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05-29-20 City Manager Report1 City of Kalispell OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER Information Memorandum 5/29/2020 1.Parks Department The locomotive that was gifted to the City from Mission Mountain Railroad that was placed where the future core trail will run, now has a fence installed around it to protect it from vandalism. Staff also boarded up the windows to keep rocks from damaging the windows by potential vandals. A contractor is currently installing a rail barrier at Woodland Park. This will help move people to designated entry points (paved or concrete paths), reduce vehicles driving over concrete curbs into grass areas, and provide parking barriers that fit more in line with the natural look of Woodland Park. With the announcement that Montana is moving into Phase 2 on June 1, Recreation has begun moving forward with opening Camp Woodland Summer Day Camp as originally planned on Wednesday, June 10. Currently there are 148 participants pre-registered for the camp and parents have until Friday, May 29, at 5pm to complete their payment for the days requested. We will reopen registration to the public on June 2 to fill any remaining spots. To facilitate Camp Woodland this year, we will begin installation of the new 20x40 canopy tents at the camp center the week of May 26 as weather permits to help with social distancing. We are also identifying new COVID-19 signage needs for areas such as check-in, hand washing stations, etc. Staff training for Camp Woodland staff will take place on Saturday, June 6 and Sunday, June 7. Rocky Mountain Radar on May 20-21 inspected pool lines on both the lazy river and the activity pool at the Woodland Water Park. They identified areas in each pool that they believe have cracks in the PVC lines. Staff have begun excavating around the suspected area in the lazy river and will do additional testing before starting repairs. 2.Fire Department Since the last update, the Kalispell Fire Department has received 140 calls for service. 2 Staff have been building an inventory program to assist us with our daily operations. When complete, the program will dovetail into our training and scheduling software and help us streamline our daily, weekly, monthly and annual apparatus checks and maintenance requirements utilizing any web enabled device. It will also assist us in tracking and documenting our inventory status for our medical supplies and ordering. Also, as part of our local medical protocols and the requirements for DEA, this software will allow us to have a secure program to monitor and manage controlled substances. This buildout is scheduled to be complete by July 1. 3. Public Works FOUR MILE DRIVE WATER TRANSMISSION MAIN The Four Mile Drive Project is the highest priority project identified in the Water Facility Plan Update for the Upper Pressure Zone. At completion, the project will add redundancy to the Upper Pressure Zone, mitigate pressure fluctuations, decrease head losses, decrease tank turnover times in Sheepherder Tank, increase Firm Capacity and increase water storage during the peak flow time of Summer and Fall irrigation. The project consists of approximately 3 miles of 18” C900 PVC water transmission main, including 3 directional drills under wetland areas and state highway. The project starts on 3 Mile Drive near Spring Creek Estates, heads west along 3 Mile Drive to West Spring Creek, then north along West Spring Creek to Farm to Market, continuing North to Four Mile Drive. The transmission main continues east along 4 Mile Drive to Stillwater Road, where it turns north and parallels Stillwater Road until it terminates with a connection to the existing 14” transmission line in Timberwolf Parkway. The contractor has now completed the underground construction on the project. In the coming weeks, the contractor will begin pressure testing and disinfection of the newly constructed transmission main as well as completion of remaining landscaping and surfacing restoration. CONSUMER CONFIDENCE REPORT (CCR) The CCR or Annual Water Quality Report has been completed for 2019. Notices of the report are advertised in the utility bills. The CCR is an annual water quality report the City is required to provide to its customers. This report summarizes information regarding sources used, any detected contaminants, compliance, and educational information. As reported in the CCR, Kalispell’s Public Water Supply met all the EPA’s drinking water requirements for 2019. A link to the report can be found on the city website at: https://www.kalispell.com/DocumentCenter/View/561/Consumer-Confidence-Report- PDF?bidId= 3 4. Planning Department The Kalispell Planning Board will hold a public hearing at their June 9 meeting to hear one application request consisting of the following: File #KCU-20-03 – A request from Chrysalis Group Home for a conditional use permit to operate a youth group home for eight (8) or fewer girls as transitional housing while attending local schools and pursuing employment opportunities. The property is located at 1005 8th Avenue East and is a part of Chrysalis