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MIN CC 05/31/1988MINUTES OF THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MAY 31, 1988 BOOK "P" 94 MINUTES OF THE HUNTSVILLE CITY COUNCIL MEETING HELD ON THE 31ST DAY OF MAY, 1988 IN THE CITY HALL COUNCIL CHAMBERS, LOCATED AT 1212 AVENUE M IN THE CITY OF HUNTSVILLE, COUNTY OF WALKER, AT 6:30 P.M. The Council met in a regular session with the following members present: Jane Monday, Mayor 0. Eugene Barrett City Officers Present: James L. Carter Ila G. Gaines Gene Pipes, City Manager William B. Green William H. Knotts, Jr. Scott Bounds, City Attorney Percy Howard, Jr. Ruth DeShaw, City Secretary Members absent: Gary Bell, William L. Hammock EXECUTIVE SESSION The Personnel Committee of the Huntsville City Council met in executive session at 5:30 P.M. to continue its annual evaluation of Charter officers: Gene Pipes, City Manager and Ruth DeShaw, City Secretary. FORMAL SESSION Mayor Monday called the formal session to order a 6:30 P.M. and then recessed into an executive session with the full council to review evaluation of charter officers. No formal action was taken in the executive session. At 7:10 P.M., the Mayor then reconvened the formal session. Mayor Pro tem Howard presented the invocation. CONSIDER THE MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING Councilmember Howard made the motion to approve of the minutes of May 17. 1988 as Dresented and Councilmember Gaines seconded the motion. Discussion: Councilmember Knotts asked that in the discussion of the historical home to be highlighted with a red sidewalk on Avenue 0 by Mr. George Russell, that the reference to the "county's first sheriff" be revised to read "an early sheriff of Walker County," noting he was not the first sheriff. With this friendly amendment to the motion on the floor, the council approved the motion on the floor unanimously. CONSIDER GIBBS SCHOOL ZONE FLASHING LIGHTS Mr. Gene Pipes, City Manager, presented the written letter request from Carolyn Birmingham, President of the Gibbs Elementary School PTA, dated May 25, 1988, requesting school zone signs, crosswalks, and stop signs around Gibbs Elementary School. She included a diagram of the suggested placement for these items. Mr. Pipes advised he has no problem with painting cross walks on all the intersections on 19th Street, beginning with Normal Park and ending with Avenue 0; and on 18th Street, beginning with Avenue S and ending with Avenue 0. He said the placement of school zone signs on the east side of Avenue S at 18th Street is fine, but the sign on the north side of 18th street at Avenue P 1/2 may be a little too far away from the school. Also, he felt installing flashing school zone lights on the south side of 19th Street at Normal Park and on the west side of Avenue P 1/2 at 19th Street, would cause too great a distance between those locations and the actual site of the school so that they may be ineffective. He disagreed with the recommendations to install stop signs on Avenue 0 at 18th street. He recommended stepping up enforcement of the speed zones in the area rather than installing stop signs as he felt stop signs are not the appropriate method to control speed on through streets. Additionally, Mr. Pipes advised the City can no longer install the flashing school signal lights at its own expense, due to budget concerns, but will be happy to cooperate with HISD in a cost -share program for the installations, if the school will purchase the hardware, noting the city can provide installation and maintenance expertise. He said this program would be similar the city's current sidewalk program. He advised he is awaiting a response from Dr. Tacker, Superintendent of HISD, on this proposal at this time. 1 �I MINUTES OF THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MAY 31, 1988 BOOK "P" 95 Councilmember Green questioned the crosswalk proposed for Avenue S and 18th Street and for 18th Street at Avenue Q and felt the HISD should review these suggestions in relation to HISD's comprehensive plan of all streets, particularly the hardware part of this request, to see if they are willing to look at all campuses and come up with a campus -wide recommendation, rather than piecemeal one campus at a time. Councilmember Carter spoke in favor of the stop sign at Avenue Q and 18th Street, but realized there may be a tendency to create more traffic on 19th Street so it may require more thought because 19th Street is used more than 18th Street by the pedestrian students. He still felt a stop sign there would be useful, but should be taken into account with a larger traffic pattern. He said his primary concern is mainly for the safety of pedestrians in this residential area. Mayor Monday noted then the city manager's recommendations are generally accepted by the Council and the Council will await HISD's response concerning the flashing signals. CONSIDER JONES WATER LINE REQUEST Mr. Gene Pipes, City Manager, then reviewed the request of Dorothy Jones and Mr. D. R. Tubbs for water service on Renfro Valley Drive, on the east side of the East Loop just off of Old Colony Road as it crosses loop 19. He said Mrs. Jones is one of several people living on the south side of Renfro Valley Drive, along with the Little Bethel Baptist Church and the New Addition Baptist Church further on down, both of which are served with water from a line that goes up part of Old Colony Road and then veers off and goes to the Fish Hatchery Road area through what is known as the old Gibbs water line. He said many of these services have been in place for several years and the city's ability to