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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Minutes - City Council - Meeting Date: 4/19/2011 *PLEASE NOTE: Since the Glendale City Council does not take formal action at the Workshops,Workshop minutes are not approved by the City Council. 'l'i GLENDr MINUTES OF THE GLENDALE CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP SESSION Council Chambers—Workshop Room 5850 West Glendale Avenue April 19, 2011 1:30 p.m. PRESENT: Mayor Elaine M. Scruggs, Vice Mayor Steven E. Frate and Councilmembers Norma S. Alvarez, Joyce V. Clark, Yvonne J. Knaack, H. Phillip Lieberman, and Manuel D. Martinez, ALSO PRESENT: Horatio Skeete, Assistant City Manager; Craig Tindall, City Attorney; and Eleanor Addison, Records Supervisor 1. 2011 STATE LEGISLATIVE UPDATE CITY STAFF PRESENTING THIS ITEM: Brent Stoddard, Intergovernmental Programs Director; Jenna Goad, Intergovernmental Programs Administrator; and Ryan Peters, Intergovernmental Programs Administrator This is a request for City Council to provide guidance on proposed state legislation, consistent with the approved 2011 state legislative agenda. The purpose of the state legislative agenda is to affect state legislation and regulations as they relate to the interests of the city and its residents. The 2011 state legislative agenda provides the policy framework by which Intergovernmental Programs staff engages on state legislative issues. Throughout the 2011 legislative session, policy direction will be sought on proposed statutory changes which fall under the adopted Council policy statements relating to the financial stability of the city, public safety issues, promoting economic development, managing growth and preserving neighborhoods. The 2011 state legislative agenda is prioritized into a few key issues to allow the city to have a stronger, more consistent message on the items of greatest priority. The legislative agenda defines the city's priorities for the legislative session and guides the city's lobbying activities at the Arizona State Legislature. The Intergovernmental Programs staff updates Council on a regular basis throughout the session for guidance on bills and amendments that may be introduced. The city's legislative agenda is a flexible document and may change, based on activities at the Legislature and Council direction. On January 4, 2011, the Intergovernmental Programs Department presented the 2011 State Legislative Agenda and Legislative Update. The priorities and principles of Glendale's 2011 state legislative agenda provide the venue for the city to identify and engage on state legislative issues. The key principles of the state legislative agenda are: to preserve and enhance the city's ability to deliver quality and cost- effective services to citizens and visitors; to address quality of life issues for Glendale residents, and to enhance the City Council's ability to serve the community by retaining local decision making authority and maintaining state legislative and voter commitments for revenue sources. Staff is requesting Council to provide policy guidance on the proposed state legislative issues. Brent Stoddard, Intergovernmental Programs Director, stated staff was presenting today what was originally scheduled months ago as a regular legislative update. Currently, the legislature is in the final hours of the session. Although this will end up being one of the shorter legislative sessions in recent history, staff continues to see a tremendous amount of bills being introduced. He stated each week; staff has kept the Council informed of the hundreds of bills they are monitoring through a tracking list. He indicated that once the Governor has taken action on all of the bills, staff will produce an annual comprehensive end of session report, which will outline the final result of the bills that have become law and those that were killed. He noted Ryan Peters and Jenna Goad from staff will present some of the themes of the session, the budget, and a few of the major pieces of legislation. Ryan Peters, Intergovernmental Programs Administrator, stated today marked the 100th day of the first regular session of the 50th legislature. Legislative sessions are supposed to last roughly 100 days; however, this year is relatively unique because lawmakers may actually meet that goal. Members are quickly moving bills through the final stages of approval before sending them up to the Governor for consideration. Of the nearly 1500 bills that were introduced, 263 have passed the legislature, while Governor Brewer has signed 168 of them and vetoed 7. He explained staff expects many more bills to pass before the anticipated sine die adjournment goal of later today or tomorrow. In addition to regular session work, the Governor called the legislature into two special sessions this year. In order to help with budgetary deficits the first special session authorized the executive to apply for a Medicaid eligibility waiver from the federal government. The second special session considered and passed out a package intended to help stimulate economic growth in Arizona. He explained the so-called jobs bill implemented a number of tax reductions and created the Arizona Commerce Authority, which is a body made up of private sector business leaders who are charged with finding opportunities to grow and diversify Arizona's economy. 2 Jenna Goad, Intergovernmental Programs Administrator, noted that not surprisingly, one of the most contentious issues this session has been the state budget. She said three weeks ago, the Legislature and the Governor approved a budget to address the $543 M shortfall for the current FY ending in June and an estimated $1.15 B shortfall for next FY. She explained that although the budget did not contain any cuts to state shared revenue, including income tax, sales tax, and vehicle license tax, the budget did contain two provisions that will have a $46 M impact on all cities statewide. The FY 2012 budget included a $39 M Highway User Revenue Fund, or HURF, shift to fund Department of Public Safety and Motor Vehicle Division operations and also instituted a new, permanent, annual city fee for Department of Water Resources operations that will cost $7 M for cities statewide. She indicated the total impact to Glendale is approximately $1.9 M and of that amount, $1.6 M is from the Highway User Revenue Fund shift and $316K is from the Department of Water Resources fee. Vice Mayor Frate asked if this money was going to DPS and MVD at the current level or was it an increase since DPS was currently hurting for funding. Mr. Stoddard replied staff will go back to the budget to see what the line item was for DPS and get back to Council. However, he believes this money was not an increase for the level of service, but only to help the state pay