Media / Video — Transcript

Tuesday, September 9, 2025Analysis complete

6 Topics in This Document

Fisher Property Site Planning

Water Treatment Expansion Alternatives

Proposed 2026 Budget and Property Tax Levy

Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) Discussion

Second Quarter Financial Report

Fire Relief Board Discussion

Full Extraction
Discussion only; no formal action taken.
Discussion only; no formal action taken.
Discussion only; will be presented to council next week for formal action.
Discussion only; no formal action taken.
Discussion only; no formal action taken.
Discussion only; ongoing conversation.

If you recall when we last went to council identified one possibly two uh public property and then what time place for redevelopment. So as a way to optimize the land uh in the existing utility infrastructure and access and mobility uh we've brought on and Brian Harris who's participating here to to assist in that effort.

Zach [00:00:26]Fisher Property Site Planning

A lot of this starts with access and understanding that there'll be uh no allowed access off of 149th Street and that potentially this access is most likely to get closed uh in the future. Uh so very limited access from the south and from the east. So most of our access is coming from Dodd Boulevard as you'll see in these concepts.

Brian [00:00:54]Fisher Property Site Planning

For me, the biggest thing is I some of these do eliminate that public works storage that continues to be a conversation. So, I'd rather not have one of those projects because we're trying to figure that out.

Council Member 1 [00:06:56]Fisher Property Site Planning

Well, and I don't think we anticipate marketing it until the fire station is completed. It's going to be sometime in 207. But we would probably just I mean our to sit on it until the fire station is done.

Zach [00:09:07]Fisher Property Site Planning

So we're kind of um walking away from those ideas. So um so we with the purchase of the Fisher property, we wanted to re-evaluate those three um alternatives that we looked at in this 2002 study.

Zach [00:10:07]Water Treatment Expansion

The advantage to a satellite plant would be that we have that redundancy factored. So if the main plant goes down, at least we have average winter day demand flows that would uh we could we could support the the city with.

Zach [00:14:14]Water Treatment Expansion

Yeah, it just seems hard to justify building a second site even with the redundancy such a significant cost. I don't I thought before that it was like a no-brainer, but now I'm I'm misremembering I guess.

Council Member 1 [00:17:28]Water Treatment Expansion

I don't think any of us could habitat not doing some sort of treat. We're not no one's mixing water. No, I mean I think three is not that's not an option for me. I don't not interested in uh

Council Member 1 [00:17:28]Water Treatment Expansion

Our taxable market values for this coming year for 2026 didn't rise 5.5% roughly 715 million. Um our tax capacity rate as we structured the budget would come in at 33.1% which um is just a little bit over last year's rate tax rate at 32.7.

Julie [00:24:26]Proposed 2026 Budget and Property Tax Levy

We what you don't see in the levy dollars obviously is the the first center bonds the first um of those public safety bonds the fire station ones because as you remember the franchise fees aren't going to be dedicated for those principal and interest.

Julie [00:26:01]Proposed 2026 Budget and Property Tax Levy

So what we're incorporating into the general fund is a designated fund balance of 600,000 this first year. Next year we'll do another designation of 600,000. So we'll build up to 1.2 million 1.8 million at the end of 2027. So we're not um when the safer grant funding goes away, we're not going to see a huge jump in our levy.

Julie [00:28:13]Proposed 2026 Budget and Property Tax Levy

I mean obviously 70% uh this is much uh more appetizing than what we had this past year. I know that comes with some hard decisions in terms of staffing for this coming year, but I do think uh folks need a little more relief this year after the increase last year.

Council Member 1 [00:32:00]Proposed 2026 Budget and Property Tax Levy

What Commissioner Hullberg is doing is we're making a concentrated effort to kind of uh uh frontload our projects in 26 and 27 in an effort to try to address any potential mitigation options so that when we get to the closures in 28 we'll be ready.

Zach [00:36:12]Capital Improvement Plan (CIP)

But there's still at least 20 million that would be the county road 50 portion that that all goes to the freeway. So great amount of money, but it's really not helping the county or the city taxpayer in this project.

Commissioner Hullberg [00:39:13]Capital Improvement Plan (CIP)

We know even the little hiccup um right now can put the area into gridlock and um months of 55 being closed underneath the freeway is going to be really really really challenging very I don't I mean we all know the variety of reasons but when you factor in there is no frontage road on either side of the freeway way between 50 and 60.

Commissioner Hullberg [00:40:24]Capital Improvement Plan (CIP)

So you'll sorry you'll see you know some of that obviously um there's a million dollars for CMF expansion that will obviously that decision is not made simply by approving the CIP. So that'll be a discussion that is yet to we'll come back for a separate discussion on the timing and all that before we enter into a contract there.

Zach [00:43:55]Capital Improvement Plan (CIP)

Basically, so when you're looking at the revenues for the general fund, we're at 45%. The reason for that is, you know, 50% of our tax. So we get in June well we only get 70% of that 50% in June and then we get the other 30% of that 50% July.

Julie [00:46:00]Second Quarter Financial Report

But a wonderful uh note with the liquor fund is um THC sales are much higher than we ever than we projected. Good or bad, but that was a surprising thing to see that um it's already surpassed what we budgeted at the halfway mark.

Julie [00:47:04]Second Quarter Financial Report

The looking at the um communications fund again as Justin mentioned you know this their the revenue source on this fund keeps dwindling it's dwindling in every city. Um and that's why doing a levy for the first time for communications fund.

Council Member 1 [00:48:47]Second Quarter Financial Report

water for 2026. We'll be going over that. We're working on that right now. Just starting to work on it. We go over that budget with you in October in the race setting. So, just seems like a positive place to be where you're under budget for operating and you're over revenue. But we're also planning on some big costs coming up and that's the piece that'll driving some of the rates, you know, as we anticipate those things happening.

Julie [00:48:47]Second Quarter Financial Report

staff uh began a conversation with fire relief about uh sharing the some of the uh fire state fire aid that we received to support the uh fire relief boards uh mentioned and it's intended to support fire department as a whole.

Zach [00:51:30]Fire Relief Board Discussion

I think with the state's uh approval of an increase in the u annual uh maximum to 20,000 it it kind of just stopped the discussion because changing over doesn't benefit the p their pension as much um as going with that defined benefit of 20,000 per service year.

Zach [00:51:30]Fire Relief Board Discussion