Item 3A: Approval of City Council Minutes

Home Browse Search

rdth Johnson House and the 3 Avenue/4 Avenue connector. She said the City wanted to obtain that piece of property so it did not lose access to the house. Mr. Kelly asked why the school sports field upgrades were considered time-sensitive. City Manager Taylor said that the 4J and Bethel school districts were considering improvements to sports fields that could provide opportunities for joint ventures, such as synthetic turf projects. He said that 4J School District was also considering 2008 for its capital bond. Parks and Open Space Director Johnny Medlin added that there were several 4J projects that could offer an opportunity for partnership and allow the City to leverage 4J funds. Mr. Kelly said he did not think the sports fields were of the same time sensitivity as acquisition of land under development pressure or leveraging federal funds on the wetlands center. Mr. Pryor thanked the City Manager for a prudent and thoughtful recommendation; however, he would probably support an “opportunity” type of bond such as Mr. Kelly described. He noted there was still no project list from the Parks, Recreation and Open Space Comprehensive Plan that had been fully vetted and it would be difficult to link a bond to a non-existent project list. He thought there were projects that could easily be identified in order to move forward. He could be supportive of a 2006 bond that did not exceed the $20 million opportunity level with identified projects. Ms. Taylor said that land acquisition was definitely time-sensitive and the land would not be available if the City did not acquire it. She said that the other projects were not time-sensitive, but she would support all of them and the entire bond could pass. She said the community would vote for parks. She thought the last parks bond should have been larger with more natural area acquisition. She advocated for the entire bond, particularly land acquisition. Ms. Bettman asked if staff had added to the council’s two criteria and that was why there were more projects. Ms. Weiss said that was correct and projects were added to round out the list. Ms. Bettman expressed an interest in a bond measure of about $20 million that focused on acquisition and perhaps leveraging the opportunity for the wetlands education center because development was happening so rapidly it was important to land bank now for future parks. She said that people were willing to spend funds for conservation because they understood the value. She asked that any proposal include funding to contract for a professional agent to acquire the property, instead of having Parks staff negotiate the acquisitions. Ms. Solomon said the council was getting ahead of itself and it would be hard to make a case for new parks when the City was not maintaining the ones it had. She noted the large number of bond measures that would be on the ballot in November 2006 and felt a parks bond measure could wait until 2008. Ms. Ortiz echoed sentiments expressed about the time sensitivity of land acquisition and was supportive of acquiring as much land as possible for future needs. She asked how much money was left for the Santa Clara/River Road park. Ms. Weiss replied it was approximately $800,000. Ms. Ortiz supported Ms. Bettman’s suggestion that a third party negotiator be hired for land acquisitions. Mr. Poling asked if the proposed acquisition for a Willakenzie neighborhood park was the old Willakenzie school site or other properties in the area. Ms. Weiss said the City already owned a portion of the old school site and the acquisition would be of other properties. Mr. Poling noted that was the only addition to the northeast section of the community, which was an underserved area in terms of parks. He wanted to see more land identified and acquired in the north part of the City, particular wards 4 and 5. He was in favor of parks but was concerned about the impact of land acquisition for parks on the buildable land supply. He said he had been told that the purchase of land for