Thursday, March 28, 2024

City Council plans ahead for 2019

Posted

    December has only one city council meeting occurring for the month due to the regularly scheduled Tuesday happening to overlap with Christmas. However, that doesn't mean business falls to the wayside and instead the members packed it all into their Tuesday, December 11 meeting.
    The city dissolved the Leavenworth Transportation Benefit District board and opted to envelope the duties, rights and powers into city responsibility. Officially started in 2011, but in 2010, voters agreed for a .02 increase on retail sales tax and since then, the city council uses that money for funding street related projects. The fund is reserved for street repair, transportation means, etc. and will be treated similarly to the Lodging Tax fund in the sense it is a special revenue fund.
    "In 2015, the legislature found it was more efficient for cities to take assumption of their transportation benefit districts because in all of the cases of these districts, the councils were the same boards," said City Clerk, ChantelL Steiner. "We will take on the rights, powers, functions and obligations of the Leavenworth Transportation Benefit District. Basically that means everything the TBD could do, the City of Leavenworth will continue to do. And the same with what the TBD was committed to and indebted to, we will take that on as well."
    There was a public hearing for any resident to comment, question or dispute - but with no input, the city has moved to take on the Transportation Benefit District obligations.
    With 2019, just a few weeks and a ball dropping at midnight away, the city approved the 2019 rate and fee schedule amendments. Some notable tweaks had to do with roof permits - residential roof permits were reduced $100 whereas commercial roof permits increased by $50. According to Steiner, these numbers came from the time it takes Building Code Inspector Mark Barnes to review, go out and inspect.
    The members also addressed the legislative priorities to tackle in the upcoming year. Considering priorities for the upcoming year isn't an unfamiliar action for the  council, however this year the Association of Washington Cities is now requiring cities to give the list to their District Legislative representatives. This puts more pressure to fulfill the priorities or at the very least, make them concrete goals.
    Some of the priorities for the upcoming year mentioned were infrastructure funding that would be correlated with sales tax (posed as an option) and asking the state to look at recycling and the restrictions on recycling. Housing affordability, which also surfaced during the study session earlier that morning as a priority, seems to be at the top of the list.
    "Housing affordability is not just looked at for low income, it is considered housing affordability for all levels," said Mayor Cheri Farivar.
    Discussion surrounding the Festhalle, an element of Leavenworth enjoyed simultaneously by locals and tourists, occurred at the meeting. The council contracted Josh Flickner to manage the Festhalle which now means Flickner will have the responsibility of janitorial duties and and security. There was also a push for more marketing of the Festhalle.
    
Some other business tended to at the meeting:
- Cancelled the Dec. 25th City Council meeting
- Accepting the final 2018 budget amendment, this really correlates with the PRSA and Pool Fund and the $900 originally not expected when the budget was created.
- The council adopted the 2019-2020 budget that has been discussed at length in multiple city council meetings for the public to have a chance to review as well.
- Professional service agreements approved for two engineering firms.
- Re-advertisement for bids to install HAWK system crosswalk at Gustavs, City Hall crosswalk and the LInk Park and Ride crosswalk was approved beginning Jan. 9.

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