Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout01/15/2005 Adjourned Meeting I .2 ADJOURNED MEETING OF THE YAKIMA CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 15, 2005 - 8:30 A.M. - 12:00 P.M. HARMAN CENTER -101 N. 65 AVENUE RoII CaII Present: Council: Mayor Paul George, presiding, Council Members Ron Bonlender, Dave Edler, Neil McClure, Mary Place, Bernard Sims, and Susan Whitman Staff: Dick Zais, City Manager; Glenn Rice, Assistant City Manager; Randy Beehler, Community Relations Manager; Rita Anson, Finance Director; and City Clerk Roberts Mayor George called the meeting to order. Randy Beehler outlined the agenda and described the goals of the meeting. 2. Council Strategic Planning Workshop • Review Council Strategic Direction Priorities City Manager Zais said he included the strategic direction priorities to ask°if Council wants to make any changes. Council responded: McClure: • Satisfied with the listed priorities; it focuses Council's thinking. Place: Agreed with McClure's comments. Bonlender: Liked format of document and community image being first. He focuses on things he can accomplish. George: Likes the priorities. He spoke about challenges Council will face to accomplish tasks with less available revenue and possibility of providing some services on a region -wide basis. Edler: These priorities are appropriate, but need to be looked at to make sure they still meet our needs. Whitman: Agreed with other Council members' comments. Sims: Four priorities are enough to focus on. The priorities are broad, but he had a concern about the regionalization priority. The County is a bigger entity than the City and he wants to understand the process, especially the financing. He favors regionalization for consolidation of government services, but is concerned about who will pay for it. The Budget Strategy Team is studying the City's budget and they have some reservations about regionalization. Action: Council decided that changes to the Council Strategic Direction Priorities were not warranted. 13 JANUARY 15, 2005 — ADJOURNED MEETING COUNCIL STRATEGIC WORKSHOP City Manager Zais took a moment to have the Budget Strategy Team members introduce themselves: 1) Troy Emmons, co- chair; Master degree, accountant; 2) Anne Knapp, County employee; and 3) Eileen Birge, fairly new to Yakima, and former consultant/manager. Randy Beehler stated the four priorities are not in any particular order and from year to year council can focus more energy on one than another. Council will always have goals and objectives that fit into these categories: Community Image, Economic Improvement Regional Government Services, and Increased Community Involvement. Council Assessment of Working Relationships ❖ Follow -up to Suggestions from September 2004 Planning Workshop: - Evening Study Sessions - New Committees /Committee Responsibility Assignments Mr. Beehler stated the focus of this discussion is to look at Council's working relationship internally, council member to council member, and council to staff, and also to review council committee assignments. George: Neil, Mary, and Susan volunteered to talk to Union Gap about regionalization issues Sims: We have a list of regionalization projects; think we need a council ' assignment to look at which ones may be connected. Zais: Current City /County Committee: Paul George, Dave Edler, and Neil McClure Subjects for discussion with the County could include: airport industrial park, expanded transit service area, shoreline ordinance, and critical areas ordinance. Edler: Do we need another committee to focus on regionalization? We can talk about regionalization in the separate committees, but we have to deal with decision makers and elected officials. The existing committee could be expanded to include Selah, Union Gap, and Moxee. Mr. Beehler suggested establishing priorities of the top three -five regionalization services that we can accomplish and assign them specifically to an existing committee. Bonlender: We have a consensus regarding assigning specific regional services to a council committee. Sims: Maybe Dick Zais and Glenn Rice can review our committees and make a determination. The Council members next considered the issue of evening study sessions. Edler: The goal of evening study session was to bring in more citizens; don't think it accomplished what we hoped it would. George: The study sessions are for council and are not a time for public comments. I like the morning study sessions better. Bonlender: Suggested, that study sessions could be in the morning, but suggested changing the council business meeting to 5:30 p.m. We are reaching out to citizens through our Website, i.e. opinion polls and Yak Back. 2 14 JANUARY 15, 2005 — ADJOURNED MEETING COUNCIL STRATEGIC WORKSHOP Place: Asked for copies of the citizen input to Yak Back and the poll responses. The discussion of evening council meeting was not on this agenda. McClure: The study session is not for public participation. The current schedule works well for him. When the study session was in the morning and the business session in the afternoon, he lost a day of work. Measuring success by the number of people in the room is not good because citizens only come when they are mad at us. He stated that the all -day Tuesday is a disaster for him and he preferred