Council - Regular Meeting

from Monday, March 16th to order at 6 p.m. and ask the secretary to call the role. Council President Briggs here. Councelor Bartos here. Councelor Blosser here. Councelor Fitzgerald is excused. Councelor Holesapple here. Councelor Jance here. Councelor Schilling here. Councelor Shane here. Councelor Spivey here. Right, we have a quorum. Uh item on the agenda is the police station and city hall renovation project. Brian

Mayor Slack um decided to take a seat over here so I can kind of talk to everyone at the same time as I see you. Um so this is a a follow-up to our January 5th meeting where the city council decided to uh move forward with the uh proposal to uh renovate the itemizer observer building into a new city hall and then renovate this building, the current city hall into the police station for the city of Dallas. And so, um, since we made that decision, this the council, uh, city staff went and, um, solicited some additional, uh, estimates from both, uh, architecture firms and a contractor, um, for the renovation work at the itemizer building as well as the architectural and engineering work for kind of the beginning phases of the renovation of the city hall building into the police station just so we could have a little bit more certainty on what the number uh, for the initial interfan debt service um would be uh and so you'll see in your packet um attachments uh B and C are the two construction uh contracting estimates. Uh the first is from Dulki construction. The second is from Woodburn Construction. Um and again that is for the work uh to renovate the itemizer observer building into the new city hall. And then attachments D and E are the two uh estimates from uh the architecture firms um working with engineers and others uh for the seismic uh report that would be required for this building to be able to then apply for the business Oregon seismic rehabilitation grant. um you have to have a report done by a seismic engineer, an engineer that uh knows that knows that work um to be able to apply for that grant as well as then a conceptual layout for the city hall building um as what it could be as a police station. So it's not um the full architectural work. It's not getting you know construction ready documents. It's

just that preliminary work. So um the estimates for I'll first maybe talk about the itemizer building. Um, so the estimates for that that project were between 1.2 and one 1.4 plus million dollars. Um, uh, there's still, you know, some things that we feel as staff as we've evaluated that that maybe are missing. There's some furnishings and some other stuff like that that would be required for that work. Um, uh, we also build in kind of a healthy contingency for any change orders or things that might occur with that work or surprises as we, you know, open up walls and roofs and stuff like that. So, um, we feel confident that if we were to, uh, put a number of $2 million, uh, not to exceed number of 2 million, we'd feel very safe with that number. Um, uh, something to remember is that the renovations of this building um are, uh, kind of ongoing, right? It's not something that's going to be fixed in one year or with one one project, but we would that that work would be phased over time. So any savings that we would recover from the itemizer project could be then put into this building. Um so you know if we didn't spend $2 million that's not a loss. Um that money could then just be moved over to this building uh for work in the future. Um so that's the the cost for that project over there. Uh so we slated that for $2 million. This building for the architecture work uh the conceptual design as well as the seismic uh report. Um the two architecture firms uh got back to us and their quotes were you know between 30,000 and just under $50,000. Um so we're feeling pretty confident that we would be able to accomplish that work um when we go out for bids uh for that project um at $50,000. So allin total project for initial interfund alone um would be $2.05 million. Um I'll stop there and ask if there's any questions

that that 2.05 05 million and that would be simply to cover the uh the new city hall. It would be mostly the new city hall plus the conceptual architecture work for this building. So like conceptually what could this be as a police station, right? Where would you have squad room break room uh evidence interview room rough cut design? Um not construction ready permit level design work but just conceptually how would the you know layout look in this building. So maybe this is a premature question um because u the architects haven't done that work yet. Um do we have even any sort of a rough handle on what the bill is likely to be to do the seismic work? So

because that's got to be a fairly big ticket item.

Yeah, we don't. Um so the other component of that $50,000 um for this building in the initial loan would be uh to do the seismic report. Um that seismic report would come along with a cost estimate, right, of here's what we think, you know, in order to do the work that needs to happen for this building to be seismically retrofitted, here's what the cost would be. Um the rehabilitation grants from Business Oregon are up to $3 million. Um so if uh the seismic work in this building would be, you know, more than 3 million, um then the city would contribute towards that. Um if it was less than 3 million, then the grant could fund that fully. Um the grant does not require match. Um but you know any money that the city could put towards it would be a good thing.

