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HomeMy WebLinkAbout08/23/1995 Special Council Meeting MinutesI. CALL TO ORDER Mayor Honea called the Meeting to order. Time: 7:07 p.m. II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Led by Mayor Honea III. INVOCATION Led by Mayor Honea IV. ROLL CALL COUNCIL Ed Honea Sharon Price Tom Clark Ora Harn Herb Kal Cheryl Millner Bobby Sutton, Jr. Mayor Vice-Mayor, excused Council Member, excused Council Member Council Member Council Member Council Member, excused TOWN STAFF Hurvie Davis Sandy Groseclose Dan Hochuli Roy Cuaron Brad DeSpain David R, Smith Jerry Flannery John Siath Hugh Holub Town Manager Town Clerk Town Attorney Finance Director Utilities Director Chief of Police Planning and Zoning Administrator Town Engineer Water Attorney APPROVAL OF AGENDA A motion was made by Ora Harn, seconded by Herb Kal and carried unanimously to approve the agenda as written. VI. CALL TO THE PUBLIC Joe Riley, 3229 N. 1st Ave. Tucson, AZ: He held a meeting last Wednesday and some of the Council Members and Staff attended. The "A' frame sign issue was discussed. He looked at the Tucson Sign Ordinance, it is fairly restrictive, This may be a solution to the Town, to make a very restricted Sign Ordinance for these signs. He will leave a copy of the Tucson Sign Ordinance with Council. VII. GENERAL ORDER OF BUSINESS A. Discussion/Action on current and future annexations of the following areas for the purpose of filling in islands and squaring up the Town Boundaries: Tangerine Road north of Pinal. County Line; Rffiito/Happy Acres and surrounding area; Town Limits south past Sunset Road and west past Silverbell Road; Orange Grove Mobile Home Park; Flowing Wells and any other area within or next to the Town's proposed Ultimate Boundary. Hurvie Davis: The Town has grown from 10 square miles when it was incorporated to just under 70 square miles today. The Town has initiated only one of those annexations. Within the last year Council appointed a Sub-Committee to deal with annexations, as a result we came up with the Ultimate Annexation Boundaries for the Town limits. They also put in place priorities as to areas that we needed to address. There are islands in the Town which lead to considerable confusion for different Departments. We continue to have other property owners and so forth come to the Town inquiring about annexation into our Community. We have had a number of meetings with interested parties from time to time. Mayor Honea: He is heading the Annexation Task Force. He is looking for direction from the Council before the Committee expends time or money to make sure that we are acting with the blessing of the Council. If you will look at the map you will see a green area marked Sunset group, the majority of that is Helen Wheeler's property and also the Kal family has a piece of property as well. Both of these individuals have expressed an interest in being annexed into the Community. Orange Grove Mobile Estates is also interested in becoming annexed into the Town. This is a community of about 200 families right across the street from the Town Hall Annex. We need to seriously look at what we want to consider for our Community. We need to make some plans and start setting some things into action. We have talked to the Flowing Wells Fire Department regarding annexation of 35,000 people. If we just sit back and watch one of these days Oro Valley is going to be at Ina and Thornydale and Tucson is going to be at Thornydale on the other side. Ora Harn: This past month she went back to her home town and attended a high school reunion. One of the couples there have a winter home on Cortaro Farms Road. When she found out that I was the former Mayor of Marana she was upset over Marana taking the business area around her but not the residential areas. She thought about it afterwards and she feels that the Town needs to go up along Thornydale Road. These people provide the Town with a tax base by shopping in the business area but are not entitled to the services the Town has to offer. Her concern is that we spend some time getting some input from some of the surrounding communities, whether they would want to be annexed or not into the Town of Marana. Hugh Holub: He has lived in Tucson since 1954. He has been involved with the Town of Marana since 1980 representing the Wong family. If you look at Maricopa County with over 2 million people, there is approximately 100,000 people that live in unincorporated areas. In Pima County there is over 300,000 living in unincorporated areas. This happened because everywhere else in Arizona the municipalities try to anticipate their growth, and they use their water and sewer utility control as the means to make sure that the growth occurs inside the limits. If you want to develop your property you have to go to the nearest city or town to get your water and sewer systems. As a consequence you have Maricopa County pretty well included in cities and towns. The State Revenue Sharing is based on population inside city or town limits, most people live in cities and towns. Other than Pima County there is no county in Arizona that would remotely try to do what Pima County has done. You need to look at when it is to the Town's advantage to bring people in, do you get enough money out of the Revenue Share to provide services. If you have people knocking on the doors to get into the Town, have a plan and be ready for it, if we don't Tucson will come into the area. Mayor Honea: He is looking for direction from the Council. He believes the City of Tucson is going to make some massive attempts to grab the Northwest side, it's a newer part of Town with a high tax base. It is time for the Town to start looking seriously at annexing some of these areas. Ora Harn: We have got to get busy and do whatever annexations we are going to do during this time. Herb