Group funding debated between council members

    Despite a few city council members excused absences, the city council managed to debate, learn and delegate much of their to do list at the March 12 study session. With a series of group funding requests along with a series of visitors, there was a lot to sift through.
    Representing Chelan County PUD was Dan Frazier to brief the council on the new Service Center in Olds Station - a preview before the upcoming open house, public invited, at the Chelan County 3 station on March 20.
    "We need to be somewhere we can respond and our customers can get to us. So Old Station is just the exact right spot to merge. It's become the hub for regional operations," said Frazier.
    He came equipped with futuristic photos, charts documenting finances and an eager outlook on what's coming for Chelan County PUD. Frazier seemed open about the decision making process, the timeline and financial aspects along with how it will affect PUD customers.
    "The PUD, coming out of the 2014/2015 strategic planning process, identified reinvestment in our facilities a major priority," said Frazier. "Our priority has always been low cost, very reliable power and facilities were put in the backseat. This is the first time we've brought our facilities to the forefront."
    In 2017 and 2018, there was $50 million put aside to be designated for facility improvements. The total cost was estimated around $135 million - which according to a press release, is the least expensive of the five alternatives. The new center will be a consolidation project that will simplify the branches of the PUD into one place.
    "We didn't have consolidation in our analysis. We just assumed we needed to keep a presence downtown, but through the process we were like wow well that's limiting our ability to be productive. The customer advisory group was like you should look at consolidation. It's very popular in the private sector, to bring operations together and have that energy of people working together," said Frazier.
    The open house for Leavenworth residents to provide input and pose questions about the new Service Center is March 20 from 4 to 6 p.m.
    Lodging tax is a constant fixture for many city council discussion. Tuesday morning the council members weeded through the group funding requests to prep for the city council meeting later that night. With only $10,000 reserved for group funding and money intended to be seed money, the council had a total of $30,000 worth of requests.
    "There are some lodging tax group funding requests that don't fit the category altogether. And there are some who are asking for a third, fourth and fifth year and so I think we have to have a pretty in-depth discussion about our policy regarding lodging tax group funding requests before we even look at these," said Mayor Farivar.
    The conversation had some conflicting opinions that pushed the council to brainstorm for future avenues to take to avoid turning down certain groups that don't fit the criteria, but are worthy causes. Some of the qualifications for lodging tax group funding: advertising to attract people 50 miles out, new groups just starting up and falling under the three year cap on how many years the city will fund the group.
    "I, personally, just with a big list, a big dollar number would like to be true to our word and just say this is not meeting our requirements," said Mia Bretz, council member. "I want the lodging tax to follow it's own rules, to have a rationale. It's such a large fund, it has a lot of attention on it and I want to be able to say this is why and this is how its fair."
    The council decided that at their next workshop they are going to scrutinize the policy and then circle back to the groups that were denied requests. Instead of deviating from the current rules in place to reward funding, some of the groups (Icicle Valley Trout Unlimited Kinderfest Youth Fishing) were delegated to a different category of grant. funding (i.e. youth funding).
    "I would love to be more generous with this $10,000 because it's such a small amount of the big bottom lodging tax funding," said Jason Lundgren, council member. "Looking ahead to April I would love to see us grow the pot significantly, set a percent of the lodging tax so it can fluctuate over time and take out some of the subjectivity we're struggling with."
    Dawn Davies from the Wenatchee Valley Animal Care and Control stopped in to discuss the upcoming contract renewal between the city and animal control. The new contract will basically mirror the former contract that expires March 31.