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March 2002 Status Report
I am pleased to submit my monthly status report to you for your information. If you have any questions about any of the items listed, please do not hesitate to contact me.
1. Capital Improvement Plan
We have started the process for the preparation and submission of the Capital Improvement Plan for your review and approval. We have concluded the initial reviews, and Nancy Ridley is now preparing the document. It will be submitted to you and the Planning Commission in April. At a future meeting I will review the plan with you and ask for your approval in May.
2. Wastewater Treatment Plant
Good progress is being made on the upgrade. The towers are completed and most of the work is now concentrated inside the existing buildings. Duane Ellis tells me that the contractor is pushing back the completion date until possibly May or June. This does not present a problem as we did not anticipate the project being completed until late summer or early fall.
3. Public Safety Building
I had an opportunity the other day to tour the portion of the building that is nearing completion on the east side. These are the new bays, living quarters and office space for the Fire Department. I must say it is a very nice facility with ample space to park all of our equipment. There is a delay in getting the overhead doors from the supplier, which will push back the completion of this phase of the building until approximately the middle of April. Once that phase is completed they will move to the west side of the building.
4. Goals For 2003
At Monday night's meeting we will review the goals and programs developed over the past few weeks. As you can see, it is a very ambitious program, and quite frankly I do not believe we can complete all of the programs suggested. I will talk more about this at the meeting.
5. Staff Hires
We are in the process of hiring for a number of positions at City Hall and Public Safety. These are either new positions authorized in this year's budget or replacements for people who have left. We will begin the interview process for Jana's part-time assistant later this month. An Engineering Aide has been hired for the Public Works department, and will begin employment the last week of March. An offer has been extended to a Recreation Coordinator to replace Christine Kuczinski. Conditional offers have been extended for two Police Officer positions. Interviews are currently being held for the Administrative Aide in Human Resources to replace Sally Wilson who retired a few months ago.
6. Phone System
As you know we have been experiencing some major problems with our new phone system. Representatives of Nortel Engineers, the supplier of the hardware and software for the new system, were in our offices this week trying to ensure reliability of the system and resolve some of the quality problems we have been experiencing. At this point we don't know if they were successful, and quite frankly, we are looking at the strong possibility of replacing the system. I will keep you up to date on this project.
7. City-County Liaison Meeting
Last week City and County officials met to jointly prioritize the two percent projects. You probably read about that in Thursday morning's paper. In addition we talked about the community pool, and hopefully staff will be ready to make a presentation to the Liaison Committee at our meeting in April about possible construction and operational costs.
8. Tribal Luncheon
A luncheon is scheduled with the Tribal Council for March 26th at noon at the Country Club. If you haven't done so already, please call Jana and let her know whether or not you plan to attend.
9. SmartZone
The incubator building in the SmartZone is nearing completion. At the last LDFA meeting we learned that the building should be ready for occupancy about the middle of April. We were informed that at least two of the five office suites in the building are leased, and there is a good possibility that a third suite will be leased shortly.
10. Capital Improvements
As you can tell from the last two agendas, we are in the process of designing and bidding many of our capital improvement projects for this year. Over the next few weeks we will be taking bids for our other projects, and as you can see we will have another very active construction season throughout the city. As you know, Duane Ellis prepares his own report, so he will go into more detail about current and proposed projects.
11. Shooting Incident
I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of the City personnel who were involved in resolving and reporting on the shooting incident. As you know, I was out of town and only returned late in the afternoon. It was obvious from what I saw that the matter was handled extremely well, and my compliments to all involved.