City Council

27 WEST ALLEN STREET WINOOSKI, VERMONT 05404 (802) 655-6410 CITY OF WINOOSKI (802) 655-6414 (fax) RAYMOND COFFEY INTERIM CITY MANAGER MAYOR SETH LEONARD COUNCILOR NICOLE MACE sleonard@winooskivt.org DEPUTY MAYOR BRIAN CORRIGAN CITY COUNCIL COUNCILOR ROBERT MILLAR COUNCILOR BRIAN SWEENEY bcorrigan@winooskivt.org Agenda Monday, January 23, 2017 6:00 p.m. NOTICE CHANGE IN LOCATION CITY COUNCIL MEETING WILL BE HELD AT THE WINOOSKI PUBLIC WORKS DEPT LOCATED AT 200 GILBROOK RD I. Call To Order II. Executive Session: 6:00 p.m. a. City Manager Contract b. City Manager Contract with Jessie Baker III. Pledge of Allegiance IV. Public Comment V. Consent Agenda a. Approval: City Council Minutes of January 17, 2017 b. Approval: Payroll Warrant as of 01/01 – 01/14/17; Accounts Payable Warrant as of 01/20/17 c. Approval: Acceptance of Audit VI. City Update VII. Agenda Review VIII. Regular Items a. Discussion: Budget Presentation: Public Works – P Wernsdorfer b. Discussion: Budget Presentation: Capital – P Wernsdorfer IX. Executive Session: a. Winooski Hotel Group ACT250 Proposal b. Legal Matters X. Adjourn MINUTES The meeting was called to order by the Mayor at 6:02 p.m. The Mayor stated we will be going into executive session to discuss a. the City Manager Contract and b. the City Manager Contract with Jessie Baker. II. Executive Session: 6:00 p.m. MOTION by Councilor Sweeney seconded by Councilor Corrigan to go into executive session at 6:05 to discuss a. City Manager Contract and b. City Manager Contract with Jessie Baker. Voted and passed 4-0. The meeting reconvened at 7:09 p.m. followed by Deputy Mayor Corrigan leading the Pledge of Allegiance. January 23, 2017 Agenda Winooski City Council Members Present: Mayor Seth Leonard Councilors Brian Corrigan, Brian Sweeney, Nicole Mace, Robert Millar Officers Present: Ray Coffey, Interim City Manager; Carol Barrett, City Clerk; John Audy, Code Enforcement Director; Angela Aldieri, Staff Accountant; Kirstie Paschall, Interim Community Services Director; Heather Carrington, Community and Economic Development Director; Peter Wernsdorfer, Public Works Director; Others Present: Paul Sarne, Paul Rabidoux, Jessie Baker, Kate Dingle, Murphy Sullivan & Kronk; Jen Colton, Bryn Oakleaf IV. Public Comment - None V. Consent Agenda MOTION by Councilor Mace seconded by Councilor Millar to approve the consent agenda as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. VI. City Update Mr. Coffey said we had a parking meeting last Wednesday and it is progressing, Brian, Robert and the stakeholders were there. We are also continuing to work on the budget. VII. Agenda Review - None VIII. Regular Items a. Discussion: Budget Presentation: Public Works Mr. Coffey said we should be in good shape. This is very similar of what you’re seen from a formatting perspective. To be clear we are going to talk through the operating budget from General Fund to start and then will move into the capital budget separately. Mr. Coffey said there are a lot of enterprise funds that operate within the public works sphere, and this is not the only funding for public works that will be discussing and those will come along in the spring as well, water and wastewater. We will be back next Monday at City Hall to wrap it all up and come to some conclusions about budget decisions. Mr. Wernsdorfer recapped what the Public Works Dept. has been doing through out the year. FY2017 Outcomes -Streets – We completed the reconstruction of Railroad Lane, Maple St. segment between Main St. and Weaver St. and Lapointe St. between Lafountain St. and Gamelin Ct. These streets have been re-classified as new assets. It’s opportune in the way that we are launching the asset management program over the next couple of months. This will be one of our first entries of actual records that we haven’t made up or tried to figure out what came first. -Added a new dump truck and sidewalk plow using the lease model. -We were successful in applying for a transportation alternative grant from VTRANS for the Winooski Burlington Bridge for the sidewalk/railing reconstruction. Burlington has also obtained the same grant and we also have money in our reserve fund in sidewalks. We have about $70,000.00 we can put in and they have about $50,000.00 and with grant funds we will have about $500,000.00. The repairing of the railing and decking will extend the life of the bridge about 10 years and given that, as we enter into next year, we enter into the scoping study with CCRPC that’s about a 10 year cycle before we are ready to replace the bridge itself. - We also pioneered a capital project. We did a concrete streets pilot project which was the joint sealing that we did on Main St. We learned a couple of things; 1. It was very effective, 2. It’s not anything like what we need and 3. It was expensive and we are going to tack that up as experience. - We are also about to hire a new EOII operator into the staff. He said this is about to get filled soon. January 23, 2017 Agenda Winooski City Council -Facilities and Grounds- we completed the first phase of the dog park, office rehab at City Hall and the Police Dept. conversion of locker rooms and evidence rooms. - We commenced the lighting rehab on the River Walk. It consisted of removing the bollards and returned it to the paver brick surface, that’s complete. The next step is to do something about the lighting that’s on the River Walk. - We completed Lot D parking improvements for CCV to have access to that lot and this absorbed some of the strain on the garage. -We completed the school route markings. This is the second year in a row we have managed to get all of the route markings on the way to school done. This will become an annual