ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Housing and development were the hot topics of the evening for the Liberal City Commission at its most recent meeting last Tuesday evening.
Up first among these was discussion of a Rural Housing Incentive District (RHID) for Larry Street and Hickory Street.
“As you might recall, at the Sept. 24 meeting, the commission approved Ordinance No. 4619, which established the RHID and adopted the plan for the development of housing for the Larry Street and Hickory Street development,” Interim City Manager Scarlette Diseker said. “This document listed the developer as G&G Developments, LLC and not the City of Liberal. It came to my attention in the past couple weeks how the developer may have felt the RHID was set up similarly to the other two housing projects we’ve had in town, so we added thsi agenda item as a means to discuss how the commission wishes to move with the developer from a financial perspective. The funds for the housing developments are drawn from Fund 260 of the 1-cent sales tax for Streets, Drainage and Other Capital Improvements. That fund currently has a cash balance of $6,216,478.11, and around $3.2 million is already earmarked for the other two housing projects. It tends to receive around $250,000 in sales tax per month, and it ranges anywhere from $250,000 to $270,000 in receipts per month. In my professional opinion, we need to keep at least $2.5 million available in that fund for outstanding projects or any kind of catastrophic situation(s) we face, because we do fund a lot of street development or improvements to streets for Brad [Beer’s] departments and several other project funding out of Fund 260. With that said, all of those numbers combined, and adding in the sales tax, we might recede for the rest of the year, we have, in my opinion, about $1 million to work with.”
Diseker added there are some other factors to keep in mind.
“It’s worth noting if the commission chose to proceed with any type of financial assistance to the development, we would have to redraft the RHID to match how we’ve done the others, and that could take a couple of months,” Diseker said. “That process takes time, and we’ve already been through the process another time in the way we listed and presented it, so I wanted to make sure you keep that in mind.”
“I talked to the developer way back in January or sometime early this year, and originally, they were thinking about starting the project unaware of the RHID, and that might have even been last year, actually,” commissioner Ron Warren said. “After talking to them, they were aware of how we were doing the project for the other two developments, and they had evidently misunderstood how theirs was being done because they had thought it was going to be the same. It was actually talked about before the Ortuño Addition project was even brought up. I know at the time, our former city manager had made some comments about some factors depending on money, which is why it’s being brought to us now. This project has been on the radar for more than a year now, but it was actually about 10 years ago when they went out to bid for streets at some point, if I recall correctly, but I don’t know what all happened with that. Their though process was they were getting the deal because it allows more for them to use their money to build houses versus putting it in the streets and maybe not being able to build houses like the others. I understand the financial side of everything, and I don’t think I’ve yet talked about this with my fellow commissioners, but I’ve talked with staff about it to see if everyone’s on the same page.”
“I have also not asked for an engineering estimate, and we would obviously need that in order to be able to make a financial decision,” Diseker added. “But I have not yet received that from the developer as of now, and I haven’t asked for it yet because we’ve just had some conversations about how the RHID was drafted.”
After several more minutes and multiple questions, the discussion concluded.
In other new business, the commission unanimously approved Ordinance No. 4623, which amends Chapter 12, Articles 4 and 5 of the City of Liberal Code Book. Article 4 establishes Mid-America Air Museum as an official City of Liberal department and moves the parade regulations to Article 5 of the code book. The commission also unanimously approved Resolution No. 2425, which raises the Solid Waste rates for home, commercial, and roll-off customers, as well as the purchase of an emergency response protocol software package for the Communications Department in an amount not to exceed $65,000.
The meeting’s penultimate item saw the commission have a lengthy discussion about a change order for the Ortuño Addition project.
“As everyone might recall, at the Nov. 5 meeting, the commission was presented with a Change Order request for the Ortuño Housing Addition in the amount of $49,490. Items presented in this change order included sewer pipe, sewer manhole, fittings, water meter service taps, and water meter connections,” Diseker said. “In reviewing the regular meeting minutes from the June 25 meeting, city staff found two areas where change orders had been discussed. In reference to the dirt removal, OC Quality Custom Homes stated they would remove the on-site dirt at their own personal cost with no change orders. But later in the conversation, the former city manager said he had spoken to both Manual and Edgar Ortuño, and they had assured him there would be no change orders and if something wasn't right, they would make it right, which can be left up for interpretation, but it left some questions in my mind about change orders. The total amount approved for the project at that meeting was $1,656,150.32, and this request would make the total project cost $1,705,640.32, and the funds would come again from Fund 260 of the Streets, Drainage and Other Capital Improvements portion of the 1-cent sales tax.”
Gary Geist from Earles Engineering was on hand to answer questions from the commission and after several minutes of discussion, the commission took no action.
To conclude the meeting, the commission unanimously approved the purchase of 15 acres of land on North U.S. Highway 83 for future city development for a cost of $75,000.
