For Council Meeting

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

TO: MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL

FROM: Terry St. Peter, City Manager

DATE: Friday, February 16, 2007

You have some committee resignations on the Consent Agenda to consider. The City Clerk should be able to advise you what the remaining portions of terms are for these positions. As always, the Council needs to decide whether to advertise for these positions or whether you have acceptable candidates immediately available. Also, you will want to decide whether you wish to interview candidates for any of these appointments. In the case of the harbor committee, there is an alternate member who might be moved up. However, I understand the chair of the harbor committee wants to talk to the alternate member first to determine his interest.

11.B Farmers Market Requests. You have two letters from the Farmers Market folks (Tan), one requesting the monthly use of upper Main Street, and another requesting an alternate location to their former usage of the privately owned space adjacent to the Washington Street parking lot. The letters are self-explanatory, but I wanted to draw your attention to the fact that there are two issues (one agenda item, but two issues).

11.C Replacement Computer System. The City of Belfast used to have a pretty good financial computer system, and we were happy with it. But then the computer company we were using was bought out by a larger company and they were not going to support the existing computer program for much longer. We had a choice of buying their replacement software, or going to another company. We chose to stay with the company that bought out the former one, and they had assured us, of course, that the new program would be equally as good and that they would support it.

It has not turned out that way. Our people have been very frustrated with the new software, have spent extra hours to de-bug it during tax and utility billing times, and had to work around some of the flaws. Treasurer Rickie LeSan and Tax Collector Yvonne Hall have been looking at the so-called Trio system (which itself has now been bought out by a larger company) and are comfortable with this system. It is working well in comparable communities.

I have talked with their sales person as well, and, while it means a change in some of the ways we do business (in-house computer rather than over-the-network system), I am comfortable this is the way we should proceed.

I am enclosing a memo (Gold) from Rickie on the new system. You will note that while there are some additional upfront costs, the overall costs annually to have this system will be the same or less than we are presently paying. So, this will not have any changed financial impact for the city and for the upcoming budget.

I recommend a motion to “authorize the City Manager to enter into a leasing and/or purchasing agreement with Tyler Technologies for the TRIO municipal software system and any associated hardware necessary to implement this computer software as presented to the City Council at this February 20^th meeting.”

11.D Maskers’ Request. You have the request from the Masker Theater people for changes to the existing lease agreement, which was sent to you at the last meeting. You also have a copy of the existing lease, provided for you at the last Council mailing. Probably it is time now for a response.

This also provides me an opportunity to inform newer Council members and maybe even older ones of the number of rents that the city currently manages. We have not deliberately set out to be in the rental business, but, somewhat like the basis that we are renting out the former railroad station depot to the Maskers, we are.

We rent the upstairs floor of the police station to two tenants: the U.S. Coast Guard and Mid-Coast Mental Health Agency. We have long-term contracts with each that provide for full service; that is, the city did the renovation, provides the ongoing maintenance, including heat and lights, and responds to different maintenance requests from this office from time to time. Their rent payment includes enough money for the city to pay for the debt service on the building and the maintenance costs. Either now or later (I forget which at the moment), the rental income is scheduled to be extra income to help reduce general property taxes. In fact, the federal government continues to adjust the rental amount upward to keep current with inflation.

We decided to renovate the upstairs of the police station because we had the space available when we purchased the former Fleet Bank building for the police station and it was determined that it would be a good way to pay for the police station without passing that costs on to taxpayers.

The city also rents property to a private boat-builder, French & Webb, Inc. In those cases (there are two buildings rented), French & Webb paid for the renovation of the waterfront buildings and are being given credit for the costs they incurred in making improvements to the city-owned buildings. The improvements did indeed increase the value of the property to the owner, the city.

