2. Fiscal Year 2012 First Quarter Operating and Capital Budget updates. Budget is in good shape.
3. Presentation by Constellation Energy, the City's selected electric provider, on implementation of its services in Evanston.
4. Recognition of employees with twenty five years or more of service to the City of Evanston.
The meeting begins at 7:00 PM.
]]>2. Implementation of changes to one day liquor license and minimum penalties for general non-parking ordinance violations. These both were part of the FY 2012 adopted budget.
3. Resolution reserving the City’s right to issue $7.076 million in bonds under the bond volume tax cap. We have no intension to do any of this, but take action to keep State of Illinois from using our bond cap itself. This is an annual Council action.
4. Consideration of major variation and special use permit for rehab of existing Walgreens at 635 Chicago Avenue.
5. Resolution accepting the Evanston Environmental Association’s Roadmap to Financial Self-Reliance. This is a great agreement almost two years in the making which brings the EEA and the City closer together on a variety of initiatives.
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2. Approval of 2012 Special Events Calendar
3. Continued discussion on changes to alley paving program.
4. Adoption of initial ordinances to begin process to establishing Dempster/Dodge TIF District.
5. Staff is requesting that adoption of ordinance to allow for purchase of 1223-1225 Chicago Avenue be held over until April 10, 2012. Staff wants to be able to bring to the Council documents authorizing acquisition of Northwestern parcel and a license for use of lots between City and Terraco on April 10 as well for whole package of City approvals needed for Trader Joe's project.
6. Consideration of ordinance making "payday loan or consumer loan establishments" a special use. We have had interest in recent months of these types of uses in areas of focused redevelopment efforts (Dempster/Dodge and Howard Street) that run contrary to these efforts. Staff is proposing the change.
Note that the proposed ordinance on ban of use of mobile phones while driving is not on agenda as planned. Alderman Grover is working on proposed amendments to ordinance and item will be brought forward at a future meeting.
]]>2. Staff will be giving an update on our efforts to sell water to other neighboring communities. We are now in discussions to sell water to 11 new communities.
3. Presentation of proposed revisions to City economic development plan.
4. Item A4: Our costs for disposing of sludge processed out of Lake Michigan water for drinking have grown substantially because of the number of storms in 2011 that caused record high turbidity levels in the water. We now have to pay Water Reclamation District an additional $489,336 for costs to remove the sludge we process out of the water. Utility Department staff have done a good negotiating favorable payment terms to pay this additional expense from the Water Fund.
5. Item A5 and A6: Staff is proposing to spend $1.75 million from reserves for additional CIP projects and vehicle purchases. This works out to $1 million for additional streets (the next group on our list of most needed repairs), $500,000 for additional vehicle replacement and $250,000 to replace 50 street light power centers that are past useful life.
6. Item A10: Ordinance authorizing City Manager to execute a transfer of assignment contract for the purchase of 1223-1125 Chicago Avenue for a city parking lot adjacent to the new Trader Joe’s. Cost of parcel is $1.4 million and will be paid for by the Parking Fund.
7. Several items related to liquor licenses including second reading on requested license for World of Beer.
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2. Consideration of Letter of Understanding between City and City Lit Theater for use of city-owned property at 727-729 Howard Street.
3. Final action on speed limit changes on Oakton Street.
4. Final action on granting a special use for child daycare facility at 1629 Orrington Avenue.
5. Final action on changes to the City Code pertaining to responsible pet ownership.
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2. Amendments to City's budget policy to adjust City's debt limit.
3. Further consideration of changes to speed limit on portions of Oakton Street.
4. Further consideration of sale of 1817 Church Street for use as a Contractor's Cooperative.
5. Final actions implementing changes for various fees and charges as approved in the adopted FY 2012 budget.
6. Request for special use for a child daycare center at 1629 Orrington Avenue.
7. Request to extend completion of planned development at 1100 Clark/1719 Ridge one year to October 1, 2014.
8. Consider amendments to Code regarding responsible pet ownership.
9. Consider annual grants to neighborhood business associations for promotions and marketing.
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1. Purchase of two license plate recognition systems per previous Council discussion.
