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HomeMy WebLinkAbout11/19/2013 Regular Council Meeting MinutesREGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES 11555 W. Civic Center Drive, Marana, Arizona 85653 Council Chambers, November 19, 2013, at or after 7:00 PM Ed Honea, Mayor Jon Post, Vice Mayor David Bowen, Council Member Patti Comerford, Council Member Herb Kai, Council Member Carol McGorray, Council Member Roxanne Ziegler, Council Member REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Mayor Honea called the meeting to order at 7:00 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. l�lotion to approve by Council Member McGorray, second by Vice Mc�yor Post. Passed unanimously. CALL TO THE PUBLIC . David Morales addressed Council with acknowledgement of this November as a unique month starting with Veterans' Day. On this date 150 years ago, Abraham Lincoin gave the Gettysburg Address and on November 22, President Kennedy was assassinated 50 years ago. Mr. Morales referenced comments made by both presidents regarding government service by and for the people. Further, he asked for a future agenda item by at least three Council Members regarding changing the town to become a city. He then enumerating his reasons for this request. Meeting Minutes —11/19/2013 Tom Hannagan spoke regarding Tortolita Preserve open space, thanking the Mayor, Council and staff for a recent presentation on this topic at The Highlands. Mr. Hannagan listed eight of his conclusions from that event and asked Council for a formal resolution stating the Council's goal of maintaining the Tortolita Preserve as open space in perpetuity. A copy of Mr. Hannagan's remarks are on file with the Town Clerk. PROCLAMATIONS. No proclamations. MAYOR AND COUNCIL REPORTS: SUMMARY OF CURRENT EVENTS Mayor Honea noted that he attended the Southern Arizona Leadership annual meeting where Gary Abrams, FBO at the Marana Regional Airport, spoke. He said that Mr. Abrams did a very good job, and was complimentary of Marana. MANAGER'S REPORT: SUMMARY OF CURRENT EVENTS Mr. Davidson reminded Council and the audience that the Holiday Tree Lighting ceremony is December 7 in the courtyard of the municipal complex. The festivities begin at 4:00 p.m. This is the annual holiday event with food vendors and entertainment. This is a family event. PRESENTATIONS CONSENT AGENDA. Motion to approve by Council Member Ziegler, second by Vice Mayor Post. Passed unanimously. C 1: Resolution No. 2013-101: Relating to Regional Economic Development; supporting the mission and continued operations of the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base C 2: Resolution No. 2013-102: Relating to Personnel; repealing the salary schedules approved pursuant to Marana Resolution No. 2013-061 for classified and temporary employees for fiscal year 2013-2014; and designating an effective date � C 3: Resolution No. 2013-103: Relating to Technology Services; authorizing the Town Manager or the Technology Services Director to execute all agreements and other documents related to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reconfiguration of the 800 MHz band licensed to the Town of Marana and to take all other actions necessary to implement the band reconfiguration consistent with budget capacity and authority C 4: Resolution No. 2013-104: Relating to Public Works; approving and authorizing the Mayor to execute an intergovernmental agreement between the Regional Transportation Authority and the Town of Marana for construction and design for the El Rio Park to Avra Valley Shared Use Path Meeting Minutes —11/19/2013 C 5: Resolution No. 2013-105: Relating to Public Works; approving and authorizing the Mayor to execute an intergovernmental agreement between the Regional Transportation Authority and the Town of Marana for design and construction of improvements to Ina Road right turnbays onto Thornydale Road C 6: Resolution No. 2013-106: Relating to Public Works; approving and authorizing the Mayor to execute an intergovernmental agreement between the Regional Transportation Authority and the Town of Marana for design and construction of improvements to Ina Road sidewalk C 7: Resolution No. 2013-107: Relating to Public Works; approving and authorizing the Mayor to execute an intergovernmental agreement between the Regional Transportation Authority and the Town of Marana for design and construction of the Sandario Road Sidewalk- Path C 8: Resolution No. 2013-108: Relating to the Police Department; approving and authorizing the Town Manager to execute a Subgrantee Agreement with the Arizona Department of Homeland Security for purposes of receiving funds under the 2013 Operation Stonegarden Grant Program C 9: Resolution No. 2013-109: Relating to Public Works; approving and authorizing the implementation of a revised Capital Improvement Program Manual to assist in the coordination of community planning, financial capacity and physical development of the Town of