Neighborhood Councils - Week of Feb. 8, 2010

Three councils are meeting this week:

NC#7

When: Monday, Feb. 8 at 7:00pm

Where: NeighborWorks

Agenda:

NEW BUSINESS
Discussion with Senator Mitch Tropila
Emergency Notification System -- Kristal Kuhn
Composting System -- Mike Dalton
Medical Marijuana Zoning Ordinance
Problem Properties
Neighborhood Concerns
OLD BUSINESS
Council Goals Discussion/Document
Pea Pod Neighborhood Garden -- Status Update
Status of Park Drive Speed Petition
Status of Gibson Park Lighting Project
Other Old Business
REPORTS
City Commission
Other Reports

NC#2

When: Wednesday, Feb. 10 at 7:00pm

Where: West Elementary Cafeteria

Agenda:

Election of officers

Review of bylaws

Emergency Notification System

Community Composting
Pilot Project of the Residential Sound Insulation Program
Committee reports

Neighborhood concerns

NC#9

When: Thursday, Feb. 11 at 7:00pm

Where: Great Falls High, South Campus, Room 111

Agenda:

Current livestock ordinance

Emergency Notification System
Community composting
Committee reports

Neighborhood concerns

Travis Finally Meets "The Man"

At last night's City Commission meeting, Travis finally met Tim Gregori.

I did not witness the exchange, but spoke to Travis shortly after it happened. He was quite taken aback, especially given how docile Tim was at the podium when he was talking about reallocating assets from SME to Southern.

Maybe it was all that marijuana odor in the room that got Tim fired up.

Medical Marijuana Moratorium Passes

I can't personally report on the votes taken at last night's City Commission meeting, because I left at 10:00pm. (According to Travis, the meeting lasted until nearly 11:30). We were still listening to the pros and cons of medical marijuana, agenda item #3. Contrary to what Mayor Winters said from the outset, one could count on one hand the number of comments made about the zoning of such.

The moratorium passed 4-1, with Commissioner Jolley dissenting.

Not Much New

At last night's joint City Commission/ECP meeting, not much of substance was accomplished.

Commissioner Bronson will organize the questions to be asked of the Burns and McDonnell folks on Feb. 18. Once reviewed, they will be given in advance to B&M and posted on the city's website.

Ole Stimac, the new vice-chair (elected last night) of the ECP board, suggested that the ordinance be rewritten so that ECP will no longer be in violation of it. (This was also a suggestion from the Burns and McDonnell folks). He suggested that a time frame be established in the revision to "stop the bleeding". Pray tell, why would the city all of a sudden start to obey a revised ordinance when they haven't been obeying the current one? The city breaking the law has been no big deal to the city nor to the ECP board, who has yet to address it.

Discussion was held to allow the executive director of ECP to start to discuss contract increases (which B&M suggested) with various customers. Why in the world would anybody agree to a rate increase when the future of ECP is still up in the air?

Commissioner Fred Burow wanted to know why ECP didn't begin contract negotiations a couple of years ago when it was apparent that monies were being lost. Not surprisingly, ECP director Bill Ryan blamed the state legislature and Coleen blamed the economy, although she didn't explain how the economy was to blame before it tanked.

In today's Tribune, Coleen was quoted as saying that "financing is getting very close" for the natural gas-fired power plant. (I don't recall her reporting that to the public last night). Of course, we heard for years that funding was real close for the coal plant too. As a commenter reported at Electric City Weblog, this could be the carrot she uses to try to convince current customers to increase their rates.

Joint City Commission/ECP Board Work Session

When: Monday, Feb. 1 following the ECP board meeting at 5:30pm

Where: Gibson Room

Agenda:

The City Commission and Electric City Power Board will hold a Joint Special Work Session to review and discuss the recommendations of the Burns and McDonnell report.

Feb. 2010 ECP Board Meeting

When: Monday, Feb. 1 at 5:30pm

Where: Gibson Room

Agenda Packet here.