alternating the meetings on Tuesdays. Action: Add Study Session Schedule to Tuesday's business meeting agenda. Emphasize the various methods of communicating to Council, i.e. letter, e -mail • Discussion of 2005 Challenges / Opportunities ❖ Establish 5 -10 attainable, short -term goals Mr. Beehler asked Council to review the list of challenges and opportunities and select five to ten of them that could be accomplished in 2005, and then establish a mechanism for measuring success. Place: Transportation — continue to work with State Department of Transportation and try to get regional transportation issues dealt with. We are losing the County crews and we don't want to look messy in our transportation corridor. Edler: What one item would benefit all the entities the greatest? Whitman: Public Safety; Edler and Place agreed. Zais: We are working on probation services and the judge is looking at that with her County counterparts. Place: The Union Gap Fire Chief will retire in one year and we are looking at a contract for service in Union Gap to man their stations. Zais: There is money available under Homeland Security if the communities are working together. Place: This would benefit Yakima because of the volunteers that would come back to us. We would like to go to an Upper Valley Fire Service. Sims: We are making regionalization our highest priority. Zais: These are not listed in any priority order. We framed these issues under where they may fit in your list. Beehler: You may not necessarily set priorities, but we want to design a method to measure achievements. Zais: Stormwater: In a bulletin from EPA, they said they were petitioned by national corporations to extend the NPDES deadline and they granted it. They may be willing to do that for government, so we will want to check into that. Those industries won't face penalties, third -party lawsuits or mandatory improvements. Beehler: Economic Development: Resolving the issues related to Congdon are a big priority. We are pursuing projects for job creations. 3 15 JANUARY 15, 2005 — ADJOURNED MEETING COUNCIL STRATEGIC WORKSHOP Sims: Community Renewal Tax Credits: Think we should form a committee of bankers for funding different sized businesses. Council needs to make sure that bankers understand these incentives. He would like to begin with staff and Council members providing an annual update to loan officers. Also Engineering could talk about upcoming road improvements. We could use CPAs to prepare the report. Place: Would like to see things happening in the future. We should apply for more SIED money, especially if ACE Hardware leaves, we may need SIED money to make sure that facility is filled. Zais: Reported that he and Glenn Rice have been meeting with County, Moxee, Terrace Heights, and New Vision regarding the Moxee wastewater facility. That agreement is progressing. Beehler: Everything on this list is something we are doing. We want to highlight some of the very front burner issues. Next on the list is lobby state legislators, which is on going, but does not affect us locally today. We want to look at items we have direct control over and can do this year. Action: The downtown renewal is a red star item. Zais: Spoke about his meeting with Senator Deccio. He needs to see schematic of what Front Street would look like with its improvements. He will ask for $8.5 million and wants to know what would work for $5 million; which would be Front Street, but not so much of Yakima Avenue. Representative Clements will support this issue in the House. Beehler: He made some assumptions with red stars that are the projects we want to emphasize; purple is for projects that are ongoing, but not as high a priority — capital projects. George: Englewood annexation has been under attack. Rice: The Boundary Review Board took jurisdiction. We need City representative on that board appointed soon. Place: Lynn Carmichael would be a good representative. Place: Do we want to annex the fairgrounds? Zais: We are working on that now. They have asked for some help on the consultant's fee. Action /Zais: "Maintain fiscal stability" would be a red star. Action: Red stars were assigned to Englewood and Fairgrounds annexations, and community clean up. Beehler: Community recognition was added to the 2005 goals. How high a priority do you place on it? Place: We could turn in the gang team and sharing the West Valley Fire Station to AWC to be considered in their recognition program. Edler: Concerned that we would spend a lot of staff time and energy on it; not sure it is worth it. Bonlender: Need to focus on things that fix the City instead of us saying "we did good." Sims: That is why it needs to be done by an outside group such as the Chamber of Commerce. Zais: You have to tell your story in order to gain recognition; it would take some staff time to prepare the application. 