Work Session -- ARP Technology, Greenway, Parks, & Outdoor Recreation Projects
um jeff do you have something playing in the background your sound is really not good it's a michael's generally your audio is super muffled really hard to hear you might try and switch to your phone audio i have a portable speaker but i've been using it for all these work sessions just so i can hear them call me i should maybe log on and log off and then log back on because you could hear me okay the first time right all right let me try that and then if not if that doesn't work we'll have somebody else's chair he's sounding better now okay okay okay great i don't know what i did but we'll get started um mr esquivel i'll call the um november 12th council work session to order today is the third installment of american rescue plan funding today we'll be hearing about technology greenway parks and outdoor recreation projects this meeting is open to the public however no public comment will be taken [Music] and with that renee we'll turn it over to you good afternoon everybody thanks for joining me again um there's a lot to cover today so i'm gonna move fairly quickly once again this is our um our blueprint for what we can and cannot spend and where we can spend it so today the a big focus of what i'm talking about is technology and equipment requests um kind of broke out between software hardware uh network things this is um the basic gist of the request across all departments and i do know this will change as priorities are made basically some of these are one-time expenses some are going to be annual we're trying to get a lock on um what that looks like for the city going forward so i did email this to you all if you've got any questions about this just let me know but we'll go into some of the details today and i know you've heard from some of the other directors some of their requests that fit in here today so let me go back to this really quick as we started talking about the software and trying to work it in between departments we did discover that in order for our financial system to work within all their systems it may come down to us needing a different financial system robin's working on getting some uh she's doing demos next week trying to figure out what that looks like what the modules look like so really the short story is this this software budget uh request it will increase because we're finding that we are going to have to make some some bigger picture changes for the long haul of supporting this technology and once we do get a number from them next week we'll we'll send that to you what sort of the final budget looks like and what our request is and how it works between departments any questions or is that you is that okay i had one question renee when it comes when you talk about software and again to my colleagues uh the powerpoint had already been emailed out to everybody this morning um so you're that 1.2 million is going to increase and so would say does that mean then that the 320 000 annual would increase as well it's hard to know because we do already pay an existing subscription fee for our financials so whatever that looks like in addition that is not factored in there of what we're already spending so it may be negligible it may be a little bit more um that's those are the numbers we're going to have to get to you once we um figure out from the demo what what they're telling us we're going to need to support this all of these changes so yes that number will change i have no idea if it's going to double if it's going to just go up a little bit i don't know at this point i'm sorry okay thank you any other questions go ahead okay so i'm presenting today on behalf of the treasurer and and uh tj i so bear with me you know i'm not a script person but they sent me they sent me a script and i'm gonna do my best um so for tj uh he's looking at an e-bidding software as we're working more and more kind of transitioning to a paperless uh method of of working and working from home it kind of all works together there is uh right now a lot of this is um still paper tracked so he's looked into this e-bidding software that will basically allow vendors and suppliers to submit their bids in an entirely electronic format which will tremendously ease the paper burden and just the communication i think this will be a communication benefit for the department for purchasing uh in general uh let's see he said it's it's um they'll be loaded it's a web-based software so it'll it will eliminate the need for vendors to have to deliver their packets in person um which i think will open up in some ways it will open up the the ability for us to do business um reducing the cost to vendors in in general based on not having to do the hard copies um [Music] let's see it is encrypted uh so the purchasing manager will then decrypt the submitted bids from any location so tj can do this anywhere so that this is his request as you can see it's it's the implementation is a thousand dollars with an additional four thousand three hundred and twenty dollars a year to manage uh to to maintain that that web-based software so for the uh clear gov online spending transit transparency basically it's a it's an online checkbook that will allow anybody to see what's coming in what's going out how we're spending it um so robin gave me uh her views on on um basically why they chose clear gov as their uh transparency checkbook she said uh they do receive a lot of requests from cheyenne residents looking for financial information specifically how we're spending our money um it's under quite a bit of a microscope especially when we're going and asking for money from citizens they want to know how we're spending it um there's some government watchdog groups that are also consistently asking for the same financial information right now it's a manual process uh having to pull all of this together so having it all in one place initially the state of wyoming in 2017 i did a they basically created a system in-house robin reached out to them it was something they created specifically for the state of wyoming so it wasn't something that we could duplicate on our own which then led them to sending out a request for qualifications just to see who else is doing this how do we do this um i mean they switched so the city um why open is what what