Agenda - Council - 08/11/2014 - Laserfiche WebLink

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CC Regular Session 7. 5. Meeting Date: 08/11/2014 By: Bruce Westby, Engineering/Public Works Information Title Consider approving revised Lower Rum River Watershed Management Organization Joint Powers Agreement. Purpose/Background: Purpose: The purpose of this case is to approve the revised (amended and restated) Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) for the Lower Rum River Watershed Management Organization (LRRWMO), which is attached to this case in both clean and redline versions. The revised LRRWMO JPA as drafted by LRRWMO attorney Charles LeFevere with Kennedy & Graven clarifies certain provisions of the JPA related to the funding of capital improvement projects, updates citations to state law making the form of the citations uniform, provides for the consistent use of defined terms, cleans up typos and grammatical errors, remove all references to Coon Rapids since they are no longer a member city, and extends the term of the agreement another 10 years to January 1, 2025. Background: As has been discussed at numerous Council work sessions and meetings, the existing Lower Rum River Watershed Management Organization (LRRWMO) Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) provides for each member city to receive one vote on any matter requiring a vote. Since there are currently three member cities in the LRRWMO (Andover, Anoka, and Ramsey), each city receives one-third of the total vote. The City of Ramsey has historically paid about half of the LRRWMO's annual costs due to our large area of land within the Lower Rum River watershed and our net tax capacity. Comparatively, both Andover and Anoka pay considerably less. Considering our greater financial obligation it was discussed that Ramsey should receive a larger percentage of the total vote, especially when considering potential large capital improvement projects such as the proposed Anoka Dam reconstruction. On October 8, 2013, Council member Kuzma proposed an amendment to the LRRWMO Board allowing for weighted voting whenever LRRWMO related capital improvement projects were to be considered. However, any time a simple majority vote would be required, Ramsey would still only receive an equal vote to the other two member cities. This amendment would have allowed capital improvement projects to be approved after receiving a minimum of 66% of the vote with each member city being allocated a percentage of the total vote equivalent to the amount contributed annually to the general fund. This proposal was discussed on several occasions but the LRRWMO Board did not adopt it. The Cities of Andover and Anoka both indicated they didn't approve of the weighted vote as proposed. On March 11, 2014, the City Council reviewed proposed amendments to the LRRWMO JPA as drafted by WMO attorney Charles LeFevere with Kennedy & Graven. A memo summarizing the purpose of the proposed amendments was also reviewed. The memo stated the proposed amendments were intended to clarify certain provisions of the JPA relating to the funding of capital improvement projects, as well as to clean up the JPA in several areas including updating citations to state law and making the form of the citations uniform, provide for the consistent use of defined terms, clean up typos and grammatical errors, remove all references to Coon Rapids since they are no longer a member city, and extending the term of the agreement another 10 years to January 1, 2025. The City Attorney reviewed the proposed amendments and felt that the revised document was an improvement, though more extensive changes could have been made to more clearly set forth the capital improvement project funding process. The City Attorney also felt the revised language would more clearly prevent member cities from being forced to pay a capital improvement project allocation. It was also discussed that if objections are raised to capital improvement project funding, the issue will go to non -binding arbitration, and if that fails, the capital