Minutes - Charter Commission - 03/26/2012

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Attorney Goodrich stated that in this case, we can even be less restrictive. Chairperson Field inquired what the merits are of changing from 35 percent to 50 percent. City Administrator Ulrich explained that this has been an issue for the City Council in the past. They came to the Charter prior to this and asked for a petition against a project to be less; however, Charter wanted to keep it the same. This was to get a higher bar to get a project going before all the commitments of all City resources to go forward. This would be more efficient and still meet the intent that the project could be killed. We would like to be more efficient — including cost efficient on the front end. Director of Public Works Olson gave a brief overview a previous discussion with Charter. In 2009, the City Attorney and the Assistant City Engineer discussed with the Charter Commission that the City Council had requested Charter consider that the ability to counter petition a public improvement be increased to 75 percent instead of the current requirement of 50 percent. There was much discussion about the protection of the existing resident and the recommendation was not made, thereby allowing the Charter provision to remain. In January 2012, the City Council held a strategic planning session and directed staff to approach the Charter Commission to ask them for a recommendation to require that the adjacent property owners along an improvement have more than 50 percent sign a petition. There are costs associated with preparing feasibility studies that are generally recaptured during the assessment process. When a counter petition is 'received for an improvement, the City and its taxpayers have to absorb that cost. Staff and the City Council want to avoid this additional cost and increased time necessary with a neighborhood that is not more fully supportive of the improvements in which they petition. Mr. Olson cited a number of examples that have happened over the last 10 years. For example, Pondvale Estates sewer and water and road reconstruction. We started the feasibility and went through about three to four studies before we had an improvement that was approved. Another example is 152" d /154 h and Fluorine — also three feasibility studies. It takes a lot of staff time and costs anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 to get to the public hearing stage. He stated he understands Charter's desire to maintain protection for the property owners and we are not asking for the ability to increase the counter petition ability. We are just asking if we could better garnish support from the neighborhood in the beginning by requiring more property owners to sign the petition. It would be an effort to save front end money. Mr. Olson reiterated that the rights to counter petition are preserved — you can sign against an improvement even if you originally signed in favor of it. City Attorney Goodrich stated that most of the time when we do a public improvement assessment — we assess on a unit basis. If we had 100 homes and 35 percent petition to get this project rolling, that would be in line with State Statute. If you change it, it would be 50 homes or 50 percent that would have to originally petition for the improvement -in order for the City Council to order the improvement by a simple majority vote. He talked about what it would take if it's done on a square footage basis. He noted that process is not changing. If there are any irregularities, Engineering would say it would be done on a different system- a different way to define it. Charter Commission/ March 26, 2012 Page 3 of 8