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12-15-1997 - Regular \ ~ ~ ~ CITY COUNCIL OF EDGEWATER REGULAR MEETING DECEMBER 15, 1997 7:00 P.M. COMMUNITY CENTER MINUTES CALL TO ORDER Mayor Allman called the Regular Meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. in the Community Center. ROLL CALL Mayor Randy Allman Councilman James Gornto Councilman Myron Hammond Councilman Gary Roberts Councilwoman Judith Lichter Interim City Attorney Nikki Clayton Interim City Manager Kenneth Hooper city Clerk Susan Wadsworth Police Chief Lawrence Schumaker Present Present Present Present Present Present Present Present Present INVOCATION. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Reverend Chegwin, Presbyterian Church, delivered the invocation. There was a pledge of allegiance to the Flag. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A. special Meeting and workshop of November 24, 1997 B. Regular Meeting of December 1. 1997 Councilwoman Lichter made a motion to approve the November 24, 1997 and December 1, 1997 minutes, second by Councilman Gornto. The motion CARRIED 5-0. CITIZEN COMMENTS REGARDING AGENDA ITEMS ONLY (This is the time for the public to come forward with any comments they may have on any agenda items other than public hearings. Please state your name and address, and please limit your comments to five minutes or less.) There were no citizen comments at this time. CITY COUNCIL REPORTS Councilman Roberts had nothing at this time. Councilwoman Lichter briefly spoke about the American Heritage River Designation Program. She informed Council she is tracking this. st. John's has only been designated by one city, that being Jacksonville. The rest are holding back to see what is going to happen. She will be looking into this. Councilwoman Lichter spoke about a program in Volusia County called Safe Place. There are 100 Safe Places in all of Volusia County. These are not connected with police departments. She feels they should let ministers and religious leaders know of this program. She feels they should let coaches or the Parks and Recreation Director know of the program as well as people that a young person might confide in. Councilwoman Lichter spoke to Mr. Hooper about this program and perhaps we will let it be known in a city newsletter that Edgewater has a Safe House. '-" ..., Councilwoman Lichter asked Mr. Hooper to compile a list of the social services that are available or that donations are made to whether it be for abused wives or elderly citizens that need help. Mayor Allman had nothing at this time. Councilman Gornto had nothing at this time. Councilman Hammond spoke about a phone call he received from a lady on Air Park Road inviting him to come to the south side of SR 442 on Air Park Road and drive his vehicle down this road. He did and almost needed a wrecker to get out. He would like someone to look into this. Interim City Manager Hooper informed Council of a list being done by City Engineer Fegley to prioritize the roads for resurfacing and the roads to be paved. He stated they should be about 30 days from having this list in front of them. Councilman Hammond commented on complaints he has received regarding why if you have a rental property and you go down and have the water cut off, they keep getting charged a minimum bill when there is no water going to the place. Interim city Manager Hooper stated he knows the policy and Finance Director Munoz brought him some agenda items from back in 1995 regarding the policies when water and sewer fees and rates were adopted. He is going to look over those and make a brief summary to all of Council. He stated they would define that and if Council wishes they could make changes. He agreed to get with Councilman Hammond and work out an answer for the recent complaint from a contractor. PUBLIC HEARINGS, ORDINANCES AND RESOLUTIONS A. Res 97-R-30 Transfer of franchise from Cablevision Industries to Time Warner Entertainment-Advance/Newhouse Partnership Mayor Allman stated this is a name change in the companies and we are just transferring the present franchise agreement into the new name change. Interim City Attorney Clayton explained this is a stock acquisition as opposed to an asset acquisition. There is no new entity to deal with on a franchise renewal or replacement. This is an acknowledgment of the name change. This franchise is up for renewal and within the next year it will come back to Council regarding how they want to renew it. Councilman Roberts asked when this comes up for renewal, if they could get a history of the City's dealings with the cable company. Wasn't this the second cable company that has had a franchise here. Wasn't it CVI before and shouldn't they look back and see what the difference is and why it was switched. He would like more history before they renew a contract. Interim City Attorney Clayton explained the City has a non- exclusive