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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN 04.26.2011 CC-WThe City Council of the City of Georgetown, Texas, met in Regular Session on the above date with Mayor George Garver presiding. Council Present: Patty Eason, Gabe Sansing, Danny Meigs, Bill Sattler, Pat Berryman, Dale Ross, Tommy Gonzalez Council sent: All Council Present Staff Present: Paul E. Brandenburg, City Manager; Mark Sokolow, City Attorney; Jessica Brettle, City Secretary; Mike Peters, Information Technology Director; Edward G. Polasek, Transportation Services Director; Laurie Brewer, Finance Director; Kevin Russell, Director of Human Resources and Civil Service; Trina Bickford, Purchasing Manager; Keith Hutchinson, Public Communications Director A Overview of new Council Video Broadcast System -- Mike Peters, Information Technology Director and Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer With a Powerpoint Presentation, Peters reviewed the new video broadcast system. He said today is the last test meeting for the system. He noted Swagit is recording both the Workshop and Regular meeting using the new system and added staff will be doing its last evaluation of that before going live at the next meeting. He spoke about the system capabilities and how this is different that the previous system. He said this new system will record both the workshop and legislative sessions. He said it will allow for a live broadcast on both Suddenlink Channel 10 and the City web site. He said they will be re -launching the new video system and the new Channel 10 as "GTV." He said this will allow for staff to manage GTV content much better than the current system. He said it will allow for on demand replays from the City website and added it also provides an opportunity to produced specialized content. He said this provides an updated "look and feel" to the City's video service. He described how this system differs from the one before. He said that, with this new session, both the Workshop and Legislative Session are recorded. He spoke about what it will look like to the public when the Council is in Executive Session. He said they are recording all of the content and added there is no editing. He said another change is the amount of cameras we have with the new system. He said there are 4 cameras in the new system and it gives us a higher angle to the dais, reduced side angle issues and improved podium camera placement. He noted the new camera placement will allow for a much greater variety of shots. He spoke about how the chyron "lower thirds" system works, which puts everybody's name on a bar at the bottom of the screen. He noted the editor follows MuniAgenda, so it is important to announce each agenda item at its start. He added they can change the agenda item order, if needed. He said, with this system, there is a remote editor who controls the cameras in Plano. He spoke about how the editor has to get to used to the City Council before everything goes perfectly smooth. He said there is no change to the audio system, but he added that Council please leave the microphone "on" during the meeting to avoid missed audio. She said, during the Executive Session, Jessica will be muting the audio. He mentioned that the microphone is very sensitive and can pick up more audio that can be heard in the room. Peters showed Council how the video will look on the website and the various features of the system. He said the video is a little blurry and the audio level is low but noted they have made adjustments since then to improve upon those issues. Mayor asked and Peters spoke about how City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 1 of 4 Pages the editors will learn the Council and the camera adjustments will be smoother. He played a portion of the video for the Council as an example. Peters noted cameras see differently than people do and he made suggestions in terms of what to wear at a meeting. He noted the best options are solid color jackets, light blues and pastels. He said the camera has more trouble with very bright, lots of red, pink and bold patterns. He described some of the future opportunities with the program including public service announcements, local events and Georgetown Independent School District event replays. He said they are also looking into doing RSS Feed subscriptions as well as podcast capability for special content. He spoke about what staff will do if something goes wrong. He said, if a camera fails, they will use the remaining cameras. He said if the internet connection fails, the system automatically goes into a wide shot and, when the system is restored, it catches up. He noted, if the entire system fails, staff has acquired a stand alone camera from which the video can later be uploaded to the web. He thanked the Team that was involved in this project. Mayor asked and Peters said the people in Plano are doing this for dozens of other people. B Presentation and discussion regarding the progress of the Lone Star Rail District -- Ed Polasek, Transportation Services Director Polasek reviewed the background on this rail project. He said rail projects and road projects are long term development projects. He said the city needs to take into account and consider what is going to happen with the legacy of the project. He introduced Sid Covington and Alison Schultz of Lone Star Rail. With a Powerpoint Presentation, Covington reviewed the Lone Star Rail project. He spoke about the objective of the District and added the overarching goals of the legislature were to improve public safety, improve mobility, speed NAFTA freight deliveries, increase economic development opportunities and provide a reliable and predictable transportation source. He said they were created by the legislature and they are an independent state agency. He noted they were established by their partnering members to solely focus on planning, building and operating the LSTAR intercity regional passenger rail service. He showed Council the members of the five county corridor area to who they are accountable . He said the members of the district are Georgetown, Austin, San Marcos, New Braunfels, Schertz and San Antonio. He said the counties involved are Williamson, Travis, Hays and Bexar. He said there are twenty total members on the Board. He noted Councilmember Eason is the member from Georgetown on the Board. He