4 16 JANUARY 15, 2005 — ADJOURNED MEETING COUNCIL STRATEGIC WORKSHOP Beehler: This could change the perspective of the community. In one year, the work of this Council has started changing the perception of the community. Action: Community relations was assigned a purple star. Zais: The selection of assistant city manager was added because it is in process and Council had questions on it. With Randy Beehler's role this year, we will change his position to be a function of the City Manager's Office. The selection of assistant city manager will involve a lot of staff time, especially his, and there will be some community involvement. George: Wants Randy to publicize our Yak Back feature on the web site. Beehler: We also added a trivia question feature to the web site; the first question had 80 responses and the second question got about 200 answers. • Council Direction regarding Regional Government Services After a short recess, the meeting resumed with Randy Beehler turning the discussion towards regional government services. McClure: We are looking at parks and the cost of operating the pools. The Budget Strategy Team is also working on these same issues. We could look at a change in how we offer water activities. Zais: We worked on that yesterday with the Budget Strategy Team. They will formulate some ideas for Council's consideration other than .just focusing on swimming pools. Beehler: The recommendations from the Budget Strategy Team will help Council prioritize some of the tough choices Council will face. Place: We need to pay attention to trails as well as parks. The old Naches railroad line and the YVT right -of -way are two we don't want to lose due to inattention. Sims: The Bicycle /Pedestrian Committee could focus on those two issues. Rice: They will need an attorney's assistance. Place: It needs to be done within two years. Place: We will get an evaluation of our transportation street system and need to make sure it includes 32 Avenue and how to connect north /south corridors. Edler: The TRANS - action group is working on transportation. Sims: We won't get 24 Avenue, either. McClure: The Title 12 standards will come before us probably this year, which would probably address 32 Avenue. • ❖ Discussion of potential Community Survey in 2005 Beehler: Initiated a brief discussion on the community survey. Last September we talked about what the survey is. The National Citizen Survey is not our only option to pursue. He asked for input on whether Council wants to do a survey. If Council does, then this task could be assigned to the Community Relations Committee. Sims: Did not see what the survey asked. Zais: Replied that is because Council creates the survey. 5 17 JANUARY 15, 2005 — ADJOURNED MEETING COUNCIL STRATEGIC WORKSHOP Edler: Asked what is the value in the survey? Zais: Asked how do we gauge the job we are doing? Now we do a self - assessment; and from time to time we hear from citizens on agenda items. However, this concept is qualitative on its design for feedback and you can measure result. You will take a risk that what you get back may not be something you want to hear. Maybe there are perceptions in the community that we don't know about or understand. The survey is one means to get this information. It might answer questions if we have to do a better job in educating the citizens on some of our decisions. Sims: We have had a lot of changes in our city during the last 10 -20 years. He would like to know what the citizens want, which is important when we have hard fiscal times. He would like to know about the pool issue. George: Likes the idea of survey, but should be done after Council receives the recommendations from the Budget Strategy Team. Sims: Did not agree with Mayor George on the timing issue. If we have to make drastic cuts in the budget, then he wants to have the survey results in hand. Place: Agreed with Mayor George. Beehler: We can pursue other options such as a private consultant survey company. There is a national one that uses a template and draws from a huge database from other surveys they have done. Part of the package is how to put it together, how employees conduct the survey, and what to do with the results. As important as it is to get the data and what you do with it, it sends a message that you are interested in the results and that affects the citizen's perspective. Zais: Reported that AWC has done a survey on the State of the Cities. Place: AWC is issuing that survey to the State Legislature. Beehler: Is there consensus to give this to the committee [Community Relations Committee] to work on this more? Action: Council agreed. Whitman: I could involve the AP Statistics class in this project. ❖ Council direction regarding Regional Government Services Beehler: Let's discuss regional government services. It seems like more is being done with interlocal governmental agreements. We want to look at the list prepared at your last meeting and come up with 3 -5 priorities for this year. Sims: What is the joint assembly /training facility? Zais: We have an issue with space in City Hall. What do we do with the Council Chambers? It is inadequate in size and technology for presentations. We looked at expanding it, but we have an issue with posts. We thought about space that might be leased for a Council Chambers for the City, and perhaps jointly with the County. We are looking at leasing assembly room space in the Bank of America building. It is less expensive option than a new city hall building. Place: Think we don't want to limit ourselves to one space; look at historic buildings that we don't want to lose, such as the church across the street from us. 6 1 — ADJOURNED MEETING 15, 2005 JOU G COUNCIL STRATEGIC WORKSHOP Sims: I think the Christian Scientists has an