Bonners Ferry City Council minutes |
| November 7, 2012 |
|
Mayor David Anderson called the regularly
scheduled council meeting of October 16, 2012,
to order at 7:00 p.m. Present for the meeting
were Mayor Anderson, Council President Mike
Klaus, Council Members Rick Alonzo, Connie
Wells, and Tom Mayo, Clerk Kris Larson, City
Administrator Stephen Boorman, Fire Chief Pat
Warkentin, Economic Development Coordinator
David Sims, and Attorney Will Herrington. Also
present were Bill Leach, Mike Sloan, Dean
Satchwell, Jerry Higgs, Dale Simpson, Ruth
Sutton, Jessica Tingley, Adam Arthur, Bob
Spalding, Loretta Hunsaker, Marcia Cossette,
Marcia Morman, Carolyn Testa, Doug Ladely, Sr.,
Robert Karlac, John Youngwirth, and Kevin
Cossairt. Loretta Hunsaker spoke about the fiscal year 2011 city budget and said she understood the citybudget was $79,000 in the red in 2011. Mayor Anderson said the city does not run in the red and cannot do so. Kris told her that the city has budgeted revenue and expenditures and sometimes the revenues are short of the projections made at budget time. She also told her that the city has contingency funds in all funds in case this happens. Kris told her that when we budgeted for fiscal year 2013 that we had roughly $459,000 in the general fund balance. Kris will look at the 2011 revenues and get back to her with the specifics. Loretta said that was not necessary but her point is about this time last year when she asked why annexation was taking place of the 77 parcels, if it was for the additional revenue, she was assured by Stephen Boorman and David Sims that it was not due to the revenues that would be generated. Loretta thinks this is contradiction of what she was told and what actually happened. Loretta also questioned fiscal year 2013 budget and asked if we would be short. Kris told her that we were $35,000 to $37,000 short in revenue projections over expenditures and that was taken from the contingency to balance the budget. Expenditures are generally not as great as what is budgeted. Mayor Anderson said if we continue to eat away at the contingency then services would have to be cut. Loretta asked if we had to borrow from the contingency in 2012. Mayor Anderson said he did not think so. He also said income is not always predictable and spoke of the Legislature’s proposal to take away personal property taxes. Cities look at the services they provide and we are not long on our services. Loretta said yet the city wants to annex 77 more parcels. Mayor Anderson said that is the direction of the annexation. Jerry Higgs spoke to council about his comments at the last council meeting and said he found out that his comments at the last meeting were not correct. His property is not under surveillance. He had a discussion with his neighbor and that issue has been resolved. Marcia Morman spoke to council about breast cancer awareness and said one in eight women get breast cancer. She said the hospital has a campaign going for breast cancer awareness and the goal is to get as many women in for mammograms as possible. The hospital is offering 25 percent off of mammograms for those scheduled prior to November 16. She also said the Mayor made a proclamation for October 26, 2012 to be Breast Cancer Early Awareness Day. She is selling tee shirts to promote this effort. Stephen welcomed Marcia to the hospital. Marcia said there are vouchers available at Women’s Health Clinic and Panhandle Health District for women who qualify for free mammograms. Marcia left the meeting at 7:13 p.m. Fire Chief Pat Warkentin gave the fire report. There were two carbon monoxide calls that actually turned out to not be carbon monoxide. There was a brush fire above Tom Turpin’s place on Tannenbaum about ten o’clock at night that was a slash brush pile that had been set off. Pat said all of the recent fire calls were people who called a fireman rather than calling the dispatch at the Sheriff’s Office. He is thinking of writing a letter to the paper to get the public to know it is okay to call the fire department. Stephen Boorman said the interviews will be for the open position later this week. David Sims said at this point Bonners Ferry will not be included in the fiber project. Blackfoot’s commitment to Bonners Ferry was not as strong as we thought it was. The project will only include Sandpoint and Ponderay. If the project is successful