the state uses and we kind of looked at that as as the the vision for the transparency it led us to clear dot and clear gov and then this is and you can look look this up later this is an uh sample from what they're doing in littleton colorado and it kind of shows you can see that your revenues expenditures it's really a data tool not just an online checkbook so it's something that i think would be very beneficial that robin has been looking to and again that's the total cost we did it for a number of years the first year will be 14 500 annually after that's 11 500. any questions uh i don't have any questions renee i i know robin and i have talked about this for a few years now and many of our surrounding communities do have something like this it's it's really great for transparency i know that transparency is something that we're all uh we all want to provide to the folks that we serve and um yeah i'm glad that we finally got a quote and uh an online software program that that she's interested in awesome if you have anything else let me know i'm going to turn it over to chris jones right now and let her pick up where where i'm left leaving off great thanks renee hi hi jeff and the other council members everybody um we have two requests on here one is for an agenda management software program which would help especially ideally with times like now where we're all back at home and it's difficult i have my department has spread in four areas of town right now so it's it would this would be absolutely wonderful it would be helpful in the long run even if we're back in the building folks can submit their items online if they're missing something it will be reverted back to them to get the right documentation to turn it into us that the cost to implement this is 33 000 and that's for the first three years after that on the fourth year we would then be paying approximately 10 200 annually with some software increases annually like most of these programs do work it also has a minutes components which would be helpful for kylie and i this whole process we spend a lot of time on minutes and agenda and chasing stuff down and trying to get a hold of folks this would provide a huge efficiency change for our office as well as what renee was talking about hopefully less than a lot of the paper documents that we need we do still have to follow the state records retention program but as the times are changing i think we can get away from all a lot of the paper maybe not all of it for the clerk's office because we are the recording agency for the city um but that that would be a hope on that and kylie is on the line if you have any specific questions on the agenda software program she's been in demos with it um she's very confident it would be beneficial for us and i would agree so before i move to the next item do i have any questions on this one questions from council the other thing i'd say is that it does have um where's it at schedule meetings and create and distribute paperless agenda packets all these things it does a little more than than just what meets the eye unlimited user accounts unlimited meetings uh meeting types just it does a lot more than just agenda thank you any questions from council hearing none um go ahead okay the next item is replacement of our land management technician unfortunately when the budget struck a reduction struck due to coven we were forced to reduce this position from its 20 it was part time from 20 hours to 10 and the the wonderful employee that we had at the time under contract made the decision to go ahead and retire and that's great for him but it's been hard on us this position requires a certain amount of expertise in this area of which right now the clerk's office really doesn't have we're limping along to provide uh what we need to in this area this position does research for other city departments uh it's vital for city-owned property anything that we get donated to us any anything we may purchase or sell that to be able to track this and keep record of it and keep it all straight it's very tedious and it's time consuming so we were really looking to get that part at least a part-time position back to where we can pick up where we were get us back up to date we are behind on on the recording of of these documents part of it is there was no no real opportunity for training as to what was going on before in a very complex system we've reached out to gis in the county for a little bit of help here and there when we need to [Music] this involves petitions for annexations that come in it requires research different things come up for different departments that we've had multiple requests over the years to research properties and deeds and things like that maybe properties that weren't planted that needed to be or plots that weren't recorded these kinds of things it's all behind the scenes research that the current staff number one doesn't have the expertise and number two we don't have the time so this would be we're looking at a part-time position of approximately 19 000 a year this would not include any city benefits and we we could also do this either by a part-time permanent employee or through contract like we had before i'm open to any questions you might have on this item questions from council chris i just want to ask and uh just quickly is this uh do you feel this is an appropriate request for under the arp funding i mean since this is a position would it not be um better to perhaps restore that 19k to the clerk's budget come budget time or you know how does that all fit together well mr chair i i have noticed in some of the other requests there seemed to be some staff requests in there and i thought that this was an opportunity where we could could have this funded from another funding source to help the the annual budget um why not give it a try if if everybody feels it's not appropriate in this this format then i'm open to that too i i would be happy to discuss this under any any eligibility we can come up with you're muted yes i see your hands raised go ahead thank you uh chairman white uh through you i'm just i will be honest with you i am not a big fan of putting any um thing using these dollars for any thing that would have a reoccurring cost like a salary i would much prefer to see this in the budgeting process i mean if we want to do