HomeMy WebLinkAboutCommittee of the Whole March 11 2008WHATCOM COUNTY COUNCIL
Committee Of The Whole
March 11, 2008
Council Chair Carl Weimer called the meeting to order at 6:15 p.m. in the Council
Conference Room, 311 Grand Avenue, Bellingham, Washington.
Present: Absent:
Barbara Brenner None
Bob Kelly
Sam Crawford
Seth Fleetwood
Laurie Caskey- Schreiber
L. Ward Nelson
CLOSED DISCUSSION
1. DISCUSSION AND NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE FOR COUNTY COUNCIL ON
EXPIRED COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENTS AND THE
UNREPRESENTED RESOLUTION (AB2008 -121)
This item was withdrawn from the agenda.
OPEN DISCUSSION
1. UPDATE ON REVIEW OF PDS ASSESSMENT OF RESOURCES AND PRIORITIES
FOR LONG RANGE WORK PLAN (AB2008 -059)
Rebecca Craven, Council Policy Analyst, stated the Planning and Development
Services Department Manager Stalheim presented the Planning Committee an assessment
of resources available to the Planning Department.and the long range work plan. She
reviewed the assessment, budget, and staff.
The Planning Committee will forward to the full Council new Comprehensive Plan
docket items for 2008, and will confirm the docket of previously- docketed, unfinished items
from 2007.
She tried to track the staff assigned to long range planning from 2003 forward. She
described the long -range planning staff history. They continue to be understaffed for the
level of work. One recent change is a senior planner position that's been reassigned to land
use.
She went through the fourth quarter report and other information to review budget
numbers. There was a wage and benefit lapse in 2007 of almost $600,000. The
department has under -spent $111,000 so far this year due to vacancies. The County Code
requires a continuing appropriation from administration to carry over money from one fiscal
year to another. It looks like there were no continuing appropriations of that Planning
Department money. The unspent salaries from 2007 have lapsed.
Committee of the Whole, 3/11/2008, Page 1
Councilmember Weimer is interested in undertaking mid -year review provided by the
biennial budget ordinance and County Charter. Depending on the detail to which that
happens, there are substantial revenue shortcomings in the budget proposed for the
Planning Department, especially the subdivision review revenues. They are 22 percent of
what they anticipated.
Crawford stated they doubled those fees, and the revenue came in at 22 percent.
Brenner stated this is a budget year. The mid - biennium review would have been
done last fall.
Crawford asked if Ms. Craven compared the subdivision revenue to 2008. In 2006,
over 200 shortplats were submitted in a two -week period when the downzone was
threatened. That may have been a peak in 2006. Craven stated she did not make that
comparison.
Brenner asked to compare the activity rather than the fees and revenues.
Caskey- Schreiber stated they shouldn't have more subdivisions. She's pleased that
statistic is down all over the county.
Brenner stated there are plenty of places for people to build. A steady stream would
be nice. Craven stated staff can find a comparison of the subdivision activity.
Caskey- Schreiber stated the committee talked about the fact that they've budgeted
for work on the limited areas of more intense rural development (LAMIRD's) and
concurrency. They asked Mr. Stalheim to consider contracting out those two big projects.
She would be inclined to support more money if needed.
Weimer stated they allocated money for the agricultural program, also.
Brenner stated the last staff person who worked on low impact development left to
go work for an engineering firm. The County can contract for that work, also.
Caskey- Schreiber stated that is not as easy as it seems.
Brenner stated they have to start somewhere. People in the private sector have
been working on it for the County when they were County employees. The County can
contract with those former employees to continue that work.
David Stalheim, Planning and Development Services Department Director, stated the
concurrency issue mentioned has to do with parks, not transportation. They have the
transportation concurrency issue covered, but not parks concurrency.
Craven stated she identified a few tasks not on the long range work plan, which need
to be added. Questions include whether the priorities should be modified, what level of staff
resources should be assigned, and whether the expectations for the 2011 update are
accurate. When looking at the urban growth area (UGA) reviews in the context of the 2011
update, regarding the adjustments to Blaine, it wasn't clear whether the resolution on the
ten -year review said they'd be done by 2009. That wasn't clearly included in the staff
allocation. The change from long -term planning areas to short-term planning areas in
Ferndale and Birch Bay should also be reviewed as a result of the ten -year review.