So it's we don't really have a a specific target yet. We don't um and that would be something that again would be known after we do that initial work. Um the the proposal u any any more questions? I'll get into how we're going to pay for all this in a second. Yeah, go ahead. Uh it was discussed about um to be able to use this building right away as the police station. um some doors security thing features that might be added. Is that cost put into here? That initial It is. Yep. That would be included in that. All right. Perfect. And that we're we're talking, you know, probably less than 10 or $15,000 total.

So with the with the AR architectural bid here, we're going to get conceptuals and a seismic report. So from that, we can then get a bid from someone. So from that we would have the seismic report should include a cost estimate. So we would have an idea of what the renovations for the seismic work would be. We would then take that report and apply for the business Oregon grant, right? So we could then start doing the work. In the meantime, um the fee that we would be collecting to help pay for the future for the repayment of the debt um for the itemizer building renovation and the future projects in this building. um that fee will be collected over time and as we apply for that grant um we're just collecting the revenue and setting it aside to be able to be used in this building. So again, if the grant um covered, you know, 80% of that project, say um you know, it might take us a year or two to be able to raise the rest of the revenue to put into the work for this for the construction of the seismic upgrade in this building. Um, we don't know what that number is, but whatever it is, uh, it would just be a matter of time before the city would be able to raise the revenue to pay for that.

Intention is to keep this room and the court here.

Yeah. So, uh, the court the courtroom um, the court clerk in her space, her space would be expanded a little bit would be our vision um, for storage purposes and and things like that. So, she can continue to operate. Uh, council chambers would still meet here. uh the police would just incorporate this into you know their work as well. So if it's not being used for a council meeting or a committee meeting it could be used for you know their purposes and they currently have some staff meetings and stuff they do in this room. So when the 2 million and change there's enough excuse me enough money for us to move city staff over there to city hall turn this over to the police and secure it accordingly so they can operate until we figure out all the other seismic expenses and stuff. Yeah.

So, the police would have a an immediate benefit to be able to utilize this space, have more, you know, breathing room um you know, for uh their operational needs. Uh and then, um yeah, so as we then move forward, you know, if we were doing the seismic work, we'd likely have to relocate the police back out of this building. So, kind of put them back into their squad room. They're not going to abandon that holy, but um so they'd be back in there, maybe utilize some of the uh excess spaces that we'll have in city hall, the new city hall um for the short time that this building then gets renovated. Yeah, go ahead.

Um two two questions. Uh Brian, um one, I'm uh pretty happy about doing that we're healthy enough to do an inter fund loan. um do you have a ballpark about how much we're not paying somebody else in interest because we're doing an inter fund and then can we talk about an idea of what funds that's going to be coming from? Is that putting any strain on anything or how we looking? Yeah. So, um I'll jump into the financials in just a minute and I can answer that question. So, let's hold off on that. Um let me go to councelor Benthos. He had a question. Can you talk me through the thought process of doing city hall first and moving everybody over there and then moving the police over here?

Yeah. So, um you know, if this building uh is where we want the police to be eventually, right? Um and have you know uh again this building is roughly 22,000 ft which is more than adequate in terms of the amount of space. It gives even more space than any of the options we had previously looked at, right? We were at like a you know 13 to 17,000 foot building. So this adds an additional you know 4 or 5,000 on top of that on the high end. Um so you know this building provides adequate physical space. It's just organizing it in the right way. Um and so in order for them to be in here and start occupying this space, you have to relocate the people that are here. Um and so that's why we're looking at getting the itemizer renovated first. Um, we also anticipate that being a lesser project in terms of dollars and cents. Um, and so it's an easier first step bite to take care of that project, allow the police to move in here operationally, you know, in the beginning, get the seismic work done. Once the seismic works done, then we can start to phase in um the rest of the renovations over time as the city has the money to pay for that.

I assume you're going to cover this in the financials, but that also opens opportunities for us financially, right, for this one. And I'll let you answer that.