franchise. If someone wants to come into the city of Edgewater and meet the requirements, they can lay cable right along side anyone else and compete for service. Councilman Roberts made a motion to approve Res. 97-R-30, second by Councilman Hammond. Interim City Attorney Clayton asked Mayor Allman to read the caption of Res. 97-R-30. The motion CARRIED 5-0. Page -2- Council Regular Meeting December 15, 1997 '. ~ 'wi CONSENT AGENDA There were no items to be discussed on the Consent Agenda. OTHER BUSINESS A. community Development Block Grant Subrecipient A9reement Interim City Attorney Hooper presented the background information. staff recommends approval of the agreement. Councilman Gornto made a motion to accept the Community Development Block Grant Subrecipient Agreement, second by Councilwoman Lichter. The motion CARRIED 5-0. B. Report/recommendation by Fire station Sitin9 Committee Dick Jones, Chairman, Fire station siting committee, presented a report and recommendation of the findings of the Fire station siting Committee. He showed Council a slide presentation. Mr. Jones informed Council the Committee recommends the site at 27th Street and Hibiscus Drive. He elaborated on statements and suggestions made by the Fire station siting committee. Fire Chief Vola was available to answer questions. Councilwoman Lichter thanked the Committee and would like to work with their recommendation. She spoke about the selected site not costing anything. She asked about the land acquisition cost. She thought this property belonged to the volunteers so she is asking if it is a donation or what the story is on this. Fire Chief Vola explained the land in question is under ownership of the Edgewater Volunteer Firemen's Association Inc. It is a private non-profit corporation chartered by the state of Florida. They do own the property. They have expressed interest in working with the City. Interim City Manager Hooper stated he spoke to Carmel Shearer and the indication was that they are interested in working with the city and that there would be a joint effort particularly for the property. He stressed the City would need to own free and clear the land on which the station was located. That seemed not to be a problem. Their desire was to split some of the amenities that went in, such as drainage and paving. Councilwoman Lichter asked about the first site purchased by the City and there being a problem with a pond or access to water. She asked if this is a problem. Chief Vola stated no. They weren't talking about a pond with access to water but the pond being sized to provide for the stormwater collection system for the site. There would be minimal cost associated with design work and construction of stormwater collection. Councilman Gornto asked if there is any estimate on what a normal house fire insurance premium would be reduced, assuming it is a different rating on the other side of the tracks. Chief Vola informed him currently the City's ISO rating is a 7/9. That means we are a class seven, if a home or business is within 1,000 feet of a fire hydrant. We are a nine if you are not. Any improvement, any lessening or reduction in that rating, may result in a 5 to 8% reduction in the premium cost of the fire insurance. On a single family residence that will probably not be a whole lot of money. If you are talking about a business the impact is considerably greater. Page -3- Council Regular Meeting December 15, 1997 ...,. ....." Chief Vola stated over and over again, the cost of benefit ratio has been that the cost of the improvement has actually caused significant enough reduction in insurance premiums that the taxpayer, who is paying taxes and fire insurance premiums, gets an overall reduction in that cost reduction and the business people make out even better. Councilman Gornto can't imagine that there hasn't been more people upset about the fact that we didn't spend the money to put a firehouse and emergency crew on the other side of the tracks. He asked if there is any documentation, either by death or a house burning, because we didn't have a station over there. Fire Chief Vola stated they haven't had so much of a problem with the railroad specifically causing a delayed response time. The big delays have been from the fact that the duty crew is tied up at incident number one and incident number two occurs. He spoke about an incident where they were delayed approximately three minutes and a fire went from a relatively small fire to an extensive fire. Had they got there three minutes sooner, the damage would have been substantially reduced. Councilman Gornto asked Chief Vola to elaborate on the construction of the ponds with regard to the new hydrants and other areas of the City where you can go a long way before you see a hydrant. Chief Vola stated when the road improvement program was initially presented to us in a 60 or 80 percent complete design, the