and anticipate applying to be part of the program in the late first quarter or first part of second quarter in 2016. Mrs. Pollard continued that the Economic Development Commission also wants to know that all of the parties (the county, the municipalities, the economic development folks and the higher education folks) are all working collaboratively arm in arm and not in a hodge-podge sort of way. They also want to know that the parties will have the ability to launch the program quickly. Mrs. Pollard said that on Thursday, December 17th, CMU will apply to be part of the Jump Start Program. They will include with their application resolutions from the county and each of the municipalities that have opted into the program. CMU will submit the application to the Office of Economic Development and the Economic Development Commission will act on the application at their next meeting on January 13, 2016. At the point in time that Mesa County is selected to be one of the eligible counties, then the businesses will be eligible to start applying. The link for businesses will be available on January 19, 2016. Mrs. Pollard said that for Mesa County, the businesses will come either to CMU or GJEP. CMU will put the application through the system and will have the opportunity to approve or decline the business and GJEP will have the opportunity to come back to the municipalities to ask if a certain business would fit within the community design, goals and mission. Mrs. Pollard stated that ultimately, OEDIT staff will review the application, do the public posting, conduct an in-depth review to determine whether or not the applicant is directly competing with an existing business in Colorado, and then they will make a recommendation to the Economic Development Commission for approval or denial of the business. In any instances of gray area, the Economic Development Commission is the agency that will make that final determination. If there are companies that come forward and say that an applicant would Fruita City Council Minutes 7 December 15, 2015 be competing directly with them, the onus is upon the applying business to prove that they do not compete with that business; it’s not CMU’s or the local jurisdiction’s job. Mrs. Pollard noted that the City Council had a resolution in front of them for consideration. She added that the statute requires for a county to participate in the program at a minimum, it has to agree to rebate or waive the business personal property tax, but anything above and beyond that is at the discretion of the local jurisdiction and can be handled on either a case-by-case basis or through a resolution. City Manager Mike Bennett stated that the proposed resolution drafted by staff basically opts the City of Fruita into the Jump Start Program and it also adds onto what Mesa County is doing; the City would waive the business personal property tax as well. He said he wanted to make the point that as the City goes through the process of adopting the resolution and opting into the Jump Start Program, it still gives the City the opportunity to approve or deny a company’s application if the City feels the business is not a good fit for the community. He continued that with the aggressive efforts that the City Council has been supporting and staff is working on in partnerships with GJEP and the Chamber and other partners, that the Jump Start Program is a great tool. Mr. Bennett added that with all the incentives in the resolution that apply to companies that meet the qualifications, the City still has the ability to offer additional incentives such as impact fees, property tax or sales and use tax if it wishes. Mr. Bennett said staff is looking forward to what the program may bring in addition to prospects. He noted that the City has been fortunate to start having a number of companies contact staff to have discussions about Fruita and he thinks that Jump Start will only add to that. Mr. Bennett said it was staff’s recommendation that the City Council approve the Resolution opting into the Jump Start Program. He noted that the Town of Palisade and Mesa County have approved resolutions and the City of Grand Junction would be considering adopting one the following evening at their regular Council meeting. Mr. Bennett said he believed Grand Junction’s plan is to opt in as well. Stacey Mascarenas asked if the business that would be applying were all existing businesses and not new businesses. Mrs. Pollard explained that a business can be one of two things: it can be a new business (new to the state of Colorado or just a start-up in general) or it can be an existing business that would create a new division that would not compete with anything else that’s happening within the state. She gave an example of Lockheed Martin, who is operating on the Front Range, but their satellite division is in California. If they decided to relocate their satellite division to Mesa County, they would qualify because there are no companies within the state of Colorado that are manufacturing satellite. Mrs. Pollard continued that a division is not a recognized legal term within Colorado law; it’s an accounting function for the business. The law does not require them to create a new corporation or a separate company, but they do have to show the state (when they send in their taxes for the Fruita City Council Minutes 8 December 15, 2015 rebates) that the employees that are getting the income tax rebate are solely working within that division and any of the materials that are getting the waiver on the sales and use tax are being solely used within that division. Councilor Mascarenas asked if Jump Start