04-29-16 City Manager Reportn� City of Kalispell
OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER
Information Memorandum
4/29/2016
1. Planning Department
The next Growth Policy workshop with the Council is scheduled for Tuesday, May 5, at
6:00 pm.
We continue to work on the downtown plan and are developing a schedule to begin
addressing the re -zoning program to extend the B-3 zone in the Core Area.
2. Building Department
The building department has issued permits for 6 single-family homes and 2 townhomes
in April which brings the city up to 43 residential units so far this year compared to 17
residential units for the same time period last year.
Commercial activity continues to increase with the submittal of new construction
drawings for the Northwest Family Medical Clinic, an 8,500 sq. ft. clinic, located at 70
Village Loop, valued at $1.275 million. Other Kalispell Regional Medical Center related
projects include: 1) The Assist Center located at 1280 Burns Way which is a $385,000
remodel of offices into a transitional center for persons who can be released from the
hospital, but cannot stay on their own, 2) a $122,000 remodel of the medical offices
located at 160 Heritage Way that will house the hospital's Design and Construction staff,
and 3) a $298,000 remodel of the hospital's laundry facilities. In addition, we have
received the drawings for new construction of a Krispy Kreme bakery to be located in
phase 4 of the Spring Prairie Center. This will be a 2,671 sq. ft. project with a
construction value of $700,000. In addition to new plans coming in, the Chick-fil-A
restaurant planned for Phase 3 of Spring Prairie just north of the Verizon Store was
issued their building permit last week.
3. Parks Department
As part of a stumping contract, one hundred and twenty five stumps have been ground
and replaced with soil and grass seed. There will be an additional twenty stumps that will
be removed in the next few weeks. After this contract is complete, about seventy-five
stumps will still remain on city right-of-way.
The Boulevard Tree Cost Share program has been fairly successful this spring with eight
participants thus far. Homeowners are invited to participate in the program where 50%
of the cost for an installed tree in the boulevard is paid for by the adjacent landowner and
the other half is paid for by the city.
Twelve companies and organizations provided donations to support this year's Arbor
Day celebration on April 29. Donations will provide event t-shirts and lunch to the 100+
volunteers and pay for the trees that will be planted. All Kalispell School District 45 3rd
graders will spend the day in Lawrence Park learning about trees. The general public is
invited to the formal Arbor Day Ceremony at 1:OOpm.
As part of our ADA grant through "Round up for Safety" from Flathead Electric, our
parks crew installed a concrete ramp from the parking lot to the shelter at Lawrence Park.
Future connections will be made by a contractor
place several weeks ago.
On April 22, the Kalispell Boulder Project's boulders
and fall surfacing were installed at Lawrence Park.
We are excited to have this new amenity in the
Kalispell Park System.
Summer Day Camp registration opened April 20.
Since opening, KPR has taken in over $41,000 dollars
in camp revenue. Participant levels are climbing quickly with summer just around the
corner.
Little Dribblers Basketball ended with 180 participants. After six weeks of learning basic
skills, the children were rewarded with ice cream certificates and the coaches with a $10
Kalispell Parks and Recreation certificate.
Spring and Rookie Soccer will start on April 27, and will run through June 1. These
programs are a non-competitive skill builder program for boys and girls age 5 through 4I'
grade. Games and practices are held once a week on Wednesdays and Fridays at 5:30pm
or 7:OOpm.
Kalispell Parks and Recreation is excited to have volunteers from Flathead Women on
the Fly, Montana Fly Company, and Trout TV teaming up with us to teach a 4 hour class
on the basics of fly fishing. Reel Fly Women will be held on June 18 at Snappy's from
11-3pm.
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Our Parks and Recreation brochure has been published, showing our programs that run
through the summer! The Daily Inter Lake produced 20,000 copies of the brochure.
17,000 were inserted into Monday's paper with 3,000 given to Parks and Recreation to
distribute through our office. You can also find it online at
http:Hkalispell.com/parks®and®recreation/documents/May16-Dec16Brochure.pdf.
