Full Text
LARAMIE CITY COUNCIL PUBLIC HEARING Original Ordinance No. 1863, Creating a New Technology and Office (TO) Zone District January 2, 2013 - Public Hearing was called to order by Mayor Scott Mullner at 6:38 p.m. City Council present: Dave Paulekas, Roger McKinley, Lee Kempert, Joe Vitale, Eric Molvar, Klaus Hanson, Joe Shumway, Karl McCraken, and Scott Mullner. Absent: None. The City Clerk read the notice: THE LARAMIE CITY COUNCIL WILL MEET AT 6:30 P.M. ON WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 2013, IN THE CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS, LARAMIE CITY HALL, 406 IVINSON STREET, LARAMIE, WY, TO TAKE PUBLIC COMMENTS OR PROTESTS ON PROPOSED TEXT AMENDMENTS TO THE LARAMIE MUNICIPAL CODE. THE REQUEST IS MADE BY AND ON BEHALF OF THE CITY OF LARAMIE. THE PROPOSAL WOULD AMEND THE FOLLOWING SUBSECTIONS OF LARAMIE MUNICIPAL CODE: LMC 15.10.000.E, 15.12.000.C15.14.050.G, 15.14.050.F, 15.14.090.B, AND 15.28.030A FOR THE PURPOSES OF CREATING A NEW TECHNOLOGY AND OFFICE (TO) ZONE DISTRICT. Mayor Mullner asked if there were any public comments. Richard Wilkins, 350 N 4th St., had several concerns: the Turner Tract was started as a technology center, with little technological development; the Technology Center is not in City Limits, but to be annexed; and was concerned with the ownership of the land and the cost of that land, and would the $5,000,000+ cover the cost of the land; and how much money will be left over for improvements? Janine Jordan, City Manager, stated roughly $4,000,000 would go into improvements, the cost of the land is $1.45 million, the land is currently owned by Charles Coughlin, and the City has an option to purchase that property. Public Hearing was closed at 6:41 p.m. Respectfully submitted Sue Morris-Jones, MMC, City Clerk ---PAGE BREAK--- LARAMIE CITY COUNCIL PUBLIC HEARING Resolution No. 2012-61, Request to Amend the Comprehensive Plan January 2, 2013 Public Hearing was called to order by Mayor Scott Mullner at 6:41 p.m. City Council present: Dave Paulekas, Roger McKinley, Lee Kempert, Joe Vitale, Eric Molvar, Klaus Hanson, Joe Shumway, Karl McCraken, and Scott Mullner. Absent: None. The City Clerk read the notice: THE LARAMIE CITY COUNCIL WILL MEET AT 6:30 P.M. ON WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 2013, IN THE CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS, LARAMIE CITY HALL, 406 IVINSON STREET, LARAMIE, WY, TO TAKE PUBLIC COMMENTS OR PROTESTS ON A REQUEST TO AMEND THE LARAMIE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN. THE APPLICATION HAS BEEN SUBMITTED BY THE CITY OF LARAMIE (APPLICANT) AND CHARLES F. COUGHLIN JR. (PROPERTY OWNER). THE AREA PROPOSED FOR AMENDMENT IS APPROXIMATELY 150 ACRES IN SIZE AND GENERALLY LOCATED NORTH OF CITY LIMITS, EAST OF THE FUTURE EXTENSION OF 15TH STREET AND WEST OF THE EXTENSION OF 30TH STREET. THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN AMENDMENT WILL CHANGE PROPERTY SHOWN ON THE FUTURE LAND USE PLAN (MAP 3.2) AS SR (SUBURBAN RESIDENTIAL) TO SC (SUBURBAN COMMERCIAL). Mayor Mullner asked if there were any public comments. There were no public comments. Public Hearing was closed at 6:42 p.m. Respectfully submitted Sue Morris-Jones, MMC, City Clerk ---PAGE BREAK--- LARAMIE CITY COUNCIL PUBLIC HEARING Original Ordinance No. 1864, Annexation of 172 Acres January 2, 2013 Public Hearing was called to order by Mayor Scott Mullner at 6:42 p.m. City Council present: Dave Paulekas, Roger McKinley, Lee Kempert, Joe Vitale, Eric Molvar, Klaus Hanson, Joe Shumway, Karl McCraken, and Scott Mullner. Absent: None. The City Clerk read the notice: THE LARAMIE CITY COUNCIL WILL MEET AT 6:30 P.M. ON WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 2013, IN THE CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS, LARAMIE CITY HALL, 406 IVINSON STREET, LARAMIE, WY, TO TAKE PUBLIC COMMENTS OR PROTESTS ON A PROPOSED ANNEXATION TO THE CITY OF LARAMIE. THE APPLICATION HAS BEEN SUBMITTED BY THE CITY OF LARAMIE (APPLICANT) AND CHARLES F. COUGHLIN JR. RAWSTONE DEVELOPMENT, INC; AND ALBANY COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT #1 PROPERTY OWNERS. THE AREA PROPOSED FOR ANNEXATION IS APPROXIMATELY 172 ACRES IN SIZE AND GENERALLY LOCATED NORTH OF CITY