CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION
MAY 26, 2015 COUNCIL CHAMBERS 211 WEST ASPEN AVENUE 6:00 P.M.
MINUTES
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1. | Call to Order |
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Mayor Nabours called the Flagstaff Work Session of May 26, 2015, to order at 6:00 p.m. | |||||||||||
2. | Pledge of Allegiance | ||||||||||
The audience and City Council recited the Pledge of Allegiance. | |||||||||||
3. | Roll Call
Others present: Interim City Manager Jeff Meilbeck and City Attorney Michelle D'Andrea. |
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4. | Public Participation Public Participation enables the public to address the council about items that are not on the prepared agenda. Public Participation appears on the agenda twice, at the beginning and at the end of the work session. You may speak at one or the other, but not both. Anyone wishing to comment at the meeting is asked to fill out a speaker card and submit it to the recording clerk. When the item comes up on the agenda, your name will be called. You may address the Council up to three times throughout the meeting, including comments made during Public Participation. Please limit your remarks to three minutes per item to allow everyone to have an opportunity to speak. At the discretion of the Chair, ten or more persons present at the meeting and wishing to speak may appoint a representative who may have no more than fifteen minutes to speak. |
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Orville Wiseman addressed Council with concerns he has about homeless campers. His property was recently involved in a fire due to such a camper nearby. He feels that they are a threat to the community and heavier enforcement and punishment should be carried out. City Clerk Elizabeth Burke addressed Council to recognize Deputy City Clerk Stacy Saltzburg |
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and present her with a Certificate for obtaining the International Institute of Municipal Clerks designation of Certified Municipal Clerk. | |||||||||||
5. |
Preliminary Review of Draft Agenda for the June 2, 2015 City Council Meeting.*
* Public comment on draft agenda items may be taken under “Review of Draft Agenda Items” later in the meeting, at the discretion of the Mayor. Citizens wishing to speak on agenda items not specifically called out by the City Council for discussion under the second Review section may submit a speaker card for their items of interest to the recording clerk.
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Councilmember Overton called out item 9A regarding Bushmaster Park, asking for a short presentation on the project and possibly some renderings on the intended improvements so that Council and the public have an idea of what is going to be taking place. Mayor Nabours stated that items 15A and 15B will be in reverse order for the final agenda; he added that a couple of items on the 6:00 p.m. agenda may be moved up to the 4:00 p.m. agenda as well. |
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6. | 2015 Wildfire Preparedness Briefing |
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Wildland Fire Manager Paul Summerfelt provided a PowerPoint presentation that covered the following: WILDFIRE PREPAREDNESS BRIEFING STATEWIDE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE RANKS JUNE AND JULY FORECAST FLAGSTAFF AREA ERC VALUE 2015 FOCUS AREAS COLLABORATION & PARTNERSHIPS GREATER FLAGSTAFF FOREST PARTNERSHIP FOREST TREATMENT MAP (DRAFT) Lieutenant Frank Higgins with the Police Department continued the presentation. LAW ENFORCEMENT FIRE PREVENTION PATROLS PATROL EFFORTS WOODS WATCH VOLUNTEERS Coconino County Emergency Management Director Robert Rowley continued the presentation. COCONINO COUNTY PFAC FULL SCALE EXERCISE CODE RED Mayor Nabours asked Mr. Rowley to remind the community how they can sign up for Code Red. Mr. Rowley stated that by signing up for Code Red citizens will receive emergency notifications by landline, cell phone, and other technology specific to their geographic location; additionally, it will notify of emergency weather alerts. People can sign up at coconino.az.gov/emergency. Coconino National Forest Fire Staff Officer Don Muise continued the presentation. COCONINO NATIONAL FOREST FIRE AND AVIATION MANAGEMENT PROGRAM 2015 CHIEF’S LETTER OF INTENT WILDLAND FIRE DISPATCH FIRE PREVENTION STRATEGIES WILDFIRE DETECTION ENGINES AND CREWS (USFS) NATIONAL GROUND RESOURCES NATIONAL AIR RESOURCES The Council thanked staff and the partners for the presentation. |
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7. | Development Services Listening Tour Report | ||||||||||
Deputy City Manager Josh Copley provided a PowerPoint presentation that covered the following: DEVELOPMENT SERVICES LISTENING TOUR BACKGROUND Management Services Director Barbara Goodrich continued the presentation. WHO PARTICIPATED? QUESTIONS WHAT WE HEARD BALANCE, COORDINATION, AND CONSISTENCY ARE IMPORTANT COMMUNICATION IS IMPORTANT TOO MANY REGULATIONS TO FOLLOW Community Development Director Mark Landsiedel continued the presentation. WHAT WE WILL DO IMPROVED RELIABILITY OF TELEPHONE COMMUNICATIONS Councilmember Oravits asked about the phone center and if it is an outsourced call center. IT Manager Ki Sung stated that the call center is in house; he clarified that the presentation refers to a software solution to the call center and that IT will be installing a new server that will handle the call center and software. Councilmember Oravits asked how that will help the system. Mr. Sung stated that some of the complaints that staff has is that they are unable to monitor calls. The new system will give staff reports and on the spot call process. This will aid staff in identifying where issues are occurring within the phone system. For example, the software will give staff insight into where failures are occurring in the phone tree system or where bottlenecks are occurring. Being able to identify these occurrences specifically allow staff to make adjustments accordingly to better serve the