City Manager’s Weekly Report
for week ending Oct. 25, 2019
4th Avenue SW Improvement Project. The ADA ramps and stormwater improvements have been installed successfully in preparation for the asphalt overlay on 4th Avenue SW. Four of seven catch basins still need minor paving restoration to be brought to grade. Highline Water District waterline installation will be completed soon. These paving contractor delays due to weather and unforeseen utility conflicts have pushed back overlay improvements to the Spring of 2020. The Transportation Improvement Board has authorized this delay; all grant funding for the project remains intact. The only thing left to do next spring is pave.
Government Finance Officers Award 2019-20. The City of Normandy Park and Finance Director Jennifer Ferrer-Santa Ines received the 2019-20 GFOA award for budget presentation. Although Jennifer has received this award in the past, it is by no means common. There are 39,044 local governments in the United States and 3641 in Canada. There are about 19,000 state, provincial and governmental units in GFOA. Normandy Park is one of 1344 governmental entities that received this award for 2019-20. This means that slightly more than 3% of the municipal jurisdictions in North America and slightly more than 7% of GFOA member jurisdictions receive this award. See the attached documents.
Planning Commission Meeting. On Thursday, October 24, the Planning Commission held a public hearing on the draft Economic Development element proposed to be part of the Comprehensive Plan. (Last week, the Commission held a hearing on the Future Land Use Map and Zoning Map.) Like last week, the Planning Commission proposed to add the issue to the 2020 docket, so that citizens, Planning Commissioners and City Councilmembers have adequate time to discuss the proposed amendments. Some issues raised at the hearing make this extension necessary, including: 1) potential loss of affordable single family residential housing; 2) over-emphasis on multi-family development; 3) lack of specificity about how this change will increase city revenues; 4) the need to more clearly express the plan in terms of nodes of development; and 5) the itemization of city land for such activity (not including park space).
As first shared last week, to facilitate discussion of these issues, staff is proposing an initial informational meeting to explain the proposals as necessary to answer any questions. It will take a few weeks to produce the public display materials for this meeting, which is being tentatively slated for Wednesday, November 20, from 5:30-7:30pm in the City Council Chambers. The meeting will be a drop-in type meeting for information sharing and one-on-one discussion. Subsequently, perhaps in early December, the City Council and Planning Commission will be asked to conduct a joint workshop on the proposals, at which the public can participate in dialogue with appointed and elected officials. Additionally, on Saturday, November 9, at Family Movie Night, Community Development Director Holly Keeton will be available, from 5:30pm until the film begins, to connect with citizens and provide answers to questions concerning the Comprehensive Plan amendment proposals that have now been extended into the 2020 docket.
Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. The PNSN provides information about earthquakes to emergency responders, the press and the public. The network reduces risk by monitoring ground motion and distributing information from 400 stations throughout Washington and Oregon, already the second largest network in the US. The network is a cooperative project between the University of Washington, the University of Oregon, and the US Geological Survey. (I guess the Ducks are okay…) In the near future, the number of stations will greatly increase for the purpose of providing people who have downloaded an app approximately 10-30 seconds of lead time prior to an earthquake, including the Cascadia Subduction Zone Quake. The app will be publicly available in October, 2020. One of the stations, to fill in a data hole in the system, will be installed at Normandy Park City Hall. This installation will require a 2’x2’ concrete pad and connection to high speed data connection, both available at City Hall. Everything else is paid by UW, UO and USGS.
Mark E. Hoppen, City Manager
City of Normandy Park
801 SW 174th Street
Normandy Park, WA 98166
(206) 248-8246 (Direct Phone)
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