Planning Commission Work Session   11/23/2021

I'd like to thank everyone for coming out.

We are still waiting on a few commissioners to join us before we get going.

So just hang tight for a minute or two.

Thanks.

All right, well, we have a quorum, but we're still awaiting Mr. Solla-Yates and Ms.

I just text Lyle and he hasn't gotten back to me.

Gotcha.

The chairman is on his way.

Wonderful.

We haven't had a 5 p.m.

work session in so long.

In the effort to be productive, can I ask a question while we're waiting?

Apologies for the delay.

My brain is full of turkey and not budgets.

It's very strange.

We were just getting organized here.

If you want to call the group to order, you can turn it over if there's no announcements to Ms.

I call this planning commission work session to order.

Apologies for the delay.

Ms.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Thank you for having me at your meeting tonight.

We're here to talk about the 2327 Capital Improvement Program.

The materials, I think, have been sent to all of the commissioners as well as council, and they also can be found on the city's website, both on the budget webpage under work sessions and also the planning commission's webpage, I believe, as well.

Are you seeing slides?

No.

Mr. Trail, are you able to put the slides up for us?

There we go.

So just as a brief overview, what is a capital improvement program?

We've talked about this before, some who haven't.

It's basically a five-year financing plan that contains infrastructure type projects that usually cost more than $50,000.

They're generally non-recurring and non-operational, and they generally have a useful life of five years or more.

Next slide, please.

So in constructing the CIP plan for this year, we did so with a focus on several factors.

One largely being the school reconfiguration project.

As you'll recall, if you followed the CIP from last year, we had a placeholder in for that project at $50 million.

And based on council's direction from a meeting in October, that has now been increased from 50 to 75 million.

The funding has been moved up from FY25 to FY24.

We also know that in doing this, that there will be a need for significant revenue enhancements to afford the additional debt service that will be required.

We know that our debt capacity will be exhausted for some period of time.

And in order to reach this amount of funding, we reprogrammed some dollars that were previously authorized to be funded by bonds to the school reconfiguration project.

Specifically, we have reallocated $18.25 million from the West Main Street project.

and $5 million from the 7th Street parking garage.

Those dollars have now been reprogrammed to help with the increase from the 75 to the 50 on the school project.

We also looked at this CIP with an idea of spending down available balances.

We have many CIP accounts that have ongoing balances and we're looking to work on those accounts and get things moving and get some dollars off the books.

So the net effect of all of these factors is that any additions to the CIP required offsetting reductions in a different area.

Next slide, please.

So in taking a look, here's the five-year plan.

The first column showing the adopted budget.

23 through 27 are the current draft of what would be proposed.

Keeping in mind that we legally only appropriate the first year.

So in this case, council will be legally appropriating FY23.

Years 24 through 27 would remain as a financing plan.

You'll see that the three priority areas with the most funding continue to be education, affordable housing, and transportation and access in that order.

This chart you may remember from last year looks very similar.

The basic change here being again the increase for the school project.

You'll also notice on this table that in every year, our revenues must match our expenditures.

And in funding the CIP, we have two large funding sources.

One is cash from the general fund, which that amount is determined by a longstanding budget guideline of the city, which is to contribute at least 3% of the general fund budget to the CIP

as cash or commonly referred to as PAYGO.

And then the largest funding source that we rely on for the CIP is bonds.

You'll notice that year FY 2027 has a zero and it's highlighted in yellow.

As we have talked about the CIP and we have talked about the fact that we will be reaching our bond capacity limits.

When we talk about bond capacity, there are two ways to look at that.

One is the legal bond or debt capacity that the state defines, which is basically defined as 6% of localities.

Localities Assessed Value. In this case for the city that would at last check I believe that was roughly about 684 million dollars. I'm

And then second is the debt capacity, which is in keeping with what the locality can actually afford and in keeping with our policy.

So when we speak to debt capacity in the light of the CIP, what we are speaking to is the amount of debt that we could issue that would keep us within our 10% annual debt service capacity.

limit, which basically means that per policy, our annual debt service should not exceed more than 10% with a target of 9% of the total general fund budget.

So under this scenario, beginning in FY 2027, we will have exceeded the 10% policy.

and current projections show that that would extend for probably another two to three years beyond 2027, in which case we might not be at nine, but we would definitely be over our, I'm sorry, we might not be at 10, but we would definitely be over our nine percent target.

Next slide please.

So when we talk about the cash or the debt that goes to the general fund, the pie chart that you see here is really a breakdown of how all of the city's tax revenues are spent.

And it's hard, generally we talk about these in isolation, but it's important to keep in mind that they really are very integrated and the decision on one does have an impact on the other.

So again, this pie chart is a depiction of all of the categories in which tax revenue is spent.

So talking about the revenues for the CIP, we talk about debt service, which is shown here with the piece of the pie that's sort of sticking out a bit at roughly just under 5%.

This was for the 22 budget, was roughly just under 5%.

Additionally, the cash contribution that goes to the CIP is a small portion of the infrastructure and transportation part of the pie.

And so as these pieces of the pie continue to get bigger, then the other pieces of the pie in the general fund have to get smaller.

I see a question for Mr. Mitchell.

If it's appropriate, I can wait, or if it's appropriate, I'll ask.

The debt service payment comes out of the operating budget.

So this piece of the pie here represents the general fund expenses.

And I'm sorry, I see now from your question, this is a little bit misleading, the title and the pie.

Cool.

Thank you.

I did.

I'm sorry.

Could you go back one more slide?

Go back to the first slide.

And it was relating to financial services.

Staffing and their operating budget.

Yes.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

Please.

So when we talk about bonds, the city is fortunate enough to be AAA bond rated.

We are actually part of a very small group of localities that have that rating.

It is the premier marker of a locality's financial stability and strength.

We've maintained this rating from Standard & Poor's since 1964 and from Moody's since 1973.

A credit rating is basically an independent review, the reviewer being the credit rating agencies, in this case Standard & Poor's and Moody's.

They come in and do a review of the city and they assess the ability and the willingness of the city's ability to be able to repay the debt.

The great thing about a AAA is it allows the city to borrow funds at virtually the lowest possible borrowing cost, which means that more of our dollar goes towards the project and less towards interest.

And so there are four factors in this rating that are basically taken into account.

One is the economy, which basically looks at our demographics, our employment base, our property values, and the composition of our taxpayer.

Secondly, they look at our management.

What are our policies?

What are our procedures?

What does our strategic plan look like?

But more carefully, they look at our ability to not only have these things in place, but achieve those targets and actually adhere to our policies.

I'm sorry, can you go back?

And thirdly, they look at our financials.

So in addition to our clean, unqualified audits that the city receives every year, the rating agencies will review our budget practices, they review our financial statements, our investments, they look at our fund balances, and they compare

all kinds of ratios and calculations to see how we compare to our peers.

And then finally, they review our outstanding, our debt profile.

What is our outstanding debt?

What are our future needs?

And what are our obligations look like?

Another question.

How will

So again, they do look at management as part of that analysis.

To date, that has not really been at the forefront of a lot of those conversations, keeping in mind that the single most goal of a bond rating is to assess our ability to pay our debt.

And so there has not been an instance to date where the things that are happening at the management level have affected any of that.

We have still been paying our debt, we've still been paying our bills, we've been adhering to our policies.

Mr. Stolzenberg?

Thanks.

So my question is, do we have guidance on exactly what they're looking for in that debt category in terms of outstanding debt, in terms of percent of budget going to debt service?

So all of that, actually.

The one thing is that the 10% policy with a target of nine is actually a city policy.

That was a policy adopted by council.

It was also adopted at the recommendation with our financial advisor.

In the not so distant past, we actually had a much more conservative debt policy, which was 8%.

and in anticipation of a ramped up CIP and future debt needs, we went back to the rating agency and said, hey, we know we're going to have a need for more debt and we are considering raising our policy from eight

to 10.

And in order to do that on the offset, we also increased our fund balance policy, our reserve fund balance policy.