Kai: He agrees with Mayor Honea and Council Member Harm We need to also look at the people who do not want to come into the Town of Marana. Charles Rucker, 3402 W. Cantaloupe: His Community is interested in being annexed. The advantage to annexing Orange Grove Mobile Estates is that we own our own roads. Our 2 main concern is security. The cost to the Town to provide services would be basically police protection. Hurvie Davis: He talked to the Chief regarding Orange Grove Mobile Estates. The Police Department would patrol the private streets in the complex. Sherry Miilner: She thinks we should talk to the people and find out what they want to do. Hurvie Davis: Over the last year he met with Oro Valley along with then Mayor Ora Ham. At that time it was discussed and brought out that there had been a gentleman's agreement between Marana and Oro Valley over the years that Shannon Road would be the dividing line. On working on the ultimate boundaries for the Town, we had some input from the Marana School District. They had recommended to us that they would like the boundary made at Shannon Road which is the boundary for the Marana School District. He then contacted Oro Valley and said for these reasons we would like to define Shannon Road as the boundary, the Town Manager of Oro Valley said they have no problem with that. It is a soft line and the people can go whereever they decide to go. They have not modified their boundaries to go back to Shannon Road, it is still at Thornydale. Ora Harn: Mr. Davis and I both discussed the corner of Thornydale and Tangerine, on the southeast corner, that is Forest City property. Forest City is the group that built the Tucson Mall. She feels it is really important that we catch that area so somebody else can't take that from us. Forest City is capable of putting a mall there at some time that would be advantageous to the Town. Roy Cuaron: We really need to look at the economic benefits that accrue to the Town before we provide services to any annexed area. One of the things we should do before we do an annexation is an economic analysis that shows the income we would get and the costs to us. One of the things, particularly along the Thornydale area that is of concern to him is the infrastructure improvements needed due to growth. We have to have a stable revenue base to provide services in those areas until such time as commercial development occurs. Mayor Honea: Most of the areas we are talking about are either in the Flowing Wells or Northwest Fire Districts so we would not be involved in fire protection. They are not on city garbage collection, they are with private companies. Most of these areas are also built out, they are urban, the infrastructure is in place. If we are too restricted and afraid to take in the people who want to be part of the community it's going to hurt the Town in the long run. We have also talked about the slx areas within the Town boundaries that need to be filled in. We are getting some good response from the Avra Valley Airport. Herb Kal: He is concerned with Rillito and the social service programs provided. Ora Harn: Most of the social service programs are the responsibility of Pima County. That is the one thing that has been so frustrating in the County is that most counties have mandates to do certain social service programs. Dan Hochuli: We are talking about the outlying annexations and he would also like to remind Council of some of the infill that has been discussed. The Town Magistrate has been talking with the Department of Public Safety about the traffic citations that are written by DPS on the freeway. He would like the citations written into Marana's Court instead of the Justice Court. The complaint we understand from the DPS officers is that they can't tell when they are in Marana or not. We might want to consider among the infill areas some of the freeway. The other comment he would like to make goes to a much larger issue. We talk about the necessary infrastructure for Tangerine Road improvements. He recently had a meeting with Steve Betts and talked about Red Hawk doing some of the improvements. When we talk about some of these areas where there is not infrastructm'e there is alternative funding mechanisms for that. Hurvie Davis: The counties in the State of Arizona are not established to be an urban service provider. If we were to annex Mr. Rucker's community with 220 homes, with say 2 people per household, that would give us $88,000.00 a year in State shared revenues that they already pay that goes to the State. The money does not come back to Pima County. We are going out next month and doing a special census, which will more than double our population. Regarding vacant land, you need to look at what that land will be doing in the future. If it's in the Town we have an opportunity to say how the development is going to be, also the taxes that would be generated. Hugh Holub: The Town has begun to absorb some business areas and we also have a Chamber of Commerce, the Town should have a business friendly attitude. There is enormous business opportunities available, the business community is the Town's biggest asset. You need to look at how to finance improvements, you do this by getting businesses to locate in Marana instead of someplace else. Mayor Honea: He thinks the indication is that Marana should be pro-active within reason. Ora Harn: An annexation is a lot of ~vork, we need to form an annexation committee. She has talked to neighborhoods about annexation and whether or not their home owners' association would pass out the annexation petitions. We don't have the manpower that Tucson has to send people up and down the street. Mayor Honea: Some of the fire departments, Northwest and Flowing Wells have offered to help as well. Dan Hochuli; When Oro Valley did their big annexation they hired an outside person. He would like some