Location: Hospital Meeting Room
Present: Mayor Lee Lansing; Jim Pokorney; Jon Denison; Scott Davis; Chris Vohs
City Administrator Al Roder and Department Heads
Mark Ruff and Kathy Kardell, Consultants
Absent: Noah Cashman; Arnie Nelson
The purposes of the meeting were for the Council to become familiar with the cash positions and financing options for capital improvements and to begin to develop a strategy for decision-making for capital projects. Since last October, a council committee (Cashman, Vohs, and Lansing) has worked with staff to assess the capital needs of the city. Kathleen McBride, Finance Director, said what the staff needs from the council is a plan, not a budget. Formerly, what the city has had is not a real Capital Improvements Plan (CIP), but a wish list. Tonight the council was challenged to establish priorities and the staff will then add financial information toward the final development of a plan.
McBride outlined the sources of funding the city has for capital projects as well as the condition of the various funds. This basic information is the foundation for eventually putting the pieces of the capital needs in place, once the council ranks the projects.
Mark Ruff took the group through a process of agreeing on a vision for how the city should invest its capital dollars over the next five years. The result was a focus on investment on “social and educational quality of life enhancements which differentiate Northfield from other communities (e.g., fiber/optic cable; ice arena) and retaining and attracting citizens and employees through balanced capital investment in health and safety infrastructure, including roads, parks and municipal buildings.”
The council then reviewed the list of all the projects contemplated by the committee and ranked them by category. To do this, Ruff asked each council member if he had $10 million in the next 10 years, how much would he spend on each category of improvements (city facilities, streets, utilities, community enhancements, economic development). The category which rose to the top was city facilities (remodeling or replacing City Hall; replacing the Safety Center; expanding the Library).
At a future session, the staff will assign costs to each of the projects in the various categories, and the council can then finish the task of putting the pieces together in their plan.
The council eliminated the liquor store from their consideration because the funding of that program is from sales revenues. The challenge for them will be to determine how to balance tax increases and increased fees to finance the components of the other capital needs. McBride provided background information on the legal debt margin, the effect of certain sizes of bond issues on a number of property owners as well as alternatives to using debt levy (local option sales tax and/or franchise tax) to pay for capital projects. With tonight’s exercise in prioritizing and the future consideration of financing options, the council is moving toward the goal of creating a strategic plan for city capital needs.
Submitted by Jane McWilliams, City Council Observer