Fire Department and utilities Department reacted in horror realizing a deficiency in fire hydrants that we already had in the south end of the community was suddenly greatly increased because there was no longer access to the side streets. The utilities Department and Fire Department began working on a plan. There is an infill plan in place. It is roughly 4-~ years to completion. There will be between 120 and 150 additional hydrants put in and each year Mr. Wadsworth has budgeted 30 fire hydrants at $1500 a piece, well over $250,000 in overall cost impact over that four to five year period of time. Chief Vola stated each fire truck holds 1,000 gallons of water as well as 1,200 feet of 5" supply main. We will continue to do that infill pattern throughout the city over the next four years. Councilman Roberts has questioned there not being a station on the other side of the tracks. Prior to the department abandoning the Mango site, his house was struck by lightning. He was shocked when they closed that station, prematurely in his opinion. He thinks the recommendation of the Hibiscus site is a good one. Being close to 26th street it gives an excellent east- west artery that ties into the other side of the Shores. He spoke about Hibiscus being an industrial road situation which is great for the heavy trucks. He feels the Committee did a good job in determining that. Councilman Roberts feels the fact that the station will be adjacent to the volunteer property in a building that will house their organization in a way sets up a manned station without it technically being manned. He feels it is a win-win situation. He feels as the community grows, they should incorporate a program to start putting paid people on in a tiered-situation, putting money into the program every so many years. Councilwoman Lichter stated she envisions this fire station, not as a substation and not totally manned by volunteers that mayor may not be there, but as a totally functioning fire station but that it might be built in stages. She feels we need a fire station, not a substation. She thinks they need to keep the ratio of professional to volunteer. Page -4- Council Regular Meeting December 15, 1997 ".. ....., Mayor Allman asked why they only have 28 volunteers and if this is what we are limited to. Chief Vola stated the Fire Department was limited years ago to a total membership of 30 personnel. Another problem we have is logistics that keeping more than that number of personnel trained and equipped on a regular basis begins to get rather costly. He spoke about the volunteers working and not always being available. A majority of the volunteers do not work in town so during the day we have a hard time getting a volunteer response. The reality is the volunteers were the ones that pushed the Council back in 1988 and 89 to get career personnel here. That same group of people is saying that with 1700 incidents and 20 to 30 multiple incidents, where we have two, three and four calls at the same time, they can't keep up with it either. We don't want to see any of our citizens suffer because they can't answer the calls. The volunteers can't do it themselves and the career personnel can't do it themselves. We are going to have to work together. Councilman Roberts stated if they are going to put more paid personnel, before it is advertised openly, they should give the volunteer department the first shot at a job before it goes out for open applications. Chief Vola stated that has been the past practice in this department with two or three exceptions. Interim City Manager Hooper suggested Council accept the report and designate, if this is the site Council wants, and he will bring back at the January 5th meeting a site plan, what the site would look like, what the station would be and what the volunteers' building would be and make a recommendation on how to staff it, how much money Council has and where that money would come from. Mayor Allman agreed with the siting. He thanked Mr. Jones for his presentation and Chief Vola. Councilman Roberts made a motion to accept 27th and Hibiscus as the fire station site, second by Councilman Gornto. The motion CARRIED 5-0. Councilman Roberts feels the property by 35th or 36th street that was acquired for a station could possibly be used for a park and turned over to the Recreation Department. Interim City Manager Hooper agreed to look at that and bring back a recommendation on the useability of the site. We will bring back staffing, a site plan and a contract that has been advertised for the selection of the engineers and architects for the fire station. Councilman Gornto stated on a building like this, staffing like this and equipment needs like this, are there any other funds available through any grants or aid from the County other than from the city's funds. Interim City Manager Hooper stated they will look but the answer is really