Colorado was the same program that New York state implemented years ago. Mrs. Pollard responded that the program is similar to the one in New York; the idea came from Start Up New York, but with Colorado specific additions. The New York legislation requires that the businesses be within a 10-mile radius of the Institution of Higher Education or even on campus. The other thing that’s different for Jump Start Colorado is that New York does not allow existing businesses to expand utilizing the program. Mrs. Pollard said there are a few other modifications, but those were the major differences. Councilor Mascarenas said that perhaps the Council could look at the success of New York to get an idea of how well the program works. She asked if there were any other measurements of success from any other states that have participated in a similar program. Mrs. Pollard responded that New York is the only state that she is aware of that is participating in a program like this and that she would be happy to share the report from New York with the Council. She continued that New York’s pitfall was that along with the legislation, there came a huge fiscal note when the state allocated millions and millions of dollars for marketing the program, so the return on the investment was not great. She said there were certainly a large number of jobs that were created (over 1,000 in the first year), but New York even advertised during the Super Bowl, which had to be very expensive. Mrs. Pollard noted that this is another thing that Colorado is doing differently with its program; no fiscal note was added to it and the decision was that each of the local communities will market the program using what funds they have available. Mrs. Pollard said New York has had some good successes with their program, but it is highly politically charged because it was the Governor’s initiative and there is an opposing party that has all kinds of feelings about it. Mrs. Pollard noted that no one has even started marketing the Jump Start Colorado program yet, but there are already six businesses that are qualifying for the program, so she thinks that there will be a real return on the investment and that GJEP will certainly come back and report to the City Council as that information becomes available and as other businesses come through the pipeline, she will be in constant communication with the City to ensure that they would be a good fit for the community. Councilor Fuller asked if Mesa County and CMU are not chosen to participate in the program in the first year, does that mean that the six businesses will go away? Mrs. Pollard responded that yes, a couple of them might look to another county, but a couple of them are local individuals. One of them is an expansion of an existing business that would be standing up a unique division, so she wouldn’t anticipate them leaving the area. The other one is a gentleman that grew up in Palisade and he wants his business in Palisade and she thinks he will Fruita City Council Minutes 9 December 15, 2015 move heaven and earth to do what he can to keep it there. She added that without the program, however, it would be a much slower ramp up for his business plan. Mrs. Pollard stated that she believes that Mesa County will be one of the ones selected because the partners from this area have been very intimately involved with the state on the development of the legislation and the processes and because GJEP and CMU believes that they have a very strong application. She said CMU is ready to roll, Mesa County has offered a variety of incentives, Palisade is on board, hopefully Fruita and Grand Junction will be too, and there are the six businesses that are really innovative, high tech manufacturing businesses that show some real potential for job growth. Mrs. Pollard said the other thing that the application requires is that the companies contractually obligate themselves to establishing a certain number of jobs. After four years, the companies have to create at least five jobs to be eligible for an extension on the rebates for an additional four years. She said the businesses she has talked to have said that they will have five new jobs in the first year, so it will be an easy threshold for them to overcome and they are looking at many more jobs than that in future years. Councilor Fuller asked what the timing and process will be for the county and municipalities being made aware of where the new companies may want to locate. Mrs. Pollard said the process would be very similar to what GJEP does with current prospects. The company comes in and they give GJEP their business plan and describe what their needs are. GJEP then reaches out to all of the local realtors to find available properties. She said the businesses may shop around based on incentives that the county and municipalities have. Mrs. Pollard added that she believes that each of Mesa County’s jurisdictions have a very open mindset to economic development and for a good business, each jurisdiction will be willing to consider additional incentives. She noted that the Council would be able to evaluate prospects on a case-by-case basis and tailor an incentive package based on the business. Councilor Fuller asked that if Mesa County is one of the counties selected, would there be a limit to the number of companies that could be brought into the program in the first year? Mrs. Pollard responded that the statute calls for a limit of the number of employees, which is 250,000, so she is not too worried about that. • COUNCILOR MASCARENAS MOVED TO APPROVE RESOLUTION 2015-35 – AUTHORIZING BUSINESS PERSONAL PROPERTY TAX CREDITS TO ELIGIBLE