recoup its capital costs necessary to loop the water service around out there would be such that there would be only one or two or perhaps three additional customers gaining service through this line, which makes this quite expensive. Mr. Pipes said the problem is not primary water service, but water for fire protection and consumption. He said a two inch water line, looped all the way around, would give them water to drink, but will not provide any additional fire protection as the nearest fire hydrant is on Old Colony Road where the 12 inch goes into New Addition and then down the east loop to Hwy. 190 and loops around the south side of town. He said with few potential customers and no comprehensive plan to reconstruct the public facilities in this entire area, as was done in the New Addition and Boettcher's Mill projects, then the generosity of the utility extension policy is all he can recommend for the Council to consider. He said if there were a number of people who could share the cost and needed water service and would be willing to share the cost, then it would be less for each of the potential customers; however, with so few potential customers there is no practical way to resolve the problem for Mrs. Jones. He said at some point in the future, he is relatively sure this area will qualify for water for a complete renovation just like the New Addition and Boettcher's Mill areas. He said this particular area, however, did not even qualify for the minimum requirements this past year for a grant application to do just exactly what Mrs. Jones requested. He recommended the use of the city's utility extension ordinance. Mayor Monday asked the City Manager to share this information with Mrs. Jones. Mr. Pipes indicated he would do so. CONSIDER BIDS Consider bids for the construction of the remainder of the FM 247 water line proiect to Crawford Construction Company in the amount of $77.912 and Paid from capital improvement Program utility fund reserve. Mr. Gene Pipes, City Manager, presented the five bids received, ranging from $77,912 to $148,116. He said the low bidder, Crawford Construction Company, has performed well for the city in the past and he then strongly recommended awarding the bid to them. Councilmember Howard made the motion to approve of this bid as Presented and Councilmember Gaines seconded the nation. Discussion: Councilmember Knotts asked for an itemized bid tabulation in the future on these kinds of projects so the Council can see exactly what it is approving. He asked if the materials are furnished by the city on this job. Mr. Pipes said the pipe, as originally outlined, that was in the inventory, will be supplied. The additional pipe will be bought by the contractor. He said the city can provide more detail in the bid tabulations in the future. Upon a vote on the motion, all were in favor and the nation passed unanimously. MINUTES OF THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MAY 31, 1988 BOOK "P" 96 MUNICIPAL COURT REPORT - -JUDGE ROBERT DELONG Report and requests from Municipal Court - -The Honorable Robert DeLong. Judge Judge DeLong requested permission to use credit cards to handle fines and perhaps bonds in the Municipal Court. He said some courts have gone to this procedure. At the present time, he said, the Court gives extension slips to some of the people who cannot afford to pay their fine and want to stretch payments out over three months or so. He said this puts the Court in the position of being a banker, which he prefers not to do. He said he would prefer that payments of this nature be made to Master Card or VISA, etc. He said today people are having trouble with the money and need to stretch out the payments. To accommodate them, he would like to allow credit cards as an option. He said upon briefly checking into this, he found that it would cost about 2 1/2 percent if a credit card is taken as a payment. He said the trade off for this is that the court receives immediate cash. Judge DeLong updated the council on the work program that was instituted about nine months ago where traffic offenders have the option to work off their fine rather than laying it out in jail, at the rate of $45.00 per eight hour day. He said 121 people have participated in this program and worked a total of 3,306 hours. He said the hours worked total approximately 400 hours per month. He said persons are generally assigned to Ray Black and work in the park areas. He said the court is not a revenue generating entity and this program is successful in that it does impose a penalty for violation of our laws when persons are unable to pay the fine. He said the Police Department is very active in writing tickets and the laws are being enforced more strongly than ever before. In regard to the outstanding warrants, he said, there are approximately 750 still out. He said the court now does a separate warrant for each offense, instead of one warrant for each person. He said one may have three or four warrants out on them. The 755 number reflects closer to 500 individuals, which is a reduced number of outstanding warrants at this time, he said. He said the Police Department has taken care of 238 people since January 1. He advised if every one of them has a failure to appear and a citation, they have actually taken care of double that amount, which would be close to 500 since the first of the year. He said the warrants are being cleared quite rapidly by the Police Department --more rapidly than they are being created. He stated the council also approved participation in a warrant program, called SECTIC, which is a program the city joined along with