this one time initially for the first year or for the remainder of a year i understand that but i definitely would like to see this come back this position come back even as a part-timer contract as a part of the budget process and again mr chair i'm immediately to anything uh if we want to remove it from this request i'm fine with that we'll come back with a budget however everybody sees that i'm fine okay i just saw this as an opportunity maybe to try to get this position back gotcha in some ways mr chair you could use the the revenue replacement fund money for this i think what um chris well in some ways it's also the rift employees if this falls under the rift employee um it could be reinstated so it's doable but yeah yeah obligated within a certain amount of time and then those funds go away so correct either way it comes back it's going to come back on this budget one way or another correct right okay uh any other questions from council hearing none go ahead oh mcclellan who are you new i'm new yeah new um chair and city council um i'm jennifer mcfaulin your executive assistant and i'm requesting funding to purchase a portable audio system that could be used for off-campus meetings should social distancing become a thing again um also we could be using the system right now as our city building has been closed um the first line item is for the portable equipment um this quote was actually from during the pandemic on and the equipment was for 12 on [Music] microphone and speaker systems that would allow for or for social distancing um this might have changed a little bit um based on i suppose supply and demand at this point um so i don't have a really current quote on this but roughly twenty five thousand dollars um in addition you'll see two more items fine items there we had a ada request for our committee room um some of you may be aware of this um just to do some upgrade some audio and visual upgrades in that room so the the second line item or the middle line item is for the microphone speakers hearing assistance in an equipment cabinet and this did include six wireless microphones um this quote did not include however the acoustic wall panels which you'll see is the um third item there as well as the electrical equipment so any um electrical upgrades we would need to do in that room are not included in this quote as well i have talked to the ada coordinator and um we think that it might be possible to combine both the requests for a portable system as well as do some upgrades in the committee room to make it you know more user friendly to those folks that are coming to attend those meetings um i'm just at this point i kind of came in on the back end of this and um so i haven't really had a chance to discuss that completely with our i.t department our audio visual experts at the civic center um or really a lot with ada coordinator or maintenance building maintenance so um if you were to consider this as an option um i guess i would just kindly ask that you um give us some time to maybe work through what might work on so that we could accommodate both of these well a portable space as well as our space in our committee room and that's it i can take any questions thanks jen and i'm not sure if you can answer this or uh mr speaker would have to how extensive is the electrical uh i mean it's like we we all understand it's a very old room and it's an old building but how extensive is the electrical upgrading um that would be necessary to do this chair through you i'm i you know i i'm not entirely sure and i don't know that michael skinner would know either um it just wasn't included in the audio visual um upgrades so i would i would imagine maybe we'd have to add some electrical boxes i don't think that it would be super um i don't think it was be as expensive as the acoustic wall panels for sure i think that you know pretty sufficiently there's probably there's obviously electrical there um it just depends maybe running electrical through the ceiling in the case of this one where you have av equipment and stuff there might be some of that okay well again and i don't say it enough uh thank you for all the work you've done throughout the whole process we've been in the city building we've been in the civic center now we're at the school district and you always you and mr skinner always make sure that somehow we're able to to keep up so thanks for your work on that any questions from council dr aldridge thank you uh chairman white i just wanted to make sure i understand that jennifer you're thinking that perhaps the first two line items the portable media system and the ada speakers and microphones might be able to be combined into one system i'm i'm hoping um to cheer through you to dr uldridge i'm hoping that you know and i i haven't investigated this so i'm really sorry like i said i came that came in on at the end of this and i but i'm hoping that maybe we could combine a portable system into a system that will also work in the committee room so that we would have on that technology in the committee room and then if we needed to we could pick that technology up and we could take it somewhere else um you know the original technology that i looked at dr aldridge is you know similar to the retirement plans um i think you've seen theirs i think you've used it um that was what i originally looked at and that was kind of based on we had the social distance they had speakers in them you know i'm not sure if there's something that we could do some portable speakers so that we could you know potentially go to the botanic gardens or set up something a little bit more informal at the public safety center for fire negotiations um as was requested this year so um i i'm hopeful and i think in talking to the ada coordinator i think that he believed that we could probably come up with a solution where we could combine these two ass into one um it through you chairman white just to follow up um i you might want to ask um or have jeff connect you with lori knowlton walters out at workforce development services they actually use a system like what you're suggesting that is portable that they use for the workforce development council that i think would meet both of these needs and i think um in talking with her when they purchased that about a year and a half ago it was about thirty thousand