Tacoma City Business Sneak Peek - Week of June 18, 2012

With some fairly heavy lifting going on in study session this week, the City Council meeting agenda is relatively light on new content. There are no items on the consent agenda, and we skip straight to proclamations, recognitions, etc. No first readings of ordinances are listed either.

Budget
The main item on this week’s City Council study session agenda is a budget goal setting workshop.

The purpose of the work session is to establish a budgetary and fiscal baseline, to set service delivery priorities and the fiscal policy, and to discuss specific policy areas having potential impact to the 2013-2014 Biennial Budget.

Not an insignificant list of tasks for an afternoon’s work, and you can probably expect the session to go long. The day’s Committee of the Whole meeting has been cancelled to allow extra time for the study session.

Additional Costs for TPU Projects
We see a couple resolutions for contracts covering additional construction costs relating to a couple TPU Water Division projects. With both resolutions, as happens so often when you dig things up, you find other things you weren’t expecting. In the first instance it was just “substandard soil materials and compaction conditions.” In the second it was “subsurface utility conflicts … including a buried retaining wall, contaminated soil, and old trolley track foundations.” Funding for these additional costs comes from the Wastewater and Surface Water funds.

Final Readings
The two final readings on this week’s agenda are the two items we saw for first readings last week pertaining to wage increases for two specific groups of City employees.

Purchase Resolution
The only purchase resolution item this week extends the contract for geotechnical and structural work on the hillside below Stadium Way at Schuster Parkway through December 31, 2013. This supplement with GeoDesign, Inc., will fund additional geotechnical and structural related design services, the value-engineering associated with the project’s March 2012 re-advertisement, and the oversight required during construction to assure compliance with the contract documents. Funding is available from federal grants, the Streets Special Revenue Fund, the Capital Projects REET Fund, and various utility funds.