It does. So let's um let's jump into that. You can certainly ask more questions just related to the the projects, but uh let's jump into the finances a little bit. So these are in attachments um uh F and G. So um you can jump back there and I can just talk from those documents. So this is kind of the last page of your packet. So, we had our our financial adviser um run three different scenarios for the interfund alone. Um so, to answer councelor Swy's question, yes, the city does have um uh funds in our system development charge uh for the sewer account to be able to cover a $2 million loan. Um we would then uh that fund also provides some additional inter fund loans right now that are currently being paid back. So that that fund is constantly in a state of you know lending out and receiving revenues back right so it goes back and forth um but there's also not uh you know we don't have in our our future planning horizon an overabundance of sewer SDC eligible projects and so while that's our healthiest fund it's also because we don't have you know new expanded sewer projects that are taking away from that money so we have that luxury all right um Brian

just and just for the counselors to understand we need a healthy sewer SDC fund not for that we need it immediately but when we do have to do an expansion that will be an extremely expensive project so this is looking forward down the road and we get a benefit from it right now because we can do the inter fund loans

so for example you know if um so the lock rail node let me just talk about the sewer SDC real fast so the lock rail node sewer project that we did um you know that project cost a little over a million dollars um that would have be that would have been paid wholly out of system development charges um but for the fact that we leveraged a million dollars from the state um to pay for that that didn't affect that fund, right? Um so that fund would have had a million dollars less had we not had the state allocate money for that, right? So we're grateful for our our our representative and senator from the state who fought for us to get that money to pay for that project. It retained our ability to have a healthier system development charge fund for the sewer. Um but like lockown loads lock mode phase two um that's going to be expensive right that's going to be more than a million dollars um we anticipate um so we also asked the uh federal and state legislature to help with that and um we have $500,000 coming in from the federal government to help offset that cost. So you know while we have those funds available for some major projects that are expensive we also try to get other revenue sources to come in so that we're not just using only our raised revenues. So that helps keep those funds healthy as well is when we're able to leverage the outside funds. All right. Um so if you go to uh page 43 of your packet, this is the interfund loan schedule. We had our uh financial adviser look at three different scenarios and that was just in terms of the the term of the loan, right? So we did a 5-year, a 7-year, and a 10-year loan. Um the amount is the same each year, right? $2.05 million. the interest rate, which the city sets that themselves, um because it's you're borrowing from yourself. Um we typically would go with the uh local government investment pool, whatever that rate is. Um at the time we set the loan, it's just a little bit over 3.5 right now. Um so just for ease of this discussion, I just calculated 3.5 or had them

calculate 3.5. So, um I'll draw your attention to a couple numbers. Um let's go to the total columns. Uh so for the five-year um each year you're paying roughly $455,000, right? No more than that. It's $454 and change. Your total would be 2.27 million and a little bit of change. Your interest is $220,000 for a 5-year loan. Um at the 7-year repayment schedule, your um annual debt service is a little more than 335,000, right? Um, so it's a little less you about $120,000 less than the 5-year loan per year. Um, but you're, uh, goes from, you know, 220,000 to 296,000. So, you're paying an additional 76,000 in interest over the life of those two additional years. The 10-year loan, um, your annual debt service is about 247,000 a year. Um, your interest payments though, uh, from the I'll go back to the five-year loan at at 220,000 jump up to 4415,000, right? So, you're about 195,000 more in interest for an additional 5 years of the loan. Um, so those are the three uh debt services with an interfund loan for capital construction. Uh, the state uh law only allows you to do up to a 10-year loan. So, you can't go beyond like a 15 or 20 year or 30-year amortization. It's limited to 10 years. So, those are the three uh schedules we we proposed. Um again, if you go out to the 10-year loan, you're paying, you know, almost $200,000 more in interest. Um but your annual debt service is, you know, um about, you know, a little more than $100,000 or $200,000 less per year as well. So, that's the kind of takeaway between the fivey year and the 10 year.