dollars but it's all self-contained in a cabinet and would probably work beautifully for what you're thinking but you might want to take a look at that thank you jen and i'll email you lori's contact information here uh once our work session's over okay thank you any other questions thanks jen uh i think we're next up is stephanie boster good afternoon uh president white members of the cheyenne city council stephanie boster cheyenne city attorney um you have in front of you and our project request it's submitted by the city attorney's office on behalf of and in support of the cheyenne municipal court and just so we're clear all of these funds would go to the municipal court it wouldn't pass through the city attorney's office i'm simply making the presentation it's a small part project relatively to some of the other art requests but it's a mighty one because the overall impact on the community and also departments in the city of cheyenne would be very significant it's also a project that is necessitated as a result of covet 19 because the municipal court and the city attorney's office has experienced a significant increase in cases that are running through the cheyenne municipal court since the beginning of the pandemic and the point of this project is to address that increase interestingly in september of 2019 the city hired the justice management institute to conduct a municipal court study took about 16 weeks the city paid 35 585 dollars for that report and the study included a comprehensive review of the workings of the municipal court we received that report back on february 3rd 2020 and then covet happened and nothing happened with that study and to be clear the the judges that were judges in the municipal court at the time of that study are not the judges now and at the court now with the exception of judge jeffrey but the study primarily focuses on the criminal side the new judges judge ross and judge singleton weren't there so there's absolutely no criticism of the workings of the court under them they have made some significant changes but there's more changes to be made it's a 37-page report and it makes a number of recommendations regarding the municipal court and the city attorney's office the the court the the main request is for the hiring of a municipal court administrator this position would not be permanent it would sunset after three years we could employ that individual under professional services agreement the the cost is 75 000 per year which could include or not include benefits and that individual would be charged of implementing the recommendations contained in that study there's also a couple more asks in that what was interesting to me as the new cheyenne city attorney is i wasn't aware of this but we don't often send our judges to school for training we appoint them as as judges and then they're expected to go on the bench without a whole lot of training so there is an ask for training at the judges school that's the same school that circuit district and supreme court justices attend when they're initially appointed this is actually can be done online or it can be done in reno although frankly the cost is 6 000 and that would likely not include in-person classes we also have several municipal court clerks and they're using a system that the city already pays for so this is not a technology request but they use a system called for full courts but they don't get trained on that system what this would do is allow the state court system to train our municipal court clerks on full court circuit and municipal court all are circuit municipal and district courts all use full court it's the same system but our clerks don't get any training on it because we don't have access to currently have access to the state court system um i also include um some training for westlaw currently the city attorney's office pays for westlaw for the municipal court and for the city attorney's office i pay 1700 per month and that's for five licenses when i make my new hire i'm going to be short a license but the municipal court doesn't pay the city attorney's office back so this would give all three judges or the court administrator access to westlaw and then the last one is for thompson reuters electro electronic filing currently in wyoming we don't have electronic filing including in the municipal court the wyoming supreme court has electronic filing so i can file my documents online uh the district and the circuit court do not but they're working on that there's a new court called the chance report which will all be online but the hope here is to use that thompson reuters filing to have e-filing in cheyenne municipal court and there's a cost for that as well that would be a permanent cost so the total ask here is 243 500 but the primarily primary crux of this request is for that municipal court administrator at a cost of 225 000 and really the hope here we can do a lot with that position we're hoping to partner with the wyoming state court system including the wyoming supreme court and potentially drafting model rules for municipal courts and the juvenile court that we could administer or the court system could offer to the rest of the 99 municipal court systems in the state of wyoming and we'd also like to partner with this position use that individual as the point person to work with the university of wyoming college of law they've got two clinics who may be interested in helping us update our ordinances that pertain directly to the municipal court so with this relatively small funding request we're going to get a significant bang for buck it's going to impact the municipal court in a positive way city attorney's office in a positive way potentially compliance and the cheyenne police department the attorneys in cheyenne who practice in the municipal court and ultimately the city as a whole because if our municipal court operates efficiently everybody benefits um i'm open for questions thank you uh stephanie and just to just to clarify that municipal court administrator you're stating it would just be for three years only and then that's right that that person would have a specific list of goals to accomplish and um at the end of three years they would be gone okay thank you uh dr aldridge right you really quickly uh chairman white through you stephanie i know that we were sent some documents earlier today for this meeting is that report that was done part of those documents we were sent uh president white threw you to councilman aldridge uh that is the case i wasn't sure how many council people had seen that report but the um the report by the justice management institute which came out on february 3rd 2020 is part of those documents that you received this morning thank you so much any other questions or comments from my colleagues chairman white mr seagrave yes thank you uh through you my math is not necessarily um something to brag about but i'm i'm having trouble getting to the 243.5 how did how did we
