04/03/2001 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 4/3/2001 Springvale. He explained that in 2000, with the help of CDBG money and borrowed funds to be repaid out of Springvale cash flow, the city was able to make the rest rooms ADA complaint and the parking lot was paved. The additional monies, $2.5 million which are being borrowed, will also be repaid out of Springvale cash flow and would, among other aspects, be used to irrigate the ~olf course, provide course drainage, put in cart paths, a maintenance shed and a new 19 hole for the golfers. He continued with a brief discussion of the centrifuge project and its winning aspects: it replaces Zimpro units which will save roughly five to seven million dollars of capital improvement rehab costs; several hundreds of thousands of dollars in natural gas costs will be saved because the Zimpro units do use natural gas and the centrifuge does not; the centrifuge meets EPA requirements; the centrifuge will substantially mitigate Wastewater Treatment Plant odors. Finally, he touched on the city's overall strategic planning concepts. The city has not yet received a rating from Fitch, but Moody's has given the city an A-1 rating on the $10.75 million library general obligation voted tax funds. This is an upgrade from the city's overall A-2 rating. As stated by Moody's, `NVe expect the city's satisfactory financial operations to continue given fiscal controls and conservative budgeting policies imposed by new management in recent years along with a diverse and growing revenue stream." Further, in his opinion, Moody's is impressed with the administration's general policy of reducing debt by borrowing less annually than is retired, except the debt resulting from the vote of the taxpayers or self-supporting debt. Law Director Gareau: 1) Regarding the trip to New York, he has participated in such presentations approximately six times and one item he has always been asked to speak about is that North Olmsted has 11.1 mills dedicated to paying all debt. This millage is not shared with other governmental authorities, and the revenue source increases when we have increases in assessed valuation. Most other communities have only 10 mills, which is generally shared with other governmental authorities. The three sessions lasted about 2 1/2 hours each. The Finance Director's portion was the biggest part of the presentation dealing with all of the various funds and what they used to be and what they are today and the strategic planning that she has been involved in. It was a very worthwhile experience from his perspective to go in and tell a good story about the success of Council and the administration-because Council is really responsible for doing many of these things too, and that was also stressed. 2) The last two Butternut Ridge parcels were closed on Friday, so the city now has acquired title to all four parcels. 3) The Pine Tree Beverage property will close tomorrow. This parcel was purchased through the Community Development Block Grant program The city will probably take possession in mid-May and will demolish the building on that parcel. 4) There continue to be some difficulties closing the James Lumber property (Z Properties) because of a disagreement that the tenant has with respect to what they are entitled to under the law. Unfortunately for them, they are not entitled to anything under the law because, when we pay the appraised value, it takes into consideration the improvements that are on the land. When the offer was made to pay fair market value, it included a provision that gave James Lumber consideration-the right to stay rent free. That has a value and was offered. That offer is still open, and he is negotiating to 3 .~ .,