Committee of the Whole, 3/11/2008, Page 2
1 There's no proposed staff to deal with the response to the total maximum daily load
2 (TMDL) study for Lake Whatcom. The prioritized list of staff allocation doesn't include any
3 Planning Department support for the Lake Whatcom Management Plan unless something
4 else shifts. That is of concern.
5
6 Several plans are listed without any identified proposals for staff resources for
7 implementation, including the Affordable Housing Task Force, the Cherry Point Management
8 Plan, and the water resource inventory area (WRIA) Instream Flow Action Plan review. The
9 biggest assumption of the resourced allocation summary is that there will be no new
10 legislative initiatives from the County Council until the 2011 update.
11
12 Mr. Stalheim assessed a need for additional staff and $500,000 in consultants per
13 year over four years. Therefore, it's imperative that the Council review the list in detail and
14 go through a prioritization exercise. Respond to the Planning Director's questions about
15 which items have the highest priority and how to allocate staff time. The agricultural
16 program is a perfect example of why that needs to happen. There are serious
17 communication and priority differences between the Council and Executive. Those things
18 need to be figured out.
19
20 Brenner stated one reason for the moratorium was to develop a good purchase of
21 development rights (PDR) /transfer of development rights (TDR) program. Nothing has
22 happened with that. She asked if they discussed contracting that work. They exist in other
23 places. There is a formula. Whatcom County can hire a consultant to modify programs
24 from other jurisdictions.
25
26 Caskey- Schreiber stated they have a program, but they need to identify more
27 receiving areas.
28
29 Fleetwood stated they've had this discussion for months. He asked how they
30 formally embark upon making the final decision on whether the Council will support
31 increased staff, and then present that decision to the administration. Focus on that
32 question. He asked if the prioritization process presumes no additional staff. He asked if
33 prioritization is necessary if they get additional staff.
34
35 Kelly stated the Council must prioritize, regardless of its decision. The administration
36 has asked the Council to prioritize. He asked the mechanism for the Council to do that.
37
38 Caskey- Schreiber stated two years ago the Council allocated extra funds to contract
39 out the Code scrub, concurrency, and LAMIRD's. If they haven't used that money, do an
40 appropriation to put the contract into motion now. Existing staff will not be able to
41 complete the work the Council docketed. Contracting is easy. Just hire a land use attorney.
42
43 Nelson stated hiring a consultant is one way to do it, but that doesn't answer the
44 question of criteria and defining what's important. If everything is equally important, then
45 simply hire a contractor to do it all. However, the councilmembers don't agree on what is
46 important. The Finance Committee talked about that process. A committee will have to
47 start looking at each of these elements and then make a recommendation to the full
48 Council.
49
50 Caskey- Schreiber stated the staff brought forward the docket items, which she
51 supports, in addition to two more items.
52
Committee of the Whole, 3/11/2008, Page 3
Brenner stated they must budget more when more is happening, and then budget for
less when times are not as good. People seem irate that people are paying more for
everything. They are in a recession. Decide their highest priority issues and focus on them
to get them done. The Council must show it's sensitive to the recession, rather than hiring
more staff at this time.
Fleetwood stated they must know the staff resources first. He asked if the idea is
that the County Council will approve a supplemental budget request.
Dewey Desler, Deputy Administrator, stated the administration will try to help the
Council. Ms. Craven gave an accurate report. Big revenue problems are happening. There
is a tremendous demand from law and justice and many other elements of County
government. Consider how much money they have to spend from discretionary general
fund revenue to pay for Planning and Development Services each year. Since 1999, they
averaged about $250,000 per year. That amount comes from sales tax and property taxes.
Other revenue comes from grants and fees. Therefore, the County spends $250,000 to
support a fee - generating program called Planning and Development Services.
That changed. Now, they're spending $2.5 million for Planning and Development
Services. The revenue has not gone up. They are transferring a lot of revenue into the
Planning and Development Services.
The administration could use the Council's help with defining the priority issues for
staff, and then the priority to accommodate the other tasks that go beyond the County's
ability to pay for. He asked where they are willing to cut something else. The County fund
balance is going down faster than projected. They are not taking in as much revenue, but
more money was added to the budget in 2007/2008.
Fleetwood asked if they make cuts system -wide, or just within the Planning and
Development Services Department. Desler stated a lot of the cuts are within the Planning
and Development Services Department, but they have problems elsewhere.
