Laserfiche WebLink
Regular City Council Meeting <br /> Monday,July 15,2013 <br /> Page 8 <br /> value for Roseville. While taking additional staff time, Mr. Schwartz opined that <br /> it remained beneficial to all parties. <br /> Mr. Schwartz referenced the Department's Strategic Plan outlining a future tech- <br /> nician level person in rights-of-way; and opined that between that relationship and <br /> other permits and related fees implemented over the last few years, the position <br /> could be funded without any additional tax support, with the net of all those com- <br /> ponents fully funding the positions and making up for any negative impacts on <br /> staff time. <br /> At the request of Mayor Roe as to the benefits for additional collaborative efforts <br /> with neighboring communities for specialty engineering services versus contract- <br /> ing out for those services allowing staff to remain focused on other items, Mr. <br /> Schwartz responded that there would always be a need for specialty engineering <br /> (e.g. stormwater or traffic) beyond staffs in-house expertise. Mr. Schwartz ad- <br /> vised that it was nice to retain those relationships due to the ebb and flow of <br /> workloads and to keep those channels open. Mr. Schwartz advised that this was <br /> how it had been left with the City of Maplewood for the time being. <br /> Mayor Roe questioned if the Department had opportunities to work with other <br /> communities similar to capital purchases through the state bid process, or to con- <br /> sider contractual relationships with other communities to benefit all through a <br /> larger bidding process. <br /> While Mr. Schwartz recognized that as an interesting concept, he concurred with <br /> Mayor Roe that this would take staff time to manage it; but if cities developed a <br /> pool of resources, he also saw a negative perception and resentment within the <br /> consultant community for such a consortium. <br /> At the request of Mayor Roe, Mr. Schwartz confirmed that he anticipated funding <br /> for the Environmental Specialist position from enterprise funds (e.g. Recycling, <br /> Stormwater and others) and requiring no tax funded support beyond that allot- <br /> ment. Mr. Schwartz advised that this was proposed under previous direction and <br /> guidelines given under a maximum 3%levy increase scenario. <br /> At the request of Councilmember McGehee, Mr. Schwartz provided an update on <br /> the City's inflow and infiltration (I & I); drawdown of the first surcharge allowed <br /> by the Metropolitan Council from state bonding monies for current work on the <br /> City's manholes and sewer lining to reduce infiltration; pending impacts of the <br /> June 21 — 22 storms to determine if the City of Roseville had exceeded its maxi- <br /> mum allowed; and further research on the significant lift station cycling during <br /> the summer storms that indicated a problem still existed in the system—with spe- <br /> cific locations yet to be identified. <br />