Schools of Montana, based in Eureka, Montana. Under federal and state law, group homes of this size have certain protections. The conditional use permit cannot be denied, although reasonable conditions may be placed on the facility consistent with conditions that might be placed on single-family homes. The property can be more particularly described as the North ½ of Lot 11 and the West 30 feet of the North ½ of Lot 12, Block 256, Kalispell Addition 8, as shown on the map or plat thereof on file and of record in the office of the Clerk and Recorder, Flathead County, Montana. The Planning Board will also be holding a work session and continuing discussion on a proposed PUD development located at 430 Stillwater Road. The subject property is situated at the intersection of Stillwater Road and Four Mile Drive and was part of the now expired Starling PUD covering Section 35. The project envisions a mixture of single-family residential and multi-family residential uses along with a retail area intended to serve the development and the greater area. Staff will be meeting with the Kalispell Downtown BID to discuss historic design guidelines for downtown Kalispell. The BID was awarded a $15,000 grant through the Montana Department of Commerce Main Street Program to create historic district guidelines and City staff will facilitate those efforts over the coming year. Any guidelines created through the planning process will have to be considered by both the Planning Board and Kalispell City Council. 5. Building Department In the last 4 weeks, we have issued permits for 7 single-family homes and 1 duplex. That brings the total of new single-family/duplex and townhouse units for the year to 79, compared to 43 last year at this time. The permit was issued for the COVID-19 Alternative Care Facilities, which are 98 temporary patient rooms on the 3rd Floor of the Montana Children’s Center. There was a total of 138 combined building and/or fire inspections completed in the last 4 weeks. Residential – 59 Plumbing - 11 Commercial – 16 Mechanical - 11 Electrical – 9 Fire - 32 4 6.Community Development The City is currently accepting Statements of Qualification in response to the Request for Proposals advertised for a real estate firm for the sale of the remaining four lots at Old School Station. The RFP is available on the City website at www.kalispell.com. The deadline for submission of SOQ’s is June 12. Community Development staff continues to work with Flathead County Economic Development Authority, Montana Department of Environmental Quality, US EPA Brownfields on the required process for brownfields environmental site assessments and revolving loan fund clean-up loan programs for two former CHS owned Core Area properties. This work is projected to extend into fall. The Federal Railroad Administration’s review of the Supplemental Environmental Assessment and summation of public comment is near completion, allowing for the potential issue of a Finding of No Significant Impact and selection of a core area north/south street connector. Staff is working on an adjustment of the east terminus of the rail line at Glacier Rail Park, requested by BNSF, and will prepare a Notice of Interim Trail Use modification to be submitted to the Surface Transportation Board. 7.Police Department Officer Tara Oster was awarded the Kalispell Lion’s “Officer of the Year” award. Officer Oster was nominated by her peers for her positive attitude, intelligence, strong work ethic, and volunteerism in her community. Year to date calls for service are 12,585, this compares with 14,603 in 2019 and 13,344 in 2018. We are seeing call volumes steadily grow since the Covid-19 restrictions are easing. The Kalispell Police Department recently converted a seldom used classroom to a larger squad room. The squad room can still be utilized as an internal classroom. We have partnered with Kalispell Fire to schedule their classroom for more formal trainings. The previous squad room will soon become an evidence room, increasing the capacity of our evidence storage at the police department by 50%. Our current evidence storage was beyond realistic capacity and this will allow for better organization and future growth. This project was done with internal labor and a budget of around $500.00. The first hybrid patrol vehicle to be put on the road already has about 2700 miles on it. 2700 miles would typically equate to about 450 hours on the engine in the standard cars. At 2700 miles, the hybrid vehicle had 87 hours on the engine. That is a significant drop in engine hours for the same mileage. As temperatures increase, air conditioner use could affect that, and in winter, the engine stays on as long as the heater is on. Therefore, a month is a very small sample, and not enough data to be representative of a longer time frame. 5 8. City Clerk The City Facebook page has surpassed 7,000 followers. Instagram has grown to almost 2,000 followers. Twitter and LinkedIn continue to see slow increases in reach. The City Clerk’s office has provided administrative support for seven bid or qualification invites across departments during the month of May.