Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN 08.27.2013 CC-WMinutes of the Meeting of the Governing Body of the City of Georgetown, Texas Tuesday, August 27, 2013 The City Council of the City of Georgetown, Texas, met in Regular Session on the above date with Mayor George Garver presiding. Council Present: Council Absent: Patty Eason, Tommy Gonzalez, Rachael Jonrowe, All Council Present. Jerry Hammerlun, Steve Fought, John Hesser Staff Present: Paul E. Brandenburg, City Manager; Bridget Chapman, City Attorney; Jessica Brettle, City Secretary; Jim Briggs, General Manager of Utilities; Laurie Brewer, Assistant City Manager; Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer; Edward Polasek, Transportation Services Director; Kathy Ragsdale, Conservation Services Manager; Leticia Zavala, Customer Service Manager; Minutes _ Policy Development/Review Workshop - Call to order at 02:00 P A Update, discussion possible direction on Airport Operations and "Georgetown Airport Business Analysis" -- Edward G. Polasek, AICP, Transportation Services Director and Jim Briggs, General Manager of Utilities Gonzalez absent. Mayor called the meeting to order at 2:02PM. Polasek described the item and said this is a presentation on the airport business analysis. He said the consultant has a specific list of recommendations for Council to consider. He said these recommendations will be brought back to Council through GTAB as specific policy action items. He introduced Chip Snowden with CH2MHILL, who summarized the airport business analysis. Snowden introduced himself and said he is from CH2MHILL, which is a company of 30,000. He said he has 20 years of airport management experience in Florida. He said the team who worked on this had about 80 years worth of experience. He said the purpose and scope of this was to identify ways to improve airport service levels and financial performance. He said the first thing they did was a condition assessment. He said the next thing they did was to pick out seven airports as pacing airports and in order to pick out best practices. He said they interviewed the airport managers who were very generous with their time. He listed the seven airports these used. He said this study resulted in general recommendations for the airport. He summarized some of those general recommendations for the Council. He said the first is to have a strong vision and brand support to compete going forward. He noted other recommendations include a stronger business management focus, develop a stronger economic/business development focus and upgrade services to users in order to compete successfully in the Austin Metro market. He said it is important for the airport to concentrate on the two primary airport revenue sources: land lease and fueling. He said it is possible for this airport to break even financially in the future. He provided the Council with some of the best practices recommendations including an improved return on investment on the fueling operation. He spoke about updating the rates and charges policy for T hangers and land leases. He said they are recommending an increase in the capital maintenance budget to improve the useful life of the City owned assets. He said there are also a total of thirty one other discreet recommendations in various categories. He spoke about fueling options, which is one of Georgetown airport's City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 98 of 351 Pages primary revenue sources. He said there are a whole range of options the City can look at. He spoke about organization and management options they reviewed. He said City managed and contract managed are both viable options going forward. He summarized what would need to be done under both of those options. He reviewed some of the high end conclusions from the study. He said Georgetown Airport is a diamond in the rough, with untapped economic development upsides and the potential to generate additional aviation/aerospace and support jobs that will improve the local tax base. He said a solid vision and brand is absolutely necessary to move the airport forward. He said it is tough to move the airport forward without looking back. He said to successfully compete in the future, GTU will require a strong economic and business development focus. He said the City should evaluate the full range of fueling options going forward. He said following these best practice recommendations will lead to a stronger and more stable financial future for the airport. He said they did a cursory runway length study when they first started this. He said the current runway length in minimally acceptable for an executive airport. He said they recommend taking a look at that in the master plan coming up. He said the city is competing against service levels and that is what you will be competing against. He showed the Council some pictures of the higher level service amenities that could be viable options for the airport. Eason spoke about the history of the airport and what has happened in the past. She said it has been a issue in the past that the airport has not been to its best potential. Eason clarified and Snowden confirmed that the airport is definitely not operationally break even right now. Eason said and Polasek described how the airport has historically been funded. Eason asked about how the airport tower was funded and if tax income was going into the airport. Rundell said the airport tower was a 50/50 grant with the Federal Aviation Administration. She said the city issued bonds that were paid for by airport revenue. She said, at this point, we have not had to support it with general fund revenues which may not be the case moving forward. She said we were paying our way and were not investing and not taking care of the assets on the ground. She said this is going to be an issue for next year's budget. Hesser asked and Rundell said, at the end of the next fiscal year, the City will have 94 dollars left in the airport fund. She said this is a problem that has been compounded. Hesser asked and Rundell said the needed