27 Jan City Manager Report: Jan 26 Council Meeting
City Manager Bill Prokop’s comments to City Council at the January 26 meeting:
- Congratulations to our Police Department for being awarded a Highway Traffic Enforcement grant in the amount of $113,490.00. This is a 100% funded grant and will cover the cost of one officer and a patrol car. Lots of hard work and follow up by our PD staff enabled us to be awarded this grant and they will soon be applying for another one for the upcoming year.
- Boundary Street Project is now underway and we will be having weekly updates on Thursday afternoons from 3:00 PM till 5:00 PM in the lower level of City Hall, in the area we now call the Boundary Street Gallery. We are also planning on having a meeting with all businesses along the construction route sometime in the next 30 days to answer any questions and explain the process.
- Arts Overlay District – as you know a proposal to bring “Tiny Houses” to the City in an Arts Overlay District was presented to the Redevelopment Commission at its meeting last week. City staff is very much in support of this and has prepared a memo of recommendations for the RDC and for you to consider and we are looking forward to see this proposal move forward.
- Dragon Boat Races – We will be having a new and exciting event coming to the City over Labor Day weekend. The Dragon Boat organization will be having a new event and will be promoting it heavy in the next few months. The staff feels this is another good event that will have many benefits for our City and we are looking forward to working with the committee in planning and organizing this event. The event will be held on 9/2/2022 and will run through 9/04/2016. Watch for more information.
- The City Council retreat will be held the week of February 22nd and will be at the BJW&S facility in Oakatie. The exact schedule and agenda will be forthcoming within the next week.
- Wal-Mart construction update for Lady’s Island – Just so everyone is aware work on the site will begin within the next few weeks. The public will see a lot of tree cutting and fill being brought to the site. In fact, most of the trees will be cut and then after the fill is in place and compacted (estimated 20,000 truckloads covering 26+ acres with 6 feet of fill) trees will be planted and all our setback, tree and landscaping regulations will be followed. This is all being done to meet Federal and State Flood plain regulations. BUT it will look clear cut for several months. The developer and Wal-Mart will each have engineers on site insuring the fill and the site preparation is being done properly. We want the public to know that this is a managed clear cutting project that will be replanted to meet all our specifications, and there is no getting around it. It will be ugly for several months during the construction period.
- I want to assure you as councilors and our residents that we have as a staff addressed the mistake that was made in not billing taxes to one of our leasee’s, and a process has been put in place to insure that that does not happen again. We apologize for this and we all learn from our mistakes.
- Update on our some of our Capital projects:
Southside Sidewalks: All approved and will be out to bid by end of February.
Allison Road: Close to getting final State DOT approval but no cigar yet.
Hamar Street: This is a State, County, and City project that hopefully will be started in February and will correct drainage problems that have occurred there.
Lafayette Street: Plan is being engineered and will be ready in next 60 days.
Hancock & New Street Paving: This project should be out for bid and started soon.
Transient Dock Repair: The RFQ is out and all the bids are due this coming Friday. If the bids come in within budget, we will move forward with a contract and hopefully have construction done by the end of March.
- We are working to finalize our plans for the parking expansion and building rental space at 500 Carteret Street. The parking layout is being engineered and we have interest in space in the building from 4 possible tenants. At the same time our Parking Garage Review team all have copies of the proposals we have received and will be meeting over the next month to make a recommendation as to which vendor they recommend we engage.
- Security Camera up-date. The technical team from the vendor was here last week and met with our staff to review locations and layout a coverage plan.
- As you can see we have a lot going on and if the public has any questions on any of our projects please check the information on our website of call us a City Hall and we will do our best to get the answers for you. Thank you are there any questions?