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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12-28-99619 Board of Directors Room City Hall - 500 W. Markham Little Rock, Arkansas December 28, 1999 — 4:50 P.M. The Board of Directors of the City of Little Rock, Arkansas, reconvened from the December 20, 1999 regular meeting with Mayor Jim Dailey presiding. Clerk Robbie Hancock called the roll with the following Directors present: Directors Pugh, Hinton, Lichty, Cazort, Keck, Stewart, Wyrick, Kumpuris, Kelly, and Adcock - total 10; Absent — None. With a quorum present, Mayor Dailey declared the Board of Directors in session and announced the purpose of the reconvened meeting was to consider Resolutions regarding the M. M. Cohn Building; the cooperation of central Arkansas cities on regional issues; the dissolution of I -630 to Arkansas Hwy. 10 Parkway Property Owners Improvement District No. 338; to make an appointment to the City Beautiful Commission; and to evaluate the City Manager and the City Attorney. Before considering the Agenda items, Director Kumpuris moved to reconsider the vote on the water rate schedule, which was adopted by Ordinance No. 18,171, passed on December 20, 1999. The motion was seconded by Director Kelly and adopted by the following roll call vote: Ayes — Directors Pugh, Cazort, Keck, Stewart, Wyrick, Kumpuris, Kelly, Adcock and Mayor Dailey — total 9; Noes — Directors Hinton and Lichty — total 2. City Manager Cy Carney distributed copies of his outline of the issues, and recommended an amendment as outlined in his memorandum. Mr. Carney explained that the City of North Little Rock has agreed to increase its annual payment for the year 2000 to $900,000. The other jurisdictions under contract have also agreed to increase their annual payment proportionately for the year 2000. With the significant increase to be paid by the City of Little Rock, this will yield the proposed $1.29 million needed by the Little Rock Municipal Water Works for operation and capital improvements for the year 2000. It does so from fees without taking any dollars from the reserve fund. This is for a one year period only, based on the cost of service methodology. Automatically coming back before the Board of Directors in December, 2000 would be consideration of additional rate increases; and based on the work done during the year 2000, that might be consistent with, the same as originally proposed by the consultant, or there might be modifications. There are other issues to be addressed during this time. (1) The relationship between Little Rock and North Little Rock related to water service — would there be a long term contract for water service or would the two systems be merged. (2) The Little Rock consultants and the North Little Rock consultants disagree on the methodology and data on the rate structure. (3) Do we need a new water supply — where should it be — who should pay for it? Metroplan has agreed to work with the City of Little Rock on these issues. During questions from the Board, Director Cazort made five points to be clear on the record as to what this proposal does or does not do, to which Mr. Carney responded. (1) Under this proposal our Water Commission will be provided with the entire $1.29 million rate increase that they need to operate for next year. The total generated by the rate increase is actually slightly above the $1.29 million asked for and budgeted by Water Works. (2) Adoption of this proposal would in fact establish the cost of service as the rate structure that we will be using in the future. It does that, and also recognizing that there may be some modifications based on any consulting disagreements that will be resolved during this time. (3) Using the cost of service approach under this proposal, the rates that have been established for the various end rate users are in fact equitable. It moves in that direction, but it does not achieve 100% parity with all of the rate classifications set forth by the consultant study. (4) It does in fact protect the reserve fund from having to be used for operating costs. No reserve fund money will be needed for operating costs. The Water Commission may choose to continue to use reserve funds for capital improvements as they proposed all along. (5) It does not require that the Water Commission issue debt in order to meet operating expenses. That's correct. 1 r� l 620 Minutes December 28, 1999 Director Lichty expressed concern about the last minute addition of an issue of critical importance on a subject that had been debated for months and the Board had rendered a fairly strong decision (8 -3) on December 20, 1999. The Board is considering reversing course 180 degrees without the proposal being considered or reviewed by the Little Rock Water Works Commission or the consultants who spent months and thousands of our dollars coming up with the rate proposal that was approved a week ago. He felt this would be creating discriminatory rates, which were outlawed by the Supreme Court Decision in 1940. He suggested that a better way would be to leave in tack the Ordinance passed on December 20, 1999 and defer those rates for one year, during which time we could impose these revised rates. At Director Lichty's request, Mr. Bruno Kirsch, Little Rock Municipal Water Works Chief Operating Officer, addressed the Board, stating that Little Rock Water Works is in the process of programming the computers to implement the rates approved by Ordinance No. 18,171 on December 20, 1999, and asked the Board not to take any action on the new proposal until at least the Little Rock Municipal Works staff and commission have had a chance to review it. Director Adcock was not supportive of Mr. Carney's proposal because she did not want the citizens of Little Rock to pay any more to make up part of the $1.29 million, she had asked that the current Board of Directors be the Board to look at the next rate proposal, and that there be a contract with the City of North Little Rock. Directors Kumpuris and Kelly spoke in support of Mr. Carney's proposal. Director Hinton had a problem with what is being done. In response to a question by Director Keck, City Attorney Tom Carpenter said the motion to reconsider undoes the previous action which was the third reading of the Ordinance, which puts the Ordinance back on third reading. If the Board wishes to go forward, it needs to amend the Ordinance to include these particular rates or defeat the previous Ordinance and then ask for a new Ordinance that would incorporate these particular items. Responding to a question by Director Adcock, Mrs. Jane Dickey, a Water Works Commissioner, said the Water Commission has not had opportunity to consider this proposal. The Commission will have a special meeting on Friday, December 31, 