option for it; think we should do a shared use with the County. Beehler: The bank space is configured well and it would be simple to bring in technology. There is also a potential for leasing more room in the basement for a more consolidated use in the future. The City has a need for training facilities. Depending on the size of the group we go to Wastewater, here, or Council Chambers, so we do need more classrooms. That room could be used for arena type seating or small group meetings; there is a conference room, too. Zais: This is doable this year. Place: What about the Capitol Theatre? Sims: The library wants to run a line to the County. I can see linking these three buildings. Zais: If we have big meetings, we have to go to the Convention Center. Sims: With the Capitol Theatre, we can help them do their thing, and they can help us do our thing. Beehler: Do you want us to pursue this with more information to come to you? He understands there is some interest from Council on options and bringing the County into this venture. Rice: The bank does not own the building. George: Suggested that the city and county think about decentralizing some services and lease offices throughout the downtown area. Beehler: Close this discussion with the understanding that there is some interest from Council on our options, and to involve the County. Action: Joint assembly /training facility was given a purple star. Beehler: We need to assign tasks to council committees in order to make any progress at this meeting. Place: We should look at consolidating public safety and law and justice services in the upper valley. Beehler: We are talking about metropolitan area and Yakima Urban Area. Place: By doing that, we might be able to include the Training Center and utilize some of their facilities. Beehler: Making it too broad may lose some attainability in the short term. Reviewing the list, what can we go after this year? Place: We can add animal control under Public Safety. Edler: Big visioning, and take small steps to get there. Need to begin dialogue on a metropolitan public safety. If we start, we have to implement short - term goals to accomplish that. George: Do we need to establish a Tong -term metropolitan committee, with somebody who is not an elected official? Zais: You have four committees now: Union Gap/Yakima Intergovernmental Committee, City /County Intergovernmental Relations Committee, Public Safety, and West Valley Intergovernmental Committee. Before launching into another committee, he suggested Council review the assignments to see if they fit in any of the existing committees. McClure: There are a lot of little steps we are taking. Is there a bigger step we can take that is more public where we sit down with elected officials and discuss the different possibilities? Is there a way to put together a broader package and take a lot of little steps? 7 19 JANUARY 15, 2005 — ADJOURNED MEETING COUNCIL STRATEGIC WORKSHOP Sims: I have been talking with Kathy Coffey about using the Downtown Rotary. It may take getting part of the community involved in different parts of this. We need to know strategy and who to involve. Rice: It will be hard to deal with what will happen to all of us. If you want to combine services, you can start working on some of those now. Beehler: By not necessarily putting this at number one, doesn't make it something you can't pursue. You may not attain this short term. Rice: If you don't go across the street to the County and set benchmarks, it won't get done. Edler: If we are going to be strategic, we need to talk one -on -one with the three commissioners individually and the mayor of Union Gap, etc. We are talking about a drastic change in our governments. What can we do in the short term? Place: Maybe this could be a spin off of the Yakima County Relations Committee and they could discuss the strategic aspects on how to move this forward. Zais: The County kept turning down our invitations to meet. Bonlender: We know we want to regionalize some services; this year we can do the stormwater program. We are already working on this issue. Beehler: That is advantageous to show progress. We want to talk about making things happen. We have joint services in the co- mingling of police and sheriff at the Airport Fire Station, YPAC coverage for meetings, and dispatch. We want to assign these to a committee of the council. Council discussed which committee would best discuss combining animal control services. Edler: Would Public Safety be in charge of that and all of the others on that list? Zais: The Intergovernmental Committee will have large tasks. McClure: The savings would come from administrative costs. Edler: A baby step for the Intergovernmental Committee would be to meet as a committee in two months. Action /Zais: Public Safety Committee would get 911 and public safety dispatch. Zais: George, McClure, and Edler are on the Intergovernmental Committee. How about them focusing on development services committee? McClure: Who gets assembly facility? Action /Zais: Intergovernmental. Beehler: Which of the development services do you want to do first? Zais: The first two are linked together (consolidate planning services and code inspection and enforcement) and can go to Intergovernmental. They would also get the assembly facility issue. Beehler: Fire districts? Action: Council Member McClure suggested it be assigned to the Union Gap Committee. Action /Zais: Intergovernmental would also get regional stormwater. Sims: Suggested assigning stormwater to the Intergovernmental Committee and deleting ad hoc stormwater committee. 