Informational Meeting

MINUTES Tuesday, April 23, 2013 Informational Meeting 4:00 PM at Carnegie Town Hall Sioux Falls City Council 235 West Tenth Street Members Present: Sue Aguilar, Kenny Anderson Jr., James Entenman, Michelle Erpenbach, Greg Jamison, Dean Karsky, Rex Rolfing, Kermit L. Staggers Members Absent: Mike T. Huether Staff Present: Denise D. Tucker, CMC, Assistant City Clerk; Lorie Hogstad, CMC, City Clerk; David Bixler, Budget Analyst; and Jim David, Legislative/Operations Manager 1. Call To Order 2. Land Use Committee A. Report on meeting held Tuesday, April 16, 2013 City Council Member Rex Rolfing said the committee discussed the Facade Easement Program. He said they received a good report, and the information that they wanted, from Brent O'Neil, Economic Development Manager; David Bixler, Budget Analyst; and Paul Bengford, Assistant City Attorney. Rolfing said they decided to pass the information on to Council leadership. He does not know if it will go to the full Council. Erpenbach said the Facade Easement Program is the subject of a bus tour on the Informational Meeting of May 7, 2013. She said the tour is open to the public. 3. City Council Open Discussion Erpenbach said team leaders from the Emergency Operations Center were present to give an update. Mark Cotter, Director of Public Works, spoke about Operation Timber Strike! He said tree removal and trimming of trees will continue for several weeks to come. Cotter showed a chart with first pass mileage slide. He said the first pass cleared 815 cumulative miles. He displayed a map, which is available online, showing what areas have had a first pass and what areas are next. Cotter said 35 local arborists were hired to get the program started. He spoke about the multiple branch drop off sites. Cotter said they are now transitioning from hourly contracts, which were used to pick up the first pass, into bids. A company named Ceres, who works all over the country doing this type of work, had the low bid. Cotter said a monitoring company was hired to track Ceres' and the arborists work for FEMA purposes, in case there is a Presidential declaration. Don Kearney, Director of Parks and Recreation, spoke about a map, which is also  on the City's website, which provides residents with a status update on the recovery of the park system. He said they are asking residents to stay out of the parks marked in red, on the map. Kearney said they have a priority system set up and the bike trail is open. Discussion followed. City Council Member Greg Jamison said he read in the Business Journal that the Costco property sold for $4 million. He said this caught his attention because they passed TIF 17, which was for 30 acres, of which 15 acres was sold to Costco. Jamison said we provided a $4.9 million TIF for that project. The property owner paid $2.1 million for land and sold half of it for $4 million. The other half of the land will be used for apartments. Jamison said the sale of the land wouldn't have been possible without the TIF, but perhaps the Council should take another look at the TIF since they now have additional information. Discussion followed. Erpenbach assigned the discussion of TIFs to the Land Use Committee. 4. Presentations A. 2013 Citizen Survey Results by Tracy Turbak, Director of Finance Tracy Turbak, Director of Finance, said the survey provided a lot of good information and positive feedback from the public. He provided a recap of the survey, explained why it's done and the methods used. Turbak discussed various benchmarks of the City. Turbak said the survey included three custom questions. He reviewed those results. Council Member Kermit Staggers asked how much the survey cost. Turbak said $22,000. Jamison asked why a press conference was held yesterday regarding the survey. Discussion followed. 5. Adjournment Erpenbach said there would be a City Council Working Session following this meeting. She adjourned the meeting at 5:18 p.m. Denise D. Tucker, CMC Assistant City Clerk