AGENDA

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR REPORT
1. Financial Reports
a.Electric Fund as Extracted from the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report with Independent Accountant’s Report on Applying Agreed-upon Procedures
b. Year to date Financials to be provided

2. ECP Inc Energy Contracts Summary

3. Highwood Generation Station
a. Status Report
b. Southern Board Motions dated January 22, 2010

4. Renewable Energy Credits
a. PSC Docket No. N2009.10.137, Order No. 7053, Re: Renewable Portfolio Standard Compliance Filings for Compliance Year 2008
b. 2010 Compliance year kwh’s

5. YVEC vs. Southern Montana Electric Generation and Transmission Cooperative Inc ETAL. (Cause no. DV08-1797):

6. PSC Chair Greg Jergeson Related Communications:
a. Greg Jergeson’s report, emailed in advance
b. Great Falls Tribune article dated January 9, 2010
c. Great Falls Tribune Editorial from Director Pancich dated January 14, 2010
d. Greg Jergeson’s letter to Mayor Winters dated January 25, 2010
e. Email from Travis Kavulla to Director Pancich dated January 26, 2010
f. Great Falls Tribune Article from January 27, 2010

NEW BUSINESS
1. Accept Board Meeting Minutes from December 7, 2009
2. Election of Chair and Vice-Chair

BOARD MEMBER REPORTS
Joint Worksession Meeting of the Great Falls City Commission and Electric City Board of Directors- January 11,2010 Minutes

GENERAL AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS
1. Handouts from December 7, 2009, meeting
2. Southern Montana Electric G&T Cooperative, Inc. 2008 Form 990
3. WREGIS Fee Matrix
4. NWE Natural Gas Utility Unit Rate Adjustments/Proposed Rates and NWE Monthly Electric Supply Tracker Rate Change Detail – January and February
5. Public comment

Major Omisson

In the minutes of the joint City Commission-ECP board meeting held January 11, the admission by the city manager that ECP has been violating its own ordinance was not recorded. Here is the proof of that statement:

City Commission Work Session - Feb. 2, 2010

When: Tuesday, Feb. 2 at 5:30pm

Where: Gibson Room

Agenda:

Centene Stadium Proposal – Marty Basta
Snorkel Truck replacement – Randy McCamley
Great Falls Development Strategic Plan – Brett Doney
Firefighter Contract Negotiation Update

Neighborhood Councils - Week of Feb. 1, 2010

Two councils are meeting this week:

NC#6:

When: Wednesday, Feb. 3 at 7:00pm

Where: Sunnyside School Music Room

Agenda:

Committee reports

Nixel notification system—Kristal Kuhn (city's emergency planner)
Compost—Mike Dalton

Neighborhood Concerns

NC#3:

When: Thursday, Feb. 4 at 7:00pm

Where: Riverview School Cafeteria (new location)

Agenda:

Election of Officers and review of Bylaws
Nixel notification system —Kristal Kuhn (city's emergency planner)
Compost—Mike Dalton
Issues of Neighborhood Concern

Joint Meeting Minutes

On January 11, 2010, the City Commission and ECP board held a joint meeting. Here are the minutes to that meeting.

Neighborhood Councils - Week of Jan. 25, 2010

Only one NC is meeting this week:

NC#4

When: Thursday, Jan. 28 at 6:30pm

Where: Heritage Baptist Church, 900 52nd Street North

Agenda:

Election of officers

Review of bylaws

North Industrial Park - Brett Doney

Mitch Tropila - State senator

Neighborhood concerns

Cable 7 Breakthrough

UPDATE:

At this time, the link to forward the online application (see below) does not work. As soon as it is repaired, I'll let you know.

For quite sometime, several concerned citizens have expressed discontent with the lack of public meeting coverage supplied by Cable 7. Last year, the city cut Cable 7's budget (page 8) and currently has only 1 part-time employee.

What is frustrating is that the city receives $656,000 (page 13) in franchise fees from Bresnan, but allocated only $21,000 toward Cable 7. It's also been very frustrating and hard to understand why the "current" board hasn't met in years.

Suffice it to say Cable 7 has not been taken seriously for a very long time.

Last night, Mayor Winters asked if anyone would be interested in sitting on Cable 7's board. If you are, visit here for the application or contact Kevin Manthey at 761-8123 or kmanthey@greatfallsmt.net.

Good Move Toward Transparency

The City Commission took a step in the right direction toward transparency last night when they voted unanimously to have the city's check registers posted online. This will give citizens the opportunity to review every check the city writes. (This was an issue I addressed when running for mayor).

Wire transfers will not be online as they are a manual process. but they will still be listed on the over $5,000 report.

This is a very good decision.