Marana C 10: Approval of November 5, 2013 draft meeting minutes LIQUOR LICENSES L 1: Relating to Liguor Licenses; recommendation to the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control regarding a special event liquor license application submitted by Jesse Craig on behalf of Valley Christian Church for a special event to be held on December 15, 2013. Presented by Town Clerk Bronson, who noted that the application was properly posted and reviewed. Staff is recommending approval. Motion to approve by Council Member Bowen, second by Vice Mayor Post. Passed unanimously. BOARDS, COMMISSIONS AND COMMITTEES COUNCIL ACTION A 1: Ordinance No. 2013.026: Relating to the Police Department; amending the Marana Town Code, Title 4, Chapter 4-1, by repealing Town Code Section 4-1-8, entitled "Public safety employee-employer relations; meet and confer"; and designating an effective date. Presented by Jane Fairall and Terry Rozema. Meeting Minutes —11/19/2013 Ms. Fairall began by noting that in 2007, Council adopted an ordinance that added Section 4-1-8 to the town code which is commonly referred to as the "Meet and Confer" ordinance. The ordinance before Council tonight will delete that section 31 days from adoption. In 2012, Council approved and adopted a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Marana Police Officers' Association (MPOA) pursuant to the Meet and Confer ordinance, and that MOU has a current term that runs through June 30, 2014. So if Council repeals the Meet and Confer ordinance tonight, the MOU will stay in full force and effect as previously agreed to through June 30, 2014. And if there would any issues, it would be construed and interpreted pursuant to the Meet and Confer as it existed at the time of adoption. Ms. Fairall reiterated that the Meet and Confer section in the town code will be repealed on the effective date of the ordinance before Council tonight and the MOU will be effective until June 30, 2014. Chief Rozema explained the procedure that the police department is putting in place to take over for the Meet and Confer process. A steering committee was put together comprised of a number of representatives from each of the squads — one from each of the six patrol squads, one from Canine, two from Communications one from the Crime Scene Unit, one from Criminal Investigations, one from DART, one from Motars and one from Records. There will be roughly 15 representatives in addition to him. The committee will discuss things within the organization, items of concern, items that management wants to bring forward and implement and get the input, insight and feedback of the panel members. Also, the members will serve as conduits to the various squads to receive information on the kinds of things they want to bring forward. One of the primary functions is to serve as the primary collaborative endeavor in which employees and management can address areas of concern and discuss suggested ideas for improvement. He wants a process that is not adversarial; a place where conversations can take place to discuss how the department fits into the town as a whole and look for things to support the Strategic Plan; to support our mission and vision of becoming the most well-respected and highly regarded police department in the state. An annual report will be provided each July 30, delineating the items of discussion and resolutions for the previous fiscal year. He further noted that the steering committee will be the primary mechanism where line personnel and management sit down to meet and discuss items of concern and therefore ongoing for an indefinite period of time. He gave a couple of examples of things that have come up already that are being worked on. If it becomes evident that the committee is not effective, they will explore other methods of resolving issues. There will be an opportunity for the rotation of personnel into the committee to accommodate shift and squad changes Mario Williams spoke regarding his concerns about the slowness of the process and the roadblocks that seem to circumvent the process moving forward effectively. He also expressed concern about how timely resolutions can be with a 15-member committee and management dealing with management over employee issues. He believes that Meet and Confer still allows the employees to have a voice. He did note that the time of chaos in the department has passed and the Board (MPOA) has worked with the Chief and command staff to get things to a better place, so this isn't the right time to change that. Jerry Brei spoke. He supports Mario's position and stated that as long as the department has a good department head staff can work and get along with, the proposed process is good. And he hopes that the process will not revisit the types of issues and chaos that occurred in the past. Meeting Minutes —11/19/2013 4 Council Member Ziegler spoke and referenced some of the problems from the past. She said she believes Chief Rozema has turned the department around to make it more positive, and she is in full support of the Marana Police Department at this time. She was not a proponent of Meet & Confer, but she has been involved over the last two years. She hopes that the MPOA and the current MOU continues doing well. She is glad that the Meet & Confer is out of the town code, which will help break down walls. She is now fully supportive of the police department and she hopes the MPOA will give this steering committee a chance. Motion to approve by Council Member Ziegler, second by Council Member Kai. Passed unanimously. ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION/POSSIBLE ACTION D 1: Presentation: Relating to Utilities; discussion, consideration, and possible action regarding the option of providing wastewater service to the Saguaro Bloom development area. Presented by John Kmiec. Mr. Kmiec started with the town's options to acquire the wastewater service areas around the Saguaro Bloom area. There were multiple plans proposed by utilities staff in the past which have now been pared down to this one option: the Tangerine Downtown Alignment. The presentation focused on how staff feels this downtown alignment can be handled financially to acquire the Saguaro Bloom wastewater service area. There are about 2100 customers in Marana now. Acquiring Saguaro Bloom will help them grow that number. We'll obtain additional water resources. We are the current water provider for Saguaro Bloom. With the alignment we can also relieve Rillito Vista. Once connected, those lagoons can be retired and then be able to retrieve the effluent from that system and put it into the Marana main system. This will also enable us to provide service to undeveloped areas of Tangerine and I-10. Some of the risks with the Saguaro Bloom option: if development slows, then repayment of funds to construct the system to Saguaro Bloom will be slowed as well, but the town will still be required to make the debt service payment to acquire the system from Pima County. Some financial implications of serving Saguaro Bloom: the cost is estimated at $ l OM over a 10-year period. It is anticipated that all of these funds will be recovered by wastewater connection fees and/ or development agreements. Policy implications from the utility perspective is that we're moving into a new impact fee area with the new state impact fee rules which will be more utility driven by what the utility needs. This will benefit the town by building what we need when we need it; i.e. as growth occurs we can expand the utility. The funding sources that are being investigated to help with the Saguaro Bloom acquisition are wastewater connections fees, water connections fees and water resource fees. He provided preliminary numbers for those fees. Staff estimates that the conveyance system to carry flows from Saguaro Bloom will cost about $7.4M; $2M of which will be attributed to Saguaro Bloom. Some wastewater improvements will be required at the plant. This will be an estimated $3M over a 10-year period, for a total of $12M in water resource fee improvements. Meeting Minutes —11/19/2013 Staff recommends that the $5.4M cost for constructing the gravity conveyance be shared with adjacent developers through development agreement, so that $2.7M is due prior to breaking ground and $2.7M payable back to the town over 5-10 years. Viable funding sources would be from excise tax revenue bonds which count against overall pledged revenue coverage requirements. This may limit other projects. Agreements with developers requires agreement. There is a possible timing difference between improvement construction and funding. The last source would be reserve fund contribution of loan with the understanding that the minimum reserve must not be jeopardized. There could be a blended approach with all three options. Staff recommends are to move forward with the impact fee and rate studies assuming that the town will provide service to Saguaro Bloom. Begin design on the Saguaro Bloom force main, some of which is already complete. Have the development community pay for the required gravity sewer design as part of their contribution. Monitor the growth of Saguaro Bloom. If it goes as expected, move forward with construction of the conveyance system in about one year. Saguaro Bloom is expected to grow to approximately 1500 units in the next 10 years. These connections may double the potential new growth allowing the town to pay down the acquisition debt sooner. Council Member Kai complimented Mr. Kmiec for his work in putting this proposal together. He asked about a timetable for a design/build report to give to construction companies. Westland Resources estimates that it will take 10-12 months for design and planning and then a mechanism to do the construction over another 12 months — about two years. Council Member Kai asked if there were any developer agreements in place. Mr. Kmiec informed Council that he hopes to start working on