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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004.0415.TCRM.Minutes TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MINUTES OF THE REGULAR SESSION OF THE FOUNTAIN HILLS TOWN COUNCIL APRIL 15,2004 Mayor Nichols called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. INVOCATION—The invocation was led by Councilwoman Ralphe ROLL CALL — Present for roll call were the following members of the Fountain Hills Town Council: Councilman Archambault, Mayor Nichols, Councilwoman Stevens, Councilman Kavanagh, Vice Ala)or Melendez, Councilwoman Nicola, Councilwoman Ralphe. Town Attorney Andrew McGuire. Town ManaLcer Tim Pickering, and Town Clerk Bev Bender were also present. Mayor Nichols informed the members of the audience that Items #10 through#13 on the original agenda had been pulled from the current agenda and therefore the Council would not be discussing an amendment to the General Plan or rezoning of the area off of Sunridge and Palisades Avenue. CALL TO THE PUBLIC Hugh Henry, 15731 E. Sycamore, expressed appreciation to the Mayor and Council for signing the petition that was currently being circulated in the community. He said that they were progressing but were not quite there yet and were very optimistic about the outcome of their activities. Robert Tripp, 16410 E. Tombstone Avenue, stated that the actions of the candidates and [heir supporters during the recent March primary were positive and on the "up and up" and they should be commended for that. He added that unfortunately since that time a member of the Council had demonstrated negativity regarding the upcoming general election. He stated that such actions were unfortunate and negatively impacted the Town. He cautioned against promoting a negatively charged political atmosphere. Mayor Nichols thanked the speakers for their comments. CONSENT AGENDA Mayor Nichols read the following consent agenda items: AGENDA ITEM#1—CONSIDERATION OF APPROVING THE MEETING MINUTES OF 4/1/04. AGENDA ITEM #2 - CONSIDERATION OF THE LIQUOR LICENSE APPLICATION SUBMITTED BY VU TERRACE CAFÉ LOCATED AT 14815 E. SHEA BOULEVARD. THE APPLICATION IS FOR A CLASS 12 LICENSE. AGENDA ITEM #3 - CONSIDERATION OF THE LIQUOR LICENSE APPLICATION SUBMITTED BY PISA PIZZA LOCATED AT 16650 PALISADES BOULEVARD. THE APPLICATION IS FOR A CLASS 12 LICENSE. AGENDA ITEM #4 — CONSIDERATION OF APPROVING THE TRAFFIC SIGNAL BID IN THE AMOUNT OF$143,054.37 AND AWARDING THE CONTRACT TO KIMBRELL ELECTRIC. AGENDA ITEM # 5 — CONSIDERATION OF THE PRELIMINARY AND FINAL AMENDED PLAT FOR"FOUR PEAKS PLAZA," A RE-SUBDIVISION OF LOTS 1 & 2 OF THE FINAL PLAT FOR"FOUR PEAKS PLAZA." CASE#S2003-16. E:\BBender\Documents\Current Minutes 2004\Regular 04-15-04.doc Page 1 of 8 AGENDA ITEM #6 — CONSIDERATION OF THE PRELIMINARY AND FINAL PLAT FOR "BRUNSWICK GARDENS CONDOMINIUMS," A TWO-UNIT CONDOMINIUM DECLARATION FOR AN EXISTING DUPLEX LOCATED AT 14033 N. BRUNSWICK DR., AKA PLAT 104, BLOCK 2,LOT 30, CASE#S2004-03. AGENDA ITEM #7 — CONSIDERATION OF RESOLUTION 2004-23 ABANDONING WHATEVER RIGHT, TITLE OR INTEREST THE TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS HAS IN THE "FINAL REPLAT OF LOTS 31 AND 32, " A LOT JOIN OF LOTS 31 & 32," FINAL PLAT 513. CASE #S2004-06. AGENDA ITEM #8 — CONSIDERATION OF CHANGING THE STREET NAME "STEWART VISTA AVENUE" TO THE "PAUL NORDIN I'ARA�Ay,AV " VICE MAYOR MELENDEZ MOVED to approve the Consent Agenda as read COUNCILyl:A\ ARCHAMBAULT SECONDED the motion. A roll call vote was taken with the following results: Councilwoman Stevens Aye Vice Mayor Melendez Aye Councilman Kavanagh Aye Councilwoman Nicola Aye Mayor Nichols Aye Councilwoman Ralphe Aye Councilman Archambault Aye 4/1810 The motion CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY (7 to 0). AGENDA ITEM #9 — CONSIDERATION OF APPROVING A CONTRACT WITH MAXIMUS, INC. FOR STRATEGIC PLANNING SERVICES IN THE AMOUNT OF $104,678. Town Manager Tim Pickering addressed the Council relative to this agenda item. He stated that in January of this year, the Town Council identified seven priorities for the upcoming fiscal year, one of which was to complete a strategic plan for the community to ensure that input was received from the community regarding the direction the Town would take over the next five years. Workshops had been held on this subject and Council directed the Town Manager and Staff to prepare a Request for Proposal (RFP) for companies to submit their proposals for implementing a Strategic Plan. Staff completed the RFP and sent it out to approximately eight to ten different companies. Three proposals were received during the original response, and following revisions,the RFP went back out and two additional proposals were received. Mr. Pickering informed the Council that citizens with expertise in this area provided significant assistance. He said that they were looking for a company that understood what it was Fountain Hills wanted. One of the main components that they wanted was input from the public in several different ways (interviews with key individuals, holding workshops to solicit input from the general public and obtaining "man on the street" input as well). He reported that upon review of the proposals, staff concluded that there was only one firm, Maximus Inc. that met the