direction from Council on what he believes may be a conflict between the Development Code and how the guidelines are being drawn up. After we record a blank petition we have to have a Public Hearing within 30 days, after that 30 days we can start gathering signatures. Our Development Code has a clause in it which says that annexations are to be approved, or a recommendation on the annexation is to be given to the Council from the Planning and Zoning Commission. State law says there needs to be a Public Hearing, it does not say by the Council, it just needs to be a Public Hearing. In the City of Tucson they record the blank petition, hold the Public Hearing and then the Council votes on whether staff will go ahead with it or not. Apparently if the vote is not to go ahead with it, it dies. There's a couple of options, one is to have the Planning Commission leave the Code the way it is and draft the guidelines; or have a Public Hearing done in front of the Commission. The advantage of that is the way the Code currently is, Council gets the recommendation. The disadvantage is that the Council never sees the annexation until the Planning Commission has had the Public Hearing. It does not make sense to have the Planning Commission do the Public Hearing because that keeps the issue from the Council until the signatures are gathered. We could amend the Development Code so that clause is removed and the Public Hearing would be in front of the Mayor and Council. It could still be brought before them somewhere during the process and they could give a recommendation to the Council. Ora Harn: We don't need to get tied up in a lot of bureaucracy. She would be in favor of taking out that clause and the Council would handle the annexation Public Hearings. Mayor Honea: We will start actively talking to some of these neighborhoods. RECESS B. Marana MunicipaI Water System Operations and Planning, including Revenues and Costs; Assured Water Supply, Purchase of Public and Private Systems. Wholesale Purchase of Water, and Status of Intergovernmental Agreements and Water (~)uality (Continued from 8-16-95 Special Council Meeting} Hurvie Davis: We left off at the August 16, 1995 meeting with not a very bright picture concerning the water system. How do we continue to make the necessary capital improvements to the system. The discussion was to take the $150,000.00 in CDBG funds for the Community Center plus the local match and switch it over to the water system. He personally supports this decision, there is a real urgent need to do something with the water system. Brad DeSpain: There are a few things he would like to point out before he gets into the numbers. Item 5 ~ the interconnection with Cortaro Marana Irrigation District/Cortaro Water User's Association he may have left Council with the impression that this might be an easy thing to do. This is something that we can talk about and there is a lot of potential, but it may be hard to sell to their Board. The other issue he wanted to mention is that he has worked fairly diligently on the interconnection and will be continuing to do so. The interconnect between the east and west wells listed as priority #1 was at a cost of $30,000.00. The second priority was the west well storage tank replacement. He has talked with Mr. Brown in Phoenix and he still has the tank available. If we want to make a deposit he will hold it for us, he did not commit to that. He feels that we should do that to keep a hold on the tank. The interconnect with Cortaro Marana was listed third at a cost of $45,000.00, if we can do some selling. Item #4 was the second booster pump at the east well was $5,000.00. Also listed was perhaps the electrical panel to hook up a generator to the pumps for emergencies. Those are the preferences that Council gave to Staff. One other thing that occurred is the nitrate problem which has been encountered in the Honea Water System previously is surfacing again. We had a high reading in June and July, we feel that the lab mixed those samples up. They show them to be on the east well. We have not received the official notice for August at this point and we have two choices. Once we receive the notice we can either re-test in twenty fours hours or we can send out a letter. He recommends sending out a letter. We may have to look at some of our priorities because of the nitrate problem. We can get by with putting a letter out for now, but the biggest problem is that the letter has to say some things that are very alarming to some people. The best process we could do to correct this problem is a filtration process. The only problem you have with that is there is reject water and about 10 - 15% of the water you process is going to be rejected. You also have to have an additional storage tank that you pump into first then the water is treated through the filtration process and the reject water is sent somewhere. Then it is treated and it goes into the storage tank. It is not a cheap process, it is about $127,000.00. Hugh Holub: There are a couple parameters to keep in mind. #1 - DEQ will say OK do the letters, but in the long run this will not work. The first thing most water utilities look at is the nitrates are usually sitting on top of the aquifer, so if you can case off the top of the well, drill deeper and come in from the lower depths you can solve the problem. We have a disadvantage because we are boxed in with our present service area, we have a very small area. You need to look at what the Town will ultimately do. One of the problems may be the septic tanks, are we going to get rid of them and put a sewer system in which costs a lot of money. Or you can go in and dig the well deeper, that could be a problem because of the proximity to the river. The ultimate advantage to try and consolidate the water system is you can start to look at the water quality perimeters. You have