Frisco City Council notes — 9/15/08

by Jeff Cheney of of Blogging Frisco

FRISCO — As I mentioned in the previous posting, our Council Meeting was moved up one day due to a conflict the Mayor had. Although there were many agenda items, the meeting went fairly quickly with us getting out around 8:30. Council Member Joy West joked that we should schedule more meetings during Cowboy games as it makes us more efficient. Most of our time was spent on our Board appointments as well as approving our annual budgets.

We started the evening with a proclamation for Steve Covington, Chief Building Inspector. Steve has been employed by Frisco for 20 years, starting on September 26, 1988. During his tenure, he also found time to become a Certified Fire Fighter. Thank you Steve for all of your years of service. The City of Frisco has been blessed with extraordinary staff.

The Mayor also presented a proclamation honoring National Night Out. This will be the 25th annual NNO and will be held on October 7. In previous years, we have had the event in August. Hopefully, the cooler weather will help attract more parties. My street participates in the event each year and it has really helped us bond as a community as well as look after each other’s homes. For more information please visit www.FriscoNeighborhoodWatch.com

The Board and Commission appointment process is a lengthy one that includes days worth of interviews for the Mayor and Council. It was a pleasure to get to meet so many qualified applicants which also made the decision process very difficult. We first acted on the resignation of Tracie Reveal Shipman from the CDC and Bob Dennard from the Downtown Advisory Board. Tracie resigned due to a potential business conflict. I know Tracie well and although her resignation may not have been required, I do appreciate her for not wanting the appearance of any conflict. Thank you both for your service to Frisco.

The following appointments were made:

- Community Development Corporation: Hunt Reifschneider, Allen Biehl, Cynthia Hurley, Gary Carley, and Keith Wright

- Economic Development Corporation: David Porter and Richard Beaver

- Parks & Rec: Mike Fisher, John Classe, and Bruce Quinnell

- Board of Adjustments: Daniel Thering, Jim Wilson, Daniel Pellar, Robert Beatty, Wayne Snell, and Eddie Duncan

- Convention and Visitor’s Bureau: Steve Lay, Randy Locey, Chris Reynolds, Bill Bretches, and Tom Lewis (we will vote on one more ex oficio member next meeting)

- Downtown Advisory Board: Kevin Lofgren, Phil Crimmins, Robert Messina, Rick Fletcher, and Charles Yarbough

- Public Arts: Bob Moroch, Laverne Forwark, and Miriam Satterfield

- Urban Forestry Board: Mike Zapata, David Preston, and Marc Kirkland

- Housing Trust Fund Nicole Bursey, Don Parker, and Shannon Kackley

- Housing Authority (Appointed by the Mayor): Sara Kimmich

Congratulations to all of those appointed and everyone who applied. We appreciate your willingness to serve Frisco.

We had our final meeting to discuss the budget. The final budget was adopted which included holding the tax rate at .45%. You may have seen a notice of tax revenue increase in the newspaper. Although we are holding our rate steady, total revenues will increase due to new property construction as well as appreciation. As a result, it is a state required disclosure each year. We have received numerous emails from citizens confused by this thinking we were raising our tax rate. We also adopted the budgets for the EDC and CDC.

Council approved an Atmos rate increase. This has been a discussion point since late last year. Atmos had been requesting a rate increase that would generate an additional $37.5 million in fees to offset cost increases. Frisco participates in a 150 member city steering committee that negotiates our rates for us. They negotiate the rate increase down to $20 million. This will have an average impact of $.81/home. It is worth noting that one city did opt out of the negotiated rate the last time this was done and ended up faring much worse than the steering committee had negotiated. We appreciate all of their efforts and this partnership to achieve the best rates for our citizens.

A few other items of discussion:

* 33 residents attended the first FACT training. If you recall from previous posts, this is an opportunity for our residents to report code violations. We are thankful for such a large turnout as it will help us expand our ability to control code violations.

* Multifamily complexes will now be required to have annual inspections to make sure they are being adequately maintained.

* We changed our policy to make it easier for traveling food vendors to get permits.

* October 24 is going to be our 2nd annual Trick or Treat Festival at Safety Town. If you recall the turnout from last year, get there early!

* Planning and Zoning is moving to an electronic feedback system which will assist in getting citizen input.

* Parks and Rec is looking for feedback on the master plan. You can give your feedback at the following link: www.surveysoftware.net/hostcu/tx.htm

Thanks again for reading and I hope everyone has a great week!