primary goals and intent of the Town in regards to the emphasis and development of the strategic plan. He noted that the national company had extensive experience in this particular area and they specialized in assisting local government. Mr. Pickering further stated that Staff was recommending Maximus, Inc. because the company had a clear understanding of the process that Fountain Hills wanted to take place. He encouraged the Council to review the actual scope of work on pages 22 through 29 on the proposal before them and said he would summarize their goals. The company planned to conduct a statistically valid community survey. Once the input had been obtained through a variety of ways, that information would be compiled and presented to the residents in this E:\BBender\Documents\Current Minutes 2004\Regular 04-15-04.doc Page 2 of 8 not comfortable with the entire product. He pointed out that during the Work Study Session he supported this effort and the development of a five-year plan. He commended Mayor Nichols for finally bringing this issue forward. Vice Mayor Melendez added that if he was going to vote to spend $104,000 on a contract, he needed to have more information. He said he was not ready to vote on the matter at this time. He advised that several citizens asked him during the last week to explain what strategic planning was and read the following from a book entitled Reinventing Government: "In essence, strategic planning is a process of examining an organisation's or community's current situation and future trajec torv•, setting goals, developing strategy to achieve those goals and measuring the results." He expressed the opinion that they were moving too quickly on this and discussed his unwillingness to vote on a budget that had unknowns. Mr. Pickering responded that any member of the Council who wished could review the other proposals that were received. He noted that when the Council received the proposed budget, it would contain funding for this project as well as the additional staff. Financially, this fiscal year, the Town was doing very well and said he was not concerned about spending money up front for this purpose, particularly since the Town did not have to make a number of major payments this fiscal year. He commented that Staff was bringing this item forward at the request of the Council. He said that in January the Council set an even closer deadline for submission for consideration. He stated that if the Council would like to take another two weeks to look at this that would be fine. The "rush" was just to provide the information to the Council in a timely manner as requested. Councilwoman Nicola asked how the timeline went from 6 weeks to July 2005 and Mr. Pickering said that he had already clarified that with Maximus. The original timeline set out by Staff included a very tight timeframe. Following discussions as to how to accomplish the seven goals, that timeframe was expanded. Everyone agreed that the contract would be revisited so that it met that July 2005 timeframe. Le Mr. Pickering stated that the consultants understood the importance of including seasonal residents in the discussions and process. Councilwoman Nicola also stated support for the process and the goals but expressed concern about approving a contract of this magnitude that was not budgeted for this fiscal year and was this close to looking at the next fiscal year's budget. She said she would like more time to review the other proposal and look at the budget and added that she would have a deeper comfort level once she had the opportunity to do so. Councilwoman Ralphe referred to Page 21 of the Maximus proposal, under Project Risk Management, and noted that there were several risk factors that she believed they could handle just fine and overcome but there was one that concerned her. She said that the whole process could possibly be at risk because of insufficient stakeholder participation; i.e. they did not reach the public in the manner they hoped. She also referred to Page 24, Key Activities, where it stated that Maximus would work with Town Staff to identify critical stakeholder groups, targeted focus groups, and the public. She said she would like to know whether they could request that Staff, when working with the various groups, report back to the Council and keep them constantly appraised so that by the time the process really began, the public and the Council had input and there was buy-in all the way around that they were in fact reaching all of the citizens. She recommended that they incorporate a reporting process on the citizen input from day one. Mr. Pickering responded that the request was an excellent one and certainly something that Staff would do. He noted that one of the reasons Staff recommended Maximus was due to their reporting process. They would have two different reporting times, one a bi-weekly written status report that would come to the Council and the other a regular monthly project status briefing. He agreed with the importance of Council involvement and providing them with up-to-date accurate information. Councilwoman Stevens said she too was supportive of the strategic plan and added that it would be the Town's roadmap to the future. She commented that the cost of the project surprised her and noted that