no. Mr. Jones thanked Council for the cooperation and support they gave the Committee in accepting their report. The Committee selected was a fully cooperative and friendly committee and everyone pulled their weight. He feels very strongly with getting the fire station as soon as possible on the other side of the tracks. He feels high priority should be put on some of the money that was found to get the fire station and the staffing they need. C. Local Law Enforcement Block Grant from Department of Justice in amount of $27,468 with City's matchin9 $3,052 Interim city Manager Hooper made a staff presentation and recommended approval Page -5- Council Regular Meeting December 15, 1997 '-' """'" Chief Schumaker further elaborated on Law Enforcement Block Grants. Mayor Allman informed Council what would be purchased with this grant. Chief Schumaker elaborated on the reasons for purchasing a color printer. Councilman Gornto moved for approval, second by Councilman Roberts. The motion CARRIED 5-0. D. Specific projects to be considered using portion of excess cash reserve Interim City Manager Hooper made a staff presentation regarding projects to be considered using a portion of excess cash reserve. At this time, he hasn't made a recommendation on specific projects but would like to talk to Council about setting up a system of priorities. He recommended Council look at parks, the fire station and the resurfacing of roads. Interim city Manager Hooper informed Council he would bring back on January 5th specific budget items for those projects. There was a brief discussion regarding the gymnasium and this being for the youth as well as senior citizens. Councilwoman Lichter questioned there being grants available. Interim City Manager Hooper stated they would be filing for federal grants. There may be a limited amount of State opportunities but it is going to be very limited. Mayor Allman agreed with Interim City Manager Hooper's recommendation. He believes the Parks Department is long overdue and after seeing the Fire Department recommendation, these are the two areas that need the most attention. Interim City Manager Hooper asked Mr. Corder if he has placed in the Council office the other drawings and site plans that are available. Mr. Corder stated he has put a site plan for the new park as well as the existing parks so everyone could see what we have in the current parks at this time. Councilman Hammond questioned the gym generating money. Mr. Corder stated as proposed. yes we can generate money. The gymnasium itself would not generate a lot of money but the other portion of the complex could generate enough revenue to pay for possibly additional help inside the building and for future growth of the park. Councilwoman Lichter hopes they give very due consideration to the roads that are not paved yet. Interim City Manager Hooper asked Council to keep in mind City Engineer Fegley would be bringing back his report describing the resurfacing and unpaved roads. Councilman Roberts questioned if some of the money for the road programs would be coming out of future budgets. Interim City Manager Hooper informed him that is correct. Interim City Manager Hooper stated they would come back with an actual budget for those three projects. Councilwoman Lichter feels this is an awful lot to digest. If need be, maybe they could have an extra Monday as a workshop. Interim City Manager Hooper stated if they are not successful on January 5th in getting through, they could always add additional meetings. Page -6- Council Regular Meeting December 15, 1997 '-' ~ E. Land Development and Regulatory Agency recommendation to appoint two members to fill vacancies Councilman Gornto questioned the top name receiving more votes than anyone else and being ranked in that order by the Committee. Bob Garthwaite, Vice Chairman, LDRA, informed Council how they chose the applicants they are recommending. Councilman Roberts nominated Les Ogram, second by Councilman Hammond. Mayor Allman passed the gavel to Vice Mayor Roberts. Mayor Allman nominated G. David Ridner, second by Councilman Gornto. Councilwoman Lichter was confused about how they are making the appointments. Interim City Attorney Clayton stated they could place all of the names the Council wants to put in nomination and see how they come out or they can vote on each and vote them up or down. Mayor Allman feels they should get a list of nominees. Vice Mayor Roberts returned the gavel to Mayor Allman. Councilwoman Lichter made a motion to nominate Edwin L. Vopelak, second by Councilman Gornto. The motion to nominate Les Ogram CARRIED 3-2. Councilwoman Lichter and Councilman Gornto voted NO. The motion to nominate G. David Ridner CARRIED 4-1. Councilwoman Lichter voted NO. The motion to nominate Edwin Vopelak DIED 2-3. Mayor Allman, Councilman Roberts and Councilman Hammond voted NO. F. Appointment to Charter Review Committee