Tacoma City Business Preview - Week of November 4, 2012

Budget
This week’s study session will feature a presentation on the Fire Department budget. Once again the study session will be held in Council chambers and televised live on TV Tacoma.

Today is also the final day of community budget input meetings.

• Monday, November 5, 6-8pm, Center at Norpoint, 4818 Nassau Ave., NE, Cascade Room

Cable Rates
Ordinance 28098 will get its first reading this week. This ordinance would increase cable rates for Click! customers by about 10%. If this seems like a bit of deja vu to you, you’re not alone; back in February the Council approved a rate increase for Click! cable services. Click! is working to address increasing demands on its network in conjunction with increasing competition from other services (i.e. Netflix, Hulu, etc), meaning steeply rising costs but declining cable television subscriptions. The new price for Click! Network’s standard level of service in Tacoma will be $44.25 per month. According to supporting documents, as of July 2012, the nearest similar product offered by Comcast is priced at $46.99 per month in the areas where Click! is a competitor and $64.99 in areas where Click! does not offer services.

Special Events & Economic Development
We’ll hear the first reading of Ordinance 28097 this week. That ordinance would amend the TMC to allow for the transfer of the coordination of special events to the Community and Economic Development Department from the City Clerk’s Office. This is a part of the departmental realignments proposed in the 2013-2014 budget. These proposed changes would move permitting, public notice, and other special event-related considerations to CED. The hope is that the changes would on the one hand improve the ease of attaining event permits and other resources for safe and successful events, while on the other hand facilitating a positive economic impact for the community.

Second-Hand Goods and Scrap Metal
Ordinances 28095 and 28096 are on this week’s agenda for a final reading this week. As we heard at last week’s meeting, these ordinances would update and clarify regulations on the sale of second-hand goods, and on scrap metal dealers, both with the goal of discouraging theft and the sale of stolen goods or scrap metal.

Public Hearings
A pair of resolutions will set the dates for public hearings.

Resolution 38565 will set Tuesday, November 13, as the date for a second public hearing by the City Council on the proposed establishment of a Transportation Benefit District to fund and make improvements to the City’s transportation system. This is the preamble to the possible implementation of a $20 car tab fee in the City of Tacoma to be used to fund transportation improvements within the city, as proposed in the City Manager’s 2013-2014 budget.

Resolution 38566 will set Thursday, December 13, as the date for a hearing to vacate a 4,700 square-foot portion of East Q Street, lying northwest of the Burlington Northern Rail right-of-way, to construct a section of the floodwall proposed under the Central Treatment Plant Flood Protection Project.

Grants Received
Also on the consent agenda is Resolution 38567, which would authorize the City to accept two grants from the Washington State Department of Ecology. The first would fund a feasibility study for a compost/anaerobic digestion facility, which could possibly address the lack of capacity that has slowed the City’s ability to divert more organics from the waste stream and to generate energy from that organic material. The second grant would fund a the purchase of equipment for a project to acquire and install equipment to recycle asphalt roofing shingles and asphalt pavement into new asphalt for street surfacing and repair. The total of the two grants from the state is $412,500, with $137,500 matching funds from Tacoma’s Solid Waste Fund.

Pipes
Resolution 38569 on this week’s agenda would authorize a $1,131,235 contract to replace underground wastewater pipes around Vassault and Pearl Streets. TPU will be replacing water mains in the area, and this contract would allow Public Works to upgrade wastewater infrastructure at the same time. Killing two birds with one stone like this would reduce construction impacts and overall costs while improving project delivery.

Purchase Resolution
Two items on this week’s Purchase Resolution 38568:

1. $87,922, budgeted from the Streets Special Revenue Fund, to increase the
   contract for bridge inspection and inventory services related to the Murray Morgan Bridge Rehabilitation Project, for a cumulative total of $1,251,739, with a contract completion date of December 31, 2013; and
2. $4,783,500, plus sales tax, budgeted from various departmental funds on an as-needed basis, to increase the contract for vehicle fuel and carwash services, for a cumulative total of $9,387,000, for the period of January 31, 2013 through January 31, 2014.

Item 1 would add funding to the Murray Morgan Bridge project to cover costs associate with an inspection at the completion of the project to be used as the baseline for future inspections to bring the bridge into compliance with the National Bridge Inventory System as required by WSDOT and the FHWA. Item 2 is pretty much what it sounds like.

Also…
The groundbreaking ceremony for the Pacific Avenue Streetscape project is this afternoon, and the project open house will be held this Wednesday. Read more here.

And Don’t forget, Art @ Work Month continues with activities around town.

Welcome to November.