E:\BBender\Documents\Current Minutes 2004\Regular 04-15-04.doc Page 4 of 8 proposals actually came in at $48,000 and $80,000 while Maximus originally came in at $144,000. She asked what happened to the $48,000 group and whether they bowed out as the process went on or if Staff decided not to pursue their participation. Mr. Pickering responded that Staff did not feel that it would be worthwhile to pursue the first two submittals that were received. He added that they did not believe that the companies possessed the necessary expertise and background. He said Staff requested that Maximus resubmit because they had all of the qualifications the Town was looking for but Staff worried that their cost might be "out of the ballpark". He indicated his willingness to provide the Council with that information so they could come to their own conclusion but reiterated that it was Staff's judgment that it was not worth expanding those submittals to obtain the type of submittals they were really looking for. He said that ICA was not one of the original submitters and all of the original bids were rejected. They went back out vwith a second RFP and at that time ICA submitted their proposal. Councilwoman Stevens commented that she too would have liked to have seen ICA's proposal so that she could conduct her own comparison. Mr. Pickering said he would be happy to provide that information to the Council. Councilman Archambault asked what a "gap analysis" was and what performance measurements were going to be put in place. Mr. Pickering responded that he was not yet sure exactly what performance measurements would be utilized since they had not been laid out yet. He explained that this would be done as part of their discovery process. FIe explained that the "gap analysis" was bas;..ally an analysis that would target the Town's strengths and weaknesses. In response to a question from Councilman Kavanagh, Mr. Pickering stated that Staff chose Maximus over ICA based on the analysis provided in their report. He added that although ICA was an outstanding group, Staff did not feel that their proposal concentrated on the areas desired, and there was a lack of information regarding Council involvement, a lack of discussion on how the survey would be developed and implemented, and the importance of ensuring that the survey was "customized" for the Town of Fountain Hills, and that the persons developing the survey possessed the necessary background and expertise. He added that Staff did not feel that some of the costs were laid out as well as they could have been, such as mailing and printing costs, and no performance measures were mentioned. He emphasized that the company (ICA) was a very good one and Staff enjoyed meeting with them and felt that they would do a fine job as well but selected Maximus as the number one choice because of the company's successful experience. Councilman Archambault asked whether pushing back the timeframe would negatively impact the process. Mr. Pickering responded that a two-week delay would not hamper the success of the project. He apologized for not providing the Council with ICA's proposal and said he would be happy to provide them with copies so that they could see for themselves the type of detail that Maximus included in their proposal. Vice Mayor Melendez stated that on Page 1 of the Maximus proposal, the last paragraph, stated "More particularly, we understand the scope of this project to encompass the following: a discovery phase, a design phase and a development phase." He said it went on to state "a future phase, deployment, was outside of the immediate scope of this effort". He asked whether that would cost the Town additional money. Mr. Pickering answered that it would. He explained that they had been asked to produce a strategic plan, which they would produce, but the deployment stage actually would talk about re-engineering the organization. He said they would come in and perhaps recommend a different setup for the departments or the Town Council might set up boards within itself depending upon the strategy they were seeking to achieve. He stated that deployment such as that was not part of the initial stage of this proposal. Maximus included it just to say "here are the other things that you might want to undertake once you have a strategic plan in place", like training and monitoring tools. He said that he would like to get the strategic plan completed before they tackled reorganization. He noted that if the Town chose to pursue those types of activities, it would cost additional monies. E:\BBender\Documents\Current Minutes 2004\Regular 04-15-04.doc Page 5 of 8 Vice Mayor Melendez referred to Fees and Expenses on Page 32 and pointed out that they had estimated a cost of$29,000 for their electronic surveys. He expressed the opinion that surveys provided input but not (460 commitment and said he did not believe that their real goal, to solicit input from the citizens and groups, had been delivered in a manner that he would be comfortable supporting. He stated that they also talked about staff persons being added and said that he believed the principal person who should be in charge of this project from the Town's standpoint was the Town Manager. He emphasized that the Town Manager should be the one to assume leadership