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Review -- Healthy Life Center, Brookside Park Lease, 2017/2018 Budget

Dan DeGeest Photo

Dan DeGeest's Council Review

 

 

Hello Friends,

  • The meeting on the 13th was a long one, going over four hours with discussion regarding the annexation of the Auburn Trail Subdivision (Item #29) taking up a good chunk of the time.  Annexations are always polarizing and this one was no different.  There were updates and actions on some big projects such as the airport hanger, a community healthy life center, community solar, and more.  See below for details.
  • City Council is winding down for 2016 with just one more meeting scheduled on December on the 20th. 

Thanks for reading.
Dan DeGeest>>

The regular meeting of the Ames City Council for December 13th, 2016. The agenda included:

  • 15. Resolution committing to 20-year maintenance of modifications to River Valley Park Low-Head Dam as a condition of grant application for Iowa Federal Recreational Trails Program. This is a great project to take advantage of the rivers in Ames. Sometimes it is easy to view the rivers as a problem to be dealt with, as opposed to an opportunity to improve the amenities available to citizens. This project is the exception to that tendency. This project started in 2008,  8 years later and dirt will be moved. Despite the delay, this is an exciting project for outdoor recreation opportunities in Ames.
    With the 20 year maintenance commitment in place staff can seek grant money to allow the City to build the dam modifications and amenities that residents and the Ames Park and Recreation Commission desired.  When complete the River Valley Park low head dam will have been converted from an extremely dangerous area to one that encourages people to enjoy the natural beauty in and around the river.
    This item was part of the consent agenda which passed 5-0 (Nelson absent).  
  • 26. Staff Report on 13th Street and Kellogg Avenue Traffic Signal Study.
    Staff are reporting back on several metrics use to determine if a permanent stoplight at the intersection of 13th and Kellogg is warranted. None of the metrics indicated the stoplight is warranted. Most of the feedback in favor of the light relates to having a safe crossing of 13th St. for pedestrians. Staff recommends some changes to the mid-block crossing by the fire station to provide a safer pedestrian crossing across 13th St.
    At a previous council meeting staff recommended removing this temporary light but was presented with quite a few appeals from residents to retain it as they felt it made crossing 13th street on foot or bike much safer and easier.  Unfortunately, it's proximity to a mid-block signalized crossing at the Fire Department station made it's overall effectiveness for traffic questionable.  Ultimately Council voted to keep the light in place until an official "warrant" study could be completed to determine if the light should be permanently retained.
    That study has been completed and as initially expected by Staff  the criteria for retaining the light was not met and removal is still recommended.  In addition they suggest the installation of a High-intensity Activated crosswalk beacon (HAWK) at the Fire Station.
    Unfortunately the mid-block crossing is poorly located for people biking or walking north or south along Clark or Kellogg and not a great location for a HAWK.  Putting more money into a band-aid solution like a HAWK doesn't really address the larger traffic problem and I feel the City has gotten used to deploying them because they are "cheap" and give the appearance of some action being taken.  Clark is scheduled for a rebuild in the next 5 years, perhaps this will encourage the City to accelerate that project and provide a modern, safe, multi-modal intersection at 13th & Clark.
    Motion to remove temporary light at Kellogg and install HAWK beacon at the Fire Station crossing passed 5-0 (Nelson absent).
  • 28. Motion providing direction on Community Solar project.
    Community Solar has been on EUORAB’s slate for nearly a year. They are recommending a third-party owned model, with voluntary customer contributions. If Council agrees, staff will move forward by exploring a site and developing an RFP.
    To be honest, despite the action form stating "The City strongly supports the addition of community solar to the generation portfolio within Electric Services", I don't feel that level of excitement or urgency when the City Council or Electrical Services discusses it.  In a recent presentation at the 2017 Economic Outlook Breakfast hosted by the Ames Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Commission, Councilman Orazem questioned why we should even invest in solar at all.
    As the City Manager points out our electrical generation is a "portfolio" and just like an investment portfolio I think it should be diverse and wind and solar should both be represented. Also, residential wind power is a lot less practical than solar.  Another concern raised by Council was available land as the community project would need around 10 acres of land.  Where in the world might we find such a piece of ground?  Maybe in the 1600 acres of industrial land Council just approved a few weeks ago? Or how about we investigate a distributed model and take advantage of the immense rooftops and parking lots all around the City.
    In the end a motion to accept the recommendation by EUORAB to pursue a Community Solar model, owned by a third party with voluntary retail customer contributions, passed 5-0 (Nelson absent).
  • 29. Motion directing staff on annexation strategy for Auburn Trail Subdivision.
    Hunziker Land Development has requested annexation of nearly 70 acres of land just north of Bloomington Heights. City staff recommends annexation of some other properties at the same time, to avoid creating a small group of unincorporated property. To round off the area, though, would involve include 20% non-consenting ownership, and would delay the process of annexation.
    By State law the city can't create islands of unincorporated land when it brings new land into the City limits. To help prevent this they can use what is called the 80/20 rule to add additional properties to the annexation to square off the borders.  The 80/20 rule allows for 20% of the land owners to be non-consenting, that is they can annexed even if they don't want to be included.  This is the case here.  City Staff looked at this annexation as well as several adjacent ones likely in the near term and determined that bringing these additional properties in now is crucial.
    For the City it's a chess game, several moves ahead must be considered.  For the property owners it feels like an intrusion on their property rights and they argue it will cause them to encounter many expenses and higher taxes.  It's an unfortunate quandary that results from our rapid sprawl and the huge amount of growth and development north of Ames.
    Despite testimony from several of the affected property owners Council felt exercising the 80/20 rule was the best strategy for this and future annexations in the area.
