| City Commission Work Session | Mayor Joan Bennett presiding |
CALL TO ORDER: 5:45 P.M.
PRESENT: Mayor Bennett, Commissioners Beecher, Downer, Gray, and Rosenbaum. Also present were City Manager, City Attorney, Directors of Community Development, Park & Recreation, Fiscal Control, Management Information Services, Planning, Library, Public Works, Fire Chief, and City Clerk.
Kelly Audet, Risk Specialist, reported that a committee made up of City Staff and several other community members, have been meeting to plan for Y2K compliance. She explained that there were two issues associated with Y2K compliance. They were: internal; and the impact of providing services to the public. She advised that the committee was working on the latter and that the MIS Department was focusing on internal Y2K compliance issues.
Ms. Audet stated that an area of concern was whether or not we would have electricity. She said that the Committee was developing contingency plan based on lengths of electricity outages should they occur. The plan was separated into three tiers. The first tier was to address a minor power outage which would last only a short time. The Committee determined that a Tier 1 power outage should not result in any additional costs to the City.
The second tier was to meet needs in the event of a moderate power outage which could last for several hours and up to a full day. The Committee recommended that the current budget would absorb any additional costs that would be associated with a moderate power outage.
Ms. Audet explained that a Tier 3 outage or serious, long-term power outage, would result in additional appropriations to keep the City systems, such as water and sewer pumping stations, working.
In conclusion, Ms. Audet stated that the Committee was also working on a public awareness campaign that would include information on the City's website, information sent out in the water utility bills and working with the media on news stories.
Several weeks ago, the Great Falls Clinic petitioned to annex a lot into the City in order to construct a satellite location on the west side of town. The City Commission tabled action on the annexation resolution because they determined it would require a vote of the public in order to comply with CI-75. The Clinic expressed concern over the viability of the project due to the delays caused by the annexation election. In response to these concerns, City staff developed the concept of "virtual annexation."
City Manager, John Lawton, opened the discussion by asking "why can't the City just continue to annex land into the City like they used to?" He explained that some of CI-75 was very clear and the City is taking measures to comply with it. He added that some of CI-75 was not clear either because meanings of certain words or concepts were unclear and because cities and towns didn't know how to apply it. He suggested that "virtual annexation" was an attempt to address areas of CI-75 which were unclear.
Mr. Lawton added that in the areas of CI-75 that were unclear, cities would need interpretations and the two sources for clarification were, the Attorney General and the courts. Mr. Lawton stated that the options regarding the Clinic annexation included: 1) we could wait for a court interpretation regarding the annexation request, but it may take some time and it could be expensive; 2) we could put the annexation question on the ballot, however that defied common sense; 3) we could ask for an Attorney General's opinion, however, that process may take as long as a court interpretation, or 4) we could consider "virtual annexation" which was in essence a contract with the Clinic for City services without annexation. This contractual arrangement would continue until the CI-75 interpretations were made.
Bob Horne explained the concept of virtual annexation in more depth. He stated that virtual annexation was a contract for services between a willing service provider and a willing customer. He suggested that the contract contain: a preface identifying the parties; a statement that each party entered into the agreement on their own free will; a consideration for specified services at specified costs; a statement that the City was in no way obligated to offer the same services to all parties (i.e. each contract is unique); that there should be supporting documents such as a site plan, plat and a master plan for improvements and cost sharing; a provision as to who pays for initial improvements; duration and termination clauses; and a statement as to the effectiveness of the contract in the event annexation could occur.
Mr. Horne explained that Cascade County must be a party to the contract because things that would normally be taken care of through an annexation document would not in a contract. Mr. Horne listed those items as: street maintenance responsibilities; fire district obligations; and zoning.
Dave Gliko, City Attorney, reviewed CI-75 in order for the Commission to understand why certain aspects of it were unclear. The first area of uncertainty was the question as to who would vote. The initiative stated that it was those in the geographic area affected. Taken literally, it could mean "everyone votes" on all these issues. However by looking at the definition of "area not formally subject to the tax," one might conclude that only those people directly affected would vote. If that phrase was combined with the definition of "tax increase" provided in the initiative, then one might conclude that those people supporting the tax base for the city would vote. Mr. Gliko concluded that it would take a court decision before cities would understand how to apply this portion of CI-75.
Mr. Gliko concluded that the concept of virtual annexation was a good idea. In fact, he returned to CI-75 and found support for the virtual annexation concept. The first area was in section 2(c) where it stated that taxes imposed were subject to a vote. Mr. Gliko explained the history of the word "imposed" as he was able to determine it and how it impacted the virtual annexation concept. The second area of CI-75 that would seem to support the concept of virtual annexation was found in section 3(d) where it included exceptions to CI-75 as "any price for an item." And, since the contract for services would clearly specified items at certain prices it would appear that virtual annexation would comply with CI-75.
Mr. Gliko concluded explaining that a contract for water services was not unique to the City. He listed several examples such as the Poor Farm water line, MAFB and Black Eagle. However, he cautioned, the City Commission would need to amend a portion of Title 13 relating to water and sewer service to enable the City to exercise the virtual annexation option.
It was the consensus of the City Commission to place an ordinance, for first reading, on their regular agenda amending a portion of Title 13 relating to water and sewer service.
Bob Horne, City/County Planning Director, reported that a group of people from Lewis & Clark Interpretative Center, MAFB and the City were discussing options relating to the road between Giant Springs State Park and the MAFB commercial gate. He explained that MAFB had announced they would close a portion of that road resulting in only one exit from Giant Springs State Park and no road for farmers to access their land north of the road. Although there were no conclusions to present, the committee was working on several options and would bring those back to the Commission at a later date.
There being no further business to come before the Commission, the regular work session on December 15, 1998, adjourned at 6:45 p.m.