8 20 JANUARY 15, 2005 — ADJOURNED MEETING COUNCIL STRATEGIC WORKSHOP Action /Zais: Public Safety Committee is working on the probation issue. Beehler: Asked if transit assigned to Transit Committee: Action: Council said Yes. Beehler: High priority? Action: Yes; purple star. Beehler: There may be an assumption that regional or consolidation of services equals cost savings and that is not necessarily true. Kay Adams went through consolidation of Longview /Kelso, which worked for a while, then became a true disaster. Regionalization should be more about providing more efficient delivery of services. Place: Part of stormwater — the last one of the consolidation list - fleet operation; may help with stormwater. Do we have to all buy the same kind of equipment or same technology to keep it operating? Rice: Need to talk with County Commissioners about what can be combined. Zais: We don't have the parks issues assigned to a committee. Place: We can put parks, pools, and trails together. Edler: We have a Parks Commission. Place: We could expand their function and put a Council member on the committee. She stated she was willing to be on that committee. Rice: Thought that Sims, McClure and Place would all be interested in parks issues. McClure: The Parks Commission has worked on the pool issue. The Bicycle /Pedestrian Advisory Committee could work on the trails issue. Sims: We could have both committees join to work on that issue. Council: Council Committee for pools, parks and trails: McClure, Place and Sims. Action: The parks and pools related issues were assigned to the Parks Commission; and the trails issues would be assigned to Parks Commission with the assistance of the Bicycle / Pedestrian Advisory Committee. • Review of Budget Process Edler: Believes we should have a measurement for our budget process. When you have a committee meeting you need to communicate it to the other council members in the Weekly Issues Report. Edler: If we critique the budgeting process, he believes we can do better. He feels like the material we get from staff is excellent and they come ready to communicate to us the things we have in print. My concern has to do with the process. As staff came in to give us their presentation on their budgets, we circumvented their presentation by asking questions not related to their presentation. I like to hear the presentation first, and then ask questions. I am a process- oriented individual; like to have things lined out for me. In our budget process, I felt we were flying all over the place. I had difficult time in honing that down; felt we were asking staff to explain what they do, turning it more into an informational meeting. I would go to Public Works for a tour and find out what they do. I am only one member of council and if you want to continue doing that, he will come ready to recognize what the process would be. 9 • 2 I JANUARY 15, 2005 — ADJOURNED MEETING COUNCIL STRATEGIC WORKSHOP Sims: Maybe the budget should be done at the site of the department being discussed. I thought the Mayor did a good job on pointing out salient issues to be discussed at a public level. The employees need guidance from Council. Place: I liked that we discussed policy issues and how it would change what they are doing now and what they would do new. We don't need to cover the budget page -by -page. Edler: I did appreciate that we reviewed the policy issues. Sims: I would not mind going out and seeing the facilities; if there is something to see. Rice: You can always arrange a private tour. Place: I don't want to go off -site. Zais: If we identify major policy issues with big changes, we could set up a special tour. McClure: Agree with the new policy issue review. Sims: It works if you have read it. McClure: The error was to allow public comment in the middle of a grim meeting. The budget hearing was done in the middle of a long meeting. Bonlender: Gave a suggestion for reviewing ordinances. Feels that once a Council Members determines they may have four votes on an issue then they won't listen anymore. We need to get the issue on the table for discussion and we don't necessarily need to make a decision that day. Recently, we had an amendment to the scooter ordinance passed that day, but it could have been delayed and considered after more information was obtained. McClure, Sims, and Place: There were no secret meetings. Sims: That ordinance was assigned and reviewed by our committee. • Additional Council Strategic Direction Priorities Workshops Beehler: Do you want to ,hold work sessions once or twice a year? Sims: Twice a year; we need benchmarks. Zais: September worked well. Place Wait until after the primary election. • Review of meeting Beehler: As a review: a lot of things were accomplished today. You decided that you don't want to add new citizen committees. You eliminated one committee and decided to give a prod to the Intergovernmental Committee to schedule meetings with the other entities. You will ask the Bike /Pedestrian Committee to work with the Parks Commission on trails. You established the highest ten priorities for challenges /opportunities and brought attention to three areas of regionalization. You will also bring up for discussion at Tuesday's Council meeting, the issue of changing the study session schedule. (The Regional Government Service Initiatives is attached, indicating the priorities assigned by Council today.) 