6.2. SR 03-11-2002 - Laserfiche WebLink

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TO: FROM: DATE: MEMORANDUM Mayor and City Cou~c~lj ei~r ~ia~,rl,0~ ily Ad~trato/ r SUBJECT: Comprehensive Plan Update Rusty Fifield of the Hoisington Koegler Group, Inc. (HKGi) has submitted a proposal for consulting services to assist the city in its update of the Comprehensive Plan. Rusty's role in this project will be to lead the public participation components of the process, work with and attend the Comprehensive Plan (CP) task force meetings, and to develop and present the CP implementation strategies. The planning staff at HKGi will be doing the "nuts and bolts" planning work for updating the city's Comprehensive Plan document. Staff met with Rusty to discuss and consider changes in the CP proposal for consulting services. By this I mean I was looking for ways to reduce the work plan and fees proposed by HKGi. In the end, only minor adjustments in the work plan and fees came about as a result of our meeting. Everyone agreed that we should not move much of the research work from HKGi to the city staff for two reasons: first, the city staff already has a full work program for 2002 and, second, the HKGi staff would be lacking the background on the city when they analyze the data and make recommendations. Additionally, there did not appear to be many public information meetings that could be removed from the work schedule as we all agreed that the public process in updating this Comprehensive Plan is very important. It is unlikely that the city would get a significantly lower proposed fee from another planning/consulting firm, unless the work schedule is significantly altered. Quite simply, professional work for planning assistance is not cheap in today's world. As an aside, Council should note that in 1989 the city completed focus area studies as an addendum to the Comprehensive Plan. It was proposed that four areas be evaluated and this turned into three focus area studies. BRW got the project; the fee txvelve years ago for this work was $49,965 and this was without any public participation meetings. Funding for consulting services for the CP update would mainly come from the Holt/Jackson transaction that generated about $60,000 that the Council put into a contingency reserve. Any fees above this amount would have to be funded from one of the following: the 2002 contingency budget; put into the 2003 planning budget; or by using the 2003 contingency budget.