And so we were able to do it.

So the policy is the city's policy.

Could we change it?

Sure.

What would be the impact?

Again, I think that would be something that we would assess with our financial advisor.

and compare that relative to our peers and other AAA bond rating agencies.

But in terms of the debt, it really is our entire profile.

And so anything that is considered debt gets lumped in here.

The only exception

Thank you.

That is correct.

Any other questions on this?

Okay, moving on to the next slide.

So as we look at this chart attempts to show you, as I mentioned, the CIP is a five-year plan and we adopt the first year of the plan and the years two through five are more of a roadmap for what's to come.

and wanted to take just a few minutes to compare what the plan looked like for 23 in the adopted budget last year versus what the plan looks like in the current draft that's before you.

You'll see that most of the categories did not change.

in fact in total the we had in 22 we had planned to spend 26 just over 26 million for 23 the current draft is now at just under 23 million so that's a reduction of about 3.6 million dollars.

Largely, that is the result of reallocating the parking garage, $5 million of the parking garage dollars from the parking garage project, which was supposed to come online in 23, to now the school project, which goes online in 24.

But just itemizing some of those changes in the public safety section, there was $1.2 million added to address the construction cost increases for the planned bypass fire station.

And in doing so, we also reduced, we had some accounts that were set up that were

intended to establish a pot of money to replace portable radios and mobile data terminals several years from now when they are due.

It's quite costly because of the numbers.

It's a quite costly replacement.

And so we had set aside replacement dollars for that.

We have reduced that slightly by $111,000 over the five years.

And so, I'm sorry, in 23, I apologize.

Transportation and access, we again reprogrammed the 5 million or 5.6 million from the new parking deck.

5 million went to the school reconfiguration project.

638,000 has been added for repairs, structural repairs that will be needed for the Market Street parking garage.

Additionally, $250,000 was reduced from the annual paving amount and $50,000 was added for the historic district and entrance corridor design guidelines.

Under parks and rec, we did add a few line items here.

First of all, we reduced their lump sum account by about $100,000.

We added $150,000 for a comprehensive master plan.

This would be to look at parks and rec programs.

This is not the normal master, the park per se master planning process, but this is more of a programmatic master plan.

We added just over $45,000 for drainage repairs to the Oakwood Cemetery.

$50,000 was added for an ash tree removal program and $92,500 were added for city and county projects, which are joint projects at both Ivy Creek and Darden Tao.

The question

getting down to the next slide, Adam.

So if you could ask me again, once you get down to $4,000.

But the question about Parks and Rec, the $150 that we reduced, what did we lose?

So I think Mr. Garber is on, and he can probably address that better than me.

The parks and rec lump sum account is established for maintenance types of things.

It was funded at $300,000 this year.

It was reduced, I believe, in 20 or 21 because of COVID, and there was a

This is Vic.

I think you did a nice job.

Basically, it provides us flexibility for those non-budgeted items that pop, basically pop up on a quarterly basis, whether it's a

All roof leak and irrigation and aquatic system goes bad.

Basically, it gives us the flexibility to maintain what we have and keep the service delivery at a high level.

So we normally do ask for 400 this year in order to get the comprehensive master plan.

It has been reduced from 400 to 300,000.

the trade-off, we at least get the master plan done.

So we're happy to trade this off, so that's accurate.

Thank you.

OK.

Mr. Chair, I've got lots of questions about the next four or five bullets regarding housing, so I'll wait until Ms.

Kimmel finishes her whole housing discussion, then I'll ask the questions if that's OK with you.

Very good.

Please proceed, Ms.

OK, next slide, please.

So what are the key messages here?

Again, this is a slide that I think we showed last year when we first started talking about this.

You know, strategic focus.

We believe that this CIP focuses on Council's key priorities, education, affordable housing, transportation, and access.

That's where the largest dollars, roughly 90% of all the dollars going to the CIP are allocated to those three priorities.

Affordability.

As presented, this plan is not affordable without significant revenue enhancements.

The plan put before you has debt service basically doubling from just over $10 million to just over $20 million within a very short period of time, about four years.

And so, you know, going back to the piece of that pie, that piece for debt service continues to get bigger, which would shrink the other pieces.

Reallocations, you know, this is perhaps an opportunity, just as we did with West Main, just as we did with the parking garage.

Perhaps we can go back and look at funds that have been committed, but that have not been spent in previous plans and determine if they're still needed or if they can be reallocated.

What are the future needs look like?

Again, as we talk about, you know, exceeding our debt capacity, I've equated this before to sort of spending your limit on your credit card.

The CIP as currently stands will be putting our credit card back in our pocket to sit for a while.

As we talked about, 27 would only be projects, and I missed this point on the prior slide.

And the one where there was no bond proceeds, FY27, you'll notice that there was only cash contribution to the CIP.

I basically, in that effort, for sake of example, then the only projects that would be able to be funded in those years are what we could afford with the cash transfer.

And so for sake of example, I basically put those dollars into the recurring, or in the case of like Friendship Court and other commitments for housing, I allocated those dollars there.

Of course, that would be subject to

future conversations and reallocation, but the story is still the same.

There would be no way to add anything new beyond what we could afford with cash in 27, probably 28, 29, and maybe into 30.

So what do our future needs look like?

Is everything captured here?

And then our limited reserves.

So under the scenario that we talked about last year, we talked about cash equivalents.

And even with the 10 cent tax increase that we talked about previously, that was making an assumption that we were going to deplete all of our debt service

reserves as well.

Lyle, are you asking me to?

Yeah, I do.

I think Ms.

Hemel and whoever's driving the slides, could you go back one slide to slide seven?

I think I left my hand up.

Ms.

Hemel, I think I distracted you.

And by distracting you, I didn't allow you to talk about the housing stuff, like the housing affordable stuff, the $925,000 and all that stuff.

And so you skipped that because I distracted you.

I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about

all the housing fund stuff.

And the reason I'm asking you to do that is two questions I've got about that.

One question I've got about that is the $925,000, is that staffing expenses or is that actual housing rehabilitation?

Are we actually improving infrastructure with that money?

The other second question I've got relating to all those housing bullets relates to

the $10 million a year that was recommended by the consultants that we spend on our housing plan.

And if you do the math, these things add up to $7.3 million as opposed to $10 million.

No, thank you for your question.

So I will also, I think Mr. Akifuna is on and can help with this as well, but I'll start.

So the $925, that $25,000 that's listed here, that is for CAF.

So those are the competitive dollars that people can apply for.

And Alex can talk about that in a little more detail.

The $900,000 here is for actual housing vouchers.

That was a commitment, a multi-year commitment that has been made that is remaining intact.

Of course, you know, everyone is aware of the Friendship Court project as well as CRHA.

With regard to the $10 million commitment,

The CIP is not the only funding source and does not have to be the only funding source for our housing commitment.

There are also assistance programs and things such as CHAP, the tax relief programs.

That's really helpful.

I totally missed that we weren't funding the

Stolzenberg $10 million out of the CIP fund.

I would love, I would really appreciate if Alex could talk to what we're going to do with the $925,000, because my worry is it's all about people infrastructure as opposed to physical infrastructure.

Well, good evening, commissioners.

The $925,000

It's the annual CIP allocation for CAF, the affordable housing fund.

That is the fund we use to fund notice of funding availability.

When we request a request for proposals from the public, that is the money we use to provide funding for approved applications.

I'm sorry.

So that money is not for staffing purposes.

It is actually to do rehabilitation or the infrastructure work as opposed to staffing.

Thank you.

That's what I was trying to get it.

Thank you, sir.

Yeah, actually, just a follow-up on Hosea's thing, I think it might be helpful to get a list of what CAAT funds have been, like $925,000 for this fiscal year, for example, have been allocated to.

But my question, if you could flip to the slide that had reallocation in it, I guess you don't really actually need to.

So I have a question about what reallocations have been done or what they are exactly.

So my understanding was that reallocations were for when previous CIPs have put money or authorized bonds into an account and those bonds where that money is sitting there as either cash or authorized but not issued bonds.

