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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01102005 . . . CITY OF PORT TOWNSEND CITY COUNCIL MINUTES OF THE WORKSHOP SESSION OF JANUARY 10,2005 CALL TO ORDER AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE The City Council of the City of Port Townsend met in workshop session this tenth day of January, 2005, at 6:32 p.m. in the Waterman & Katz Cedar Room, Mayor Catharine Robinson presiding. ROLL CALL Council members present at roll call were Frank Benskin, Freida Fenn, Kees Kolff, Catharine Robinson, Geoff Masci, and Michelle Sandoval. Laurie Medlicott was excused. Staff members present were City Manager David Timmons, City Attorney John Watts, Public Works Director Ken Clow, Long Range Planning Director Jeff Randall, and Legal Assistant Bobbie Usselman took minutes. Also present was Eric Toews. Mayor Robinson mentioned a Regional Intergovernmental Meeting may be scheduled January 20, 2005 and any suggested agenda items should be sent to her or David Timmons. The following documents were distributed to Council: Memorandum concerning Metropolitan Park Districts from Mr. Watts; a brochure called "3D in Review" concerning campaigning and elections from Mr. Timmons; and Jefferson County's "County-Wide Planning Policy" per the request of Councilor Sandoval. PORT TOWNSEND COMPREHENSIVE PLAN - CHAPTER VII Capital Facilities & Utilities Element Mr. Timmons gave a general overview concerning the Comp Plan. He indicated during the budget and levy processes he spoke about looking at priorities to come up with a framework to look at governance and City services. He did research concerning hiring a consultant or doing a local survey, indicating that the State of Washington had done something similar in the past. The City of Pullman had done something with regard to process and levels of service. All were involved processes and didn't happen in 2-3 months; it took a long time. He stated that if you look at Chapter 7 of the Comp Plan there is language regarding roles and responsibilities for the growth area. Chapter VII and other plans need to be consistent throughout. Jeff Randall gave an overview of the materials provided in the Council Packet concerning levels of service (LOS). The LOS standards in the Comprehensive Plan and in other functional plans may be causing some confusion in terms of their current applicability and intended use in current capital facilities planning. The purpose of the workshop is to discuss these various standards and plans, their applicability today, and to seek Council input on what priority should be given to reconciling differing LOS standards in various city planning documents. City Council Workshop Meeting Page 1 January 10, 2005 . . . Ken Clow stated from the Public Works side, other than eliminating references to the Tri-Area System, the standards in the plan are what they use and are derived from state standards. He indicated it gets more difficult dealing with page VII-6 as LOS for firefighters or police is based on square footage per population. He would only address the public facility side and not the public works side. He said the focus should be on the policies. Mr. Timmons indicated the goal was, before initiating another process, to feel good about the foundation in the Comp Plan. There is a lot of concurrency and housekeeping to go back through the documents and plans to make them consistent with one another. We need to be familiar with what we have before we start changing things. Council discussion included the following: · Whether the end of the process would be an amendment to Chapter 7 with a different description for LOS adopted by Council in the future. · Whether we are missing a substantial portion of what is important to citizens, such as pool, recreation and social service programs. · Whether changing the basis for determining level of service is different than what is dealt with in an annual amendment process where you don't have the revenues to pay for the facilities that are necessary. · Whether we should make changes now or put it in the work plan for mid-cycle review. · Whether there are new standards for any LOS we are discussing. · Available options if LOS is not financially feasible. · The City's 20-year plan and how it fits into this. · Setting the standards for LOS, and establishing what the LOS formula will be. · Whether respective committees could investigate proper LOS, similar to what the General Government Committee recommended for police and fire. Possible process could be to benchmark each LOS in committee and bring back desired LOS to Council. · How changing the number of police officers per 1000 population does not work as an amendment to the comp plan. · Changing square footage formula into something more recognizable. · What is required statutorily is LOS for public facilities. · The concern is that once something is adopted formally in comp plan, then council looses flexibility of changing policies at will. · Whether we could create a separate document on staffing LOS, outside the comp plan, but that would help guide budget. · Whether the 10-step process on page VII-26 is appropriate to what we are talking about. · Whether our current level of service matches page VII-6, Policy 3.1. RECESS Mayor Robinson declared a recess at 8:00 p.m. for the purpose of a break. RECONVENE The meeting was reconvened at 8:10 p.m. City Council Workshop Meeting Page 2 January 10, 2005 CITY MANAGER EVALUATION PROCESS . Mayor Robinson indicated tonight's discussion is on the process for the City Manager evaluation only. The City Manager's contract indicates the Council has until February 5 to accomplish the evaluation and Mr. Timmons has agreed to an extension oftime. She suggested having a third party come in as a more objective interviewer and information gatherer, and having that person compile the information, provide it to Councilor provide a draft to Mayor or Mayor/Deputy Mayor or whomever, to summarize it and present it. That would give Mr. Timmons an opportunity to comment. She believes having a 2-sided evaluation process is helpful and important. Mr. Kolff wonders whether doing it differently than last year is prompted by the fact the Mayor didn't believe we had an objective process. Council felt free to say what they wanted; Mr. Timmons critiqued it. He is wondering why we need to be more objective than last year or give Mr. Timmons more of a chance to give feedback. Mayor Robinson stated she feels a third party who has no vested interest works better as there is less subjectivity. Mr. Masci disagrees and doesn't want to spend any money on an outside party. He felt the process used over the last few years worked fine. He believes it is up to Council and we would be shirking responsibility by passing it off. Ms. Fenn and Mr. Benskin agree with Mr. Masci. Ms. Sandoval agrees with keeping the process in-house. . Mayor Robinson sees merit in responsibility and does not want to take responsibility away from Council, but having an objective third party would be good. There was then discussion about which Councilors would take the lead on the evaluation. It was suggested Mr. Kolffparticipate because of his past participation, and the other participant should be someone who still has two more years on the Council. Mr. Masci volunteered to be a participant if necessary. Mayor Robinson asked if there were any other questions to be added to the evaluation questionnaire. The deadline will be the end of February, and Mr. Timmons will prepare a letter accepting that change. ADJOURN There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m. Bobbie Usselman Legal Assistant Attest: . Pamela Kolacy, CMC City Clerk City Council Workshop Meeting Page 3 January 10, 2005