that right away. There are preemptive agreements with the major developers along the corridor. They are waiting to see what they need to do to make this happen. Council Member Kai said he would there might be a$35K WIFA funding source. Mr. Davidson interjected that in terms of the first year of the design phase, we would also be moving forward with the acquisition of right-of-way and easements with a green light from Council at the next stage of this, then it would just be a matter of constructing it. Council Member Ziegler asked that Mr. Kmiec provide an update to Council periodically on the status of the developer negotiations. Mr. Kmiec said that are four major developers they are talking to now. Motion to direct staff to move forward by Council Member Kai, second by Council Member McGorray. Passed unanimously. D 2: Relating to Parks & Recreation; Discussion and possible action concerning the Tortolita Preserve lease with the Arizona State Land Department. Presented by Gilbert Davidson and Frank Cassidy. They began with the PowerPoint presentation given at The Highlands on November 6, 2013, which Mr. Davidson guided. The presentation was intended to reinforce the town's commitment to preserving open space in the Tortolita Preserve. A quick executive session will follow with Frank (Cassidy) on the negotiation process with State Land. He then took Council through the PowerPoint. The presentation included discussion of the current Meeting Minutes —11/19/2013 zoning within the General Plan which limits what can be done in the Tortolita fan including the provision of `no extension of urban services' which is a very powerful provision wherein the town will not extend roads, sewer and water at all into those areas. And if you don't have those, you won't have intensive development. The other thing is the Strategic Plan which speaks to the preservation of open spaces. A little time was spent on the Dove Mountain specific plan due to the current development taking place. They also talked about the financial concerns. The town could kick this can down the road and make it someone else's problem in the future, but we wanted to lay out what the community is facing with the 99-year lease. The town will have spent a little over $121 M at the end of the lease term, and State Land could auction to the highest bidder, and that might not be the town. So we want to explore every option with State Land. We emphasized using all the tools available to preserve the area. There were some comments about Council going into executive sessions. We answered it that staff needs to give legal advice, and it wouldn't make sense to do it here where it's recorded so that State Land's attorneys and their consultants could look at you strategy and counteract everything that you try to do. So it's a tool allowed under state law to get good, sound legal advice and make decision as relates to any action that could either result in us being sued or suing someone. It was a large crowd and most people understood what we were trying to do about the lease, financial implications and preservation of land. D 3: Relatin to Le�islation and Government Actions; Discussion and possible action regarding all pending state, federal, and local legislation/government actions and on recent and upcoming meetings of other governmental bodies EXECUTIVE SESSIONS. Motion to go into executive session on item E 2 at 8:03 p.m by Vice Mayor Post, second by Council Member Bowen. Passed unanimously. E 1: Executive Session pursuant to A.R.S. §38-431.03 (A)(3), Council may ask for discussion or consultation for legal advice with the Town Attorney concerning any matter listed on this agenda. E 2: Executive Session pursuant to A.R.S. § 38-431.03(A)(3), (4), and (7) for discussion and consultation with the Town's attorneys for legal advice and to consider the Town's position and instruct its representatives regarding pending negotiations with the Arizona State Land Department concerning the Tortolita Preserve Lease. Motion by Council Member Bowen, second by Vice Mayor Post to authorize staff to proceed with discussions with State Land in accordance with the discussion in executive session. Passed unanimously. FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS Notwithstanding the mayor's discretion regarding the items to be placed on the agenda, if three or more Council members request that an item be placed on the agenda, it must be placed on the Meeting Minutes —11/19/2013 agenda for the second regular Town Council meeting after the date of the request, pursuant to Marana Town Code Section 2-4-2(B). ADJOURNMENT. Motion to adjourn by Council Member McGorray, second by Council Member Comerford at 8:31 p.in. Passed unanimously. CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing are the true and correct minutes of the Marana Town Council meeting held on November 19, 2013. I further certify that a quorum was present. � . C. B�nson. Town Clerk Meeting Minutes —11/19/2013