So for example, you know, West Main had something like $20 million that we had authorized, but we hadn't issued because we hadn't started the project.

And council said, let's deauthorize that and that lets us reallocate that money, right?

Right.

And so for the garage, I think in the previous couple of fiscal years, we have put $3 million in authorized but not issued bonds into that account.

And so you mentioned that the garage has been reallocated.

So a couple of things I want to unpack there.

First of all, starting with your beginning of your comment, we never, ever, ever sell bonds on a project that hasn't started yet.

When we go to the market to sell bonds, we sell those on a cash-based need, which means that the project is already well underway and is guaranteed to be completed within that 24 months.

Or those dollars, at least the portion that we've sold, will be spent within the 24 months.

That's an IRS regulation for tax-exempt bonds.

So I just want to clear up the conception that we sold bonds and we're kind of sitting on it.

We don't do that.

um second of all to your specific question um there is still money that has been out that three million dollars that was previously allocated uh to the parking garage is still there um and it is um in addition to that this uh proposed budget adds another 1.3 million to that keeping in mind we still have contractual obligations to the county

for parking specifically related to the courts project.

Those discussions are still underway.

I think it's somewhat been decided we are not moving forward at this point with a parking garage, but we do have to address those obligations.

And so until such time we know that that's settled and what they are, we're recommending that these dollars stay put.

So I think that, you know, I'll let Mr. Engel weigh in.

He's much closer to the details than me, but I think it's fair to say we don't know exactly what that's gonna cost at this point.

And in an effort to be conservative, to make sure that we can meet those obligations, this is what we're recommending we set aside at this point.

No, I'm sorry.

You covered it well, Chrissy.

We just don't know at this point.

We don't have any specifics right now.

I think everything's an option at the moment.

Ms.

Russell, I had a hand up for you.

So the CAF for FY22 has not been released yet, so there's nothing to report in the way of any allocation.

Those funds will be available when we release that in January, late January, hopefully.

We tied that to the HRNA analysis work that they are performing at this time to evaluate prior 10 years of investment and allow that to inform us on any changes, so we'll get some

Thank you.

Thank you.

I had a couple of questions.

The first one about the school funding, the reconfiguration funding, and we're looking at, I think it was 2024, taking out the giant $62 million.

And I was wondering, based on what you said, is it

I was wondering why it was not phased and is the expectation that the project would be built within two years and complete?

Yeah, so the project will be phased and I think that the architects are working on what that looks like.

It is all currently shown in the CIP as one lump sum in one year.

with a small amount in FY23 and the majority of the $72.5 million in 24.

The end result is it will be phased, but maybe over three or four years.

So it doesn't really change our message because we will be signing a contract for $75 million.

And so even if we...

We will structure our bond sales to be more reflective of our drawdowns, but we have to have a plan in place to pay for the total.

So, you know, we've talked about what does this look like in terms of tax increase and how will we time that and what will we do, and all of that is yet to be determined.

Okay.

Following up, I guess, on that same topic, if we exhaust our bond capacity and something comes up, like a lot of these additional expenses we have are unexpected, you know, expenses like the HVAC or roof replacement, things like that.

You know, so for things like HVAC and those types of things, they are the accounts that I referred to that are more of the annual recurring.

So in 27, when I talked about how I allocated the cash on the expenditure side, it is addressing that.

But to your point, our ability to address those would be very limited.

Oh, yeah, I just echo Mr. Havav's concern.

If we have a major disaster and we've outspent our debt capacity, we have a problem.

But I want to go back to, you probably answered the question, but I got so caught up on the $925,000 question that I may not have heard it clearly.

So again, council a few weeks back approved, voted

to support the recommendation from the consultants to put $10 million into the housing plan.

But as I do the math, I only see $7.3 million in the housing plan.

And I get that from looking at page four of your document and page two of your document, your spreadsheet.

What happened to the other

What happened to the Delta between $10 million and $7.3 million?

Oh, no.

You nailed it.

You did tell us that.

I'm sorry.

I just didn't write it down.

My bad.

I'll write it down.

Sorry, yeah, my other question actually originally was kind of continuing that parking conversation and I just wonder if, you know, we could better use that money now instead of sitting around for a potential parking solution and find that money later on when we know what we need to do.

Yes, the county's working on their plans for the renovation of the building now.

I think 2024 is when it is expected to come online.

As mentioned before, we don't have a time frame for spending any of these dollars at the moment, but we do know we have to meet the obligation by the time the building opens.

You all are welcome to recommend other uses of the dollars.

I thought it was also a curtain that I just shared with you that the conversations are ongoing, in addition to Chris having

conversations with the county.

I am as well in my capacity with that being a part of the operations side of things.

As recent as yesterday, I had a conversation with the county.

So this is moving.

I just want to allay any fears that we're sitting and not necessarily reaching any progress or making any progress.

Thank you.

Mr. Mitchell, do you have something else?

Sorry, I will lower my head.

Sorry.

There is one last slide, much of which we've already spoken about, but again, how do we respond to this challenge?

The easiest route, easiest in quotes, how do we get that money is real estate taxes.

We talked about last year that there's the potential to need as much as 10 cents beginning with next year's budget to cover the additional debt service.

In addition, with last year's budget, we know that the schools had a four and a half million dollar increase on their operational side that they were able to fund with one-time federal funds through the CARES Act that we will need to make up on the operation side that has the potential to equate to an additional five cents.

and so as we look at this CIP and as we look at moving this project forward, council and the school board will need to build some community support for these investments.

There have also been conversations about the potential of sales tax, dedicated sales tax increase, which I know is another thing that's being explored.

Again, CIP funding priorities should be revisited.

Are we still meeting that mark?

Are we putting our dollars where council wants them to go?

Again, we can do this by looking at previously approved projects and we can look at opportunities to reprogram them.

And that's basically all of my formal presentation.

I'm happy to answer any kind of questions.

You know, we have staff here if you have other questions.

One last thing, this is just to highlight, the proposed budget will actually, well, first of all, we'll meet again on December 14th for a public hearing on the CIP.

and then the formal proposed budget will be presented to Council.

I believe it's March 7th and we will begin a month of work sessions after that with these dates here.

The CIP, again, there will be a work session, a Council work session on that on March 31st.

And again, if you follow along any of the materials related to those work sessions or the budget development, you can always find those on the city's budget web page.

I also encourage you, we have a great new tool on our web page for the general fund where you can actually drill down to line item budgets.

For right now, you can compare 21 and 22.

Once we issue or release the proposed budget, you'll be able to compare 22 and 23.

Thank you, Ms.

Russell.

So I think that is a I know that is something that the mayor has spoken about repeatedly, and that would would mean additional dollars would be needed for really as tax as the rate increases the tax rate increases.

There will be increased needs for relief.

Thank you.

Thanks.

I have one question on the revenue side.

So if we were to assume perhaps that the sales tax authorization and then referendum were to go through and we remove maybe that $75 million from this CIP, what would be or is there a revenue enhancement needed at that point?

So the school project, if it moves forward, will forever and always be part of the CIP.

If the sales tax referendum were to pass and we are able to get that, that is a game changer.

And to your point, we would then have a dedicated source of dollars that is estimated to be about, if it were to pass, is about $12 million is our estimate.

So we could pay for this entire project in a very short period of time with that revenue.

Mr. Robot?

Along that note, how does that, when do we find out about the sales tax and when can it be implemented?

to make those changes.

So I believe, and Ms.

Robertson can correct me, but I believe what has to happen is that this would have to go through the General Assembly and receive General Assembly approval, which would happen January, February-ish.

I see $1.2 million in new funding for a fire station in fiscal year 23.

So I'm going to defer to either Mr. Sanders or Chief Smith on that.

Or perhaps Ms.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thanks for the hard work that Christie and the team has been doing.

I'll speak to the question regarding the new fire station.

That project has been underway in terms of the framework has been underway for some time now.

And we haven't been fully being able to come out of the ground due to a number of different challenges.