2. Purchase of new field arrest and field interview software for the Police Department. This purchase comes from discussions I have had with Police staff about what smaller items could be purchased/implemented to make them more efficient. This module has been on their wish list for sometime, but no available resources. I asked Marty to find $54K to make this happen.
3. Annual lease renewals for Noyes Cultural Arts Center. There is no increase in rents as we work to develop solutions moving forward. I have been meeting with tenants regularly and I asked them if they would accept small increase this year or no increase this year with understanding of larger increase in 2013. They asked for the larger increase in 2013 once plans are better fleshed out for center. Item will be back to Council in February for update.
4. Resolution identifying projects that will be reimbursed through FY 2012 capital improvement debt proceeds. This includes new projects anticipated in Howard-Ridge TIF.
5. Resolution authorizing reimbursement of surplus $1.3 million from Howard-Hartrey TIF to other taxing jurisdictions and authorize complete analysis of potential closure of Howard-Hartrey TIF in FY 2012.
6. Ordinance establishing a 20 MPH speed limit on Oakton from Dodge to Ridge.
7. Various ordinance implementing fee increases approved in FY 2012 budget.
8. Consideration of actions related to sale of 1817 Church.
]]>1. Consideration of annual contract for central business district maintenance with Downtown Evanston. The group was very aggressive in soliciting bids for services this year and the City’s portion will be $27,000 less than anticipated.
2. Consideration of agreement with company called 350Green for installation of electric car charging stations at locations previously discussed as well as in our parking garages.
3. Budget resolution, tax levies and ordinances for most of the fee and charges increases. Additional ordinances for remainder of fee and charge increases will be on December 12 agenda.
4. Ordinance authorizing sale of 1817 Church Street building for $1 to the Evanston North Shore Contractors Cooperative. Staff report and ordinances include copies of sales agreement which include reverter clause back to City for six years and covenant that property pay property taxes or in lieu for 30 years.
5. Consideration of adoption of new liquor license for Cinemark Theaters. Staff spoke with senior management of theater chain and received assurances that work will be done to enhance art movie options at theater.
6. Consideration of ordinance that would fix time limits on building permits to reduce unfinished or stalled construction projects.
7. Consideration of amendment to redevelopment agreement for NSP2 between City and Brinshore for development of first phase of Emerson Square project at 1600 Foster Street.
8. Consideration of mayoral-appointed committee to review proposed ordinance for licensing of rental dwelling units.
9. Final action on marijuana ordinance
10. From Economic Development Committee: Approval of $50,000 in matching funds for downtown arts NEA grant and receive final report of Lakefront Committee.
Tuesday night meeting starts at 7:00 PM. Township meeting first to consider resolution for dissolution of the Township at March 20, 2012 election. City Council follows with consideration of ordinance for referendum for community choice electric aggregation on March 20, 2012 agenda as well as prioritization of City Council goals.
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]]>2. At the beginning of A&PW will be the annual presentation of the “Paint Evanston Plows” contest winners.
3. Consideration of ordinance regarding licensing of rental units.
4. Consideration of amendments to code regarding Marijuana use.
5. A number of items from the Housing and Community Development Act and Economic Development Committees on consent.
Agenda PDF
]]>2. Discussion of Disposable Bag Issue and recommendation of Environment Board for 5 cent tax on plastic bags.
3. Continued discussion on TIGER III grant application.
4. Discussion of 2012 Water Main Replacement and Street Resurfacing Program.
5. Consideration of Police and Fire Pension Actuarial Report.
6. Review of Options on Commonwealth Edison franchise issues, pending state legislation on ComEd smart grid issues and consideration of investigation of electric municipal aggregation options.
7. Consideration of amending Class AC alcohol permit (alcohol in movie theaters) to allow for alcoholic beverages to be consumed in movie auditoriums for PG-13 and R rated films.
8. Consideration of proposed cable television franchise agreement with Comcast.
9. Consideration of bed and breakfast application for 300 Church Street.
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2. Staff and consultant with provide overview of what we heard through “Engage Evanston” process over last month and summarize results of community meetings and surveys on budget. Proposed budget will be released on Friday October 7. First City Council budget workshop Saturday October 15.