get there can somebody help me that's my typo i'm so sorry that 25 000 should be 225 000. for the first year for the three years total that's her total ask for the municipal court administrator position it's a three-year total 75 000 a year for three years okay well that helps sorry sir no i was i was sitting out here going how did we get there thank you so much that's a great question mr seagrave and my math is so bad that i i was just hoping somebody else would ask in case uh case i was fooling myself so um great question any other comments or questions from my colleagues stephanie thank you so much uh we really appreciate it um hearing none uh i believe next we hear from mr sullivan at youth alternatives mr chair i'm going to be presenting on behalf of jay today he was planning on doing his presentation however he was asked to be at mccormick today for the students there they've been working with the school district on behalf part of their job is crisis support so uh you know those families are in their prayer jay is there with his team to help support the students and faculty and and family so i'll be presenting for him grateful thank you and he's definitely where he's needed most so thank you for pinch hitting for him go ahead all right so basically they were looking at and i have been looking for many years for case management software they don't have anything like this and with the movement to again online and and being able to connect a bunch of like his case workers with office staff with appointments all of that um this is something that they've really identified as a need i was not able to get the implementation costs like what it's going to be per year i don't know that right now um hopefully before you all make your decision i will be able to get that to you they have identified also a need to improve the bandwidth over where they are um and and so he had put that request in um and then for their staff the six uh they would like some two-in-ones for six of their staff i think um with the pandemic a lot of the departments were able to already uh start doing this uh he he is uh again it's another identified need for their department that they would like to be able to provide these things a lot of them are using their own personal computers or and and they have i think just a couple that they're checking out so this would enable all of them to be able to work remotely to be able to work in other locations as needed if they were not necessarily tied to their offices they could go into other areas to conduct their their work so this is their total ask and again i apologize they don't have their annual costs but their total request is 39 000 great and i think i would think renee that that implementation in annual renewal fees would be relatively easy to get usually when you get a quote those costs are included in the quote so correct yeah pretty easy to get from them uh questions or comments from my colleagues hearing none um thanks for doing that renee much appreciated uh i believe we're scheduled to hear from miss moore uh director of community recreation and events yes um good afternoon councilman and chairman white president white um we as you can see our request is large so don't fall off your chairs um however i think we really are demonstrating need here and also as we talk about each of these projects a lot of them can be done in phases i think we're just looking for some funding to be able to get started with some of these projects number one is some lions park upgrades this is really lions park as you know is one of our heavily most heavily used parks in our system and is in need of some love we have um one project would be amphitheater lighting and a concrete path what this would do would allow us to better use that facility and use it in the evening right now it is dark there and so it's pretty much a daytime use facility um we tore down the beach house a couple of years ago and it needed to be removed it was um it had asbestos in it and had certainly exceeded its lifespan um but with the removal of that we now don't have um we can't service the the beach with our rentals in life jackets and paddle boards and that kind of thing and so our concept here um is at the same time the concessions and restrooms for dunbar field are also out of date so what we were hoping to do is sort of do a dual purpose kind of design and be able to provide concessions and restrooms and that kind of thing for both of those facilities so that is included in the dunbar field needs to be lit and we'll talk about this more when we talk about ball field lighting is that we would better be able to better utilize all of our ball fields if they were lit rather than building new fields and adding more maintenance costs we would be able to extend the use of the field then there is the dock restoration in the promenade the concrete area around sloane's lake that has heaved and cracked and whatever so there's some tripping hazards and so we are looking to replace that then there's the matter of the parking lots and the drives within the park um are all in bad shape they are cracked they're potholed um alligator backed and so we're looking for funding so again it's a broad spectrum of projects that need to be done in lions park um but again it's it's a huge ask but again it could be broken into other pieces so that is that um there's actually a there's one missing from here the civic center audio system renee oh is that somewhere else or is it just did it get left off the reason robin and i talked about this and it's because i we had been under the assumption that you were using the shuttered venue uh grant money to purchase that okay um you can talk about it though