In the case of the latest rental agreement, with the so-called blockhouse at the corner of Front Street and the landing entrance, the city took out a loan to pay for the renovations and French & Webb pays the city an amount equal to the loan payment. In addition, however, they pay an extra amount to the city for the “ownership costs” or what we have booked as an amount in lieu of taxes. You can look at the sum either way, but we have treated the revenue as a “payment in lieu of taxes” (pilot) and it is used as general revenue to reduce the amount the city needs to raise in property taxes.

We have considered it a good deal to have a quality boat-building company for people to observe on the waterfront, to provide jobs for people in the area, and to provide some non-tax money to the city.

We lease out space on the waterfront to the Belfast Boatyard for boat storage. That money is available to reduce general taxes especially when it comes to making waterfront improvements. We had expected to have a lease with Wayfarer Marine, but, as you know, that was put on hold when the Stinson project was stalled.

The city also rents out airport space, both to the private company that also serves as the city’s Fixed Base Operator (FBO) and to private pilots who lease ground space on which to place their hangars. Incomes from those rents also go to reduce taxes as well as pay for support to the airport. The hangar owners also pay taxes on the hangars.

While I am on this list, I should mention that we also rent out the Boathouse for a variety of functions. The rental income goes to support the maintenance of the building, but we also plan for a “profit” to be able to offset taxes.

Even though the city has now sold the former Gov. Anderson School building to a non-profit entity, our sales agreement included a provision that they pay a “payment in lieu of taxes” (pilot).

In sum, we have tried to obtain extra revenues to lower the tax burden for property tax payers. We have tried to make all of the city’s non-governmental properties more than self-supporting. We should bear this in mind as we consider the Maskers’ requests.

11.E Additional Energy & Climate Committee appointments. You have two applications for membership to this committee. (Lilac)

11.F Performance Center Feasibility Subcommittee. Here we go again, another committee.

What I am suggesting here is that the City Council create a subcommittee of the Council, with appointed additional members from the community, to explore the feasibility of the city becoming the catalyst for a Performance Center in the downtown/waterfront area.

We have had some discussion about the possibility of a performing arts center on the city-owned land on the waterfront. That generated interest, I think, about having some venue as a draw for people to visit downtown and/or the waterfront. (From now on, I will use the downtown and waterfront interchangeably, because I think they are.)

When we think of a Performance Center, we should be thinking of it as an economic development measure that conforms with the idea of the “creative economy” that has been the focus of numerous state studies, including the city’s own Vibrancy Report. It is not feasible for the city to consider a convention center, for example, and we should always be on the lookout for additional job-producing businesses but those decisions are ultimately made by other people. So, what might be done by the city to enhance the local economy? A performance center is one possibly strong step.

However, there were different thoughts on what such a center should be and where it should be, and it was noted that there were other possibilities. Then, how do we proceed to explore these possibilities? We can do that by having a handful of interested people explore the matter further and make a recommendation, sometime in the future, back to the Council.

I am using the term Performance Center, with the notion that maybe it creates a slightly different perspective on what can be done, as opposed to a Performing Arts Center. A Performance Center could be a place for visiting performers (music, story-telling, magic, dance, lectures) to be able to attract audiences to the downtown area. This could well be in addition to locally produced theater, band, chorus, etc. activities. In just one area alone—the Camden Conference—a performance center would be able to add another auditorium space to the Hutchinson Center’s so that multiple activities could take place simultaneously. The Conference is seeking space outside of Camden while keeping Camden as its home base.

Such a facility would also want to be wired, for television, broadcast capability, internet streaming, and so on. That way, it would have reach, and connections, beyond one facility.

One question for sure is: how can such a performance center be developed without increasing local general property taxes. There are possibly ways to do this, but these would need to be explored further. Probably it should be stated as a goal that the committee would be looking to avoid using general tax revenues.

Anyway, I am proposing the Council appoint two (or three) of its own members and four or five (for a total of seven) other members to conduct a systematic, methodical search for property and financial feasibility for a Downtown Performance Center.

It is now up to you.

That is all I have for a Manager’s Report this week.