The Board of Commissioners of the City of
It was then moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to recess into joint City/County executive session for 60 minutes to discuss the possible acquisition of real estate. The justification for the executive session is to keep possible terms and conditions of possible acquisition confidential at this time. Motion carried unanimously.
The City
Commission returned to regular session at
CONSENT AGENDA
As
part of the consent agenda, it was moved
by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to approve
City Commission meeting minutes from
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to approve claims to 320 vendors in the amount of $2,719,384.18. Motion carried unanimously.
As
part of the consent agenda, it was moved
by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to approve the Drinking Establishment
License for Louise’s Bar Downtown, 1009
As part of the
consent agenda, it was moved by
Schauner, seconded by Hack, to approve the purchase of three Motorola MDC
Model MW800 (Mobile Data Units) and accessories for the Fire/Medical Department
from Motorola (sole source vendor) for $29,364.18. Motion carried unanimously. (1)
Ordinance No.
8033, allowing the temporary sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic
liquor on that section of
Ordinance No.
8034, establishing stop signs on
Ordinance No.
8035, establishing a 20 mph speed limit on Crestline Drive between Clinton
Parkway and Becker Drive, was read a second time. As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack,
to adopt the ordinance. Motion
carried unanimously. (4)
Ordinance No.
8036, establishing yield signs at five locations on the
As part of the
consent agenda, it was moved by
Schauner, seconded by Hack, to adopt Resolution No. 6681, authorizing the
issuance of General Obligation Bonds in the amount of $40,000 for the two
pedestrian crossings bid in Project No. 22-CP7-606(c), New Hampshire Street
Improvements. Motion carried
unanimously. (6)
As part of the
consent agenda, it was moved by
Schauner, seconded by Hack, to adopt Resolution No. 6682, requesting the
Board of County Commissioners of Douglas County find and determine that the
annexation of approximately nine acres for pump station #48 will not hinder or
prevent the proper growth and development of the area or that of any other
incorporated city located within the county.
Motion carried unanimously. (7)
As part of the
consent agenda, it was moved by
Schauner, seconded by Hack, to adopt Resolution No. 6640, establishing
October 17th, 2006 as the public hearing date to consider
establishing a special assessment benefit district for the improvement of an
eastbound deceleration lane and a westbound turn lane at the intersection of
East 23rd Street (K-10) & O’Connell Road. Motion carried unanimously. (8)
As part of the
consent agenda, it was moved by
Schauner, seconded by Hack, approve temporary use of City parking lot, east
of the
As part of the
consent agenda, it was moved by
Schauner, seconded by Hack, to authorize the Mayor to execute two
agreements for the planned County sanitary sewer benefit district in the
southeast area. The first agreement
establishes the terms and conditions for the planned sanitary sewer facilities
to be constructed and financed by the County pursuant to the specifications and
plans approved by the City. The second
agreement establishes the City’s financial commitments for the project, which
includes the de-commissioning of three pump station facilities. The Commission previously approved the City’s
financial participation and the planned improvements on
As part of the
consent agenda, it was moved by
Schauner, seconded by Hack, to authorize the Mayor to execute a deferred
special assessment agreement with Christine Collister for the construction of
As part of the
consent agenda, it was moved by
Schauner, seconded by Hack, to approve as signs of community interest,
vinyl banners, 6 ft. X 3 ft., which state “United Way Helps Here” to be
displayed outside of 14 of the United Way member agencies to educate the
general public about where United Way funded services are located in the
community. Motion carried unanimously. (12)
As
part of the consent agenda, it was moved
by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to authorize the Mayor to sign a Release of
Mortgage for Willie Sevier, 1627 East 18th Terrace. Motion carried unanimously.
(13)
As part of the
consent agenda, it was moved by
Schauner, seconded by Hack, to receive staff memo and authorize the
issuance of a Request for Proposal for an engineering study to develop a regional
Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Architecture for the Lawrence/Douglas
County metropolitan area. Motion carried
unanimously. (14)
CITY MANAGER’S REPORT:
During
the City Manager’s Report, David Corliss, Interim City Manager, said he had an
opportunity to attend the International City/County Manager’s Association
(ICMA) meeting in
Also,
the City’s Grant Team that Jonathan Douglas, City Manager’s Intern, was heading
would be reported on next week as well.
He said staff was excited about that project and it was going to be a
continual responsibility in the City Manager’s office to review grant
opportunities and the City Commission would be receiving additional
information.