because it's going to have to go before council anyway so okay um one of the items that we have put on there and primarily is really again is to demonstrate need and get support for to replace the civic center audio system that is one of our top priorities it's at a cost of about 550 000 um the system that the obviously the system that we have there is 40 years old and really is not relevant at all and so we're having to rent um for every show we have to rent sound equipment and that is running us between 100 000 to 125 000 every year so this would actually be a cost savings if we invested in a sound system um and additionally um that renters who rent our venue our facility we will be able to um rent the sound system to them and we would recoup some of those dollars so that is a high priority for us at 550 000 again we talked about ball field lighting we talked about it for dunbar field the same um the same would hold true for all of our ball fields if we could get them lit it would just maximize our use and we would be able to i mean they are in heavy heavy demand and we have other um ball teams that are wanting to form and use our facilities and really it is really crunch but if we were able to light them all we would be able to accommodate more and without having to add ball fields which consequently adds maintenance and staff time so we would like to maximize the use of those fields again this cost um is high but um again that is something this is something that could be faced we could do you know just a few fields or whatever but um it's just really demonstrating the need and what it would um do for us same with the park system parking lot and road feeding heretofore these parking lots and the road system within parts has not been part of the pavement management plan um and we do not have the resources to be able to do that so consequently they are in really bad shape and so again this is something that could be phased but it's demonstrating a need and something that needs to to be taken care of last but not least we just have a small ask to institute what we call a tree removal subsidy program this would be administered by the forestry department um as you may or may not be aware is that the homeowner is responsible for any trees in the right-of-way that are saying that their tree lawn in front of their house if they are deemed um to be hazardous trees unsafe in that area it is the homeowner's responsibility to take care of it they are notified by the forestry department but a lot of homeowners do not have the wherewithal to take care of to take care of those trees so we were looking at instituting some sort of program that homeowners could apply for um and it would be on a case-by-case basis to determine whether or not they could use these funds to remove those unsafe trees um i know that uh dr aldridge had her hand up first and then mr laybourne uh has a question as well uh before i get to them under the ball field lighting item i know that that amount jumps out and is a pretty high amount but i see i've had a conversation with mr sanchez about this and i think that people are pretty unaware of how how expensive those costs are if you can correct me teresa is it jason is here so oh jason jason you and i you had mentioned a couple days ago when we were talking um how much is it per pod for uh ball field lighting so we received estimates over the years mr chair i'm sorry through you jason sanchez community reckon events uh we've received quotes from muscular lighting to install new poles and lights at dutcher ball field and shine junior league and at dutcher each field is approximately five hundred thousand dollars we have five fields at dutch room we have nine fields three pods at cheyenne junior league i'm into comment earlier is we're trying to maximize the use of the fields we had lights we could almost double the amount of games and practices we could hold i i just wanted you to have a chance to explain that on the record because i think when people see 5 million they they're like how is that possible and at five hundred thousand dollars per poll um that number gets arrived that very quickly um thank you dr aldridge you're first and then we'll go to mr lay born uh thank you chairman white um it through you to teresa and jason i had um two questions uh the first one is how we talked to or had any conversations with for instance uh laramie county school district about doing some sort of a cost sharing on the lighting for any of these fields or with any of the other organizations that uh utilize those uh mr president through you to councilwoman aldridge uh so we do we just recently started with a partnership with the school district because they this last year they introduced the girls fast pitch program in that partnership they uh renovated three fields at shine junior league with synthetic turf we're currently working with them on installing new scoreboards on those three fields as well as score booths uh we replaced a restroom facility there and so the the discussion is out there it's right now we're systematically taking the smaller route and and getting those projects accomplished the lighting is is so expensive that we're we have to identify larger funding mechanisms we've also brought this up with our user groups and really what they pay to use the fields right now all of that money is applied toward either grant match or just day-to-day field maintenance okay i was just hoping that maybe through the rec mill that there might be some funding to help with lighting that and i know that the school district oversees that wreck mill so the other question i had was on the tree removal subsidy program i was just curious as to if we've been able to offer any subsidy in the past and if you think that's going to be a sufficient dollar amount for this project um president white through to dr aldridge it is well it depends on the number of requests but um a removal can cost in upwards of three thousand dollars depending on the size of the tree so this would this is sort of a drop in the bucket um but i would say that it is it's a starting point um but certainly um as you're starting out you don't know how heavily it's going to be used but i do know tree removal is quite expensive i would say it's anywhere from fifteen hundred dollars up to five thousand dollars depending on the