Loading...
09-02-16 City Manager ReportCITYOF - City of Kalispell OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER MONTANA Information Memorandum 9/2/2016 1. Parks Department On August 21, KPR partnered with Paws to Play, a local non-profit, to host "Pool Party for the Dogs" at Woodland Water Park. The event had 120 people and 80 dogs in attendance. The pool party generated over $ 80o towards Paws to Play' s effort of creating a dog park for the community. Summer Day Camp concluded on August 19. We had 4,226 participations over the summer averaging 86.24 participants per day. This average is slightly up from our daily average from last summer (86.06). The Picnic in the Park concert series came to a close on August 24, with Pinkham Jam performing at our last Wednesday event. Although we were forced to cancel three concerts due to inclement weather, the concert series overall was a great success. In September, we will be busy thanking sponsors and soliciting additional feedback on how we can make the concert series better. The Afterschool Program began on Wednesday, August 31. Staff went through an all - day training on August 29 that focused on topics such as child development/behavior techniques, interacting with parents, risk management/emergency situations, facility tours, policies and procedures, etc. In youth sports, we have Runnin' Rascals Football beginning September 10. Runnin' Rascals is a non-competitive introduction to football for boys and girls. Games are once a week on Saturdays, and are played for fun and instructional purposes only. Each game day has two parts: an instruction/practice period and a scrimmage period. Park staff spent over a week cleaning branches from the August 18 wind event, which saw wind speeds of 44 mph with gusts to 55 mph. To date the Parks Department has received 81 tree calls in 2016 and 128 since this same time last year requesting forestry work. On August 18, volunteers from Fresh Life Church went to Lawrence Park to mulch newly planted trees from previous years' Arbor Day celebrations. On August 11, someone lit the toilet paper dispenser on fire in the men's restroom at Depot Park. Due to the damage from the heat and the soot, the bathrooms are inoperative. We are working with a contractor and MMIA to assess and repair the damages. Portable restrooms have been brought in until the restrooms are repaired. We had to say good bye to the merry go round at Woodland Park. The piece of playground equipment has been repaired numerous time over the years to extend its life. Due to safety codes, manufactures do not make traditional style merry go rounds any more. On August 27, the Flathead Marines donated a day to Lawrence Park picking up trash left behind by transient camps in the natural area along the river. They were able to pick up over an estimated 1,400 gallons of debris. on August 31, Parks crews were able to pick up another 1,200 gallons of debris. There were 5 large camps located throughout the backwater area of Lawrence Park. We have also located an additional 7 camps that are on private property. 2. City Clerk/Communications Manager The City Clerk's office has been Working With the IT Director to change vendors for live streaming and storage of City Council and Planning Board meetings. This change will reduce the cost of the service while improving the functionality, and speed of preparing minutes. Both systems will be used for the month of September to help ensure smooth, uninterrupted service during the transition. All the past meeting videos will be transferred from the old vendor to the new. This includes 8 years of content. The new service will have an archiving limit of 2,500 hours which will last for many years. Immediate public access will be limited to 500 hours, about five years of meeting content. older videos can be requested from the city clerk's office With the specific meeting released out of archives for online viewing. The public interface will look different, but will have the same functionality. 2 3. Building Department Residential building permits have been issued for 7 new residences in the past 3 weeks bringing the total to 102 units this year compared to 43 units for the same time period in 2015. Two commercial permits have been issued which include the $ l .04 million KRMC Heart OR Tenant Improvement located at 310 Sunnyview Lane, and the $164,000 KRMC Kid Kare Remodel located at 1279 Burns Way. 4. Planning Department The planning office contacted all property owners within the west side parking district (Flathead High School) this week by letter with an attached survey to find out how the first year of the new parking district went. We expect responses to be coming back in the next few weeks at which time we will prepare a summary report for the council of neighborhood comments as well as a summary of numbers of permits sold, parking tickets, and initial cost of city sign installation. Planning staff is also moving forward with the implementation of the B-3 Core Area Zoning District. We will be sending an informative packet out to all property owners in a mulitple block area between Main Street and Third Ave. East. We have already talked to many of the property owners in this area informally. We plan to hold an open house from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 13, prior to the September planning board meeting that night to address any concerns the property owners may have. If all goes well, we