task. Councilor Sweeney asked if it was marking the route on the ground. Mr. Wernsdorfer said they were marking cross walks and putting up signage. - Engineering Services – We participated in the space program study and that was a joint effort for everyone at leadership. We completed the fiber access route to City Hall, OBCC and the Garage. We are currently in discussion with several vendors bringing the fiber connection up to the Gilbrook site, so we can have an actual network connection to City Hall. -We completed the digital conversion project. This is every plan in the City that is relevant to our current situation, is now available electronically and searchable in the google drive. Nicole Raub spent months on that and did a great job. -We are participating in the VT Rte. 15 sign replacement project with VTRANS. The extent of the project is from the Winooski/Burlington Bridge to Cambridge. The City only has a small segment of it. -We began a project that is called Ancient Roads and Rights of Way and Street Acceptance. We have a number of places in the City where we have old roads that have been mapped and go through people’s homes or backyards. We need to resolve this. How we come about finding these things is when people apply for a building permit and we research and find that out. This project will be pretty involved and we will need legal review. This project will come to you before summer. -Circulator – We were involved with the safety improvements of the circulator even though it was VTRANS project, and that project has been moved to completion. FY2017 Plans Mr. Wernsdorfer said for the remainder of 2017 we will complete the Orchard Terrace reconstruction in its entirety. We have a project on Malletts Bay Ave. at the Colchester line that’s assigned for traffic calming and also some pedestrian safety. Facilities and Ground we are going to complete phase 2 of the dog park, Memorial Park we will be working with Community Services extensively trying to get the level of debris cleaned up. We also have to move on with the roof at the fire dept. weather permitting. In the next couple of weeks we will be doing energy efficiency and some exterior work at the Senior Center. We will be hiring an EOII for Facilities; this position was approved prior to the beginning of the fiscal year. We are also hiring a project manager for Engineering Services; we just finished the 1st round of interview and will be doing a 2nd round next week. Mr. Wernsdorfer presented the DPW General Fund Budget. – See attached. Mr. Wernsdorfer explained the budget and also went through the 10 line item roll up. He also discussed the add/restore items. The cuts in salaries is due to vacancy savings, office/general supplies feels pretty comfortable, vehicles & equipment and maintenance is shifting to the lease model Department of Public Works Organizational Structure – See Attached. General Fund Revenue Budget Adjustments See Attached. This consisted of office and general supplies to a pool and also shifted all non-regulatory training requirements to Administrative Pool, budgeted utilities based on historic use and reduced vehicle maintenance. Mr. Wernsdorfer said the General Fund request for the Department of Public works is a “level-fund” budget proposed for FY2018 in the amount of $1,140,433.42. Add/Restore Items (2nd Penny) – See Attached. Mr. Wernsdorfer said these all fell below the 2nd penny line. Mr. Coffey said it’s actually the 3rd penny line. Mr. Wernsdorfer said he has ranked them by his priority. We need to put some money into tree care. He said we are moving in the direction of Tree City USA and moving to a plan for managing our urban forest. He said we are working with the Rubenstein Center and our goal is to become a tree city. We need to make some changes on how we manage it; 1 is to form a tree commission, 2 we have to have a tree warden and we are working on that right now. We also have to have funding for tree care. In this years budget we have $1000.00 and with our size and population and income levels we would need about $4500.00 at a minimum to qualify for that program. Last year we budgeted $1000.00 for tree care and we spent close to $9600.00 and we were very careful on how we spent that money. January 23, 2017 Agenda Winooski City Council This recommendation was based on Warren Spinner doing a health check along with CCRPC. Mr. Coffey said this was an add recommendation from last year. Ms. Aldieri said the Facilities Maintenance is a restore for FY018 and the Operations Assistant is an add for FY018. The Mayor questioned the Operations Assistant. Mr. Wernsdorfer said we have some clerical needs up at the shop that we can’t quite address because we don’t have anybody to do the work. Right now we share Kris with John and Rick. I would like to establish a regular presence for that with the asset management coming on line and with the changes that are coming with the TMDL. It doesn’t need to be a full time person, but that is what we are requesting. If we get the right person we could do it in a ½ to ¾ position. Mr. Coffey said from an organizational level there is a pretty strong need for administrative support. Organizationally we are still understaffed in that area and this is an example as to try to get that corrected. Mr. Millar said the list that we have on the add/restore we have two tree care options: $6500.00 and $15000.00. Mr. Coffey said the $6500.00 was an effort to get closer to that $9600.00 that he referenced. Last year we had a lot of tree care we need to do, so the $1000.00 was spent and that is why there is two and obviously we wouldn’t want both, one is an add and one is a restore. Ms. Dingle, a resident at the Cascades said she