the sevens in between there. All right. So, flip now to the back side of your packet. Um, we do we do propose a staff uh to pay for the debt service and the eventual project projects here in this building um through a facility and equipment fee. Uh that would be a fee that would be collected through the city building system um on a monthly basis. And we had the financial adviser um run uh a few different scenarios. So, we had them run a $5 fee, a $6 fee, a $7 fee, and an $8 fee. Um, and those uh fees are calculated there. So, you see the monthly revenue and the annual revenue as you go across the table from left to right. The number of accounts is the number of sewer accounts that we have. So, like with the public safety fee, we base that off of the number of sewer accounts. So, an apartment complex that has 20 units, they have 20 sewer accounts, they would pay the fee 20 times, right, each month. Um, but a single family house that has one sewer account would pay one fee per month. Um, so again, 7,900 accounts is what we currently have. So this does not account for growth in right, we tend to add your new accounts. Um, so that's not accounted for here, which is something to know that these numbers the annual revenue would probably grow over time. Uh, the growth isn't like crazy big growth. Um, so for the purposes of the discussion, I think just noting that there will be some incremental growth is good to know. Um, but if you look at the the $5 fee, your annual revenue is $474,000 and that's assuming everyone paid, right? Not everyone pays. Um, until, you know, they uh close their account and then they do pay at the end. Um, but some people don't like paying the monthly bill and so they just don't. Um, again, we eventually collect that at the end uh of their their time in Dallas. Um, the $6 fee it would generate

$569,000 roughly in revenue annually. The $7 fee $664,000. The $8 fee would be $758,000. Um, so when you when you side byside compare, and I probably should have done those on different pages so you're not having to flip back and forth, but when you um look at the $5 fee and the the 5-year loan, right, the $5 fee would generate $474,000 in revenue, again, assuming everyone pays. And your debt service for a 5-year loan is $454,37. So, conceivably, you would be able to cover a 5-year loan debt service with a $5 fee, right? Um, but there's no wiggle room for excess funds. Um, so you would really lock yourself in, if you did a $5 fee and a 5-year loan, um, to saying, "We're just going to really focus on getting the itemizer renovated into city hall, pay off the debt, and then after the five years, we can focus all of the money, um, then on this building." But this building for the first 5 years we wouldn't really touch um other than you know getting the doors secured and having the police operate in the existing city hall space. Um so that's what that would look like if you wanted to uh do a 5-year loan but have excess money that you could then utilize on this building. I call it excess money because it's money above what the debt service is, right? For the itemizer building um for that 2.5 million or 2.05 05 million. Um, you know, if you did like a $7 fee raising 6636 per year, you're now clearing, you know, about $120,000 a year at a 5-year loan. So, the council really has to decide tonight um or give direction tonight. We don't have to decide anything, but give direction on what is the the interfund loan that you

would like to see and the debt service. Um staff have a recommendation um uh of doing a $5 fee and a 10-year uh debt on the $2.05 million loan. Um what that would do would give you uh essentially um enough to pay the the debt for the itemizer building plus it would give you an additional I believe it was $226,000 roughly going back to the report. um $226,000 annually that you could then set aside for the the renovations in the city hall building, right? So, while you're paying off the debt, you have the money setting aside, you know, a little under a4 million a year that could then be utilized and growing year-over-year. So, maybe you don't do a project in year one. The second year you have almost $500,000 that you could put towards a project in this building. um you'd be able to complete both projects in I I believe, you know, a timely manner. Um and you would to do that at just a $5 fee. So, let me talk about and well, let me just stop there before I talk about how we would um maybe look at reducing a fee and and balancing the the impact to the citizens. Any questions on the financials? No. All right. So, um if the council were to agree with a $5 fee and a 10-year debt, um then, uh to minimize the impact to the bill payer in Dallas, um staff would recommend reducing your storm water fee that you currently collect with the city bill. That fee currently sits at $16 a month. Um, and it's needed to be able to accomplish your short-term, what I call short-term is a five-year uh projects um of storm water projects. So that's like flood control management, widening coverts,