maintenance amounts to almost half a million dollars. He asked about under-utilized opportunities at the airport.Snowden said there are several sites that could be shovel ready quickly and noted there is some need on the T hangar site. Snowden and Polasek continued to describe some of the under-utilized opportunities. There was much discussion. Fought said there are serious differences between an airport authority and private airports, etc. He asked if those are the type of issues Council will see first. Polasek said staff will bring back the lease structure and rates for the ongoing leases and then get into the management structures. Fought said it looks to him like having a private operator with an airport authority would be an attractive way to move forward. Snowden confirmed private contract management is viable. Fought asked if it is easier to get financing if the burden is in the private sector. Snowden said, from his perspective, public/private partnerships are the way to go. Snowden said there are cities and municipalities that would die to have what Georgetown has. Hammerlun said the one thing he hears about from his district is airport safety issues. He said, from his perspective, safety will be absolute. He said planes that land come over their homes every day. He asked about the ongoing relationship between economic development and the airport. He also asked about the significant challenges and limitations of the City. He said safety as it related to he airport needs to be number one. Snowden, from his perspective, runway extension is the biggest safety and noise abatement option the City could pursue. Briggs spoke about the airport's relationship with economic development. Snowden said the biggest issue he sees is a lack of unified vision. He said that is a challenge but not unusual. Jonrowe thanked Snowden and said one thing that could be missing is the potential impact of these recommendations on the neighborhoods surrounding the airport. Jonrowe asked about the other airports they studied and Snowden said they tried to find airports that were satellite to a major airport, like Georgetown. There were many questions and much discussion. Polasek described the 2013/2014 Budget Implementation and the next steps in this process. He reviewed the GTAB responsibilities and the items that will be coming back to Council. B Overview and discussion of the Comprehensive 2013 — 2014 Water Conservation Program -- Kathy Ragsdale, Conservation Services Manager and Jim Briggs, General Manager of Utilities With a Powerpoint Presentation, Ragsdale summarized the purpose of the water conservation plan. She said it is to ensure adequate and sustainable water resources for the City's customers. She said the City can treat about 28 million gallons per year and there is about 16 million gallons of above ground storage available. She said this summer our peak has been 31.9 million gallons per day. She said over the last two years, the City has had to use the above ground storage to make capacity for the peak days. She said the cheapest option is to not use the water in the first place. She said there are several drivers that tend to keep the city's per capita usage up. She said the most effective driver the city has is the weather as well as the growth and development and annexations in Georgetown. She said we have legislation that drives a lot of our new activities and encourages aggressive water conservation activities. She showed Council a graph reflecting the different outcomes the City City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 99 of 351 Pages may experience if it does not change its usage. She said the primary issue regarding water conservation is landscape irrigation. She said three issues that affect this are plant choice, insufficient soil depth and inefficient irrigation methods. She said we water too much, too long, and for the wrong reasons. She said they organized some focus groups and said they were split into non-residential and residential groups. She provided Council with some of the results and comments from the focus group meetings. She noted some of the things that were said is education is key, there needs to be significant incentives, regulate the builders first, don't set rules if you are not going to enforce them, water is too cheap- why would anyone cut back, and the City should lead by example. She continued to describe the discussions that took place in those meetings. Eason asked where the Homeowner's Associations fall in regard to this issue. Ragsdale said a recent bill has passed that said HOA's are not allowed to regulate conservation efforts. Fought spoke about the work Sun City has done regarding water conservation. He asked that staff go out and speak about xeriscaping. Ragsdale described the programs they would like to present to the public as well as the program elements. She spoke about the education piece of the water conservation program and said it is the biggest portion of this effort. She explained the education process in great detail. She listed the group of partners the City is working with, including master gardeners, native plant society, GISD, Williamson County, volunteers, landscapers, irrigators, local vendors and TX A&M Agrilife. She said most people are looking for rebates to help them get started in these type of programs. She showed Council a graph of the rebates they will be offering. She said the first new program is for landscaping for new residential construction. She described the various elements under this new program. She said they are going to add soil depth as a requirement. She said builders must submit a landscape design for approval, landscape inspections is required, plants must be from the city's Preferred Plant List and turf must be a warm weather compatible. She said, for the existing landscaping programs, there will be incentives and rebates. She described these for the Council. She showed Council a picture of an example of turf replacement. She described the new installation requirements for irrigation. She continued and