Obviously, COVID was one of them.

But ultimately, what you're seeing there is a change in the cost for construction based on the appreciation of prices and the construction material prices, in addition to the identified need for water main to support that structure.

So that's what that difference is.

It's not for the complete fire station, but it's to supplement the difference between what already had been allocated

for the station.

Yeah, actually, it's very time sensitive.

When we talk about the health and safety of our firefighters, it's a 60-year-old plus fire station.

And I'm very concerned about the condition of that station, which our men and women work in every day, and sometimes even two and three days in a row consistently.

So I think it is a priority for us to have that support.

And I really appreciate David Brown's team.

He's not here anymore.

And Crystal, who's online here, and Scott Hendricks, others who were here before I got here that started this project before I got here.

All right, so I have a few questions about sidewalks.

So I hope you guys will entertain me here.

I'm looking at our document with the descriptions of each line item and balances from this time in 2009, so November 26, 2009, 19, 19.

The balance was $683,000.

We were adding an extra $100,000.

You told me this week that our balance is now $785,000.

So that tells me that we haven't spent any money on sidewalks, even though we have all this money in the last few years.

You're welcome.

I don't have all the timing in front of me right now, but we have, was it 700-something in that account?

That was all committed to a revenue share grant of which at the time it was a 50-50 split with VDOT.

That has decreased some, but they're matching all of our 750 or that amount with their funds.

Great.

Yeah.

For that, we submitted a list of our top multimodal projects.

Perfect.

Thanks.

Yeah.

To me, it seems that we can't say, well, there's lots of money in the pot with nothing, you know, just sitting around with nothing to do.

And so we can get away with not funding it, right?

Great.

Thanks.

All right.

So I guess we'll move on to

separate from the new sidewalks line item, Shriveling Avenue.

So we reviewed it last month.

Our recommendation was contingent on building those sidewalks.

It sounded from your email, Ms.

Hamill, that if we

create this funding agreement like we've specified.

That won't count against our debt capacity.

This project will bring in $700,000 a year in new revenue that wouldn't exist otherwise, which would pay for the project within six or seven years.

And then we would have $700,000 a year to spend as we wish in perpetuity and growing, obviously, as assessments do.

Yeah, so I think that's really more of a policy or a priority question, whether the Commission wants to make that recommendation to Council or for Council to discuss all the things you just said are correct, I think

We have discovered that there are ways to structure that deal and so that it doesn't count against our debt capacity.

Keeping in mind, it is a tax revenue and there's some assumption with the general fund, you know, that piece, that pie that we talk about, there is some assumption about new growth and new development.

Any tax revenues that come in, again, pay for everything and

So as we start talking about earmarking particular dollars from particular developments, that is, you know, doing just that.

It's earmarking for that.

And so, you know,

Speaking of priorities, can we talk about the strategic investment area?

Actually, I don't know, but I'm guessing there's some money still in that pot and ask for more money over time.

The money goes to implement projects in SIA and just

For your information, there are several projects right now going on in the SIA, even though they are fully funded by other funding sources, you know, a need might arise from any one of those projects, you know, that will require application of the SIA implementation to address any one of those projects.

As you may know,

the construction of Belmont Bridge is underway.

That is in the SIA.

There is almost a 100% design completion for Elliott Streetscape project.

And of course, you have a massive redevelopment initiative going on in the SIA.

CRHA Friendship Court, at any given point in time,

You need might arise, you know, to use any part of that money for some kind of capital project related to either streets, sidewalk, or any capital need.

So that money, in as much as it looks like it's a reserve, you know, still has the potential to be used for any

Thank you.

Yeah, we have $250,000 a year marked for Porlock Branch pedestrian bridge at this point, you know, and that actually

our redevelopment manager, Parks and Rec, Public Works.

We are finalizing the logistics related to that project.

Thanks.

All right, here's a quick one.

So key rec roof replacement.

I remember last time we talked about the PV, the solar fund,

There was money accruing in there waiting for roofs to get replaced so that we could, you know, use that and put it on a new roof instead of one that's going to be torn down.

Is PV going to be incorporated into that project?

Have we had other solar projects going on?

And I know there's members of the community who say, why expend any money at all for solar when you can just sign a PPA with a private company?

They'll go in and put the solar on and then you just pay them like you pay Dominion and you still save money.

Ms.

Yes, thanks for the question.

In fact, we are looking at the PPA model.

That's something that's become much more, I think, practical and appropriate for local governments to be looking at.

And it's possible that in some cases,

the monies could be used to deal with some of the roof replacements that currently have no funding.

Great.

I understand the county is working to extract as much money out of the recent news in Washington as possible.

How does that change our story?

Do we need to readjust to get more money from DC?

Yeah, great question.

So a lot of the legislation or rules or guidelines are still in the works and it's not as

especially clear right now in terms of what qualifies or what we can use those for.

Chris Cullinan, the finance director, is following that very closely.

And we will be looking for ways to use those dollars depending on what we get.

We also have the ARP money that the city has been allocated.

We've gotten the first tranche of that and the second tranche

hopefully still to be on the way.

I'd like to open it up.

I guess I have a question, and I think I know the answer, but for the CRHA projects, I'm looking at it's 3 million per year up until 2027, I think, if I can find it, and I'm assuming that's because, is it because we know the development timeline of CRHA and they don't need any money after that point, or is it because we don't have any capacity to give them money?

Well, I think Chrissy can help me with this.

I think it's based on their funding needs, you know, for the next five years.

And that decision was made by the city council and then based on the information provided by CRHA, you know, so every year right now in terms of leverage funding, which is coming from the city, you know,

As far as they apply for LIHTC every year, they know that that gap or leverage funding that is required right there for them, you know, and that is projected out for the next five years, what they will be needing in terms of the massive redevelopment initiative that is going on by CRHA.

No, go ahead.

But subsequent after that, maybe they might come back to the city as we look into the future because the CIPs have projected for five years.

Yeah, and I would just say, keep in mind that 27 is completely subject to change because that is a year with no bonds.

And so the CRHA projects do qualify for bonds.

And so that's why they're shown under the bondable.

But it doesn't preclude us from funding that with cash.

But for sake of example, with the dollars that are currently shown as available on 27,

Mr. Mitchell?

You're on mute, I'm sorry.

Did I raise my hand because I thought I'd lower it?

I'll wait until we start wrapping up.

I would love to hear, Mr. Chair, if UVA has any input.

You've been reading my mind.

Sounds like a lot of tough decisions.

I don't really have, you know, from UVA's perspective, much to add to the conversation.

Thank you.

Thanks.

So I'll start with the Market Street Garage and I'd also like to talk about affordable housing and trees separately, but I'll let Mr. or Bob go after the garage thing.

So $683,000 in truck for repairs Market Street Garage.

I'm glad to see that we're going to keep it standing.

I would like to better understand why the parking enterprise fund, which is bringing in revenue from garage operations, is not able to pay for this, or at the very least, isn't able to pay us back for this.

So prior to COVID, the parking enterprise fund, even after the transfers to the general fund, was booking in the high six figures, low seven figures,

Net gains, you know, profits essentially every year.

And in fact, I think it accrued something like nearly $3 million sitting in its balance.

So I understand that it's been operating at a loss since COVID started, since nobody's using the garages.

We'll put that aside with the courts graven and why we couldn't spend tons of money on that.

But one assumes that eventually the garages will

go back to something approaching normal capacity, at which point there will be lots of money, right?

And so if the point of the Parking Enterprise Fund was to pay for its own operations, doesn't that include improving or keeping, maintaining its own capital infrastructure?

So I'll start and then Mr. Engel can fill in where I get it wrong or what I'm missing.

So first of all, the Parking Enterprise Fund was set up to operate in a very much of the way that you're describing, to be an enterprise fund that's self-supporting, that all of those revenues would come in,

It would maintain all of its infrastructure, eventually be able to, if we need to issue debt, could support its own debt, you know, outside the general fund.

That was the plan.

