Town Manger’s Report to Mayor and Town Council

March 21, 2011

High Level Tank Repairs

You have in your agenda packet a March 1 letter from the Department of Health concerning the repairs to the High Level Tank. As you recall, we initially had an offer for at low interest loan on this project. But now we have been lead to believe that the project will become a grant in the amount of $50,000.

By the letter the Health Department is inviting us to a meeting in Abingdon on March 23. This is the same letter describing the meeting that we received when we qualified for the grant projects for the Gillman Street Water Line, the Lee Street Water Line, the Town Street Water Line, the Leak Study Analysis and the Riverview Pump Station Project.

As you can see by the letter the Health Department is evaluating the project and one of their keys is our readiness to proceed. To that end we have solicited proposals for engineering the project. We were required to directly solicit proposals from minority and women owned engineering firms. To that end we went to the Department of Minority Business Enterprise website and selected three firms and directly mailed a request-for-proposal to them. We also sent one to The Lane Group who assisted with the application to the Health Department. The deadline for submission was March 3, 2011 and we received only one response from

Lane Engineering.

You have in your agenda packet a proposal from Lane Engineering .The approval of the procurement process from the Health Department has not been received. The contract amount from Lane is within budget allocations. l recommend the contract be approved by Council pending approval of the procurement from the Health Department.

Second Public Hearing on Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Project on Matson Drive and Spruce Street and Effects of the Safe and Fair Enforcement Act for Mortgage Lending (SAFE ACT) on CDBG Projects

You have in your agenda packet several pieces of information on the proposed Matson Drive and Spruce Street CDBG Project. We will be holding the second public hearing on the project at the Council meeting on March 21. The first public hearing was held on March 14 in the council room with no attendees other than town staff and Mt. Rogers PDC staff. These public hearings are normally held at Council Meetings. But because Mt. Rogers missed a newspaper deadline, and to avoid having a special meeting, the public hearing was held after the Planning Commission meeting on March 14 in which I was in attendance.

Initially, we were looking at the area more north of the proposed project area on Spruce Street and more contiguous (directly across the creek) with the Buchanan Street and Pearl Avenue Project we are doing now. However, that area was surveyed and found not to be eligible for CDBG funding because the majority of the houses there were rental occupied and not home owner occupied.

As you can see by the attached map the area has a very high number of low and moderate income persons (LMI) in this area. The area also has a very high number of owner occupied dwellings as opposed to rental units. The potential of the old Hardwood Building being demolished could also help the application because of the elimination of slum and blight in the area, thus teaming with the proposed rehabilitation project.

I would like to express special thanks to Mt. Rogers PDC staffer Chris Gilley for getting the necessary survey information to put this application together. I know she worked at least two Saturdays to get what was needed. She is the Project Manager on our current CDBG Project and has had to take on more work because of staff transitions.

Concerning the SAFE Act and its effects on all CDBG projects in the state, including of course our own, we met with staff from the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) on March 15. At that meeting were Jimmy Wallace, who is over the DHCD Southwest Virginia Office, and David Adams who is the project contact with the Pearl Avenue and Buchanan Street Project. They indicated that the March 15 deadline on deciding which option to take was moot because their legal advisors cannot tell them exactly the impact of the options they have presented. The three options are to train someone on staff to be a certified mortgage lender, to hire a consultant, or to make all rehabilitated houses grants with no pay backs.

I personally feel that the option of making all houses a grant is the best option, but it too is not without problems. These include having the home owner having no financial commitment in the project, and having to decide what to do with homeowners in the present Pearl / Buchanan Project who are paying some on their houses, based on their abilities to pay formula. This payback is fairly insignificant and doesn’t involve but a couple of home owners.

Reissuance of Virginia Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (VPDES) Permit for Sewer Treatment Plant

You have in your agenda packet a letter of March 7, 2011 to me from Mr. Fred Wyatt of the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) on the reissuance of the town’s VPDES permit for the sewer treatment plant. I believe that the permit has to be reissued every five years.

As you can see by the letter, we have to advertise the attached public notice in the Smyth County once a week for two consecutive weeks. In the interest of alerting Council at the meeting on March 21 before the publication, I am advertising the notice on March 26 and

April 2. While the town will be holding not formal public hearing, citizens may comment to the DEQ in Abingdon on the reissuance. I anticipate no problems with the reissuance, particularly since this is not a new plant with a first time permit issuance.

Quarterly Fuel Consumption Report

You have in your agenda packet a copy of the Quarterly Fuel Consumption Report for all departments in the Town of Marion. Working with the Purchasing Department, we generated this report in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina resulted in a severely limited fuel supply, and as a means of tracking and encouraging conservation of fuel.

As you can see by the attachment we did a 20 month average of every department from February of 2004 to September of 2005.. We initially challenged each department to achieve a seven percent (7%) reduction goal and later changed that goal to nine percent (9%) in about 2008. As you can see in calendar year 2010, every department made the goal at least one quarter, with the engineering, sewer treatment plant, senior citizens and meter reading department making it every quarter. In addition, the town overall made the 9% reduction goal two of the four quarters achieving usage of less than 3,791 gallons in a quarter.

I particularly wanted to point this report to the newer council members. I hope this report is of good information to you.

Respectfully Submitted,

John E. B. Clark, Jr.

Town Manger