described the incentive and rebate programs for the existing irrigation programs. She noted one of the biggest programs they are presenting is the annual irrigation checkup. She said this will ensure a minimum standard of irrigation system maintenance is performed. She said the City will partner with irrigators to use standardized checklist for checkup. She continued to describe this program to the Council. There was much discussion regarding the conservation program. She provided Council with a summary of the comprehensive program and the action plan going forward. She said they are asking for feedback from the Council or the general public over the next 30 days and incorporate those in the final program. She said implementation of the final programs is scheduled for March. Gonzalez arrived at the dais. Fought said he likes the idea of the City leading the way. He said it would be a good idea for the city to go to two day watering. He said he has been told that there are code requirements that have developers put in plants that aren't conservation wise. He said, if that is the case, the city needs to change that. He spoke the importance of talking to the developers about these changes. He said the city owes it to the developer community to give them plenty of time to deal with these changes. He said he likes the education program and noted that has been key out in Sun City. Brandenburg spoke about how the city uses reused water for a lot of the parks and public areas as well. Hesser said he agrees with much of what Fought said. He noted training and education is key. Hesser suggested providing a list of the native plants that would assist conservation efforts. Hesser asked what it is going to cost per household to make these changes. Ragsdale spoke about the cost to the city as well as the cost to the customer. Hesser said his main question is to look at this from the homeowner's standpoint. Eason spoke about how she has been working on this issue for years. She said that native plants actually prevent wildfires. She said she wants to make sure the irrigation installers are qualified to do what they need to do. Hammerlun said he is excited about this and asked about the implementation schedule and why it does not get implemented until March 1. Ragsdale said it will take a little while as they will have to go through the hiring process for the landscape position. Hammerlun asked and Ragsdale said these changes are being made through the water ordinance and not the Unified Development Code. Brandenburg summarized why the implementation schedule is set out the way it has been. Jonrowe asked and Ragsdale said people and developments can use the recommendations voluntarily if they would like and a good deal of them already are. Jonrowe said she can see why this has taken so long and noted it is a very comprehensive approach. She said education is key, but it is also the easiest and non -controversial piece. She noted it will get stickier once the City starts talking about the rates. She said we really needs to think outside the box regarding incentive programs. She spoke about doing a neighborhood level competition where the city offers a prize to neighborhoods that reduce their usage the most. She said that kind of friendly competition can be a great incentive. Jonrowe said she thinks it is good the city specified permeable hardscape. Jonrowe asked if there are scenarios where the City has a contract but the water isn't there. Briggs said yes, it can get that bad. He said we are in a pretty bad situation now and added it could definitely be worse. He spoke about some extreme droughts that have happened in the past. Gonzalez said this will be a big change for a lot of people. He said we need to give them enough time and things to look at to understand that this is the new norm. There was much discussion. City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 100 of 351 Pages C Overview and discussion of Utility Rate Changes for Electric and Water Services -- Leticia Zavala, Customer Service Manager and Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer Briggs gave a brief overview of the Utility Rate Review presentation. He spoke about how this does not constitute a rate increase. He said this will not bring additional dollars into the fund that will create a rate increase. Zavala reviewed the approved utility ratemaking policy for the Council. She said, in July, Council reviewed current issues with Water/Electric rates. She spoke about how the rates are set up now. She said funding needs were met by variable costs. She said the City has been under -recovered during cool or hot months.She said, in July, Council approved a methodology for establishing utility and water rates. She said that methodology will be incorporated in the Fiscal and Budgetary Policy. She described the methodology for Council. She spoke about the electric rate study that was completed in 2012. She said that study contained focus areas and she described that for the Council. She said GUS' objectives were to achieve a cost of service rate structure, eliminate subsidy between rate classes, average fixed costs across all customers and minimize the impact to low use customers. She showed Council the electric rate comparison from the existing rates and proposed rates. She showed Council an example of the electric rate charges under the current rate as well as the proposed rate. She said this is where you can see where the fixed rate is imbedded into the variable rate. She spoke about the water rates and said the GUS' objectives for these rates are to balance cost of service and conservation goals, minimize impact of cross -subsidization, average fixed cost across all customers, minimize impact to low usage customers with no increase in revenue. She reviewed the rate rational for residential water rates as well as commercial water rates. She showed Council a chart of the existing residential water rates compared to the proposed rates for citizens both inside and outside the city limits. She spoke about the proposed commercial water