Kelly stated the committee went through an exercise today that was productive. He
asked the Council to consider having a work session to figure out the priorities for the
Planning and Development Services Department and determine how to pay for it.
Caskey- Schreiber stated she doesn't advocate for more expenditures. She asked
what happened to the money the Council already budgeted for these projects. It was a
significant amount of money they haven't used. The Planning Committee already went
through a prioritization exercise today by docketing the Comprehensive Plan items for 2008.
At least address those issues this year, whether or not the administration agrees with them.
Figure out how to get the funds for which the Council already budgeted to Mr. Stalheim to
get those things done.
Brenner stated people have told her that fees generated go right into the general
fund. Also, she never received information on what the different permits cost. Desler
stated the fee and permit revenue goes into the general fund because the Planning and
Development Services Department is a general fund department.
Brenner asked what they've gotten each year out of fees and permits.
Crawford stated it's in the budget.
Committee of the Whole, 3/11/2008, Page 4
1 Craven asked if there has been a substantial shift in full -time equivalent (FTE)
2 employee allocation, given that the revenue information reflects a substantial drop -off in
3 building permits, subdivisions, and other development applications.
4
5 Stalheim stated most of the salary savings they see are from the Permitting Division
6 of the department, not long range planning. Now, they have one staff person with eight
7 months of experience working on plats. Two people are doing permits. They get an
8 incredible number of public disclosure requests. Those are not funded. It has become
9 increasingly difficult to tie permit activity to the amount of time necessary to do the work.
10 No one is sitting around the office. It's not possible to do that shift. Jim Thompson's
11 position technically became Cathy Craver's position in Natural Resources.
12
13 Fleetwood asked if they all agree with having a work session.
14
15 Caskey- Schreiber asked the goal of a work session. She asked what they would
16 prioritize. The Council will vote to docket Comprehensive Plan amendments tonight. She
17 understands that there is more prioritization to do. The projects on the list are moving
18 forward.
19
20 Craven stated they would prioritize the items on the work plan list for long range
21 planning. It won't be easy.
22
23 Nelson stated they need criteria for prioritizing.
24
25 Caskey - Schreiber stated that until the administration figures out how much can be
26 contracted out, they won't know how much they have to work with.
27
28 Weimer stated the administration won't know how many people they need until they
29 know what the Council wants to do.
30
31 Nelson stated the Council should establish simple criteria, such as preserving
32 agricultural lands. Create weights to apply, such as amount of staff time needed.
33
34 Fleetwood stated Ms. Craven could work on how this process would work well and
35 develop criteria. The councilmembers could preliminarily agree on criteria. Work with staff
36 on how many prioritized items the Council should consider. Then, the Council could have a
37 very productive meeting.
38
39 Weimer stated the administration has a sense of the Council's priorities, and also
40 that they don't want to bust the budget.
41
42 Crawford stated Ms. Craven can interview each councilmember with a set of survey
43 questions about what each thinks is important for planning. Then, compile that information
44 into some kind of report that the entire Council can vet and eventually send to the
45 Executive. Craven stated those things that are important still have to translated into
46 specific plans and programs.
47
48 Crawford stated Ms. Craven can structure the survey questions so they'll allow her to
49 do that.
50
51 Brenner stated the two major issues are their priorities and the staffing levels.
52 Those will be the two topics.
53
Committee of the Whole, 3/11/2008, Page 5
Nelson asked Ms. Craven to interview each councilmember individually to come up
with their own planning priorities and criteria to come up with five or six major criteria the
Council can use in a decision - making process. The criteria may change the perspective on
where certain projects go. That may hurt. If they don't do that, they won't get a handle on
it.
Kelly stated Mr. Stalheim said that all the things on the list would get done at some
point. He asked if this is a process to determine what gets done first, apply a budget to
those items given limited resources, and then have a discussion about whether they want to
create additional resources to pay for other things.
2. UPDATE ON PROGRESS OF NEW SOUND SYSTEM IN THE COUNCIL
CHAMBERS (AB2008 -017)
The Committee did not discuss this item.
OTHER BUSINESS
ADJOURN
The meet in adjourned at approximately 7:00 p.m.
Jill Nixon, Minutes Transcription
T;q,(jgWpr,V� approved these minutes on May 6 , 2008.
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Dana Bro, SHE a I_ • uncf Clerk Carl Weimer, Council Chair
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Committee of the Whole, 3/11/2008, Page 6