size of the tree so um it probably is not enough but uh probably enough to get us started i also um would like to point out that the wreck mill we that typically what is made available to us each year is about 120 000 um consequently that is why the lighting has not been applied to lighting is it they're simply the money that we can apply for doesn't get us there that's not even half a poll that's great to know thank you mr president if i could also speak to the tree subsidy um to through you to dr eldridge just when i talked to mark ellison the reason why the number is so low a lot of it also has to do with just their ability to manage the program they don't have enough staff if you threw a bunch of money at it they don't have the capacity to uh to really connect with the neighbors in the way to to really make as big of an impact so this is sort of just a a starting and let's see how it works um so that's why he had wanted to keep the dollar amount fairly low if that answers some of that question i would just add another option however is is when we do this now is that we could we contract some of that work out because of the because of our labor shortage is that there is the option of contracting it out mr president just for clarification the 500 000 quote that we received is per field so we have five billion so it'd be about two and a half million for the full complex okay gotcha okay well that's a lot better than 500 000 per per pod so thank you mr labor and you were next thank you mr chairman um so to teresa my question is i see that in the text here you talk about the dumbar beach concession restroom is there any hope that we ever have a swimming beach again as we did at that site long ago i understand that perhaps the leadership cheyenne class this year was talking about that did they discuss that with you um president wright to councilman labor yes they did and what they were doing is they were doing some enhancements to the beach area and it is our intention to reopen um the first it was closed first of all because of cobit and then the next time it was closed due to staffing staffing cuts so we are hoping to it is certainly our hope to get back to where we are offering um beach services um excuse me um as a follow-up uh but i was talking about swimming oh as far as lifeguarding well and having that swimming area that used to be there with the uh facility so that people could come and actually the children could get in the water and swim out to the um in that area if we were able to if we were able to staff it with lifeguards yes we could thank you thank you mr laborn any other uh oh one one other thing before i ask for further comments theresa so you mentioned that the roads in the park so that is that one million ask just for lions park or is that for all of our parks uh for road paving parking lots etc okay we kind of divided it up a little bit so if you look at the lions park upgrades within that cost um the 1.5 that would have included um doing the roadways and parking lots within lions park the separate um 1 million was to just get us started on some of the other parks it's it would not do them all but it certainly would take care of a lot of problem areas and by not ever being on the pavement management program that means you're probably not eligible to receive fifth penny funding uh which we have a pretty big overage of uh for those types of road repairs is that correct that is our understanding that's our yeah we hope we're helpful yeah i am too uh any other comments or questions from my colleagues mr chair councilman escobar mr esquibel go ahead yeah for uh jason and teresa through you the land and water conservation grants do they cover lighting for ball fields um president white to councilman esquibel they could if we had the match um land and water conservation is a 50-50 match and so in order to do say one pod we would have to have 250 000 match um so that has been our hindrance to date so we can't use the federal grant to match that money uh but we could use other funds that were freed up in the general fund to match that money correct that is my understanding if they if they were provided to us for that purpose yes okay thank you and i guess follow up to you teresa or to renee you know if we're able to free up something because to me that seems a logical way to leverage some funding uh rather than having to pay 500 000 for a field perhaps leverage half of it and then apply for a grant to do that what's what are usually the odds on that rene of success if you're able to do that or teresa the odds of getting funded or the odds of using the match the odds of obtaining the grant if you go in and apply for that with the match because council would have to apply the funding in order to to have those funds to to to get the matching funds i think the city has been fairly successful with land and water uh grants um in the past so i i don't see that that would be a hindrance theresa you can correct me if i'm wrong now i would say that that is accurate and i think what um we have had this conversation with mayor collins um about um that we we felt like we were leaving money on the table because we couldn't come up with grant max dollars which is why that item was on was on sixth penny so i think there is some hope there that that there was dollars um to provide grant matches so that we could go for some of these bigger bigger grant requests okay thank you other comments or questions great discussion thank you teresa and um much appreciated i believe the last item on our dentist today is greenway with uh miss better uh good afternoon council members uh jeanne vetter parks and greenway planner um i had a couple of requests i included um for this funding i would like to formally take the infrastructure maintenance for the greenway off my request since we were so successful a couple of weeks ago in getting reported i was going to ask you about that so that's yeah well you know the maintenance of the greenway is really a big deal and there's things really starting to fall apart so i wanted to make sure that i got my ask in there just in case um so essentially now what we're looking at is really more of a parks project but it's really an important thing i don't know what has happened over the years to funding for our playground replacement but we have a significant issue