08-28-1991 Council Minutes City Facilites Public Hearing

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PUBLIC HEARING FOR PROPOSED CITY FACILITIES — AUGUST 28, 1991 The election of that year intervened with the progress at that point, even though the issue was a part of the election. This year the Council has actively worked on the realization of this project. The site selection was the first matter the Council had to decide upon. Public meetings were held by the Citizen's Committee, Planning Commission and Council for the determination of location selection. The result of the information presented was the recommendation of the Highway-12 site, which is the site we now have exercised our option on. Callahan felt that the difficulty of the Crystal Bay site was that it was too small to put both the public works and administration /police on the same site unless condemnation of some homes was undertaken, which the Council did not want to do. The old sewer pond property was determined not to be suitable for the public works department. Also, if the administration /police building were�to be placed at Crystal Bay, water would have to be supplied, including building a water tower and this would add considerably to the cost. Public meetings were held on both the design of the buildng and the construction manager issue. A Design Committee was formed which included the Council, 3 Planning Commission members, and the Chair from the Citizen's Committee. It was decided that a construction manager would be retained to assist and advise regarding cost benefit analysis of the building and the costs of the building. Maureen Bellows, Planning Commissioner, was extremely helpful in this choice as she i's a. professional architect and is familar with the basic contracts and language. It was determined that City staff was not equiped to watch the construction closely enough without outside full —time assistance. The firm of Krause Anderson was retained. This organization has done a considerable amount of work in this area and has worked with Boarman extensively. The construction manager has been helping for about three weeks now. The next problem to resolve was the financing of the building. The Council determined that a HRA- should be formed and in effect create a sale and lease —back. Public meetings were held regarding this and it was covered quite extensively in the press. With that background, Callahan reiterated that there clearly was a need for new facilities not only because of the safety factors but because of lack of operational efficiency of the current buildings. Also, it is a matter of Community pride. Another question to be answered is how big should the new facilities be. The experts have reported that a much larger facility is needed to run, the City. Boarman has considered personnel, how many offices, what size of office, and what they are going to do when they get there. They have also taken into consideration growth of staff, possible in —house rather than contractural services such as engineer, assessor and attorney. 3