Finally,
he introduced John Miller, the new staff attorney, who came from the City of
Miller
said he appreciated the opportunity to work for Corliss and was looking forward
to working for the City of
Corliss
said staff was adding a number of text amendments to the zoning code and staff
would be reviewing the development policy.
Corliss
then introduced Kevin Doyle, Infrastructure Development Coordinator, who had
worked for a number of engineering firms and was a professional engineer with a
background in architectural engineering.
He
said Doyle was going to be involved in public projects working with development
interests, special assessment benefit districts, but also other public
projects, like the Carnegie Library renovation as far the ability to work more intelligently
with contractors and architects. He said
Doyle would be coordinating the City’s energy audit work and a number of minor
projects such as changing rules for sanitary sewer stub-outs in subdivisions
that involved Neighborhood Resources and their inspectors, the Utility Department,
and their needs, to make sure the sanitary sewer lines were in the right place.
Also,
another project was the Fire Sprinkler Incentive Program for downtown. He said it was a classic example of a silo
buster where the Utility Department was involved because it was a waterline, Neighborhood
Resources was involved because of requirements for buildings and the Fire/Medical
Department had a keen interest in making sure those were installed
appropriately and needed to be coordinated with waterline and street overlay
work. He said Doyle had assumed that
responsibility to develop that program.
He said Doyle would be drafting the criteria as to which property owners
in the downtown area would qualify for that incentive. He said staff wanted to make sure those rules
were explicitly spelled out ahead of time so they knew who would qualify.
Kevin
Doyle, City Infrastructure Development Coordinator, said he appreciated the
opportunity to work for the City of
REGULAR AGENDA ITEMS:
Conduct bond and note sale.
Mayor Amyx asked if the rate on the bids were expected.
Mullins said yes. He said the City received good rates and as a reminder, staff was asking the City Commission to declare an emergency and pass that ordinance on first and second reading so those brokers could start selling that paper and would not need to wait another week for second reading.
Moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack to adopt Resolution 6683 authorizing and directing the issuance, sale and delivery of $16,345,000, principal amount of General Obligation Temporary Notes, Series 2006-I. Motion carried unanimously.
Moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to declare an emergency and adopt, on first and second reading, Ordinance No. 8037, authorizing and providing for the issuance of $17,130,000 principal amount of General Obligation Bonds, Series 2006-A. Motion carried unanimously.
Moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, and
Resolution 6684, prescribing the form and details of and authorizing and
directing the sale and delivery of $17,130,000 principal amount of general obligation
bonds, series 2006-A. Motion carried
unanimously. (16)
Receive staff report on various energy
conservation related items.
David
Corliss, Interim City Manager, presented the staff report that covered a number
of energy related, environmental protection and sustainability items. He said he received information from a conference
where a number of communities around the country had engaged an Environmental Management
System Development where they were looking at this issue more comprehensively
and holistically. He said the Environmental
Protection Agency had an
He said then Mayor Highberger signed the Climate Protection Agreement and the Public Works Department was looking at that agreement to see if they were following through because that was a commitment staff made. He said the Commission was familiar with the LEADS issue as they looked at new buildings; they wanted to go back and look at all of their facilities that went into the energy audit.
He said they were going to get briefed on the Green Tag Program by the Bowersock Facility to see exactly what that meant. Staff wanted to be wise in their financial commitments in this area, but also thought staff had an opportunity to show leadership.
He said the final item was the energy audit in which he learned quite a bit about that audit at the conference where as part of the EMS program, communities could be more rigorous in their energy audit, whether it was start up time for vehicles and how long they needed to idle, or energy use and lighting in any number of different buildings. He said the City was a large energy user in the Utility Department and spent approximately a half million dollars a year on street lights. He said staff wanted to make sure they were following the best practices and thought they needed to look at it more holistically. He said it was one of Doyle’s programs that he could directly report to the City Manager’s office to ensure there was fidelity to those commitments they were making and Doyle would have the technical background to be able to work in and out of those things, but the departments needed to own that as well because they needed to understand they were being evaluated on their genuineness to following through on those things.
He said those were the items they were willing to proceed
on unless the City Commission had general questions, but he was particularly
interested in direction the City Commission had on how they wanted staff to
proceed. He said there were a number of partners in the community they wanted
to bring along and at the forefront, needed to be the
He said
Mayor Amyx asked about the energy audit and if Corliss had a time frame other than closer to the near future.