you know, rebuilding bridges, um stuff of that nature. Um and it also sets enough money aside for the five plus year projects. So we have some, you know, bridge projects in particular, those are more expensive, require a lot more revenue. Um, so we're setting aside money today to be able to accomplish those projects, you know, in the next, you know, six to 20 years. Um, so it's really kind of a policy decision of the council. Um staff are recommending to saying if you were to reduce that storm water free from 16 down to 11, you could still accomplish all of your five-year projects, storm water projects that we have on our capital improvement plan um and only reduce your beginning fund balance um in the stormwater fund by $500,000. Your beginning fund balance today is a little over 3 million. So you'd be going from a little over three to a little over $2.5 million after 5 years and you're accomplishing about $3 million worth of projects over the span of that 5year period in the storm water fund. Um with a $5 reduced fee, right? So you're at $11 instead of 16. Um, and so what it does do though is it does take some of those six to 20 year projects and maybe push them out a little bit longer or we, you know, are more aggressive in finding additional outside resources like we do for the sewer projects we had to be able to accomplish those projects. Um so but you're you're trading that right for the ability to be able to accommodate the public safety needs um of you know the more you know those current needs that we have today that you've identified. So, um, but if you were to do that, if you were to reduce your storm water fee by $5 and create this, uh, public, uh, or the facilities and equipment fee, um, which again would be general fund, uh, uses, um, the net effect on the bill payer

would be $0. So, they wouldn't, uh, they would not see a difference in their bill with, uh, because of the new the implementation of the new fee, right? you'd be reducing one fee by $5, increasing this, you know, creating a new fee by $5, and the net effect would be a wash to the citizens. They wouldn't feel that. Um, so that's that's staff's proposal. Uh, we think that that uh is is beneficial to the public in a number of different ways. Um, it doesn't impact them uh you know, financially more than they're paying today. Um, and it enables the city to be able to accomplish um some needed capital projects uh that are paid for out of kind of precious general fund dollars um while uh still allowing the five-year stormwater projects to be completed and um you know not uh totally tying your hands for those stormwater projects on the out years. Um may may delay you know a couple of those. Um, but a lot of those are also very high dollar projects that, you know, may not actually get accomplished in the next 20 years. It might take us even longer. So, we're working on those.

Brian, you never cease to amaze me with your creativity of these numbers, and I really appreciate not just this, but you're just a genius with these budgets, and I know that you're doing a lot with a little. The only question I have is and I want to confirm that we are actually or at least want to go on the record. We're not raising any fees to the citizens. We're taking reducing by five and adding by five net zero for five years.

What happens after the five years on the $500,000 that we with with the 5-year reduction? The forecast says the proposed five $5 reduction in this fee would result in a 16.67% 67% or a $500,000 reduction if we're committing to a 10-year payback. Should we consider that a 10ear? So, I I didn't calculate 10 years because we don't forecast our capital projects um yeartoear after 5 years, right? Right? We do a 5-year capital improvement plan and then we have on our capital improvement plan a last column that says, you know, year six plus. And that plus could be 20 years out, it could be 10 years out, it could be 6 years out.

Basically a to-do list,

right? It's it's a to-do list of projects. As we have funding and and we prioritize those, they make them on the 5year list. So that's why I didn't calculate beyond the 5 years um is because we really don't know what year 6 7 8 9 10 look like yet because we haven't yet prioritized those projects. Um so but what I I can say is in the stormwater fund um with the 5year for you know the 5-year outlook the projects we know we want to accomplish in the next 5 years those projects cost us uh right around $3 million. you have a $3 million beginning fund balance, you're going to raise um about $2 and half million dollars with the stormwater fee over that fiveyear period. So, you're going to have a net loss of $500,000 in your beginning fund balance after having completed $3 million worth of stormwater projects.

Puts it at 1.5. Then it puts it at 2.5. 2.5. So, yeah, you're going to have a 2.5 beginning fund balance, which is healthy in the stormwater fund. Um, and so if you had, you know, a million-dollar storm water project to do in year six, you would still be able to accomplish that. You're not the hits the fan, right?