10 , 2 JANUARY 15, 2005 — ADJOURNED MEETING COUNCIL STRATEGIC WORKSHOP Sims: Federal and state priorities list? Zais: We are starting the federal list so we can talk to all of you. Our trip is coming up in March. George: Who is going? Place: I am going for AWC. Edler, McClure: I am. Zais: Michael Morales and I will also go. 3. Adjournment The meeting adjourned at 12:16 p.m. READ AND CERTIFIED ACCURATE BY I� COUV, EMBER DATE , .� / L�i/ / %4 COUNCIL MEMBER DATE ATTEST: K aALL„,_, >4 1P_4--6-e, P i CITY CLERK AUL P. GEORGE, MAYO Minutes prepared by Karen Roberts. An audio and video tape of this meeting are available in the City Clerk's Office 1 11 JANUARY 15, 2005 — ADJOURNED MEETING COUNCIL STRATEGIC WORKSHOP City of Yakima Regional Government Services Initiatives Following are several regionalization /consolidation initiatives which provide opportunities for potential cost savings and improved efficiency and productivity in the delivery of local government services. A specific focus is placed on local government services provided within the Yakima Urban Area because several entities now provide similar services to that part of the Upper Yakima Valley. No doubt extensive negotiation and cooperation between the City of Yakima, Yakima County and surrounding communities would be required in order to reach agreements for the joint provision of local government services. However, given the current and projected fiscal pressures on local government, now is the time to initiate discussions and act on the most promising regionalization /consolidation initiatives. Public Safety /Law & Justice Highest Priority - Consolidate Yakima Police, Yakima County Sheriff and surrounding community police forces into a single metropolitan law enforcement . entity within the Yakima Urban Area Assigned to the Council Public Safety Committee 4 Highest Priority - Consolidate Yakima Fire Department, Upper Yakima Valley fire districts and surrounding community fire departments into a single metropolitan fire protection district Assigned to the Council Union Gap /City Committee 4 Highest Priority - Consolidate City of Yakima and Yakima County public safety dispatch (police, sheriff, fire) functions Assigned to the Council 911 Committee 4 Highest Priority - Consolidate animal control functions within the Yakima Urban Area of the City of Yakima, Yakima County and surrounding communities Assigned to the Council Public Safety Committee High Priority - Consolidate City of Yakima Municipal Court probation services with Yakima County probation services Assigned to the Public Safety Committee 4 Study potential for consolidation of City of Yakima and Yakima County correctional services 12 24. JANUARY 15, 2005 — ADJOURNED MEETING COUNCIL STRATEGIC WORKSHOP Development Services Highest Priority - Consolidate planning functions within the Yakima Urban Area of the City of Yakima Planning Division, the Yakima County Planning Department and surrounding communities into a single Yakima Urban Area planning entity Assigned to the Council Intergovernmental Committee 4 O Highest Priority - Consolidate code inspection and enforcement functions within the Yakima Urban Area of the City of Yakima, Yakima County and surrounding communities into a single code inspection and enforcement entity Assigned to the Council Intergovernmental Committee 4 Consolidate City of Yakima and Yakima County community and economic development efforts Administration High Priority - Operate a joint City of Yakima/Yakima County assembly /training facility Assigned to the Council Intergovernmental Committee 4 Consolidate City of Yakima and Yakima County human resources functions Utilities /Public Works 4 Highest Priority - Implement consolidated stormwater utility program within the Yakima Urban Area including the City of Yakima, Yakima County and surrounding communities Assigned to the Council Intergovernmental Committee a Consolidate City of Yakima, Yakima County and surrounding community streets /traffic maintenance functions within the Yakima Urban Area 4. Consolidate City of Yakima, Yakima County and surrounding community engineering functions within the Yakima Urban Area 4 Consolidate City of Yakima and Yakima County equipment/fleet maintenance operations 13 25: JANUARY 15, 2005 - ADJOURNED MEETING COUNCIL STRATEGIC WORKSHOP Community Services 4 High Priority - Expand public transit services in the Upper Yakima Valley through a cooperative consisting of the City of Yakima, Yakima County and surrounding communities Assigned to the Council Transit Committee — High Priority - Consolidate City of Yakima, Yakima County and surrounding community parks and recreation functions into a single metropolitan parks district Assigned to Bike /Ped Committee and Parks Commission with Ad -Hoc Council committee (Place, Sims, McClure) Consolidate public library services of the Yakima Regional Library System, Yakima Valley Community College and local school districts • 14