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09-18-20 City Manager Report1 City of Kalispell OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER Information Memorandum 9/18/2020 1. Parks Department Our forestry crew is nearing completion of pruning the 700 block of 3rd Avenue East. A contractor has now moved from the west side of downtown Kalispell to the east side, removing hangers and stubs from the windstorm several months ago. Park crews continue with seasonal maintenance tasks including turf maintenance, making facility repairs, painting of picnic tables and doors, weed pulling in planter beds, and preparing for seasonal closures. Crews at KYAC are completing dirt work to the baseball/softball pods including edging of all 19 fields. They have also begun painting lines for fall soccer. With all seven of the new fields on the North end of KYAC now seeded in, some of their time has been spent managing irrigation and mowing the new fields. Cairo’s Kids Afterschool Program at Elrod Elementary School started Monday, August 31. Due to COVID and limited transportation (currently no busing is available from Peterson or Edgerton), participation was low at the beginning of the week (averaging 15 children per day). However, we did see an increase in registrations throughout the week and finished the week averaging 20 children per day. We are scheduled to talk with the school district transportation office at the end of September to determine if more transportation options would be available. We have received approval from Kalispell Public Schools and Flathead County City Health Department to move forward with Little Dribblers basketball program (preK-2nd grade) on Saturdays at Russell and Peterson Schools from October 17 to November 21. We will be adding the following policies/procedures to the program to follow Kalispell Public School athletic guidelines. ➢ We will limit attendance to two spectators per participant in uniform for basketball due to COVID-19 precautions. We will have staff at a table outside the 2 gym entrance checking in each child and spectators prior to them entering the gym. ➢ All spectators will be required to wear a mask/face covering. ➢ All people in attendance must wear masks unless they are physically participating on the court. ➢ All spectators also must maintain six feet of social distancing except among family units. ➢ We will schedule an extra 30 minutes between games to stagger entering and exiting the facility to avoid congested or "bottleneck" areas. Registration for Little Dribblers basketball opened Friday, September 4 and will close Friday, October 2. 2. Police Department Officer Will Appel has accepted a position at the Kalispell Police Department and will begin on September 29. Will joins us from Walnut Creek, CA, and brings 10 years prior law enforcement experience. This will bring the Kalispell Police Department to full staffing. As of September 15, the Kalispell Police Department has responded to 23,083 calls for service. This compares with 26,269 in 2019, and 24,865 in 2018. The co-responder program has started with several connections and referrals that have been made with individuals in Flathead County, helping to assist them with on-going mental health issues. The Kalispell Police Department has partnered with the professional policy program, Lexipol. This will aid in modernizing, vetting, and tracking policy. The implementation will happen over a multiple month process to fully develop policy specific to the Kalispell Police Department. Lexipol also provides a training component to keep officers current in policy and best practices. 3. Public Works Solid Waste Beginning the first week of August the Solid Waste trucks were outfitted with RFID (radio frequency identification) tags for the new scale system at the County Landfill. RFID tags are placed on the trucks' windshields; the vehicles are identified instantly as they arrive at the weigh scale station by truck number, company name, type of waste, time, and date. Although the new process had a few issues to work through during the first week, the process has dramatically 3 decreased the wait time for the drivers at the landfill. Woodland Ave and 2nd St E/Conrad Drive Intersection Improvement Project The Montana Department of Transportation (MDT), in coordination with the City of Kalispell would like to invite the public to view and comment on the option identified to improve the Woodland Avenue and 2nd Street East/Conrad intersection. The project is generally located at the southwest corner of Woodland Park. MDT and the City of Kalispell evaluated options to improve the intersection of 2nd Street East/Conrad Drive and Woodland Avenue and have determined that the safest and most efficient way to reduce the number and severity of crashes is to use a small single-lane roundabout. MDT in collaboration with the City are hosting hosting a Virtual Open House until