RURAL JUMP START COMPANIES UNDER COLORADO REVISED STATUTE 39-30.5-106. COUNCILOR KINCAID SECONDED THE MOTION. THE MOTION PASSED WITH SIX YES VOTES. Councilor Mulder stated that having been involved in the inception of the Fruita Greenway Business Park and having been involved in a variety of incentives that have been proposed in the past and after hearing Mrs. Pollard speak of Lockheed Martin perhaps relocating to the Fruita Greenway Business Park (which he said would be really nice), he was voting definitely yes. Fruita City Council Minutes 10 December 15, 2015 9. COUNCIL REPORTS AND ACTIONS A. LOGO CONCEPTS DISCUSSION Councilor Kincaid said he received an e-mail from Josh the previous week regarding the students not having a clear direction after they received feedback from eight or so Council and staff members. He said the students are at a standstill, so he and Josh discussed looking at the font style first because this is what most people are looking at. They then talked about once a font has been decided upon, then an icon to go with it could be discussed, such as a gear shape or a circle or something that would go with the font. Councilor Kincaid said he and Mr. Bennett had also talked about the possibility that the icon could even change depending on what the usage is, but it would still fit within the same theme/style. Councilor Kincaid said he wanted to see if the Council could narrow down the font to three to five choices. The students will be back from break on January 5th, so Councilor Kincaid said he was hoping to be able to give them some direction at that time. Mr. Bennett showed samples of fifteen different black and white fonts designed by three or four students on the overhead projector. Mayor Buck suggested that the Council go over each font style one by one and note how many like each one to narrow down the selection. Mr. Bennett stated that picking something like a logo can be a very drawn out process. He said he thinks the font is an important aspect and his proposal would be to narrow down the font first and then some kind of “frame” could be discussed (such as the gear) and then there could be a number of icons that could be placed in the frame. Mr. Bennett added that Fruita’s uniqueness could be shown a little bit in the font, but maybe not something that is way out there. The font and the frame would be consistent, but then icons such as a dinosaur, raft, bicycle, horse, headless chicken or others could be added depending on how the logo would be used. Mr. Bennett suggested that the Parks and Recreation Department could use a soccer ball to market their soccer programs, for example. He said this would be the unique thing about Fruita’s logo because it just isn’t seen normally. Mr. Bennett said that all the icon options could be on the website for people to see and perhaps businesses could even use the City’s logo and adapt it to theirs. The Council and Mayor went over the font styles one by one and stated which ones they liked. They narrowed down the choices to five (#2, #7, #10, #11 and #14) and then further narrowed them down to three (#7, #10 and #11). Mr. Bennett said another thought he had was to maybe keep the font and the gear black and white and the colors would be in the icons only. Mayor Buck asked that Councilor Kincaid give Josh the comment about the letter “a” in font #11. Fruita City Council Minutes 11 December 15, 2015 Councilor Mascarenas noted that in all of the top three choices, the letters were in all capitals. B. COUNCIL REPORTS AND ACTIONS COUNCILOR FULLER Councilor Fuller stated that he did not anticipate having a contract on his house in Fruita until the first or second week in January, so he would be available and willing to serve on the City Council through the month of January unless there were any objections. Mayor Buck thanked Councilor Fuller and said that was a great thing. She asked if Councilor Fuller wanted January 19th to be his last official meeting and he could skip the workshop. Councilor Fuller said that worked fine for him. Councilor Fuller asked if somebody could enlighten him as to what the situation was with the baggage car so that he could pass that information on to the Lower Valley Fire Department. Mr. Bennett said he thought the Historic Preservation Board was interested in putting the car on city property near the fire station (Councilor Bonar confirmed this to be correct), and the putting one of the signs near it like those downtown that have a historic picture and a description. He said currently, the baggage car is still on city property by Dinosaur Journey. Councilor Fuller said the only thing that was a potential concern in discussions with the Fire Department was whether there was a line of sight issue on the property. Councilor Bonar stated that Community Development Director Dahna Raugh had raised that question at a Historic Preservation Board meeting and he has heard nothing further about anyone doing any measurements to determine whether that concern was valid or not. Public Works Director Ken Haley said he did talk to Mrs. Raugh about that issue; she felt that the baggage car could be located where it did not obstruct the sight triangle and she was working with the Historic Preservation members to come up with a plan on where exactly it would go. Councilor Fuller stated that the Fire Department will be doing its remodeling of the drive area in March of next year after learning that they did receive a Federal Mineral Lease grant. He said he was assuming it would make more sense to do the rehabilitation of the area before the baggage car gets moved. COUNCILOR KINCAID Councilor Kincaid reported