Council To Begin Reviewing Requests Next Week
by Judy Frank
posted October 27, 2009
About $120 million in capital budget requests have been submitted to City Council members for the coming year, officials said Tuesday afternoon.
That's overwhelming, some members said, particularly in light of the fact that last year the city was only able to fund about $40 million in capital projects.
The council is scheduled to begin its formal consideration of the requests next Tuesday, when a Power Point presentation by city finance officers will provide an overview of the capital budget process and its implications.
Members will then have a week to "kind of digest all this" before the first vote on the capital budget is taken the following Tuesday, said budget committee chair Carol Berz. The final vote will be held a week after that.
At the suggestion of Ms. Berz and fellow council member Deborah Scott, the group postponed action on one capital budget request on this week's agenda.
That request came in the form of "A resolution authorizing the award of Contract No. W-05-007-203, North Warner Park Stormwater Detention Basin, to Thomas Brothers Construction Company, Inc. in the amount of $1,703,999, plus a contingency amount of $170,000, for a total amount not to exceed $1,873,999, subject to appropriation of funds."
Officials said the request is related to correcting sewer and water problems in Warner Park and Engel Stadium.
But Ms. Scott argued successfully that all capital requests, including that one, should be considered at the same time.
"Does it matter if this is put off for two weeks?" Ms. Berz asked.
The answer was no, and the matter was delayed.
In other action, council members reviewed a resolution authorizing the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency to develop a land use and redevelopment plan for the Missionary Ridge area, which includes parts of the East Lake, Ridgeside, Glenwood, Foxwood Heights, and Avondale neighborhoods as well as all of Missionary Ridge.
Although other parts of the city have been studied and restudied, Councilman Peter Murphy said, no such study has ever been done of Missionary Ridge even though it is an historic community.
The area barely avoided having a cell tower erected in its midst not long ago, he noted, and having an official land use and redevelopment plan for Missionary Ridge and its surrounds would help residents avoid similar intrusions in the future, he said.
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