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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01/22/2013 Study Session Minutesl�ti4RANA TOWN COUNCIL STUDY SESSION MINUTES 11555 W. Civic Center Drive, Marana, Arizona 85653 2nd Floor Conference Center, January 22, 2013, at or after 6:00 PM Ed Honea, Mayor Patti Comerford, Vice Mayor David Bowen, Council Member Herb Kai, Council Member Carol McGorray, Council Member Jon Post, Council Member Roxanne Ziegler, Council Member STUDY SESSION Pursuant to A.R.S. § 38.431.02, notice is hereby given to the members of the Marana Town Council and to the general public that the Town Council will hold a meeting open to the public on January 22, 2013, at or after 6:00 PM located in the 2nd Floor Conference Center of the Marana Municipal Camplex, 11555 W. Civic Center Drive, Marana, Arizona. ACTION MAY BE TAKEN BY THE COUNCIL ON ANY ITEM LISTED ON THIS AGENDA. Revisions to the agenda can occur up to 24 hours prior to the meeting. Revised agenda items appear in itadics. The Council Chambers aze wheelchair and handicapped accessible. Persons with a disability may request a reasonable accommodation, such as a sign language interpreter, by contacting the Town Clerk at (520) 382-1999. Requests should be made as early as possible to arrange the accommodation. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL. Mayor Honea called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. Town Clerk Bronson called roll. All Council Members were present. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE/INVOCATION/MOMENT OF SILENCE. Led by Mayor Honea. APPROVAL OF AGENDA. Motion to approve by Vice Mayor Comerfvrd, second by Council Member McGorray. �'assed unanimously. CAI..L TO THE PUBLIC. No cards submitted. Study Session Minutes — 01/22/2013 1 DISCUSSION/DIRECTION/POSSIBLE ACTION D 1: Presentation: Relating to Parks and Recreation; presentation by the Drachman Institute on a conceptual design for the Marana Heritage River Park (Del Post). Del Post gave a brief overview of the project, including how it is intended ta create a community identity. and introduced the town staff who have worked on the pazk development project, including Tom Ellis, T. Van Hook, Kurt Schmidt, Jennifer Christelman, Steve Cheslak, Amanda Jones and Steven �asquez. Marilyn Robinson introduced her team members from the Dra.chman Institute. Staff is Marilyn Robinson, Associate Director; Katie Gannon, Project Coordinator; Laura Jensen, Project Coordinator; Kelly Eit�en Smith, Research Coordinator; Brian Underwood GIS/Planning graduate student; Kexin Zhao, Landscape Architecture student; and Kayla Truss, Architecture student. The Drachman Institute is the research based outreach arm from the College of Architecture at the University of Arizona. She gave a brief description of the learning based model provided by the Drachman Institute, and then described the planning process used to design the project. She began with the town's goals for the Park. The total acreage is a little over 162 acres. She noted the elements in place: an existing farm, the Heritage House, a parking area, grain silos, the existing Gladden faims Neighborhood Park, the Santa Cruz River Shared Use Path, the sand and gravel pit, a landfill, a quarry, agricultural fields and the Beard House which will not be included in the work Drachman is doing. Dr. Eitzen Smith talked about the demographics of the site. What stood out was the age of residents living adjacent to the site. The median age is 29.9 — a very young population compared to the rest of Marana. Another exception was households with children under the age of 18 — about half, and their average household income is less than the rest of the town of Marana. Ms. Robinson talked about other projects that were looked at as models for restoration of the site.— The Windmill Winery in Florence, Arizona, a private venture; the Wagner Farm, a public project in Glenview, Illinois. This is run by the Glenville Park district. Another project was the homestead project in Elm Mott, Texas — a private for profit venue. Another public project was the Peck Farm Fark, run by the Geneva, Illinois Park District. They also looked at adaptive reuse examples. The next piece was to review the town site with some of those possibilities for capturing opportunities using natural resources such as Farmers' Markets, cafes, a commercial kitchen that could be used for food trucks or retail food shops and 4-H programs using skills to learn about food and agriculture, youth and family activities related to recreation, including volunteer opportunities. The last aspect was to provide exhibits and festivals surrounding Marana's culture and history. Public input came from a series of events, including the Gladden Fazms Fa11 Festival in October, 2012. Tlae summary of input from appmximately 250-350 residents showed strong support for a Splash park, Kid's area, adventure land and skate park, Farmer's Market and multi-use trails. Then there was a meeting with business representatives and property owners adjacent to the site. They really wanted to see this as a phased project that could begin soon and evolve over time. The Drachman group also met with sorne lacal nonprofits. Food is a major draw and came up Study Session Minutes — 01/22/2013 frequently. Interpretive and amphitheater outdoor events were also popular responses. Dr. Eitzen Smith talked about the online community survey. She worked with Amanda Jones on social media, postcards, Twitter and Facebook and other ways to solicit responses. The survey yi�lded only 65 completed surveys and 107 partially completed surveys. Seventy percent of the respondents were from Gladden Farms and Honea Heights. Biking trails and hiking trails were the most desired options for respondents. Ms. Robinson then talked about some of the preliminary concept site plans, focusing on the northwest part of the site because of the existing infrastructure and components already in place. The group mapped circulation pathways and existing destinations currently on the site as well as theme areas and locating features based on adjacencies. They arrived at a concept of four zones — Heritage Farms, Heritage Plaza, Heritage Park and Heritage Ranch. In summarizing, the studies are done based on the input from the community. The ne� step is to get feedback from Council so they can continue to finalize the concept site plan. Del Post noted that there is a lot of potential for that property. Next steps are to develop a business plan, including project costs and project phasing. T'hat could come back to Council for approval in late March. However, the next phase is the business plan. Key partners and key funding sources have to be identified. The last piece