that the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board discussed the golf tournament fundraiser that will be held on Friday, April 8, 2016. The Board is looking for sponsorships. The Fruita Rotary Club is the Title Sponsor. The fees are $75 per golfer and $250 for a team of four golfers. The Board is looking for volunteers to put items in swag bags that will be given away along with some other raffle prizes. Fruita City Council Minutes 12 December 15, 2015 Councilor Mascarenas asked if the sponsorship forms have been created and if they were online. Councilor Kincaid said that the forms are at the Fruita Community Center but he didn’t know if the forms were online or not. He said he would find out. Councilor Kincaid also reported that the Parks and Recreation Activity Guide just came out and included four advertisers, which raised $1,500 to go towards the cost of producing and mailing the guides. One of the advertisers paid for all three issues at once. Councilor Kincaid stated that he, Mr. Bennett and Human Resources Director Odette Brach met with Paul from Cobb & Associates to go over an initial plan with the new budget for them. He said Paul is on board for using their strengths to do what they are good at. The other thing that they discussed was the conversion of the tourism website (gofruita.com) and the Mike the Headless Chicken website over to the platform that the City of Fruita is now using. Aha Consulting gave a estimate of $3,000 each to do that. Councilor Kincaid said that the website maintenance for Cobb & Associates for the next year is $1,500. He said the new websites could be paid for in less than two years’ time and city staff can update them. Mr. Bennett explained that the websites would not be redesigned and they would still have their same web address, but technically behind the scenes, they would be extensions of the City of Fruita’s website. He said that right now, the City relies on Cobb to make the website updates. He continued that the Mike the Headless Chicken website doesn’t require a lot of updating and city staff is very familiar with the platform and will be able to keep the main updates going. Mr. Bennett said that the City will have to work with Cobb & Associates during the course of next year to determine what pieces they will still be responsible for such as video content and marketing ideas. He added that he thinks this is something that staff will look at and talk to the Tourism Advisory Board to do comparison. One of the proposals made to the City this year was to redesign the tourism website for $8,000 when it was only two years ago that the City spent about $10,000 to redesign gofruita.com to generate more traffic and make it mobile friendly. Councilor Kincaid said that it didn’t make sense to spend that much money every couple of years and the preference would be to get the websites on the same platform as fruita.org. Councilor Kincaid noted that the Tourism Advisory Board would not be meeting in November or December due to the holidays, but he and Mr. Bennett have been meeting with Cobb & Associates so that they can present their budget to the board in January for approval. COUNCILOR MASCARENAS Councilor Mascarenas reported that she had a really good Chamber meeting the previous week. Julia, the curator with the Museum of Western Colorado is representing south side Fruita and will be coming to the Chamber meetings every month. She added that the group is really getting strong. Fruita City Council Minutes 13 December 15, 2015 Councilor Mascarenas stated that the Daily Sentinel owns the Fruita Times trade name, but the Nickel is looking at possibly picking it up and producing a newspaper twice per month starting out. The Nickel needs a large anchor advertiser to make it work, so they have approached Family Health West. Councilor Mascarenas also reported that the Children’s Nature Center has decided to stay in Fruita for a little while longer because the property that they were looking at in Grand Junction didn’t work out. Councilor Mascarenas stated that the Chamber’s Business After Hours would be held on December 17th at Alpine Bank. Councilor Mascarenas noted that the Chamber now has an opportunity for its members to take part of the “Switch” energy program, which is based upon gas consumption. The program is typically geared more toward commercial accounts than residential, but if a customer uses enough gas, then Xcel Energy can go out to the marketplace and see if they can broker a better deal for the customer. Family Health West is currently working with Xcel Energy on their many facilities and once the analysis is done, Councilor Mascarenas said she thinks the City needs to look at it also. City Clerk/Finance Director Margaret Sell responded that the City already has a broker for gas. Councilor Mascarenas responded that Family Health West does as well, but they are contending that they are only seeing a 5% to 7% savings with their current broker, but with the Xcel program, they may be able to see savings of 15% to 20%. She added that the Chamber would be getting a percentage of the savings from those businesses participating in the program. Three Gold’s Gyms and some US Bank franchises are examples of energy customers that are now in the program. COUNCILOR HARVEY Councilor Harvey noted that the Arts and Culture Board did not have a meeting in December. MAYOR BUCK Mayor Buck stated that the Parade of Lights was really nice and had an impressive turnout. She also said she has heard so many comments from people who have said that the City’s Christmas lights and decorations downtown are the best they’ve ever been. She commended