and move the project forward. Mr. Pickering explained that it would be a community survey rather than an electronic survey and the community focus groups would consist of eight different meetings with different community groups. He said he was not sure whether the community survey would be conducted by telephone or on paper. That was at the end of the process and was used to verify that the information that had been gathered v,as emphasized that this was the only statistically valid way to determine that. He added that dedicated Staff would be needed and the budget contained funding for this purpose, i.e. an Assistant Town Manager. IIe assured the Council that he would be heavily involved in the process and said that the very talented Planning &Zoning Administrator would not have time to participate. Councilman Archambault pointed out that any good strategic plan, whether conducted by business or government, was on going and costs would continue. He said that it would be "public driven" and represented a proper process. Councilman Kavanagh commented on the Maximus vs. ICA issue previously discussed and said he was under the impression that ICA's proposal lacked specificity and questioned whether they were asked to further clarify their submittal. Mr. Pickering stated that Staff met with representatives of the company and reviewed exactly what they were requesting. He added that Staff was under the impression that they understood the concept until the proposal was received and although the company had some verygood experience, it was not up to the Maximus' level. Councilman Kavanagh said that ICA's inability to clarify would be troubling but would be a moot point if Mr. Pickering was telling the Council that ICA had never conducted a strategic survey for a city or town. Mr. Pickering responded that it was not that they had never conducted a survey for a city or town but said that they did not typically work for municipalities at the level Maximus did. He stated that they had conducted one or two of the surveys but not multiple plans for cities and towns. Mayor Nichols stated that strategic planning for the Town was long overdue and should have taken place five to ten years ago. He noted that the Council realized that and asked the Town Manager to put out an RFP and solicit bids, which was what he had done. The other thing the Council asked the Town Manager to do was to use his expertise in reviewing the proposals and "take his best shot" and that was what he has done. He added that he agreed with his fellow Councilmembers that this must be an inclusive project and by the end of the project every resident should feel that they had had an opportunity to provide input. He commented that many would not take advantage of that opportunity but it still had to be available to them. Mayor Nichols referred to Page 32 and noted that the cost proposed by Maximus was $104,000. He said that a second breakdown, entitled Public Involvement and Consensus Building Activities, took into account the entire 471 billing hours, and 204 of the 471 hours would be spent obtaining public involvement. He said that the cost of that was $50,600 and showed that almost half of what Maximus was charging would be the cost of soliciting public input. He said he supported proceeding in this manner. He referred to comments that were made relative to the high cost of the proposal and said he looked at it from the angle that it was going to cost the residents of Fountain Hills $1.00 a year (per resident) over the next five years. He expressed the opinion that$5 per resident over five years was not a big cost compared to the significant benefits that would be gained. He added that he could understand and respected the requests for additional information and said he would support a two-week extension but stressed the importance of remaining focused on how critical this process was to the Town of Fountain Hills. He stated that costs should be secondary compared to what they were going to get out of it. E:\BBender\Documents\Current Minutes 2004\Regular 04-15-04.doc Page 6 of 8 Councilman Archambault MOVED to postpone a decision on this contract until the next Regular Council Meeting. Councilwoman Nicola SECONDED the motion. Vice Mayor Melendez asked Mr. Pickering when he planned to present the budget to the Council. Mr. Pickering said that he would bring that forward on May 5th at a Special Workshop and the Council would revisit this issue at their May 6th Regular Council Meeting. Mr. Pickering clarified that the Council would be provided copies of the ICA proposal. The Vice Mayor reiterated that he was not opposed to the issue and supported it during the Work Stud Session but was uncomfortable with the way the process had been brought to the dais. He added that he looked at the return on investment (ROI) and said he would like to have a clearer definition of what they were trying to Jo before proceeding. Councilman Kavanagh asked whether the representatives from Maximus had come from out-of-state and \ir. Pickering responded that they were from a local office but they did travel from out-of-state at the initial meeting. Councilman Kavanagh requested that Mr. Pickering contact ICA, allow them to respond to the deficiencies noted by Staff, and request a list of cities and towns for