Weekly Update for Week of 3/30/2015
By Shoreline City Manager Debbie Tarry
Council Meetings
March 30
· Dinner Meeting: Council Operations.
· Business Meeting
o Proclamation for Cesar Chavez Day: Councilmember Roberts presented proclamation.
o Franchise agreement with Astound for Fiberoptics: Right-of-way franchise from Astound Broadband, LLC, doing business as Wave for a telecommunication (fiber optic) system in Shoreline.
o 2014 Annual Traffic Report.
o Incarceration Alternatives and District Court Update
o Executive Session – Potential Litigation
April 6
· Dinner Meeting - Executive Session, Potential Litigation
· Business Meeting
o Proclamation of Earth Day
o Adoption of 2015-2017 City Council Goals
o Execute Contract for Construction of the Einstein Safe Routes to Schools Project:
This project will construct two sidewalk routes in the vicinity of
Albert Einstein Middle School. The final design of the project was
completed in January 2015. As part of the 100% design, the design
consultant provided an updated engineers estimate that was approximately
$95,000 (16.4%) higher than the 60% estimate and exceeded the project
budget. Staff thoroughly reviewed and analyzed the cost estimate to
understand the reasons for the increases and alternatives to reduce
costs. The analysis broke cost impacts into 3 categories: 1) scope
changes after 60%; 2) design advancement; and 3) consultant omissions in
the 60% package. The primary scope change was a revision to the curb
location on 5th Ave NW. This change was made to reduce
impacts to the adjacent property owners. Eliminating this scope change
would have required some redesign at an additional cost and would have
disappointed property owners. The remaining elements in the scope are
essential requirements of the grant and cannot be reduced or eliminated.
Based on the bid results, the project needs approximately an additional
$118,000 over the current budget of $569,428, for a total project
budget of $687,093. Staff recommends that the additional funding needed
for this project come from the available fund balance in the Roads
Capital Fund. The construction contract, which Council is being asked to
take action on, totals $467,651.
o Appointment of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services/Tree Board Members:
The
Council Subcommittee is recommending that the Council appoint the
following candidates to the PRCS/Tree Board: Cindy Dittbrenner, William
Franklin, Katie Schielke.
o Discussion of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services Extra-Help Pay Schedule:
During the 2015 budget review process the City Council asked about
compensation for Extra Help staffing. The Parks, Recreation, and
Cultural Service (PRCS) Department, in consultation with Human
Resources, conducted a review of the work done by its seasonal and
variable hour Extra Help personnel. The review looked at the level of
responsibility of each classification. The result was an Extra Help Pay
Schedule that provides equity and consistency across all job
classifications. It establishes the current Washington State minimum
wage rate of $9.47 per hour as the base of the pay schedule.
o Discussion of Ordinance No. 708: This will be a review of the recommended 2014 “carry-over” budget
items. The carry-overs are for operating and capital projects budgeted
in 2014, but were not completed during that time.
o Discussion of Ordinance No. 709:
This is a review of recommended 2015 budget amendments for items that
were not known or planned when the City Council adopted the 2015 budget.
o Discussion of Resolution No.
372: This resolution repeals post-issuance tax compliance policies for
tax-exempt bonds that were adopted in Resolution No. 308 and approves
revised policies.
King County Police Officers Guild (Deputies & Sergeants) Labor Agreement
This
week, the King County Council approved the 2013-2016 collective
bargaining agreement for the King County Police Officers Guild (Deputies
& Sergeants). The most significant items include a 0% COLA for
2013, a 1.67% bonus payment for 2014 (instead of a COLA) and then 2%
COLA for 2015 and 2016. Council may recall that the previous five year
contract for this group included an annual 5% COLA. The new agreement
also includes a change in the health benefit plan to one more aligned
with other King County employees, which is lower cost than the current
guild plan.
Collective Garden Inspections
Over
the last couple of weeks, our Customer Response Team (CRT) has done
inspections of the City’s collective gardens for compliance with the
City’s adopted regulations. Common violations that were found include:
o Over 10 patients, although CRT did not see more than five at any one time
o Staff license issues expired or not licensed
o Possible excessive amount of product on hand (although not easy to confirm with limited access)
o Multiple
collective gardens attached to a license (City regulations require that
operators only belong to a single garden. This regulation is more
restrictive than State law)
o Most seem to have pictures or illustrations of marijuana online
Shoreline Farmers Market
The next Shoreline Farmers Market advisory meeting is April 15 from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. at City Hall, room 104. Natalia, new Market Manager, has been busy – see her update below:
Things
are moving along pretty well. We have about 20 vendors signed up so far
with a goal to expand to 35. We had a great meeting with Recology
yesterday about sponsoring the market and they would like to provide
some level of assistance. We are reaching out to Shoreline Community
College and art schools to engage students, musicians and performers in
the market. There is a good chance the Showmobile may be parked at the
market location during the summer for the market to use on Saturdays.
I've just connected with the Shoreline Chamber and plan to attend their
next luncheon. Mark McVeety is letting me make a short announcement at
the opening of each QuickStart training to help us spread the word about
our new location at Aurora Square in the Sears upper parking lot near
Central Market.
House Democrats Release State 2015-17 Operating Budget Proposal
As
expected, the House Democrats released their 2015-17 state operating
budget proposal earlier today. Overall, the $38.8 billion biennial
budget raises nearly $1.5 billion in new revenue to help address the
McCleary funding decision.
For cities, the proposal:
- Doesn't reduce or redirect state shared revenues to cities;
- Doesn't sweep the Public Works Trust Fund and funds a modest loan list; and
- Does share some new marijuana revenue – but not as much as we feel is needed.
This and That
· This link is to a comment thread on the Seattle Transit Blog – March 20 includes comments related to the 185th Light Rail Station rezone action. http://seattletransitblog.com/
· Link
to an op-ed in last Sunday’s Seattle Times by Hilary Franz about
allowing redevelopment around one of the Bellevue stations. http://www.seattletimes.com/
· Seattle
City Light will begin charging Shoreline ratepayers for the Aurora
Phase 3A Project on April 1. We have previously issued a press release
and included information in Currents about this. The charge represents
about a 0.6% increase in Shoreline rates.
And why should the Seattle Transit Blog comments matter? A lot of those commenters are from PORTLAND, OREGON!
ReplyDeleteOr they are from or about Seattle - Seattle, which has the infrastructure, impact fees for PARKS, SCHOOLS, UTILITIES, and other things that Shoreline City Hall can't be bothered with, like sidewalks.
This is otherwise known as a false analogy, the same with Bellevue, which also has large impact fees for all of the above - like fire and police services, once again, Shoreline doesn't have impact fees for these services and left them out of both light rail stations as well as the Aurora Square DEIS.
Maybe Debbie Tarry should have included the outrage going on at Mercer Island, to be fair, or Factoria.
As for charging Shoreline ratepayers for Aurora Phase 3A, we never voted to charge ourselves for these fees and who benefits? The developers, this is the future City Hall has envisioned for our residents - charging us utility fees and utility taxes on sewer and water to benefit developers.