the Parks and Public Works Departments for doing such a good job. Mayor Buck asked what is going on with the Howitzer cannon because people have been asking her. Mr. Bennett said when he last inquired, the cannon was back at the powder coating company. The people representing the Veterans group wanted to pay for the powder coating but that hasn’t happened yet. He said that staff has at least heard that the cannon should be coming back to the Civic Center Memorial Park when that occurs. Fruita City Council Minutes 14 December 15, 2015 10. CITY MANAGER’S REPORT Mr. Bennett stated that he and Public Works Director Ken Haley met with the Grand Valley Drainage District (GVDD) Manager, Tim Ryan the previous week to go over the preliminary bills for drainage and to provide feedback to them. The purpose of sending the bills out was so that the City could look at them and see if staff had any questions. Mr. Bennett said the GVDD has been pretty responsive about making changes, such as removing the lagoon property from the list of properties being billed. He continued that he and Mr. Haley submitted some questions that the GVDD will review and will get back to the City regarding various parcels throughout the City such as trails. Mr. Haley stated that the GVDD’s billing is based on the Mesa County Assessor’s database. The GVDD went through all the non-residential parcels to analyze the amount of impervious areas on all of those parcels and plans to send out bills on those. Mr. Haley continued that the City of Fruita has a lot of parcels, tracts, out lots, and right-of-ways that staff received bills for, so staff is trying to figure out which bills are valid. He said the drainage fees will impact more municipalities and other agencies than just the City of Fruita, so staff is also trying to make sure that everybody is being treated the same way. Mr. Bennett said that in regards to the Pro Challenge bike race, staff had a meeting with Jennifer Stoll with the Sports Commission and if the race does come through the area, there will be a lot of flexibility with the route of the race. The Sports Commission has said that they would like to see the race come through the Fruita area. Mr. Bennett added that if the race does come to fruition, it will be one of the few races where it will start and end in the area, which is different than a lot of places where they just go through. The Sports Commission will likely be asking Fruita for in-kind support for traffic control and those kinds of things. There would also be opportunities for Fruita to consider putting funds toward vignettes highlighting the Fruita community for the national television coverage. Mr. Bennett said that this is one of the bonuses of this kind of event; the local communities get to help write the talking points for the announcers. He added that potentially, a portion of the race would come near or through Fruita and there could be very good national advertising opportunities. Mr. Bennett stated that there is a press conference scheduled for Friday, December 18th at 10:00 a.m. at the Innovations Center at CMU regarding the Jump Start Colorado Program. Mr. Bennett said that he and Mayor Buck are planning to attend and that the other Council members are invited as well. Mr. Bennett said that Julia McHugh (with the Museum of Western Colorado) has joined the R.I.T.E. team and has a lot of good ideas and will be a good addition to the group. Mr. Bennett noted that regarding the “16 Trails in 2016,” staff received a questionnaire from the state to have follow up questions answered. He said there were a number of submittals for the Riverfront Trail because Palisade, Grand Junction, and Fruita all sent them in. Fruita’s submission focused heavily on the Kokopelli section of the trail. Mr. Bennett said that when staff talked to the state about it, they asked if the state wanted separate submissions from each of the jurisdictions or if they preferred to have a submission from a combined voice. The state did want a combined voice, Fruita City Council Minutes 15 December 15, 2015 so Fruita’s Parks and Recreation Director Ture Nycum took the lead in writing the narratives while Grand Junction did the maps. The narratives included statements about the Riverfront Trail as a whole as well as the Kokopelli section that Fruita is now working on and the two gaps in the trail (one in Grand Junction and one between Grand Junction and Palisade). Mr. Bennett said the submission went out earlier that day and he felt very good about the quality of it. Mr. Bennett said that the Priority Based Budgeting Program will begin in January. The first thing that the consultants are asking is for a one-hour orientation via teleconference and webinar format with the City Council and leadership staff. He continued that on January 19th, staff foresees the agenda being fairly light, so he suggested that when the meeting is done about 8:00, the orientation could be done right after while everyone was all together instead of setting a separate meeting. After the orientation, there will be a few months of staff work before it will come back before the Council, which will work out timing-wise with having new Council members on board working on the goal setting process. Mr. Bennett asked if there was consensus among the Council to schedule the orientation for January 19th at 8:00 p.m. There were no objections and Mayor Buck said she appreciated not having to come in on another night. 11. ADJOURN With no further business before the Council, the meeting was adjourned at 8:21 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Debra Woods Deputy City Clerk City of Fruita