Corliss said staff wanted to start talking to vendors, this fall, in seeing what those vendors could do and whether or not staff wanted to look at it from an entire organization. He said he thought it was more likely staff wanted to start off looking at a large energy user, like the Utility Department, and perhaps having a consultant on board after staff had gone through a process of selecting the best consultant to tell staff how they could save in that department and learn what staff could do and if there were best practices and staff could take from that experience. He said they needed to be true to some of the other commitments staff had as well. He said he was thinking this fall staff would seek to retain a consultant that would help them on a project. He said he did not think it would be a large scale project at first.
Commissioner Schauner asked if KU had done any work in terms of energy conservation on their plant operation.
Corliss said that was one of the things he wanted to learn about. He said he knew the school district had been more aggressive. He said when he was on the Hospital Board, their Facilities Manager was nationally recognized in his profession as far as attention to energy items. He said he knew they had a lot of community resources that could be tapped.
Commissioner Schauner said one of the things that struck him that might be important was to frame this energy management issue with an easy to identify slogan or character to find someway to brand the activity and perhaps even have an awards system for local businesses that also stepped up to the bar on either energy consumption or institution of energy saving devices. He said he noticed they had at least one Prius in the City’s fleet. He said in his trips out to one of the local car dealers where that vehicle was purchased, he asked why that type of car was there and he was told that vehicle was not driven enough to keep the battery charged.
Corliss said he thought that was one of the questions he had when the City made vehicle purchases, was if that vehicle would work. He said the vehicle issue was not just an energy question, but an efficiency question of tax and rate dollars as well.
Commissioner
Highberger thanked staff for following through on some of those issues
regarding energy conservation. He said
he wanted to move forward on the Plug-In, but he was not sure how much
resources the City needed to spend on reaching out to other people. He said he thought the City’s commitment was
very important and appreciated staff’s work on the production agreement and
thought
Corliss said he thought that would be helpful direction for staff as well.
Vice Mayor Hack said she thought there were some natural partners they had used and agreed they might not live by example, but she did not think it would hurt to bring in the Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods and certainly civics clubs finding out about this. She said they could be leaders, but she encouraged others to follow.
Commissioner Highberger said his only concern was overworking the City’s current staff. He said at this point, they had to prioritize.
Mayor Amyx called for public comment.
Sven
Alstrom, local Architect, and President of Ecological Architecture, said some
of his friends encouraged him to come and say thank you for stepping forward
for
He said as a member of HRC, in his third year, there was an issue of sustainability within promoting saving historic structures which involved housing issues.
He said the
U.S. Green Building Council mostly permits the LEAD program, which was great,
but it was more of a top-down approach for primarily commercial buildings. He said there were other organizations using
Green Globes Software, which was approved and applied over the residential
sector. He said while he was encouraging
everything the City was stepping into, they would also like to see
Moved by Schauner, seconded by Highberger to receive the staff report. Motion carried unanimously. (17)
Receive staff report on federal issues
for October trip to
David Corliss,
Interim City Manager/Legal Services Director, presented the staff report. He said staff’s memorandum indicated a
number of issues that staff identified as items to be discussed as a City. He said staff had partners in their trip to
He said one of the reasons why he asked
Commissioner Schauner asked if it was going to trigger any additional “look-see” at the prior earmarks.
Corliss said some of the prior earmarks staff might want to have those earmarks altered. He said those earmarks could be altered even at a non-legislative level. He said the Congressman that sponsored the earmark indicated that flexibility was allowed. He said he was trying to maximize the Commission’s flexibility. He said the City Commission needed to make the decisions on whether or not they wanted to spend that earmarked money on a bus facility or busses. He said that decision should be the City Commission’s call.
Commissioner Schauner said there was discussion in the newspaper about electric bus project and he did not know how realistic it was to think about that type of project, but if City had that type of a project, he asked if a bus maintenance facility made that project more feasible because of the necessary plug-ins and all the other things that went with that type of a project.
Corliss said he did not know if staff knew enough about that type of project. He said Galante was learning about those types of facilities and there was demonstration money that might be available for those types of facilities as opposed to more traditional facilities and busses. He said if the Commission desired staff could place that issue as an action item on a future consent agenda to make that clear for all future earmarks, if that was a Commission direction.