What has happened is that in doing that, you also have to assume all the costs of that infrastructure, depreciation and lots of other things that the parking revenues with the whole that moving the parking revenues from the general fund to the parking fund don't cover.

So what has happened is the parking fund has operated as sort of a quasi enterprise fund for the last few years, and you are correct, pre-COVID, there was a fund balance in that fund, but as COVID has happened and as the transfers back to the general fund have continued to happen,

I believe the estimate right now of the fund balance in the parking fund will end as of June 30, 2021 with just over $640,000.

So one, that's not enough to cover the expected costs of Market Street.

And number two, we are expecting a very similar bill coming down the pike for Water Street in a very short period of time.

in which case we would expect the parking fund to cover that.

Yeah, nothing to add.

You covered it well, Chrissy.

And so if I'm looking at the current year's adopted budget where it was 660 projected for the end of the year, so pretty close to actual 640.

And it's still said that in this current fiscal year that the parking enterprise fund after the $750,000 transfer would book a $677,000 profit.

And so that alone would more than pay for this garage and then presumably the following years could pay for

The Water Street garage is.

So I guess question A is, are we running significantly behind that budget because obviously work from home has continued.

B, even if we can't do it this fiscal year, if we're assuming that at some point we get back to normal,

You know, if any given year's revenue or net gain can pay for any one of these expenditures only to be made, you know, once every five years, once a decade, you know, why can't it be paying us or the CIP fund back after the fact and

Question C is, what is the outlook for the Parking Enterprise Fund once the Water Street Garage lease resets in 2024?

So that was a lot.

So I'll take a stab at some of your first questions.

Keep in mind right now, the dollars in the parking fund

whether it's money to the general fund or the CIP, it's all the same dollars because the parking dollars are coming back to the net parking revenues are coming back to the general fund or they're paying expenses related to parking.

Yeah, it was pretty close to what we expected.

I think it ended up a little bit under, but I think the net balance is 640-ish at the end of 2021.

So that is not enough to cover the expected expense on Market Street.

And as alluded to earlier, we will likely have a similar amount for Water Street, actually a little bit more given its size.

and we have no source for that.

So the fund, obviously, to the extent that we can accrue some money in that as we come out of COVID and revenues improve, will be allocated for that.

As to your question about Water Street, when the ground lease resets, that's an unknown.

It will likely go up.

We don't know how much it will go up.

My question about the budget was for this current fiscal year FY22.

Things are improving every year.

I mean, every month, not every year.

And Market Street is closer to normal.

It's not quite there.

Water Street is still a bit off, although every month there's new monthlies that are added back and Transient is picking up, although kind of comes and goes with the seasons, if you will.

And so if we're on budget to get, if we're on budget, we're going to have $675,000 in net gain after the transfer.

Why isn't there money to pay for the repairs?

Well, I would say it's a planning piece, right?

So we have to plan for what we know we have to pay.

Right now, we know we do not have the dollars to cover that.

Should the budget come in in 22 and council decide they want to redirect some of that money from the parking fund to pay for those, they certainly could with a separate action.

Thanks.

I'm looking at the Home Energy Conservation Grant Program and it has zero dollars all throughout.

So is that an unfunded CIP item or why is it?

Yeah, that was a change, I believe, that happened in 21.

And I believe at the time, and Alex, I'm not sure if you have more information, we can get you some more information, but I believe there was some concern about the ability to

spend those dollars and so they were combined and they actually that's how the CAF got to $925,000.

That's good to hear.

I guess on that note, I did want to bring up, I know there's not a solution right now, but with the climate action plan that we're doing and our comp plan goals, there isn't a lot of allocation to achieving any of those goals that we want to achieve in future projected years.

Two questions.

It's not recommended based upon the analysis that was just done.

This type of maintenance needs to occur every five to seven years, and it's been

Yeah, every five years there's essentially a facility condition assessment that gets done and the items are presented in three categories with the priority one items being considered deficient items that have immediate impact to the functionality of the building system and need to be addressed within one or two years and so that's

really the driver.

This request is for the priority one components, and they include things like structural, waterproofing, yeah.

And while I have just the screen for half a second, you know, Christy and I have talked a few times that the construction industry is really seeing some really crazy escalations

And so we are finding ourselves repeatedly putting projects out to bid and having the bids come back higher than our estimated cost.

So even what's in our current proposed plan, we don't have, I would say, a warm, fuzzy feeling that we're going to be able to do those projects.

Thank you.

Second question.

Many years ago, we were planning to fully fund the Tonsler Park project, but pulled it because housing projects took greater priority.

But there was great desire at that time to find a way to bring it back.

Yeah, so, of course, you know, there's a way, there's another three and a half million dollars that currently resides on the unfunded list for tonsillar, you know, I think that gets back to, you

All right, here's a quick and easy one.

Trees, tree planting.

There's $25,000 in tree planting that's unfunded.

I would like to see that happen, but of course, as you said, everything is a trade-off.

So I'm looking at the skate park item, and I've seen the fundraisers they've been doing, and I'm looking at that $25,000 line item, and I'm thinking, if they can raise

like $100,000, hundreds of thousands dollars for the skate park, it should definitely be possible to raise $25,000 in private philanthropy for trees. And then I read an old urban foresters report, like State of the Forest, and they talk about this funds for the forest campaign or, you know, Thank you. Thank you.

fund, I guess, where they accept donations for trees.

And so that seems like an item.

And maybe there are other items where we could just go out to the community and say, hey, if you'd like to kick in a few bucks for this, please do so.

Sure.

In fact, there is an account that, and Mr. Garber can speak to this too, but there is an existing account in the general fund that has existed for years that is just for that.

Great.

How do I do it?

The cats and the tree commission combine efforts to plant additional trees.

And Vic is having difficulty with his connection.

Yeah, and just some clarification on trees as well.

So that $25,000 is the portion that is not funded, but there is actually money in the CIP for planting trees.

It's at $75,000 a year.

But I'd like to clarify that because if 105,000 was requested for the emerald ash borer tree removal, we asked for 50,000 last year got nothing.

So it's been cut to my mind.

You keep saying adding, but to me it means it's been cut from 105,000 requests to 50,000.

and same with the tree planting, we've been cut from a $100,000 request which just kept us level with the needed number of trees to replace those that we lose.

We've lost 460 acres of trees since 2004.

We are fast not becoming a tree city.

So, and that's not just aesthetics.

We all know now what the issues are with health and what it means about communities that do not have enough trees and utility costs.

So it's a huge impact, but I feel silly talking about 50,000 and 25,000 and when, you know, the city is

is buying something in a few years that's going to eliminate our ability to issue bonds.

That kind of tells me we can't afford it.

But obviously, there are smarter people in economics than I am.

I would suggest to you, Mr. Linder, that your championship of a

The canopy is important.

And if I look back in the comprehensive plan that you helped us develop and pass, the investment in protecting the ash tree issue is worth it.

It's a silly, short-sighted

plan to think that by cutting the money to get rid of the ash trees that are being diseased and that you're saving in the long run.

It's costing you multiple times what you would spend now to take them down because they're going to come down in the middle of a storm.

They're going to be an emergency situation.

They're brittle from the results of emerald ash borers.

They're unpredictable when they come down.

I would suggest that it's exactly because these these small items like trees or a couple hundred thousand dollars for sidewalks are so impactful for so little money that it's important to talk about them and to look at what we can shift around.

You know, when we have $4.3 million allocated to put up no parking on first floor court sign parking or court parking only signs, like that is a lot of trees and sidewalks that you are soaking up for something with much less benefit to the community.

And our job here is to be getting the best bang for our buck for every dollar that we're spending here.

So yeah, the school reconfiguration crowds out a lot.

But there's, I think, a lot to be done in prioritizing on the rest of this.

So on trees, I would just point out UVA is out here selling you a memorial tree for 1800 bucks.

And I know there are a lot more than 14 people dying in the city every year.

and I bet we could get that $25,000 and much more for trees if we just put up a webpage and made it a thing that people could go out and say, hey, this is my tree.