Saying um we I feel confident um with the stormwater projects that we're looking at beyond 5 years, those are some major projects, bridge replacements, right? replacing the Main Street Bridge with a a larger span to be able to allow the Ash Creek to flow under it. The Uglow Bridge, right? A lot of them are Ash Creek specific. Um those are, you know, 10 plus million dollar projects that even with a $16 fee, you're probably looking at at least 10 or 15 years. Um if we pay it out of the storm water funds. Now, we're putting our our state and federal legislators on notice that, hey, we we're going to need some nut money for this, and we're working with our staffs to identify um you know, grant opportunities through the agencies both at the federal and state level that can and programs that can help pay for those. So, I don't expect the city to you know, fully front the money for those projects. We will, you know, stack funding from other sources to be able to help with that. Um the city's contribution though, there's going to be city contribution. it might take us, you know, a few extra years to be ready to do that project because we're prioritizing this project, the police station and the city hall uh project um with that facility and equipment fee.

Oh, sorry. Here, I'll be real quick. I I want to kind of dig a little bit deeper into what President Briggs said about your creativity. Uh, the biggest push back that I received from the people I spoke to about the police station was it was costing somebody more every month. Even though it was $12.50, 50 $8. Um, you found a way to whittle this down to where the there's no net increase to our citizens, which I think is uh admirable that you found a creative solution to take care of our police, give them the room they need and to uh essentially not cost uh more per month to the citizens. That's that's a big deal. Um that's a really big deal and I appreciate that.

Yeah, I think the credit really goes to the citizens, right? I mean, if the citizens would have said yes, we would all be paying more, myself included, right? I'm a resident of Dallas. Um, and so because they said no, though, um, you know, it required everyone in this room to look, uh, and say, okay, well, what's next? And, and the council and the mayor and staff evaluated, you know, well, how do we value engineer, you know, the project that we put out to the citizens? Can we go out and ask again? And we certainly could have done that. Um, uh, but we also looked at other options, you know, how do we do something different, you know, completely? Um and uh you know this this proposal you know came to to light through those conversations and discussions and um so it's really thanks to the citizens for saying no initially right that got us to where we are today. Um you know and I have a great staff that works with me um give them credit as well. It's it's been a good team effort. I I think we've come to a good solution. Um and I I'll give kudos to councelor Chance who said you know can we reduce a fee to help offset this? And I said well let me look at that. And so, you know, it really does take a team effort. There's a lot of us that are all, you know, talking and having conversations appropriately talking. You know, we're not having serial meetings outside of this meeting, but um we're having good conversations that are leading to, I think, good results and uh and taking the time to make it happen. So, I I appreciate the effort that's gone into it from everyone. I think there was a question here and then we'll go this way.

Yeah. So this is some out of the box thinking and especially on the financial end, you know, this it's looks really good on the financial end. But the reason we got here in the first place was we wanted to do something to support our police officers by giving them a new police station with more room. So to me it seems that the priority here is being put on a new city hall station. When can we see short-term dividends and then long-term dividends to our police department? Because what you know overall what they're looking for is more room, more capacity, uh safer environment, more room for the evidence and things like that. and they're 70 80 years way behind uh everybody else in the police industries. So to me it looks like the priority is on a new city hall and we're losing a priority on the police. What do we see um short-term solutions that we can look at?

Yeah, I love that question. Um and thank you for asking that. So, uh, because there are immediate, um, uh, positive impacts for the police department, right? Um, as but again, you have to get the city hall out of the way, right? In order for the police to start leveraging this building for their operations on a daily basis and that can happen as soon as the itemizer is con, you know, renovated so we can get the city hall employees out and allow the police to start taking over this building and utilizing it immediately. So, you're going to see that right away. Um, you know, I think Woodburn Construction put in here a schedule. They think they can get the itemizer building renovated in, I think, 16 weeks. So, you know, by uh, you know, fall, early winter, um, of this year, you know, we're going to be able to have the police in this building um, utilizing the spaces here. We have several safes in this building. So, there's opportunity right away for property and evidence storage that needs to be secured um uh in lockable safes that are, you know, walk-in big safes, right, in this building. Um and so there's there's immediate opportunity for that. There's immediate opportunity for um you know, creating some offices into interview spaces or other, you know, there's there's things that we can do right away. Um in

like to know specifically when So, it would be uh city hall moves out. So, let's let's say that happens, you know, midfall, October, November. Um, so you get the employees out of here. We would have a little bit of work to secure some doors in and in this building. Um, that would probably take a couple weeks at the most. So, I would say by November, um, the police are utilizing this building of this year. That go concurrently. Uh, like Oh, yeah. I mean, we don't have to wait to put the doors in while that's taking place. the day the day that they move out

