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10-29-21 City Manager Reports1 City of Kalispell OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER Information Memorandum 10/29/2021 1. Parks and Recreation Our forestry contractor is nearing the completion of a 241-tree fall pruning contact along 1st, 2nd, 10th and 11th Streets on the east side of town. Our Forestry staff are pruning trees along the 600 block of 5th Avenue East. Park staff are in the process of relandscaping the planting bed north of the Public Safety Building. We removed the juniper, arborvitae and Canadian chokecherry trees which were overgrown. A dry stream bed will flow through the center with fibrous mulch buffering it. This spring we plan on planting a few colorfully ornamental trees that complement the landscaping and Public Safety Building. As the weather continues to be mild with precipitation, leaf pickup in parks is a focus of our workplan. KYAC continues to winterize all the restrooms as the season winds down with youth sports. They are also doing dirt work on select baseball and softball fields to level the low spots and painting and storing goals for the winter. In the coming weeks, we will clean the shop facility and prep for closing and start pruning trees throughout the complex. We are anticipating starting our adult Futsal program next week at Edgerton School. We have 12 teams registered for this years league after postponing last year’s league. This is a co-rec league (must have at least 1 male and 1 female per team) and played in a 5 on 5 Futsal format. Our Kalispell Kickers will open for registration next week. Kalispell Kickers is a youth indoor, non-competitive, introduction to soccer for boys and girls from 3 years-old to 4th grade. Games are once a week and played for fun and instructional purposes only. Each 2 game day will have two parts: an instruction/practice period, and a scrimmage period. 2. Planning Department The Kalispell City Planning Board will hold a public hearing at their November 9 meeting and take public comments on the agenda items listed below: 1. Files #KA-21-05 and KPUD-21-04 – A request from Bish’s RV for the annexation of two parcels located at 3100 Highway 93 South containing approximately 8.36 acres of land with an initial zoning designation of B-2 (General Business). The proposal would add a Planned Unit Development (“PUD”) overlay on the two parcels along with a third parcel containing approximately 12.58 acres that is already within the city limits with a B-2/PUD placeholder designation. The Bish’s RV PUD as proposed would then be a Commercial PUD on a total of approximately 20.94 acres and would contemplate a renovation and expansion of an existing RV dealership. 2. File #KCU-21-10 – A request from Briggs Anderson for a conditional use permit to allow a multi-family residential development with up to 40 dwelling units on approximately 1.23 acres located in a B-2 (General Business) zone. The project would include covered parking, a fitness center, sidewalks, and an on-site trail system. The overall project would also include a new Jiffy Lube and incorporate the Mudman building into the site, which would be approximately 2.35 acres in total. Both are permitted uses and not subject to a conditional use permit, although both uses are tied into the parking lot layout, traffic circulation, and services that are under review. The property is located at 1280 Highway 2 West. 3. File #KCU-21-11 – A request from GMD Development, LLC, for a conditional use permit to allow a multi-family residential development with up to 138 dwelling units on 5.82 acres located in an RA-2 (Residential Apartment/Office) zone. The project is known as Junegrass and was awarded 4.78 million for affordable housing from the Montana Board of Housing. The development would include seven buildings with dwelling units as well as a community building, greenspace, playgrounds, and parking areas. The property is located at 1079 North Meridian Road. Documents pertaining to the agenda items are on file for public inspection at the Kalispell Planning Department, 201 First Avenue East, Kalispell, MT 59901, and are available for public review during regular office hours. In addition, information on the agenda items are posted on our website at https://mt-kalispell.civicplus.com/314/Planning-Board under planning board “upcoming agenda.” 3. Building Department In the last 2 weeks, we have issued permits for 7 single-family homes and 4 townhomes. That will bring the total of new single-family/duplex and townhouse units for the year to 3 221, compared to 241 at this time last year. There have been 329 multi-family housing units issued so far this year. Last year, at this time, we had issued 156 multi-family housing units. There was a total of 159 combined building and/or fire inspections completed in the last 2 weeks. Residential – 74 Plumbing – 17 Commercial – 18 Mechanical - 23 Electrical – 22 Fire - 5 4. Community Development The Montana Department of Transportation continues construction on the Kalispell Bypass – Foys Lake Road Interchange project. Crews are delivering topsoil in the project area, applying sealant on the new overpass to protect the