October 2nd, 2020. The Open House can be found at: https://mdt.mt.gov/pubinvolve/woodland/ The public is encouraged to attend the project information event. For more information, please contact Missoula District Administrator Bob Vosen at (406) 523- 5802 or Project Design Engineer J.R. Taylor at (406) 444-7636. Members of the public may submit written comments to the Montana Department of Transportation Missoula office at PO Box 7039, Missoula, MT 59807-7039. The goals of this project are to: • Improve safety • Maintain a 25 MPH speed limit • Minimize impacts to adjacent properties including historic properties • Improve the pedestrian and bicycle environment • Accommodate school buses and emergency service vehicles 4. Information Services IT and GIS staff worked with consultant support to stand up the City’s ArcGIS enterprise environment. The City upgraded from the previous ArcGIS Server platform to the ArcGIS enterprise portal platform. The enterprise portal provides the foundation for the City’s GIS maps. The portal environment supports producing maps created by City staff to be seen by field staff or the public as the updates are made by City staff. City staff will choose to setup a map either as a static map or feature map that displays edits. Licensing for City staff to use Collector in the field or ArcGIS Pro or ArcMap in the office is no longer restricted. IT and other City staff continue to support the audio video requirements for web based public meetings in the Council Chambers. New hardware has been acquired, imaged, and configured to support the Council meeting for Monday 9/21. 4 5. Planning Department The Planning Board met on September 9 and heard one application request from Sarah and Alexander Musso for annexation and initial zoning of R-4 (Residential) of one lot containing approximately 0.17 acres with an existing single-family residence. The annexation is part of their request to connect to an adjacent city sanitary sewer main. The property is located at 904 8th Avenue West. The Board did recommend approval of the request and their recommendation will be forwarded to the Council for consideration at their October 5 meeting. The Planning Board also held a work session on a request from Hammerquist and Caselegno, LLC for a Commercial Planned Unit Development (“PUD”) overlay on two lots containing approximately 2.6 acres of land located at 145 and 151 Snowline Lane. The lots are currently vacant and zoned B-5 (Industrial-Business). The intent would be to use the rear parcel for a construction laydown yard and later develop the front parcel. The property has a PUD placeholder designation, which means that, with limited exceptions, any use or development of the property requires a full PUD submittal. The work session was intended for information purposes to inform both the public and the planning board about the various aspects of the project. The formal public hearing for the PUD is scheduled for Tuesday, October 13. City staff will also be meeting with A&E Architects this week. A&E Architects was chosen to provide the professional planning and architectural services for the creation of historic design standards for Downtown Kalispell. The meeting is intended to outline the planning process moving forward over the next few months, including the process for incorporating public input. 6. Building Department In the last 2 weeks, we have issued permits for 10 single-family homes, 8 townhomes and 2 duplexes. This brings the total of new single-family/duplex and townhouse units for the year to 203, compared to 106 last year at this time. There have been 132 multi-family housing units issued so far this year. At the end of 2019, the building department had issued permits for a total of 84 multi-family units. There was a total of 125 combined building and/or fire inspections completed in the last 2 weeks. Residential – 55 Plumbing – 13 Commercial – 14 Mechanical - 10 Electrical – 17 Fire - 16 7. Community Development Work continues on the Airport Road and 18th Street West Project. Sidewalk and curb 5 installation is complete on 12th Street West. Preparations continue for pouring concrete curb, gutter, driveways and sidewalks on Airport Road. Parking lots at Airport Road and 1st Avenue West are prepared for concrete and asphalt work. Construction of the new 17th Street West is underway. Work will move to 18th Street West next. In coordination with the City, the EPA conducted a phase II environmental site assessment at the northeast tank basin of the former CHS Agronomy Center located at 55 4th Avenue East North. The work included removal of the fuel pumps, associated underground piping, and three 20,000 gallon fuel tanks. Soil and water samples taken have been submitted for laboratory testing and results are expected in about two weeks with a phase II report to follow by Weston Solutions. Over the coming weeks the tanks and soils at the site will be disposed.