spoke briefly about the financial and economic benefits of the Lone Star Rail District. He said, for the forecast through 2030 and by having commuter rail service, the personal income in the five county region would have a cumulative increase of $20.4 billion, a sales tax revenue increase of $1.02 billion and a regional and local tax revenue increase of $1.31 billion. He said the station area property values would increase from between $445 million to over $4.4 billion. He said billions of dollars of savings will occur by decreasing travel times, congestion costs, maintenance costs and accident costs. Covington gave a brief look at the proposed service and route. He said it will be 117 miles of passenger rail from Georgetown to south San Antonio. He said there will be up to 16 stations at full service, running 15-20 trains per day, 7 days a week in both directions and linking communities and destinations all along the corridor. He noted they will be doing special event service as well. He said they are looking at express service of 75 minutes or less at full service between downtown San Antonio and downtown Austin. He said they are primarily looking at Union Pacific's existing freight line from Highway 79 in Round Rock all the way down to South San Antonio. He spoke about what they have done so far. He said they have raised money for the project and been pretty careful about how they spend their money as well. He said they have completed a feasibility study update on ridership, preliminary revenue/cost studies, and financial benefits/economic impact studies. He said the study shows the the project is feasible and can be done. He said they have developed and continued to look at local funding concepts. He said they have also initiated a branding program for the district and he described the branding concept for the council. He said, last fall, they signed a memorandum of understanding with Union Pacific for use of their rail line. He described what terms were included in the memorandum of understanding. He said Union Pacific has become a very willing partner with them. Covington reviewed what is happening now and said they are working at converting the Union Pacific freight route to a passenger route. He said they are working on environmental and engineering on passenger route, station location studies, updating the financing plan, updating ridership studies, beginning urban bypass rail studies with Union Pacific and initiating local funding discussions for annual Operations and Maintenance costs. He said they are not receiving monies from the federal government at this time, because Texas does not yet have a statewide rail plan. He noted they are working on that plan. He said the goal is to build a new freight line and then switch titles with Union Pacific. He spoke about what happens next and said the engineering and environmental studies are expected to take over two years, after federal approval, and they will move to final design and construction and the freight rail relocation studies. He said they will continue with their financing plan and added passenger rail environmental and engineering studies will be going on concurrently. He said they will be soliciting interest from potential private sector partners as well. He said they will keep going after federal funding requests and establish local funding mechanisms by the end of 2011. City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 2 of 4 Pages Covington described the local funding for operations and maintenance costs. He said the annual operations and maintenance costs are spread between local jurisdictions. He said their idea is for the third of the cost to go to the San Antonio, at third to Austin and a third to the rest of the smaller cities involved in the area. He noted, when, they first go into service, the portion of the cost going to the smaller cities would be about $9.3 million. He said, as they grow into the full service, the cost would grow up to $13.7 million. He said he wants to have all of this nailed down by the end of the year. He described the financial strategy and capital costs. He said the capital cost for regional passenger rail, as estimated in 2006, is $394 million to do the initial service increasing to $613 million full service. He continued to speak about the costs of the rail and its services. He spoke about the Georgetown station and said this map is several years old. He noted the map will be updated as part of the current environmental studies. He said there were two Georgetown focus groups and added, during these meetings about 60% felt rail service is a key way to meet the transportation needs of the area. He said the primary uses of the rail were work, school, entertainment and shopping. He said the main use from most of the focus groups was entertainment. Covington said he will more than likely not see this in his lifetime, but added they are changing the region. He spoke about Lone Star Rail's pledge to the region and said LSTAR will give Central and South Texans independence from congested highways by providing a reliable, predictable and safe regional transportation alternative that allows people to improve their lives and expand their horizons. Mayor asked and Convington said they hope to have the design of the route of the new freight line completed by the time the environmental studies are completed. Eason spoke about her thoughts on this project and said this will benefit Georgetown greatly. Ross complimented Covington on his presentation. He asked and Covington said the financial contribution from Georgetown would be hopefully in the next 5 to 7 years and will be about 30% of the $9 million dollars. Ross asked and Covington said, if a city does not want to participate, they will not receive a rail stop. There was much discussion. C Discussion on the City's Five- Year Strategic Planning Process and 2012 Council Budget Priorities -- Laurie Brewer, Finance Director; Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer and Paul E. Brandenburg, City Manager With a Powerpoint Presentation, Brewer reviewed where staff is on the budget process. She said the strategic plans are being updated, base budgets for each department were turned in last week and the budgets are being reviewed by the City Manager and Finance. She spoke about why staff is doing a strategic plan in this type of economy and added it helps staff