the day the day city hall moves out you know we big moving party we' move out over there they move in here I mean that could all happen at the same time but I would say you know by November all that's all that's occurring thank you council Shane

building pardon me building on what Larry and Robert both said about the creativity in this project this project ever since the voters dumped it back in our laps this project has benefited from um some really superb creative thinking just beginning with the decision to move the city hall over there in the first place and then all the stuff we've heard since then and tonight about the financials and the way of the various ways of paying for it. Um this whole thing's been characterized by really good creative thinking and as you say it comes from a lot of sources. Um, as far as the financials go, um, you know, this is Oregon. We live in we live in an environment of very limited resources for all the reasons that we all know. Um, and given given uh given the juggling that has to happen to make things come out right. um the the recommendation that staff has made here, the 5year the $5 fee and the 10-year um amortization um and the fact that it can be done without um you know a pocketbook hit to the citizens which as we all know is a very very big deal in the current environment. This looks like uh um to me like a what I'm trying to say just a really good way of juggling the the dominoes and making them all line up right so that we can do what we need to do. So um kudos to staff for all the work and thought that went into this and and and you can see how much of there was. So um yeah um I I support this fully. It's a shilling.

So, me personally, I look at the the amount of interest and I know we're paying it to ourselves, but if we're not paying it to ourselves, somebody else is paying it to us. And but in recognition of uh sorry, I was going to call you Carlos. Councelor Bantos's comments, we are behind on the police station. We've been trying to have a police station for about 8 years, but since I've been here and actually longer. Well, the 8 years, correct? That's what I was getting to.

Um, and with that, since we are paying ourselves, it doesn't hurt quite as bad as far as I mean, if we waited a year or two, it's amazing how much that interest rate drops. And that's what's neat about or great about this idea of going and having a fund starting to build. We don't have to worry about that interest on future projects. We can raise the 500, the 700, the the million dollars projects to put into this building as we're getting grants to fund it. Um, and then to circle back to Brian's comment about the reducing the storm water fee, he talked about widening the bridge. Well, widening it doesn't have to be covered by the fee. It cannot be covered. That's called an expansion. That's also covered by the SDC fee. So, you can tap into it. And I'm sure Brian would tap into that and grants as well. So, I don't see the reduction of the $5. Yes. It's going to show its ugly tails sometime. But at the same time, I think this is the best option that we have in front of us.

Yeah. the the expansion of like the culberts, you know, widening of those. Um there's a there's a proportion calculation that we do because you have to you have to discount the existing, you know, benefit and then what's the new benefit? The new benefit would be SDC eligible. So there's it's not 100% paid by the fee. It would the storm water fee there would be, you know, some storm water fee component and then some SDC eligible component of those growth projects for widening bridges and stuff like that. Yep. Just so I'm not misunderstood, I'm fully on board with the financial packet. It is out of the box thinking, but I know as a law enforcement officer, you'd like to know as much information upfront of what you're looking at. And if you know as uh Boots on the grounds know that uh construction is starting it's estimated to be 16 weeks uh they're subject to moving probably November December. The more information they know the better they'll be able to adjust to the movement. So I was more concerned about when the shortterm gains are. I know the long-term gains could we don't we can't predict how long that's going to be, but

yeah, but I mean I think you know you're right. Um I didn't talk enough about the short-term gains, but there are short-term wins for the police department right away. Um and there's there's the long-term gains as well. Those long-term will take a little bit more time, right? Because there's discipline is going to require a lot of work. Um but there's a there's a path to get there and it's I I like what we've come up with to be able to make that happen. So yes, certainly short-term uh gains right away. uh you know, Chief M I've been working with him closely on this and and other staff members um as we as we move to getting this fee in place and start you know we're working already on getting bids uh bid proposal packets put together so we can solicit bids um for the work uh you know once those things start taking place there's going to be a lot more staff engagement and and communication to the police officers they will know you what's going on the timing you know stuff like that so we'll make sure all that's communicated appropriately

