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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01/26/2009 Work Session City of Springfield Work Session Meeting MINUTES OF THE WORK SESSION MEETING OF THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL HELD MONDAY, JANUARY 26, 2009 The City of Springfield Council met in a work session in the Library Meeting Room, 225 Fifth Street, Springfield, Oregon, on Monday, January 26, 2009 at 5 :30 p.m., with Mayor Leiken presiding. ATTENDANCE Present were Mayor Leiken and Councilors Lundberg, Wylie, Ralston, Woodrow and Pishioneri. Also present were City Manager Gino Grimaldi, Assistant City Manager Jeff Towery, City Attorney Joe Leahy, City Recorder Amy Sowa and members of the staff. Councilor Leezer was absent (excused). 1. Budget Committee Interviews. Budget Officer Bob Brew presented the staff report on this item. The Budget Committee has a vacancy in Ward 3 due to the December 31, 2008 term expiration of Maureen Sicotte. The person appointed to the Ward 3 position will serve a three year term that will expire on December 31, 2011. Two applications have been received for this position. The Budget Committee also has a vacancy in Ward 4 due to the expiration of the term of Ellen Manzer on December 31, 2008. Ms. Manzer served one term on the Committee and would be eligible to reapply; however she has not done so. The person appointed to the Ward 4 position will serve a three year term that will expire on December 31, 2011. No applications were received for this position, so the vacancy will be re-advertised and interviews will be scheduled for a future date. In response to the news release dated November 4, 2008, an article in the Springfield Extra section of the Register-Guard on December 11, 2008 and an additional press release on December 22,2008, three applications were received for the Ward 3 opening. Mr. Walker's application came in a few days after the deadline for submittal; however, his application is included in case Council chooses to interview him tonight. One of the three Ward 3 applications was withdrawn prior to the preparation of this agenda item. There were no applications received for the Ward 4 opening. The Council is requested to interview two applicants for Ward 3 (Mahoney, Walker). Budget Committee appointments are scheduled to be ratified at the Regular Session Meeting on February 2, 2009. Mayor Leiken noted that Mr. Walker had withdrawn his application. Council chose the questions they were each going to ask ofthe applicant, Patricia Mahoney. Mayor Leiken welcomed Ms. Mahoney and thanked her for applying for the Budget Committee. Council interviewed Ms. Mahoney. · Mayor Leiken: Why are you interested in serving on the Budget Committee? City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes January 26, 2009 Page 2 . Councilor Wylie: Describe some personal goals that you wish to achieve by serving on the Springfield Budget Committee. . Councilor Woodrow: One of the purposes of the Budget Committee is to get the citizens of Springfield involved in setting the priorities of the City. Describe to the Council how you would raise the interest of your friends or co-workers in City government. . Councilor Lundberg: Sometimes the members of the Budget Committee have different opinions on how the citizen's money should be spent. Your opinions may differ from other members of the committee. How would you make sure your opinion was heard? If you opinion was not the majority, how would you go about "mending fences" with those you disagree with, in order to deliver the best budget possible? . Councilor Ralston: What do you feel are the most crucial service priorities for the City of Springfield? · Councilor Pishioneri: The City provides a large number of services to the community. Sometimes these services benefit everyone, like Police patrols, and the Council believes everyone should pay for them through general taxes. At other times, if a City service only benefits a small group (for instance Building Permit services), the Council may choose to have the people who benefit pay directly through user fees. Sometimes services benefit specific groups and the public, so the Council may choose to fund them through a combination of general revenues and specific fees. If you were on the Budget Committee and were looking at one of the City's services to decide how much should be funded through general taxes and how much through specific fees on customers, what questions would you want to have answered in order to make your decision? Mayor Leiken asked Ms. Mahoney if she had any questions of the Council. No. Mayor Leiken asked Council if they wanted to recruit for additional applicants or if they were in favor of appointing Ms. Mahoney. Councilor Woodrow said he had worked with Ms. Mahoney on the Police Planning Task Force (PPTF) for about two years. He had found her to be intuitive and did her homework. Discussion was held regarding Ms. Mahoney's answers to the questions. Council consensus was to appoint Ms. Mahoney. Mr. Brew said he and Mr. Duey provided some training to the new Budget Committee members prior to the fIrst meeting. 