3. Consideration of changes of Planned Development at 1722 Central. Details here (PDF).
4. The City Council's Planning and Development Committee will hear appeal of Office Depot sign change at 2722 Green Bay Road. Details here (PDF)
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The City undertook a community outreach effort in May to solicit feedback on issues the City should address in the budget process. This led to a list of 39 areas to examine for service change ideas. In addition, City staff committed to begin a priority based budgeting process comparing each City service to a series of benchmarks.
Staff has spent the last three months evaluating the service change ideas and prioritizing city services and is returning to the City Council on Monday August 8 with the results of this work. A summary document of all this can be found here (PDF) and a nearly 500 page detailed evaluation can be found here (PDF). It is a lot of information. The evaluation of the service change ideas remains a work in progress and looking at City services by priority is a different approach for Evanston and will take some time to re-orient thinking and evaluation of the budget in those terms.
So what have we learned so far?
1. The 39 service change ideas are all over the map. Many of them have the potential to save the City significant upfront financial costs. However, what are the other indirect costs in addition to any upfront savings? What are the impacts to Evanston's quality of life in making these changes? I believe some of these 39 service change ideas will be able to be included in the FY 2012 proposed budget, some may have promise to do in pieces, some may work in future years and some may never be practical when weighing the direct savings versus indirect costs.
2. Some of the 39 service changes that were proposed in May have caused quite the community dialogue since then. For that , I say hurrah!! Democracy only works when people are engaged in the process. I believe it is my responsibility to bring all reasonable ideas forward for discussion, not just the ideas I think are politically popular (ran out of most of those in 2010!!) The discussion and passion caused by some of them help in evaluating their impacts on community standards. The silence in response to other ideas is also interesting.
3. The idea of looking at the City's services based on community priorities is really interesting. It is tough to put a number to all of our varied programs to evaluating them side by side, but we have done it. Spreadsheet of ranking can be found here (PDF). The exercise is only academic unless the community engages to evaluate and comment on the rankings. With agreement to the priorities, then resources should be shifted to those services that are high priorities and those of lower priority should face further scrutiny.
From here, the community and City Council get the month of August to digest all of this. The City will once again reach out to the community during the month of September to get feedback on the service change ideas and the service prioritization. The City will hold two community meetings on September 17 and 22, we will reach out into the community at various locations and residents can provide comments directly on-line, by calling 311 or sending in comments via mail. This will lead to the proposed FY 2012 budget being released on October 7 and City Council budget hearings starting on October 15.
Evanston is a special place. We value our quality of life very much. I hope that this inclusive community dialogue ensures that we continue to provide high quality services in the midst of difficult budget times.
Wally Bobkiewicz, City Manager, City of Evanston
]]>Monday is the City Council's last meeting before its Summer Recess. The next meeting of the City Council is Monday September 12, 2011.
1. The Council will receive an update on FY 2012 budget preparation. Staff has been reviewing and costing 39 service changes and will report on our progress. In addition, staff will report on its exercise to prioritize every service provided by the City. We hope that this information will be helpful to the Council and community as we seek additional public comment on the budget in September, prior to submittal of a proposed FY 2012 budget in October. Summary documents can be found here. Detailed data and information here.
2. Consideration of a revised Solid Waste Transfer Station Fee ordinance.
3. Consideration of authorizing the Mayor to send letter to Illinois Environmental Protection Agency opposing Veolia's request to change its operating permit which would exempt Veolia from being subject to the City's zoning laws.
4. Consideration of granting variances to allow for establishment of cultural facility at 1026 Davis.
5. Consideration by the Planning and Development Committee whether to hear appeal on decision of Sign Review and Appeals Board denying a variance for the Office Depot, 2722 Green Bay Road. If committee agrees to hear appeal, it would then set a future date to hear the appeal.
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2. Consideration of request by Northwestern University and the Evanston Wilmette Golf Association for additional football parking on Govern Golf Course.
3. Further discussion of Wind Farm in Lake Michigan proposal.
5. FY 2012 Budget Preparation Calendar
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