by Councilman Roberts due to his prior appointee's inability to continue to serve Councilman Roberts made a motion to appoint Wolfgang Unger to the Charter Review Committee. Interim City Attorney Clayton stated they don't need a motion because each Councilmember was permitted one nominee. Councilman Roberts asked Mr. Hooper to get information for Mr. Unger on the other members and so forth. Interim City Manager Hooper stated they have a package they will get to him tomorrow. GENERAL CITIZEN COMMENTS/CORRESPONDENCE Mike Visconti, 316 pine Breeze Drive, asked the Council not to forget the Beautification Committee when budgeting the reserve funds. Robert Pogg, 2925 Yule Tree Drive, suggested as much of the money as possible can be given to the Fire Department. He believes a fire house should be built and built all at once. Not in pieces, not in parts. If you are going to do it, do it right. We need fire hydrants. Chief Vola informed Council of Operation Santa Claus. He asked for Council's and the media's support with this. Ed Keenan, 1905 Pine Tree Drive, suggested outside funding for the gymnasium complex. Page -7- Council Regular Meeting December 15, 1997 '- ~ Councilwoman Lichter spoke about being invited by the Parks & Recreation Board to attend their January 8th meeting. It was the consensus of Council to hold a workshop with the Parks and Recreation Board. Mayor Allman spoke of a cash for titles business in Edgewater. He feels it is legal loan sharking and it is trapping citizens who don't know any better. He asked what they can do. Councilman Roberts suggesting contact state Representatives. Interim City Attorney Clayton stated she would make an inquiry with the state Attorney and find out under what authority they may be operating. She would report back to Council. Councilman Roberts agrees this type of business does not belong in Edgewater. OFFICER REPORTS City Clerk Wadsworth wished everyone Happy Holidays. Interim City Attorney Clayton also wished everyone Happy Holidays. Interim City Manager Hooper stated there are five applicants for the City Manager position. Telephone interviews will start December 17th at 3:00 p.m. He spoke about the interview packets. He suggested Council choose a couple questions they would like to ask. He further informed Council of the telephone interview process. Interim City Manager Hooper spoke about SR 442. Sixty percent of the plans are nearly complete. Right now, it is a five-lane paved section. At this point, DOT has agreed to hold a workshop at a neutral site and take public input on this particular design. Councilman Roberts asked when a date is set up, he would like this to be advertised. Interim City Manager Hooper assured him it would be fully advertised. Councilwoman Lichter questioned what DOT wants to do. Interim City Manager Hooper feels they would want to do a four-lane divided section, raised grass median with several of the streets cut off. Councilman Roberts asked if they have predetermined speed limits and if they will change with the widening of the road. Interim city Manager Hooper explained the speed limit is set by the level of service and the category of the road. Councilman Gornto spoke about the decision of the previous Council being to recommend five lanes. He spoke about the tremendous outcry of the citizens regarding the closed streets. He also spoke about if the Council didn't make a decision real quick, they were going to lose the whole project. Interim city Manager Hooper elaborated on Councilman Gornto's concerns. He feels this would be Council's last shot to make up or change their minds. Councilman Roberts feels it appears there is no perfect solution. He hopes there will be a big turnout at the public hearing for the citizens. Councilman Gornto commented about the power poles put down SR 442 by Florida Power & Light. Interim City Manager Hooper stated in reality those poles are there unless the City is willing to pay for them to be moved. Page -8- Council Regular Meeting December 15, 1997 '-' "wi Councilwoman Lichter asked if all of the widening is going to be done on one side of the street. Interim City Manager Hooper informed her yes, in the residential area. There was a brief discussion regarding plantings and beautification. Councilman Hammond stated the City is paying $4,500 a year to an outside source to rent a building to put all of the equipment in. He questioned when Parks & Recreation can start building a maintenance building. Interim City Manager Hooper stated the Parks Department has recently completed the specs on a metal building and we have recently advertised. That opens probably mid-January. ADJOURNMENT There being no further business, Councilman Roberts made a motion to adjourn, second by Councilman Gornto. The motion CARRIED 5-0. The meeting adjourned at 8:47 p.m. Minutes submitted by: Lisa Kruckmeyer Page -9- Council Regular Meeting December 15, 1997