2. Arts Commission Applicant Review. Librarian Carrie Schindele-Cupples presented the staff report on this item: The Arts Commission will have three vacancies on its board. We advertised for two position openings due to a term expiration of members Don Anderson and John Keskinen. At the meeting on 1/12/09, William Miller also announced his resignation, creating a third opening. The Arts Commission has received three applications. Two applicants, Paul Roth and Dr. Gary LeClair attended the January Arts Commission meeting and were interviewed. A third applicant, PJ Sargeant, was out of town for the meeting, but previously served on the commission and provided an email statement of her intentions. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes January 26,2009 Page 3 In response to the news releases of November 12, 2008 and December 18,2008, the Arts Commission received three applications to fill three vacancies. The Arts Commission reviewed all applications and met with two ofthe applicants during its regular January 12th meeting. The Arts Commission recommends that Paul Roth, Dr. Gary Sinclair and PJ Sargeant be appointed to the commission,with terms to expire December 31,2012. Paul Roth is a long-time Springfield resident and business owner of Roaring Rapids Pizza. His passion for music (he plays trombone for the jazz band Swing Shift) is what brings him to the commission. As part of the commission, he wants to reach out to local businesses to find support for the arts in Springfield. Dr. Gary LeClair is a local doctor and partner in Women's Care. He is passionate about visual art, music and dance. He wants to bring in his committee experience and connections to help the commission and also promote modern dance performances in Springfield. PJ Sargeant previously served two terms on the Arts Commission from 1998-2005. During her tenure, she was active in youth arts education and led many arts programs. As an artist, she paints and creates with a technique called photocollage. She hopes to help with youth arts-related activities as well as archive the commission and art activities of Springfield. The Commission believes all applicants are eligible and qualified to serve on the Arts Commission. The Council is requested to review the Arts Commissions' recommendations at the Work Session. Council is requested to appoint three candidates at the Regular Session on February 2, 2009. Councilor Lundberg said they all looked like excellent candidates. Council consensus was to appoint the three applicants to the Arts Commission. 3. Proposed Springfield Development Code (SDC) Amendments: Section 5.513-100 Master Plans: Section 3.3-200 Drinking Water Protection (DWP) Overlay District: and Various Sections to Correct Scrivener's (Author's) Errors Created During the Adoption of the Reformatted SDC. City Planner Gary Karp presented the staff report on this item. The proposed Master Plan amendments address staffs concerns regarding the current Master Plan review process by: · Clearly defining the Master Plan process as one that allows long-term phasing of development proposals; · Establishing specific Preliminary and Final Master Plan application review processes; · Requiring a Preliminary Type II, rather than a Type III review procedure for smaller development proposals or those proposals which limit impacts on adjacent property and infrastructure; · Requiring the applicant to host a neighborhood meeting to inform the neighbors of the proposal prior to formal application submittal; · Assuring application completeness by requiring a Pre-Submittal Meeting prior to formal application submittal, as already required for Site Plan and land division applications; and · Redefining the categories of the Master Plan Modification process. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes January 26, 2009 Page 4 Staff distributed a copy of the proposed Master Plan amendmepts for comment to private sector planners who have prepared past Master Plan applications. The proposed text in Attachment 1 includes responses to comments submitted to date. The proposed DWP Overlay District amendments address updated Fire regulations and were proposed jointly by the City's Fire and Life Safety Department and the Springfield Utility Board, Water Department. There was no public comment or testimony on this topic. The proposed Scrivener's errors amendments is the second, and hopefully the last, SDC amendment on this scale based upon the SDC reformat project adopted by the Council in 2007. There was no public comment or testimony on this topic. The Planning Commission held a work session on the proposed amendments on September 19, 2008, and a public hearing on October 7, 2008, which was continued to December 2,2008. On December 2nd, the Planning Commission voted 6-0, with one abstention to recommend that the City Council approve the amending Ordinance. A City Council public hearing to adopt this Ordinance is scheduled for February 17,2009. The Master Plan application review fees will need to be amended to establish a fee for the proposed Type II review application. This will be accomplished by separate resolution this Spring. It is anticipated that the proposed fee will be similar to a Preliminary Type II Site Plan or Subdivision review fee. Mr. Karp referred to Attachment 1-9 regarding Preliminary Master Plan - Submittal Requirements and Attachment 1-17, regarding Final Master Plan - Criteria, Recordation and Effective date, and described how they addressed recordation to make it less