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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-13-2017 draft minutesad hoc City Hall Advisory Committee 1 Draft Minutes ad hoc City Hall Advisory Committee September 13, 2017 Com Dev, 51 Winburn Way 1:30 p.m ATTENDANCE Committee Members: Boldt, Di Chiro, Finklea, Kenefick, Kramer, Miller, Nickels, Pearce, Shaw, Thalden Staff: Fleury, Kathol, Morrison, Seltzer Absent: Richards CALL TO ORDER: Di Chiro called the meeting to order. Changes to the Minutes of the August 30 Committee Meeting were as follows: • Page 4 – Shaw made the following changes: o “Shaw said the best timing for an issue-based election is a mid-term primary election because you have a difference in the profile of who votes versus who votes on a presidential cycle. She said the best chance for passing a bond is in a mid-term primary because you have the lowest voter turnout in part because non-affiliated voters (NAVS) cannot participate in a partisan race, and mid-term primary voters are the most engaged, so you are dealing with a different kind of an audience. “ • Page 4 – Shaw cut the sentence: “Shaw said that in a presidential primary you have 10% more Jackson County voters participating then you typically do.” • Page 4 – Shaw changed: “……because you can dramatically impact the turnout.” • Page 4 – Di Chiro changed: “Di Chiro did not think we could agree on only one option.” • Page 4 - Kramer changed “Kathol had arrived at $8.1 M for Briscoe and that entailed selling ComDev….” • Page 5 – Kramer changed ….”but 1b retained the façade, which accounted for the $1.2 M difference.” • Page 6 – Shaw changed ‘He” to “She” on Richard’s statement • Page 7 – Finklea changed his statements to: “Build a new City Hall on the same site but it is incumbent on the Council to make that choice after more financial analysis.” “He thought that Briscoe should stay with the City if possible. His first choice is to stay with the existing site and his second choice is going to the Civic Center.” • Page 8 – Shaw changed – “Di Chiro and Pearce will work with….” COA050142 ad hoc City Hall Advisory Committee 2 APPROVAL OF MINUTES: MOTION by Boldt, second by Pearce to approve the Minutes of the August 30, 2017 ad hoc City Hall Advisory Committee meeting as amended. Carried unanimously. REVIEW AND DISCUSSION OF DRAFT RECOMMENDATION: Di Chiro thanked Pearce for his work and assistance on the draft of the Final Report and Recommendation to the City Council. Di Chiro said that she reviewed all of the committee Minutes, reviewed Pearce’s first draft, she and Pearce made changes and sent their draft to City staff for review. The committee members were then sent the third draft. Di Chiro said the General Comments section were based on recurring themes from the meeting Minutes. Committee members thanked Di Chiro and Pearce for their work on the Final Report Draft. Members of the public that were present thanked the committee for their work. Di Chiro then asked that committee members give their input on the draft, in particular, were the relevant issues captured? Was anything missed? Committee input was as follows: • Kenefick recommended changing on Page 1 the sentence beginning the fifth paragraph to read: “The costs will depend both on the Council’s final decision on an alternative and on the design of the project.” • Kramer recommended changing at the top of Page 2: …..”which should include $1M to implement the Phase II Police Station project as directed by Council.” • Shaw recommended changing on Page 5: ….”and the committee felt that abandoning the ComDev Building was unwise because it is a relatively new building that functions fairly well currently.” • Shaw recommended changing on Page 5, first bullet under Other alternatives: …. “that building is relatively new and functions fairly well currently.” Shaw said the voters did not approve the ComDev building, so that sentence was cut. • Kramer recommended changing on Page 5: ….”These are close to the same alternative – the only difference being that 1B would be estimated to cost more but would preserve the historic facade.” • Kramer corrected on Page 6: “Some members pointed out that parking Downtown is a far larger problem than just City employees….” • Kramer asked that somewhere in the comments section it be noted that Briscoe and the Civic Center were outside of the Hosler Dam concern and were not adjacent to other buildings in the event of an earthquake. COA050143 ad hoc City Hall Advisory Committee 3 • Kramer recommended on Page 8 adding another bullet point with the sentence beginning: “The committee recognizes that existing City facilities are cramped.…” Kramer and Boldt wanted it noted that space needs are driven by the staffing increases. • Kenefick wanted it noted that the committee had been asked by Council to include the $1M in the Bond primarily to construct the Police Phase II. He thought it may be more acceptable to voters if the wording focused more on the EOC instead of the Police Department. The next step will be to make corrections and send out the revised Final Report to the committee members. MOTION by Boldt, second by Shaw to approve as amended the Final Report and Recommendation to the City Council. Carried unanimously. Seltzer said that the Final Report and Recommendation will be presented to the City Council by Di Chiro on October 3, 2017. Seltzer said some of Morrison’s presentation from the May 24 meeting would be included for the benefit of the Council. Staff cover sheets will include specific recommendations from City staff. Seltzer said there would be a RFQ for an architect to design concepts with cost estimates for all three sites. She also said two points to be considered were: 1. The committee is agreeable to reviewing the design concepts once developed; 2. We will not be able to make a May 2018 ballot. The deadline to title and notice is by February 23, 2018 and the final language deadline is March 13, 2018. Seltzer said that an RFQ would take a while to draft and would likely have to go back to the Council for approval. We would be asking one firm to develop a concept for three sites, which is unlikely to be done for inclusion on the May 2018 ballot. Shaw asked if three firms could be hired – one for each site. Seltzer said that was cost prohibitive. One firm could cost $40,0000 for the first site concept design, and $20,000 for each additional site concept design. She added that we could direct an architectural firm with a target budget of $10M and then scale that down, but that we have to give the architectural firm parameters. In addition, we need to know if the Council is interested in purchasing Briscoe. Why pay for a concept design if Briscoe is