Memorandum 15-062 Strategic Doing

Memorandum 15-062

TO:                       Mayor Wythe and Homer City Council

FROM:                 Katie Koester, City Manager

DATE:                  May 6, 2015

SUBJECT:         Strategic Doing

The purpose of this memo is to provide a framework for the Council’s fourth strategic doing work session. The meeting is divided into four parts: the first part updates you on priorities the Council chose at their last meeting. On occasion this includes requesting input/feedback from the Council. These instances have an asterisk (*) by them. The second portion proposes potential next steps in the Strategic Doing process. The third section discusses updating the comprehensive plan and creating a second ‘living document’ to work from. The fourth section of the meeting will be dedicated to reviewing the Comprehensive Spit Plan implementation table, time permitting.

Update from last meeting:

The items below are ongoing strategic doing tasks the Council has selected. Tasks that are considered complete or had no action are not included in this report.  

Economic Vitality – Natural Resources

Support staging area for large development projects:

*If the AKLnG project is a go, there will be significant short and long term lay down needs for AKLnG and support companies. With Council’s support, staff will meet to do a survey of potential lay down area that the City owns, potential lay down not owned by the City and any potential barriers to lay down (zoning, wetlands, etc.). Even if AKLnG is not developed in the near future, this could be a valuable exercise in inventorying the City of Homer assets and capacity for development projects.

Support commercial fishing and fish processing:

The Port and Harbor Advisory Commission held an open house to discuss increasing moorage rates. The Commission recognizes the need to build the Enterprise reserves. They voted to increase rates by 2% in addition to the annual CPI increase. This will be included in the 2016 budget proposal this fall.

Partner with other organizations: Ongoing.

HMTA. The City is partnering with Homer Marine Trades Association on a short video promoting Homer for boat work. It will be posted on the City, HMTA websites, and played at booths such as fish expo, etc. The theme of the video is ‘Homer is in the business of boats.’ Staff and Marine Trades representatives met to review the first draft storyboard and are encouraged; it should be a useful and unique product.

PARC. Deputy Planner Julie Engebretsen has been providing staff support for the Parks, Arts, Recreation and Culture group as they worked on the needs assessment. She will continue to work with the group as they decide on next steps.

Trails/Non-motorized Transportation

Develop bike/pedestrian roadway design standards

The Planning Commission will have the bike/pedestrian roadway standards that Public Works Director Meyer developed at their meeting on May 20th. Concern has been expressed over the lowest level of standards, level one pavement widened on one side, and I expect debate over best practices for pedestrian/bike friendly roadways will take place with the Planning Commission.

Drafting the standards has brought up the question of where to place them once they are adopted. One option is incorporating into the Roads and Streets Design Criteria Manual. However, this option would likely require an update of that manual, which has not been updated since 1988. A second option is incorporating the standards into the Transportation Plan. This would provide more flexibility in applying the criteria. I anticipate the Planning Commission will consider both options and provide Council with a recommendation. 

Senior Services

Encourage or create incentives for private business to provide or improve accessibility for seniors:

All new commercial construction has to accommodate ADA accessibility in order to get clearance from the fire marshal. The City of Homer does not enforce building codes, so there is no ‘hammer’ to encourage existing older businesses to retrofit their facility.

*The City could create a mini grant program, for example, to encourage the retrofitting of existing facilities to ADA standards. This could be quite costly both in terms of staff time and administration of the program and capital cost for the program. Staff would like guidance from Council if they would like financial incentive programs to be considered further, or if Council has any other recommendations for incentivizing access.

Improve accessibility for senior citizens. Require all public facilities be accessible for seniors and individuals with disabilities:

Newer City facilities have been constructed with ADA accessibility in mind: the Animal Shelter, Airport, Homer Public Library, City Hall, new restrooms, New Port and Harbor Building. The City has recently made improvements to Karen Hornaday Park to accommodate people with disabilities (an ADA campsite/table and trail improvements).  Code requirements dictate that any new structure, or remodel, comply with ADA guidelines.

*Older City facilities, such as the Police and Fire Station, leave more to be desired for accessibility. However, a new Public Safety building will be built to standard. There are no doubt areas where City facilities could improve access. The City could hire an architect to assess where accessibility improvements could be made in all City facilities. However, after consulting with the Public Works Director, I believe reasonable accommodations have been made in existing City facilities. Please let staff know if Council has interest in a more comprehensive assessment of accessibility in City facilities.

2. Possible Next Steps

The prioritized list from your strategic doing work session is included in this packet. I have highlighted items that you have tasked staff with in yellow. Some of these tasks, like parking, you are not receiving updates on since they have essentially been moved forward as much as they can at this point. Others, like Economic Vitality – Natural Resources, you will continue to receive updates on, and questions when staff needs Council guidance as they are ongoing. I have highlighted tasks that are already underway staff could incorporate into the strategic doing framework in green.

*Please advise if at this time Council would like to add any tasks to the strategic doing priorities staff is working on. They do not have to be limited to the items in green, this was merely provided as a starting point.

3. A Living Document

City Planner Abboud has put some thought into how to use what has been learned through the strategic doing process in updating the Comprehensive Plan. He outlines a strategy for updating the plan and coming up with a secondary living document – a Strategic Doing Action Plan – in the attached memo. 

4. Spit Plan Prioritization

Due to time constraints, at the all-day work session Council was not able to prioritize the Spit Plan section of the Comprehensive Plan. You were sent the implementation table of that document, with associated updates, and asked to rate the objectives on a scale of 1-10 based on their level of impact and level of difficulty. Time permitting, we will review the scores and gather any outstanding numbers. This information will be used to place the objectives in one of the four quadrants (high impact, low difficulty; high impact, high difficulty; low impact, low difficulty; low impact, high difficulty). A future exercise will prioritize the objectives within those quadrants.

ENC:

Prioritized List of Comprehensive Plan Implementation Goals/Strategies (2)

Memorandum 15-064 from City Planner Abboud (3)

Homer Spit Plan Comprehensive Plan Prioritization Table with Updates (4)