for the service they are currently doing. He added that most state agencies took a reduction. Councilmember Martinez commented on how the state did away with photo enforcement because they wanted officers patrolling the highways. However, now there is not enough money and they are taking revenues from the cities. He remarked this does not seem right. Mr. Stoddard stated this session was filled with a significant amount of bills that target cities and towns and attempt to micromanage city operations on every level possible. He explained that SB 1220 would have repealed the authority of cities to collect their own sales tax and would have completely erased every city's tax code and forced them to have the same sales tax base as the State of Arizona. He noted that through the leadership of Mayor Scruggs, the City of Glendale was successful in getting the Arizona Tax Research Association, which was pushing the bill, to sit down and agree to work out the issues without the need for legislation. The bill was held and did not receive a committee hearing. Additionally, the City of Glendale also took the lead in killing SB 1221, which would have frozen state shared revenue at its current 2011 distribution level for the next 20 years. As the economy recovers and revenues came in over the distribution cap, the bill would have directed the money into the state general fund. He stated the night before the committee hearing, he and Mayor Scruggs met with the Senate Majority Leader and were successful in appealing to him why this was a terrible idea. After the meeting, he immediately went to the sponsor of the bill and had it held. Mr. Stoddard stated that another major bill discussed many times this year was SB 1525, development impact fees. He indicated cities and town have had to face impact fee legislation which continues to chip away at the effectiveness of the program that helps to build new infrastructure using the premise that growth should pay for growth. These previous years of legislation led to the current impact fee freeze. However, after the November elections and seeing a political opportunity, the homebuilders decided to introduce an impact fee bill that completely erased the Arizona impact fee statutes and replaced them with a patchwork of language from Nevada, Texas, Washington and other states. SB 1525 as it was introduced 3 would have killed the impact fee program and made it useless. He explained cities fought vigorously to kill the bill as it moved through the process; however it continued to advance. The Governor's office refused to provide assurance to the cities that she would veto the bad bill. Both the Governor and the Speakers office made it clear that there had to be a negotiated bill come forward and called both parties to the table. Therefore, last month, the league entered into tense negotiations with the homebuilders which resulted in a compromise amendment that came forward late last week. The amendment will keep the impact fee program alive, but will come with significant reforms to the process and new restrictions; including new provisions for refunds and credits, limiting the allowable uses of impact fees and requiring each city adopt an infrastructure improvement plan. There is also a written agreement from the homebuilders that there will be no more impact fee legislation for at least three years. He noted the League has now moved to a neutral position on the bill. The bill will be voted on in the House and will have a final vote in the Senate later this evening. Mr. Stoddard stated SB 1160 was a perfect example of the micromanagement of cities and towns prevalent at the legislature this session. The bill simply prevents a city from increasing a residential rental tax unless it is approved by the voters. The bill sailed through both chambers and was signed by the Governor on April 7th. Mr. Peters stated last year, the fireworks industry was successful in legalizing the sale and use of certain kinds of fireworks in Arizona. However, that bill preserved local jurisdiction's ability to regulate the use of fireworks in their jurisdictions. The fireworks industry came back this year with SB 1379 to clarify that use bans cannot be imposed by local jurisdictions during certain times of the year such as Christmas, New Year, and Fourth of July. The bill passed out of the House and is now awaiting Senate action on House changes. Mayor Scruggs remarked she was surprised staff did not have an update on SB 1322. Mr. Stoddard stated SB 1322, a managed competition bill, has passed the House and was awaiting action in the Senate. This bill has a population threshold placed, which means it only applies to the cities of Phoenix and Tucson. This bill states any service a city provides over $500K has to be bid out to the private sector and the city manager must award that contract to the lowest bidder. Mayor Scruggs asked if it looked like it was going to pass. Mr. Stoddard replied that it will be close. Councilmember Martinez remarked he hopes it does not pass or else they will be coming after another threshold. Councilmember Clark asked for clarification regarding the uniform sales tax base negotiations. She asked what type of agreement was reached with the Tax Payers Association. Mr. Stoddard stated the legislators had concerns with the Model City Tax Code put together 25 years ago. As a result, there were discussion agreements to create more of a uniform standard for all cities. The agreement is to examine the code and find where there can be more consistency in paperwork and definition as well as involving the cities and towns to find common ground instead of creating yet more legislation. He explained they were currently going through the process and working closely with the Arizona Tax Research Association. 4 Mayor Scruggs stated this endeavor was being run through the League of Arizona Cities and Towns and the lead person working on this item was Mayor Doug Von Gausig, Mayor of Clarksdale. She explained the League did not have a solid relationship with ATRA; however, her long standing relationship with the Executive Director of ATRA was good. As a result, she was glad to have been able to put things on a more positive level and involve the many cities and towns that had much interest in this matter. They also need to recognize that in the long term, ATRA wants to do away with the Model City Tax Code if they can. She remarked most of the ATRA representatives of CEOs' companies; tend to look at issues very business-like and do not look at the broader perspective of how it really affects communities. Councilmember Clark asked if they would be receiving progress update reports. Mr. Stoddard replied yes. As no further business was discussed, Mayor Scruggs adjourned the meeting. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 2:05 p.m. 5