Jimmy's Ward Report - Thursday, April 3, 2008

Council Discusses Liquor Licenses: Two developments put this on the agenda: First, the Council received information that one of the restaurants in town (Francis’s Carry Out on 34th and Bunker Hill) had applied to the County Liquor Board for a liquor license to sell beer and wine on its premises. While the issue of who should have a liquor license is not directly in front of the City Council, we can weigh in with the Liquor Board with the Council’s opinion on whether to grant a license. (A few years ago the Council and many residents were instrumental in testifying at the Liquor Board and getting the license pulled for Bass Liquor, which eventually led to its shutting down.) At this point the decision on Francis's has apparently been made by the County: the license will not be granted because the restaurant is within 500 feet of 3 churches.



Second, we have heard that one of the businesses on Rhode Island Ave, K-Food Mart, has been issued five citations for selling liquor to minors, and the Council is considering challenging their license.



The Council decided it should develop a policy on what we felt were the criteria for supporting or opposing applications for liquor licenses. Everybody was against allowing single sales at liquor stores and people taking out beer or wine from restaurants. I don’t want us to be unalterably opposed to a restaurant having a liquor license, since that might limit us from attracting a nice sit-down restaurant to the downtown area. Pedro Briones promised to draft a City policy that will be discussed at an upcoming Council meeting.



Proposals to Develop 3409 Rhode Island Ave. (Mt. Rainier Library): The Council last year prepared an RFP (request for proposal) and received 5 proposals from developers to renovate the building. The proposals call for a renovated library on the first floor, a community room on the second floor, and rental space on the third and fourth floors. These were exciting proposals and addressed the Council’s needs but unfortunately are very expensive: between $3 million and $4 million. The Council will have to discuss how we can finance the development. This is one of the few City owned properties and it is an important community asset that we want to protect. The Council has asked the Friends of the Library and the Design Review Board to review the proposals and then make recommendations to the Council on how to proceed (e.g. which developers we should interview, etc.). There will not be any money spent on this project without a lot of discussion at the Council.



Electronic Recycling Day – Saturday April 19th - Mt. Rainier’s Public Works Department has earmarked Saturday April 19, 2008 as the day for the collection of Electronic Recyclable items from city residents. Items are to be taken to Public Works at 3715 Wells Avenue between the hours of 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM


The following are acceptable items:



CPUs, keyboards, laptop computers, fax machines, telephones systems, printers, computer speakers, main frames, copiers, scanners, surge protectors, pagers, cell phones, cable, wire, circuit boards, cd players, radios/stereos, VCRs, ink jet and toner cartridges and TVs.



Parking Tickets: If you remember, the Council sent lots of older parking tickets (before June 2006) to a collection agency and many people were upset about the $250 fines they had to pay, especially since they had not been sent a second notice. The Council decided to change the law effective 1/1/08 that lengthened the time before the fines increase and also mandated that a second notice be sent out before the fines go to $120 and then to $240.



The Council still had to decide what to do with the tickets that people got from the period of July 2006 to January 2008 (when the new law went into effect). There was considerable discussion on this issue and the majority of the Council decided to send the unpaid tickets to a collection agency. They felt that it was unfair for some people to have paid the tickets and others to be able to get away without paying the fines. There also is a considerable amount of money that is collected from these unpaid tickets (over $50,000), which can be used for some needed projects in the city (helping clean up the downtown area, youth programs, etc.).



Even given these good arguments, I opposed sending the unpaid tickets to the collection agency. I feel that since we had acknowledged that people should have received a second notice by changing the law starting this year, it was not good policy to go back and collect unpaid tickets from individuals who had received a citation but had not received a second notice.



Parking Task Force – The Council wants to re-activate the Parking Task Force that issued a report in December 2004. The goal is to study the city’s existing parking status and to make recommendations about the city’s parking needs. We’re looking for people to work on this task force. If you are interested, please let me know. If you would like a copy of the previous report send me an e-mail.



Initial Budget Discussions: Our City Treasurer, Vijay Manjani, prepared a budget proposal for us to review. We had our initial look at the budget at the last Council meeting. Mr. Manjani did a very good job preparing the document.



Some of the new proposals included 1) a one cent decrease in the property tax (cost - $34,500); 2) an additional public works employee to help with clean-up in the downtown area (cost - $40,000); 3) a new trash truck (cost - $33,000 installment for this year); 4) additional money for the removal of trees and tree stumps (cost - $25,000); 5) three new police cars (cost – $33,000); 6) summer youth programs (cost - $15,000).



There was a considerable discussion about the advisability of decreasing the property tax at this time. While the revenue from the residential property tax will increase next year, we may see cutbacks in a number of areas such as state and federal grants and the shared income tax. Whether wwe should reduce the tax rate or not will be a controversial issue in the upcoming budget discussions.



There will be presentations by the different city departments at the next couple of Council meetings. Every line item in the budget is up for review by the council.



By the way, the fifteen people who responded to my request for budget priorities listed the following as the top priorities: 1) increased resources to clean up some of our vacant properties; 2) extra staff for downtown street cleaning; 3) additional staff to keep the police station open 24/7; 4) reducing the tax rate.



If you did not respond to my last e-mail, let me know what you think should be the town’s priorities in the upcoming budget.





Some Background Information On Mt. Rainier’s Budget -
The budget we are reviewing is a hundred page document which is often too long and complicated to be reviewed by residents either on-line or by wading through the printed version.



I thought it would be useful to break down the budget into easy categories so everyone has a better sense of how we get our money and how we spend our money. You must remember that some of these revenue and expenditure items are restricted by grants or other restricted income. (For example a good portion of the grant money is from a Community Development Block Grant that is used for the curb work that gets done in the city; some of the grant money is used for community policing; some of the cable revenue is earmarked for providing a local cable channel.)



Last year the Council passed a budget of approximately $4.25 million. The figures below are from last year’s approved budget.


Where Do We Get Our Revenue


Property Tax $2,400.000 56%

Grants $500,000 12%

Shared State Income Tax $220,000 10%

State Highway User Fee $415,000 5%

Business & Railroad Tax $115,000 3%

Traffic & Parking Tickets $100,000 2%

Cable TV Revenue $80,000 2%

All other Revenue $425,000 10%



How Do We Spend The Money


Public Safety ` $1,330,000 31%

Public Works $600,000 14%

Administration $500,000 12%

Highways & Street Work $300,000 8%

Code Enforcement $185,000 4%

Debt Services $150,000 4%

Waste Disposal $100,000 3%

Street Lights $115,000 3%

Parking Enforcement $73,000 2%

Insurance $90,000 2%

Cable TV $67,000 2%

Call A Bus $55,000 1%

Legal & Accounting Costs $55,000 1%

Communications & Newsletter $55,000 1%

Mayor & Council $45,000 1%

All Other Expenses $230,000 5%