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04-02-21 City Manager Report1 City of Kalispell OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER Information Memorandum 4/2/2021 1.Parks Department Forestry will be transitioning over to 4th Avenue East. We anticipate work along the length of 4th Avenue will take 4 weeks. Park crews have started working turf areas, thatching, and picking up leaves that fell after the first snow of the winter. Crews have also started the summerization process of Kalispell Youth Athletic Complex in anticipation of opening possibly later this week. The moisture in the ground and the turfs’ ability to sustain usage guide the opening of the complex. Our Certified Playground Safety Inspector has completed inspection of Kalispell’s 17 playgrounds. We had a good turnout for our Spring Break Camp, March 22-26, averaging 34 participants per day. Our activities included field trips to the Kalico Art Center and the Rockfish Climbing Gym. We are finalizing details and logistics for our Camp Woodland Summer Day Camp which will run June 9 to August 20. We have two weeks left in our Little Dribblers youth basketball league with the program ending on Saturday, April 10. Our next youth sports league, Spring Soccer, will begin Wednesday, April 21. At the end of the early registration period for soccer, we have 337 registrations for the program. The regular registration deadline for Spring Soccer is Friday, April 9. 2.Public Works City of Kalispell Infrastructure - Public Viewer Map Starting April 5 the public will be able to access a clickable map of the utilities infrastructure from the City’s website. This project has been a top priority for the Public Works Department and is the result of a collaborative effort to produce accurate and useful City utility data for all users. The map also provides access to the City’s collection of current and historical record drawings for reference. 2 The mapping interface is designed to provide easy access to all users, regardless of their level of technical expertise. It contains clickable layers with pop-up windows that display more information about each pipe, manhole, valve, etc. The mapping is considered a living document and data will continue to be populated and updated by city staff into the future. Map symbols were chosen to demonstrate ownership and type of infrastructure, as well as flow direction for stormwater and sanitary sewer pipes. In the coming weeks we will add a clickable link to a short, written tutorial that explains how to navigate the map. Enabling public access to City Infrastructure data will help area contractors, engineers, developers, property owners, and project planners by helping them see how their project or property fits into the city’s current infrastructure. It will provide the best available data for utilities such as pipe size and material, invert elevations, and flow rates, as well as record drawings. Although the mapping provides the best known data available, the mapping is provided for informational purposes only, and is considered a “use at your own risk” utility schematic which should not be considered as a replacement for U-dig or standard due-diligence processes for construction or design. Street Division - Paving Season The Street Crew is starting their larger project pavement rehabilitation season this week with an alley reconstruction project. The Street Division paved 6,942 tons of asphalt in the 2020 construction season. This equates to 23 blocks paved by the City Crew with an additional 19 blocks paved by a contractor. In total, 42 blocks or 2.94 miles of streets were rehabilitated in the 2020 season. The Street Division is scheduled to pave approximately the same amount this summer. The City Street Division is teaming up with Flathead County to host a two-day CAT paving school next week in Kalispell. The first day will cover compaction, rolling patterns, cause of asphalt distress, and pavement densities. The second day will be a hands-on paver training covering screed operations and the use of grade sensors for seam matching. 3 3.Police Department Lt. Jordan Venezio and Detective Sgt. Ryan Bartholomew attended the first week of the four week-long Montana Executive Leadership Institute in Helena March 22-26. MELI was designed to develop and nurture those persons within our organizations that will be called upon to manage and lead our criminal justice agencies of tomorrow. The comprehensive design of the MELI curriculum takes a broad field approach towards leadership and management principles that have been proven to be successful in corporate America. These principals will assist managers in accessing the strengths and weaknesses of themselves as well as individuals and groups within their organization and provide them the tools to take action towards improving organizational culture and performance. Eight Kalispell Police Officers were able to attend the law enforcement casualty care course hosted in Creston on March 28 and 29. Law Enforcement are frequently the first responders to medical emergencies. This was a two-day course designed to refresh and expand basic first aid in traumatic situations. Officer Randy Kaare attended a drug basic investigation course on the basics of narcotics investigation, to include, undercover operations, surveillance, report writing and court room testimony, as well as instruction on emerging drug trends. On March 18, 2021, Officers Tara Oster, Shane Lidstrom, and Sgt. Ryan Bartholomew attended an FBI interview school in Missoula. The course covered elements, techniques, and strategies of interviews for criminal activity suspects. The Detective Division has investigated 134 felony cases in 2021 compared to 104 at this time last year. 4.Planning Department The Kalispell City Planning Board will hold a public hearing at their April 13 meeting and take public comments on the agenda items listed below: 1.File #KCU-21-02 – A request from Patrick Jentz for a conditional use permit to allow a second single-family structure on a lot within an RA-1 (Residential Apartment) zone. The property contains an existing single-family home towards the front of the lot with the proposed second home to be placed towards the alley. The property is located at 469 First Avenue East North. 