is to focus on the phasing part. D 2: Presentation: Relating to Personnel; update and discussion regarding federal healthcare reform and the status of staff efForts regarding fiscal year 2014 employee medical benefits (Suzanne Machain). Presented by Suz�nne Machain, and Che Yi from Gallagher Benefit Services. Ann Berkman will speak on the efforts that have gone on since the last discussion on health care. Mr. Yi began with information and updates on the Healthcare Reform Act. There are three main components: individual mandate — the fact that everyone will have to have some form of medical coverage by 2014. The second component is a marketplace for people to evaluate, shop and buy coverage. And last relates to the employer mandate. He noted that this process actually started in 2010. The next steps are to prepare for the 2014 effective date. He discussed the steps the employer will have to take. Exempt organizations are those having less than 50 full time employees. There is a penalty of $2I� for each employee who is not covered. He then discussed the plan impact on key issues. By doing nothing, there will be a financial impact in the six figures, and there will be additianal fees. This is just the fee part. This doesn't include plan increases. The employer only has responsibility to pay for the emplayee, not the dependents. Ann Berkman talked about the benefits planning and activity over the course of the past year. 4ne of the benefits is to be able to reach out to employees electronically through the Munis software. Employees will be able to look at their personal information and then enroll online. T'hey are also exploring group purchasing with other public employers. They are looki.ng at competitive bidding to make sure they're on the right course or if there are additional ways to Study Session Minutes — 01j22/2013 3 save money. They are also looking at different funding activities — self-funding based on utilization; review migration into Copper/Tea1 benefit structure and explore account-based options. D 3: Presentation: Relating to Administration; presenta.tion and discussion of the framework for the development of the fiscal year 2013-2014 budget (Erik Montague). Gilbert Davidson framed the discussion for moving into the budget process. There will be many steps along the way involving staff teams taking us into June, 2013. Many of the estimates will be similar to last year. Erik Montague began by focusing on the general fund and major revenues. Items for consideration are FY 2011-12 final results and reserve; general fund major revenues; update for FY 2012-13; FY 2014 preliminary outlook; recovery planning; strategic planning and budgeting; and budget timeline. We collected almost $2M more than we budgeted and spent about$1.7M less for FY 2011-12. We ended up ta the good of just shy of $2M. We had about $16.4M in reserves and are at $18.3M. Most of the expenditures are connected to contingencies. Most departments spent within limitations and did not go into contingencies. We are pretty much where we were pre-recession on sales t�. He then gave an FY 2013 general fund update which is also included with the January 22, 2013 Budget in Brief, stating that the town is pretty much where we anticipated being. Licenses, fees and permits are up above projections. December 2012 numbers are still not available. He noted the pressures on the FY 2014 budget; insurance benefit costs; retirement costs; classification and compensation study; Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau; discriminatory bed tax; sales tax changes (TPT Simplification Committee) on a single point of collection, central tax audit and contra.cting sales tax elimination; and any other new legislation. He also noted that the last class comp study was done in 2007. The biggest financial burden right now is the state land lease. Mr. Montague then reviewed some of the challenges that DeI Post discussed at the last Council meeting during his legislative report. Next was a discussion of possible changes to contracting sales taxes. He reviewed how we've allocated collections; how it's calculated currently — job location (where the activity is performed); proposed committee changes — point of sale (where materials are purchased); the impact on opera.ting and capital budgets; impact fees and development agreemenis. The town will not be made whole if the legislation goes forward. The town leveraged a lot of construction sales tax dollars to pay for transportation projects such as Camino de Manana and Silverbell. It was within the town's purview to do that, but we could see a$3.1M deficit on the debt service that we have advance funded. It could affect our ability to pay for future projects and levy impact fees. Next Gilbert Davidson discussed recovery planning, thanking Erik and his staff for a11 the work that has been done thus far, noting that the goal is a reinvestment strategy which seeks to a.11ocate new revenue to key areas as it becomes available. The first priority would be current staf�— what can be done to retain the talent axid reward the hard work that's been done and attract key Study Session Minutes — 01/22/2013 4 staff The next is to fund strategic positions. The last reallocation would be toward resources and tools. Key aspects of strategic planning and budgeting are to continue to ensure that we are providing what citizens need to the highest extent possible. Lastly, he discussed the budget timeline. He stated that he is hoping to get a Manager's recommended budget to Council by April 16. Fina1 budget adoption would be the first meeting in June, which is fairly consistent with what we've done in the past. Mr. Davidson also noted that January 23 is the budget kick-o�F with the departments. Another project that town staff is looking to put sorne money into is the Sky Ranch project which Frank Cassidy has been working on. The issue of the state land lease will come back after the election. Raises will be discussed based on what is available and what comes out of the class and comp study. At this point, management is hoping to do something for employees like a cost of living and a one-time adjustment similaz to what we did last year. EXECUTIVE SESSION Pursuant to A.R.S. § 38-431.03, the Town Council may vote to go into executive session, which will not be open to the public, to discuss certain matters. ADJOURNMENT. Motion by Council Member Post, second by Council ll�ember McGorray to adjourn at 8:38 p.m. Passed unanimously. CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing are the true and correct minutes of the Marana Town Council meeting held on January 22, 2013. I further certify that a quorum was present. Jocel C. Bronson, Town Clerk Study Session Minutes — 01/22/2013 5