HomeMy Public PortalAbout1. City Manager - OctoberMonthly Department Report – City Manager
Memo
To: City Council
From: Anette Spickard, City Manager
Date: October 27, 2022
Re: Monthly Department Report – October 2022
1. Council Priorities:
Status updates for the council’s adopted priorities for 2022 are:
• Local housing and workforce initiatives
o Local option tax for future election to support housing initiatives. Research and determine
ability to ask voters to approve a new ordinance – To be discussed at January 2023 Council
Retreat. Housing Action Plan includes a timeline and series of strategies to achieve this goal.
o Housing Action Plan/Housing Advisory Committee initiatives – Plan was presented to Council
and adopted on June 30, 2022. The Plan has now been adopted by Valley County. With the
Plan complete, staff focus has now turned to implementation with the first major task being the
establishment of the Housing Authority. The HAC has requested that their committee be sunset
and that members continue their participation through the Housing Plan Steering Committee.
o Broad look at managing growth, through development codes, work with county on the
cooperative planning initiative and shared impacts beyond our city limits. Relationship with
county is high priority. –. A special work session on the Area of Impact and the county’s request
for a 10 year review via the McCall Area P&Z was held Friday August 26th. Staff will present
to the P&Z at their December meeting. Staff has reached out to the county to schedule a joint
work session/conversation with the commissioners prior to a request for renegotiation.
• Studying traffic demands and updated transportation planning, including continued partnership with
ITD for the Highway 55/Deinhard-Boydstun improvements – The traffic study for east side of
McCall is under way with a final analysis and report by fall. City Engineer continues to work with
ITD on intersection improvements related to Deinhard-Boydstun to set the stage for future re-routing
of truck traffic onto that road facility. ITD staff recently conducted a Road Safety Assessment for Hwy
55 through McCall. New in September – ITD staff is working with our PW Director to plan/budget
for additional cooperative efforts on Hwy 55 through McCall for the 2024 season and beyond.
• Environmental management/climate resiliency actions
o Explore transition to a city EV fleet – Leases for gas- and diesel-powered equipment at the
Golf Course will be ending in a year. Staff is working with Toro now to evaluate options for
electric or electric/hybrid replacement equipment to determine feasibility of transitioning the
Monthly Department Report – City Manager
fleet. Orders for new equipment need to be in this month before November 1 price hikes.
Council directed staff to include all-electric mowers in the 2024 lease package.
o Evaluate City Campus for public EV stations – as part of the Library Expansion project, staff
is evaluating locations and financing for public charging stations. The new Parks
Maintenance Shop has been wired for future electric charging stations.
o Wildfire Resiliency and Planning – Councilor Nelson is the liaison to the Valley County Fire
Working Group meetings. The City Manager continues to work with McCall Fire on the
Woody Debris program and supporting joint communications to the public about debris
removal and disposal. The Communications Manager will be promoting Fire Prevention
week in early October and the new Communications Assistant will be refreshing the website
for FireWise.
o Try to re-establish the EAC to implement the Climate Resilience plan – Assistant Planner
Meredith Todd presented Council with the city’s sustainability plan strategies and objectives
at the October 21st special work session. The objective is to integrate these actions into the
overall organization culture and focus on implementation. The EAC will be sunset.
o Follow through on Lake Management and Waterways Plans/water quality policy and action
items identified through those planning processes. –Council and the Commissioners met on
October 17 at 3:00pm in Cascade to review the draft plan with staff and consultants. The next
step is for the County to formally adopt the plan after which the cities of McCall and Cascade
will adopt the plan.
• Establish a Youth Council using the Association of Idaho Cities model as a guide. - Council gave
direction at the September 1st special work session to establish the Youth Council. Council appointed
members at the October 20th meeting. The first meeting of the Council was October 24th.
• Neighborhood quality improvements in response to concerns residential neighborhoods are being
overrun by visitors.
o What are ways to increase community/good neighbor culture?
o Create pocket neighborhoods for workforce housing with full time residents and apartments
for workers, larger units for families with affordable rents
o Can we reroute commercial/construction truck traffic away from residential?
o What can we regulate regarding UTV traffic on city streets? According to Chief Palmer,
these vehicles are allowed by state law on streets less than 65mph and have to follow traffic
laws. Children under 18 have to wear helmets. Officers routinely stop UTV’s to educate
operators on the law.
o Traffic enforcement, traffic calming devices?
o What impacts happened from right turn only at Railroad last summer? Thompson Ave
impacts. Results were provided to Council at the June 9th meeting. Bollards have now been
removed in preparation for snow season.
• Creative community engagement efforts, make sure we are getting shared thoughts from the
community, and they can participate with council. – The Communications Manager has developed a
variety of community conversation opportunities for the summer called “McCall in Focus”. The first
focus group was held on August 2nd. The City Manager has budgeted for a half-time communications
assistant to support the community engagement efforts of the city. Molly McCullough started in the
position in mid-September. Upcoming engagement efforts will include the Parks, Recreation, Open
Space Plan as well as preparing for a community conversation regarding solid waste and recycling.
• Advocating for a share of federal dollars received by the state for housing and infrastructure.
• Legislative advocacy through the Resort Cities’ Coalition – the coalition is in the process of hiring a
lobbyist for the 2023 session. The mayor participated in Firm interviews October 3rd.
• Community Health and Well-Being remains a value. Promote opportunities to be healthy and active.
– Recreation staff are actively promoting this year’s opportunities for physical activities and events.
Monthly Department Report – City Manager
2. Communications Manager Update:
Communications welcomed new part time employee, Molly McCullough to the Communications Team
and we have seen an increase to our output capability in particular to our social media accounts and news
posts. Communications has been working on Snow in the City and parking ordinance change
programming. Updates have been made to the website for Snow season and the parking pages. See
www.mccall.id.us/snowinthecity and www.mccall.id.us/parking. We are currently working to integrate
Textmygov with parking and making updates to the parking map responding to winter changes. We
continue to support the MPD with recruitment tools and advertising placement. Internal staff tours of the
Water Department Facilities have been scheduled for November and we will then move into public tours
soon as well. Communications was also pleased to help fill the room for the Public Art Design and
Desserts Event and promote the next Mill Whistle event.
3. Human Resources Update:
The October Wellness Clinic was a success with high employee participation rate. Free flu shots, skin
cancer screenings and blood work were provided. Market adjustments approved by Council for the FY23
personnel budget were implemented on October 1st. Recruitment efforts continue for key positions in the
Streets department and the Police department.