On Monday night, the West University Place City Council will gather at the Municipal Building at 6:30 p.m. to decide some serious issues.
The Municipal Building is located at 3800 University Blvd.
Possible elimination of West U’s “savings accounts”
The council will consider eliminating reserve funds in the city’s annual budgeting process. This is an agenda item proposed by Councilmember Brennan Reilly, who is not seeking re-election on the May 6 ballot.
Reserve funds are like savings accounts - emergency provisions for special occurrences such as natural disasters, and unplanned expenses.
The Government Finance Officers Association recommends that municipalities keep a reserve balance in its general-purpose operating funds of no less than two months of regular general fund operating revenues.
Currently, West U’s budgeted reserve for it’s general-purpose operating fund is 20% of estimated revenues - 73 days.
The rationale behind the extra 12 days of emergency funding is that West U is a small Gulf Coast city and is vulnerable to natural disasters.
Reserve funds were used as emergency cash to fund the city’s problems associated with Hurricane Ike, to the tune of almost $1.2 million. About $1.1 million was reimbursed to West U by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, albeit about a year later.
As it relates to West U’s Water, Sewer, and Solid Waste Enterprise Fund, the GFOA recommends that the reserve balance for working capital never be less than 45 days of operating expenses.
West U’s budgeted reserve for the Water, Sewer, and Solid Waste Enterprise Fund is 36.5 days, already less than the GFOA “best practices” recommendation of 45 days.
Xavier Educational Academy
The city council will consider final approval of an ordinance that establishes new rules for private schools, potentially affecting Xavier Educational Academy, a private school located the West U Town Center.
Xavier is a for-profit private school that started in 2007. It began in a small rental space as a tutoring service. It has morphed into a full-service private school, now with 120 students in grades 5-12. Xavier’s rental space spans property on University Boulevard and Edloe Street — all in response to Xavier’s successful business and educational model.
If the city council adopts the ordinance at Monday’s meeting, Xavier will be given until May 31, 2022, to comply with the new law.
New Town Center parking requirements
The proper zoning rules for West U’s small downtown area, only a two-block stretch that serves as the eastmost border of West University Elementary School, has been a West U political ping-pong ball for more that 15 years.
The issue: there is not enough parking. In 2015, the adoption of the Town Center Commercial zoning district reduced the parking requirement to 2.6 parking spaces per 1K of building space - basically a replacement number - that is the existing number of spaces for the area.
The city council will consider, for its final approval, a zoning change that will increase the parking requirement to 7.5 per 1K for restaurants, and 4 spaces per 1K for all other permitted uses.
For comparison, both of these parking requirements are generally considered to be insufficient to meet the parking needs of a commercial development, and would not meet the parking requirements for the commercial zoning districts in other areas of West University Place.
New leadership
The city manager has appointed Marie Kalka to be West University Place’s new Finance Director, and Susan White to be the new Parks and Recreation Director. The city charter mandates that the appointment of a department head requires city council approval.
George Boehme says
The new parks director, Susan White, is wonderful. Residents should take the time to go meet her at her office in the West U Community Center. I have not met the new Finance Director. Susan has worked in West U forever, and she is a great choice for the city manager.
George Boehme says
Sorry for the confusion. The city manger chose Susan White as the new parks director, and I think it was a great choice.
Vince says
How about getting back the City Manager that candidate Ballanfant fired because he didn;t suck up enough to him. That cost the taxpayers 250-300k. Someone here said Brennan was bad, Ballanfant may as well be asleep at every meeting. I wish he would have slept through the 3-2 vote that cost us those dollars.
George Boehme says
My view- The discussion about Town Center zoning has been a big waste of time and energy. There is no parking. Successful retail needs parking. Restaurants need parking. All commercial uses need more parking than is available in Town Center.
It doesn’t really matter what the legal parking requirement is, there is not enough parking to fit the market need.
Michael Kaplan says
Who is driving this parking issue? Who came up with the idea that this was so important that we need to address it now? Isn’t there crime and public safety issues we should be more concerned about? It seems to be working ok. There are plenty of parking spots owned by the city on Edloe? Xavier has grown quite a bit since it started and will probably need to move at some point in time. Jim Reid has been a great owner of real estate in the town center, just seems like he is being picked on.. Just my two sense..
Anonymous says
I live very close to the Rec Center and during soccer season, the parking lot is full and people are parking outside of the rec center lot to get to the games. Small kids are walking in the street to games. It’s common to see trash thrown around (a very small minority of these attendees are West U residents, but that’s not the purpose of my comment). I don’t know why we haven’t paved that gravel area adjacent to the rr track. It seems that can alleviate part of the problem. Can anything be done here ? I see George raving about the new Parks Director,. So she’s been there a long time - she must be great then. Can she do anything about this problem ?
Selby says
Did you mean Parks Director? Or are you promoting Susan for City Manager?
George Boehme says
Sorry for the confusion. The city manger chose Susan White as the new parks director, and I think it was a great choice.
Brokelyn says
Can’t wait for Brennan to disappear from Council. I don’t think he added any value and more frequently detracted from the conversation.
Does that lot that serves the bank, RE company, and insurance company ever fill up? Seems like it’s always half-empty at most. Looks like around 30 spots dedicated to those businesses.
I think that you just allow economics handle the parking issue. Commercial expansion isn’t feasible at this location so just let the existing businesses deal with the reality of their spots. If they can make a living given the challenges, then great. If they can’t then maybe the next tenant will.
Steve says
Good point Vince. George, a few questions: how much money was wasted by firing a good City Manager ? Has he filed a lawsuit or Age Discrimination Act complaint against West U ? How much money has Council spent on the ATT lawsuit against West U ? What was each incumbents role in the ATT fiasco ? Both of these excesses should be a top issue in this campaign. All the candidates should address this matter and how they would handle the situation. That money could have been used for so many better things.
George Boehme says
The city manager issue was, in my view, a mistake. But it is old news. The ATT lawsuit was resolved by the Zoning Board of Adjustment, so it likely won’t be an issue in the campaign.
Brennan Reilly was the political meteorite on both issues, and he is not running for reelection.