But that's all I have to say about trees for now.

I do have affordable housing.

I'm happy to hear more about affordable housing because I care deeply about that stuff.

All right.

So in our affordable housing plan, we have certain observations from our consultants and certain recommendations.

And what they observed is that we have done a fairly poor job of deciding the amounts and allocations of our LIHTC gap funding.

And what they've recommended is that we put

essentially the bulk of the money into the CAF, into this free form account that can be allocated out of, and then form a committee that weighs different allocations or applications for allocations against each other.

And in so doing, you know, again, get the best thing for our buck spent on affordable housing.

And so what I see in this capital improvement program is a continuation of the same relatively small dollar amount that we're putting into the cap and very large dollar amounts for specific projects that we have made in some cases specific and in some cases vague commitments to in the past.

And in particular, you know, I see Friendship Court is on the funded list to the tune of several million dollars per year.

and four and a half million dollars for phase four.

And then MACA and the senior housing in Park Street Christian Church are on the unfunded list.

And to me, maybe there are reasons for this that are beyond this, but to me, it seems that Friendship Court got there first.

And those other ones are kind of Johnny Come Lately asks.

and we said well this was already on the CIP like let's keep this here and now I recognize that we made a commitment for friendship court redevelopment but that's phases one through three and then phase four has essentially not been specified yet pretty much at all except it will probably be taller or some mix of commercial and residential and it will not be like all of the current residents will already have been rehoused in phases one through three.

And, you know, I have to wonder, particularly given the unit costs that we're seeing out of earlier Friendship Court phases, which of these, how we're prioritizing between them, and whether it's prudent to, and I mean, assuming that we are going to be forming the committee to decide between these things as we have

Adopted in our plan as our plan.

Yeah, okay.

That's a lot.

You know, I'm not sure.

I can't

I'm looking at two questions of what you said.

One, it's probably the amount of money appropriated for Friendship Court in terms of dollar per unit may be higher than usual.

I think Friendship Court project is a very good project.

It's a phased project that will

yield in excess of 100 units once it's built out.

And one of the reasons the appropriation from all funding from the city is high in terms of investment to a unit is because if you recall, Friendship Court has a one way in, one way out.

and the design for that project breaks the site, you know, and then it provides an integration of the design and construction with the rest of the city grid.

Instead of one way in, one way out, it will look like a regular neighborhood where like a block, streetscape, sidewalks, trees and what have you.

It's a pretty brand new infrastructure, if you will.

Whether it's a stormwater drainage system, it has to be constructed for the four phases, the sidewalks, the streets, the trees, and everything else that leads to infrastructure.

So that's why there is a considerable expense in terms of that project.

And secondly,

They came to the city council, you know, with that need, not just the housing component, but the fact that they're going to need assistance from the city in terms of addressing the infrastructure that will support the project.

And third, the infrastructure, you know, the agreement between PHA and the city is that the infrastructure will be designed to comply with the streets that work.

you know, and it's going to be built to city standard.

And once it's completed, it will be turned over to public works for maintenance.

So that's why the expense looks like it's unusual.

And the other aspect of the phase four, which we don't know whether it's going to happen or not, the money you are looking at,

tied to phase four.

It's actually a placeholder.

So, I mean, I think, you know, in a sense, all of our out year CIP items are placeholders, right?

And so, I mean, by the same logic, our phase two funding is a placeholder, but I think we're very likely to give them two and a half million for phase two.

And so,

You know, if you are doing a competitive allocation, for example, and you have this committee that reviews requests, I think there's a big difference between saying there's money in this pot, we're going to decide who's going to get it, including potentially phase four, and in saying, well, we have the money in our pot, and maybe we will grab this extra pot of money that's already allocated, but only as a placeholder for one thing, right?

And I don't mean to pick on Friendship Corps specifically here.

You know, I'm not trying to say that the plan is bad, certainly.

And I do think that redevelopment of Friendship Corps is a worthy goal.

And I think the plan has worthy non-housing elements in it.

But, you know, I have to

wonder, you know, where, what are the asks?

Where are we coming up with the exact numbers of the asks?

And, you know, it seems to me that, you know, even for those other things on the unfunded list, what we see is a request that gets to be one line on the unfunded list.

But is there a pro forma?

Is there a description of needs and things that this money will be spent on?

Is there a justification for why it's needed to attain LIHTC funds?

Because I look at, for example, Friendship Work Phase 1, and I see that they maxed out the points that they could get for external subsidy, and then they got an extra $900,000 of external subsidy from us.

And LIHTC, if you didn't have that external subsidy, would just give you more money.

So, you know, in making sure that we're getting the most of our federal funds and making the projects happen, you know, there's a potential that we could have made the project happen and spent less money.

and obviously we all want to do that because then we could fund an entire extra year of vouchers or something.

So I don't know.

So what are you recommending that the project be suspended?

I think I see Mr. Sanders hand raised.

They'll set me up for wisdom.

Okay, so Commissioner Stolzenberger, I appreciate the comment that you're making.

I think what I'll say to you is you're acknowledging the challenges that we have, that we do have some

with how we have done some things in the past, and that is the reason why we are doing the analysis that we're doing.

In reading the affordable housing plan, which I have spent a great deal of time with since arriving here in July, there's a lot of work to be done, and the points that you're making this evening are really, really specific and on point with that analysis work that needs to continue to get done.

I don't think we want to get into picking a winner or loser situation after having already awarded these funds to Friendship Court.

So I understand what you're saying in that we need to have a process.

And that is very much what I focus on in everything that I'm doing these days.

The council is on the 6th having a beginning discussion about governing the CAF funds and as you identify that the plan does suggest that we put more money or just drop all the money into that fund.

That is exactly where

That conversation needs to begin and focus on what the outcomes can be once we start to do things a little bit differently.

HRNA is going to really give us an eye-opening report.

It will be a little hard for us to digest, but the truth hurts sometimes.

And you just take that information and move it forward.

And while I also want to just say, Commissioner Mitchell, that you were concerned about spending the $925,000 on staff in any way,

There is a need for additional staff to be able to get this work done to the degree that it needs to get done and to be able to check the boxes that you're pointing out with your comments.

Thanks.

I appreciate that.

Again, I don't mean to be picking on any specific project.

I'm using Phase I as an example because that's what we have the numbers for, for Phase I, for Friendship Court, and for South First Street in terms of their live deck application.

Because other than that, you know, there really isn't much documentation or anything.

But obviously, all that funding has already been awarded.

That's water under the bridge.

So I guess my big question is, you know,

Does this layout of the CIP, you know, put us in a good position for this future where we have a CAF committee

and have a better system for allocating these funds.

Does it make sense to leave it as it is now?

Or, I mean, perhaps it makes sense to leave it as it is now with the understanding that once this committee is formed and we create that better process, that next year CIP might not look at all like this one does.

So I just want to make one point as you think about that.

Keep in mind the CAF, the vouchers, Friendship Court are all cash funded projects.

So unlike the bond funded projects where we can easily move things within those five years and adjust our timetable for selling bonds,

you don't have that flexibility on the cash side.

So in terms of where our plan is right now, as we've talked about, your cash balance is your cash balance.

So if you talk about shifting that around,

Thank you for letting me share.

Forensical court is one of those, just to comment on Roy's concerns.

I'm not even sure how we ended up, and I was on council at the point that we ended up in with those, you know, the discussions, the amount, the parks and rec plan.

There's also a TIF with this property where there will be tax

You know, taxes that they can use to fund some of the developments.

I asked the city for the amount of money that we were invested in Friendship Court, that there should be an ownership stake on the property to ensure that we didn't end up in the situation that we ended up a few years ago.

And the way that they're separating out the phases, I thought, since there wasn't a plan for phase four, and it could potentially be all market rate,

which every time I posed that question I did not get a clear word that for the city to fund phases one through three that we should definitely have used for

Phase 4 to be transferred in ownership to the city to ensure that the city had a say in what happened in that plan. And those things didn't happen for a variety of reasons. But I.