not feasible or not available? It would be great if the time-line allowed the committee to get design concepts and have them approved, but that cannot be done by the May 2018 ballot deadlines. It could be March or April by the time the designs were being reviewed for approval. Di Chiro said that the Council would have the prerogative to only cost out one or two of the site options. If the City was interested in Briscoe, they could pursue that. The School COA050144 ad hoc City Hall Advisory Committee 4 District has their bond in the November election. Kramer said he would be willing to help draft bond language. Seltzer said that usually an Ad Hoc committee is disbanded once they give their Final Report. However, the City Hall Ad Hoc committee has generally agreed to reconvene when given design concepts. The committee members did not feel they could put the cost estimates together. Kramer said the committee could advise the Council on a reasonable bond amount – ‘here are the three options and each design cost is $____.’ Nickels disagreed. Kenefick said on the Fire Station bond, the committee knew what was acceptable to the voters and they did not retool the numbers. Seltzer said the committee has the benefit of meeting with the architect and giving input to dial down cost estimates. The committee could work with the architect and on the designs. Kramer said that if the City goes to a GL bond, it needs to be crafted so it meets with voter approval. Nickels said the committee was not qualified to come up with a cost estimate for a design they have not seen. Di Chiro thought the Council had more work to do – City staff cannot advocate for it, but the Council can. Thalden said that we would see what the architect proposes and then someone has to oversee it – like a Design Committee. The Council could decide to appoint a new committee, but if they want the current Ad Hoc committee to continue with their work, then the Ad Hoc committee is willing to. Seltzer said she would explore if a dollar amount was required to be included in the Title and Notice language. Setlzer said that in theory, rather than going out for an RFQ, the City could do a direct award to ORW, who completed all of the initial work. That could save three months on the timeline. The City can do a special procurement and say to the Council that it would be more cost effective to give the direct award to ORW. Fleury said that if you make a site selection, you would have to do a formal selection process. Seltzer said there was budget left in the ORW scope to continue the work. If we miss the May 2018 election, the next opportunity is a special election the next year. Otherwise, we are competing with the School Board election. If we miss the May 2018 election, we would have to wait until 2019 and costs would go up. Seltzer said that if the Council wants to vote that the current City Hall location is best, then the committee recommendation could be to follow forward with design and costs, but she felt it was awkward asking the Council to pick one of the three site options. Pearce said the Council was free to select one site. Kenefick said we are worrying about missing the May 2018 timeline, but what was the hurry? Shaw said the EOC bond could go on the May 2018 ballot and not be combined with the City Hall bond. The committee members liked that idea. COA050145 ad hoc City Hall Advisory Committee 5 MOTION by Kenefick, second by Kramer that the Ad Hoc committee recommends that the Council put the EOC bond on the May 2018 ballot. Motion passed, with Di Chiro a nay. Di Chiro said her vote was a nay because she felt the recommendation was outside the scope of the committee’s charge. The committee generally felt it would be to everyone’s benefit to get the EOC bond on the May 2018 ballot and have it stand on its own. Seltzer said that forfeiture funds were used to complete Phase 1 of the Ashland Police Station to get it where it needed to be Phase 2 is to build the EOC and there are not forfeiture funds for this project. Boldt wondered if tagging the EOC Phase with the City Hall recommendation had an advantage, and Seltzer did not think there was a specific reason to couple them together. Shaw said they become competing clauses within themselves. Seltzer wanted to revisit doing a direct award for the design concept. Fleury said we could do a direct award. We have some money left in the budget but would have to have a conversation with ORW first. He did not know ORW’s work load and that could drive the cost up. Even if we give ORW a set time line and they come back with their prices, Council will have to decide if the schedule can be met or not. Kramer, Kenefick and Nickels said they would rather wait a year to put the City Hall on the ballot and get it right. Thalden thought the direct award was a good approach. Fleury said that to save time, the City could do a full solicitation and scope the project in phases, and based on the outcome of the first phase, you can continue to negotiate the next phases. Each phase is independent and can be brought to the Council. Nickels added that if a firm is not performing, the contract can be amended at any time. Shaw thought that would give the committee a chance to revisit the numbers as we go along. Kramer felt that the EOC independent bond idea should be included in the committee’s final recommendation to the Council. We are better served to get it right than do it too quickly. MOTION by Shaw, second by Thalden to amend the recommendation to reflect that EOC be placed on the May 2018 ballot independently and if it is not feasible, that it be placed on the ballot in the Spring of 2019. Carried unanimously. MOTION by Kramer, second by Shaw to include in the committee recommendation the offer of the Ad Hoc committee to participate in the process going forward. Carried unanimously. COA050146 ad hoc City Hall Advisory Committee 6 Seltzer said she felt staff received significant direction from the committee. Di Chiro said next steps would be to: • Review the September 13 Draft Minutes • Pearce and Di Chiro will update the Final Report and Recommendation • City staff is discussing and deciding if they will make a recommendation to make a direct award to ORW • Send out the drafts of the Final Report and the September 13 Meeting Minutes for input from committee members. Since this was the final committee meeting, the Minutes will remain Draft Minutes, as the committee cannot vote electronically. Seltzer thanked all of the committee members for their time and thoughtful discussions. Di Chiro adjourned the meeting at 2:55 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Shelly D. Hensarling COA050147 ad hoc City Hall Advisory Committee 7 COA050148