structure from water and cracks, and installing roadway lights throughout the project. Staff has also submitted the Quarterly reports for the Build Grant associated with the project. Community Development staff presented the progress of the Kalispell Parkline project and proposed developments along the Parkline to multiple groups in October. Construction progress continues with the street crossings’ hard infrastructure and the pedestrian bridge over Highway 2. We have uploaded recent drone video of the Project on the City of Kalispell YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxbLdGNbkxE 5. Information Services IT staff replaced the police records phone and radio recorder. Successful recording has been consistent, and staff have been trained on the system. IT staff are preparing cyber security awareness training materials for City staff. The training will be offered to all employees. The training is web-based and will include question/answer sections. The training will be held in a conference room style training lead by IT for City field staff. Network design planning is underway to bring on the second internet service provider. Reconfiguration of the existing network configuration is required and being planned. Site walk throughs and the permit process is underway. 6. Police Department Year to Date calls for service stand at 29,104. This compares with 26,483 in 2020 and 30,178 in 2019. 4 Captain Brett Corbett participated in “Community Conversations” on KGEZ radio on Monday, October 25. Captain Corbett spoke about current trends in Law Enforcement including meth use, teenage suicide, community support for officers, and changes he has seen to policing in his career. LT. Jordan Venezio is working closely with our patrol division to schedule Special Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP) shifts during key events throughout the year. STEP shifts are used to address problem areas for traffic enforcement. The shifts can also focus on DUI enforcement and vehicle restraint usage. The Kalispell Police Department participated in interviews for the Records Management Specialist position. Teresa Parker has been with the KPD since 1989 and will be retiring from her position at the end of November. On October 25, Kalispell SRT and NWMR SWAT conducted training specific to Hostage Rescue operations. The teams conducted both classroom and practical application drills involving breaching techniques, exterior and interior team movement, distraction/diversion techniques, and firearm marksmanship. SRT/SWAT then gathered with the Crisis Negotiation Team and Tactical Dispatchers at the former Flathead County Juvenile Detention facility and participated in a combined Hostage Rescue scenario, including numerous live role players. 7. Fire Department From October 1 through October 25, the Fire Department had 254 responses. These included 169 medical incidents, 21 Motor vehicle accidents (including 7 car vs. pedestrians), 2 Structure Fire responses, and 6 fires- Cooking, Dumpsters, rubbish, etc. Ian Miller will be promoted to Engineer effective November 2nd, 2021. Chris Rupp was promoted to Captain, effective October 8th, 2021. The Department interviewed 10 candidates for 3 open Firefighter/Paramedic positions and are continuing the process with background investigations. The Department has been involved in multiple walk-throughs, building familiarizations, and fire pre-planning at Logan Health, the Flathead Warming Center, and St. Mathews. These walk-throughs with management and staff help all to consider various response strategies for different types of incidents. Staff has been working on completing an engineer’s task book that includes the operations of both the Wildland Brush Truck and the Water Tender. Additionally, we are preparing the components for the Engineers exam scheduled to take place in December. The department has been training on vehicle extractions, trauma care equipment for mass casualty/trauma patients including shooting victims, and webbing for various uses of victim and firefighter rescues, etc. 5 8. Public Works Public Works is working toward conversion to the new cellular metering system. On October 20, Water Department and Utility Billing employees received training on the new Badger cellular water meters, Beacon software, and ADG billing interface. Training included walking the Utility Billing Clerks through the process of helping customers set up their personal EyeOnWater account, setting personalized leak alerts, and how to interpret customers water consumption. This interface will help customers conserve water use and potentially lower their monthly bills. The Beacon cellular software will now enable Billing Clerks to get final reads from the office. The cellular reads are sent into the cloud three times a day and reads can be back dated if the need arises. To date, there are currently 132 cellular end points installed. Unfortunately, the global chip shortage has made it difficult to get inventory and has caused for a slower implementation than projected. We are expecting large back ordered shipments to arrive early to mid- November and hope to get back on track toward our intended conversion schedule.