2. Extension of Services PolicyCity of Kalispell
Post Office Box 1997 • Kalispell, Montana 59903-1997 • Telephone (406) 758-7700 • FAX (406) 758-7758
REPORT TO : Honorable Mayor and City Council
FROM: Chris A. Kukulski, City Manager
SUBJECT: How to Deal with Fringe Developments
MEETING DATE: May 22, 2000
BACK GROUND: At the January 10, 2000 work session, the Council and
staff discussed at length issues dealing with fringe development. As
a result of that discussion, staff received direction in three areas:
Develop a listing and map of parcels outside the City that are
receiving City services; begin a dialog with the County and these
City -served neighborhoods regarding annexation; and identify ways to
provide City services to non-contiguous areas that may be annexed in
the future. The results of this work to date are as follows:
1)Identification of parcels. The staff attempted to prepare a
list of parcels outside the City limits currently receiving
sewer service. As a first step, the City Clerk attempted to
locate all known waivers and petitions. This was not an
easy task. The files are incomplete and scattered about
because over the years there has been no consistent filing
method or location. Some documents were in the Clerk's
office, some in the City Attorney's office, some were in the
basement, and some were in the vault. It is probable that
there are still others not found simply because we do not
know where to look. To compound the problem, not all the
petitions and waivers were recorded with the County. The list
of what we have found, along with utility billing
information, was given to FRDO in order to develop a map. The
map shows, to the best of our ability at this time, those
parcels that are receiving sewer service and their locations
with respect to City boundaries and whether waivers of
protest or petitions to annex are on record. The staff has
reviewed the resulting map and we believe it does not appear
to represent an accurate picture, based on our initial
expectations and understanding of past actions and decisions
by the City Council, of the current situation. P.J.
Sorenson, the City's Zoning Administrator, has been tasked to
further research the matter and improve the accuracy of the
data. With P.J.'s experience in zoning and his legal
background, we are confident that many of the inaccuracies
will be resolved. The latest map representing progress to
date will be available for the meeting.
2)Discussion of annexation. Staff was directed to begin
discussions with representatives of these outlying
neighborhoods and the County Commissioners to determine how
we can move forward with annexation. I met with Bill Astle
to gain insight on his perspective of the issue. Mr. Astle
was legal council for Evergreen and Greenacres during the
last annexation effort. Bill currently represents several
neighborhoods that are fighting annexation by the City of
Whitefish. In a nutshell, Mr. Astle contends that cities
cannot annex areas on the basis that we (the cities) are
providing services when in fact the area is paying an SID for
the improvements that are providing the services. On this
point, needless to say, I disagree with Mr. Astle, as do most
city attorneys around the state. It is likely that the
Montana Supreme Court will need to resolve this issue. A
decision on this is expected within the next year
(Whitefish) .
I also spoke with County Commissioner Williams who offered no
advice. He indicated this is an issue between the
neighborhoods and the City. In addition, I met twice with
representatives of the Flathead County Water & Sewer District
#1 (Evergreen). The District indicated that they had no role
to play in the annexation issue. They are nothing more or
less than a delivery system for water and sewer services.
3)Serving non-contiguous parcels. The City staff has
investigated ways to provide services to non-contiguous
parcels. The initial step was to determine the potential for
developing exchange of service arrangements between the City
and County so we could avoid sending City personnel out to a
non-contiguous service area. This would involve the City
performing County tasks in contiguous or near contiguous
areas in exchange for County personnel providing similar
services on the City's behalf in the non-contiguous City
areas. For the three primary services, Police, Fire and
Public Works, we have identified no potential for exchange
with the County that would ensure the property owner would
receive a level of service reasonably equal to that received
by their counterparts within the City limits.
Police - After meeting with the Sheriff's Department, it
appears we would need to pay them for providing the service
on our behalf. The Sheriff has five Deputies on duty covering
the entire County while the City has six officers on duty
within the City limits. Therefore, it seems inappropriate to
consider such payment since we could likely respond more
quickly to an incident than could the Sheriff. More
importantly, the City could be held liable if a lawsuit
resulted from an improperly handled incident. This is a
significant potential liability. Though it would be less
efficient to serve an island (depending on location), it
would not warrant paying someone else to provide the service.
Fire - Fire is the most difficult to deal with. The exact
same issues that pertain to police would also be of concern
for the fire department. In addition to those issues, the
City's ISO rating could be adversely effected, depending on
the location of the island and what, if any, success we have
in developing adequate joint response arrangements. This
would be of critical importance when a response is required
north, or northeast, because this is a known problem. In
addition, Police and Fire protection are two of our greatest
selling points. It is not in our interest to compromise these
services for City taxpayers by lowering the standard of
quality.
Public Works - It is our understanding that the County does
not accept new streets into its maintenance system. So their
willingness and ability to provide services on our behalf is
uncertain. Existing developed areas of recent construction
are, to our knowledge, not receiving such routine services as
plowing or sweeping. Where these services are provided in
older areas the standard of care is substantially different
from our own. We believe that this exchange would be viewed
as substandard to regular City services. There are no County
water or sewer maintenance services to exchange.
I have tried to view this issue, as would a resident of one of the
areas to receive sub -contracted services. The idea of receiving lower
quality services sub -contracted from the County would be unacceptable
to me if I lived in one of these areas. The liabilities associated
with Police and Fire add a tremendous negative aspect to consider
before making this exchange. Worse still is the probability of
adversely effecting the City's ISO rating. This would be counter-
productive to all the City's effort to improve this important factor.
I believe that unless the area to be annexed is either close to the
current City limits so that we can provide our own services with an
efficiency equal to our regular services, or the project is so large
that it pays for the resulting inefficiencies, I would recommend the
City not provide services to an area until it is contiguous to the
City.
In conclusion, I believe we need to address the fundamental problem
which is the continuing growth in areas far beyond the City's
boundaries but are adjacent to the boundaries of the Evergreen
utility service area. In my view, there is one logical answer, annex
all the areas that look, feel and for all intents and purposes are a
logical and sensible part of the City of Kalispell. At that point the
issue of contiguity is resolved. Ninety nine percent of future
projects would not be a political or administrative headache once
these areas have become part of the City of Kalispell. For
developments like the Lincoln and Farris proposals, I recommend we
defer providing City services until they fit into one of the two
categories. They must either be contiguous to the City limits or so
close to the City limits that efficiency in not an issue, or they
should produce sufficient tax revenue to pay for the inefficient
delivery of services. If their development plan warrants it, they
may facilitate their plans by assisting the City to deal with the
annexation issue by encouraging Evergreen to promote resolution of
this matter once and for all. Attached is a copy of the January 10
workshop memo so I will not restate those points.
RECOMMENDATION: The City Council should express its support for
this position. The City has been close to resolving this in the past
but a for a variety of reasons we failed. As a result this problem
continues to plague the City.
FISCAL EFFECTS: Unknown.
ALTERNATIVES: As suggested by the City Council.
Chris A. Kukulski
City Manager