LIMITS, EAST OF THE FUTURE EXTENSION OF 15TH STREET AND WEST OF THE EXTENSION OF 30TH STREET. Mayor Mullner asked if there were any public comments. Brett Glass, commented that the location looms over Laramie, reached by residential streets, that it is a quiet area now. It will bring in new traffic and create noise. He felt there were a lot of problems with this project, that no business has agreed to move into this proposed industrial park. Public Hearing was closed at 6:46 p.m. Respectfully submitted Sue Morris-Jones, MMC, City Clerk ---PAGE BREAK--- LARAMIE CITY COUNCIL PUBLIC HEARING Original Ordinance No. 1865, Annexation of 172 Acres January 2, 2013 Public Hearing was called to order by Mayor Scott Mullner at 6:46 p.m. City Council present: Dave Paulekas, Roger McKinley, Lee Kempert, Joe Vitale, Eric Molvar, Klaus Hanson, Joe Shumway, Karl McCraken, and Scott Mullner. Absent: None. The City Clerk read the notice: THE LARAMIE CITY COUNCIL WILL MEET AT 6:30 P.M. ON WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 2013, IN THE CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS, LARAMIE CITY HALL, 406 IVINSON STREET, LARAMIE, WY, TO TAKE PUBLIC COMMENTS OR PROTESTS ON A PROPOSED ZONING REQUEST TO THE CITY OF LARAMIE. THE APPLICATION HAS BEEN SUBMITTED BY THE CITY OF LARAMIE (APPLICANT) AND CHARLES F. COUGHLIN JR. RAWSTONE DEVELOPMENT, INC; AND ALBANY COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT #1 PROPERTY OWNERS. THE AREA PROPOSED FOR ZONING IS APPROXIMATELY 172 ACRES IN SIZE AND GENERALLY LOCATED NORTH OF CITY LIMITS, EAST OF THE FUTURE EXTENSION OF 15TH STREET AND WEST OF THE EXTENSION OF 30TH STREET. THE REZONING REQUEST WILL ZONE NEWLY ANNEXED PROPERTY R1 (SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL), O (OPEN) AND TO (TECHNOLOGY AND OFFICE). Mayor Mullner asked if there were any public comments. There were no public comments. Public Hearing was closed at 6:46 p.m. Respectfully submitted Sue Morris-Jones, MMC, City Clerk ---PAGE BREAK--- LARAMIE CITY COUNCIL PUBLIC HEARING Original Ordinance No. 1866, Establishing Chapter 13.54 LMC, Solid Waste – General January 2, 2013 Public Hearing was called to order by Mayor Scott Mullner at 6:48 p.m. City Council present: Dave Paulekas, Roger McKinley, Lee Kempert, Joe Vitale, Eric Molvar, Klaus Hanson, Joe Shumway, Karl McCraken, and Scott Mullner. Absent: None. The City Clerk read the notice: PUBLIC HEARING OF THE LARAMIE CITY COUNCIL WILL HELD AT 6:30 P.M. ON WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 2013, IN COUNCIL CHAMBERS, CITY HALL, 406 IVINSON STREET, LARAMIE, WY, TO TAKE PUBLIC COMMENTS OR PROTESTS ON PROPOSED ORIGINAL ORDINANCE NO. 1866. AN ORDINANCE ESTABLISHING CHAPTER 13.54 OF THE LARAMIE MUNICIPAL CODE ENTITLED SOLID WASTE – GENERAL. Mayor Mullner asked if there were any public comments. Jay Deveraux, 14 Arrowhead, addressed several issues: 1. Laramie is trying to curtail the opportunity for business to do what they’d like with the solid waste that they collect from different places, and the rates for businesses have been raised three times in the last year, the residential rates have not; 2. He has an opportunity to have waste collected by both the City and WDS, WDS collects on the day they are contracted to, regardless of holidays, and are therefore predictable, WDS cleans up their spills which he has not seen the City do; 3. WDS is less expensive than the City; 4. With flow control, the City is concerned about businesses taking trash to another place, the City could build a place where other communities bring their trash to us. Tim Hale, spoke regarding City service employees do not pick up spills of trash, he does not think limited restrictions should be placed on private businesses, because the City is limiting where business can take the waste it has a monopoly, and City is a non-profit operation but costs more than private business. Brett Glass, stated he owned several rental properties and uses WDS because they do a better job, in a way more suited to the properties’ needs; raising the fees would reduce WDS’s competitiveness and possibly hurt the esthetics of the community; with the implementation of the landfill tipping fee departing students left discarded furniture on the curb, if fees