PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles City Council reviewed a draft work plan for 2018 Tuesday.
Each department highlighted two projects being prioritized this year.
A final work plan will be presented to the council Feb. 20, City Manager Dan McKeen said.
“We’re already working on many of these items in the work plan,” McKeen said in a two-hour work session.
No formal action was taken by the seven-member council.
Some of the projects listed in the proposed work plan were carried over from last year, McKeen said. Others are mandated by the state or originated from council discussions and the city’s strategic plan.
“The work plan, again, is designed to give guidance — give guidance to staff and also to communicate with the public,” McKeen said.
Here are summaries of the projects listed in the draft work plan:
City Manager’s Office
• Organize a strategic planning retreat for the council to develop key initiatives.
Four new council members were sworn in to office this month.
• Update a 2014 utility affordability index. The city used a third party to compare Port Angeles utility rates to 15 other jurisdictions.
“What we found out (in 2014) was that we’re not way out of line,” McKeen said. “What is way out of line is our average family income.”
Finance Department
• Develop operating and capital budgets for 2019 and beyond.
• Establish an online building permit system.
“What we’re trying to do is have a more robust presence online that our customers can actually do things online without having to come in and talk to a person or transact on the phone with a person,” Acting Finance Director Tess Agesson said.
“All of those things will I think improve our customer service as well as our financial outlook in the long run.”
Legal Department
• Improve the management of real estate transactions.
• Expand the city’s new blighted properties program. The code enforcement initiative set forth a legal process for the city to condemn and resell dilapidated homes and businesses.
Nathan West, community and economic development director, said the city receives regular complaints about blighted properties.
“Sometimes individuals are prisoners in their own house,” West said. ”They don’t feel comfortable walking out into their own front yard.”
“This is a very important issue, and one that we hear about daily,” West added.
Community development
• Conduct a housing needs assessment to address the community housing shortage.
• Revise the city’s sign code. The existing code is “archaic” and out of compliance with a recent Supreme Court decision, West said.
Council members directed staff to schedule a work session dedicated to housing issues.
Police Department
• Install new mobile data computers in police vehicles.
• Consolidate Peninsula Communications, Clallam County’s 9-1-1 dispatch center, with JeffCom911 Communications.
The police department is working on an inter-local agreement that would allow PenCom to separate from the city and become one regional entity, Chief of Police Brian Smith said.
“When we’re done with this project, Jefferson and Clallam will be essentially replicating each other,” Smith said. “They’ll be the back-up centers for each other.”
He added: “We’re years away from that.”
Fire Department
• Ensure that Medicaid funding is secured for ground emergency medical transport.
New state legislation will enable the fire department to recover about 66 percent of the cost of transporting a Medicaid patient to Olympic Medical Center (OMC).
The current reimbursement rate is about 10 percent, Fire Chief Ken Dubuc said.
• Establish a community paramedicine program.
The city will work with partners such as Peninsula Behavioral Health and OMC to attend to certain 9-1-1 patents when a medic is not required.
“It also has significant potential for dealing with more opioid issues in the field prior to them ending up in the back of a police car or in the back of an ambulance,” Dubuc said.
Public Works and Utilities
• Move light operations from a temporary facility on Port of Port Angeles property to a new site owned by the city.
• Develop an operations plan for the Elwha surface water facility, which was built before the removal of the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams.
The city is in negotiations with the National Park Service for the transfer of the facility to the city.
“We need to start planning for manpower, materials, equipment and any capital facilities projects required for the city to officially operate that facility,” Public Works Director Craig Fulton said. “It needs to be worked into future budgets and future capital facilities plans and have that ready to go when the transfer does happen.”
Parks and Recreation
• Develop a cost-share agreement with Peninsula College, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and other partners to maximize the use of sports and recreation facilities.
• Replace the public restrooms, beginning with the restrooms on Ediz Hook.
“Our public restrooms are cinder block and they’re probably 50 to 60 years old,” Parks and Recreation Director Corey Delikat said.
“We’ve redone them a few times, but there’s only so much you can do to them.”
The department will set aside $75,000 per year to replace the public restrooms with pre-cast concrete facilities, Delikat said.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