thought the downtown association was supposed to contribute to at least the landscaping in the TIF district. Ms. Aldieri said the only money that we received from the downtown association is reimbursement for the hanging baskets during the summer. Mr. Wernsdorfer said the trees that are in the downtown that are inside the TIF are reimbursed by the TIF. Ms. Aldieri said they are paid out of the downtown maintenance and the TIF does reimburse us for associated cost. Councilor Sweeney wants to know if we need to budget for specific trees and if we have those available funds for those specific trees. Mr. Coffey said that would be an operating budget question when we get to the TIF budget in the spring time. Mr. Coffey said this is for non- TIF trees. The Mayor said there is no mention of the transportation plan from an execution stand point. The projects list that you have on there, are some of those items reflective of what came down through the master transportation plan or are more of those landing in the capital budget. Are we backed up where we are not able to work on those yet? I know a grant was submitted. Mr. Wernsdorfer said the grant we submitted was for the crossing signals, that was one of the items that was identified in there and one of them is in the current UPWP with CCRPC. The scoping study for the bridge, the intersections the street scape improvements, the grant application for the crossing signals and the pedestrian/bicycle bridge is now in scoping. These are all identified in the transportation plan. Mr. Coffey said we are checking off some things in that plan. I think where we need to move next and we haven’t in these last six months is to get that back to the planning commission. b. Discussion: Budget Presentation: Capital – See attached. Mr. Coffey said for many years we have been doing our capital planning from a financial perspective. We are looking at spreadsheets of dollar figures and looking at the bottom line and making operational choices about some of the capital projects. We don’t at this point have a sophisticated way operationally planning for capital that’s a recognized gap and this is why we are getting an asset management system on board and on line. I think next year you will see a very different capital budget presentation for a host of reasons. There has been a lot of thought that went into this project that were selected. This wasn’t purely a fiscal exercise; there was some operational thinking that went into this. Mr. Wernsdorfer presented the capital budget. He said it would be considerably different next year. We are currently working off a financial model. He said we get a lot done but nobody can point out to the priorities that begin and end. We sometime start projects and we stop to go do something else. He said we are converting to operational model which we will have in about 6 weeks. He said the FY018 budget for capital is $461,269.71 of which $268,640.82 is revenue with 192,628.89 in debt service ($110,664.18 in street reconstruction bond and $81,964.701 in equipment leases). Ms. Aldieri said those are existing equipment leases and any new equipment leases are not included in that number. The Mayor asked if the debt service was all blended together. Ms. Aldieri said all debt service is together, it includes all bonds, all leases. She also said if we establish a debt service fund we’re either going to have to split the capital money into a debt service fund or vote to have additional tax rate to establish a debt service fund. She said we had talked about capital leases would stay in the capital fund, any bonding would be separate. Mr. Coffey said Angela pulled together the FY014 Detail Tracking. He said we have been talking about allocation versus spending on capital. Any of the grayed out items are projects that have been completed in that year. You have FY014, 15 and 16, just to see what work has been completed, also attached is a sheet with reserves as of the end of 2016, those were projects that had funding allocated to them that had not yet been finished. Mr. Coffey said what this service shows you is that from dollars budgeted to dollars spent we are actually doing well. Some of these projects are taking more time perhaps at points. I think this comes back to project management need. Mr. Coffey said in terms of the items in the current year that are budgeted are all relatively straight forward. The Mayor said this body at this juncture is less involved in the decision making process in that. Its decisions that are being made at staff January 23, 2017 Agenda Winooski City Council level and what they can accomplish. It will be interesting to see us line up everything that needs to be done in the City. We need to do a better job at that. Mr. Wernsdorfer asked what your impression of the Asset Management System was. The Mayor said he thought it was very positive. It was very conceptual and very different from for example: Firehouse where we actually got to see the data. The Asset Management system was an interesting presentation and it will be interesting to see it function. IX. Executive Session MOTION by Councilor Mace seconded by Councilor Corrigan to go into Executive Session at 8:10 p.m. to discuss; A. the Winooski Hotel Group ACT250 proposal and B. Legal matters and to invite Kate Dingle, Attorney and Ray Coffey into executive session. The Mayor will recuse himself from the Winooski Hotel Group ACT250 discussion and no action will be taken only to adjourn the City Council meeting. Voted and passed 4-0. MOTION by Councilor Millar seconded by Councilor Corrigan to adjourn City Council meeting at 8:46 p.m. ATTEST:___________________________ City Clerk January 23, 2017 Agenda Winooski City Council