several other counties to coordinate our warrants with other county warrants. He said the cost was $3,000 to join the program which has been in effect approximately three months. He said after getting on line and programming in our warrants, we have had ten people served and they paid $1,563.50 in outstanding warrants. He noted these are people that probably would not have paid otherwise if they had not been found. He said this contributes to law enforcement generally to have a more effective way of serving the warrants. once again, Judge DeLong requested the approval of the credit cards in the municipal court. Scott Bounds, City Attorney, advised if the Council has no objections, this is something that can be done administratively. Mayor Monday noted then there is a consensus for approval of this method of payment. Discussion: Councilmember Carter noted while he has no objection to this plan, he was concerned that other payment methods still be available for those who do not qualify for credit cards. Judge DeLong noted there is no intention to discontinue the other program, but merely to add the credit card option in order to eliminate some of the record keeping required when fines are paid off over time. Councilmember Carter asked how the decision is made to place an offender on the work program. Judge DeLong advised the people who do not have money to pay their fines, usually ask for some other way to pay off their fine, and they are then given the opportunity to use the payment plan or to work it out on the work program. He said this work plan is designed to accommodate those who do not have the money. Mayor Monday congratulated the Judge on the work program and the number of hours given to the city in this manner. Judge DeLong said the work program is a respectable alternative to laying out a fine in jail, noting it is no longer a permissible alternative to convert a fine to a jail sentence. L_ D MINUTES OF THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MAY 31, 1988 BOOK "P" 97 CITY MANAGER'S REPORT- -GENE PIPES Consider a Proposed schedule of hours of operation for the Library during the summer months Gene Pipes, City Manager, advised the library hours were cut back due to budget constraints. He noted Judy Hunter, Librarian, is here to advised the Council of the Library Board's recommended operational hours for the summer, taking into consideration patron needs for morning hours and balancing that against necessary behind- the-scenes shelving and processing staff requirements. Mrs. Hunter advised the current hours are: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday 12:00 Noon - 6:00 P.M. Thursday 10:00 A.M. - 5:00 P.M. Friday 12:00 Noon - 5:00 P.M. Saturday 10:00 A.M. - 2:00 P.M. for a total of 34 hours. Mrs. Hunter recommended the following "patron" hours for June 1 through August 31: Monday- Thursday 10:00 A.M. - 5:30 P.M. Friday CLOSED (lowest circulation day) Saturday 10:00 A.M. - 2:00 P.M. She further recommended summer - "staff" hours (in cooperation with HEAP activities across the street) as follows: Monday- Thursday 8:30 A.M. - 5:30 P.M. Friday 8:00 A.M. - 5:00 P.M. Saturday 10:00 A.M. - 2:00 P.M. Mrs. Hunter advised the public service hours will remain at a total of 34 per week. She advised the Friday closure will allow staff to process much needed new materials. Mayor Monday expressed concern for the working people in that by the time they leave work, the Library is closed except for Saturday. She felt the evening extensions were nice for the working people. Councilmember Barrett asked how many people cane in after 5:00 P.M. Mrs. Hunter said the numbers drop off significantly after 5:00 P.M. and by 5:30 P.M. it is very, very light. She said people do utilize the Library during the lunch hour. Mayor Monday said unless there are any objections from the Council, these are the Library Board's recommendations and they will be implemented by the staff. There were no objections expressed by the Council. Consider termite treatment Proposals for the Municipal Justice Center Building to Huntsville Pest Control in the amount of $2.800 to be paid from general fund unallocated reserve which has a balance of $20,122. Gene Pipes, City Manager, advised that a termite infestation was spot treated last year, however, the termites have moved to another location in the building along the same expansion joint in the building and the subterranean insects are invading and eating the studs in the wall. He then recommended a general treatment of the building in the amount of $2,800 with an annual renewal of $75.00. He said the only available funds are from the general fund unallocated reserve, which has a balance of $20,122. Scott Bounds, City Attorney, asked how many annual renewals will be honored at the $75.00 renewal rate. Mr. Pipes noted this information is not presented here. Chief Eckhardt noted his understanding is that the number of annual renewals is unlimited, although he would verify this. Scott Bounds said unless it is more than one, Terminix would have the cheaper bid. He said the city would have to renew twice in order for Huntsville Pest Control to be the cheaper bid. Chief Eckhardt felt certain the renewal rate is available for more than MINUTES OF THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MAY 31, 1988 BOOK "P" 98 two years, but he would get that information and get back to the Council. Gene Pipes, City Manager, noted since this is a professional services contract, the Council can approve this work in an amount not to exceed $2,800 so that it can become a budgeted item, and then let the staff negotiate the best bid