which they had prepared strategic plans. He added that if their list contained multiple cities and towns, he would like Staff to contact the managers of those cities and towns and gain input from them as to what they thought of the work performed by ICA. Air. Pickering stated that he would follow up on that request. Janice Abramson, 15226 E. Verbena, had submitted a request to speak card but stated that she would like to wait until the next meeting to address the Council. Mayor Nichols thanked everyone for their input on this agenda item and called for the vote on the motion to postpone discussion of this item to the May 6, 200-1, Regular Council Meeting. The motion CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY (7-0). AGENDA ITEM #10 - COUNCIL ASSESSMENT AND REVIEW OF THE MEETING TO IDENTIFY PROCEDURAL STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES AND DISCUSS POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS FOR FUTURE MEETINGS. Councilwoman Nicola expressed the opinion that the above issue would have been a good discussion at a Work Study Session. Councilman Archambault said that he attended a seminar last week on parliamentary procedures and stated that one of the towns used three-part"motion cards". He explained that the Councilmembers did not have to think about the motion before. They wrote it down as they made their motion. The top part went to the Town Clerk so that she could figure out what the motion was. Since the Council was prone to long motions, he said he thought it might be helpful. He added that the second part went to the Mayor so he could re-read the motion once they got down to the final vote, and the third part remained with the person who made the motion. He stated that he wanted the Council to be aware of this process and give it some thought. Councilman Archambault commented that another town reported that for their various agenda items they included two to three different motions in the Staff report that could be made depending on how the Council would like to proceed. Mayor Nichols recommended that the Council consider these suggestions. He thanked Councilman Archambault for his input. AGENDA ITEM #11 — COUNCIL DISCUSSION/DIRECTION TO THE TOWN MANAGER. ITEMS LISTED BELOW ARE RELATED ONLY TO THE PROPRIETY OF (i) PLACING SUCH ITEMS ON A FUTURE AGENDA FOR ACTION OR (ii) OR DIRECTING STAFF TO CONDUCT FURTHER RESEARCH AND REPORT BACK TO THE COUNCIL: A. Mayor Nichols: placing the initiation of a text amendment to the town code regarding pari-mutuel betting on a future agenda for action. E:\BBender\Documents\Current Minutes 2004\Regular 04-15-04.doc Page 7 of 8 The Mayor stated that the one item under this agenda item was to determine whether the Council wanted to discuss placing the initiation of a text amendment to the Town Code regarding pari-mutuel betting on a Le future agenda for action. In response to a question from Councilman Kavanagh, the Mayor confirmed that the original party who brought this forward asked that this item be placed on a future agenda. He asked whether the Council wanted to look at that now as a separate item or include it as part of the strategic plan so that broad citizen input could be obtained. It was the consensus of the Council that they include this issue as part of the strategic plan process so that they would have extensive citizen input upon which to base their decision. AGENDA ITEM#12—SUMMARY OF COUNCIL REQUESTS BY TOWN MANAGER. Councilwoman Stevens asked whether it would be possible for Staff to provide the Council with some type of preliminary agenda for the next two meetings. She said that some of the members were going to be leaving the Council shortly and it would be helpful for everyone to know what issues were going to be coming up during the next month for the current Council to review, versus the issues that would be considered by the next Council. Mr. Pickering said that the agendas had already been prepared and requested that the Town Clerk e-mail the agendas to the members of the Council. Councilman Kavanagh requested that Staff conduct research into the parking situation on Saguaro Boulevard at Fountain Park. He said he noticed that on weekends when the park was quite active. there was not enough parking in the area and everyone parked on Saguaro adjacent to the park, which was a no parking bike-lane area. He added that if parking was a problem it might be more realistic to allow parking in that area on weekends. He requested that Parks and Recreation Staff as well as Traffic look into needs and safety issues and provide him a report on this matter. Mr. Pickering said that Staff would follow up this request on. AGENDA ITEM#13—ADJOURNMENT COUNCILMAN ARCHAMBAULT MOVED that th ouncil adjourn and COUNCILWOMAN STEVENS SECONDED the motion,which CARRIED UNAN OUSLY (7-0). The meeting adjourned at 7:25 p.m. r AIN Mt B Y Wally Ni s, ayor ATTEST AND PVPARED BY. Bevelyn J, en.-r,Town Clerk CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Regular Session held by the Town Council of Fountain Hills on the 15th day of April 2004. I further certify that the meeting was duly called and that a quorum was present. DATED this 6th day of May 2004. /1� Bevelyn J. Bepder, own Clerk co' E:\BBender\Documents\Current Minutes 2004\Regular 04-15-04.doc Page 8 of 8