    Motion to annex with additional non-consenting properties passed 4-1 (Orazem No - Nelson was absent for this vote).
    Second motion for a staff report on possible incentives for utility connection fees passed 4-1 (Orazem No - Nelson absent).
  • 30. Resolution accepting ownership of Airport Hangar at 2511 Airport Road.
    As part of the Airport renovations, a hanger was built with money raised by the private sector, with the intention that ownership would be transferred to the City. The hangar is nearing completion, this item finalizes the transfer of ownership to the city.
    Handshakes and high fives all around.  The private sector raised $1M dollars to build an airport hangar that they are now giving to the City who will take on ownership, maintenance, and work with the current or future airport FBO to lease it.  I have been somewhat critical of the airport project.  It is over budget and the motivations for it were questionable even before all the recent controversy around ISU President Steven Leath's use of University aircraft.
    I would like to see this funding model repeated with something that would impact an even larger number of residents in Ames. Perhaps the Healthy Life Center could benefit from this level of effort from the Ames Chamber, ISU, private donors, and so forth.
    Resolution Passed 5-0-1 (Nelson abstaining)
  • 31. Resolution reaffirming City's commitment to the values of equity, fairness, inclusion, and justice.
    Unfortunately we live in a world where we need a written statement pledging that as a community we will be inclusive and treat everyone with equity and fairness.  Things that really should just be a given.  This problem is not unique to Ames and the statement proposed has been adopted by other cities.
    Resolution passed 6-0
  • 32. Resolution approving parkland lease agreements with Iowa State University for Brookside Park, Franklin Park and Stuart Smith Park.
    The City leases several parks from Iowa State, the contracts for which expired in March of 2015. These leases have recently been renegotiated, with a few notable changes. No lease extension is being recommended for McDonald Woods or Zumwalt Trail Railroad. Franklin park will be purchased by the City after an additional 4.5 year lease. Brookside Park will be leased for an additional 20 years, but ISU will have the option to use the western portion of the park. 
    Many City parks are actually on land owned by Iowa State University and has been leased by the City.  Many of these leases are expiring and the City hoped to renew them for another 50 years but found that ISU had new objectives and the leases had to be renegotiated.  Unlike previous leases, ISU is no longer willing to negotiate 50 year terms and is including early termination clauses. Why? One reason is the parklands are in strategic locations and with the recent and rapid enrollment ISU wants to keep their options open to use the land for other purposes.
    One significant outcome was Franklin Park.  ISU is leasing this park with the stipulation that the City purchase it within four years.  This park is important to that neighborhood, the future development at the old middle school property, and for some planned bicycle paths and the City Manager is pushing to purchase it as soon as possible, probably in the first year of the new lease.
    Resolution adoption new lease terms passed 6-0.
  • 33. Healthy Life Center.
    The City Council recently attended a joint workshop on this topic, though nothing was decided at that time. Issues to decide now include whether to continue to pursue this concept, whether the city should own/manage, and whether to allocate funds for a feasibility study.
    Motion to allocate $100K from the 2016/17 general fund for a feasibility study passed 6-0.
  • 36. Hearing on Zoning Text Amendment to allow for Supervised Transitional Homes in RL, RM, RH, UCRM, RLP, FS-RL, FS-RM, F-PRD, S-SMD zoning districts.
    In an August meeting of the City Council, staff were directed to develop a text amendment which would make the approval of supervised transitional homes an administrative level decision. This is the first approval of the zoning ordinance amendment.
    Motion approving amendment passed 6-0.
  • 37. Council Budget Issues.
    The memo regarding this agenda item says, “Staff is still collecting data for this item.” More information will be sent to Council on Monday.
    Cue the yearly discussion about how much to increase funding for human services via the ASSET program and for the arts.  I sat through this last year while the Council debated back and forth about one percentage point for ASSET.  I understand that they have to be stewards of the available sales tax money but I also sat and watched them casually add several million dollars to the Grand Avenue extension project to build the road one foot higher in the hopes of avoiding flood waters.
    Councilman Gartin motioned for an 8% increase for ASSET which failed 3-3 (Gartin, Beatty-Hansen, Corrieri YES), with the Mayor voting no to break the tie.
    Councilman Nelson then motioned for a 6% increase for ASSET which passed 6-0.
    A motion to increase the Council on the Arts budget by 5% passed 5-0-1 (Gartin abstaining).
  • 38. Net Metering.
    During the past few months, EUORAB has been studying the issue of net metering, and how to fairly compensate users for excess energy they produce. The proposed change moves to a ‘fixed cost’ method (show in the table below), with an additional incentive ranging from 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour to 1 cent per kilowatt hour (listed by the table), depending on the user’s classification as residential vs. industrial, etc. 

    1. Residential: 2 ½ cents/kilowatt hour incentive

    2. General Power: 2 cents/kilowatt hour incentive

    3. Large Power : 1 ½ cents/kilowatt hour incentive

    4. Industrial: 1 cent/kilowatt hour incentive
    I talked about this issue quite a bit in a previous review.  The City wants to pay less for excess solar power that customers produce.  They have framed it up as non-solar customers subsidizing solar customers.  While this is true to some degree, subsidies from from one type of user to another is not uncommon or exclusive to solar.  Just look at the industrial electricity rates compared to residential.
    Solar customers are upset and say the new proposed rates will slow down solar adoption.  I tend to agree.  The new rates will nearly double the time it takes to pay back an investment in solar and I don't think anyone can argue that is not a disincentive.  The City also slipped in a monthly pay out schedule vs. the current end of year lump sum payment which was not discussed at the last meeting when City Council passed the motion to adjust the rates.

    Motion approving the above rate changes passed 4-2 (Beatty-Hansen and Corrieri NO)

 

 

 

 

Review -- Healthy Life Center, Brookside Park Lease, 2017/2018 Budget | Ames Council News

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