will hold a public hearing at the October Planning Board meeting. We are planning to repeat this process for successive areas within the Core Area. 5. Information Services Sylvan Drive Storm Main Improvement Project The Sylvan Drive Storm Main Improvement Project began on August 15. LHC is the Prime Contractor for the project and within the first two weeks had installed two 10- foot diameter storm water treatment structures, a 9x6 foot diversion structure, three 6-foot diameter storm manholes, and approximately 300 feet of 48-inch storm sewer main. The contractor is currently up to Woodland Avenue and plans to connect the new storm main into the existing storm sewer system. In the coming week, they plan to complete the pipe work for the project and begin restoration efforts for the Sylvan Drive roadway and adjacent pathway. 3 Pavement Management The Street Division has completed the following major mill and overlay projects this construction season. Around 5,881 tons of asphalt was placed. This equates to around 9,577 lineal feet (1.8 miles) of newly paved streets in the City. • 51h St E - 3rd Ave E to 41h Ave E, Hwy 93 to I s' Ave E • 61h Ste W - 2nd Ave W to 61h Ave W 3rdAve W-41hStWTo5 St • 41h St W - Hwy 93 to 2nd Ave E • North Main - Lawrence Park Entrance to Golf Course Entrance • Liberty Street -Glenwood, Norther Lights Blv, and Hawthorn Intersections • Blue Stone - Denver to B egg Park Rd • South Meadows - Begg Park Road to Blue Stone • East Washington Street - 51h Ave EN to 6 Ave EN Additionally, the following roads were chip sealed in August. Striping for chip sealed roads will be completed in September. Around 7,485 lineal feet (1.4 miles) of city roads were chip sealed. Tree Line Road - Hwy 93 to W Entrance to Lowes • Sunny View Lane - Hwy 93 to Windward Drive • 51h Ave W-Wyoming St to Idaho Street, Center St to 51h St W 4 Ave EN - Idaho Street to Center Street 181h St E - Hwy 93 to 3rd Ave E • 51h St E - 3rd Ave E to 41h Ave E 6. Police Department With the new agreement between the city and the school district, we have 3 School Resource officers at the beginning of this year. officer Jordan Venezio has been selected to fill the new assignment as Kalispell Middle School Resource officer, officer Cory Clarke will again be at Flathead High School, and Chad Fetveit will again be in Glacier High School. The SRO's are assigned to the previously mentioned schools, however they spend a portion of their time in the elementary and alternative schools throughout Kalispell. Officer Stan ottosen, a ten-year veteran of KPD, has been assigned to the detectives division. officer ottosen brings a lot of knowledge to the position and will be a valuable resource as an investigator. On September, 1 Brian Struble will start work as a Kalispell Police officer. officer Struble has been an officer with the Helena Police Department for the last five years. Prior to his service with Helena he worked as a Kalispell Police officer for three years. n 7. Human Resources Human Resources helped coordinate a presentation at the Red Lion entitled "Managing in Montana -Critical information for Montana employees". The class of over 50 persons from various businesses throughout the valley included 18 city directors, supervisors, managers, coordinators and administrative assistants from Public Works, Finance and Human Resources. The all -day session, sponsored by the Montana's National Association of Independent Businesses (NFIB), included the new overtime exemption rules going into effect in December, wage and hour laws, handling employee performance related issues, background checks, hiring and termination of employees, The annual wellness health screening will be held on the following dates for city employees and their dependents on the city's health insurance plan: • September 14 • September 15 • September 16 8. Fire Department Since the last update, the Kalispell Fire Department have received 197 calls for service and have conducted 5 community outreach trainings with 130 individuals in attendance. Working in coordination with Flathead County medical direction, and other EMS partners, we have concluded our in-service and training for a new implemented drug called Tranexamic Acid (TXA). This is not a new drug to the market but is however a new drug for local Paramedics to use in the case of certain traumas. TXA is an antifibrinolytic which can help control bleeding. 9. Information Services City IT staff worked to organize the server room rack at City Hall. A second server cabinet was added to the server room to remove a table that was overloaded and add rack space for equipment that had been set on the table. Cityworks was upgraded to a new version, but the building permit public access site users still are unable to pay online. Cityworks staff notified City staff of bugs in the version that continue to cause the online payment option to not be ready. IT staff are working to ensure the online payment site works fully before opening online payments to the public. k 10. Community Development The City is inviting community input on the TIGER grant National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA). This input is specific to the potential north/south complete street connections within the Core Area and the design of the pedestrian/bike trail to replace the existing railroad tracks. As part of this process, the City has created an online survey available at: https://www.survevmonkev.com/r/CT8VQTQ :"