Agenda - Council - 03/08/2005 - Laserfiche WebLink

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explained staff has determined that the EDA is the authority to proceed with the lease revenue bonding. Councilmember Strommen stated there are two issues, which are this case in relation to the lease revenue bonds and the issue about the City Hall. What she has to say has no bearing on her opinion about a new facility, and she thinks'the inadequacies of the current building are obvious. Her issue is that the Council has not sat down as agroup in a work session or an official meeting and stated they will be going forward with the new City Hall. Until the Council has that debate she has a problem proceeding with leaserevenue bonds because she has to answer to people that have asked when the Council had that final discussion. There have been incremental steps that have been taken, but the Council has not had the final discussion. Councilmember Elvig concurred. not moving forward. He notedthe question is the procedure and getting in a bind by Member Kiefer suggested the facility be built with the extra floors. The extra space could be leased out to create an incubator system for businesses in Town Center and could create revenue to pay the bonds. Councilmember Strommen replied the Council had that discussion last night and decided against leasing due to the competition with:business and the difficulty in administration. Councilmember Elvig explained leasing the .space would also cause problems with the bonding due to the need for taxable and non-taxable bonds.' Finance Officer Lund explained there is currently not a lot of competition for selling the bonds. When the timeframe gets into April there will be an influx of the market coming in and the City will end up paying a higher rate. Assistant City Administrator Nelson indicated the current estimate for the municipal facility is at 16.2 million dollars. The second stOry onthe police facility would bring the total to 18 million dollars. She informed the EDA that the design phase of the facility is coming up to the final phase, which is the construction documents. Staff hopes to be prepared to bid the project in April, and if it is not bid at that time they may need to wait another year. The project cannot be bid in August when everyone already has their work lined up, it needs to be bid at a time when there will be good bids. She noted this is a tough decision for a community to make so things have been backed up to allow people to be more comfortable with things. Councilmember Strommen commented she understands the time constraints, but there needs to be a debate with the Council on this. Chairperson Riley stated it cannot be an emergency for these bonds to be authorized today. Finance Officer Lund explained the procedure to issue the lease revenue bonds takes two months from the beginning of the process until the bonds are issued. By not proceeding the interest rate Economic Development Authority/January 12, 2005 Page 6 of 9