SEQUIM — The City Council on Monday will consider final approval of the city’s 2012-2013 goals and priorities, which include evaluating improvements to the Guy Cole Community Center, improved street maintenance and a financial and implementation plan for a new City Hall and police station.
The Sequim City Council will take up the matter when it meets at 6 p.m. in its chambers at the Sequim Transit Center, 190 W. Cedar St.
The council set its goals during a March 9 retreat at The Cedars at Dungeness golf course conference center.
Priorities included:
■ Studying the feasibility of modernizing Guy Cole center at Carrie Blake Park.
■ Improved street maintenance.
■ Securing financing and planning to build a new City Hall municipal center on West Cedar Street land the city owns.
■ Adopting a comprehensive plan.
■ Developing an economic development plan.
The council supported a proposal by Mayor Ken Hays, a Sequim architect, and Sequim events planner Pat Johansen to come up with a way to renovate the 30-plus-year-old Guy Cole center to make it more marketable for meetings, conferences and private events.
Hays and Johansen proposed the idea to the council about a month ago.
Next steps
The next step, Hays said, is for him and Johansen to work with staff to define the full scope of work on Guy Cole center.
They need to fully evaluate if its remodeling is the right improvement to make at the city’s largest park, Carrie Blake, and develop a business plan to see if the proposal would be economically feasible, Hays said.
“The business model would address how many days of the year you can use [Guy Cole], how much money can it make and can it cover the costs to maintain it,” Hays said.
Sequim residents would be engaged in putting together the business plan, he said.
Hays called the council’s priorities “smart.”
“I think it’s ambitious but manageable and appropriate,” the mayor said.
“We do believe that at least City Hall is a reasonably important thing,” he said.
“It’s tough economic times, but that makes it an appealing time to do it.”
‘Appealing time’
It’s appealing in that interest rates are low, which is to the taxpayers’ advantage when it comes to financing such a project, he said.
The council is scheduled to approve the city’s comprehensive plan by the end of the year.
The plan would include the City Hall-police station building project of about 40,000 square feet on land the city owns on West Cedar Street between North Third Avenue and North Sequim Avenue.
The last property the city purchased was about 22,000 square feet closest to North Sequim Avenue at West Cedar, which was owned by Serenity House.
Sales tax
The city is floating an Aug. 7 primary election proposal to Sequim voters, asking them to approve a one-tenth-of-1-percent criminal justice sales tax to fund most of the police building at the new City Hall.
If voters approve the sales tax, the city would establish financing for the project that would consolidate the privately owned Sequim office space the city now rents at a cost of about $200,000 a year.
The new City Hall would put public works, the Sequim Police Department, planning, human resources and the city attorney all under one roof.
Cost of project
While the city had more than enough budgeted — $2.25 million — to make the final land acquisition, estimates on total cost of the project have ranged from $12 million to $18 million and would be sufficient for up to 20 years.
The existing City Hall, recently remodeled to make existing space more efficient, has been at the same location for about 100 years.
Road projects
City Manager Steve Burkett said he will present a priority list of road projects to the council.
A pavement management study looked at the condition of all city streets, Burkett said, and that will be presented to the council April 9.
“The good new is that about three-quarters are reported as in good condition,” he said, with only about 5 percent to 6 percent in poor condition.
The comprehensive plan, another of the goals, is a guide for the future of city land use.
The council identified tourism, property for annexation and consideration of light-industrial zoning in the comprehensive plan.
“Right now, we have no light-industrial zoning,” Burkett said, which has benefited Clallam County in Carlsborg’s business park.
The council’s goal to establish an economic development strategy would include funding for tourism marketing and annexing the Sequim Marine Science Lab of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, also known as Battelle.
The city plans to run water and sewer infrastructure to the lab, a major employer long based on West Sequim Bay, which is now on a septic system and well.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