I think it's worth pointing out too in terms the time frame because we've been talking here a lot about time frames um particularly after the five years um more and you know and this is what I'm about to say is reflected in the fact that you didn't calculate beyond 5 years um it gets to the point you go far enough out um um you're you're talking about angels on the head of a pin because more than five years out we don't know what the environment's going to be we don't know what what will be what kind of condition will be in fiscally we don't know what the new challenges are we don't what the new opportunities that we can't see now are. Um so, uh I think this proposal gets us to a point in 5 years where we'll be healthy enough to deal with whatever comes along, including the new challenges and opportunities that we can't even see now. So, yeah, I I think this makes sense.

Yeah. Again, we're we're this is going to be a facilities and equipment fee. So, as there are maybe some opportunities um to make a renovation or repair or a purchase uh you know of equipment um needed out as a capital expense out of the general fund, this fee can also be you know used to support that as well. Right. I mean it's all prioritized and the council will be involved in those decisions. But um you know long long term I think that there's um this is a really good business decision I think for the city. It's going to support the general fund um you know long term with its capital needs. uh the police station and the city hall renovation being the first projects and the first purchases.

Yeah, a lot of comment about the police and the the fact that end goal in all this is the police station and making sure that they're properly taken care of as well. the renovation of the old IO building. Can you give us an idea of how much expansion and growth we can do within that uh from the current status of we have at city hall and how much future use we can get out of that or if it's a oneanddone thing and if we need more space it's going to be more talk to that.

Sure. So, um, we have 20 current employees, city hall employees that would be relocated from this building into the the former IO space. Um, the the floor plan that we've laid out um would accommodate, I believe, 24 employees. Um, so there's room for four additional staff members in that space. There's also, uh, two additional kind of office workspaces that could be utilized. Um, and I don't want to lose sight of the fact that the the current squad room for the police department used to be part of the itemizer building. We built a wall when we purchased that segment from the itemizer when they were still the owners of the former building. Um, I also look at that space as being uh an expansion, a future expansion of the city hall as the police are fully in this building. So, um, there's opportunity, I think, for a lot of growth. I can't put an exact number on it, but I would say you're probably in the 30s of employees. Um, you know, so there's there's room to, you know, grow at least by a third of what we currently have in this this space.

Question. It's not functional or or financial. It's you could almost call it cosmetic, but um what are we going to do about the sign on the front of the building? It really shouldn't say itemizer observer if we're going to be city hall. No, we would change the the signage. Um, so even the the sign on the front of this building, the stone city hall, we would change that to say, you know, Dallas Police Department or police state, police station, whatever. Um, I haven't thought that far ahead. I said cosmetic,

right? Cosmetic. And we would do the same with the itemizer building. We would take the sign off and it would be, you know, city hall. So, we would change the signage appropriately. All right. So, I know we're getting near the time. Um, I just want to get consensus from council because our next step is to take uh a resolution to the council in a business meeting to establish the fee for the facility and equipment fee at $5. Um, and to reduce the storm water fee, which is currently set at 16 by resolution to $11. Does that sound like something that you want me to bring back in a future meeting? We don't do votes in in work sessions, but I'm for it.

I'm just getting a consensus not that's the next work you want me to do. All right. Um, now let's talk about the the debt the debt. So, a $5 fee, that's what we that we just consent it to. All right. Um, so are you are you comfortable with a 10-year debt at $2.05 million um with a 3 and a half% interest rate? All right, good. Then that's all I have unless there's other questions for anyone. All right. Thank you, Brian. Question I had. Um, when this is a full functional police station, are there still employees from city hall that are going to be working here?

The only employee that will still be working here that's currently working in the building would be our court clerk. And so, she'll still be located in the office here. Um, again, we're going to expand, we're thinking the expansion of our office would be to the east a little bit. So, we move her her wall over um a little bit to provide a little bit additional storage space. Um, but she would still work in this building. That makes a lot of sense, right? Especially if the courtroom stays here. She's essential. Not essential.

Because it might be that we want to move her, not physically, but departmentally. Questions or discussion for Brian? All right, we'll close the uh work session and start up the council session about 15