I just wanted to make those points to put on the radar that those things still should be monitored and the AMI level.

The city and the parks and rec planning that's happening now, there's a plan to not have the level of affordability in this area that I think we could have targeted, especially since everyone is familiar with what surrounds Friendship Court.

but they were pretty consistent on that like deconcentration of poverty model which I didn't understand based on where they sit and what's all around them.

It's pretty deconcentrated and so there's also a home ownership opportunities that are gonna come up in there.

So I was a thorn in their behinds on this project and I still think that there was a lot of unanswered

And I'd just like to emphasize it's still pretty early days for that, right?

Like we've put in a little under 6 million out of a 22-ish million total commitment over all the year CIP.

So

Mayor Walker's concept of an ownership stake.

Yeah, so the tax law gets pretty complicated with that, but ownership, to your point, was a factor.

And, you know,

if things were to change, we could certainly reevaluate.

Any additional questions or conversation on this topic before we close?

I feel like we're starting to wrap up.

I think there would be great value if the commissioners could get staff a little input on

the trade-offs that they might be interested in.

In the day, we should not, in my humble opinion, we should not raise the amount of money we wouldn't spend, but there is an opportunity to do some trade-offs.

So I think there would be value in us giving staff input on trade-offs so that we're not having this debate in December when we actually have to vote.

I just had a quick question on just a couple of small things.

I think it's just my understanding of the CIP.

It's my first one.

I'm looking at the downtown mall infrastructure repairs.

It's $78,000 every year.

And another one I saw is the sidewalk repair.

So, good question.

They both, so the sidewalk, I'm sorry, the downtown mall infrastructure, that $78,000, that was put into the CIP a couple years ago.

That is actually funded fully by the cafe fees that are paid for the cafes on the mall.

So if you look at the top, you also see an offsetting revenue for that, and that is for more general maintenance.

And then just generally speaking, the things that are in the CIP are generally not recurring in nature, but anything that we fund with cash

can go in the CIP and that does that a lot of times it's put in there to accumulate the funds for something that might be a bigger expense or an ongoing expense because the appropriation carries forward as opposed to something in the general fund where the appropriation at the end of every year is over with unless council reappropriates it.

I think it's

Yeah, and as a general rule, we try not to do that.

And we can probably, I can check with staff and find out, get a little bit more detail for you on that sidewalk repair account to find out why it is different from sort of the everyday sidewalk maintenance or whatever.

I'll get some more info for you on that one.

Moving to the idea of some straw polls.

Parking structure, diminishing funding and pulling existing funding out for reprogramming, I believe.

Are you talking about any structural repairs?

Good question.

I see a majority of thumbs up on that one.

Other items to pull on.

Ash trees jumped to my mind.

Thumbs up, thumbs up.

I'm happy to do that.

I think that we probably need to get the tree commission and Vic to huddle.

And I think if we're going to do that, I think it's important to do that.

Canopy is important.

We probably need to have a chat with Mr. Lehindra and Vic to talk about other things in Parks and Rec that we want to do that we might be able to switch off.

But I think I agree with Mr. Lehindra that the canopy is important and we need to protect it.

I see a chat comment from Ms.

Russell.

We received a letter on November 18th from the tree commission requesting $100,000 funding requests for planting trees, requesting $105,000 for combating the emerald ash borer.

Yes, the commission has already made its recommendations known.

Yeah, what I think, we need to make trade-offs.

Yes, I think we need to do the work to protect the canopy.

I just voted to concede the parking garage.

Don't take care of that.

I heard the word sidewalks.

My only point is we add stuff, but we delete stuff.

Agreed.

Sidewalks, restore funding.

I think we should talk about what restoring funding means, right?

Like our pre-COVID budget was $300,000 a year for new sidewalks.

We're now down to zero for this coming year and then $100,000 in perpetuity until bonding capacity runs out and then it's nothing again.

I think it makes sense probably given the goals of the comprehensive plan we just passed to restore that at least to $300,000, which again, all of that together over a five-year CIP is a million and a half.

and there's 4.3 million in here for that garage, which again, the two contractually obligated options that the county can choose, there's just no chance that it could cost anywhere near that amount to implement that.

Without hearing some rationale from staff, I'm willing to allow that some amount should be left in that fund, but millions of dollars for signage, it just doesn't...

makes sense to me, even gate adjustments for validation.

Again, just to be fiscally responsible, I think we just need to make sure that if we're adding stuff, we delete stuff.

and this we're going to do this and it balances.

So staff doesn't have to do the work.

Do you have a suggestion for something to delete?

I'm going to let you guys play with it.

Separate from the balancing the budget thing, Rippling Avenue, which would be paid for by revenue that

would not affect our bonding capacity.

Dribbling, yeah.

I thought that, yeah, you know, I think it's worthy of a conversation here.

So I think you're onto something there.

Does that change anything on the budget?

Would that include a new revenue item of drawing on that developer line of credit, Ms.

Amel?

Yeah, so there would in the CIP there would be a revenue line item and then there would be the expense for the sidewalk and we would have to look at the back end.

You know, in terms of the funding agreement and that kind of thing.

But I guess just keep in mind with that, you know, it is a revenue and it is a way to get that done.

And the only other objection I have with that is like, as it relates to our backlog of things to do.

Is it the next thing Public Works has to work on?

Ms.

Again, so I'm not sure of what the spend down rate would be.

We would be not selling the bonds until we've spent the money or, you know, it's well underway.

But again, we have to have the budget available to sign the construction contract.

is like, can we move this?

I mean, you typically could phase something out.

I can't find sure that one.

I wanted to go back to.

So the struggling thing, the money would be earmarked in the general fund, but it wouldn't exist if the project doesn't happen for the sidewalk.

So it just seems kind of silly not to do it.

So if I recall the way we voted, it only happens if council authorizes

that was the vote that either you were allowed or Liz, Ms.

Russell offered.

Well, that's how you framed your recommendation.

So council would have different ways of looking at that.

This is the, you know, there would be income on the front end for the tax revenue, but when we add residential to our community, there are costs that do arise with that, and not all of those, we don't know what all of those things would be, but, you know, we

We'd also theoretically have more income tax and also sales tax with new people living here.

So just from a pragmatic standpoint in terms of this work session and then the public hearing that we have in December, is the idea that you all will come up and form your recommendation and then that will be part of the presentation at the public hearing on the 14th?

Well, I'll note in the past that the CIP hearing has been an education opportunity.

It's an opportunity to provide an overview of what CIP is and what is being presented, and that's something that both our new members as well as the community, it helps give them that context.

and then typically they have there's the discussion that's very similar to what has evolved in this work session usually the in the work session it's it's more high level and then the commissioners ask

quite a few questions and a lot of research needs to be done in between.

We will note that commissioners provided a number of questions along the way and staff was able to spend quite a bit of time getting answers to those questions.

And so that was kind of a step that hasn't happened until later in this discussion process.

And so

it may be that after the education and public hearing portion that the discussion by the commission may be a little bit more streamlined.

It sounds like just from what I'm hearing so far is that there's interest in noting recommendation that would include potential decrease of certain accounts

and potential increase of certain other accounts.

Now, usually the commission doesn't get into the weeds of what those numbers are.

it's just more so the priority areas that we would like to see more funding.

We would like to see funding come away from X, Y, and Z, and we would like to see funding go towards these items in their stead rather than you all getting into the accounting portions of it.

It's more of the broader perspective.

So that

That might be the direction that the hearing goes in.

So having lived through this like two times in my current life and one time in my last life, I think it's very important that the commissioners walk the staff through the trade-offs that they like to see.

and so staff is then prepared to explain the tradeoffs.

So either you embrace the budget that staff has prepared or you don't.

But then you understand and have already vetted the tradeoffs that will need to be made so staff can be willing to coach us through those and so we can then vote on

How that's been documented in the past is that the commission's motion ends up being put into a memo format and then that memo is placed with the materials that go to council specific to the CIP.