Bonners Ferry may be included in phase two. He said there were areas of risk so not being included may be a good thing. David said Mike Sloan worked on this project for four years so it is disappointing. David said there are more providers and better service in our area than what we had three years ago and there is DSL available at Three Mile and Moyie. David said Don Davis from Idaho Transportation Department is working on the Highway 95 planning study and he will have tentative meeting dates soon. Connie Wells moved to approve the consent agenda. Tom Mayo seconded the motion. The motion passed – Mike Klaus “yes”, Rick Alonzo “yes”, Connie Wells “yes”, Tom Mayo “yes”. The consent agenda contained the following: roll call; approval of accounts payable and payroll; approval of September 26, 2012 special council meeting minutes; and approval of October 2, 2012 council meeting minutes. Mike Klaus moved to reclassify Steve Neumeyer’s job description to include metering and apparatus technician. Stephen clarified that it is station wireman/meterman. Rick Alonzo seconded the motion. The motion passed – Mike Klaus “yes”, Rick “yes”, Connie “yes”, Tom “abstained”. Tom Mayo moved to approve the catering permit for Ralph Lotspeich- Mirror Lake Golf Course for the Boundary County Republican Central Committee Social Networking Event at the Fairgrounds on October 27, 2012. Connie Wells seconded the motion. The motion passed, all in favor. Mike Klaus moved to approve the beverage license application for Kathleen Associates, LLC doing business as Bonners Ferry Conoco. Rick Alonzo seconded the motion. The motion passed, all in favor. Stephen said there was a failure of the North Bench Substation breaker due to an animal. He said the breakers at the Moyie Substation are from 1972 so he is requesting that we purchase three breakers. Kootenai Electric Cooperative loaned us their spare breaker to get the North Bench Substation back in service so we will replace the one from them as well as have two others for the Moyie Substation. The lead time for a breaker is 20 weeks and the cost of a Siemens breaker is $15,319. Rick Alonzo moved to approve the purchase of the substation breakers. Mike Klaus seconded the motion. The motion passed – Mike Klaus “yes”, Rick Alonzo “yes”, Connie Wells “yes”, Tom Mayo “yes”. There was no action taken for the ICRMP representative. The group discussed an employee assistance program for the employees at the city. It is a rider on our Blue Cross policy that is for counseling services and will cost an additional $2.50 per month per employee. There are four counseling sessions allowed per event per year for the employees. The city did not know this was not in the current policy coverage until it was needed by an employee. Mike Klaus moved to add an employee assistance program to the city’s current Blue Cross coverage. Tom Mayo seconded the motion. The motion passed – Mike Klaus “yes”, Rick Alonzo “yes”, Connie Wells “yes”, Tom Mayo “yes”. Rick Alonzo said since the city has not given employees a raise for the past four years that he proposed giving the employees an extra day off per holidays like the county has been doing. He wants to give employees the day after Thanksgiving off and since Christmas and New Years are on Tuesdays, he wants to give the Monday before those holidays off and the day after the 4th of July off as it is on a Friday. Connie said she thinks this is too much as it would be fourteen days off. Rick disagreed with Connie’s math. He said the days after Christmas and New Years are one of the ten holiday days. Connie also said the city has not made up their minds concerning raises yet. Tom asked John Youngwirth what he thought. John said sometimes if he does not have a full crew that it is difficult to operate the department. Mayor Anderson asked Rick to come to the next department head meeting to explain it to all. He said he would rather come up with a cost of living adjustment. Rick moved to table his proposal at this time. Connie Wells moved to go into executive session per Idaho Code 67-2345 (1) (f) at 7:32 p.m. Tom Mayo seconded the motion. The motion passed – Mike Klaus “yes”, Rick Alonzo “yes”, Connie Wells “yes”, Tom Mayo “yes”. Executive session ended at 8:04 p.m. No action was taken. The meeting adjourned at 8:04 p.m. /s/ David K. Anderson, Mayor Attest: /s/ Kris Larson, City Clerk |