to set the standards for yourself that aren't like Tucson, if you have a water quality problem you shouldn't be in the water business. You need to get a plan going which says you can serve the people good quality water forever. You need to start looking at how we can guarantee the people in our service area good quality water that is not in violation of nitrate standards. Ora Harn: If we do an interconnect between the two wells can we blend that water and knock the nitrate levels down. Hugh Holub: That may be an advantage to the interconnect, right now there is nothing to blend with. One well seems to be going consistently over the nitrate limit, the other is under. If we fed both wells into one storage tank and then out you wouldn't have any problem. Brad DeSpain: With the interconnection we could accomplish that by putting in some tees running the water to storage, it is an additional expense. The way it hooks up now you have pressure going both ways and you don't know where that water ends up. You could use that line to fill the storage on the west well from the east well if you did your piping and plumbing that way. It is not a simple process and it is not easy to do. Hurvie Davis: He is really confused on this issue. For the last two years he has been looking at the nitrate readings on the two wells and there is no pattern to them whatsoever in his opinion. Maybe we need to take a serious look at this problem and what we are going to do in the long run, it is something we need to address. Even if we were blending I'd be concerned that at some point in time we're going to get both of the wells where they are over 10. Mayor Honea: He is looking for Council to grant permission to shift $150,000.00 for this project. We should give Mr. Davis direction that we would like to transfer that money out of the project for the Park and make it available for the Water Company. And that Staff get together and determine how to best spend the money to improve the water quality and availability. A motion was made by Ora Harn, seconded by Herb Kal and carried unanimously to contact Pima County Community Services and ask them to reallocate the funding for the Community Center of $150,000.00 and re-allocate it to be used on the Marana Water System. Hurvie Davis: Would that also include the Town's portion of the money for the Community Center? Ora Harn: At this time it would include only the CDBG funds and later address the matching funds that the Town has. Herb Kai: He would like to direct Brad to look into drilling a deeper well, what would be the cost? Brad DeSpain: We have $22,000.00 already, would this $150,000.00 be addition to that? Mayor Honea: Yes. Roy Cuaron: When we approved the Budget we were requiring an additional allocation of $67,000.00 just to fund the water budget as it was adopted. Mayor Honea: We are all looking at freeing this money up to try and get us out of this jam. If we have to use it fine, if we have to look at some General Fund moneys we can do that as well. At the present time we are approving transferring that money over and making it available. 6 Ora Harn: She would like to say that along with the Mayor she regrets the Community Center being delayed. We need to do something in the Park for the youth. When we get an opportunity we would like to go ahead with it. Mayor Honea: He didn't want to give it up either, but the water system is a very pressing issue, Brad DeSpain: Mr. DeSpain stated that he will get some firm numbers before Council on the dr/lling as well as the treatment process. Mayor Honea: We had talked about borrowing the 0% interest money, this was originally going to be for a treatment process, if we change the financing by funds from CDBG, we may not need the loan. Brad DeSpain: That money could be used for storage or main line if he remembers correctly. Ora Harn: We may need to use some of that money to go ahead and get the project started. The last time we re-allocated money it took several months before they got the money transferred over. Hugh Holub: If you can get your hands on an interest free loan, use the money. Brad DeSpain: Regarding the rates, we need to tackle that problem even though it is not the most enjoyable. We need to determine what we are going to do about the rates. Mayor Honea: He was hoping that maybe the Water Utility Advisory Committee could give Council a recommendation. It looks like we may not be able to go up to the full rate, it's too big of a shock. Ora Harn: She went home the other day and looked at her water bill, she is very conservative with her water. In using the scale Council was looking at her bill would be around $60.00, that would be for two people. Knowing the economic situation of some of the people that live in that community to jump into this rate change. She would like to request that we turn this over to the Water Advisory Committee and let them review it, they are people who live in the area and are touched by it. Mayor Honea: He concurs with Council Member Harn. Ora Ham: When the Town of Marana took over the Water Company we were looking at three water companies and we were sure that we could bring them all together. Mayor Honea: I guess we are prepared to subsidize somewhat and we are also prepared to shift the money over as well to remedy the situation. Brad DeSpain: In the next few days we will get a Water Advisory Committee meeting called and organized. IX. FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS None X. ADJOURNMENT A motion was made by Herb Kal, seconded by Ora Ham and carried unanimously to adjourn, Time: 9:17 p.m. AUDIO TAPES OF THE MEETING ARE AVAILABLE AT THE MARANA TOWN HALL CLERK'S OFFICE. 7 CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are the true and correct minutes of the Special Council Meeting of the Marana Town Council held on August 23, 1995. I further certify that a quorum was present.