4. Information Services
City staff completed and submitted the new applications for credit card terminals at the
police and public works offices. The terminals were ordered and setup will be completed
in the next week or two. Online credit card payments will be looked at further when the
city website redesign is completed at a later date.
IT staff started the new server build and have a deployment process that is scheduled to
take nearly 4+ weeks to complete.
IT staff are working on building 15 computers that are either repurposed computers with
new hard drives or are new computers. Of the 15, 3 new MDTs for the police patrol cars.
IT staff are working to maximize the performance on the repurposed computers with
faster hard drives to offer increased performance to computers that are already 4 years
old. IT staff are working to build a spare MDT that will be ready to deploy to a police or
fire patrol or truck with the required public safety applications installed so the MDT can
be quickly put in place of a failed MDT.
A new version of Cityworks is available to City IT staff and will be configured on the test
Cityworks system to test PayPal integration. The last version still continues to have the
inability to update customer payment information from PayPal to Cityworks.
5. Public Works Department
Stormwater Construction Best Management Practice (BMP) Trainings
From April 26 to April 29, Public Works Department hosted three separate erosion and
sediment control trainings for individuals who work in or with the construction industry.
A total of 25 people attended the trainings which were taught by professional instructors
from Altitude Training Associates.
The first training was BMP 101: Stormwater Management during Construction. The
objectives of the class is to learn about the City's and MDEQ's stormwater permitting
requirements, be able to distinguish between erosion and sedimentation, understand types
of best management practices, including how to install and maintain them, and finally
learn about good housekeeping measures for construction sites.
The second training was the BMP 201: SWPPP Administrator, which builds on skills
already gained from the BMP 101 training. The objectives of the class include learning
the components and implementation of a stormwater pollution prevention plan, and
properly conducting and documenting routine site inspections.
The third training was the BMP 202: SWPPP Preparer, which also builds on the skills
learned from the BMP 101 trainings. The objectives of the class include training on
information and techniques for participants to prepare a compliant and effective SWPPP,
and learning key items that are evaluated by inspectors during the SWPPP review portion
of the regulatory compliance inspection.
The City's participation in providing the training fulfills one of the City's annual public
education requirements for the City's MS4 Stormwater Permit.
6. Fire Department
Since the last update, the Kalispell Fire Department has received 136 calls for service and
has conducted 6 outreach trainings including the Nurturing Centers Blue Ribbon Event
and Family Fun Day and Safety Expo.
On May 17, the Kalispell Regional HazMat Team, staffed by the Kalispell Fire
Department, will be participating in a regional exercise in partnership with Missoula
Regional HazMat, Rocky Mountain Labs, MT DES, DEQ, Lake County agencies and
tribes, local law enforcement, and local fire response agencies. This exercise is designed
to test the response capabilities, communication interoperability, and mitigation tactics of
the involved agencies. The exercise will occur in the Polson area. There will be no
disruptions of traffic flow in the area of the exercise or disruptions of emergency services
to Kalispell as provided by Kalispell Fire Department.
Part of the fire department's budgeted goals for this fiscal year was to replace necessary
equipment for our search and rescue capabilities specifically in relation to our thermal
imaging cameras. The current thermal cameras have been in-service a number of years
and are no longer repairable or supported by the manufacture. The new cameras have
been purchased and training and familiarization to the new technology will be presented
in the upcoming weeks. Thermal imaging cameras are used for more than just search and
rescue during a fire event but help department staff to located the seat of the fire in a
structure, find possible fire extension in void spaces or wall areas, and are considered a
force multiplier freeing up man power that would typically be opening up areas to search
manually for fire extension.
7. Human Resources Department
Staff from Human Resources and Finance attended the 2016 Assistance for Business
Clinic presented by the MT Department of Labor, held in Kalispell. They provided
training and updates related to wage and hour rules, unemployment benefits, worker's
compensation and safety and health. We are now reviewing several of the new rules and
regulations related to safety and how they will apply to the government sector. In
addition, the state will now have an expedited electronic way to file and report wages,
along with review of unemployment claims.
To assist departments in improving the hiring process for open positions, Human
Resources began work on a new "Hiring and Interviewing Applicants Guideline". Once
completed, HR will distribute and hold training sessions.
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