we have 32 existing playgrounds within the city and 15 of those playgrounds are over 15 years old now most cities um try to replace playground equipment every eight to 15 years we have a whole bunch of them that are 18 19 20 years old so the actual lifespan of a playground varies based on weather usage and original quality but some of ours are just we've got equipment that's obsolete you can't get replacement parts for it um much of it has poor access um questionable surfacing um like pea gravel which just really isn't very accessible for ada we have playgrounds with fading cracking plastic and essentially some of it's so old it's just unappealing equipment and it's pretty unattractive so um i'm involved currently with the master plan for our new east park and i'm so excited about that but i i want to keep it on in everybody's mind that as we build new ones new playgrounds and parks we really need to be cognizant of taking care of what we have already um so essentially as far as i can tell we just haven't had the opportunity we have not had any matching funds to do a lot of replacement for our playgrounds um so essentially the i'm asking for five hundred thousand dollars from these art um funds to just get us started um maybe take the worst um five and get them out to bid i suspect we probably would only get maybe three of them built two to three of them built with the 500 000 but it would be a great start in on getting going um the other thing i would ask is for um council to please consider put finding some funding maybe 150 to 200 000 a year that we could get back into our budget and use for matching funds to really get ourselves on a kind of a rotating replacement schedule with our playgrounds i think covet has really shown that people are out and about outdoors using these parks and i think several of these playgrounds are really a safety issue for kids so basically that's my request and i'd be happy to answer any questions you have thank you miss vetter and i know we're at the end of our usual uh hour allotted time but i'm gonna uh go over just in case that there are any questions or comments uh questions or comments from my colleagues mr chair yes mr seagrave yes through you um are these playgrounds also eligible for the land and water grants um yes through you a chair yes they would be eligible but again it's an issue of having the the match funding and so sure mr chair yes through you so if you if you got the 500 000 you could perhaps leverage it to a million and do a half dozen parks um chair through you i i talked with renee about that and i be believed because this is federal funding that we wouldn't be able to match this with other federal funding is that correct renee actually i think didn't we get an email there's land and water has a pot of money or a section that we could use the arpa money as a match i can follow up on that teresa do you remember we got an email from janet about using an arpa money as a match i have to go back through but just as i said that i thought that because it was billion dollars we could not match it with federal dollars i think it's her other it's the other grand that thing the american legacy american legacy i think so um we've never used that one because we had not qualified in the past so i'm not that familiar with that particular portion right so so we'd have to look into that further um but um even if it wasn't a federal match it would sure be a good start to get some of these playgrounds replaced hopefully we could get it back in our annual budget to you know maybe figure out a way to find 100 to 150 000 a year like i said and begin to schedule um replacement of some of these playgrounds on a rotating basis as well i think renee i think it'd be helpful to get some clarifying information before we uh score uh utilize the scoring sheets that you you provided us um if we could use arpa funds to match then obviously that i mean that's a smart way to go to leverage funds um so if you could clarify that for us when you get a chance that'd be great i will sure thing thank you any other comments or questions so before we adjourn rene then is there a timeline on uh now that we've concluded the arp presentations is there a timeline that you want us to that you want counsel to fill those sheets out and get those back to you or what what's the next step well my understanding with the next step is i think the mayor wants to schedule a separate session with you all i wanted to get this to you just so you can start because we've thrown a lot of information at you and i'm hoping this is just a way to maybe make your own notes kind of make your own initial priorities and then i do believe you will be meeting with the mayor you're welcome to send me your scores i'll put them all in one one sheet so you can kind of see what each other has done i'm happy to do that i don't i don't think the mayor had a set timeline as any i needed in in two weeks i really don't i think he really wanted to be methodical about this so i was waiting for direction from him and that's sort of where i'm at at this point whatever you decide no that's great to know and we'll communicate or the next president will communicate with him and get that so we we don't have to get these obligated remind us of the timelines again you have to obligate my win and spend them by like three years i think we've got two years and they basically just they extended our first reporting period to january so january was is my next reporting period but they have to be obligated within two years of now and then spent and they actually extended the expenditure if this passes the house that next one it'll extend that just a little bit further as well so until 2026 is what it has to be spent by so we've got a bunch of time we do yes we do well i just really want to thank you on behalf of council uh for organizing this and thank you to all the directors as as it seems always there's far more requests than funding um available um so but the amount of funds that we have available as a gift and uh therefore um it's up to council to uh to be diligent uh with our next steps but thank you to everybody for excellent presentations much appreciated and um i hope everyone has a great weekend thank you sir hearing no other comments or questions this work session is adjourned thank you everyone
2021-11-16 06:01