1999. Director Adcock suggested sending this back to the Water Commission before taking action. Director Cazort then asked Mrs. Dickey is she could live with the new proposal as a Water Commissioner. She said she could. Responding to a question by Director Lichty, Mrs. Dickey said the Water Commission has been using trust fund monies for capital improvements. The Water Commission approved its budget for the year 2000 at its regular December meeting. In that budget it anticipated that some monies would be taken from the reserve fund because they are monies for improvements that staff has said identified with increases to capacity at treatment plants and thus believed to come under the trust documents for the Trust Fund. Also, the budget included $3 million for a proposed bond issue during the year 2000. The Water Commission has been spending Trust Fund monies for capital improvements related to increasing capacity at treatment plants or storage facilities in 1999 and proposed for 2000. Director Lichty said he would like to have input from the Little Rock Water Commission, the Black & Veach consultant who did the rate analysis. He then moved to table the issue until January 4, 2000. Director Adcock seconded the motion. The motion was adopted by the following roll call vote: Ayes — Directors Pugh, Hinton, Lichty, Stewart, Wyrick, and Adcock — total 6; Noes — Directors Cazort, Keck, Kumpuris, Kelly and Mayor Dailey — total 5; Absent - None. Whereupon, the new water rate proposal was tabled until Tuesday, January 4, 2000. Director Cazort asked if it would be possible to have an alternative Ordinance that incorporates this proposal for consideration on January 4, 2000. Director Cazort pointed out that by a vote to reconsider, we have not passed any proposed rate increase and will not do so until next week. Mayor Dailey made closing comments, and in conclusion stated this is a staged method of coming to the full terms of the Black and Veach rate adjustment as opposed to doing it all at once. Director Lichty again asked that someone give some thought to leaving the rate adjustment in tack and simply deferring the rate adjustments for one year, during which the modified rates would apply. 2 Minutes 621 December 28, 1999 At 6:03 o'clock P.M. consideration was given to Resolution No. 10,742, entitled: A RESOLUTION TO AUTHORIZE THE MAYOR AND THE CITY CLERK, OR THEIR DESIGNEE, TO EXECUTE DOCUMENTS NECESSARY TO TRANSFER TITLE OF THE M. M. COHN BUILDING TO THE CITY; AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES. (Located at 510 Main Street.) Following the reading of the Resolution, City Manager Cy Carney explained the issues related to the liability of this building and the pluses and minuses for the City to be the owner. The professional asbestos removal team had made a determination of the liability related to asbestos in the building. They set forth the price of $178,000 for asbestos abatement throughout the building. The ground level of the building, which staff has considered for storage and other purposes, would be $23,000. The owner has agreed to pay for one half of the ground level asbestos removal. The ground level is the only one Mr. Carney proposed to use as a City facility, therefore, there would be no requirement to be addressed related to asbestos removal for the rest of the building. That part would be "mothballed" while the City looks for the opportunity to transfer it to another ownership. The building seems to be structurally sound and is in a key location. The City would be in a good position to offer it for development and continue the redevelopment process started downtown. The adjoining Boyle Building is being vacated and the two buildings together become an attractive and unique opportunity for redevelopment downtown. (Continued after recess.) At 6:08 o'clock P.M. the Board of Directors recessed to executive session to evaluate the City Manager and City Attorney. The Board reconvened at 8:20 o'clock P.M. with Mayor Dailey presiding and all Directors present. Mayor Dailey reported that the Board of Directors evaluated City Manager Cy Carney and City Attorney Tom Carpenter, and both received high commendations. Both received high marks for good performance. Director Lichty and Director Kelly will work together with the City Attorney and the City Manager to come up with a more formal structure for the Board to use to set some goals for the future. A two percent (2 %) raise was approved for both City Manager Cy Carney and City Attorney Tom Carpenter, which is comparable to the raises given to other City employees. The Board agreed it would like to keep both on board for as long as they wish to stay. At the request of Director Kumpuris, Item 2 was deferred to January 4, 2000. Therefore, the no action was taken on the proposed Resolution entitled: "A RESOLUTION OF INTENT TO ENCOURAGE AND ENTER INTO DISCUSSIONS WITH CENTRAL ARKANSAS CITIES ON HOW TO COOPERATE ON REGIONAL ISSUES COMMON TO ALL THE CITIES; AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES ", which was deferred to January 4, 2000. The Board then continued the discussion regarding the M. M. Cohn Building (Resolution No. 10,742 above). Mr. Carney said the staff recommendation is to proceed with the acquisition of the Cohn Building. The intention is that the City will not own the building for an extended period of time. Director Kumpuris urged the Board to acquire the building. Director Lichty asked the Board to proceed very carefully because he didn't want this to become an albatross. Director Keck moved for adoption of the Resolution. The motion was seconded by Director Adcock, and Resolution No. 10,742 was unanimously adopted. Introduced next was Resolution No. 10,743, described as: A RESOLUTION TO ACCEPT THE DISSOLUTION OF ARKANSAS STATE HIGHWAY 10 PARKWAY PROPERTY OWNERS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT NO. 338; AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES. Following the reading of the Resolution, City Attorney Tom Carney noted the Resolution has been changed to reflect the amount of money to be turned over to the City is at least $90,000 instead of $75,000. Director Adcock then moved for adoption of the Resolution. 3 r 622 Minutes December 28, 1999 The motion was seconded by Director Keck and the Resolution was unanimously adopted. Item 4 on the Agenda was a proposed Resolution entitled: "A RESOLUTION MAKING AN APPOINTMENT TO THE CITY BEAUTIFUL COMMISSION." The Board deferred the Resolution until January 4, 2000. There being no further business to be presented, the reconvened meeting was adjourned at 7:00 o'clock P.M. with the Board of Directors to meet again in regular session on Tuesday, January 4, 2000 at 6:00 o'clock P.M. ATTEST: City Clerk Robbie Hancock 4 APPROVED: � r Mayor Jim Dailey