expensive for the developer. Councilor Lundberg referred to Attachment 1-9 and said she liked the idea of the neighborhood meeting requirement which could help avoid many issues. The expectation was clear for the developer to meet with the neighborhood. She was pleased with the changes. Councilor Pishioneri referred to Attachment 1-8, and the commentary under Section B.1. which referred to "prior to the formal submittal". He asked what had changed and if it was better for staff. Mr. Karp said it was beneficial for staff. He further explained. It could possibly save the applicant some money as well. Councilor Pishioneri asked ifit would negatively impact City staff time. Mr. Karp said it should not. Councilor Pishioneri referred to Attachment 1-9, Section 5.13-117 and asked if there was a defInition of 'major development' somewhere. Mr. Leahy said a major development would be one undergoing master plan and that was described in the Code. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes January 26, 2009 Page 5 Mayor Leiken referred to Attachment 1-9, Section 5.13-117 where Marcola Meadows was mentioned in the commentary. He discussed some ofthe issues that surfaced in that situation and said it was probably the worst case scenario. Councilor Lundberg said many regulations were based on worst case scenarios. These revisi~ns were good. Councilor Woodrow commented on the good work done by Mr. Karp. Councilor Wylie agreed. Councilor Ralston referred to Attachment 3-2, Section 3.2-235 regarding Residential Manufactured Dwellings. He said it looked like they changed the language allowing manufactured homes on any lot of suitable size. Mr. Karp said that had been allowed for some time based on the type of home., Councilor Ralston said manufactured homes were sometimes the cheapest affordable housing and he thought it was a good thing. Mr. Karp said some of the text had been inadvertently omitted during the reformatting process. This amendment was to put it back in. Mr. Leahy said it was in compliance with State law. Even though this was in the Code, there could be many CCR's iniplemented by private property owners to prohibit that in some neighborhoods. Councilor Woodrow said there was a meeting not long ago about closing mobile home parks. If someone owned a mobile home, but did not own the property, was there a way the City could require them to sign a letter acknowledging that the owner of the property had the right to sell the property? Mr. Grimaldi said staff was still working on the issue of mobile home parks and the eventual relocation, and would bring that information back to Council during that discussion. 4. City LogolLetterhead Adjustments. Community Relations Manager Niel Laudati presented the staff report on this item. As part of the City's ongoing Community Imaging Project, staffis recommending adjustments to the City's official logo and letterhead to update the look of our official documents. - Over the years, the City's official logo has undergone many unintentional color and dimension changes. In an effort to insure that the City is represented properly in all documentation, slight adjustments are proposed for the City's logo. 1. The logo in attachment one has been redrawn, allowing crisp and better articulated reproductions. 2. There are more than 30 cities and towns in the United States with the name Springfield. The adjusted logo includes our home state and allows the city to bring in the positive name recognition associated with Oregon. 3. Attachment two includes a redrawing of an alternative city logo. The city did not have an electronic version ofthis logo, leading to low quality reprints. The logo has been City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes January 26, 2009 Page 6 redrawn - allowing us to have full control over its use. We've also added the word, "Oregon." 4. This proposal also replaces the City's dated letterhead, with a new professional version. This version contains one-color artwork which will lead to less expensive reprints than the City currently faces. 5. Envelopes and business cards will also be updated. Usage b'Uidelines will be provided for all future reproductions ofthe logo. Mr. Laudati distributed a copy ofthe logo the City currently used as well as the updated logo. He discussed the issues with the old logo and fonts. He referred to Attachment 1 in the Council packet. Councilor Wylie noted the boat in the logo and that it looked crooked with one of the lines removed. Discussion was held regarding that line. Mr. Laudati said he would look into it further. Mr. Laudati said the second page showed an electronic version with additional coloring. Councilor Lundberg said she liked that version much better. Mr. Laudati referred to the last page in the agenda packet which showed a sample of some proposed letterhead. The current version was expensive and dated because it had more than one color. Councilor Pishioneri asked about money savings for the letterhead. Mr. Laudati said it would be similar to the current situation of allowing each department to have the name of the Department on their letterhead. Departments could also print their own letterhead. Council approved of going forward with the new logo. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned 6:12 pm. Minutes Recorder - Amy Sowa Attest: Amfj;::f~ City Recorder