2.File #KA-21-01 – A request from Manpreet Singh (Kalispell Properties, LLC) for annexation and initial zoning of B-1 (Neighborhood Business) for property located at 81 Woodland Park Drive (Woodland Quick Stop), containing approximately 0.53 acres. The request is based on a desire to connect to city sanitary sewer service. 3.File #KZTA-21-01 –A request by the City of Kalispell Planning Department on 4 behalf of the Downtown Business Improvement District for a text amendment to the Kalispell Zoning Ordinance for the creation of a Downtown Historic District Overlay and the addition of the Downtown Historic District Design Standards. The Business Improvement District received a grant from the Montana Department of Commerce Main Street Program in 2020 to establish historic design standards as part of an effort to implement the goals of the Downtown Plan and Growth Policy. Staff, in conjunction with consultant A&E Architects, has drafted the proposal. The design standards are broken into two subsections: one set of standards applies to all properties within the Downtown Historic District Overlay and focuses on pedestrian-friendly urban site design. An additional set of standards would apply to buildings within the Main Street Historic District (a sub- district of the overall overlay) that focuses on historic architectural form, material, and colors reflective of Kalispell’s period of significance (1891-1960). The Downtown Historic District Overlay is generally bounded by Center Street to the north, 3rd Ave East to the east, 5th Street to the south, and the alley between 2nd Ave West and 3rd Ave West to the west. A map of the precise boundary is available upon request. The Planning Board is anticipated to forward their recommendations of the applications onto the Council for consideration at the May 3, 2021 meeting. 5.Building Department In the last 2 weeks, we have issued permits for 5 single-family homes, 7 townhomes and 1 duplex. This brings the total of new single-family/duplex and townhouse units for the year to 61, compared to 37 at this time last year. There have been 24 multi-family housing unit permits issued so far this year. We had not issued any multi-family housing permits, at this time last year. There was a total of 288 combined building and/or fire inspections completed in the last 2 weeks. Residential – 133 Plumbing – 37 Commercial – 30 Mechanical - 23 Electrical – 26 Fire - 39 6.Community Development The Kalispell Parkline is out to bid and the Pre-Bid meeting was held for the project on March 31. Bids for the project are due April 22 with a scheduled Council award on May 3. EPA’s Brownfields contractor, TetraTech, will be conducting a Phase II environmental site assessment and the removal of an underground fuel storage tank at the Sweet Peaks location on Main Street. Work is expected to take place late-April to early May. 5 EPA Brownfields has approved a phase II environmental site investigation at the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce building at the historic Great Northern Railroad Depot. Scheduling for this work is in the early stages and is likely to be completed this summer. The South Kalispell Traffic Project will be finalized by April 30. Remaining work includes some paving, landscaping/irrigation and a small amount of concrete work. The City is working on a grant application to the Montana Department of Transportation, Transportation Alternatives grant program. The grant request is for a segment of sidewalk on the southside of Kidsports along 4 Mile Drive to fill the gap between existing trails. The draft grant application is scheduled to go to the Planning Board for public review and comment May 11. The grant application is due June 4. 7.Information Services IT staff are preparing the new server for the body cam and in car video storage and electronic library upgrade. The existing video storage content will be migrated to the new server. IT staff replaced the network switch at fire station 61, the downtown fire station. Two MDTs (mobile data terminals/laptops) were deployed to police patrol cars. The MDTs taken out of the patrol cars have been reimaged and re-purposed for the police department where staff are able to reuse an MDT after four years or more in a patrol vehicle. The machine that integrates the Council Chambers audio/video feed and streams to the City website was replaced after the streaming app continued to experience failures. The City Council and Planning Board meetings are streamed to the City website. A new button called Watch Meetings has been added to the https://kalispell.com home page. The Watch Meetings button opens directly to the recorded City Council and Planning Board meetings. The Streaming Live tab shows active meetings for the City Council or Planning board meetings. 6 8.Finance Budget The fiscal year 2022 preliminary budget development process is underway. The finance department has updated all personnel cost schedules. All union contracts are current, health insurance and other benefit costs have been updated, so personnel cost variance to final budget should be minimized for those respective areas. The City’s fiscal year 2022 debt service cost has also been updated. Currently, Montana State Board of Investment (BOI) loans have a rate of 1.65% (thru February of 2022), subject to adjustment every February. The City’s debt through the State Revolving fund is a fixed rate and is between 2.25% and 3.00%. The debt for the City Hall at 201 1st Avenue East (BOI) will be paid off at the end of the current fiscal year (21), and the City’s G.O. Bond (1.00% - 2.00%) will be paid off at the end of the fiscal 22 budget year. Property and liability estimates are expected soon with an increase expected. The City’s overall employee health insurance cost for fiscal year 2022 is expected to decrease. The preliminary budget is expected to be completed by the end of April with the Council review of the preliminary budget tentatively scheduled for the 10th, and 11th of May. Electronic Time Sheets The finance department is working towards electronic time sheet reporting. Currently, the system has been partially implemented with a goal of having all departments submitting electronically before the end of the fiscal year. Some of the City’s challenges include departments using electronic time reporting systems which need to interface with the finance payroll software, and the multitude of pay types.