Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session

Paul CunninghamOkay. Yeah, there were, I think, at least five major projects that were looking to be funded in this year. vehicle garage fire station three Sherwood Van Dyck and the property yard and those are all important projects but what can we do reasonably is getting us back into our prioritization discussion so thank you

Speaker 4Understood, Commissioner. And I will say that in discussions, again, with the acting city manager, Melanie Zipp, some of the public safety department heads as well, I'll sum it up as life safety and security from an operational standpoint is paramount for us on an operational daily basis as well. So that's what we want to focus on. Fund replacement costs on apparatuses for the fire station, fund for any vehicles that need replacement. Try not to defer those for the police department or the fire department or even public works as well. Those are the big ones. And then, again, the key word, trying to balance between all the departments their needs and their priorities as well. As listed in part of the biggest expense upcoming in the next few years is the property yard.

James Featherfor the facilities but let's complete the study fire station three we've started that process Does the timing warrant the pace that's anticipated here? The police garage, we're already contemplating a different pace to do that. I don't know what these needs are, right? But it's important to understand when we have to make difficult finance decisions, well, the council does the things that are on our minds. But continue to enhance and provide those services. Public safety is very critical. You did talk about, somewhere along the way, external funding sources. I think we need to continue to emphasize the importance of going after those. Public-private partnerships have been brought up in the past for some facilities, such as parks.

Speaker 4the example of the school bond we won't pull 220 million dollars all at once we'll phase that as we need it very similar to here some of these projects they need money for design for engineering for feasibility but that's kind of relatively small until you get into construction construction's where you really burn through a lot of this cash so we'll try to time it and that's sort of what you see here at the fire station and some of these other properties and discussions with public works and their project managers is like no we're a little behind on our gantt chart of where we think we're going to be we can push it back a bit and not need that debt financing until year two year three year four from now so we'll go

Paul NabtistaffProjects to expand and improve existing facilities are important. Stay the course once projects begin. Let's make sure we use the feasibility study to properly guide the property yard project in terms of next steps. Does the timing of the fire station 3 project warrant its pace? Environmental projects continue to be important. Pedestrian and bicycle safety continue to be important. Also important to focus on projects that serve multiple purposes such as transportation and recreation through trails projects. And the last one, I couldn't read my own handwriting, continue to emphasize importance what it was not just transportation projects but including other grants things like the Park Foundation as well as public-private partnerships