review funding issues moving forward, it directs staff resources and it communicates long term needs. She showed Council a chart that demonstrates the City of Georgetown strategic plan and how everything fits together. She spoke about the 2030 plan and said it is a reflection of values, aspirations and shared vision of the community as well as a guide for management of change and a foundation for policies, strategies and action. She described the various master plans throughout the City and described the goal of the 2030 plan, which is to build a "to do" list for the City. She said, as staff was working on this year, there were some in house recommendations to increase a couple of the statements in the 2030 plan. She said staff will also be looking at other elements that need to be updated and added to the plan She described to Council the proposed update of the public safety section of the plan as well as the utility operations section. She said staff is also looking to add an Economic Development Element as well as a Housing Element to the plan. She showed Council the previous Council priority areas and she listed those priorities. She provided Council a chart highlighting the many five year plans within the City. She spoke about the quality of life and quality growth/sustainable development sections and listed the highlights under each of those categories. She spoke about balanced transportation and efficient mobility section of the plan and listed the many strategies under that category as well. She listed the priorities and strategies under the effective governance section of the plan. Brewer showed Council a five year forecast for the general fund. She noted the expenses are higher than the revenues and added they have not yet balanced the five years. She said, while it looks scary, it is not as bad as it could be when you consider that it includes a lot of new staffing. She spoke about upcoming issues and their impact on the general fund. She spoke about the impact of Fire Station 5 opening, the future fire stations within 5 years, EMS and first response, police staffing and the operations & maintenance impact of the potential public safety facility. Mayor asked and Brewer agreed the population is an important variable in this. Brandenburg said another variable is the assessed valuations in the city as well and added a lot of the estimates are done conservatively in terms of sales tax and other various revenues. Brandenburg said and Brewer agreed this forecast is a worst-case scenario. She continued to speak about other funding issue consider in the coming years including library and parks and recreation staffing and maintenance. She spoke about the general fund strategies and said the goal is to maintain the tax rate plus the amount the voters approved for the bond election. She said the City is projecting the utility and electric funds to be in pretty good shape. She showed Council a chart demonstrating the water services fund revenues and operations expenses. She reviewed the strategies in the utility funds and described what is being done in electric, stormwater, water and wastewater. City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 3 of 4 Pages She noted, in conclusion, there is a continued emphasis on maintaining service levels. She noted funding issues still require budget contingency mode and there will still be frozen positions. She said staff is requesting for Council to provide staff with input on the plans and priorities presented to them tonight. Mayor asked and Brewer said staff is able to handle this process in whichever way Council would like. Brewer said, last year, Council determined that all priorities were important and there was no priority to place on certain ones. She noted Council can choose to rank the priorities if they'd like to, as well. Brandenburg said, in the past, they have started out with about twelve council priorities. He said the next step was to look at that list and use it as the base starting point and then remove or add to the list accordingly. He said staff wants to be able to look at the priorities as long term goals. He said the assumption staff has right now is to maintain the current service levels without a tax rate increase outside of what is voter approved. Mayor asked and Brewer said staff will bring back this list as an item on the next agenda for review and vote. Berryman asked and Brewer said this is a little earlier than usual because staff wanted to get feedback from the Council in case there were changes. She noted staff has started forecasting revenues a little earlier because Council has asked in the past how council can determine priorities without revenues. Berryman asked and Brewer said they do, however, have preliminary numbers. Ross said, in the past, Council was able to fill out an electronic survey about the priorities. Brewer said staff can certainly send out a survey for Council. Berryman said she would like to wait until the City has more firm numbers. Brewer spoke more about why they are discussing this now and added staff is seeing that the City will need to be in budget contingency mode and keep some positions frozen. Brandenburg spoke about the importance of the budget and how it is a year long process. He added he does not think staff should wait until June to do this part of the process. Gonzalez spoke about moving priorities that the city may not have money for right now further down the list. Berryman said she likes the idea of tying the priorities to more specific projects and its costs. She noted she would like to see the tangible costs in the survey monkey that will be sent out to council. Sansing asked about the last waste water rate that was in 2007, which is when the city went to a flat rate. He asked if the City will stick with that philosophy. Briggs said, though some people complained about the flat rate, there were much more people that received the benefit of the flat rate. There was much discussion. Brewer said what she is hearing is staff will be giving council a survey and staff will be bringing back the priorities for Council to discuss further. Council recessed to Executive Session under Section 551.071 of the Local Government Code -- 4:44 PM Council returned to Open Session and adjourned -- 6:03 PM j u n ent The meeting was adjourned at 06:03 PM. City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 4 of 4 Pages AL