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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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