rates. She provided Council an example of water rate change and its impacts inside the city limits. There was much discussion and explanation of the new proposed rates. She said the next steps are there are two ordinances on the agenda tonight, the electric rates and water rates, for Council consideration and possible approval. Gonzalez said he would like to see some of the examples at the higher tiers. Zavala described the rate differences for the higher tiers for both inside and outside the city limits. Gonzalez said he sees that the rate will not be that different and Foster agreed. Gonzalez asked if there should be a penalty rate for going over a certain usage amount. Briggs said they did not include the penalty because that is a policy decision. He said, however, he would support that type of move. Gonzalez said he would like to see some sort of suggested levels at when a penalty will be involved. Jonrowe said she is taking this in and she is overwhelmed. She said she has been hearing from constituents regarding the Sun article and asked if the staff would like to address that directly. She said the biggest concern from her constituents has been the effect on the electric rates, especially for the people in the lower usage with lower incomes. Zavala said staff tried to balance the rates out for the future and keep the structure of the rates pure. Dishong said the cost to provide the service is $20 and we have been charging $6. He said the City needs to set the price at the cost. He said, if we do not do that, we will have to keep charging people to cover those costs.Hammerlun said he is supportive of some further thought about the really high users and some sort of penalty being proposed. Fought said he would like to echo was Hammerlun has said. There was much discussion. 4:26PM recess 4:34PM meeting called back to order D Project Connect and the North Corridor Study -- Presentation by John -Michael Cortez, Capital Metro Transportation Authority Brandenburg described the item and said, last Fall, Southwestern sponsored a meeting with Project Connet. He said they spoke about how this ties into the greater transit region. He said there are a lot of terms in the media and through the public and noted this will try to define what all that means in the greater system. He introduced John -Michael Cortez to the audience. With a Powerpoint Presentation, John -Michael Cortez introduced himself to Council. He said, even though they work for Capital Metro, they also represent Project Connect. He said Project Connect is a partnership between CapMetro, Lone Star Rail, City of Austin and other entities. He said the reason why Central Texas transportation agencies came together is because we are dealing with some pretty significant transportation challenges. He spoke about some regional transportation challenges and opportunities due to the growth of the area. He spoke about Project Connect and said they are trying to focus as much growth as possible in activity centers so that people are able to fulfill daily needs without having to get onto a highway. He described what could be defined as an activity center. He spoke about the need to travel easily between activity centers. He noted the goal is to City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 101 of 351 Pages be able to connect to the core which, in Central Texas, is the area in and around downtown Austin. He said the pain is traveling from in and out of the core. He said we are the third most congested region in the United Sates of America. He said the good news is this is a plan that actually has legs. He spoke about the Metrobus and Metrorail system, which is something that is happening now. He spoke about some of the projects coming soon, including MetroRapid and Express Transit in MoPac Express Lanes. He said the next steps include Lone Star Rail, Urban Rail and Project Connect North Corridor. He said he is here to speak about the Project Connect North Corridor. He briefly summarized the planning process necessary in order for the project to be in operation. He reviewed some of the feedback from Phase 1 of this project including the inclusion of SH130/Hutto, connect centers and not just downtown Austin, must be convenient to home and work (via Park and Rides), use SH 130 in some alternatives and there was concern running MoKan through Pflugerville. He showed Council the three alternatives to the original plan. He described the evaluation criteria they need to use. He described the next steps of the project. Eason said she appreciates this information. She asked and Cortez confirmed they are going to host a workshop at the Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, September 5. He spoke about what they are going to discuss at that Workshop. Eason asked for clarification of the role of Lone Star Rail and the role of the planning group related to the environmental studies currently underway. Cortez said this is a partnership among Central Texas transportation agencies. He said Project Connect itself is not going to build anything and noted it is just a partnership. He noted Project Connect has identified funding sources regionally. Fought said he thinks it is great that they are taking a comprehensive view. He noted he is curious as to how this would affect the economic development in Georgetown. Fought asked and Cortez spoke about how a person would get off at the stop near the Domain and take a bus to get there. He said this is called the "last mile connection." Jonrowe asked and Cortez said Lone Star Rail is integral in this process. Gonzalez asked and Cortez said they constantly re-evaluate the plans to adjust to the changes on the ground. He said pieces of the plan can be phased in over time. Meeting recessed to Executive Session under Section 551.071 of the Local Government Code -- 5:29PM Meeting returned to Open Session and adjourned -- 6:22PM Appro Mayor Geo e Garver City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 102 of 351 Pages AUJI ASournment The meeting was adjourned at 06:22 PM. Citecretary Jessica Brettle f