are raised that could increase the incidence of this; there is legal controversy in imposing flow control, with two cases: Carbone – the court ruled that it was unconstitutional for a city government to impose a flow control restriction as it interfered with interstate commerce, and Pike – the court ruled there was a balancing act, that there could be a public benefit in the city being able to sort out recyclables, which does not seem to apply here as the flow control seems to be strictly for economic reasons. Bryon Shuster, former councilmember, related that we give ARC Outside Agency money to keep things out of the landfill, will there be an exemption for them? Janine Jordan, City Manager, stated recycling was part of the formula and debited from the waste deposited in the landfill; flow control stabilizes the amount of waste that we can’t divert. If the amount of waste deposited is less than historical, the rate per ton will increase over time beyond projection. The rates are based on a predicable flow of trash, the city can reduce costs in only a few ways, personnel costs are less than 20% of the overall cost of that facility, the major cost is the capital investment: digging cells, engineering the containment system, building a new building to bale trash, and buying $750,000.00 pieces of equipment that are necessary to run the facility. We cannot reduce the fact that we must build an engineered containment system in our cells, which is 3 almost 4 million dollars alone, to construct. Deveraux asked do we pay ARK to haul the recyclables out. Jordan responded the City does not pay them to conduct their business, and stated that ARK receives Outside Agency funding, basically grants, that the recycling the ARK does is of benefit to community. ---PAGE BREAK--- LARAMIE CITY COUNCIL PUBLIC HEARING Original Ordinance No. 1866, Establishing Chapter 13.54 LMC, Solid Waste – General January 2, 2013 Deveraux asked if we had considered hauling our waste elsewhere. Mayor Mullner replied that it was more expensive to haul it elsewhere. Hale encouraged the Council to pursue recycling programs more than we already are, and aggressively look at a recycling program that would alleviate a burden on the cells, the City has not pursued glass recycling, yet ARK is able to manage glass recycling; much of the trash going into the cells should have been recycled; and that the City needs to review the whole program. Richard Bell, Consultant, related that in 2012, through the single stream program, there was over 2,000,000 pounds of materials. The contamination rate was just under which is very good. Drew Kelly, WDS Operations Manager, stated that if flow control goes in, it is a bit of a monopoly, as it establishes the exclusive control over the landfill services. He questioned if flow control goes in, would the City have the incentive to have the best service and the lowest fees. If WDS were to pull their waste out of the cell, it doesn’t cost the City, their capital expenditure is diverted over more years, which would benefit the City as it extends the cell life. He asked that Council consider that we’re looking at the rate increase, based on capital expenditure as it relates also to the amount of tonnage pulled in, evaluated on City limits and about a half mile into the county. He queried that if a lot of what WDS hauls is mixed, some from the city, and some from outlying areas; if rates became high enough that it would be difficult to pass on to the customer, we could divert the county weight off, and thus would that skew the reports Mr. Bell has produced. It could be economically feasible for them to haul the waste elsewhere if the rates became cost prohibitive. He questioned whether it was more expensive to haul waste to another community, as WDS transports waste from here to Ault, CO. In another community WDS set up a transfer station and then hauled the waste elsewhere, and that transporting waste could be done much cheaper than has been presented. Joe Turner asked why we couldn’t franchise this, private business tend to be more efficient, put it out to bid, and if that fails, then consider the option of the landfill. Public Hearing was closed at 7:25 p.m. Respectfully submitted Sue Morris-Jones, MMC, City Clerk