with the bidders. Councilmember Barrett made the motion to approve of up to $2.800 for this work and that the best bid be negotiated and Councilmember Gaines seconded the motion Discussion: Councilmember Barrett proposed that the low bid include more than two annual renewals All were in favor and the motion passed unanimously. MAYOR'S ACTIVITY REPORT--JANE MONDAY Sewer Break Out-- Grandpersons' Center Mayor Monday passed on a compliment to the sewer division for the quick response and efficient repair at the Grandpersons' Center today. She asked the City Manager to pass on the compliment to the employees. Open Space Committee Work Mayor Monday advised she has met with the Open Space Committee who will be meeting several times between now and July 12. She said they will be bringing to the Council a proposed dedicated green area addition to the comprehensive plan. Parks Advisory Board Work Mayor Monday noted she has also visited with the Parks Advisory Board which is working with the Open Space Committee, to bring new elements to the Council on July 12 and to the Council's retreat on July 16 for inclusion in the master plan. City Planner, Dale Brown, is working closely with both of these boards, she stated. Persons in Community Interested in the Central Business District Mayor Monday told the Council she has also visited with several interested people in the community concerning the downtown business district. She said there are several subcommittees that are brainstorming that element and they will be working with staff to bring that element into the comprehensive plan for the Council's consideration on July 16. She said all three of these areas are moving ahead and the Council will have some interesting things to look at along with the other elements of the comprehensive plan. Walker County Historical Commission -- Historical Highlighting Committee Work Mayor Monday said she will be appointing three Councilmembers to work with the Walker County Historical Commission to work on areas to be highlighted historically around the community. She said documentation and data will be collected and reviewed. She said James Patton, County Clerk, member of the Walker County Historical Commission, is working with her and has a copy of the H -GAC study done in 1981 concerning this information. Mr. Patton will be bringing this information to the Council to include in their review. She appointed Councilmembers Barrett, Gaines and Carter to work with her to review that material so that a report can be brought back to the full council to look at areas to be historically highlighted in the city and what the Council may want to do with this. This then may ultimately also be included in the comprehensive plan of the City, she noted. Charles Wagamon, newly elected President of the HISD Board -- proposed ioint meeting Mayor Monday advised she has met with Dr. Charles Wagamon concerning city and school relationships and how they might be improved and areas on which the two entities may work in cooperation and coordination. J L' MINUTES OF THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MAY 31, 1988 BOOK "P" 99 She said it is their mutual suggestion that a joint meeting be held this summer between the City Council and the School Board. She suggested the city host it at the Service Center and have them come on an intervening night (not a regularly scheduled Council Meeting night) so that we can show them where water and sewer are Located in the city, where our streets, transportation and materials are, so we can begin to discuss with them and make information available to them that might be helpful as they begin to look at facility Location. She said Dr. Wagamon will take this suggestion to the School Board. She said the City will also wish to talk with them about coordinating park areas, traffic patterns around alt of the schools, and other mutually beneficial projects. She said with the Council's permission, she will work with Mr. Pipes to schedule that meeting this summer. There were no objections to this plan. Bill Shoening-- Congratulations for Award. Mayor Monday then congratulated KSAM radio personality, Bill Shoening for his recent Texas AP Broadcaster's 1987 Jordan - Flaherty Award for Outstanding Coverage and Cooperation. She noted it is also an honor for the City of Huntsville, as well. Alcohol /Drug Abuse Task Force Mayor Monday advised she has met with this Task Force and a steering committee will be formed. She then asked Councitmembers Knotts and Howard to serve on this Steering Committee along with a number of other people. The steering committee will discuss the type of structure they would Like to put in place. COUNCIL ACTION City of Crockett's Visit Councilmember Carter noted he congratulates the staff as it is quite a compliment for the whole city council of Crockett to select Huntsville to learn about its programs. Grass Overgrown between Curbs and Walkways in City Councitmember Knotts asked the city to spend some time removing, cutting and /or controlling in some fashion the overgrown weeds in the city's rights -of -way, specifically between the curbs and walkways around town so as to spruce up the appearance of our streets, noting they "look bad." He said it may be something to add to the Municipal Court work program. Huntsville Housing Authority Dog Problem Councilmember Howard asked for a stepped up patrol by the humane officer of the Watkins Clark Housing Project for the control of stray dogs. ADJOURNMENT After some questions for clarification by the news media, the meeting then adjourned. Respectfully submitted, Ruth DeShaw, City Secretary May 31, 1988