Well, what's frustrating, has been frustrating over the years, including when I was like, had to do what Lyle's got to manage us through, is that we did the sausage then.

It would be really helpful if we could just like have that debate by email, talking back and forth with staff so that we understand the consequences of the trade-offs before we get on the dais or the virtual dais to make those decisions.

Because if we've got the...

the data numbers.

If you all have specific questions and items that you're interested in specific numbers or ranges of numbers, we can provide that factual information.

We are not going to encourage a meeting over the internet

at least over email.

Definitely our virtual situation continues, but we have no problem providing background information on items.

We just can't have you all having discussions through email about where that lands.

So that's where we are here.

So you all can do that here.

Yeah, and thank you, Missy and Lyle.

I was next here.

Just ask the questions now, get them answered so that we come to the meeting prepared to, like, make a decision.

I have another straw poll idea, and hopefully we can wrap up in a little bit.

The restoring funding for Tanzler Park, bringing it back onto the five year plan.

I'd love to do it.

Cool.

I have to better understand what's in that plan and what that funding would be going towards.

I mean, I'd certainly point to other needs within the transportation and access category that that parking garage funding could and

they should be going for and even needs to be going for if we're going to be implementing our comp plan goals.

For example, bicycle infrastructures are below our pre-COVID numbers.

Again, new sidewalks, ADA compliance is gonna be zeroed out.

But I don't have a good sense of what that is yet.

Thank you.

Ms.

kind of same question as looking at splitting up, wouldn't we allocate all of the slate roof replacement to fiscal year 24 and what's the 23, is that design?

What is that?

Crystal Fleming- Sure, I don't have the

Sure, I guess it maybe doesn't, I'm then not clearly understanding why we've got so much put in the fire station and I understand it increased and that's just a big, a big number with not a lot of detail behind it.

Yeah, and I think part of the, one of the problems or realities with the fire station is it's been sort of subject to many years of delay and a couple years of number of capital projects being put on hold during COVID, but that whole project in a question mark.

So, um,

looking at what the, and I would certainly defer to Dr. Smith, but looking at the program that the fire department is looking to deliver from that location, building something that we have the budget for doesn't accomplish it.

And so between trying to meet the program needs and then the 2023-24 budget realities,

What I can also add to that is the fire station has been identified as a priority for quite some time.

And as Crystal just mentioned, it's been sitting

and sitting.

And once the water main was discovered as an issue, we spent a great deal of time trying to figure out was there a different way that we could address that particular item.

And we've exhausted all options, including having looked at ARC thinking that that might be an eligible expense.

And we have since found that we cannot use that funding source.

to address that $600,000 expenditure.

And then the cost increase for actually looking at updating the cost is where the other 600 came from.

One item on the unfunded list I call out that energy savings performance contract cost $5 million, pays $33,000 a year.

As I recall, last time we did a big bond, Miss Hamill said a $10 million bond is about $660,000 of debt service per year for 20 years, right?

So it pretty much exactly pays for itself.

The biggest problem is that it uses up $5 million in debt capacity.

I wouldn't recommend that it be out at this time, but if we were to get that referendum, I would certainly want to see that because obviously it pays for itself pretty much exactly, but you save a lot of energy, good emissions-wise, and then after that payback period, that's $333,000 in cash for parking every year.

One item I'd like more details on is that CAAT park and ride.

I had not heard about this before I saw this.

I did a little bit of research.

I see a Wendy's land acquisition in the six-year plan for the state.

I like the amount of funding matching.

I don't really see the need for the park and ride.

And it sounds like it's in the county and serving county people.

Why is that even on us instead of the county?

Could we ask the county to fund that instead?

I would just like to know what that is, really.

Do you have anything for those, Ms.

Yeah, so just on the cat park and ride, just keeping, we'll get you some more information, but I do just want to clarify that was just a request.

It's not anywhere.

And so it's not in the CFP or, you know, I think there were a bunch of questions, you know, to be determined with that.

And on the bridge inspections, as with all of these things you're talking about, one of the things that I think will be helpful for you all, and we'll be getting this material to you for the public hearing, is just to reaffirm balances in some of these accounts.

Mr. Freese, you've been quiet tonight.

No, sorry, not this time.

Just listening and taking notes for the next meeting.

How is something like inspections even a capitalizable expense?

Yeah, I think, again, this is, you know, been an item that's been in the CIP for years.

Part of it is accumulating funds to be able to pay for these.

And it is funded with cash.

So it's primarily in there for its accumulation function, I would say.

No, no, but I'm just saying, you know, that account is for inspections only, and it's funded by cash, and so it's basically in this, it is an anomaly in the CIP, but again, there are other reoccurring accounts that are in the CIP that are funded by cash, and it's just a way to designate those funds.

I have like a, I guess,

The something that doesn't sit well with me is I guess it's more of a caution against hitting our bond capacity.

I know we have to do the school reconfiguration, but it just seems pretty risky to tie up ourselves for the future.

Hopefully that

you know the sales tax or however we're going to fund this works out.

So question about the logistics of that.

If we recommend and council accepts our recommendation to increase

the real estate and sales taxes.

Does that then have to go before the public?

And does the public have to vote on that as well?

It would have to go back to city council.

But is there a reference?

I think, Chris Engel, if you're still on, you may jump in if you need to.

I believe that the statutory process has been, at least for other localities, you get the statutory authority and then to implement it, a local referendum has been used.

That's my understanding.

So there would have to be a public vote.

Council would accept their recommendation, and then there would have to be a vote to increase the property tax and sales tax.

No, that process would just apply to the portion of sales tax that council wanted to dedicate to school funding for school projects.

So all the general assembly work needs to happen.

I'm speaking of the request for a tax increase.

Those dollars, as the CIP is currently proposed, are not needed in 23.

Got it.

I would just say, Chrissy, wow, lots of hard work.

I am grateful.

I hope.

I'm sure my colleagues are as well.

This is not easy.

Thank you.

I believe we are ready for public comment.

Last call before public comment?

I think we're here.

That would be me.

All right.

If you'd like to speak to the Commission at this time, please click the raise hand icon in your Zoom webinar.

If you're joining us via telephone, press star nine.

You'll have three minutes to speak.

All right.

Peter Krebs, you are on.

Hey, good evening.

Can you hear me all right?

Sounds great.

Great.

I'm on the

in my car, not driving, on my way to cheer on the CHS basketball team starting its new season, Go Black Knights.

So I just wanted to take a quick second to remind everybody that really the planning commissions, if you only have one job, it's to be the shepherd of the comp plan.

And we're super excited about

you know the good work the hard compromises and really you know the excitement about having this new comprehensive plan and it talks about what it's going to take to be a livable community it talks about parks that talks about sidewalks that talks about affordable housing but this budget doesn't really affect I mean doesn't really reflect what the

the comp plan says in that way.

It's almost kind of oddly divorced from it.

So I know that there are a lot of hard choices, but we can't pass the comp plan that we worked so hard for and then have a zero sidewalk budget.

That's just a terrible, terrible look.

and you guys are looking for new things to put some funds into.

I would definitely underline the idea of, you know, putting three or I think the department request was 600,000 for sidewalks.

And additionally, I think that parks and rec lump sum is a pretty good

Flexible place where money could go to be used for forestry of various kinds.

It could also be used for land acquisition and other opportunities that come up that we can't necessarily predict.

So I would just recommend

moving some monies out of the parking garage.

We're not going to need it.

And sidewalks and parks are great, great places.

And I guess that's my main comment.

We have a public hearing in two weeks, if I recall correctly.

So I'm pretty sure you'll get some good additional wisdom from the public at that point.

But

Great work tonight.

Great work so far.

Let's go.

I'd like to speak at this time.

Please click raise hand or press star nine if you're joining us via telephone.

Thank you very much.

I would entertain a motion at this time.

I move to adjourn.

Do I hear a second?

Second.

All in favor?

Thumbs up, please.

I got those thumbs.

Have a wonderful holiday, y'all.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.