customers that are calling into the system. Vice Mayor Barotz stated that she is not sure how a new phone system will improve the issue of return calls. Mr. Landsiedel stated that the issue is that staff members are not getting their calls. People are getting into a phone tree and not able to get to the right person to leave a message. There are also issues with calls and voicemails not being audible; it is a technology issue that needs to be addressed. Councilmember Oravits stated that he uses a live phone service to capture calls and information; he asked if staff has looked into a call service. Ms. Goodrich explained that the City will not be giving up the switchboard; what is being addressed is the behind the scenes phone management system. Sometimes when the call taker is on the phone it sends calls into a queue somewhere and this system will allow staff to know when calls are in queue and how many there are. Additionally it can monitor how many calls have been dropped and when, and how many are hang ups. Councilmember Oravits stated that people are not always patient to wait through the call prompts or being on hold and suggested that staff look at a call service that answers all calls with a live person. Councilmember Putzova asked if the call center solution is integrated with the email system so the voicemail can be translated and delivered via email. Mr. Sung stated that the integration is there but the focus right now is on refining the process and the system. Councilmember Putzova offered that it may help speed up the response rate to customers if voicemails were delivered via email but understands that the features may have to be rolled out in stages. Mr. Landsiedel continued the presentation. IMPLEMENT PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS FOR IMPROVED INTERNAL
COMMUNICATION
STREAMLINE BUILDING PLAN REVIEW COMMENTSCROSS DEPARTMENTAL COMMUNICATION Councilmember Putzova asked if staff plans on continuing the listening tour for other entities that were not included in this tour. Mr. Landsiedel stated that the feeling is that the tour is concluded at this point but if there are other entities that should be contacted staff is happy to do that. Councilmember Putzova stated that neighborhood associations and organizations such as Friends of Flagstaff’s Future may have a perspective that could be useful. Mr. Landsiedel stated that he would be happy to reach out to them for input. |
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8. | Discussion/Direction Regarding Future Charter Amendments | ||||||||||
City Clerk Elizabeth Burke provided a PowerPoint presentation that covered the following: PROPOSED CHARTER AMENDMENTS - 2015 AGENDA RECAP PUBLIC OUTREACH POINTS FOR CONSIDERATION CONSIDERATIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS WHICH PROPOSALS THE COUNCIL WOULD LIKE TO BRING FORWARD CALENDAR Councilmember Evans asked how many people were present at the various focus group presentations. Ms. Burke stated that each meeting varied; some had as few as three or four participants while others had 25-30. She stated that they presented information to approximately 100-125 people total. Councilmember Evans asked if there were any public meetings outside of those that were part of a special interest group. Ms. Burke explained that the presentations were given to the different community groups but the information is online and people were encouraged to share the information with others. Vice Mayor Barotz asked about the questions related to elections. Ms. Burke stated that the charter has separate sections for primary and general elections; two questions would ask to combine the primary and general sections into one and a third question would be asked to repeal the former general election section. Joe Ray addressed Council with concerns about the process not being more citizen based with more input provided by the public. Vice Mayor Barotz asked that an additional question be added to the ballot that formalizes the process of appointing the Vice Mayor based on who receives the highest number of votes at the election. A majority of Council was not in favor of adding this item to the ballot. The Council took each item one by one to decide which will move forward to the ballot; the results are as follows: Item 1 – removed. Item 2 – removed. Item 3 – removed. Item 4 - removed. Item 5 – removed Item 6 – place on ballot. Item 7 – removed. Item 8 – removed. Item 9 – place on ballot. Item 10 – place on ballot. Item 11 – removed. Item 12 – removed. Councilmember Putzova stated that she would like to see a better job done with education to the voters for this election. Ms. Burke stated that with the past election there was not much information provided because they were technical in nature; however, staff did see the need of having more and they do intend to provide more information in the publicity pamphlet. Additionally, she said they hope that there will be people who supply pro and con statements for the items as well. Vice Mayor Barotz added that she would like to see Council ambassadors on items that they are interested in to aid in getting information out to the public. |
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9. |
Review of Draft Agenda Items for the June 2, 2015 City Council Meeting.*
* Public comment on draft agenda items will be taken at this time, at the discretion of the Mayor.
None |
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10. | Public Participation | ||||||||||
Stuart McDaniel addressed Council with concerns about the City taking a stance on the living wage lawsuit in relation to economic development. | |||||||||||
11. | Informational Items To/From Mayor, Council, and City Manager. |
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Mayor Nabours requested a possible future agenda item for a public discussion on where the City is with panhandling, the better bucks program, and trespassing complaints regarding panhandlers. | |||||||
12. | Adjournment | ||||||
The Flagstaff City Council Work Session of May 26, 2015, adjourned at 8:33 p.m. |
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