Mayor Amyx said he thought placing that issue as a future action item on a consent agenda was a good idea, but going into this trip, the City needed to provide some type of direction at this point, to discuss with their legislative delegation. He said he thought the City Commission should have the flexibility of being able to decide how the funds would be used locally.
Corliss said whether it was busses and/or bus facilities, they still needed to meet all federal regulations and had to be for transit type uses.
Commissioner Schauner said one thing helpful would be to have two or three talking points for whatever topics they were going to visit about so they were all singing from the same hymnal and they would make a more effective use of the limited time they had with staff people.
Vice Mayor Hack
said when the City Commission had gone to the League of Cities, staff had done
a great job in preparing what they wanted to discuss and were very
professional. She said she had talked
with Karen Swisher, Haskell University President, about the funding situation
at Haskell and she thought in consideration to how important that institution
was to the City of
Corliss
said they had some time for this issue, but not a lot of time. He said as soon as the City Commission indicated
if they wanted to pursue the trip, staff would start highlighting those issues
and would work on the presentation piece.
He said when talking to legislatures and staff, it would be good to talk
about education and what was happening in
He said one question was if the Commissioners knew for sure whether or not they were going to take that trip so staff could make arrangements in the next coming days as far as hotel and travel. He said those dates were October 15th - 17th and staff’s thinking was to leave in the morning or early afternoon on Sunday, October 15th and then plan Monday to be a full day up at the Hill and come back on October 17th in time for what would be guaranteed as a light City Commission meeting. He said that was his thinking, but staff could take direction on that thinking.
He said he would be meeting with the Chamber on those items and the County as well later that week to try and harmonize a document. He said staff would probably take the lead in the preparation of the document they wanted to use to speak as one community.
Moved by Hack, seconded by Schauner to
receive the staff report with the addition of adding the item of funding for
(18)
PUBLIC COMMENT:
Sven
Alstrom said he would like to thank Vice Mayor Hack for her comments about
Haskell. He said last year he had some
conversations with Judy Billings about the film festival at Haskell and as well
as plans for a Lawrence Film Festival.
He said he thought it was crucial that Haskell receive more money to be
able to continue to tell their story and that was particular true with their
film program. He said without discussing
it with
(19)
FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS:
|
|
Continued discussion of retail marketing analysis items |
|
|
Commissioner Rundle will be absent from the meeting, but can
participate through teleconference if necessary. |
|
|
Commissioner Rundle will be absent from the meeting, but can
participate through teleconference if necessary. Vice-Mayor Hack will be absent from the meeting, but can participate
through teleconference if necessary. |
|
TBD |
Future land use items include:
|
(20)
COMMISSION ITEMS:
Moved
by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to adjourn at
APPROVED _____________________________
Mike Amyx, Mayor
ATTEST:
___________________________________
Frank S. Reeb, City Clerk
1.
Bid- Purchase of 3
2.
Ordinance No. 8033- 2nd and Final Read,
temporary sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic liquor on section of
east 8th Street on Oct. 6, 2006 for “Get Downtown” event.
3.
Ordinance No. 8034- 2nd and Final Read,
stop signs on
4.
Ordinance No. 8035- 2nd and Final Read,
20 mph speed limit on
5.
Ordinance No. 8036- 2nd and Final Read,
yield signs at 5 locations on KU Campus.
6.
Resolution No. 6681- Authorizing issuance of
General Obligation Bonds in the amount of $40,000 for two pedestrian crossings
bid in Project No. 22-CP7-606(C).
7.
Resolutions No. 6682- Board of County Commissioners
of
8.
Resolution No. 6640- Establishing
9.
Temporary use of parking lot for LEO Center Family
Fair on September 30th.
10.
Authorize Mayor to execute two agreements for the
planned County sanitary sewer benefit district in the southeast area.
11.
Authorize Mayor to execute a deferred special
assessment agreement with Christine Collister for construction of
12.
Approve as signs of community interest, vinyl
banners for
13.
Authorize Mayor to sign a Release of Mortgage for
Willie Sevier, 1627 E. 18th Terrace.
14.
Authorize issuance of a Request for Proposal for an
engineering study to develop a regional Intelligent Transportation System (ITS)
Architecture.
15.
City Manager’s Report.
16.
Conduct bond and note sale.
17.
Receive staff report on various energy conservation
related items.
18.
Receive staff report on federal issues for October
trip to
19.
Public Comment.
20.
Future Agenda Items.
21.
Commission Items.